The Shintaro Higashi Show - 5 Lessons From Owning A Dojo | The Shintaro Higashi Show

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

In this solo episode, Shintaro Higashi breaks down five key lessons he’s learned from decades of running and consulting for martial arts dojos, including NYC’s Kokushi Budo Institute and Kano Martial Arts. From the power of soft skills to safety, cleanliness, and even why black belts should pay, this episode offers real-world dojo business insights for gym owners, instructors, and aspiring martial arts entrepreneurs.00:00 Introduction & Dojo Background01:00 Starting Kano Martial Arts & Consulting Experience02:00 Lesson 1: Soft Skills Matter More Than Credentials04:00 Applying Sales Techniques from Pharma to Martial Arts04:30 Lesson 2: Safety Is the Top Priority05:30 Risk Management & Eliminating Dangerous Techniques06:00 Why Safety Supports the Growth of Judo06:30 Lesson 3: Cleanliness & Hygiene Systems07:30 Enforcing Hygiene Rules & Student Accountability08:30 Lesson 4: Most Students Aren’t Competitive Athletes09:30 Understanding Your Student Base & Why They Train10:30 Building an Inclusive, Supportive Dojo Culture11:30 Lesson 5: Even Black Belts Should Pay12:30 Retention Risks from Non-Paying Advanced Students13:30 Supporting Other Gyms as a Paying Visitor🚨 LIMITED-TIME OFFER: 40% OFF 🚨The All-in-One Instructional Bundle just got even better.Every major instructional. One complete system. Now at our biggest discount yet.Grab yours now at 40% off : https://higashibrand.com/products/all-instructionalsThis won’t last. Build your game today.🔥 Get 20% OFF FUJI Gear! 🔥Looking to level up your judo training with the best gear? FUJI Sports has you covered. Use my exclusive link to grab 20% OFF high-quality gis, belts, bags, and more.👉 https://www.fujisports.com/JUDOSHINTARO 👈No code needed – just click and save!Links:🇯🇵 Kokushi Budo Institute (The Dojo) Class Schedule in New York, NY 🗽: https://www.kokushibudo.com/schedule🇯🇵 Higashi Brand Merch & Instructionals: https://www.higashibrand.com📚 Shintari Higashi x BJJ Fanatics Judo Courses & Instructionals Collection: https://bjjfanatics.com/collections/shintaro-higashi/

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Five things I learned from wanting a dojo. This is going to be a good one. Dojo stuff. My friend is trying to. to really increase that dojo revenue he owns a gym out in uh queens and then they were like oh man can you help me you know take over the thing and i want to build the program build the business a little bit so i spent like the last two weeks on the call with this guy answering questions about the dojo business and you know here are the five things i've learned okay and this isn't

scripted i'm actually literally winging it so you know bear with me here uh yes i have kukushibudo institute which is my own primary dojo. My father started in 1963. He was a pioneer from Japan. Came over to teach judo, and it's been there ever since. So it's one of the oldest dojos in New York City. 1963, it was established, right?

My father came over and started teaching it and still exists in the same location on the Upper West Side. So that's that. In 2019, I started another gym called Kano Martial Arts. I was sort of the primary owner. I've since been bought out,

and it's not my dojo anymore, but I started it. grew it and then I took an exit. So, you know, I have that experience and I've been sort of consulting for a lot of the judo gyms before. I'm currently consulting two or three gyms as we speak. So you could also reach out to me for that. If you have a dojo and you have a business and you need help, you could reach out to me and I'm more than happy to consult with you. Anyway, so the first thing I learned, I have a lot of experience in this industry. And the first thing I learned was that a lot of the abilities that lead to a successful gym is soft

skills. Soft skills, basic human stuff, it's not your massive Taiyotoshi, it's not your massive unbelievable Olympic level stuff that you've done in competition. 90% of the time people don't care about that, which is like the most mind-blowing thing. You know, I want to win nationals and then I want to own a dojo. You don't have to win nationals to own a dojo. I know tons of people with successful gyms who've never done anything in the sport, the competitive field. Right. And that's not a criticism, you know. The one thing I found that was very, very useful, right, that's, you would never think, is the soft skills. Person comes in, hey, how are you, how's it going? Are you here for a trial? Do you have

experience in martial arts? We would love to get you set up. Okay. Here's a ghee for you. it's a clean gie, right? Get on the mat, bow, welcome. How are you doing? You're doing a great job. Give proper feedback and after the class is done, hey, after the class is done, we would love for you to give us your feedback and then I would love to walk through membership options with you, et cetera, et cetera.

Oh, no, I want to go home and think about it. Sure, go home and think about it. Think about all your questions. I'll call you tomorrow and we'll discuss it on the phone, you know, and then if you still don't want to do it, it's okay with me, you know, and then you call them. When you say you're going to call them, you call them, and then, hey, how are you? You have any questions? Yeah, blah, blah, blah, all the questions.

You answer them and then say, hey, we'd love to have you as a student. What do you say? All right, simple. Soft skills. Sales skills, actually, because I did pharmaceutical sales for a year. After I gave up my Olympic dream, I got injured, and then I did pharmaceutical sales. I was going literally doctor's office to doctor's office selling products for a big pharmaceutical company. and, you know, that's the soft skills, right?

And actually those skills carried over very well to the dojo, even though I actually don't do any of the stuff I'm saying right now because we have managers and salespeople and such at the gym. But yes, the soft skills go a very, very long way. The second thing I learned from owning a dojo, you have to, the most important thing is safety. It's not someone doing Korean in Sanagi. It's not competition.

It is safety. It is absolutely the most important thing Because if someone tears an ACL in that gym It's on you, the dojo owner And when someone tears that ACL, you don't lose one student You lose a lot of people who are sort of on the fence Oh my God, it's a little bit dangerous, a little bit scary I like the thrill bang someone tears an ACL

This is like I don't want to be part of that Right and when there's fear in the dojo And when people are scared for their safety They're not going to come back So safety is the numbers two thing And then you know I get the criticisms of like, oh, you don't let guys do Tanya Toshi in your gym. What happens if in competition they see a Tanya Toshi?

Yeah, valid, you know? But I'd rather not anyone get their knees blown out in the gym under my watch. You know what I mean? So anyway, that is sort of the second thing. Safety is really important. Justin Flores, J-Flo did something on YouTube and Instagram the other day. He's like, these are the band things. Jumping guard, Tanya Toshi, et cetera, et cetera.

And yes, he's absolutely right. I 100% agree with that. There's a lot of people in the comment section that are like, no, I did it, I survived, whatever it is. Yes, that's called survivor bias. And for every person that has survived and gone through it, there are a fraction of people who've gotten their lives ruined by it.

So, best to sort of minimize risk when you can. Risk reward ratio, always, you know. And my number one, reason why I'm doing all the stuff is to grow judo in the United States, grow judo in the world, and I love judo and martial arts. And I think that's a very, very big piece of it. Safety, feeling safe in the gym, reducing risk, more people, more judo. Okay? So that's the second thing. Running a dojo, yeah, see, this is where I run into stuff when I'm improvising that because I forget where I am. But yes, safety.

soft skills. Those are like the two main things. And then the third one is, you know, what I learned from running a dojo is just cleanliness is so important, you know. So having systems in place where the geese get picked up, the geese get washed for the trials, right? And then having sort of a cleaning system, we hire somebody once a week to come in to do a deep clean, but everyone kind of contributes and everyone, the masks get washed after every training session, things like that. very, very important. So that's number three. Obviously, that's so obvious I didn't even need to say. And then every now and then you have to remind people about hygiene because yesterday we had a student say, Sense, can I talk to you for a second? I'm like, yeah, what is it? And he goes,

I was in the bathroom stalls, you know, and then I saw someone's feet barefoot walking around in there. I don't know who it was, but it was somebody with bare feet walking around in the bathroom. I was like, oh boy, that should not have happened. And then I made an announcement. guys listen do not go to the bathroom with raw feet on the floor do not do that and then you know that was a reminder now for the next two weeks that's going to be a consistently reminded thing every class guys remember do not go to the bathroom with bare feet so that's like the third thing you know cleanliness hygiene you got to make it a system you got to make it a rule you got to have the signs we do have signs this person obviously ignored the signs you know and if he does it again

he's out bang kicked out right and i'm gonna hold them to that hold them accountable for these rules because we really don't want a disgusting mat training center you know and obviously there's some things about hygiene that kind of right if you have 50 people on the mat it's going to get a little bit dusty it's going to get hair is going to fall out of my look look i'm sort of losing hair in this region and that's got to go somewhere it's going to go on the mat it's going to fall out of this region onto the mat and then sometimes the vacuum don't catch it you know we're going to have that but do your very best you have to make it a system you have to clean have a clean training space okay the fourth thing i learned from running a dojo is you may have these high

competitive aspirations i'm going to create the toughest kids the hardest athletes you have tons of pride and how they do in competition but no matter what the competitive athletes in the room are going to be five to ten percent of your gym at most 15 percent of your gym and You know, I learned this from talking to Jimmy Pedro. One time he was saying, oh, I have 300 students or whatever it was. And I was like, what percentage of your athletes compete? And he goes, maybe like 5 to 10%. And that's Jimmy Pedro's gym.

You know, Jimmy Pedro, Olympic bronze medal, two-time Olympic bronze medals, world champion, loves competition. That's his gym. My gym too. You look across the board. Why are all these people here? is really the question. Number one, community. And, you know, they don't have to all fall into one category. It could be multiple categories. Community, they want to work out. They want to learn

self-defense. They want to lose weight. They want very rarely, it's like, I saw judo on TV or YouTube, and now I want to do it, and I want to compete, and I want to be an Olympian. That's very, very, very rare. So why are you running your program to cater as if everyone is doing that? And that's because the Sensei usually has their own biases and like I wanted to compete I want it to be a champion therefore everyone wants to be a champion and compete I'm going to push everyone

and I'm going to make everyone go to this thing no I found out that if you just said everyone let's go to this competition anyone who wants to go sign up and you bring 10 guys two of them are going to get injured and out of the 10 people five of them are going to lose just by sheer average

And then how often is it that a person takes loss as well? Not very common. Most people don't like losing. Most people lose and most people give up, right? And yes, it's a learning experience, but we don't let anyone just compete in the gym. You have to first go watch a competition. You have to be vetted by within the gym doing Rendori and such. And if you don't have a certain number of training sessions under your belt, you're not allowed to do it.

Just because the injury risk is too high. I'm not going to let you go out there and then risk blowing out your knee. Not going to do it, right? So this competition-oriented, like everyone's competing, everyone's doing this, and having like a hierarchical room of like this guy is a tier A guy in the room, and this guy is just a tier B guy, and then these civilians on the side, I don't even look at him because they're not going to be competitive.

He's not going to represent the gym well. That's really bad. I think that is like the worst thing ever. You know, judo is for everyone. You should be inclusive. teach everyone and anyone how to do judo how to love judo

how to make it a really fun time you know and that's my thing you know and that's one thing I really learn it's like the fourth thing I'm listening these aren't in any order

really you know but yeah that's the fourth thing I learned from running a dojo this whole time you know so that and then

the last but not least and this somebody said this to me and I loved it we used to not charge black belts to come to the gym and I know a lot of judo schools do that.

Black belts don't pay. Black belts don't pay. Okay. Black belts don't pay. Therefore, they are non-paying members and they would come in and beat the piss out of the intermediates and hurt them. And one guy said to me, wait a minute,

how often does this happen? I was like, oh, shit happens all the time. People get hurt all the time. It's judo. And this guy said to me, so your non-paying members are hurting. you're paying members

what kind of a business model is that and then I said to myself huh and this was like multiple years ago and I kind of looked at it and backtracked it

and the guys who were black belts who are competing and who are training and who had a bad day at work would come in and just unload and be unrelenting on the beginners and intermediates and it would be really fun to watch because they're so good at Taiyotoshi Uchimata Harai.

And we had national level competitors at the time. And it made the room look so legit. But it was the worst thing for business. We could never retain students. And then that person who loves judo, who's been doing it for two years, takes one really bad fall. It's gone forever.

We lose them, you know? So I think black belts should pay. when I visit a dojo I pay always I pay okay because it's like no no no no I want you to treat me like everyone else I want to get the experience

I want to contribute to your small business I'm paying for a drop in fee non-negotiable okay if you say no no we're not going to take it we're not going to take it I'm like if you don't take this drop in fee I am leaving I am not coming in here working out with you guys and you know I don't always go and visit other gyms and work out

majority of the times I get invited to go and the majority of the times I go because I'm doing a seminar, whatever it is. But if I am dropping into a gym for a workout, I am paying 100,000 percent. I may not always buy a membership because I can't afford to just be spending on memberships all the time and paying a monthly due when I'm not going to go train there consistently. But recently, I was working out at JT Torres Essential and I was paying a membership because I was going consistently and I was like, you know what? I'm going to pay for membership, you know?

so it's a real thing five things all my experience running the dojo there you go thank you so much you could always reach out to me shantara haigashi.com

let's do something collaborative hey maybe you own a doja and you need help and you need a consultant I got you if you want to sell me a part of your gym and then you want me to kind of help you grow the gym

you let me know too I'm literally open to anything and everything talk to you very soon shantarahaegashi.com thank you so much guys Thanks.