The Shintaro Higashi Show - Benefits of Teaching Judo

Episode Date: March 27, 2023

We all know the benefits of learning Judo, but how about the flip side: are there any benefits of "teaching" Judo? Not many of us are in the position of answering that question, since most of us are not Judo teachers, but Shintaro can thanks to its extensive experience in teaching Judo. In this episode, Shintaro and Peter attempt to answer that question. 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!

Hey guys, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. Today we're going to talk about the benefits of teaching Judo. That's right. This was a suggestion from another suggestion from Jonathan. Thanks for the suggestion, Jonathan. So he said, how has your technique changed after you started teaching, transitioning from asking sensei to figuring out more things on your own, benefits of organizing your Judo thoughts etc etc so i think it's very

uh applicable to you or you know and so you as a child and growing up and you know competing in the circuit you were a student in a way but then you made the transition to becoming a teacher like how was that experience like has Has that changed you, though? Yeah. Yeah, you know, so I learned from a very traditional, like, negative reinforcement. Like, this is how you're supposed to be kind of a teacher, right? I'm talking about my dad here. Why are you so weak?

You do it like this because we did it like this for years. Yeah. It's that kind of a thing. You know what I mean? And initially, I did kind of adopt this kind of a teaching style and there was a huge disconnect that most people i think kind of gloss over you know it's like do it like this they can't figure it out oh uh i think i do it like this just just figure it out go do it you're not doing it enough times you'll figure it out on your own you know and i've heard people say things like you're just not doing it hard or fast enough it'll work if you do it

hard or fast enough and that was kind of the go-to you know but people weren't getting it yeah you know what i mean and then people would try stuff and get hurt and then you know what i mean like i can't close the distance for a sort of guy like i learned a sort of gary it just doesn't work right and then having a good answer to that was something it was very i had to like formulate this answer like why does this person not capable of filling this other person with this one move you know better than just oh you gotta just try harder or do it yeah and then you know people tend to like package anything into one answer right like oh because are you being, oh, because you're being stiff-armed. Oh, because you're not pulling enough.

Oh, there's not enough kizushi is like the most common thing I hear. It's like, shut up when you hear that. Like, what? You know, of course I'm trying to help out. I'm kind of guilty of that too. Yeah, everyone says that. But it's kind of a common mistake. But yeah, but it's not helpful.

Like, what does that even mean? Yeah, exactly. You know, and then, you know, but it's not helpful. Like, what does that even mean? Yeah, exactly. You know, and then, you know, I started questioning these things. You know, the common answers to these common questions. Yeah. You know, and if I wasn't really sure of, like, what the answer was, like a clear answer. Yeah. Then I started questioning myself, thinking, like, do I really know if I can't really.

I know I could do it. Yeah. Right. I know I could throw most people in this room with an asana. Yeah. But how am I doing? And how can I teach that and replicate that for my students? You know what I mean?

And then the answer usually was like, oh, it's because I'm a phenomenal athlete and I'm just an amazing you know person has been doing it long enough i'm just strong and everyone more coordinated everyone yeah maybe i'm just like cream of the crop in terms of like athletes in the room yeah there's some truth to that right if you're in a room full of hobbyists yeah yeah you know but that's not helpful at all right because you can't have yeah you gotta become full-time athletes yeah what do i do I say? Like, hey man, do judo for 20 years, and then one day you'll be as good as me. Lift weights, run, do sprints, do all this stuff

and then maybe one day you'll be sort of like me. No, we need to shorten that time period into where they can kind of have an answer for them, get diagnosed each reason why those independent attacks aren't working, and then formulate a plan for them that they could execute in a very short amount of time to keep them

interested in the sport. You know what I mean? And usually the answer is combination of multiple. Are you attacking from winning position? Does the person know it's coming? If the person knows it's coming, then you're out of work, right? What is the context? How many times have you shot? Are you staggering the timing? You know, do you know how to execute it properly? Right?

So the number one thing is like people focus so much on technique and air quote. Yeah, yeah. And there is a certain, like the Uchikomi part. Uchikomi part,

the Nagakomi part. If you can't do that clearly, like if you can't cleanly throw someone who's cooperating, then you just don't have, you can't do that clearly like if you can't cleanly throw someone who's cooperating then you just don't have you can't even go anywhere from that

but people can do it Uchikomi Nagakomi clearly and then that's all they work on yeah and then they try it

in Rondori it doesn't work like ah it doesn't fucking work right they go back to Uchikomi and Nagakomi yeah yeah

you see that a lot in like a more traditional teaching style yes the point of diminishing returns with Uchikomi and nayakomi. Yeah, yeah. You say that a lot in a more traditional teaching style. Yes. And the point of diminishing returns with uchikomi and nayakomi. Yeah. You do it, yeah. And you see guys who are, you know, Olympic champions still, but it's a very small part of the practice.

Right. And you hear this crazy old nods of like 10,000 uchikomi a day, 1,000 uchikomi a day or whatever the hell it is hell it is right it's out of control and people take that literally yeah but you forget these guys who are the best guys in the world who are teaching your sensei senseis or whatever it is and those people coming from that lineage spend seven eight hours on the mat a day right that's full-time job yeah that's a full-time job. Yeah. It's a full-time job. They have morning training, afternoon session. You know what I mean?

People stay early, stay late. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like the afternoon session can be four hours. Right. Morning session can be

an hour, two hours. So not seven hours. I exaggerated that. But a minimum four hours a day of judo. Yeah. Minimal. So if you're doing that

five days a week, that's 20 hours of time on the mat people usually do four hours a week on a good week yeah yeah so you know i had to teach i have to come up with shortcuts and i have to really understand what i do made my judo successful so how did you formalize it i think that's the word i guess like you you had this you had built up this innate knowledge through experience yeah right because you spent a lot of time on the mat yeah how did you translate that into more of a systematic uh that so it's whatever you will like a lesson plan almost yeah yeah so i think like the most important thing was like being mindful of what I was doing.

You know, some of the best guys in the world who do Judo don't even know what they're doing. It's just all ingrained intuitive. Yeah. And then understanding that in a systematic way, breaking it down. And you know, what helped really was like fielding questions in the dojo. Guys would ask questions. Hey, I go like this and I can't do it like this. Okay.

So then, you know, helping them, breaking them down and do it over and over and over again kind of got me to a point where it's like any question they could kind of throw at me i can anticipate it give them a clear answer right you know and there's metaphors that you can use that much more intuitively easy to digest. For instance, a right straight, like a punch. Or even like a looping right hook. Does it work? You do a lot of throwing the ball

kind of thing, like a baseball. Yeah, but in terms of an attacking thing. Punch someone in the face. If you want to throw a right hook and you take your fist and just hit him in the face, does that work? I see what you mean yeah it does 100 right we all know a right straight or a right hook works yeah right and then there's technique to that right tight yeah throwing your shoulder to it yeah right how fast you're gonna do it not overextending all the time. So that's the bare minimum. Then it comes like, do they know

it's coming? How far away are they? Are they going to turn away or do they have any skill? What is the other person's skill level? If you know right hand's coming, you can get away with it. Let's just say I have my left hand

in my pocket or if I had an amputation on my left arm, I had my left hand in my pocket or if i had an amputation on my left arm i had no left arm and if i i don't know man i was wearing really tight jeans skinny jeans i couldn't pick my legs up so the only thing i could do was punch with your right hand and i didn't have cauliflower here so there was no risk of grappling and i weighed you know maybe 140 pounds because i'm a lightweight and then if you were to grapple me you would probably take me down yeah and i just had one right hand right yeah am i gonna be able to connect that right hand or not i thought right yeah so it's like you look at it that way and it's like okay setting your techniques up what is the proper distance

the proper position what is the proper timing how do you stagger that timing right what's the best angle of attack like how many different ways you know how to do this one technique you know i even get answers like questions like tai toshi do you go like this with the foot or you go like that with the foot you know and then once people ask that everyone teaches a different way but they teach one way they, this is the way you do it. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, I changed my language on that. I said, this is a way to do it.

Right. What about this? I saw it on YouTube. This guy points his knee downwards so there's less risk on the knee. That's a way to do it. And I like it for these reasons and don't like it for these reasons. Do both and see which one you like and jive with. That's the proper answer.

Most things are nuanced and contextual, and there's some layers to it. So now to the meat of the question. So you've gone through these exercises of breaking down in a systematic way your judo. Has that process helped you get better at judo? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Because when you doing judo, right. There's a little bit of like Rondori amnesia. And you're just like, what's that? Gremlin around and everything's intuitive. So your body's kind of autopilot in these things. And you know, when someone throws a hand over the top, you're in danger.

You just feel it. Guy put my head down. I feel like I'm about to throw. So naturally you start leaning or using your head to do something. Yeah. Even though it wasn't taught. Yeah. All right.

But now it's like, now that I've taught that, specifically, right first, right hand comes over the top, put my chin over the top, and these are the things that, you know, this person might do to counter that, I can consciously sort of take myself through. Not in a way where it's like, okay, you have to go like this, you have to go like that.

I see all the different ideas in my head, and I'm very in tune with how to react to each one of those little things. Yeah. You know what I mean? So you kind of have a deeper sort of response rate. Oh, that's the right word. Right? So it definitely helps.

Yeah, I understand it more. And if I got caught, I could ask the question, okay, first of all, I shouldn't have been there in the first place. Second of all, I had the chin over the thing, and then you could ask the question, like, how did I not see that one thing coming? How often is that move, like, is that a frequently done thing on the circuit?

Like, how often will people go for this one thing? You know, for instance, right first, right chin over the hand, and the person switches for left ogoshi. Is that common no not even ogoshi like front uchimata right it's super uncommon but this is the thing like if i ever call with that i could be like okay so you're more um you're more efficient in improving your techniques or game because you're by through introspection you're more uh focused yes so like i don't if you don't if you just kind of do uh go through the whole randori exercise like your amnesia way yeah you if with enough time you time, your body will unconsciously get it and adjust.

But that takes a long time. Long time. And this is the thing, right? Yeah. When you're kind of in the game and doing that and your body kind of understands it, if you're never used to a stimulus of, let's just say, right first right, guy coming over the back, switching left from Uchimata, right? If you've never had that stimulus, you're going to get caught with it every time, right?

Because you don't know how to react. And then you can kind of think about it and then you could put it in the back of your head, but you really just don't know, right? But this is the thing. If all the other options, Farsight, Kosodo, Sasai, Snapdown, all these different things that they may do

are already ingrained, you can have your mind space focused on all the other things that are at the tail end of the bell curve. Yeah. Right? Because there's a bell curve, right? And majority of the stuff that people do fall in the middle of the bell curve.

If you know that really, really well, because you can talk about it, conceptualize it, whatever, right? Then you can focus on the outer tail. And even if you've never seen it before, you can be ready it kind of i see i mean yeah so like it helps you organize sort of like what priority things to look out for you know right uh i don't like we kind of get into the really in-depth kind of a thing but talking about and having that language to be able to relay this kind of information when you're teaching somebody because they'll ask you verbally. Yeah.

Right? And you kind of have to talk it and then show it. Yeah. Because some people learn best in like a tactile kinesthetic way. Some people learn in an intrapersonal way. Or some people will need to hear it.

Or some people need to read this shit. Yeah. You know? Thankfully, there's not a lot of strong readers in grappling. There's no one who writes the books. books no one writes the books on this stuff I saw a funny thing it was like a wrestling thing

a guy's like hey how to break through a wrestling plateau and like take down concepts and all that stuff and I wrote a book I was thinking to myself like what grappler's gonna buy that and read it God bless him seriously God bless him I'm a fan of his I watch his content all the time.

Maybe he should start a podcast. Yeah. But everyone has a different learning style, and then you have to cater to that. And then when you do that, you learn yourself how to communicate these things in different ways. What you just described just reminded me of a concept in AI. It's called active learning. I mean, it's in this context of more that, oh, if your AI system is not so good at recognizing something, the algorithm will actively try to get better at those things

while not forgetting what it already knows. And it's like an active area of research. But in a way, we're kind of like humans are pretty good at that. And teaching other people is a way to force yourself to do it, I guess. Yeah. That's a good way to, because it kind of reveals the gaps in your knowledge and

in order to explain that things to other people you have to organize your thoughts well and then convey them well which all helps right yeah so alright well I guess that's

any other benefits besides to your judo from teaching? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of benefits. You know what I mean? Like, first of all, there's validation. Huge for me. That when people, like when your students see success. Well, you know, they spend so much time learning it. Yeah.

Now you have to teach it to people who care about it who are interested about it who want to know more about it and it's something that i know emotional aspect oh yeah man it's like what what i want to do just learn it and then know all the stuff and that's it sharing is caring right yeah but it's like i could kind of like spread my knowledge and then see my sort of judo idea of like in action through others now. Yeah. I mean, like when I saw Reagan do like a side the other day or like a Sode as he called it. Not that I do the Sode.

I don't. But like we were talking about it. I was kind of showing him the other day and he actually hit it in Rondoria. I was like, wow. No, it was just so rewarding. Yeah. You know, when I go to judo gyms here, I mean,

they do, people do notice that I do judo like you teach, you know? Yeah. It's the KBI style. I mean,

I have like different influences, but KBI is one of the biggest by far. Yeah. It's a really cool place. It's a small dojo,

you know, because we're constrained by New York City real estate situation. You know what I mean? Thatjo, you know, because we're constrained by New York City real estate situation. You know what I mean? That's, you know, I wish I had a massive 8,000 square foot, whatever it is, but like, you know, that's how it is in New York City.

Yeah. You know, judo stuff. But that kind of adds to the charm. I feel like it may not be the same with the huge space. Yeah. You thought about getting a new place and all. Oh, yeah. Expanding.

Yeah. Got to be right time. I can't take too much more time away from my kid you know yeah that's a priority that's a life thing you know focus on the right things sometimes right that's right that's right and that you know i guess it teach teaching judo kind of helps you focus on the right thing in terms of judo, too. Yeah. I guess that's what you're trying to say. Yeah. No, so it's good, man. Teaching is great.

And then a lot of the times, man, it's kind of like being an open mic-er in stand-up, right? Yeah. You're sort of working out materials to teach yourself sometimes. So, like, when I was teaching Tomonage, I never did Tomonage as a competitor. I did it just to transition out of bad position. And then my Niwaza was so bad, every time I did it, somebody would pass and

it was like a very rare thing. If I knew the guy sucked at Niwaza also, and he had a dominant grip, I would just freaking flop to my back and go Tomonage, and then just be like, well, look at us here. And that was the extent of that. People started taking an interest and asking me about it.

And I had to experiment with it and try it and learn from guys. And then I was doing it. And before I knew it, I got really, really good at Tomonage. Now I have to teach it. And then it's like, how many different ways do I know Tomonage? That was the real question. And how can I teach all these ways of doing Tomonage? And then that really

concretized my understanding of that throw, and now I can hit it pretty consistently. You know what I mean? Nice, yeah. Definitely helps. So, I guess the last question before we close,

you're in a unique position where your job is to teach, you know. So this comes naturally. Naturally, I love it. I love watching you guys do it. People, like hobbyists, first of all, the contact is that they're not really in a position to teach in terms of the context.

They still do it, though. I know, but that was my question. I feel like a lot of people can benefit from teaching, but what would be the appropriate way to go about doing it as a hobbyist? I think, man, if you outrank

someone by two belts, then yes, you can teach. Not in an unsolicited way. You're doing it the wrong way. Go like this. I do it like that. No. If they ask you to say, think about that and get back to you.

Think about it. Then teach it. That's the way. Right. I think for me, it happens lot after randoi or something and then a good student maybe he or she

was very frustrated with doing randoi with me because I kept blocking it or something or I kept hitting the person with the same throw and they'll come and ask like oh how'd you do that why couldn't I do that and then that forced me to think about my system and i was like oh yeah i didn't even realize i was doing that yeah

yeah you know it's great man the thing teaching is fun no unsolicited advice just uh stop with the unsolicited advice dude i one time and i was in a room of like i was training and this guy who blew about was mansplaining to me a single leg takedown right to you yeah how was his instruction i'm good could he make a dvd no but it was like blow my mind my kind of standing there like well you're was in college, so Did you tell him that? I didn't tell him that, no. He's like, yeah, you know, I've been doing it for like two years now, and you know,

my signal looks pretty good. I take down most guys with it. I was like, okay, okay. And then he's like explaining it to me, explaining it to me. You handled it very respectfully. I did. He's like, try it. And I was like, bang, nice, like perfect. And I was like, nice, like perfect. And he's like, oh, you're going to go like this with your hand or something?

But he was doing it wrong. On that wraps around, right, generally is unbombed. Right? Oh, I didn't even know. Yeah. No, no. Generally on top. I'm sorry.

Yeah. On that wraps around the leg, generally on top. You can't peel as these right yeah the fifth this was very easy to peel she was doing wrong and I'm really kind of like shit correct yeah I think I'll be the bigger man all right well anything we missed oh you know what? One advice. What? Teach your non-Judo people your... Teach your non-Judo friends Judo. Oh, that's tough.

Like, verbally. Yeah. How do you explain Judo? Verbally. I've done this before, right? I've said to people, like, what's Judo like? Oh, not even at the technical level.

Just, like, describe. Yeah, why do we do Judo? Why do you do Judo? What's the point of it? I mean, why do you wear judo why do you do judo what's the point of it I mean why do you wear those pajamas can you have you have a good answer to those

you're teaching people why judo is a special sport uh your elevator pitch elevator pitch for judo what is it why do you do it

how do you do it you know what I mean mine stops I just avoid the question you still do that karate thing that you do my little brother's a black belt like come here let me show you something my 10 year old son is a second degree black belt in karate yeah yeah yeah can you beat him all right well thanks for listening guys and we'll see you guys in the next episode yep thank you guys