The Shintaro Higashi Show - Everyday Judoka - An Interview with Jimmy Pedro

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

In this special episode sponsored by FUJI Sports, Shintaro sits down with Jimmy Pedro to discuss the most important demographic in Judo—the everyday Judoka. Jimmy goes into detail about how hobbyists, everyday Judokas, can get the most out of Judo, and what the broader Judo community can do to help them succeed. Check out American Judo System for valuable resources for the everyday Judoka! Join our Discord server and start chatting with us and other grapplers by supporting us on Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Any amount helps!

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. Today we have a very special guest, Jimmy Pedro. Thank you for being here. My pleasure, Shintaro. Yeah, everyone knows Jimmy, but first and foremost, thank you to our sponsors. We have Jason Levon, also JudoTV. You could use discount code SHINTARO for 10% off. And this entire episode series with Jimmy Pedro, who is owner of Fuji Mats, Fuji Gear, all this stuff. Fuji Sports is also in the game. Also, discount code Shintaro. For those of you who don't know, Jimmy is probably one of the most

decorated Olympians slash judokas in the history of the United States. So thank you very much, Jimmy, for being on here. Awesome. Pleasure to be here today, Shintaro. I'm excited about the conversation and to talk to your audience awesome so first and foremost you are known for this super diligent work ethic olympian world champion producing travis and kayla and all these uh american youths to be you know current in the ijf circuit uh but i want to talk a little bit more about like the everyday judoka the majority of guys who who are listening to the podcast aren't going to be Olympians, aren't trying to make an Olympic team.

We'd like to think that they are, but the majority of us are hobbyists who listen in. So I want to take it from the top. What is your definition of judo? Definition of judo. It's the vehicle that we use and that we train in that helps change people's lives forever. It made me who I am, right? So regardless of the accomplishments that are made in the sport, whether national champion, world team member, Olympic team member, or just everyday judoka, we know that there are inherent benefits from anybody who sticks with the sport more than a year or two, right? So if you're a judoka for life, then you sort of have certain behavior. You have an affinity towards Japan and learning Asian culture. You have, you know, obviously been disciplined enough to come to judo practice, whether it's for fun,

recreation, whatever. You found a level of interest and excitement in judo because it trains your mind and your body. And it helps make you a better person, right? Because you're respectful when you walk in the dojo, you're respectful to the other people, you're learning a martial art, which is different for everybody, right? It's not something that we're born to do. It's something that takes a lot of time, energy and effort to perfect. So we're putting ourselves to test of time, energy, and effort to perfect. So we're putting ourselves to test every day, trying to learn and make our bodies move in different ways. We're getting physically stronger. We're getting mentally tougher. We're getting in shape. We're losing weight. We're feeling good. We're a sense of a community. And at the end of the day, for the kids, it helps them become better athletes. It becomes,

you know, that gives them more confidence. They don't get picked on in school as much. They're able to focus a little bit more, work towards their goals, but most importantly, they become good people. And I think that that's really, really important to understand is that, you know, anybody who does the sport long-term, it definitely gives them those tools that'll help them succeed in life. Wow. That's a great answer. So do you find judo fun or do you still train sometimes? Like, what are the most enjoyable parts of judo for you specifically? Like, did you like training, gripping, figuring stuff out, watching judo? Like, do you love those things? Well, so for me, it was a goal, right? My goal was to make the Olympic team. That was my first

goal in the sport is, you know, once I was national champion, it was to make the Olympic team and be the first ever from my school, be one of my father's students to ever make the Olympic team. So for me, it was a chore. It was a challenge. It was a goal. It was something that I worked really, really hard for. But at the same time, I didn't love it all the time. You know, it was, it was difficult and I had to push myself all the time but once i had success i loved the feeling of success i love that accomplishment of that goal and so once i made my first olympic team and i didn't medal my goal became i've got a medal in the olympics and that became my next goal then it was okay i took a medal. I want to win a gold medal. And, you know, it was always pushing that goal to the next level.

And I was chasing that dream of being number one in the world in the sport. And I did that once in 99, and it was the best feeling in the world. When you accomplish your lifelong goal, like, there's nothing better, you know, than doing that. So that was my mission. That was my goal. But what makes it fun um i love the time on the road with the guys i love being with the team it wasn't necessarily the competitions it was training in japan and having unique experiences going to the police dojo in the

morning having some lunch at a sushi joint or a ramen noodle shop it was coming back and watching a movie with the guys or playing cards, you know, at all hours of the night. And it was going to venture out in Japan and, you know, see the sites and go shopping at the Mizuno store or Okachimachi to buy the cheap stuff at the flea markets. Yeah, it was really the bonding with the guys is what I remember the most. It was the most fun. And I can tell you that the most fun I ever had in my life competing in the sport of judo was when i was on tsv abinsburg's uh german that german team that protein was really fun fighting in the team tournaments because you fly all the way from the united states to germany or to paris or to russia or wherever it was for one match i only fight against one guy yeah but

we'd have a seven-man team and it was our team against their team and being a professional in the sport was that was a lot of fun being part of that team let's talk a little bit about that because a lot of listeners don't know that uh the tsv absenberg the judo pro league right so can you tell us a little bit more about that judo pro league yeah so so every i would say every team but a lot of the countries have a professional team and they or they have a club that's sponsored by a bunch of individuals. And their goal is to make their team the strongest and best possible to go win their national championships. And once they win their national championships, they qualify for the European Cup, which is the best team in all of Europe.

And all these teams pick players from around the world, you know, and ask them, hey, will you compete for our team? For me, it happened to be TSV Habsburg, which is a German team. And at the time, they were one of the best teams in Europe. But our team was made up of world champions, Olympic medalists, you know, from Hungary, from Greece, Iliadis was on the team. Nice. Nuno Delgado from Portugal. We had guys from Estonia, Spain. Didn't matter. They got a bunch of the best guys in the world.

They represented Germany and we competed against, you know, a team from Russia or a team from Romania. And every year they'd have a word, a European club cup and the best team in Europe would fight team against team until there's a champion. So was there like a season? Like it'll be like March to June, like every month that you would have one competition and like a win-loss record, this and that?

Or like, what would it be like the NBA here? Or what would the... Yeah, so each national federation was a little bit different. But in Germany, they have a Bundesliga, which is the German league. And each team in Germany, there's probably 20 teams, I'd say, in Germany. And they all compete in a season competition. And so they compete. And then the big people with the best records,

they get to go to the semifinals and the finals. So it's the best four teams in Germany compete head-to-head, bracket and tournament. When you win the national championship, you then qualify to go to the European Club Cup, which is usually the end of the year, sometime in December. They'll bring all the best teams in Europe together and they'll compete for the European title. Nice. That sounds so fun. That was awesome. You know, we'd fly all the way to Romania for one team match, stay in a hotel. These guys love to have fun after the tournament. It was all about enjoying yourself

and having a lot of fun. Man, I made friends for life. Yes, for sure. And that team camaraderie stuff, that goes a long way. I know a lot of our guys who don't compete at that international stage, but even the regional tournament,

everyone gets in a car, go to the Pedro Cup or something like that, that car ride up there, then having dinner afterwards. That's really the fun thing that most people can do right right it's the bonding that's the that's the thing that makes judo fun it keeps people in the sport is when you do things together with your team those are the memories that last a lifetime those are the friendships that last a lifetime as well you know and i i do encourage you don't you don't necessarily have to

compete at the highest level to really enjoy the sport. You don't have to compete at all for that matter. But if you want to challenge yourself and compete, then go to some local tournaments and go with a group of guys and make it a fun thing that you do socially. Make sure to spend the night overnight at the place and the next day go sightseeing and have some fun. Definitely. So what do you think about the guys like let's just say what percent of your dojo competes like in competition do you very few so i have i have over 300 uh judo players at my dojo i say judo players i'm including like kids that are four five six years old yeah all the way up to guys that are

in their 70s right yeah of those 300 judo players at my school i probably have about 25 that actually compete the rest of them are recreational they come twice a week maybe three times you know they're on path to become a black belt in the sport right if they they come consistently for a period of whatever six years or eight years whatever it takes to get there they're on path to become a black belt um and even starting at the young age as we go from white belt all the way up to like a high level purple which i consider like a junior level black belt um people stay in the sport twice a week learn have fun they don't have to compete to get it to get that rank they just have to prove that they can do the techniques that they know the names and you know they can do it with proficiency yes so there's a non-competitor path in your gym absolutely yes yeah but they have so if they want

to get become a black belt without competing then they have to give back in another area they either have to learn how to become a teacher and assist assist with the classes and and help the other kids as they're and they get up in front of the class and they'll actually lead the class and teach with the head instructor watching, giving feedback on how to make the technique better or what they could have done better to teach the technique to the kids. Or they have to learn to referee or volunteer in events

and learn the scoring system and the bracket system. They have to know more than just techniques to become black belt, right? Because it's about having knowledge and helping them. Yeah. And I think your dojo is sort of on the high end of percentage of competitors i always say like five to ten percent and if you have 25 guys in a 300 person dojo that's like close to 10 percent you know so how can the 90 percent of guys 90 to 95 percent of guys who are going to dojo learning

judo who are probably majority of the listeners here or the majority of guys watching YouTube and watching my judo channel and your channel too, where can they find the fun in judo if they're not going out to competitions from a day-to-day perspective? I think it's about challenging yourself. I think it's about learning new stuff. You know, I highly recommend you seek a dojo that's very technical

or that puts a lot of emphasis on teaching the sport and teaching the movements of the sport as opposed to teaching people how to be competitors and how to randori i think people have fun when it's social so yeah for example what i do at my academy for the for the students is i don't make anybody randori right so we go to that we go to practice 45 minutes to an hour it's learning it's doing some exercises and warming up it's learning some new technique you know for that month we've got certain techniques that we teach that month and it goes in progression right we learn the basic stuff then we learn the intermediate then we evolve to the advanced we go on to another technique but all of what they're doing and they're learning is they're drilling they're

doing uchikomis they're doing repetitions they're doing moving uchikomis they're they're getting a great workout and they're learning the skills but they're not doing it in a combat way they don't have to do the randori training to get better at the sport and i think that takes out an element of of risk it takes out an element of people that are scared to randori might get hurt and have to go to work the next day they don't want to take that risk but if you make the class where it's just all about exercise fitness learning the movements learning the techniques they get a great workout they leave exhausted yeah yet they didn't have any element of uncertainty where they might get injured you know and leave the leave the randori as optional have couple nights, have a couple of Randori nights at the school that people want a Randori

can come and Randori when they want to, but it's not mandatory as part of every class. Nice. That's amazing. I think that's huge, you know, and I would have expected a different answer from you. Everybody's got to do Randori. Everybody's got to do, but I love that. I love that. You know, is this kind of a new way of thinking for you? It is. It's, I've been doing it for quite a few years now, so it's not new. And I think that's why our recreational adult program, we have 30, 35 guys on the mat every night from white belt to like green belt that are enjoying themselves there. It's a chance to interact. It's more social. It's not hardcore bow bow in don't ever talk during practice sometimes you put on music it's more of a relaxed atmosphere and it's and it's fun you know and then

they talk about what they're learning and they help each other and yeah it's a much better experience i think inside the dojo than running it like an academy that's you know geared towards competition yeah so what about like uh if i were to ask you who is some of the most inspirational guys for you that you know don't compete at a very high level who are at your gym day to day like who are those guys like if you were to you don't have to say names or anything you can if you want you know give the guy props like what sort of profiles do you have in the gym that are like hey this guy you know well my guy so you know i i've had some that have competed at a high level. But what I'm most important of is the pursuit.

You know, the pursuit of excellence that they had. And it wasn't just in sport, but in their life. Like a lot of them went on to become, you know, lawyers. They became doctors. They become district attorneys. They become, you know, chiefs of police departments. These guys have gone on to have successful careers. And a lot of it

they when they say that sensei it was attributed to my what you taught me on the mat helped me i could do anything because i went through your judo training in your academy i felt like i could do anything i had that confidence in myself to go on to do bigger and better things and that's right you know i brought into that message of use your mind to see what it is you want to, you want to do in your life, set your goals, and then don't, don't settle for anything less than following through and challenging yourself to get there every day. You know, and so, you know, I've had some people have gone graduated from MIT, go on and get their PhD. They're working in Washington DC now,C. now. Maybe the kid walked in my door and he was either autistic

or he had Asperger's or they had some sort of disability, we'll say, but they became super successful people. Those are the success stories that are far greater than the Olympic champions. I have dozens of those.

Yeah. Once they get through that system, they have successful lives, they learn fitness and all this stuff, and they go through your system right they have successful lives they learn the fitness and all the stuff and they go through your system and now they're black belts what's left for them you know let's say like we talked a little bit about like 30 to 40 black belt judoka all right what keeps them coming back and you know it's true like a lot of gyms lose these guys and i feel like these are the most valuable guys because they spent so much time judo they have so much

information to share to the people like how do we keep those guys you think so it's making them feel part of the community right and i think what i've done is i've created an opportunity for all of them to give back and help at the dojo so i have guys like john silva i don't know if you remember john silva john silva is a black belt of mine we have a steve rumberg we have george pacificis we have norm wiser we have a lot of people that that became black belts and that their training or their judo careers didn't end then they still come back and they help and what i do is i i have instructor training programs where once a month we get together and we learn the techniques and how i want them taught at the academy and it continues learning, but it makes them feel part of that community.

And then they also, they come up and they help teach the classes because they know what Judo did for them. And like once a week, twice a week, they want to give back. So give them an opportunity to teach the younger generation, like the lessons that they learned. And they just pass it on to the next generation. And so all of those people are now teaching at my academy. But they're teaching and leading their own classes. They get a sense of pride. They have a sense of self-worth.

And they're actually like, I use that as a way to help them get their second degree black belt or their third degree black belt. Keep them in the sport. Allow them to go to the local competitions and help the kids that are coming out of their classes that coming out of their classes that want to compete and it's making them just continue to feel a part of the community and it doesn't necessarily mean they have to come and do a hard randori's anymore true true do you think there's a place for a competition to like have them showcase some of their techniques like i always talk about like a technique demonstration division like taekwondo does you know taekwondo has one little segment where they do sparring but that's like three percent of the whole tournament everyone does like demonstration boards kata all this other stuff do you think there's a place in judo for that or is that

something that you're like no it's something it's something that the at the american judo system which is a program that travis and i have have founded we have talked about, even for kids, having a division of kata, but not necessarily kata in the sense that you know it, where you have to do this prearranged sets of movements in a specific way, but more think about it as if I was a white belt and I was just about to get my yellow. And the three throws that I know are like ogoshi and koshi gruma and ipon senagi. Why couldn't we have two young kids come out bow in each person demonstrates how to do a proper like Ippon Sanagi they actually

throw their opponent they get back up they each do one technique each and then they get graded on that and you would actually like a white belt division or a green belt division and obviously the higher belt you are the more proficient we expect you to be but it would be a competition where they'd actually demonstrate a set a set of techniques just to see how clean the technique was and you know the the position that they entered in and the control they had with the movement and actually have testing on that and competitions on that yeah i would love to see that in the black belt division, like a one minute freestyle back and forth where you're demonstrating skills. You know, for instance, like one of the things that I still teach to this day, what you do

is when you put your left hand on the collar first and you close the window and as they loop their hand back around to grab the collar, you close it, reach for that far sleeve, you shuffle step. And then when they go over to re-grab the collar, you do a two-step tie-up. You know that sequence that you do? Yeah, I do. Yeah. Yeah. but like you could teach it and majority of the guys can't do it but they can work on it over and over and then they could demonstrate it right so like doing that in like the freestyle thing hey this is the jimmy pedro tile entry you know etc etc something like that might be really are you surprised i knew that i remember that yeah yeah i've been hit with that so many times i was training with these though it's just like never really uh so like something like that

might be great for guys like george pessimistic so the black belts who give back to the community to be able to showcase some of their skills like the unique ways they set up throws and i think that's something that i would like to be involved with too you know one day what do you think about that i think that like doing like a figure think about like figure skating for a second right yeah well they do a short program they do a long program so you figure out how long it's a two minute three minute whatever it is and it's an opportunity to to music with upbeat stuff think about like a flying ukemi demonstration with combined with some self-defense skills and you give you give points based on creativity level of technique you know originality and you'd say okay this guy did that was amazing and i bet you you'd see some pretty creative

things being done in the sport which would really entertain the people in the audience or that you'd get more eyeballs on that than you do on the regular competition oh 100% yeah and then you know you instagram it clip it put it on reels people like the aesthetics of it if there's colors music lights whatever it is you know it's you can kind of control a lot of those factors more as opposed to the competition there's just one big throw no one knows what exactly happened right right so there's way more drama to it when you bring up when you bring music into it it brings that element of drama and you can hear like the drum beat building up to the big throw and yeah they'll be all choreographed it would be amazing

yeah that'd be really cool so with the american judo system like what is that about a lot of us don't know about it you know now when you sign up for usa judo membership you automatically get an american judo system membership. One-year membership. I didn't even know about that, right? I know. It's a problem. Nobody knows about it, but it exists.

So every single person, when they renew their United States USA Judo membership, they pay $100. That $100 payment, in addition know the secondary insurance and the opportunity to compete in events it also gives you a free annual subscription to the AmericanJudo.com platform yeah you get access to all of the techniques that I've done Travis we have Colton Brown we have Israel Hernandez all teaching the basic shadow movement of the technique with no partner all the way from beginner to advanced level combinations yeah of every judo technique that we've shot so far so sayanagi taiotoshi uchimata ochigari you know all of those techniques exist on how to do it by yourself how to do it with uh uchikomi bands and how to do it with your partner proper movement proper naikikomi

everything in addition to a bunch of newaza sequences that we've put on there we have live classes every month where people can actually tune in live ask questions we answer the questions for you yeah um it's all free as part of a usa judo membership yeah you get it for one full year yeah subscription to American Judo. So all the people who are listening now who have USA Judo memberships, they probably have it already, right? How do they access it? Do they just go to AmericanJudo.com?

No, so they go through USA Judo, their website, they're at the membership on the USA Judo platform. There'll be a link to the American Judo and it's a single sign-on. So much like Google, we have a single sign-on, username, password, that gives you access to the American Judo, and it's a single sign-on. So much like Google, we have a single sign-on, username, password.

That gives you access to the American Judo platform. Nice, nice. That's awesome. They can watch all the videos. They can ask questions. We have live coaching sessions. We have live technique sessions, and we have live classes that we do every month.

Wow. And if they're in need of geese, they can go to Fujisports.com and use Discount Coach Intaro for 10% for 10 off absolutely we'd love them to come that's another one the best destination in the united states for all your judo geese we got fuji we got mizuno we got nippon gear you name it we have it online yeah so you are definitely involved with fuji can you tell us a little bit more about that because this whole thing is sponsored by Fuji now. And we're doing a four-part series with you.

You know, if you guys have requests, you could always reach out to me. I want to hear Jimmy talk about this and that, right? What his favorite food is, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, tell us a little bit about Fuji. I was originally a sponsored athlete, right? So when I was in the Olympics, I loved the Mizuno Judo Gis. Leah Hatashta, who is the owner of Harashita Sports and Fuji Sports, she brought me on as a brand ambassador. She gave me my Judo Gis that I competed around the world in. After I got done

my competitive years, I did a lot of seminars. I went around the country, you know, teaching Judo. A lot of people would ask me hey where can I get judo keys I'd always refer them to Leah and go to how to sheet of sports and go get the judo keys then her and I became sort of official a professional relationship where she actually like hey I want to hire you to you know help help me grow my sales help me strategize the company etc I in addition to passing all the leads to her, I started helping her develop her website and develop the brand Fuji as a separate entity from Mizuno and separate from Harashida. So Fuji became our main brand. And ever since then,

I've slowly taken on more and more responsibility with the company to the point now where I own 50% of the company. Leah's a 50% owner. Together, we share in with the company to the point now where I own 50% of the company. Leah's a 50% owner. Together, we share in all the responsibilities to grow the brand. And right now, we are the number one destination for judo geese and judo apparel in the country. We're also the official sponsor of USA Judo. But we also give back to the sport, and we help sponsor all of our top athletes. We have Jack Inesco, Angelica Delgado, Colton Brown,

Donis Diaz, Maria Laborde. Everybody that needs Gies pretty much comes to us, and we help those athletes outfit them. They represent the brand. And it's a good way of giving back to the community. Yes, definitely. So discount code CHENTARO. Go check it out.

All right, let's bring it back just a little bit from the old guy judo, from 30 to 40, to youth judo. Because you said on a separate occasion that youth is where we lose a lot of kids as well. To baseball, soccer, cheerleading. Who knows what they're doing, the youth these days. But how do we keep those guys? That's a really great question, Shintaro. I mean, first of all, we start now at my school younger than ever.

So my daughter Casey, she went to business school um she developed her own program called crawl crawl martial arts nice to do with confidence and respect and it's meant it's meant for toddlers so she does a toddler program and it starts the kids at like age two so the parents the parents actually come on the mat with the kid on a sunday. It's like a 40-minute class. They do all these exercises. They use a teddy bear to learn the judo. The parent assists in the classes. They learn all the basic skills, right, bowing, kneeling, seiza, anza,

some basic judo throws, hold downs. The parents get involved and help out. It's all station-based, so they spend a certain amount of time at each station learning a different skill, and then they go on their way but most importantly they're taught to respect the bear you know their teddy bear that they train with wow they have to listen and pay attention kid-friendly music that's that yeah we start them young when you start them young they tend to stay in the sport because by the time they're four or five years old they have a good background the parents as well this this is really changing my kid's life she's paying more attention or she's paying more attention she's listening to my instructions

she's getting some exercise so they end up going into our little kid program yeah so it becomes a feeder for our kids program then five six year old we call our tiny tigers they get a special gi with a tiger on it now they're doing the class without the parent yeah you know they're starting to train and practice with other kids it's great for socialization etc but the main thing with keeping kids is making sure that they're succeeding i think what too many clubs do is they focus on competition yeah take the kid from and pushing them them into doing Randori and pushing them to take them up to tournaments. And let's face it when you go to a tournament,

it's a bad experience. No matter what, it's a bad experience. The worst travel far away. Don't know when you're going to compete, maybe compete against kids that are bigger, stronger, better than you are.

Maybe the referee is yelling at you that your geese too big, or you don't have the right color belt on. And at the end of the day, the parents spend all this time, all this money, and it wasn't a great experience. So at my academy, I don't allow anybody to compete outside my dojo until they're ready. We do in-house tournaments. So I'll have 60 to 100 kids on a Saturday do an in-house tournament.

They're in and they're out in two hours they got four matches they you know most likely got a medal because we usually do round robin groups of four people

yeah four or five people in every division they have a great experience they learn the rules nobody yelled at them they had a pizza party afterwards

and they went home by noon they started at nine they went home by noon and they had a blast so wow that's incredible. Sign me up. I want to join that program.

You're just interested in the pizza she taught. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome, man. That's great. So I think it's about controlling the experience that people have

at your academy to help keep them. And then when it gets to those teenage years, that's when we really lose kids, right? Yes, yeah. Because teenagers tend to like want to hang out with teenagers.

They don't want to hang out with little kids. And they don't want to hang out with old guys like me or you. They want to hang out with people their age. So you have to have almost a teen-only class and actually have a teen socialization component to your dojo where the teens are going to tournaments together and competing together they're going to training camps together if they're into competition if they're not into competition have like a special team of role models at your school where kids age 11 through 15 16 kid help like learn from the instructor kid help give back and teach at the school and then have some responsibilities where maybe we do a parent's night out at the dojo and the teenagers are there, the ones that are the chaperones.

Yeah. Being part of that community where they have some responsibility. Maybe it's a part-time job for them where they're actually getting paid to babysit the kids that are part of the club. Like finding ways to keep them involved is really important. Yeah, definitely. That's great tips. Great tips. Do you think there's a place for sort of like we talked briefly about this other day, like

Division 1, Division 2 athletics where there's rule modifications for certain people who may not be quite Rondori ready, but maybe like an extended Nwaza time period or band techniques to kind of like bridge that gap between like doing technique demonstration and then doing full-blown Rondorian competition, like sort of the middle ground where people can kind of like limp in as like, let's just say someone who started in the 30s, who worked themselves up to be a black belt by the time they're 38 or something like this. Yeah, I actually think that there's a bigger audience out there for those types of people

than there are the competitors, right? The true competitors are out there to win. And that's the problem with Judo, not just Judo in the United States, but Judo in the world. We focus on having one champion. There's one world champion every year. And that's it.

Right. Yeah. And the same with the national team. There's like one national champion. That's it. And nobody really cares. Internationally, they don't care about anybody but the best person. But in reality, there's 15 people behind that best person

that would love the opportunity to compete around the world, to have that experience, but they're not allowed to because they're not on the national team. And the same with this country. When black belts go to the local tournaments, they don't want to compete against the guy that's winning the nationals. If they're 40 or 35, they don't want to compete against that person. There should be a B-level circuit.

Even in this country, if you've placed in the national championships before, you can't compete in this division at any of the local tournaments. You have to compete in the elite division. But there should be a regular black belt division not to say for novice people but people who don't compete on the national level should have their own division it would encourage more people to compete in the event yeah i think they'd have a chance to win because everybody's around the same skill level yeah do you remember the ladder tournament back in the day yeah that was the same concept right yeah they should have a series of ladder competitions at these things where it's like you can

potentially compete in this thing. You don't have to compete against anyone who's a killer. Even like the international guys that come from Russia that live here now, unloading trucks, going in. They used to be 13th in the world and now all of a sudden he's smoking the local black belts. They could be sheltered from that a little bit, right?

Correct. Realistically, they should be like an open division an elite division for the for the national rank people or people that competed internationally before they have their own elite division and then at the local competitions it could be brown and black belt combined yeah you know but at the same time it's for people that you know have been black belt for less than a couple of years yeah never competed there should be like a system of you've never meddled at the national championships you've never competed internationally you haven't been on an olympic world team and this is the division

for you guys yeah there's nothing wrong with it it's yeah nobody wants to go into like none of us would enter a track track and field race if the first guy we had to race against was Carl Lewis. Oh, yeah, yeah, no way. We have no chance. We're not even going to enter the starting block. And that's how some of these people feel, the local tournament. They don't want to be embarrassed when they show up and they get the guy from Russia first round.

Yeah, no way. They want to go against people where it's a competitive. We can learn, they can learn, and we don't know who's going to win. Yes, that's always an exciting thing. Should that have a different rule set? It could. I mean, I personally think that the sport of judo should be about throwing and pitting and armbarring. It should be about the waza.

We should get rid of all the stepping out of bounds penalties. We should get rid of all of that. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, tell me more about that. Well, if you think about it right i mean no we have a defined mat area just for safety reasons it really has nothing other than safety yeah and of course somebody that's running out of bounds or avoiding action you can penalize them but if somebody accidentally steps out while they're doing actual waza and both people are trying to throw who cares if one foot went

out of bounds or two feet went out of bounds like if i'm avoiding action i'll you should penalize me but if i accidentally step out or it's questionable whether the guy held me out yeah there's no penalty for that yeah you know and there should be no penalties for like accidentally grabbing inside the sleeve yeah yeah it's too niche and esoteric and yeah it's too i what we do for american judo for all of the kids tournaments and the novice players we give no penalties you know we don't penalize you have to win by throwing or pinning your opponent there's no penalties in the american kids well one of the kids say hey kid you stepped out of bounds you really can't step out of balance don't do do that again. Oh, hey, you reached inside the sleeve.

You can't do that. Just try to stay on the outside of the sleeve. It's more educational, but the person who wins the tournament had to throw the other person or pin him to win the match. To me, that's more important than somebody who got three shitos.

Yeah, man, that's the worst. And now the way they have With the Accidentally touching Your head on the floor You got Han Sugomaki When you just threw the guy For Wazari

Your opponent It's like The dumbest rule That they have right now Yeah What about like Safety stuff Like Taniyatoshi

Drop Sanagi Should be banned For little kids Do you have any Of those things Like I saw recently This Russian kid Literally suplexed

A kid onto their neck Nine years old And I was like, oh, my God. And the other kid is 1,000% without a doubt quitting judo after this. You know what I mean? I'm like, man, this is not good for the sport at all whatsoever, and people are going nuts. You know, it's like, should we restrict that kind of a thing to help judo grow? I think we absolutely should, especially when you're talking about like novice level tournaments

or developmental tournaments. I think if you're going to compete in national championships, Judo nationals, it's at the rules. Not totally IJF rules, because I still don't believe in giving someone a hansukumaki

for grabbing a leg, for example. That used to be the old rule. Same thing with touching your head on the mat. If it's a blatant head dive, hansukumaki. But if you accidentally touch your cheek and throw the guy for Wazari with Uchimata, you should get the Wazari. Like, I'm sorry, but that rule should not be passed down.

But at the developmental tournaments, the local tournaments, we should remove dangerous techniques and not allow them for the safety and so that people stay in the sport and they can actually like develop their judo yeah for sure for sure yeah i completely agree with you 100 and if we're doing something like this how do we make judo more accessible to like the average viewer you know uh also judo tv is now sponsoring us too so if you go to judo tv.com shintaro discount code also 10 off 10 off everything right but uh how do we make judo more accessible for the average viewer right so like if you're a guy you know you're the 90 of the judo players that don't compete at all but they're like oh man you know i do judo i'm a green belt i'm getting engaged like how can they be more involved

watching do you think? Well, JudoTV, judotv.com, live streams all the international events around the world, right? So you can follow all of our athletes live. The IGF does a fantastic job making our sport accessible to the general public now, right? So you can watch every event that's on the world circuit live anytime, anywhere you want. So that's fantastic.

I think in this country, some of the USA Judo events are now live streamed so you can watch. But unfortunately, the quality of the view and the delays in the competition make it really painful to watch. Difficult to watch. Even like Flow Grappling,

who sort of have the market on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, it's like knowing which mat to watch and the break in the time I don't know if you ever watched any Flow Grappling live stream events with BJJF yeah it's tough

it's not a great experience no the IJF is far superior the JudoTV.com is a far superior experience you know who's competing exactly when they give you the

four or five matches ahead of time you know when they're going to be competing and that's fantastic and you can retroactively watch you know guys hey who you know first round second round you could pick and choose the matchups that you want to watch and they have placements for all the scores that were had and then all the penalties that were had so you could just watch just the live sections you know you could watch yeah any any scoring moments you can watch any scoring

moments yeah you could just literally watch those and blow through a match in like less than 45 seconds and then be like wow that was amazing let me see how he did the next round and then see like a dude that i've never heard of like go back and watch that guy you know yeah so it's so that's the best way to tune in if you want to watch like high level judo and you want to watch it efficiently yeah i'd say go to judo tv.com want to watch high-level judo and you want to watch it efficiently, I'd say go to judotv.com. You can actually click on every athlete. You can see every event they competed in and every match is also saved in their database.

You can see their win-loss record. You can see what matches they won, they lost. Fast forward right to the point where they scored equal or they lost a match. You can see all the results in the scoring moments. Dude, too bad they didn't have this when you were competing, huh? I wish. Right? Wouldn't that have been amazing?

But like, all right, let's see how Jimmy beat that Russian dude back when this thing, right? That would have been so cool. Yeah, that would have been amazing. I would have loved to have grown up in this moment where the media – judo's accessible. I think if you look at the sport of wrestling yes the sport of wrestling now is more accessible than it ever was before and the same with judo and it where it couldn't survive before was it didn't have the media dollars to command being on national television right yeah but now through these online platforms you don't need the media dollars you just need the audience and if they have the audience they can live stream and now it's just

all these obscure sports that have a huge following now are accessible to the fans yeah so if you're watching judo sort of as a beginner or intermediate uh is there like a tip for them like how should they approach watching a judo match? Just like the everyday judo guy. Not like high-level competitor like, oh, he's right versus left. He has one attack to the weak side. He does this many drops, that many, you know. Not like that, but just like for the average guy watching. I think the most important thing is to watch like the posture with which the athletes play.

Like the way they move and how they move is important, right? Where they put their hands not say gripping sequences but like look at where their hand position is or their body position and how they stand before they attack or before they make a big throw and you'll notice certain like tendencies you'll see like they'll break down that space and they'll get close before they make the attack or they'll take the inside position before they make the attack you know and look at what posture they're in and what direction they were moving that dictate what throw they were going to do right so if the guy's like tugging tugging and the other guy's pulling back you'll see like a nice oji guy for example like i try to understand like why the technique worked

and what was some of the keys to making it successful see if you can pick that point out yeah that's great do you still train Jimmy?

so I do I started I just started again so when I was like when I was like 42 I trained all the way up until I was like 42 years old

did all the Randorias how old are you now? now I'm 53 53? you stopped doing judo 11 years ago i did randor i stopped doing randoria 11 years ago is that right i tore my hamstring oh my hamstring it took like six nine months to get over that hamstring injury and i just like fell out of practice and then i tried to like work out again yeah then i had like a hernia

and i thought i tore my groin but it was like an ingroinal hernia. Yeah. And that took a while to heal. And then I just started like losing interest. And I couldn't move properly during training. So I just stopped. Because I remember when I was there in 2011, you were still doing Judo Vendori with like me and everybody. Yeah.

That's what we just, that's about when I stopped right around that time. Wow. Wow. Lucky for me. like me and everybody yeah that's what we just that's about when i stopped right around that time wow wow so i'm fine but recently but recently yeah i was so frustrated with my kids not i go how don't you guys understand how to do certain things yeah so the only way sometimes is to show them yeah so i started grabbing my you know 66 73 kilo kids of these we're gonna start randorian again oh I actually loved it. I had a blast. I was exhausted.

And I made them tired too. So I felt good. And actually, I'm having a lot of fun with it. I love how sore I am after. I love the feeling the next day after I've done a good hard Randorian. My dad keeps telling me, hey, do every other round. Why are you trying to do every round? You're not in shape to do every round.

Yeah, really? That's what Big Jim's saying that? Really? Well, that's interesting. Because he keeps telling me, he said, listen, I'm not calling the ambulance. When you're down for the count, I'm not calling the ambulance. Man, so when did you start doing Rondoria again?

Just about a month ago. Wow, so super recent. Yeah. I mean, this whole time you were lifting weights running all this stuff right yeah staying fit right i try to work out every day whether it's running whether it's you know getting a kettlebell workout in or doing like you know something goofy i'm always trying to do are you on a program usually like you go from program to program or what kind of thing right now i'm doing a Mostly right now I'm doing a lot of like mobility exercises

and you know, kettlebell, mace. I use a mace. I do like medicine ball stuff. Like just trying to stay as like mobile as I can. Yeah. I remember like two or three years ago you got jacked out of nowhere, right? You were into the power lifting for a little bit.

I was doing a lot of squats and cleans and stuff like that. But that heavy lifting really just takes a toll on your body so you're saying something about your back right now in my 50s i can't do that stuff anymore it's got to be more like you know really focused on movement yeah so i remember when you made your comeback after you initially stepped away and then came back was it starry cup that you made your comeback yeah remember that was my first competition yeah that's right that's right it wasn't easy. Remember that? That was my first competition. Yeah, that's right. That's right. It wasn't easy, right? My father, Big Jim, my father, he basically said to me, he said, hey, if you're coming

back again, you're going to have to do things a whole lot differently than you did last time. And I said, what are you talking about? He said, you're going to have to get hungry. I want you to go to every competition possible. Because we're now in the Olympics. You just got to get a ton of matches in. So I went to Star Red.

I had like five or six matches there. And I just tournament after tournament after tournament, I just went everywhere. Wow. So it's like that now. Yeah. No, but listen, I love getting back on the mat, training again. It is a lot of fun.

Don't get me wrong. It hurts. It hurts. Oh, definitely. It's the highest level when these kids are like ripping and gripping, and they're trying to, you know, they're training twice a day all the time. Their bodies fit. You know, all these kids feel strong now, right?

So you're going with competitive kids, not just like gen pop, regular, fun kids, but like kids that are training? Yeah, the kids that were on the Junior World team. Kids made the Junior World team this year or, you know, one-hour our junior nationals or national nationals like those types of kids i'm training with oh i'm training with the yeah olympic level guys but yeah do you try new things or do you like not really try new things you just kind of like do whatever works now shintaro wow that's awesome man that's awesome wow man jimmy pedro wow that's incredible yeah yeah all right so guys thank you

for tuning in this is gonna wrap up this first episode it's gonna be like a three four part series right today's whole theme was everyday judoka and we got to hear your thoughts about competition everyday judo guys you know because everyday judo guys are the ones that are right doing it for the love of the sport you know they're not doing it for right themselves the winning the goals olympic you know all the stuff it's just every day i love judo right they're doing it really to get back in shape to do a fun way to get back in shape right yeah a place of socialization where they can meet like-minded people right they don't have to go to the bar and drink beer or whatever it is like they can actually like have a social night the mom the the wife says yeah sure yeah when you come back from judo you're so happy keep going so it's it's uh it's it's all for those reasons right and also learning some self-defense

learning some moves to protect myself and be able to handle myself in a situation um but also get you know get fit and have fun i think is the bottom line nice and if you need gear fuji sports.com discount code shintaro and uh do you have a last message for the 99 of guys who do judo who are not trying to make an olympic team but like for the everyday guy listening doing judo maybe even jujitsu or wrestling what would be your your advice to those guys i'd say finish what you started so if you came to judo to be a black belt then stick it through show up twice a week keep learning keep pushing your sensei asking what you need to do to get your next rank and go to the level of black belt if you came to like you know get in shape and you set a weight

loss goal for yourself that you know hey at some point i want to get down to 185 pounds whatever your goal was stick with the sport it'll help you get there and you'll have a lot of fun at the end of the day you'll be a much better person for it because you'll have committed to something you finished what you started and you'll be proud of yourself in the end awesome jimmy where can all these guys find you? I'm at my Instagram is JimmyPedroUSA and obviously my websites are

Fujisports.com or Fujimats.com and don't forget if you want to learn more Judo in a fun way and learn it from the ground all the way up AmericanJudo.com

AmericanJudo.com thank you Jimmy thank you so much I enjoyed today thank you keep up the great work