The Shintaro Higashi Show - An Interview With Robert Eriksson - US Judo National Resident Training Center Team Head Coach

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

In this episode of the Shintaro Higashi Show, Shintaro sits down with Robert Eriksson, the head coach for the new US Judo National Resident Training Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. Robert shares insights into his transition from being the Swedish national team's head coach to taking on a pivotal role in USA Judo. They discuss Robert’'s coaching philosophy, the challenges and rewards of building a high-performance judo program, and the strategic plans for nurturing talents in the lead-up to the Olympics. Join our Discord server and start chatting with us and other grapplers by supporting us on Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Any amount helps!

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. First and foremost, thank you very much to our sponsors, Jason, Levon, David, Judo TV, used discount code SHINTARO, Higashi Brands. We have a very special guest today, Robert Erickson. You are a 17-year Swedish coach and now you're the U.S. Judo coach, correct? Yes, that's true. I recently started working for USA Judo, yeah. And you know, you logged on and i saw you and

i was like wow this guy looks so familiar because i fought 100 kilograms in back when you were competing but i was still pretty young so i was like maybe 18 years old when you were 2003 was when you kind of finished off yeah that's true yeah so you who did you compete against in the US? In the US? Yeah. Oh, I did fight, I fought Brian Olsen one time, but it was in the Kilo, when I was in the Kilo.

I fought him in the World Championships one time in Birmingham. Oh, nice. Actually, I won. Roddy Ferguson? I was lucky.

He was much better than me, but I won that fight. Then I fought Michael Barnes. Oh, okay, yeah, Mike Barnes, Roddy Ferguson. So all those guys were like… I never fought him. I never fought Roddy Ferguson.

No, we were… I didn't do 100 that long. I did it in one and a half year maybe. Okay, nice, nice. So as I was coming in in you were already kind of leaving right so we have a little bit of uh but you do look familiar and now you're the u.s coach can you tell us about that yeah so it's a new new experience as i said you said i was for many years the head coach for swedish team uh then i got after tokyo olympic games i retired as a coach

i was working for a couple years as as a sport director, high performance director. Then I did leave judo totally. I started working for another sport organization in Sweden. And then this opportunity came up and I decided to go back coaching. Wow. So the U.S. judo called you and said, hey, you live in the states now too right yeah i guess yeah when did you move here i did my i first came like two months in the end of last year okay nice together to go get familiar a little bit more with usa judo and then i moved in the end of january nice nice so what is this program like what happened like is i hear there's a national training center now all of a sudden that people are doing events it's a big space right

yeah so what happened was that usa judo they teamed up with an organization who's called the u.s performance center which is located here in char, North Carolina. OK, and this organization, U.S. Performance Center, is kind of what OTC, Colorado Springs was in the past. Still is, still is. But many sports have relocated here because they get good facilities. They get the good financial support to establish themselves here. So Judo, for some some reason this was before i was hired they teamed up with them and then they were looking for a coach and in the end i got the job

so yeah so i'm just basically been here now for two months so the what sports are there at the performance center in charlotte so for now they have we are sharing the facilities with Taekwondo. They're in the same next door to us. Then they have, you say, rugby, field hockey, table tennis for the para team, archery, skateboard. They have a lot of sports onboarding. I think totally they're working with 15 or 17 sports. That's amazing. And then the space for training, is that like, is it a big space or? Yeah, for now, like our dojo is not massive.

But it's a very good dojo. They built it for us. So they have like this typical spring floor, you know, that all Japanese dojos have. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's amazing. Which is really, really good for the breakfalls. And of course, then they have a gym for us that we can use. Nice. dojos oh yeah yeah that's amazing which is really really good for the breakfalls of course then they have a gym for us that we can use and nice so it's it's good so how many square feet is the tatami area do you think maybe you don't use square feet because you're from

sweden but it's like one eight by eight uh compete compete uh competition competition area by the safety zones so it's okay it's not that big but yeah uh i think in a like a year or two we're gonna have a bigger space so how many randori can you do in that space probably like five teams 20 10 people you can do it can have like 10 15 people doing your own door that's not that's not so bad that's pretty good actually yeah and then so do people train there like full time is there like a dormitory it's not a dormitory there is of course because we are located at the university of north carolina we used to oh that's cool there but for now like nobody's staying in the dormitory we are like they're putting up their own apartments so so are you guys doing like a regular dojo that's open to the public like hey

kids come train no it's just performance period it's only high performance there's only our dojo so there's no kids training there There is no recreational training. There is nothing. So what we do is we have the high performance pathway, of course. But then I work a little bit with the local clubs in the area. So we have them coming in as bodies, training partners. So how many people have relocated who are currently on the roster that lives there full time, trains there full time? Yeah, so now it's just six. Six, okay. To start, though.

To start. It's a new program. It's normal to have that kind of numbers. So we're probably going to have about 13, 14 in June when everybody finishes school because some people are still in high school. So they finish school. Are you focused on juniors?

Is this like a part of the run for the Olympic thing? Yeah, it's from uh normally it's from under uh over 18 and above yeah we can accept some younger we have some younger athletes but yeah it's a it's one of the parts for for building up towards la of course it's one one way of using it of course for the residential players but you're also going to try to have smaller training camps and invite people to come and train. Yeah, I remember a couple months ago the US Judo reached out and said, hey, do you want to go to this

training camp in Charlotte? And I was like, I have no idea what that is, and I didn't bother. I was like, what? That's something new. Usually they do it at Jimmy Pedro's or something. They do, for that it was new. Usually they do it at Jimmy Pedro's or something, you know, so. They do. For that, it was like they did their, as I understand it, please understand that I've only been here a couple of months.

I don't know everything about USA Judo, but they normally do like a winter national camp in December. I think the previous years they've done it in Texas. Yes, yes, yes. But this year, or last year, sorry, last year they decided to do it here in Charlotte in the university. So they had the national camp here for four days. And it was good.

It was like 130 players or something here. You guys did that all in that 8x8 tatami? No, no. Then we bring tatamis. Oh, okay. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Because it's like a big gymnasium like next outside our door a big basketball gymnasium where you can put mats so let's talk about that i was so curious because i almost went to it right to like you know make

youtube and stuff like this so like what is that about like was it like uh 130 like high performance athletes or just anyone and everyone just came and trained? Yeah, so for that camp, first I would say I was not organizing the camp, because this was during my first visit to the US, so I was just taking part as one of the coaches. So normally I would say they invite and fund the camp for those athletes who are being in the national team yes like it was being like team USA for panams World Championships team Etc and then it was also open for for those

who ever want to participate by their own cost like they pay for they have to pay to get there it was no cost it was no it was no cost for the training camp but they have to pay their own hotel yeah yeah yeah I mean kind of nice too because then you get an airbnb stuff everybody in a room like all that stuff that you know you can kind of do and get away so maybe i'll send you guys next time it was a good it was a good it was okay for me this is normal you know okay we do we do national training camps two two times a month maybe this is not what here is yeah and this is one time a year so it's it's yeah i mean it's a small judo nation you know us is massive but it's a small judo nation and i think we're still sort of in the developmental stage we've been stuck there for a little while you know because funding

is kind of sparse which you know so does the performance center pay you or us judo pay you so we have a budget for performance the performance center which include me and it includes my my costs and it includes uh money we can use for funding the athletes for housing and for travel expenses and it's a quite good budget actually yeah so you are in charge of everything like do you have staff that helps you with all the administrative stuff or is it like all right you're here you do everything for now of course i work together with usa judo of course with a high performance group but like here on the on the local area i like i do everything which is that's brutal it's a lot of work probably right i used to it you know i need to do this i did the

same with sweden like i did all the logistics and everything for Sweden for 20 years. Yeah, but I would feel like in Europe with the judo, you're going to have more staff and more people helping you out. No? No. Now when I left, before I left and I was Cyprus for my director, I set a new system so we had more coaches. But when I was working, we were just a few coaches.

Wow. Okay, so what is the plan for you getting – obviously, you want athletes to do well at the Olympics because you're going to be the head coach and everything, right? So I'm not going to be the head coach for Olympics. There is no head coach for USA YouTube. They don't have a national team that way, which I hope we can have in the future. Yeah, they don't they don't have a national team that way, which I hope we can have in the future that this training center can be a part in it. Yeah. To help to help the best athletes in the U.S. to prepare together,

no matter if they are a residential player or if they are coming for training camps or whatever they decide to. But so of course, this is as I see, this is a what do you say, a pathway towards the Olympics. One pathway, which if you look around the world, what everybody else is doing is what everybody else is doing. And what I would say for USA Judo, they need it also. Especially as it's a big country.

People are spread out and they're doing whatever they are doing. Yeah, baseball, football, not Judo, unfortunately. Exactly. So is there a heavy recruiting campaign of like, whatever they are doing you know yeah baseball football not judo unfortunately exactly yeah so is there like a heavy like a recruiting campaign of like hey identify key players at U.S Nationals top five gets an email hey man we have this opportunity to train full-time if you want to do it because a lot of these kids who aren't training full-time never really make it right you probably trained full-time when you were an athlete yeah it is yeah yeah yes again the us is a little bit different uh in in i can't say i almost said a normal country i'm sorry i didn't mean that yeah with a normal structure like yeah create the training center you have a national team then you select the people that they come yes that's right that's right if you don't come if you

don't come to national team if you don't come to the training center you don't get funded you don't get selected yes this is what all the big countries are doing and yeah you're a piece in the system here is a bit different like you have to as you say you have to recruit people and which i'm not used to at all i'm used to do the opposite to say no to people you're not good enough you cannot come here's a bit different so what we are doing is first of all try to inform about it this is what we have this can be a good good help if you are by yourself in your club you have no seniors to train with or you have no funding.

Yeah, I mean, this is part one, right? I mean, because we get a lot of listens and views, you know, I don't know if you watch any of my YouTube stuff, but this is kind of the way to get people out there, you know, and I'm in judo, like, really deep into it, and I didn't even know about it until recently. No, no. You know, so that's not

good, you know, that I didn't know about it. Yeah, so, yeah, this is not only you, that I didn't know about it you know yeah so um yeah and this is not only you like many people now starting to realize this is happening and they're showing a lot of interest I think it's also a comment because many people they complain about they have no funding and they have no support but also you must understand that to have funding and to have support it also comes with responsibilities definitely 100 you can you cannot you cannot already decide by yourself what you're going to do all the time if you get funded like if i'm going to pay you to come to training center yeah of course you have to follow the program you have to you have to work in a professional way and me as a national coach

you will decide if you're good enough to go to tournaments or training camp or whatever it is and as this is always most of the case how it works like if somebody pays you something you always have to give something back yes but but i i have the feeling sometimes here that people want money they want support but they don't want to do anything yes are you familiar with the new york athletic club at all yeah i i know it. I don't know exactly how it works, but I know they have it in New York Open and that they are supporting some of the athletes. Yes, same thing.

So it's like there's a requirement. You have to compete at U.S. Nationals. You have to go to the World Championships. All these tournaments you kind of have to do. It's not that big, but are you going to do something like that? Like, hey, if you are part of this program, you have to compete in the U.S. Nationals. Yeah, of course.

Let's say you apply and get accepted to the program. You're going to be a part of the training structure and the high-performance structure. In this case, you have to commit to the training program, first of all. And then I make a planning for the athletes and a planning for the group, for the team, and, of course, an individual planning for each athlete. Say, hey, this is what you're going to do depending on your level

and what's best for you now. So if someone's listening, right, they're like a black belt, 18, 19 years old, pretty good, winning local tournaments, going to junior nationals, doing well, what can they expect when they join your program uh like for in terms of like training like all the stuff like what can they expect to get if they sign up and say all right you know take me away bro you know take me to the top first first of all like if they come and this commit and they they have the level for it what they do like they get somebody in this case it's me i'm going to take the responsibility of

develop them put them in the high performance environment where they can do training every day twice a day for now the program we do twice a day with always coaches there

I'm always there, the strength and conditioning coaches is there every day they can go to the athletic trainers to get treatment massage whatever they need if they get injured yeah and they can get to the nutritionist you get help with the weight cut and everything so it's really are some of your guys now or girls that are on the team that are doing well now in the country internationally i'm trying to gauge like what the level is over there and what sort of the bare minimum you have to be because you were saying like some people apply and it's like ah you know sorry you're not good

enough like where is that line yeah that's that's quite hard for me to to say because some people i know a little bit more because they have been to the like the training camps we had or i've been also i did i have been traveling around quite much to visiting some areas to do some regional training camps and visits to clubs i can get to know some athletes and coaches yeah so it's not so much about the results it's more about that you're okay you have to compete in a national level and international of course that's that's the first adults adults right yeah or junior like junior it's okay on a junior level uh of course yeah but if you if you're only been competing like on a regional level or or then it's gonna be hard you know so you have six athletes that are competing at a national

international level right now live in there uh yeah yeah yeah can you say who they are or yeah for now we have uh sarah golden she's 63 kilos she's okay yeah i've heard that name yeah she's been on the world team a couple of times it's all right it's jared costa he's from los angeles la tannery he's was on the okay he was on the junior world team last year and there was a david i guess alexia he's also from la he fought in some grand slams okay good then we have will spate he's from here he fights a national level isabella gariga gariga yeah she's from texas she's also been in the world junior team yeah there's some of those athletes well that's quite the roster man i kind of expect you know that's that's a legitimate roster for you guys to train

right it is it's good they're good they're they want to start but i think we have the best potential okay we need we need more and we have some younger guys coming in as i said in the summer yeah that's nice to have that base and then it's going to draw people to come train with them that's really good you know i hope so yeah so what is the daily training like like in the mornings you lift you do judo in the morning do you do judo twice a day they have to lift on their own right like what is the so like i know we say like a normal week a basic normal week like for example then we do it on monday morning we do either conditioning or judo training technical training or both yeah and then in the evening and afternoon we do around the world training tuesdays we do strength and conditioning like lift with the coach same division coaches yeah then we do

again duty in the afternoon Wednesdays normally we do a easy session like technical session or a conditioning session then rest there's only one session Wednesday that's good we start over on Thursday Friday same two sessions a day lifts condition like a training and then saturday we do one training in the morning then the rest of the weekend off so i was talking to jimmy pedro i'm sure you know who jimmy pedro is he was saying like yeah any athlete that wants to go international level should compete 50 to 100 matches a year domestically domestically domestically minimum bare minimum maybe not domestically but like trying to go to

local tournaments just to get matches and practice in you know matt timing what do you think about that is that a good idea yeah yeah you have to get them at the time you have to get the hours 50 to 100 yeah it's depending on like normally you say like in one year only but then i would talk maybe international level like you can do like 50 fights a year yeah when you then you're doing good because that did that means like 10 competitions you do five nights if you do five fights a competition you always fight for a medal that's true that's sure maybe most people doesn't reach that but yeah it's only it's about it's always this um you also have to come to take it against the training volume because when you travel a lot you know you're losing the training volume

maybe not when you do domestical because then you go like Friday you're back home Sunday it's ok but if you travel international like many people do now and they say they go to Europe for competition with the jet lag and travel you know there's 4 or 5 days and you go have one or two

fights true yeah if you do that five six times a year you lose five six weeks of training that's very true that's very true yeah so that's why i think you must look over it and see that you go to tournaments where you win fights and when you do training camps like you go do the tournament then you do the training camp or whatever. You need to get that quality time in. Yeah. So you're doing like active social media stuff to where you're kind of trying to get in front of the judo athletes in the country, reaching out to like people through Instagram and such,

or having like a forward client-facing sort of a situation? Like USA Judo do it a little bit they try to promote it I don't do it personally yeah I put I have a really small Instagram account I'm I suck at I suck at social media too bad I'm too I'm too old for that no but yeah but they try to push it I think again we're living today in a social media culture yeah Kids, we have to attract them that way. So I guess it's more things to do to get more out there. Are you guys going to go to the U.S. Nationals? It's coming up in a month or two, right?

Yeah, of course. I've been to quite many tournaments now in the U.S. I was in the Youth Nationals. I've been to the Dallas Open and the the Youth Nationals. I've been to the Dallas Open, the President Cup. Nice, nice, nice. International in California. So I've been to some tournaments

and see like the level. Is it very different from Sweden when you go to the Nationals in Sweden? It's different. It's different. I would say the numbers are maybe the same. Like it's not the big difference of of course you know sweden we have 10 million 10 million people in population oh that's small

i thought yeah i mean i guess i don't know much about europe so no no it's really small compared to us of course so in that case okay we have maybe more athletes but i think the biggest difference is here there is a lot more like tournaments where everybody comes like kids it's a uh yeah elite and it's veterans and it's uh the mix no ice yeah it's everything yeah the one so it's a very big mix in sweden it's a bit more divided okay it's only juniors only seniors oh yeah not only but like it's very rare that they have like beginners in the first time completely compared just in the same as like advanced ah yes that's true that's very true and the nationals is only the nationals it's not like brown belt or

it's only like one category and you coach in sweden for a very long time yeah so what's uh some of the athletes that you've kind of coached through the years some of your best results as an athlete and a coach oh so the best athletes we had throughout the years or probably still still is going is marcus neiman 90 kilo oh i know yeah that's right that's right okay i saw him uh at the toky Grand Slam when I competed in that, maybe 2009 or 10 or 11 or something like that. So I saw him there. Big boy. Big boy. Yeah, he's amazing.

But also before in the 100 kilo was probably fighting the same time as you did, it was Martin Pacek. Yeah, very tall guy. Very tall. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. He was also very good. He was- So you coach these guys too, that's awesome. Yeah, Tommy Macias, he was yeah. Yeah. He was also very good.

So you coached these guys too. That's awesome. Yeah. Tommy Macias, he was a world medalist also. Yes. 73 kilos. Yeah. Anna Bernholm, she was also fighting for medals in the world. She was number two and number three in the world ranking.

Yeah. Nice. Joakim Dwerby. I basically coached everybody the last 20 years. That's amazing. So when you do the national team as a coach in Sweden, everyone had to be training at one facility, kind of like what you're talking about now?

No, now they do. Now there is a training center. We had a couple in the past, on and off, because we don't have... Again, Sweden is also a small country. We don't really have the infrastructure to have a training center like we wish to

so basically what we did, most of them they train in the clubs but we travel with the national team I think we travel about 200 days a year ok wow, that's a lot yeah we were always traveling training camp in Japan or Europe yeah it's true

that's the nice thing about the being in europe because you can go to france germany you know all these like european junior the european junior union competitions and all the tournaments over there so you guys travel and that's a nice thing you know we need to do because sweden is even it's in europe it's a little bit isolated because it's in the north yeah if you live like in central europe you know if you go by car for five six hours you know you can reach like you can reach like a big competition or training camp every weekend you know that's true for us we always have to go by flight or we could do the scale of that like being you know paris grand slam and like

being at these massive events all the time with your team and you know like I put you in judo inside and then there's a picture of you in a suit and you're in the thing and IJF so legit now you know do you miss that scale both yes and no I don't really miss

that because I did that for so long and so many tournaments. I like what I do now also because I really like the development part of how to bring athletes up and how to create a system, a pathway, because that's also what we did in Sweden. It's not only about you coach one or two or three athletes you have to have a system that you can make people

walk through so they get funding so they get exposed for different kind of judo and professional training programs and all of that. So do you talk with a lot of the other big dojos like Jimmy Pejo the ones in Florida, Texas the one like San jose like you

talked a lot of those coaches together to like try to coordinate something or is it pretty isolated no i talked to most of the coaches i have not met everybody but i've been to the most big areas i will go to pedro's in may we go there in a couple of weeks so we are looking forward to that i spoke to jimmy a couple of times uh nice yeah so looking forward to that. I spoke to Jimmy a couple of times. Nice. So that's right. Yeah. It's a good understanding of sport, of course.

Yeah. But, you know, it's... I think there's a lot of people that really do really good things. They try to. But, as I said, it's hard. Because if you have a club, if you own your own club, professional or non-profit, there's so many things you have to take care of, you know? That's true, very true.

When you have a high-performance group or high-performance athletes, you know, they take so much time. Yeah, that's true. You have to handle the kids, you have to handle the recreational players. You cannot travel to Japan for three weeks. We're going to cover the club. It's hard. It's a struggle.

I have two dojos in Manhattan and it's constantly something. Even with staff and a lot of students, you've got to do this, that, I've got to do this, I've got to do that. It's a lot of work for sure. It's nice to be able to focus on the top athletes. It it is nice it is nice it's good but it's also challenging of course you know it's it's uh yeah it's time consuming do you have a coaching style do you say like your methodology that's a little bit unique or i don't know if it's unique but yeah I have my style like I think it's important and

when I what I try to to coach the athletes because I said as I is I normally like only work I like with high performance athletes and uh I work a little bit with cadets and Junior also in Sweden but not so much around yeah in case, I work more with like the strategy and the, and the, like the, the, the pathway. I didn't coach them so much face to face. I only did with the seniors. So like my job is more as, as I always say, like my job is to try to bring whatever they have and make it as

efficient as possible and break it nice try to make it work you know it's it's not my job to teach them to do a good uchimata i assume that they can do it maybe i can help them to adjust it a bit yeah so it can start working or or say to them hey you shouldn't do it you should do this technique instead because oh now you're not very yeah no no not for me like it's more a tactical and physical approach like how you apply the kumikata how you how you build this your your style so it can be effective as i see it many people especially here in us you know i think that in general the technical level is quite okay you know it's not too bad there are some really good players there

level it's quite okay you know it's not too bad there are some really good players there but many of them uh don't really know how to apply it especially not in international level because yeah of course not they don't they don't get exposed to it so much here because they fight each other you know yeah so like they don't they don't they don't break the kumikata they maybe don't um maybe they're training like, for example, I got an example. Like if you have athletes which I have come across, they are training. Some of them are training really hard.

Like they train like four, five, six hours a day. And then you have some who like maybe train five, six hours a week. But when you see the results, it's no difference. They have the same results, which is kind of strange to me, you know. If you train that much, you should probably have a better output. Or if you train that little, you shouldn't be able to.

So it's about finding a good balance, you know, for everybody. Definitely, definitely. Yeah, that's so interesting, man. Yeah, because, you know, sometimes you go internationally, you get Georgian guys or Mongolian guys that wrap around. And then if you never really experienced that because you know sometimes you go internationally you get georgian guys or mongolian guys that wrap around and then if you never really experience that you know you could potentially have a hard time right you have a person you know it's it's not potential you're gonna have a hard time you know yeah but you know just making people aware of like when you do a round doric you can say here in the training center they do around dory i see they do radori

and they don't break the grips they just keep it they're comfortable because they feel good for both of them i say hey you can't do that if you stand in that situation you're going to get thrown now you must always make sure you can dominate you must make sure you can dominate the grips for sure you've seen i saw you were commentating now in in tublissi and natalia you know yeah you see the level of the athletes today like it's crazy i think the level is crazy like the technical and the physical standards today are so high they're so high different yeah yeah so if you're not training in a way to prepare yourself for that you have no chance you know no chance yeah are you still doing mandori with your athletes i'm trying not to

yeah no i have a really bad body uh i i can do a little bit kumikata i did i did a little bit i did i did it quite much before yeah until like five six seven years ago then you know my team that in sweden they were too strong i was just in the way yeah yeah man when you would turn around 40 years old i'm 47 so wow you look young though you look so good man that's good that's amazing so no I tried not to do it I can jump in and do a little bit like

but yeah so if you wanted to like is there like a top five guys in the US that you want to come to your facility

right now like who are they like what would you say to them like if they're listening maybe I I don't want to do it i kind of want to mention anybody by name like that ah okay maybe they may be getting wrong but

i think if you look on the teams now that they have younger ones and the older ones comparing like like the best scenario would be like you prepare a big group of athletes. Most of them would make their Olympic debut in LA. So they could last for one more Olympics. So you can really work with them. Now we're a bit late. It's four years to LA and starting to prepare a performance system with four years before, it's rough.

Definitely need about two cycles to develop them. started to prepare a performance system with four years before it's yeah it's rough definitely need about two cycles to develop them yeah yeah i would say normally if you're in a good level like let's say that you're in a level that you you can fight maybe not to win a madeline grand prix grand slam but maybe a top seven or you know close to it then you probably will need like two you will probably need like two to four years to make that transfer to like be the top to be number one so but i think today there's maybe five ten people out there in us who are i think have a really good potential to to get there yeah yeah i mean like jack and etzka is pretty good now i see him out there you know yeah yeah but he's like you know

yeah you can only look at the stats you know like if you are like normally you say if you're like 23 25 yeah and you never like fought for a big medal like in the world championships or you top five or we win a grand prix a grand slam it's not likely that you're gonna fight fight for a medal in the Olympics later. But for example, Jack is a good example. He's like 21, I think. 21, 22, yeah, something like that. He's there. When he has a good day, he wins a medal.

When he's not having a good day, he wins one or two fights. So he's really building up. But you have some athletes, to be honest, that are fighting on the tour for the US. I think for like 20 or 30 competition they have no results you know yeah yeah so when you see like a athlete that you're like kind of coaching and stuff like what is the differentiator between like this guy gonna do it even if he hasn't done it yet like maybe you just kind of have a feeling is there something about somebody that you're like oh this guy's gonna because you i'm sure you've been around athletes your whole life and what does that yeah of course of course first of all i would

say like the biggest thing is for those athletes who are committed and really do the job but they do it for themselves that's what i mean they're really committed because they want if they don't do it for somebody else or they want to get famous or they want to make money or whatever they really want to do it for themselves and and they are what is also like they're open-minded and coachable like you can you can work with them and they are open to develop. But I think everybody can develop. You just have to find what everybody has as a strength. Identify that strength and try to build it around it.

Then, of course, not everybody can be Olympic champion, but they can maybe win a Grand Prix medal. That can be good enough for some people. For sure, for sure. That's a fulfilling career sometimes right what was your highest finish for your your results when you were competing me yeah god that was not so much i was uh i was fighting like i was a fifth place at the rotterdam grand slam pre or whatever it was called rotterdam used to be humongous back then remember

that that's a different time yeah before before the Grand Prix and the Grand Slams but man yeah it was different it was different I won some medals in like the like the British Open and those kind of uh yeah so no I was not really a super good player. I was like average, I would say. But, you know, internationally average is different. You know, that's a great place to be, right? Making it out of your country consistently, that's not an easy thing to do either, you know? No, it's not.

No, but it was okay. But I started judo quite late. So, you know, I didn't have that depth. Like I developed it quite late. So it was a bit different. But it was what it was. Yeah, it is what it is. Then I transferred to coaching instead, and it was better for me.

Yeah, that's great. Well, best of luck to you in the U.S. Thank you for being here and helping the Americans get to where they need to be. You let me know if you want me to help in any way whether it's like get you know social media exposure or whatever it is man uh yeah thank you very much for next time for next time for sure you should come to the to the training camp definitely i'm definitely you know when they let me know ahead of time they literally told me the week off like hey can you go down there and make videos with the guys i was like i can't just leave my kid here you know one week before and then just go

you know so it's like uh but i'm sure they'll give me more notice yeah let me know thank you very much for being on here and uh where can they find you where can people find you where can people talk to you so they can find me on the go to usa judo on the home page on the staff they can find me on the go to USA judo on the homepage on the staff they can find my name and my phone number they can call me there or send me an email otherwise they just come to Charlotte North Carolina I'm here Charlotte North Carolina all right great thank you so much for being on thank you take care