The Shintaro Higashi Show - Big Bear City Seminar

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

Shintaro recently went to Big Bear City, CA to give a seminar at a BJJ school. In this episode, he shares his experience with Greg, especially around how it was to give a seminar at a BJJ school as a Judo instructor. 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 guys, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with not Peter Yu today. Peter Yu is the guy usually, but we're here with Greg Reagan, right? And we're going to talk today about my experience at Big Bear City. It's a seminar that I did in California, right, at Lighthouse BJJ. So how was it? How was the area? Oh, it was great. It was great. It was a very small jiu-jitsu school up in the mountains of Big Bear City run by this woman, Jessica. And she's really great.

And then, like, you know what's really cool about going to these seminars? It's like you go and you get to experience their local culture. You get to train with their students. You know, and you get to see another part of the country, you know? If it's international, another country, period. Right, right. It was a great time, man. The mountains were beautiful.

Cool spot to train. Cool spot to train. She has, like, this interesting side. It's like the grappler's dream. She has a house, and on the's like the grappler's dream. She has a house, and on the same lot, she has a jiu-jitsu school. She built out like this, you know. So she just rolls out of bed right to the grappler. It's literally like 10 steps away.

That's amazing. Yeah, and she has the kid there and everything. She just like gets up, does her thing, walks over, teaches private, does physio, has her jiu-jitsu classes. Wow. You know, it's wonderful. She subcontracted, like, she GC'd the whole thing, right? Got the subcontractors in, built it out herself. That's incredible.

Yeah. The people out west, man, they're pioneers. Yeah, yeah. They make it happen. You know, they live in it. They live in the dream, you know? So that was a pretty cool experience. How was the crew?

How was training out there? Training was really good. You know, we did a little jiu-jitsu. It's mostly jiu-jitsu school so we had probably a good showing of like it was probably like 80 90 percent jiu-jitsu guys in the room and then some people heard that i was going to be out there so some judokas came as well uh but like intermediate level judokas you know what i mean and then on friday night i did a whole like they did an open mat jiu-jitsu session so So I just, like, rolled with everybody there. You know? That's great.

Yeah. That's awesome. Good crop out there? Good, like, good skill level? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good skill level. California is always tough.

What was difficult was the elevation. You know, I didn't really account for that. It was like 8,000 feet up in the air. Yeah. So the air was a lot thinner.

You know, so I was, like, playing a very, like, less energy expenditure game. If I would have started moving around scrambling, I was going to die. You'd get gassed. Yeah, because I'm not used to elevation. I didn't have time to adjust.

Right, right. That was kind of cool, adjusting for that, accounting for that. Yeah, it was awesome. So how did they get in contact with you? How did they set this up? Jess actually came to New York and did a private lesson with me a few times. She came to New York. She wanted to hire a jiu-jitsu instructor full-time at her gym.

She was taking resumes, interviewing people. She ultimately hired this guy. He's a jiu-jitsu guy from out here in Connecticut. She came here and then she was doing this educational tour where they're going to different schools. they went to marcelo's they came here for judo um and that was part of kind of that right she was kind of like educator staff and things like this and she was in new york and you know they dropped by and you know i was on her podcast for a little bit so i was on her podcast we stayed in contact over the years and you know it's been a long time coming she's like hey can you come can you come right and i was like you know what i guess yeah this is my fee these are my available dates let's do it

and so it happened nice yeah very cool so uh how does this compare to other uh seminars that you've given uh it's great always great you know i think each one of these seminars are different and i kind of take a different approach you know going like hey here's my tattoo she bang go hit it you know something like that right it's very there's like a prescriptive element to it you know I like rolling with the guys first at this session I don't always roll up two guys don't hold me to this but then sometimes like I was in Concord which we'll do another separate episode for those guys right and then I'll say hey guys let's let's start off with just light drilling for the first

10 minutes. So you'll watch people do certain things. Right. You know what I mean? See what they're deficient at. Maybe tailor something to the room. For instance, yeah. Like with these Jiu Jitsu guys, I asked everyone, can you guys just pull guard for me?

Right. And then part of the session was Tomonage as opposed to pulling guard. And you know, if you watch my thing, YouTube videos,, whatever it is, you know I kind of preach this stuff, why do pull guard if you can do Tomonage? Right. And I realized every single person pull guard, you know, lifting their right leg up, you know, which isn't right or wrong, usually it's right versus right, and then some Jujitsu guys might say, oh if you lift with the right leg up, the collar hand, they could easily

pick that leg etc etc you know what i mean so as opposed to me teaching a yoko tomonage to the left like going up to the hip they're not going to be able to coordinate that right so i was like all right let's do this type of a tomonage with a partner you know what i mean and then that's a little bit prescriptive and i've done the same thing at different gyms and it has worked really well and people get tomonage by the end of it so is this the first seminar you've given after kind of like your deep dive into BJJ, your recent stint? Yes. How does that change your approach in the room to trying to show Jujitsu guys Judo?

You know, when I... they were really surprised at my Jujitsu level, I think. And then now when they talk about it. I get what they're talking about Pulling guard going to Delhi Hiva and then like talking about the game like what is your strategy? They say coyote guard before I didn't know what kind of guy it was right, you know, I know Now I knew it was like in a different context, right? I didn't know the name that went with the movement You know, it's essentially like a half guard with like the knee cut and then locking up around the waist and the leg. Just like a coyote. Yeah, just like...

Just like a coyote in the wild. You like bite into them, you hold onto them. That's it, and you grab one leg. So now I speak their language, you know, more so, right? And then when I show to Manali and I transition to certain things

and then people have more jujitsu-esque questions, I could kind of relate a little bit more and then talk to them in their speak. Right. So that helps a lot, I think. And then when they roll with them, I'm much more confident, right? Yeah.

I don't look like just a guy that's, you know, judo guy, you know, pretending to be a jiu-jitsu guy like that. But I could actually look and feel like an actual jiu-jitsu guy in the room which is also adds to my credibility a little bit too right you could you could go in there and hold a purely jiu-jitsu seminar and they get quite a bit out of it yeah possibly yeah and you know you get questions about nogi and stuff like that and like hey you know and i'm able to answer that

much more cleanly than i was able to before because i have experienced nogi jiu-jitsu all this stuff now you know if you get too close the ranges are different with gi no-gi right if you get too close they lock up with no-gi even if you're really close they're not really controlling you so you could always back up and escape most of the time right unless they have their hands locked behind your back right so explaining things like that you know a guy was really interested in no-gi I was showing some like elbow pass stuff and like you know head movement stuff that is similar to the gripping game but adjusted for maybe his nogi

game right you know and after knowing how he does jujitsu in a gi nogi context right and then his strategy for it you know i was teaching the g stuff and then I showed them how to parlay that in to jiu-jitsu right right you feel like a slight faint posting on the collar you know faint elbow pass for nogi like those two simple simple things right I can elaborate on it without sounding right I don't know what I'm talking about the jiu-jitsu thing is very beneficial when I do these things because it's not always going to be at a judo school. Whoever reaches out to me and whoever finds the right time alignment,

those are the guys that's going to get me to go to these things. So I think it helps a lot. So as far as like you can always look at the immediate impact of you going there, showing a move, now they're hitting that move. Maybe they can work on it for the next couple months. And then either it becomes a part of their game, maybe it fades a little bit. Oh, yeah. Where do you see like, oh, let's say you do more seminars.

What is the greater impact of you traveling to these places? I think the biggest thing is when I go to these things, a lot of other dojo owners come. Right? So if, let's just say if I go in the middle of nowhere, let's just say like any state, you know,

I go there, I'm doing a seminar, all the surrounding dojos, they don't usually like take all their students and you gotta go to this thing because they've never met me before. Right.

So maybe the sensei or the teacher or the head professor might go to this thing and bring two or three of his students, right, to see what it's about, to see if it's legit. And if they really like it, they'll reach out to me independently. So in so many ways, you go out and it becomes sort of like a lead gen. Right.

You know what I mean? I probably got maybe eight people saying, hey, can you do a seminar at my gym? You know, being in two different spots on this one trip. I went to California. I did Big Bear, then Concord. You know, Southern know, being in two different spots on this one trip. You know, I went to California. I did Big Bear, then Concord, you know, Southern California, Northern California. And between those two, I probably got eight contacts. Wow. I was like, hey, can you come?

So then I think you could kind of develop a relationship with the region almost. You know what I mean? Yeah. At CYC, there was a guy who runs the Uansha kai the organization of you know central california northern california something like that and even he was like hey i could send out a blast email to all the dojo owners things like this and then you can start impacting sort of not just one seminar right but all these guys go back to their gym and they re-find me on youtube and they could ask me questions and it's hard to get through to me with uh instagram and messaging because

i don't really read all the comments or the messages, right? Right. But if they preemptively say like, hey, I met you at the seminar. I have a question. I'm like much more likely to respond. Absolutely. I'm probably like 98% of the time I'll probably respond to something like that, you know, because we already shared time together. We already worked out together.

Right. It's just that you know their face more than just the name on Instagram. Yeah. together we already worked out together right it's just some way you know their face more than just a name on instagram yeah yeah so you think like coming back around a few times all of a sudden you'll gain that momentum maybe i think so i think so and i think i have to do you know it's like you buddy from college right like if you don't reach out you know there's guys who reach out all the time right you know there's guys who call me on like a tuesday morning at 11 it's like yo what are you doing you know what i mean like you don't work bro like right but there's guys who are consistent and reaching out and uh you know you develop these

relationships you got to nurture them i think you know and then you could kind of have you know make it a frequent thing where hey i go to this place once a year i go to this place twice a year whatever it is and then you can start impacting you know their judo in a way that really matters as opposed to doing like a one shot and done seminar you know what i mean like that's not going to do them that good right like you want to help them shape their judo and you know i think that's where i could kind of help and uh yeah no that's a huge influence because like especially the people who are only exposed to a kind of like in an entertainment style like we always talk about you know to actually do it and feel it and and have you in the room.

It's like, you know, it's a bigger change for them. You know what I mean? And they get that excitement, too, of like people are doing this. The guy is real. Yeah, it is. And it kind of helps spread the game quite a bit. As of right now, not to like shamelessly plug my own situation, but it's a flat $2,500 plus room and board.

Not room and board, like flight and hotel. Right. So it's flat $2,500 plus room and board. Not room and board, like flight and hotel. So it's flat $2,500. If you guys could charge $100 a head, $75 a head, it can be economically viable for the people hosting as well. Right. You know, you get a couple of schools involved and things like this. And, you know, the reason why you're on today is because we want to talk about some potential add-ons because Greg Reagan is the social media guy behind the scenes for me, right? You film my videos, you edit my videos,

you write the captions, you post it, you do my reels, everything, right? And, you know, I've known you for a little while doing judo in this room, but once you showed us your skill, we're like, all right, let's freaking do this, right? Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about, like,

the potential of having, having like a media package. Yeah. I mean. Alongside the seminar. Do you have any good ideas on that one? I mean, the idea of like filming and kind of editing like a reel for people to kind of keep with them will help preserve the moment, you know, and kind of spread it and be like, oh, like, like I know sometimes I have to take a lesson two or three times to really

understand what was going on. And a lot of the nuances, especially if you look at BJJ guys, all of a sudden you're using a lot of Japanese terminology that they might not understand. The movements are very foreign, so it's like an information overload. Just on a pure usage standpoint, if they can have something to take away, that's one thing. And another thing, everybody loves to see themselves do Judo. And kind of like be in the room you know like when a celebrity's around everyone's rushing to take selfies with the person it's true because having a picture of someone is one step below being in a picture with

someone that's very true I took a picture once with the entourage guy oh yeah Grineer he was Vince oh yeah I saw't know I saw him in the airport oh yeah and the guy comes yo you're that guy right he's like yeah you want a picture I was like sure we took a picture never looked at it again I see my phone and then like same thing like I was at the southern everyone's taking videos a lot of videos right but is that really useful for them maybe I mean it's you know it's like um on the 4th of July people take a video of a firework. It's like, why are you taking a picture of that? Just experience it. No one's going to be like, yo, did you see this firework captured with my phone?

I did this. I took the fireworks and I filmed my daughter watching the fireworks. That's what you want. You want the experience of the moment, not the thing. That only makes sense in the moment. So it's like same thing. You are the firework in this situation. So to take a video of you from your perspective maybe but you know there's sweaty

breathing heavy shaking what if there was someone in the room just taking a professional quality video yes and that it's actually consumable later that would be a very good package right yeah like maybe we'll do like you come along you film the seminar so they have it like in a professional grade video and a lot of these guys said both of these seminars like hey we filmed it we're going to launch it later but if the quality isn't good it's very difficult to watch and decipher right yeah so we could cut clips from the seminar and make it digestible for them right we do that we could have a real swim seminar we could plug their gym we could sort of do a separate sort of a thing a feature on our page about their gym not about me like doing the

show look how good i am at you let me show you yeah yeah we're like this is jess uh-huh she owns lighthouse academy right and these are her students and this is in big bear city california you know all this stuff and they could kind of have something take away of sorry jess we didn't think about this beforehand the the amazing thing to me. The amazing thing too is like, having the exposure on all these different platforms, it's basically a different population every time. And let's say someone is friends with her on Instagram but not in the region. So whatever advertising she puts out didn't reach them. And all of a sudden now you're on screen with her and they go,

Oh my god, she got Shintaro over here. I want to see if I can reach out and do the same thing. And that'll... I think that was the one thing, you know, Jess is super busy. She has a bunch of kids

and all this stuff, running a business by herself. You know, I'm busy too, as you guys already know, doing all this stuff. So we didn't really promote it so much. And it was maybe like

a couple of Instagram stories that she put up and I shared. It was really all the marketing that went in on this. Right. And even then we got people like, hey, you know, we saw this thing on your Instagram, like we decided to come.

You know, a really cool thing. So, you know, maybe as a part of a package deal with you coming along, maybe preemptively we'll start promoting it on our channels and all that stuff. So we can sort of have like a network of, you know what I mean? It can be pushed out on all the channels. Hey, this is what we're going to show, et cetera, et cetera. If you're in this region, come check it out. And have that be part of a thing too, right?

Absolutely. The more we can share Judo to the people who want it, the better. Don't you think? Yeah. I mean, that's always been the biggest thing is like the the quality of online accessible how much do you charge for this how much do I

charge for this $19,000 $19,000 yeah I need a blank check let's say $2,500

I guess I don't know it depends it's all $2,500 is my flat fee so on top of that another $2,500

might be economically viable who knows I don't know who knows it depends who you want it's all $2500 is my flat fee so on top of that another $2500 we can always edit this might be economy viable who knows I don't know who knows it depends what you want you gotta come up with your tears you gotta come up with your tears

yeah you know we'll do that if you're watching reach out and then ask these questions because you know you could have the whole football media package situation

we could also bring Eugene if you have knee injuries. You know what's funny? How many of you guys had knee issues? In the whole room? Yeah. I did this at the Concord gym.

Right. When I was doing the seminar. How many of you guys had knee problems? In the whole room, yes. Which how many? I can't even say. Even in the lighthouse, there was this really cool guy, Brendan, and he was like, oh, I can't do any of this, so my knee's bagged up.

I'm like, hey, man, me and you both. Yeah. Oh, everyone, when Eugene was on the podcast, all the comments were like, can you show some of these things? Like, I'm trying to heal here. So maybe next time. So maybe we'll bring Eugene. Well, the whole crew we'll set up a trapeze and we'll do Cirque du Soleil yeah so it could be a good idea right I mean I don't know what you guys if you're watching this you know leave it in the comments uh we're all always open to ideas right

yeah I mean it's it's always best you know like uh like baseball teams they go out and they play all the West Coast teams in one shot you know know, we go out, schedule a big thing, and maybe hit some spots, and it works out. Everyone can, you know, participate. Yeah. But, yeah, Seminole's great. You know, thank you, Jess, for hosting. You know, we went over a lot of initial stuff.

You know, sort of not gripping basics, but, like, footwork basics, hand placement basics for jiu-jitsu. You know, because it was judo for jiu-jitsu essentially right right and then like how to properly create angles you know as you're approaching to put your hands on you know and a lot of these principles come from boxing really you know uh right creating an angle it's like it's not as simple as like just step into the side and create an angle because you just step to the right they're also also going to step also with you. Whether they're going to mirror you or sidestep with you.

So it's like step, step, and then step and cut back all the way. It's kind of like basketball. You know, I make this analogy all the time. Misdirecting steps and then faking a shot. Then when they react, then you move up. What was the level of pure judo that they were exposed to out there, at any given room? Big Bear City, you mean?

What's the general vibe anywhere you go? It's like, okay, these people know judo to this extent. I think some of the most competitive gyms, for instance, let's just say I'm throwing some out there, like the ones in Florida. There's one in Florida that produces tons of champions, you know, Jimmy Pedro's gym, Jason Morris's gym, San Jose State, Chuck Jefferson has a really good club, Aaron Cohen's club, those guys aren't really, like, reaching out to me to host seminars, you know? No, right? So, those guys have tons of experience on the international circuit, producing national

champions and things like this, you know? It's it's majority like i wouldn't say smaller gyms necessarily but some gyms do more seminars than others you know it's like a part of their thing hey every month we have a seminar coming up you know some gyms do a lot of open mats and things like this uh What I found in the judo community is some of the best ones, you know, the highest, you know, I don't want to say like caliber, but like the ones that are exposed to the highest level judos, those guys aren't really, you know.

Right. So, I mean, so it's a lot of like Brazilian jiu-jitsu guys and they bring you in, you know, obviously to give them a jolt of judo. You know, but you walk into any given room, what let you say, okay, this guy has an uchi and he kind of has a semblance of judo. You know, but you walk into any given room, what let you say, okay,

this guy has an uchi and he kind of has a semblance of an uchimata. Or it's like... You know, this is the thing, right? I teach very differently, I think.

I teach a lot of contextual judo and I have some philosophies like, yes, uchi mechanics are important. Knowing how to do the uchi and finishing the uchi, that stuff is important. Well, like, I do this kind of crossbody uchi. Yes, that stuff is important, knowing how to do the Ochi and finishing the Ochi, that stuff is important. I do this kind of crossbody Ochi,

yes, that stuff is important, but if you can never get there, you're not going to get good at it. Working on the contextual stuff of getting to that position, whether it's throwing feints, mistiming it, having positional advantages and such, you could enter into these moves more, which means you get more repetitions

in a live setting trying to finish these techniques, so naturally the mechanics of finishing get better. Right. Right? So I like focusing on that portion of it, whether it's gripping, fighting for position, and gaining position. And then, of course, there's the whole finishing side. I like to kind of package everything so they could use these ideas and fill it in with their techniques

that they already do right because if you've never done tile before me showing tile with no context of like before and afters it's just like kind of useless i think you know and uh i found i've been to some of the best seminars you know right guys some of the best seminars, you know, right? Guys, some of the best arguably top guys, you know, and they were terrible seminars. I'm not trying to put anyone down. I've been to seminars where the athlete was so freaking good and so athletic and he showed this crazy move that not one person in the room was able to do it. He just physically couldn't do it. Because like, first of all, the guy was really a lightweight.

None of the heavyweights can even make the shape of the move. You just can't do it yeah because like first of all the guy was really a lightweight mm-hmm none of the heavyweights can even make the shape of you just can't do it right right you required a lot of flexibility acrobatics you know all this stuff is just like you just couldn't be able to do it you know so i think uh in that way you know i'm pretty distinguished and uh yeah i don't know if i'm just rambling now no no i no, no. I think that's fair. I was just curious to see, like, you know, to plug and play is such a great ability, right, to give them that tool. But then, like, sometimes you could size a person up

and be like, all right, the way they pull the left hand, like, you can only learn that by practicing judo. Like how much judo did you practice versus like what you see online and try to do it on a guy once. Yeah, you definitely need to do it. And then, you know, a lot of these guys, they go too fast and then default to their usual judo. Right. So it's like when you're trying to learn a new skill, you're trying to deprogram what you already know and add new stuff to it. Right.

Yeah. You got to like go slow. You know, you got to go slow. You know, line by line like a programmer yeah right so

alright yeah reach out to us you know judoshantariyc on my instagram you know uh if you want 7 hour services

my flat rate right now is $2500 for a flat fee session airplane hotel um

and then Greg has a social media package also we could feature you on the thing you know and then he'll cut some reels for you make some videos for you that's you know i don't know what the price is going to be maybe it's 2500 i don't know whatever you guys want to pay greg will take it and then if you also want to reach yuji and yuji and nyc on social instagram he'll fix your knee for you. There's a huge need, I'm telling you, man,

like. So, yeah, 2,500 bucks, you can get whatever you want. How they did it, like,

ah, my shoulder's jerked, you know, and they were like, oh, me too, man. I was like,

what's wrong with yours? You know, and I was like, oh, you know, subscap, you know, this and the

supraspinatus, partial tear, bursitis, and then a slap tear in the labrum. What about yours? And they were like, ah,

I don't fucking know. It just hurts. I was like, yo, you need a Eugene in your life. We all do. Yeah, that's true. All right, thanks. Yeah, thank you guys.