The Shintaro Higashi Show - Dojo Reopening Updates

Episode Date: May 10, 2021

The pandemic situation in New York City is finally getting better thanks to the successful vaccine rollout, and Shintaro can finally reopen his dojos to more students. In this episode, Shintaro tells Peter how his reopening efforts have been going and how excited he is to see students back on the mat. Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

hello everyone welcome back to the shintaro higashi show with peter yu today i want to give a little bit of an update about how the dojo reopening has been going right so the you know coronavirus situation is getting a lot better in new york with vaccination rollout yeah yeah and so you're able to open up the dojo again yeah so we're kind of allowed to and they're raising max capacity and uh cuomo did say that, you know, after May 19th, that you could go to 100% capacity. Oh, nice. Given that people are fully vaccinated. So, you know, I'm not the type of person to be like, you need to bring in your vaccination card.

You have to have it or you can't be here because I don't really like that kind of an idea. You know, it's strongly suggested. Right. Right. Right. And, you know, it's so nice the inquiry is rolling in people coming back because they feel comfortable being around other other people right and i think people as soon as they get the shots they feel like oh man it's over for me the pandemic is over for me so now they're ready to come back to judo

which feels great right and i love welcoming those guys back nice nice so the so let's kind of uh roll back and see how it was before like so it has it had to be completely shut down but then yeah there was a huge like a full-blown shutdown situation for a while right right right and even then we were kind of doing these sort of underground workouts i guess just me and a pod of people and it wasn't even like oh like i'm running a business it It was like, hey guys, come work out with me. That kind of a thing. You know, at your own risk. And then we were allowed to do one-to-one sports instruction. So I was doing mostly private lessons and that was good. And I'm very grateful for those people who helped keep the dojo afloat during that time. And everybody who gave to the GoFundMe,

you know, thank you so much. Thank you so much. I'm like forever indebted. And there's so many people, it's like I can't even remember who gave. You know, it's crazy. And, you know, man. You got on TV and everything. Yeah, I was on Fox 5 News. That was pretty cool. You know, because the GoFundMe raised like $30,000 or something like that, like the first day.

So the people were like, oh, my my god what is going on here you know all these tv news stations came and wanted to call and do these interviews and stuff and i took one and i was like yeah i'll do one uh i didn't want to just spend the whole week just you know doing doing a meeting around yeah doing a meeting around and it was nice man i got to talk to a reporter and just you know talk to him about like how they run things and gave me the idea for recording many sessions at once so you have what's called evergreens which you could just plug in at any time and then you have these time specific ones oh it's relevant so this dojo update it's you know may 8th right we'll release it in the next couple of days like it's not going to be relevant you know a year from now when the pandemic maybe doesn't exist anymore right but if we sit here and talk about gripping that's going to be timeless for a little while that's an evergreen

oh interesting that's okay like i was asking questions like that and asking about the industry and i was blown away by this guy he was uh the reporter was so good uh-huh and he's like talking to me hanging out doing his thing like hey guys welcome back to the so-and-so fox five news this and that this and that and he was able to turn it on you know higashi puts the hand sanitizers out and he's like and it was like super over the top right right i mean i was sitting there i'm like how is this even gonna look it sounds ridiculous but then i watched it on tv and then i was like wow it sounds actually how everybody else sounds like on tv well i guess it's like when you do when you act on on stage like the theater you have to like apparently exaggerate everything right yeah you know i guess it's one of those things so that that's why you mentioned

because a little bit of background for you for uh the audience we recently switched around how we record things and then that's right we started doing that thing evergreen and current events yeah yeah that's that's gonna be sort of the new idea going forward right just because you know these things take time to record right i do love seeing you every week on a friday we try to record on a friday morning right but sometimes it's like you do one recording and then it's one hour and then we have a scheduling conflict right you know peter needs to go get vaccinated or something and he can't make it you know or exactly right so that's why yeah yeah well we digressed a little but yeah there's a fun little tidbit uh so so now the you got you were mostly relying on uh private lessons um i knew you had you could also do like an

individual workouts or something it could look a small yeah one-to-one sports instruction was okay before yeah yeah during this whole time almost so i was doing mostly that and i told you i had that pods i would do a couple sessions a couple privates like you know during like you know late evening early evening or something like that and then i would have five or six guys coming just to work out with me right and that was nice too because it's uh you know it was the people who really wanted to learn and they were kind of like hounding me like hey i want to come i want to come can i work out with you can we do something and you know i kind of needed it too for my own you know mental health too right i love

grappling so it was really nice and then i could kind of teach stuff that i really wanted to teach and not that i don't teach stuff now but you know i teach mostly with safety in mind and right people in the room and what the needs of the room are right as opposed to this was like you know what i'm trying to figure out tomonage i'm going to film a video series on mastering tomonage so it's like all right i got to get really really good at all the different entries right different positions and the different variations of tomonage so let's figure this out let me teach it to you guys before I teach it to the whole world on this video series, which you can get at judofanatics.com.

So that was kind of nice. And normally I wouldn't be able to teach Tomonage to a group that's mixed because you get a white belt that goes for Tomonage and the other guy falls on their head or falls on their shoulder. And it's very difficult to teach 35 diversified skill levels in the room

right to my age so i'm sure it's been done somewhere but now i just don't feel comfortable with it so i was able to teach something like that you know so that was nice nice yeah my brother my brother showed up he got vaccinated yeah he's been coming yeah so yeah he's great yeah so i guess also it's like a more dedicated group of people. So they're more motivated to learn and stuff. Definitely. And now people are rolling back. So I did kind of a soft opening because they raised capacity.

And they said, if you're vaccinated, you didn't have to be socially distant. We still wear masks and stuff. And I know people have their opinions about that. But I'm just trying to do the right thing in terms of like i hate you know whatever my political views are right yeah i'm gonna openly tell you how i feel about every you know political thing and getting a crazy thing but like they're the risk is real where the inspectors come and they walk in and if no one's wearing a mask they're gonna find you yeah and let me tell you something i don't want to get fined right right and yes you know

this uh altruistic thing of like protect others and protect this and yeah i get that too but if i'm running a business and you get too many fines and then you can't pay those fines your business is gonna go under so that's you know one of the driving factors too there's multiple factors right like i said i don't want to get too political i know where peter stands on you know i always like to tell people i'm in the middle uh always in the middle uh because you know dojo is not a place for me to rant about politics right right god damn tax this time yeah you're like right anyway so we're doing that and then we did sort of this soft opening and i was overwhelmed by the number of people who wanted to come. Nice.

Yeah. And it was almost even word of mouth. I didn't even send out a blast email or anything. Because I knew if I sent out a blast email, everyone would want to come back. I wouldn't be able to handle the volume. Right. So I opened it up for adult judo, not kids judo. Because kids judo, kids are vaccinated.

It's not defensible right right so if i play a little fast and loose there's many kids in there one key gets corona one kid's mask coming off and then it's not defensible at all right with adults it's like oh vaccines are strongly suggested right you know people are coming at their own will you know you guys know the risks right this is a thing that's ongoing for a very long time sign the waiver wear the mask do everything we can to keep everyone safe you got it you need the risk right right kids i can't really do that so i'm pushing off the kids program i don't know when i'm going to open it yet i'm still doing privates with the kids oh there's some right right right yeah and so for the adults it's like uh okay guys you know start coming back word of mouth boom

boom boom you know full room already so that was uh when did you do the soft opening the week and a half ago oh it's very recent yeah yeah i mean even before that we kind of had sort of this i told you like the little pod yeah yeah pod and yeah you know one at a time i was kind of inviting back people not even inviting back more so people would ask to come and i would yeah you know one at a time i was kind of inviting back people not even inviting back more so people would ask to come and i would say you know yes no maybe i see i say yes no maybe depending on the current that's particular situation then yeah depending on the matchups of the room really you know not whether i like the person or not it's like does this person have a person to train within the room right will this

person be a value add to the room right and i really wanted to keep that small pod you know right right yeah in the springtime right because we're not really allowed to do it right right so it was really for me to have bodies to work out with you know i wanted a righty in the room and a lefty in the room someone yeah you know someone I could just kind of hang out with too because that's my social outlet now. Right, right, right. I'm not going out and having beers. Yeah. Man.

Well, I guess it's slowly coming back. You would have definitely have been invited, Peter. I would have hounded you. Yeah, thank you. Your doctor wife would have been like, no, absolutely not. And I would have hounded you and hounded you. Well, yeah, I would have figured out you and hounded you well yeah i would

i would figure it out a way i would have sure i mean like i told you i showed a couplet honey i'm going to the library uh and why why are you all scratched up on your face and like honey uh i have a school project monday wednesdays and fridays at 7 p.m to 9 p.m yeah i have to bring my gi though i don't know it's about the mechanics of judo yeah yeah well that's good so it's uh are you so how is the practice like now like are you doing the usual monday wednesday friday nights or are you not yeah monday wednesday friday seven to eight beginner intermediate eight to nine beginners go home oh so it's back to normal yeah and eight to nine's all live nice right so seven to eight mostly drills mostly skills

technique context you know instruction and i like i always say i like to keep instruction on the three minutes three minutes so it's like you get five minutes of instruction essentially max and then you get time to drill it and then i give individualized feedback walking around the room we do nagakomi we do stuff like that now we do a little live nirwaza at the end because people want that live and then we have a little conditioning segment maybe like two or three minutes at the end where you go really really fast and hard nice nice whether it's like burpees or something right the randori side is good we have a nice crop of white belts i'm like it's more skewed toward the beginner right now oh okay yeah and i'm surprised oh interesting yeah brand new are coming through the door oh yesterday we had eight white belts on the map

really they're all yeah all brand new i'm at a point where i'm like man maybe i shouldn't take in new white belts oh because i want to give the opportunity for the old students to come back right they're coming back little by little and i'm actually surprised a lot of my brown and black belts haven't been back yet not that i reached out to them i you know i try not to like cross that boundary too too much right right right unless i do have a real relationship and people sometimes take the offense to that they're like how how come sasa never reaches out to me but you know yeah they do you know but it's like i try not to like blur those boundaries right right people have a home people have a wife they shouldn't feel pressured by me to like why aren't

you in practice like they shouldn't feel that right so i try not to cross that boundary then sometimes i'll be like man i really I really miss that guy Oleg. Come back to judo. I miss you, man. I miss you. Yeah, he hasn't been back yet. So he's a killer. He's an amazing Sasai guy.

Right. So hard to play. Crazy. Completely different style. Doesn't follow any of my rules. Rules like judo contextual rules, like the judo system. He completely invented his own system. He doesn't go out and grip he'll just put his hands out wherever he can and he'll whip you around and throw you society yeah sneakiest trickiest guy you know there's nobody like him

you know so i want him in the room i really want him in the room i see a lot of white belts are tough they're hungry i don't know what's going on they sat around for a year hoping to do judo or something and they're watching YouTube videos. A lot of these guys watch my videos. A lot of these guys listen to my podcast. It's crazy. Wow. So is that how they found out about judo?

Like, what are their stories? How did they decide to join right now? I mean, a lot of them, yeah. You know, we had a guy that's like, hey, man, I listen to your podcast. I listen to your thing about the dojo etiquette that's why i'm here right is this i do i bow you know my bound properly i'm like wow this guy really oh wow well that's good yeah that's good yeah yeah i was like blown away by that you know uh there's another guy's like i've been watching your youtube video for years and i was like here's a sort of gary here's a uchigari he's like you

said that in the five basic judo videos. I'm like, yeah, that's a video that I made, you know? And that's kind of cool. That's nice. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. So, you know, I think all this online presence stuff is starting to pay off, I guess.

Yeah. People are finding me and it's easier to find. And, you know, I think when people look for judo in the New York region, they're like, oh, I think I've seen that guy somewhere before. They make that connection. It's a lot easier to walk through the door because there's a level of familiarity there. Right, right.

Wow. Nice. These proper white belts are tough, too. Yeah. They're pretty tough. They're sticking around and doing all the... Yeah, they're sticking around and they're asking to be in the next class for the live rounds. They're asking. They're all asking, hey, can we class for the live rounds. They're asking.

They're all asking, hey, can we stay? Hey, can we stay? Can I do some Nwaza? And I'm kind of like, ah, you know, I don't know, man. Like, you might get injured. You know, the risk is high. Like, these guys want to kind of go hard. No, it's okay.

I want to go. I want to go. And I'm like, all right, you know, at your own risk. Tachibaza is like absolutely off the table. Like, no, you cannot do stand-up. Like, no way. You know,eter will break your leg who knows right now but like no it's a great it's great to be back in the room it's

great to be teaching a full room right right right yeah i gotta i gotta pay you guys a visit man you gotta come by man but i think i i i think we talked about this uh before but i think i have to do my own training here yeah because uh i have a target on my back now so definitely yeah people so i have to i have to coke michigan had another surge so we're i'm just waiting i mean i know i'm fully vaccinated now But I'm Kind of waiting Until Everything It's back to

The level I'm more comfortable with So hopefully I'll I'll get back to it And then You know Get my raw stuff Who's back in the room? Who?

Oshima's brother David? Daniel The older brother No Mike is the oldest Oh Mike is oldest oh i thought oh yeah yeah so like that's another huge value add in the room he moved to new york he wasn't he moved to new york boston yeah or something yeah he moved to new york he was in san francisco he moved to new york now

we have a new black belt in the room and that's amazing because he's also on the slightly lighter side right oh you can work out with yeah youIn, who's like, he's throwing down. Some of our black belts who've come back, man, they are really going at it, going hard. Nice. We just need more brown and black belts back in the room so they can kind of feed off each other and build rivalries and make each other better. That's what really it's all about. And the white belts are nice. I appreciate yeah but it's different right right the eight to nine p.m we just spend the whole hour just doing life like that that's where it's at you know how

it is yeah and when that's light and when that then there's gaps and it's like 30 minutes in and it's like mat three and four are open yeah it's like come on guys right because come on if they're we need you back the brown and black belts get in here yeah well hopefully now the war is out so people will come back yeah yeah we had a guy reach out to me too he's like hey i did judo in canada you know amazing i saw you online or whatever i'm gonna come by he goes hey do you have anybody competitive for me to work out with and i was like i don't know how good are you dang he's lightweight he competed as a junior so it's okay yeah yeah you know i could definitely work out with that guy yeah right so i'll work out because i don't like throwing my weight around

against lightweight right right right so he could come in there's a lot of lightweights for now we have daniel with he and drew's back oh yeah drew told me so we do have black belts in the room yeah which is good but we're still missing a lot of them so the i guess uh you you gotta build back you gotta invite back your black belts again you need your new enforcers and whatnot yeah we don't really have any enforcers right now that's the thing right okay if you look back in time it's like we had terrazzo yeah girl it's with you yeah you know and there's always sort of this pipeline whenever someone new comes into the room it's like okay let's see where you

are and then i could see them working out and be like okay you're here level here right let's have you work out and do randori with this person granted that they're capable of doing right and then okay how well they do there okay so you know what you could go with this person now and they take that person down pick them apart okay so let's see now we can sort of go up the pipeline of like how many people can they right take out in the room and you know i don't try to get too competitive with anybody anymore. I used to be, like, really competitive about, like, really meaningless stuff. Right. Right?

Like beer pong. I flip it there. Yeah. But, like, now it's like I don't really. But, you know, you always want your top black belt to represent your school well. Right, right. And that's sort of the enforcer role. Right, right. And that's sort of the enforcer role. Right.

Right. So. We get there. With the beauty of judo and BJJ integration. Yeah. Because we have a lot of BJJ guys in the room. Nice. Nice.

Even if there's a stand-up monster where the judo guy is a freak. Yeah. And they're unbelievable on their feet. We always have an unbelievable Brazilian jiu-jitsu guy in the room too. Right. Right. They can hold it down and uh on the ground yeah right now we have this guy joe he's a brown belt but he's a very good brown belt

like it's like oh bjj brown belt yeah oh nice judo green belt he's great okay funny he's in new york to be a comedian so like he's kind of a nirvana enforcer like he's already sort of you know inadvertently taken on that role a nice even like uh this week we had probably like five or six bj guys who are first time judo people coming in like yeah i do bjj uh oh nice great yeah great that's good so all right let's do nirwaza live and they're like oh this is my domain i'm like okay you go with joe and joe's wearing a judo gi with a judo green belt nice nice you know and i don't know what belt they are in bjj right oh they may be sandbagging it sometimes i ask yeah but then you know joe too is like oh hey

nice to meet you you know and he's got a sandbag in it too because he's like oh just like a judo green belt in here and then he has his real game and it's amazing that's funny right yeah and even if you get a top-level judoka, they're going to struggle on the ground with these top-level BJJ guys. Of course. Not top-level, but good BJJ guys. So it's like, you want a Nehwaza enforcer and a Tachiwaza enforcer, and that's why Gurlitz was so great.

Because he was good at both. Yeah, he wrestled or something. He took seventh at nationals in judo or fifth he took fifth right or uh when we went together i think he was either fifth or seventh yeah yeah i think he took fifth at nationals so he's very good judo did his whole life he's a bjj brown belt like he's just amazing at standing in ground so like that was kind of uh you know and you you you're getting amazing you're getting better at uh on the ground too you said yeah brian yeah yeah yeah so you were the enforcer you were gone now it's like

all right who's realistically the enforcer now and yeah it's george george is a young showdown black nice nice but i'll tell you the thing about george is that he's so big and strong yeah that he's just so intimidating most people look at him they're like i gotta work out with that guy the hercules hercules and he's very smooth and he's slick on his feet yeah so like he give him like two years and i think you know people are gonna have a he's not gonna be yeah he's gonna be very very good give him two years and he's gonna be be unbelievably good, given that he stays healthy. Right, right. And you guys know George. He's in so many of my YouTube videos.

You guys seen him online. Yeah. He's a monster. He's a great guy, too. Oh, man, he's a great guy. Everyone loves him on YouTube, too. Everyone loves him. Yeah.

I've never heard one bad thing about George, seriously, in my entire life. Yeah. And he's been around for a while. So he's sort of an enforcer right now. Cla clapper kind of tweaked his knee oh no yeah yeah i know this is like very uninteresting to a lot of people i feel like i know we're just like catching up yeah it's like yeah catching up about stuff very like personal to us but you know i think people could relate too because there's always an enforcer at the right yeah you know and there's

always the guy that's been around for 15 years who's very good. Yeah. But never competed. I know. Outside of the dojo knows. Right? I'm talking about Clapper. Yeah.

Clapper is good. Yeah. Clapper is... And he's great, man. He drills everything right. Yeah. And if he gets outgripped, he'll just switch to left, which is like a huge no-no. Right?

You're not supposed to do that. But he does. Yeah. And he's just been doing that. He has some stuff on the on the left over now he's pretty good on the left yeah yeah he comes out there yeah he may go right he may go left so like it confuses a lot of people so like a good competitive judoka will come in and they know the rule of like okay you want to turn to one side most of the time because you want to develop here. And Clapper doesn't follow those rules.

And the guy's like, is this guy right or left? Or is he like getting outgripped and switching to left? Like, what the hell is going on here? Yeah. It's like, good for me. Like, I'm going to bomb him now, but his weak side is not that weak. Like, they're almost equally good,

his right side and his left side. And he's sticky with his feet. You need guys like that in the room. Yeah. A black belt that can work out with anybody. Right. That's huge. Like Eugene, Clapper.

Yeah. Eugene's great. Yeah. He's been bad, right? Yeah. He's great. You need like a slew. You need a variety, right? Through all the different weight.

I could go with any heavyweight that walks into the room. We had an Olympian from Morocco. He was like 300 pounds, 6'7". I could work out with him. You know, even though I'm, you know, very short and stocky and with hobbit legs, but I could still work out with him. You know, like give him a run for his money. You know, George is a big guy. Luca is a big guy.

Right. The midweights are kind of covered. You know, Clapper is a middleweight. You know, Eugene is sort of on the lighter side. Right, right. Drew, he in middleweight. You know, now we have Oshima who's slightly on the lighter. Right.

You know, so we need, you know, all the different black belts through the weight class. So if anybody comes, they have somebody to work with. Right. And you need a nice healthy balance between right-sided athletes and left-sided athletes. Ah. Right.

What we're lacking kind of is the drop Sayonara person. We don't really have that many droppers. Maybe my brother. Actually, he doesn't drop actually that much no and i think he still figured out his uh system too you know because yeah some people takes them a little while to figure out their system and style and then it's very exciting to be back in the room to see everybody do judo you know that's one of the biggest takeaways for me is like seeing people work hard train and do something completely innovative right in a sport that i've you know been in my entire life right right you know like

greg is doing this weird thing he's like he goes he points an agi instead of going coachy to the right leg he like spins he points an agi over all the way and then gets coachy to the backside leg oh to the backside leg yeah man so he got like two coaches he goes coachy to the backside leg. Yeah, man. So he got like two coaches. He goes, coach you to the right, coach you to the left. Ippon said, I get to the right. And he goes, coach you both feet.

Ippon said, I get to the left. And he goes, coach you both feet. It's like really weird and sticky and it's kind of like, I feel a little bit uncomfortable. I've never seen that. I've never seen it before in my life.

Yeah. Usually they just go, Ippon say on the leg and they go through the same leg. But you're saying he goes to the other leg. He almost over-rotates with no intention of throwing Ippon Seinagi. And then goes Koji to the backside foot.

And he does that both sides kind of now. And I was working out with him. And I was really uncomfortable. It was almost like, what is this guy doing? But I might get caught with this. Right. Because if you have never seen it before. Yeah.

So it's like, no matter how I try to defend the Ippon Senagi, he might catch me with one of these eventually. It's like, no, you're unsettling. And then that makes his Ippon Senagi better. Yeah. Because I'm less likely to step around it because I'm kind of like, I don't know which coach he's coming. That's cool.

I was like, he made me feel like that in the first 45 seconds. I was like, you know what? Let me just good position, post on the lapel. Over the back in the lapel and then kind of like posting him out, moving out here, doing my, you know, pulling his head down and then going for big horizon stuff. That's what I was kind of, i just decided to do that nice i should engage with it a little bit and then kind of let him try to catch me you know not catch me but like so i could feel it out yeah so how to actually live in that yeah and then maybe it's something i could copy yeah maybe make a video and maybe have yeah yeah he said something so interesting the other day he's like you know not as many lefties in this world yeah and when you fight a lefty i know

you're supposed to fight as a righty but if you fight a lefty as a lefty yeah lefties hate lefties too it's gonna probably confuse them and then he was going out there fighting as a lefty against the lefty and he was confusing everybody. What are you doing? Eugene told me that's why he became a lefty player. Because he's not left-handed. Yeah. Usually.

He just picked the left side. So that's a strategy. I love how innovative he is. One day he's going to settle on to something that integrates really well. And it's going to be like two or three things that not a lot of people do that work super well together. He's going to throw everybody with. Right. Start teaching it and it's going to catch on.

Nice. The correct system. And then it's going to be, yeah, it's going to be a DVD. Yeah, that would be cool. So very exciting, man, being back in the room and having a lot of familiar faces people coming back you know and i had some people say to me like hey man i'm so sorry like i didn't come during this time or like i didn't reach out during this time it's okay it really is okay man right we all dealt with it in their own way we all took a step back and you know some of us lost their jobs some of us right worried about the business and i'm sure people think that too it's like shintaro

didn't reach out to me during this time you know screw him right but like during this time like i was worried about losing both my dojos right i was worried about a lot of things and i was like you know what i'm just not even gonna think about and just hang out my kid you know and that's how i spent my time so it's like i'm not apologizing for that you know yeah yeah that's same way man like whatever you went through know, we're our doors are open. Come back. Come see me. Right.

You know, and don't take it personally if I didn't reach out during that time. I won't take it personally either. You know, reset button. Yeah. Yeah. Reset button. Yeah. Come back in.

Do some judo. It's all good. Right. That's kind of my. Yeah. Mentality kind of going forward. You know, how are things in nations? Yeah. Go ahead. Do some judo. It's all good. That's kind of my mentality kind of going forward. How are things in Kano?

You mentioned the other dojo. You've gone there recently too now, right? Yeah, I went recently. I can't go and teach the evening classes now because it's like I can't teach six days a week. Right, right, right. And now that I've spent time with my daughter for a full year essentially every single day it's like i kind of don't want to teach right six days a week and that's the problem with the dojo business you give up your evening time yeah what yeah because that's the time for dinner right and it's nice if you're going twice a week three times a week it's like oh it's you know oh you know honey i'm just gonna go to judo today and you know right some steam you

know it's wednesday i had a hard week at work or whatever you know i want to start off the week right i want to end the week right whatever right but for the working side person who's consistently out of their house during those times you know it kind of wears on you because like yeah it's the opposite you live in the opposite life you're living in like the upside down yeah much stranger things but you're living from the upside down yeah you know it's like when your kid gets old enough to go to school yeah you were uh i i i i haven't dressed as 11 for a hot for halloween yeah yeah that was a very special costume i wasn't the only all a lot of a lot of a lot of men did that I remember I keep telling yourself that when your kids old enough to go to school and it's like 9 to 3 or 4 p.m. they have after they come home at 5 and that's when

your time you have to go and work your That's when you start clocking in. So then you work out and you're there until 10 p.m. You miss out on a big chunk of time with your kid. You do that Monday through Friday. You barely see your kids because they go to bed and go to school. What do you have? Saturday and Sundays. Now all of a sudden you're forced to go to these judo tournaments

and you're away half the time at these weekends. That's not the way to live unless your kid does judo right so what are you gonna do force your kid to do judo that ain't they hate you and i know you and they hate judo and they you know like do everything opposite of what they teach in the club you know like that's horrible yeah so you know it's a balancing act and it's like i told those guys too it's like i can't be here i will support you guys in every way. I'll be here as much as I can. Right, right. Especially when things start to settle down.

When KBI is staffed to where I can leave on a Wednesday and then dip down there. Yeah. Right? I would love to do that. I want to be involved down there too. But that day is coming. That day is coming. It's just not right now.

Right. I mean, you just opened back up a week and a half ago yeah you know and it's going well down there man it's like i'm rooting for them and i see the instagram video and i yeah me too just gary st leisure man yeah i trust him i've known him since i was eight years old right seven years old and we competed together and we've been through some stuff together yeah i mean a lot of life milestones we were on teams so it's like i have faith in that he's going to run the place properly yeah he's a great teacher yeah and we spent the whole first year of the business together so like he learned a lot from me and you know he's he's good he's ready to go so it's like i don't need

to be there right it's his show and i told him from the beginning it's like hey man this is your show this is your dojo you're the owner operator. You're the owner-operator. I'm an owner too, but you're the owner-operator. I'm here to support. I'm here to show my face. I'll teach classes every now and then. And they're his students. You know what I mean? Yeah.

It's going well. It's going well. Rent's a little bit higher down there. Mid-town. Yeah. Mid-town, you know, one block away from train station on 28th street yeah i'm prime real estate right across the street from fit i mean right yeah i can't even beat it you know in terms of location right you know yeah that's all people call me up and say like hey sensei i

really want to learn on the air but you know it's too far it's closer kano's the most convenient train stop ever yeah i might go to kano then yeah that's fine you know i'm involved there too i'll see you down there every now and then right right you know and i've done that a bunch of times and you know so it's going well good yeah because gary also has you know his group of students and he'll probably he'll soon and they'll become black belts and he'll have his own enforcers homegrown enforcers that's right and we want to do a little bit more integrated we used to do open mats down there right right right like we used to do these cross open mats which were amazing you know it's at the 40 people in the room and handsome guys

will come to like bjj guys will show up a lot of bjj guys down there a lot of marcello guys right now actually oh really oh marcello black belt in the room there oh nice and gary's a little bit more connected in the bjj community than i am because he's a bjj black belt himself and yeah so you know he has networks networks of people so they all come see him they all come train with them right people who want to learn judo so it's a different crowd down there down there too but it's really nice mix man we really want to try to integrate those two communities soon yeah you know but i can't do that yet right that yet i don't know how yet yeah i mean we're only a transitional way yeah so we're gonna eventually be able to connect yeah and that that's the goal that's's the dream. Yeah. Maybe do an inter-club tournament. Oh, that would be fun.

That would be fun. I'll fly down to watch that. That'll be amazing, right? Can you imagine? We live stream it? Yeah. Oh, man. There'll be some content.

Well, seems like, you know, things are opening up and, you know, it's coming back to life. The, you know, the new normal, whatever. Yep. But hopefully this trend will continue. Hopefully more people get vaccinated so we can get back to what we love to do, judo. Judo, yeah, we love doing judo. Whatever our political beliefs may be, we're not trying to push that on anybody right peter what did i say yeah peter likes to preach from the beach oh i don't got no beach i don't have any beach

yeah anyway it was so um any closing remarks? Nope. Well, good. That's it. Thank you guys for watching my video. If you're watching it on YouTube, thank you guys for listening to this podcast. Thank you, everybody, for being part of the judo community and caring about what we do.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So thanks for listening and stay tuned for the next episode.