The Shintaro Higashi Show - Competing as a Team

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

In this episode, Shintaro and Peter talk about their experience going to the 2016 US Judo Nationals as a team. You can watch Peter's video from the trip here: https://youtu.be/OzIjUczwM1o Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hey guys, what's going on? Thank you guys for tuning in to the Shintaro Show with Peter Yu. Here we're going to talk a little bit about that martial arts lifestyle, judo technique, everything above and beyond the dojo. I own two dojos and Peter is one of my best students, one of my best friends. So thank you for orchestrating all this, Peter. Peter is sort of the mastermind behind this. I'm just here, a pretty face just talking into the screen.

So thanks, man. Well, yeah, thanks for having me thanks for the opportunity you know we thought we we were having you know almost weekly calls since i moved to michigan uh but i thought we thought it'd be fun to just you know share some of the things we talk about uh with the uh people on the internet and yeah i mean i it, we're learning things one by one, but I think it'll be fun for everyone. So yeah, today I thought, since we're kind of reminiscing about our past, I thought it'd be good to share

some of the things we did together to go to the US Juno nationals back in 2016 so yeah for for those of uh for for the people who don't know about the judo u.s nationals all too much could you give us a little bit of background of the tournament so yeah u.s nationals it sounds exactly what it is it's a national championships of the United States, right? It's a great tournament. Every year, you know, around April, it happens. And, you know, I always go.

I've been going since I was a little kid. I think I was like 14 or 15 when I competed in my first adult nationals. And 2016, you know, that's when we went on that crazy trip. It was amazing. It was so fun. It was sort of at, like, the pinnacle, you know, just me we went on that crazy trip it was amazing it was so fun it was sort of at like uh the pinnacle uh you know just our me and you our experience and it was kind of like the perfect time because we had a great team we had about 12 13 people that went right and it was just an

amazing turnout for us you know as a team a lot of us took you know uh place in the top seven and it was a great time right yeah it was amazing and then i think it was one of those uh events that highlighted what uh like the the value of community you know because it's not just about us going to the tournament and just fighting uh in uh judo matches and whatnot but there's a lot of work that go behind it work goes behind it and so like one thing that really stuck struck out to me was the stuck out to me was the fundraising part because it wasn't i didn't because i when i back in college like all this like i used to only go to those local tournaments tournaments that don't cost

much and I don't really have to travel. Yeah. I get those things will cost like 30, $40 to enter, but you know, we had to go to where like it was Texas, right? Yeah. Yeah. And we had to get organized and then get everyone a plane ticket. Right.

So like, can you, and you put in a lot of work to it, you know, to get for the fundraising efforts. So can you guys, can you kind of talk about that a little bit? Like what you do? Yeah, sure. Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts, right? Competing and, right?

Because we all worked, you know, most of my guys aren't like full-blown professional athletes sort of a situation. A lot of them are nine to f-fivers in New York City. You yourself as a programmer, you're learning and studying to get a PhD in artificial intelligence in Michigan. Yeah, we have many people like this. We have marketing executives and lawyers and doctors. So to ask those guys to train full-time and be a full-time competitor, that's a really tough ask.

and be a full-time competitor, that's a really tough ask. So it was very difficult to orchestrate their training program, getting everyone in the dojo at the same time, and then also fundraising. Even though a lot of these guys could afford it, I kind of wanted this thing to be like a community ordeal where it's like, hey, guys, I want to go to the Nationals. Who wants to come? And we're going to do our best to fundraise so you don't have to pay for it.

And you guys could sort of for a first time feel like a true professional athlete you know you know i think uh fine fundraising was a big part of it i mean uh what kind of things do we do so like we we basically asked we had to rely on our community right yeah you know bake sale peter did a car wash you know in a bikini mostly yeah we had to rely on the community and then you know we asked and we said hey guys you know uh at the beginning of practice end of practice so we'd let everyone know these are the the champions from the dojo that are going to go and compete that are going to represent us that's going to represent new york that's going to eventually you know maybe if they do well at the nationals represent the united states you know and these aren't people who are

just full-blown training nine-to-five all the stuff these are people your peers that you train with every day day in and day out these are people that teach you judo these are the people that really like you right and so you know everybody was very willing to give and we need to raise a couple thousand dollars because you know airplane tickets is $300 a piece. If you send 10 people, that's $3,000. Hotels, probably like $300 to $500 per person because we're there for like four or five days. So it was a good chunk of change.

We wanted to raise almost like $8,000, $9,000 to send everyone. And we wanted to have food and dinner and hang out there, rented a car and all this stuff. wanted to have food and dinner and hang out there you know rented a car and all this stuff so yeah that was that was fun you know just uh i think he and drove us around with the yeah he drove us yeah yeah so that that truck truck not a minivan was it not a minivan i thought it was a minute no it wasn't no it wasn't was it a minivan i don't remember yeah well either way it was fun because like all of us could fit in together and then yeah maybe it was a minivan yeah either way and and then i think he and i think truck it's more of a truck guy than a minivan yeah and uh yeah and then like we had a good crop of guys like just training all the time. Yeah.

So let's kind of talk about what we did for the training, actual training. So we, I remember that was like, I remember that year was like probably I was most in shape because I would just, I would just see you like more than like three times a day i three times a week to train yeah you know you didn't go to work i know three times a week like a monday wednesday friday i would show up and then like i would sometimes show up for like practices you you had like now it's only practice too yeah and um yeah so and then we also had i think it wasn't just us because you created this at kbi uh this environment where all the local uh athletes could come and train too yeah like the friday practices and whatnot yeah yeah so what what'd you uh practices and whatnot yeah yeah so what what do you uh what what did you think about that the whole training yeah yeah training process is good you know uh like i said uh everyone works

full-time so it's very difficult to right get everyone's like hey we're training every day we're doing morning practices for six to seven then we're doing evening practice from five to nine like that we couldn't really do that right so we had to kind of get together and really be efficient with the time that we spent uh i sort of asked hey monday wednesdays and fridays those are judo nights right and you too you had those nights and tuesday thursday were soccer nights and then sunday sunday was your fiancee night right or your girlfriend time right yeah and uh And we could talk more about that. But yeah, Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays. And the way the dojo is structured, you know, six to seven sort of like open mat.

Seven to eight is beginner and immediate, which is all drills and skills where we would do lots of deliberate practice of like transitions or certain situational drills and things like that. And then eight to nine is all live. So a lot of these guys would work all day and then get out of work and then eight to nine is all live so a lot of these guys would you know work all day and then get out of work and then get to the dojo so they would get in around like 6 15 6 30 they would do open mat stuff by themselves so 30 minutes of that and then drills and skills for an hour that's an hour and a half down already and then we train for an hour it's a good two and a half hour practice right yeah and then everyone will sort of expect it to do their conditioning on their own, right?

Right, right. I know you, Tuesdays and Thursdays is a heavy cardio day. Some people who need it to strength train, like, hey, lift on your own, you know, lift in the morning. It's only for three or four months or whatever it is. You have to be in the best shape you can possibly be. Watch your diet. Don't go out and drinking. You know, and I don't really like to micromanage every aspect of an athlete's life.

Like, that's not really what I'm about. But sort of we're on the same page like we're all going to this thing you know we're going to go up against the best guys in the country you know uh let's all put our best foot forward right so that was really monday wednesdays and fridays two and a half hour practices right randori was tough and wednesday night friday night sorry would be open mat kind of a thing to the black belts. So all the New York, New Jersey, Hudson region black belts, local black belts said, hey guys, if you want to come train with us, it's essentially free. Just come by, train with us. And we'd have 30 black belts on the mat thrown down on a Friday night. And the running joke was like,

it'll be like 10 o'clock or something at night. And then there's still be people doing Rondori. And I used to think like, man, you guys really all have no social life you guys are spending all your friday night here in the dojo you've been doing battling for freaking you know the last two and a half hours or three hours or something right and uh yeah those friday nights were some of the best practice i've ever had though oh they were great yeah because you know what you get you get to see all kinds of different styles of judo yeah you get to you know what if you just fight within the dojo you know you you get used to your partners and and then you get surprised on when you go up on the map for a tournament yeah because yeah it's natural you know if you have a teacher and then everyone sort of learns from me and then i teach this and i have an influence on everyone's judo style especially

at the top and they teach the next year down to the next generation those guys get better and rise to the top and you know yes you know you watch youtube and you pick this stuff up you train from here you pick this stuff up like you did judo in korea before right and you had a certain style then that little by little started taking some of my stuff and then making it your own. But naturally, you know, the progression of the dojo, everyone does kind of a similar judo style, similar overall strategy.

So when you get like a Russian kid on a Friday night, like Patrick was this Polish kid, you know, he's very good. Now he placed that, he took second at New York State and, you know, did all this stuff. And yeah, yeah when he would come in he would have a very different style right because he learned from sylvester gavel who was like a very very top level polish fighter he was like pavel nastula's number two for many many years you know and he was nipping at his

heels you know throughout nastula's entire career he's unbelievable that guy right so he takes some of that skill and then brings it to the mat, and now all of a sudden you're exposed to that. And I think that's very important. Last thing you want to do is bring on people from the outside coming in and hurting your beginners and intermediate guys. That's the worst, right? Because then people don't sign up for that.

Right, right. I want to go to judo and learn and feel good about myself and train. Now all of a sudden you have this guy who's a monster who's training for nationals he's there for himself and just scrapping and pulling your head down and injuring you that's not what we're about right but friday nights you know the advanced class that was what it was you know come train um and let's make each other better it was awesome right because we went to new york states that year and then oh yeah that's that's that was like a leading up to it it was in like february or march or something that we all went yeah especially my weight class 73 i i competed at 66 for

nationals but i didn't i didn't lose enough weight for uh new york state so i So I did 73. And like number one, like first place, second place, third place were all the guys who we saw on Friday nights every week. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it was awesome. Anthony took that, took first place. Patrick. Patrick, you, my cousin, third and third or something like this. It was like awesome. Like you, my cousin, third and third or something like this.

It was awesome. It was kind of surreal because it was just like a recreation of our Friday night practices. Yeah. A lot of the weight classes too. Most of the weight classes. It wasn't just that. Yeah. When you fight in the local circuit, you know everyone who is who. Every now and then, like a guy from Uzbekistan just moved to Brooklynoklyn you've never seen before he showed up and he wins and throws everybody

with the exception of that guy yeah with the exception of that guy you know who's who right and everyone's always you know the finals are usually sort of expected but man it was unreal man it's like watching the podium 66 like oh shoot everyone was there on friday 73 oh everyone was there on friday too you know so that was pretty cool and then now that we started talking about the weight classes let's talk about weight cutting the words because i i had to cut a lot of weight you had to cut a lot of weight a lot more than i had to and i i i've i haven't done a lot i i hadn't done as much as you have so you you had a lot of tricks on up in your sleeve so um let's can you talk about what you had to do yeah so at the 2016 nationals i i fought 81 which is uh you know it's

tough for me to make that way because naturally i'm walking around 205 like right now i'm probably like 210 i'm not tall guy you know i'm like a 5'9 regular height person but i'm pretty stalky and i love lifting weight so it's natural for me to be a little bit heavier uh i generally like to go within you know five to ten pounds by just dieting down right and cut five to ten pounds of water weight uh depending on how clean my diet was leading up to the tournament it really fluctuates how much water weight i have to cut right uh the nationals was brutal because i was within range like 10 pounds or something it was normal uh you know just from clean dieting right i get down there and then we all you know are on yelp looking for the best tex-mex restaurants or something that's what we got there right yeah and then we all go to this taco place and it's like the best tacos in texas

or something you know as advertised and then like we go and then i'm like ah you know uh tournament's four days away whatever and i just scarfed down some nachos or something and then my rebounded so heavy it was like the most unprofessional thing that you could do, especially as a leader, right? I'm there like, hey, guys, watch your weight. Who's what over? And then I sit down and have a full-blown meal. And then I was like 13 over. You didn't even eat that much, if I remember correctly. Yeah, but it's the sodium levels and the water retention.

And I haven't been eating that many carbs. And I ate some chips. And it was like the worst thing I could have probably put in my body at the time. You were really strict with your diet leading up to because i remember we go out like on saturday i remember this like we went out for lunch for to uh like a thai place after practice yeah oh that's right and you packed a little like turkey breast like ham right in the yeah yeah plastic turkey slices in a ziploc bag right yeah and then we were just having a meal and then you were on the side like you ordered a seltzer water and then

you would have your veggies and turkey do seltzer water splash of diet coke and lemon and then it would look kind of like a beer with no ice. So it was very refreshing. And then I would drink it and then eat turkey slices. I wasn't really watching my sodium because it was so far out from the tournament. But, you know, it's low carb. It's a good high-protein option. I know it's processed beets, this and that. But I think I got it from like Applegate Farms or something. Right.

And that's like one of my go-to little snacks if I'm really trying to squeeze the weight down. I was pretty lean right um the weight cutting wasn't fun yeah yeah that was just uh i remember that too because i i my plan was i usually walk around like 165 or something and my on my birthday in january that's when i started dieting after my birthday uh and my goal was to uh get down to like 150 low 150s going to texas yeah and then cut the rest in water yeah that's what you gotta do it was it was just because yeah just like we we were we we like having we like to have fun you know like after practice and it was our little thing, right?

Friday night after practice, we would go to our favorite Japanese restaurant, Sanchon. That's right, good spot. Have a beer, some food, and have a good time. But we completely cut that out for a few months. Yeah, we did. We had to. You know, you have to watch your diet. Yeah, you got to clean it up, and then you get watch your diet yeah yeah you gotta clean it up and then

you get down there and you bring your sauna suit and then right yeah and then the thankfully there was a uh la fitness nearby our hotel that's right that's right and yeah but just looking at you what we all went there you had your you you had your ridiculous trash bag suit that you made. And you actually played basketball and stuff. Played basketball. Didn't you roll your ankle? I actually didn't play as much because I was actually afraid of that. Yeah.

I wasn't even, I'm not even that good at basketball. Someone rolled their ankle. Was it Gus? I don't know. Someone were there for a tournament. I don't know. We were messing around. Someone rolled their ankle.

Ah, it's like, dude, we cannot have asked for money to come to this thing you know uh rolling people contributed and yeah we're like giving updates like hey guys thank you for you know contributing to this thing and all this stuff and it's like i rolled my ankle playing basketball at la fitness like for the tournament yeah and then we would like we would do like cycles like we would go into the sauna come out yeah play some ball back into the sauna yeah you gotta like rotate it you can't just sit in the sauna the whole time because then you're gonna be wiped right you can't just sit in the sauna for you know 20 minutes on out 20 minutes on out right you want to like sort of conserve your energy you can't just do hot tub because then that'll sap you you can't just go for a run right you know and everyone does these little mini tricks

like for instance i knew people that would put makeup remover alboline all over their skin and jump into a bath and some people swear by it right they think that it opens up the pores i wasn't a fan of that don't try it i'm not recommending it uh i like uh you know getting light exercise right and then sweating into a bag. Yeah, then I will do a couple of sauna sessions and I would scrape the water from under my skin, you know, like with a credit card. Yeah, that's my little trick.

And then, you know, some people, you know, get very close and they stand on their head right before they step on the scale, right? We talked a little bit about this. Yeah. It's a last-ditch effort. I didn't quite get the concept because you stand on your head and then all the blood rushes to your head.

So the way is like, all right, two minutes left and you step on the scale and you're 0.1 over and you're like, oh my God, I did everything. everything my mouth is dry i can't go for a run now there's no way i i'm tapped out uh last ditch effort you stand on your head right right for like a minute and you let all the blood rush to your head and then the scale is like in this little you know rectangular square situation right so you stand at the very corner of the scale i know and you

know you lean your head away from the scale so if you're standing on the scale like this you're standing here and then all the blood rush to your head and then you're tilting your head away from the middle of the thing and theoretically like it makes you a little bit lighter as opposed to like yeah standing directly on top of the scale so you could you could shave a 0.1 pound, I guess, in that way. Yeah. So sometimes you'll go to a wrestling tournament where everyone's cutting weight or something like that. Right. And you see some people last-ditch effort, like, you know, standing on their head.

And you're like, oh, man, that guy probably didn't diet properly. Or he's probably not having a good cut. But, yeah, this was a good weight cut. You know, some people did it. Yeah, it was a good little, it was some people did it uh yeah it was a good little yeah it was a fun experience too you know it was it's a lot better when you do it together it's a lot better when you do it together and yeah i remember so i know you 73 kilos and up were on the first day and below or on the second day so you made it you made your weight and then we went

out for some barbecue and i still had to cut weight right the next day i remember that was so miserable because i i wasn't going to miss out on the you know some yeah barbecue i had a little bit i had a little bit and then after the whole day of you guys fighting it was just me and kanizo i remember because kanizo fought at 60 and we're just hanging out it's a good time and we all make it and then the now we let's talk about what happened on the tournament uh we we all did we all did great like there were some injuries too but um yeah we had a lot of injuries yeah we that's every judo tournament you know yeah i guess it's yeah i remember like the big one was christian uh gorlitz he yeah he actually fought he had a torn meniscus like even before

like he was just yeah he always had knee issues yeah and I remember he he was he was beating everyone doing good

and then he went for a uh dropped seoi and then after that he just couldn't even walk so he

I remember that he dropping him dropping out. That was heartbreaking. Yeah. Actually, because he put a lot of work. A lot of them. I mean, he took fifth or something, right?

Yeah, he did go far, yeah. Yeah. You took seventh. Eugene had the worst draw ever. Who did he draw? Bobby Lee? I think he drew Bobby Lee first he's a veteran

been around the block for a very long time you know, Tarazzo was there he had shoulder surgery after that you hurt your neck there was a slew of us that got injured I didn't get hurt but I got DQ'd that was such a weird DQ

you were doing great you were beating everyone and then you went for some kind of front headlock. Yeah, I went for a front headlock throw, and then, you know, the referee thought that I put too much torque on the guy's neck, and I cranked it. And I kind of cranked it, you know. It's like that's the name of the throw. You know, it's like you put a little bit of torque on the head, and then you go. But, you know, I guess they said it it was too dangerous and they DQ'd me. And when you do an illegal move, they DQ you from the whole tournament.

So I was in the semifinals. I lost that because of the DQ. And then I also had to forfeit the third place match. So I took fifth by default or something like that. So yeah, that's that. And we all did great. We had Gus fighting in the brown belt division he and went out there and fought we all you know did a

great job and you know we were all updating all the our supporters at KBI and right that was very nice and also I was I thought I was gonna be a vlogger back then so remember I was like that's right you did a lot you could go have these guys check it out right yeah yeah there is a youtube video don't you know my skills weren't that weren't the best but yeah i did document everything uh yeah it'll be fun we can link it below yeah and yeah so it was such a good time i mean we learned i think as a group we learned a lot not just judo but about you know it was a good life experience in we learned i think as a group we learned a lot not just judo but about you know it was a good life experience in general too i think so yeah what uh what do you think what uh

what kind of things like i'm sure like other dojos would like to do this kind of things too like go to a big tournament together so what are the some of the things that you would like you would like to offer as advice or some lessons you've learned so i think one some of the things that you would like you would like to offer as advice or some lessons you've learned so i think one of the best things is like it just doesn't start with one event right uh and it's a constant culture building thing around the dojo uh if you know there's a black belt in the room that people are kind of afraid of and there you have a guy that's kind of really and they're not very helpful and they're kind of standoffish. That kind of stuff really is poison to a dojo. And now all of a sudden it's like, hey, guys, we're all going to national.

Support us. And then all the people who are sort of hobbyists and enthusiasts are just like, oh, man, forget those guys. That guy was an asshole to me. Oh, that guy hurt my ankle. I'm not giving anything. You don't really get true support from anybody in the community. I think it goes beyond just the know the problem with having like this competition thing right

which i never force in the dojo i don't like advocating for too much i don't want there to be sort of this tiered system of like oh man my competitors are doing so good competition team and this and that so now all of a sudden when you're not competing you're a second class citizen right i think that's wrong i think that's unfair most people come in to train and feel good about themselves i owe it to those people to not put the competitors at a pedestal like oh i'm not competing therefore i'm not a first class citizen right right so i think we have to kind of go away from that sort of thinking of like competition equals good competition actually equals bad most of the time

right because if you're trading for competition yeah injury and it's me me i need to compete i need to win i will have something to prove right so you know my question when people are like i want to compete it's like okay why why do you want to compete you know uh and a lot of times you know it's not for good reason you know what i mean and i will never say if you want to compete oh don't compete you know you don't you shouldn't compete i would never say that if you want to compete and you want to i will help you right and i think that's really important to distinguish that in the dojo when you're running your school and having a community right everyone has to be in it together it's like why are we here to make we here? To make each other better, right? Make each other better, make ourselves better. And if the best way for doing that for

you personally is for you to compete and overcome your fears and you want to test your skills and make yourself better and better, then sure, go compete, all right? But at the end of the day, we're all here to make each other better, make ourselves better. And then once you have that mentality, then you can sort of grow as a team. And then, you know, you have kind and compassionate black belts that give to the brown belts and the brown belts that give back to the green belts. Then now all of a sudden you have this community of let's make each other better. Let's support each other. You know, who's competing? You guys are competing. Oh my God, I would love to give and do whatever I can. Can you give me updates? And I know some

of us, you know, while we're, you know, in between matches, we i know some of us you know while we're you know in between matches we're updating some of our you know donors and you know they want to know how we're doing right right and then you know we did the facebook you know stuff and the instagram live and people will comment and be like yeah you know go get him and then we wrote thank you cards afterwards and you know we did the whole shebang and it really was a great great experience and i think we did like a thank you dinner at the very end of it too when we came back and you know i was very very aware of like all right guys you know these guys went to compete at nationals it's great but you know it doesn't mean just because you didn't compete you're a second class it's like

if you want to compete one day it's there for you these guys aren't that special just because they went sign up for a tournament competing at nationals you know we're all here trying to get better doing the same thing we all love judo we all love training and that's why we're here to make ourselves better make each other better and i think that's the most important thing you know when you're trying to fundraise because then people are much more likely to help you if they really buy into that culture when you have a good culture you know and i think that's my advice for man i just rambled for so long no no that was good because i think it you highlighted as something that a lot of people may not know about judo or other combat sports because

it's easy to think that these are individual sports because you're you're up there with another person fighting but yeah if you think of take the whole sport as a as a whole it's it's not it's really it's a team effort you need another person you need your training partners to train yeah you need their support to get better and then actually go to these places and yeah a lot of times people forget that and even like your point about being nice like black belts being nice not condescending to the beginners and that goes a long way because i it's funny you should you mentioned that because i actually read a book actually my mom recommended it but it was about a real economic like hit that these like little slights and like little uh aggressions that have on these businesses

and there's you can put a dollar amount on it and the same goes with the dojo or a team like that yeah you know when you say like actually that's a nice move yeah actually just prefacing it by actually says like oh i didn't expect you right people to do a good move right or when you say things like when you're training with someone that's definitely below your skill level whether you outweigh them by 50 pounds or you know when you outrank him by three ranks and saying like hey man, man, don't hurt me. OK, buddy. Right. And that has a very mocking tone.

Right. That kind of like puts the other person down subtly, you know, and the person may be getting a laugh in the dojo or something like this, but it's at the expense of that person's feelings. Right. And when you're doing such a close quarters contact thing where any little thing can escalate and all of a sudden now you have this rivalry. Right. You kind of don't like each other. And all of a sudden now you have this rivalry,

right? And you kind of don't like each other. And now it's like, you lost a training partner then. That's right. You know, and that happens one time done. That guy doesn't like training with you. You go with this person, you have button wants or something, and you're a little bit too rough. That guy doesn't want to train with you. You know, three weeks later, Hey, let's train, you know, who wants to work out with me next? And then you're the guy standing on the sideline looking around. No one wants to work out with you. You're the problem. You know, and you can't have too many of those.

You know, and if you do have some of those guys, you got to start getting rid of them or having a serious heart to heart with them. Right. Because those people are toxic. Yeah. That kills the program, kills, you know, it has to be a safe place to train. Yeah. You know, and I talk about usually my cousin. Yeah. You know, and I talk about using my cousin. Yeah. You've done a great job to kind of like facilitate that kind of, uh,

safe environment in the dojo. Yeah. You have to, you know, you have to, um, and yeah, I mean,

you too, you know, uh, you were a little rough in the beginning. Yeah. I really was. You know, people didn't really want to work out with you,

but by the end of it, you know, people want to work out with you. And, you know, when it's like, all right, we're going to do 10 rounds and, you know, you were booked fully from the top to the end of it, you know, people want to work out with you. And, you know, when it's like, all right, we're going to do 10 rounds.

And, you know, you were booked fully from the top to the end. That's saying something, you know, volumes about you, how you make the people better. And it's very important. And Eugene's a great example. He's great. He can adjust his style to every person he goes. he can adjust his style to every person he goes yeah it's just you know he goes hard with his uh yeah you know other black belts is a tough he's a tough round he's always a tough from i'm i always have to mentally prepare before i go with eugene that's right yeah he was having a nice little

battle going yeah but yeah that team is important man really important because you can't always go in and just go 100 you can't you know you need to go in there and say today i'm going to work three rounds with lefties i'm going to work on my transitions with this person this person's a little bit not as good as me so i'm going to put myself in losing position and let that person attack offensively and i'm going to try to get out of it or i'm going to put myself in a losing play where i could potentially get taken down but these people now all of a sudden you have, you know, you could be at the top of your game.

You could be the best person in the room, but you could gain something from each round, right? Right. As opposed to, all right, I have my ego. I'm going to go in here and just kick the shit out of every person here. That is the wrong mentality because, first of all, if you're not feeling good, you can't do that. Second of all, if you're feeling banged up, you're not going to be able to do that.

Third of all, no one's going to want to work out with you in a couple of weeks. And then now all of a sudden, you're not going to get better. So you're assembling your own personal team. I know what I'm working on when I'm going with you. I know what I'm working on when I'm going with this person, that person. And every person that I go with, I gain something from them and I make sure to put myself in a position where they can gain something from me too right that way they're going to want to work out with me right right you know so yeah that's that's just how it's got to be yeah well i think um that was a great advice for other dojos and hopefully i think um you know other people can try this out and go to these big tournaments and make you know have have have, have a good time. So,

so I think it's time for us to wrap up this episode. So it, since it's our first episode, would you want, could you give us like a little closing remarks? Yeah. Close remarks. Yeah.

You know, I think, yeah, Peter kind of nailed it in the beginning, right? We have, we talk all the time, me and Peter, and this is a great way for me to actually put some extra content out there because people ask me these kinds of questions on a daily basis. If we could do each episode that's surrounding some kind of a theme.

Today was about competition, I think, and dojo culture and things like that. These themes kind of have a way of repeating themselves, but it's a nice way for me to supplement my YouTube content. If you have any questions, please reach out to me. Follow me on YouTube. I have an Instagram. Hopefully, this thing becomes a popular podcast too. Who knows, right? I don't know.

It's exciting times. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you guys for tuning in. Thank you for the ongoing support uh i'm always humbled to you know yeah see how much people like my judo related stuff cool cool yeah well stay tuned guys uh we'll try to do this more regularly and you know uh all all things related judo and life in general. So thanks for listening, and we'll see you guys in the next episode.

Yep. Thank you, guys.