The Shintaro Higashi Show - Fast Track to Success

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

Judo, and grappling in general, is usually thought to be a long journey. But is there a way to shorten it? Shintaro believes there is! In this episode, he shares his idea of a fast track to success in Judo and grappling. 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're going to talk about fast track to success in grappling. Fast track to success. So we're going to talk about, I guess, how to practice and how to approach the whole, you know, training sessions and whatnot. Yeah? Yes, definitely. Definitely.

All right. Before we go on, we'd like to thank our biggest sponsors, Levon and Jason. Thank you very much again. Anything else to plug, Shintaro? Well, man, if you guys want to sponsor us too, Levan and Jason. Thank you very much again. Anything else to plug, Shantaro? Well, man, if you guys want to sponsor us too, that would be amazing. That helps us greatly with the podcast. There's so many listeners now. Everyone's like, hey, man, you're doing a great job.

Show the love. Join us on Patreon and support us. That way we could upgrade our equipment and keep doing what we're doing. Maybe get Peter off the PhD track and do this full-time. Can you imagine yeah dude i'll be i'll be uh uh poor man's lex freeman oh yeah there we go there we go that's right all right well we we were just talking about before we started recording this idea of fast tracking to success you know um so there's a lot of aspects so what do you want to

talk about first so there's ways to approach training training methodology practices and then like all these different skill-based stuff but this is more so like how to approach training like with the coaches and then getting information and being sort of on the radar right yeah the more attention you have on yourself and the more attention the coaches give you, the better you're going to get. So structuring your practices in a way where you get the most amount of yield is what I want to talk about today, mostly. I see. Because some guys are like, oh, I do Tai To Shi and I want to throw this guy there. The technical stuff I can't help you with from here where I'm sitting.

I don't know what your judo is like. But there are universal things, being in the room and things like this and being around the right types of people that can definitely help you across the board no matter what grappling sport you're doing right that's where i want to kind of shift my focus today so it's more on the like uh your attitude and how to yeah it's not just about doing uh you know many as hard as you can it's we're not talking about that. No. Yeah. All right. Well, so you mentioned something about being noticed more. Yeah.

So there's different approaches, right? You definitely want the coaches to know you, know your name, first name basis, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. So you want to ask meaningful questions, but you don't want to do it in a way where it takes away from everyone in the room. Or if you have literally like no experience at all, you're just asking all these questions that anyone else in the room could have asked. It's kind of annoying to the high level guys. You know what I mean?

Yeah. So when you do ask questions to the top guy in the room or the person you want the most attention from, you want to think those questions through beforehand. I see. Something that says like hey i've done my own research right i want to increase this thing but i was unable to have a clear solution here can you help me yeah yeah right and that's something that's like uh something that maybe like for instance like i got a question the other day like hey you were showing this technique online i was watching this video i watched three other videos you kind of said this and you kind of said that which one is it like i'm trying to figure out

what's best for my style i was like okay this guy has done his research and it's not like a and he was an intermediate beginner guy yeah yeah he's not like a super advanced dude but the way he asked it i was like all right he's not just shooting in the dark. He's not just asking any question to ask me, right? He has the thought to throw it. He's not asking all those questions like, hey, how do I throw a stiff arm person? Yeah, here's the worst question. Like, what am I doing wrong? It's like the coaches aren't going to be watching you.

You know what I mean? It's a very, very special relationship with the coach. Most of the time the coaches are making sure no one's getting injured in the room. They're training themselves. There's too many things to worry about. They can't remember 40 seconds into round number three, you versus that guy in the corner left back of the mat. There's no way that they can keep track of this stuff. Right?

So you have to do your own problem solving first. A little bit. And when you ask the questions, you have to kind of signal to them that you have done a little bit and when you ask the questions you have to kind of signal to them that you have done a little bit of background information yeah research right yeah then i guess one thing i was uh uh was curious about while you're explaining this is uh how do you pick the right black belt or teacher to ask to like do you i mean i guess it depends on which what kind of gym you go to and how many instructors there are but like is it for this type of question do you straight do you go straight to the head instructor or like the assistants what's your general uh

advice here so if you're taking someone's class yes it's fair game to ask that head guy but generally there's a lot of levels in between if you had a pretty big not even a big gym like a medium-sized gym right so definitely start off with someone that's like maybe two ranks above you somewhere sort of in the intermediary so you could get the most information out of that person and that person probably if they're intermediate like a little bit higher level than you yeah maybe like a brown belt in judo like a purple belt by jujitsu standards or something like this they're not going to guide you wrong with the simple questions that you may ask as a beginner intermediate yeah right so that's a great place to first start off right getting on that person's radar and then you have that communication

going where you're talking about technique and talking about this and that yeah now all of a sudden that's noticeable by a lot of the coaches too. You know? Right. Because there's the... Oh, that they're like hanging out, talking a lot to each other. Yeah.

Because there's the beginners that stick with beginners in the same cohort. Right? Yeah. And there's beginners that kind of get like brought in

by some of the intermediate, you know, guys. And like, this guy's going to be good. Yeah. And those guys have a dialogue with the head guy usually

saying, hey, this kid's going to be really good. You know? So like those things really can go a long way you know what I mean right so like a slowly you don't have to go straight to the head instructor just kind of it might be more fruitful if you approach the intermediate guys that are more they probably have more time to spend on you

I guess yeah 101 yeah definitely definitely-on-one. Yeah. Definitely, definitely. And then the coaches will notice that. Yeah. Yeah. More than your individual rounds, probably. No one's going to notice it. Even if you think like, oh, I slammed this one dude, they're probably not going to notice it.

Unless it's like an egregiously dangerous thing. They'll definitely notice that. You know what I mean? I see. So, yeah, there's a lot of things that, and some people just don't know how to answer, ask those meaningful questions, and they're insecure about it.

That would be a great time to pay for a private. I'm not saying buy the coach's attention. I'm not saying that at all. And then I know some people cannot afford it, right? But it's a great use of your time to kind of get an idea or a dialogue going to get on that radar you know right right so when you do a private lesson now you have all this information that was thrown at you now you could ask follow-up questions in the

sessions following you know in detail like yeah you have his uh or your head instructors full attention attention and then later on next week the week after hey remember that thing that we did yeah i was able to hit it on somebody hey i can we troubleshoot this like i really gave it a lot of thought that's a nice entryway into sort of the next stage up right being on that radar right and obviously not everyone can afford it and once you do a private lesson so the teacher they're like oh let's do another one let's do another one and not everyone can afford it. Yeah.

So preemptively saying like, hey, you know, I can't do these sessions all the time. You know, I freaking work at Walmart or whatever job that you do. Like I can't do it all the time, you know, but I would love to just get a take on a couple of things that I've been working on. Like can you help me, you know? So you better like come ready with good questions to these privates good questions to show that you have put a lot of thought into it yeah yeah and obviously make it count really you're spending a lot of money on and time on it yeah and the underlying

assumption here is that the coaches that you're approaching are very knowledgeable people who care and who are interested right sometimes you get a coach that's checked out and then they just don't really care about it then you're in the wrong place already right so there's some underlying assumptions here right yeah yeah yeah so so i guess yeah like you identify your problems first yeah that's first step and then do your own research and then start asking good questions to people around you, like intermediate people. And then maybe try to reach out further up. Yes, asking a question during technique session where the teacher is showing something,

I really think some of those questions are good. It's very rare. Sometimes a brown or a black belt asks a great question but it goes over most of the beginner's heads yeah i'm like that's a very good question right but no one in the room doesn't understand that question or get the answer to it in the first place so you know thanks for wasting everyone's time i would say it like that and then when a beginner asks the question like hey can you show what if this guy does that now all of a sudden the intermediate is no like don't ask those what if questions what if the guy has a knife what if this guy does that? And now all of a sudden, the intermediate is no, like, don't ask those what if questions. What if the guy has a knife?

What if the guy has a gun? Well, I personally really don't like those questions. Yeah, it's like, dude, you know. What if he checks the other way? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, there is a time and place, I think. I think before class, after class, those are always great times to ask questions, to be on the teacher's radar, and train close to the main guy. If you tuck away yourself in the back, no one's going to see you, right?

I know the people who want to be visible are going to congregate towards where I am. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? The people who are tucked away in the back are like, oh, just leave me alone. I just want to kind of do my thing. I'll let them do their thing, right? But no, those guys are not going to be on the radar as much as the guys who are on that one you know what i mean do you uh but going back to asking questions during class did you usually

solicit for solicit questions from i don't even say does anyone have any questions yeah that's what i remember yeah yeah yeah i don't do it because i see the idea is that you don't want to you want to want to delay your class and then that two to three minute attention span right like i know two to three minutes that's it instruction always two to three minutes and majority of the times i bring them back for three sessions right three three minute sessions is like the majority of the instruction in the room right right three minutes instruction go do it for three to five minutes three minute instruction three to five minutes right so if you've been in the class long enough most of the time i answer those questions second or third time around yeah

right at the very end of it someone still might have a question and i'm walking around back and forth like very attentive yeah people will go like this hey hey hey can i ask you a quick question like yes right is that a good time to ask questions you think doing really concise if it's concise yeah and sometimes when they're rambling on and you're trying to get that words together and like rambling i'm like listen then you're gonna get more out of just trying it and doing it and it's gonna sort itself out yeah right so just keep drilling it you know and then sometimes with asking these questions uh and i'm like listen then you working with a blue belt or purple belt belt, like that guy, he could answer the question for you. That's not a question that, right?

So my time is better spent elsewhere. So these are the little adjustments that I make while I'm walking around teaching the class, et cetera, et cetera. Right. And then sometimes it's one of those things like this guy's brand new. He has no clue what's going on. Hey, you know, Greg, can you work with this guy and just teach him X, Y, and Z? Or I'll specifically pair him for somebody else. Right.

So maybe we'll talk a little bit about how to keep things concise maybe because I think, yeah, people tend to – some people tend to ramble along because they have so many thoughts. If they've done the research, they probably have a lot of thoughts and then you know yeah it can come everything can come out like a war vomit you know i mean you're getting a phd now right right right you went to princeton something like that yeah yeah you know it's funny someone reached out to me like i can't be with the principal peter i'm like i didn't go to princeton no you're like you're an honorary student, man.

You're part of, remember the eating club I told you about? That's right, that's right. Tiger? Tiger Inn, yeah, you would have been on it. But so this is the thing, right? You're not going to ask your professor some dumb question like, hey, when was the final or when was the midterm or what's on the midterm, right? Then you'd be like, this guy's not, get away from me.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of times these professors are really hard to get a hold of anyway so you don't want to waste time with these very basic questions that you can yeah and you like a good asian boy sit in the front of the class and raise your hand and ask meaningful questions and then answer questions as well right so pull it out and it's concise correct yeah right so now it's like wow correct? Yeah. Right? Supposedly. So now the professor's like, wow, this boy is just... Yeah. Right? I try, but...

It's the same exact thing. It's the same exact thing. Yeah. It's being a good student, right, I guess. Yeah. If you're sitting in the back on your laptop and then texting people, you're just not going to be able to do anything. Yeah.

You know what I mean? So... We talked about that in our last episode. Like, when you want to focus, yeah. Be attentive. I guess being focused and I think it's a skill. A lot of times when you, what I find is that you try to, in the process of trying to come

up with a good, concise question, a lot of times you answer your question yourself. I think, I think that's a cool thing about this type of exercise yeah yeah so you maybe you may not even have to ask that question yeah sure so yeah think about it and try to make it concise one or one or one point two points maybe yeah be concise about it and then when you're on the radar and obviously it goes without saying you have to show up to training every day yeah because the guy that shows up once or twice a week or once a week every two weeks those guys when they're asking questions it's like no you know i'm not wasting my breath answering your questions when you're not dedicated to this thing and you probably

answered that question last week when that person wasn't there yeah you just don't have enough information gathered right you know it's like when i used to like cut class sometimes and i'll show up every two three weeks and she doesn't know who i am i'm like hey when what's on the midterm and he's like who are you again right and then i get like put in my place yeah you know what i mean yeah don't be don't be that person don't be that guy so it's like you have to show up every day and you do have to train obviously right and even when you can't train hard because some people just can't physically train every day hard, you're going to have to have, like, high-intensity days, low-intensity days, technical days,

and you have to mix these up. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's okay. You know, some days, like, hey, I'm going to start off the week very slow. I'm going to do a hard, you know, training on Wednesday or whatever it is. Taper off, but still show up. Sit out the rounds, but then ask the thing.

And you can always say, like, oh, I tweaked my knee. I'm just kind of nursing it right as opposed to like oh i'm so tired and i can't train it's like don't don't you know like hey i'm just recovering a little bit you know can you watch this roll with me or hey i'm watching this person or like you could even say like if you're sitting on the sideline there's a black belt doing mandori you can watch that person attentively yeah and then afterwards and say, yo, Max, I did this, I did this the other day.

Yeah. One of my, our new guy's Max. He's a black girl, right? Mm-hmm. And I was like, yo, well, and I was watching.

I was going to do this, the entry to Sode. It was kind of a unique Sode where you like switch stances and then go, I'm like, why do you do that? And then like,

do you have other stuff when you switch stances and switch tempos or shit? And he goes, well, and then have other stuff when you switch stances and switch positions? He goes, well, and then he had a very good answer for that. You know?

And then, that was really, that was great. Nice, nice. let's just say if someone else was much lower than him in level, he asked that kind of a meaningful question

where it's like, hey, I was watching you. Hey, I've been paying attention. Hey, like, can you show me some of the stuff?

Why do you do it? And then, how do you do it do it of course now these guys would be like dude of course i'll help you yeah because you're already validating right oh it was great right you were watching this thing yeah you know so you're giving him attention he's gonna give you attention yeah it's like oh i've studied your game please teach me more i mean it's kind of an ego boost i guess it really is it's like hey i noticed when you did this thing i it's like hey professor i read your research on i know i i was about to say on chatbots that's what um it's like when you want to like a research job one of the best things is you just kind of puff them up it's like hey i read your paper on this and this and that and amazing research yada yada i've read every single one of your papers you've read 47 of my academic

papers like yeah every single page yeah i'm a huge fan yeah yeah that all that works i mean yeah people are like that you know people are susceptible to that yeah yeah yeah are you so successful to flattery oh yeah why do you think i'm on the internet so much do people come up to you nowadays like say hey i watch your all these youtube videos all the time yeah almost every day do they do they usually ask good questions you think that's like a good basis of research, would you say? Yeah, no, people ask great questions and people reference certain things about, you know, my family that I don't even remember talking about, which is very weird. I had a guy, you know, find my number and then call me on the phone and they were like,

oh my God, you picked up. Let me tell you my thoughts on, you know, the current state of grappling. I'm like, oh Jesus. You know, like that happens. What? Guys, yeah, yeah. know the current state of grappling i'm like oh jesus you know like oh that happens what maybe not the best way with like 200 000 subscribers on youtube that it's kind of not getting out of hand but it definitely does get to a place of like wow i i can't know everybody yeah you know i can't respond to everybody i can't read all the comments and then I can't filter out, you know, who's who. And, you know, even like, oh, man, you know, we go all the way back to college.

Like, I followed you. You didn't follow me back. It's like, I just don't. Yeah. There's just too many people following and unfollowing. I just can't keep track of all that, you know. It's like, I think one thing people say about you, you're a celebrity, you know,

in the grappling world, I guess modern celebrity. Yeah. And what happens is a lot of the fans know so much about you, but yeah, it's not like the, the other way around. Yeah.

Some fans, you know, feel so close to you. Yeah. But the reverse is not because you just don't know. You don't know all the 200 000 people you know so you can't yeah but it's pretty cool even i did a seminar at inverted gear academy over the weekend and then you know guys were asking like hey you showed this one thing you know maybe like

a year ago i don't know if you remember and i kind of did remember it it's like hey what is the solution for this georgian a georgian B, whatever it is. And, you know, I've been going for this, but I've been getting caught. Yeah. It's like, all right. And it was like how to free the tricep, you know? So like pulsing away and pushing and then leaning to this side to give clearance to the elbow. That's a very, very, very specific question. Yeah.

Right? Because it's like Georgian A, Georgian B, the guy's trapping the tricep. It's like, oh, in the video, it's like, oh, yeah, you don't want him to trap his arm and just kind of gloss over it, but there's some nuance to not letting him do it. And sometimes it's switching over to that underhook. So something like that. I was like, wow,

this guy studied this thing, he's trying to learn this thing, and I'm going to try to give this guy a little bit more attention when I was circling around with doing the Ashis. I was making sure he was doing it right, and if he wasn't doing it right hey do it like this do it like that was much more keen to give him like instant feedback yeah right so looping back to you know our main focus here so fast track to success and one aspect was like what did we first talk about with like getting noticed right like asking notice knowing yourself and then the way to do it is asking the questions you know doing your research and then

asking your intermediate guys for us and then maybe reach out to your higher level belt higher belts yeah you can't rely on the main guy or the head guy or yeah person who knows everything to like bring you in you know you have to do some of the work yourself, right? Yeah. And it's like that thing, like if you're standing on the side of the road waving people down for help, nobody may pull over, right? I think Chris Rock said this, but if you're pushing your car, then somebody's going to pull over and be like helping you out more than they're going to help you out.

We want to help the guy that doesn't help himself. Yeah. Nobody. But the guy that's trying very hard and then doing their very best, everyone want to help that guy. Yeah. Nobody. But the guy that's trying very hard and then doing their very best, everyone will want to help that guy. Yeah. You know? So being mindful when you train,

when you train, spending some time doing some analysis or introspection, these things go so long, right? And then not coming in here, doing judo three times a week, as hard as you can, and doing the same workout as everybody else, that's really not going to help the majority of the people. You know what I mean? Right, right. So the fast track is like being mindful and designing your own sort of curriculum, right?

Being as attentive as possible, mindful as possible, getting on the radar for the top coaches and the people in the room. And then the more you have a community behind you that's invested in your growth, the more you can talk about this stuff, right? Nick right now is one of our biggest guys who is the most dedicated in the gym yeah you know nick right and boy is he always asking questions and he has group chats and he's sending messages and passing around reels and hey what do you guys think of this and man he's at the forefront of like just a judo conversation i I see. You know what I mean? So he's leaps and bounds improving over everybody else

because he's so much more dedicated, right? Right. And if he can't train physically, he's still there, present, mentally, asking questions. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's dedication. Yeah.

Don't come if you have COVID, obviously. Don't give everyone dedication. Yeah. Right? Don't come if you have COVID, you know, obviously. Don't give everyone COVID. Yeah, but even if you're a little bit sick, wear a mask, sit on the side. Oh, my shoulder's banged up. Come in, drill. Do what you can. Hey, do you want to do one right now? I can't because I'm nursing a shoulder thing.

But hey, can we drill some light stuff? You know, always working around your injuries. Always staying engaged. You know, you have to make it fun for yourself, right? So how about this? So we kind of talked about those strategies, fast-track strategies to success. Yeah. And we always talk about how success means different things to people.

And in this particular episode, success means rapid improvement as a judoka or as a grappler and then finding a good community to where you can really grow as a grappler and then you know uh you know finding a good community to where you can really grow as a grappler right yeah some people just want to get a good workout and you know they may not want to like necessarily want to put time to like come up with like do the research and come up with good questions and all yeah so what what do you think about this like what do you think about people that's okay man that's okay and i got guys like that in the gym and as long as we have an understand like hey i'm here to work out make friends just kind of enjoy myself yeah right i'm like more than happy to support that right right you know what i mean

hey what's going on man like get a good workout in and then whenever they're kind of like sold i was like hey get one in, workout more. Hey, push yourself a little bit. Right? And there's a little bit of a, that person has a different need. Yeah, yeah. Right?

So my interaction with that person is not going to be like a very technical, hey, you know, you're on my radar. Come here and let me show you something. It's not going to be like that, you know? And that's going to be a little bit more like, hey, Johnny, doing great. Hey, Johnny, keep it going.

Hey, Johnny, did you get enough rounds? Hey, Johnny, how many did you do today? Hey, get 10 more rolls, okay? Or 10 more rounds or 10 more throws, whatever it is, you know? Johnny, there's only one minute of push-ups.

Push yourself hard for that one minute, right? So there's somebody in his corner like helping him, you know? So even then, being on the radar helps as opposed to like someone that sneaks in, you know so even then being on the radar helps yeah as opposed to like someone that sneaks in you know hangs out in the back disappears like you know

the four class ends and right that guy's never really you know on the radar right and some people still are on the head guy's radar based on nepotism or being someone's brother yeah you know what i mean uh when that person cares about said family you know what i mean but generally speaking like that's fine as long as you have that understanding with the coach right i think that's uh yeah whatever successes you have to communicate to the coach you know yes and then a good coach will help whatever way that yeah they can yeah and i think like a lot of good teachers a lot of good dojo owners and whatever whoever the authority is in the beginning yeah asking the questions like hey what do you want to get out of this right and just asking that and understanding what motivates them is one of the biggest factors because then you

could base your entire training journey based around that right you know some people need the milestones of the accolades and the goals and i need this technique this many days and to be a yellow belt and those people aren't motivated by me you know fist bumping and hey you're doing good and taking people down they want to know they're progressing towards a rank they need a checklist checklist. Bang, bang, bang. Right? Those are the guys who go to school. They have a syllabus, a curriculum, a to-do list. Oh, my midterm's coming up. Check, check, check, check, check. Right?

Yeah. That guy's not the same as a Nick. Yeah. You know what I mean? That guy's not the same as the guy that wants to just come in and break a sweat and make friends. Right, right. Right? Right.

Some people just want to join a community and feel like they're part of something yeah you know some people just want to like you said work out and hang out yeah you know some people just want the achievement of hey i'm a uh x you know this belt or whatever it is and yeah i i think yeah for whatever success you define uh you need to still like do research and then like let it be known like talk communicate well with others

in the gym it goes both ways I'll give you another one the guy who does BJJ who wants to work on their stand up coming into your gym right

yeah great just do the judo class three times a week we do nothing that like correlates over to the thing or translate

and they're going back to their gym hoping that they're going to launch people and they're not doing it yeah that guy's going to the thing. Or translate. And they're going back to their gym, hoping that they're going to launch people, and they're not doing it. Yeah. That guy's going to quit. Right, right.

Right? But if that guy is on the radar for the corner, like, listen, man, I'm trying to fight in the Masters 4 Blue Belt Division, Pan American Championships, and I really want to take down my guys at the gym and show them that my stand-up is really good, and I want to smoke guys there.

Like, all right, can you help me? Okay. You know? First, you're going gonna have to buy a 10-pack of private not even that but it's like fast track yeah all right we're gonna do uchimata but you know we're gonna make some adjustments for you specifically right right showing uchimata maybe show a backstop can't get uchimata and like in the context of bjj you're gonna do this hand position that hand position these are the slight adjustments. And having that one liner right there. Yeah. Right.

Whenever he's in the room, like, hey, it might be tough. The guy has his hips far back. Yeah. He's going to snap down and go for Uchimata or fake Uchimata, then snap down. Those two things are interchangeable. Yeah. So you're staggering the timing against the guy who has their legs back. And then the finish is not going to be as clean as a judo finish like a lifting finish right you're gonna have to hop through and stuff the head

right yeah and something like that that's what they're there for and you're giving them exactly that and the only way that they could get there a lot of the times in a sea of 40 people in the room is to be on my radar yeah right and you do so by being upfront with your goal doing your own research and then kind of like hey all the things you talk about yeah i've noticed that uchimata works well on some bjj people yeah how do we make that happen that's right and if you say you want to do training and you want to do this you want to get better and if you only come in once every two weeks i'm not going to believe you i don't care what you say. You used to be like, okay, sure. If you want to do this competition, yeah, I'll help you, buddy.

But now it's like, okay, whenever someone tells me that, I'm like, all right, let's see if you show up for a month straight. Three times a week consistently. If you do, I'll help you. If not, you know. I mean, that's it. Yeah. Guys, this is coming from painful experience from the past. You know? I mean, that's it. Yeah. This, guys, this is coming from, like, painful experience from the past, you know? Like, things didn't work out and, you know.

Why am I wasting my breath on this guy who's telling me he wants to do something? Anyone can say anything. Yeah. You know, it's like, show me, show me. You got to walk the walk. Show the teacher. Yeah. When I did ballet, dude.

That's right. I got very good at ballet. you are on the radar of that ballet teacher yeah yeah yeah i was uh there was a guru a ballet teacher right i have a lot with this guru too he's a funny guy yeah he was famous for building up the first indian principal dancer for the new y City Ballet. Yeah. And there was a slew of guys who would go follow him around everywhere for every class that he did, who wanted to be a professional ballet dancer,

and they would call him Danny's Boys. Danny's Boys, yeah. Yeah, it's the gayest thing I've ever heard, right? Yeah. And all of them were gay. Yeah. They were all ballet dancers. I shouldn't say all of them.

It was like 90% of them were gay. So now all of a sudden, I want to get into ballet ballet i got i started getting into it for like flexibility purposes and mobility purposes and you know i'm trying to meet like a nice girlfriend or something and then you know getting into that world of like oh this is something i do twice a week right yeah but now little by little i start like liking it and it's fun yeah and then all of a sudden this guy is like all right what is this guy he definitely doesn't look like he belongs here. He definitely sucks. Yeah.

But he's definitely different, and he's showing up every day, right? And then I started asking him questions. That was a point where you keep showing up, yeah. And then he was like, yo, what is your deal, you know? Yeah. And I was like, this is my deal. And then I had a conversation with him, and he's like, all right, why don't you come to my advanced class tomorrow? I was like, what?

And there were guys like New York City ballet dancers, ABT former dancers, people who were professional on Broadway. All these people were there. I was the worst person in the room, dude. You brought me to all the classes. And guys, ballet is no joke. It's one of the toughest things I've ever done. Judo's way tougher.

That's not even kid or something, right? Judo's a million times tougher. But anyway, anyway i'm there and i look like a buffoon and you know obviously it's very embarrassing but i'm like toughing it through i'm like all right you know i'm pretending like no one exists and this guy's like you know what keep coming to the advanced class and now all of a sudden i'm on this guy's radar he's right little by little it took two years for me to like yeah be i don't want to say proficient but able to do all these moves i'm not saying like i could dance like a ballerina you could really do well yeah i saw you by anybody's beginner level i'm like oh i could do all the beginner classes yeah right and then like i can you know it could be like a 22 year old

woman who's like trying ballet for the first time and i'm gonna be like oh you follow me yeah right you're worried though like the purple belt huh or the warrior like the purple ball a blue belt yeah four stripe blue maybe well four stripe blue all right all right maybe maybe purple i don't know yeah depends not a competitor level purple you know right right right not competing at like world championships in the purple level and winning you're the ones that don't warm up don't participate in the warm-up in the back and then masters three purple belts hobbyist twice a week that beats most of the other younger balls that's that's the guy that i was in the ballet room all right all right but you know the guy that I was in the ballet room. All right, all right.

But you know, like, there's a hierarchy in the room of, like, where who stands where. Oh, I didn't know that. They are, right? And then the main guy stands near the teacher because, all right, we're going to do, you know, tan du zang kuo, whatever it is, and then we're going to go into the – so that guy has to demonstrate it. You see what i mean so like a person who's new can't stand there and then the spot in front of the mirror or where the mirrors converge so you could look at yourself from both angles like that's reserved for like

you know the top five guys right guys and girls right yeah 97 of the class is gross yeah that's majority that's why i went in the first place right so like you know eventually like you're tucked away in the back no one sees you but then hey chateau why don't you come stand over here and now all of a sudden i'm friends with this guy casey who was on broadway he was an amazing dancer he was a professional dancer right and he would be like chateau come stand next to me all right and i'm, all right. He's kind of big-dogging me a little bit. He's like, you can follow me if you get confused. You know what I mean? And then we're doing our thing, and he's like, hey, yeah, port de bras,

wrong arm, wrong leg, giving me little things here and there. And before you know it, that became my spot. It's him, the number one dog. The number one dog is over here in front of the teacher. And then the number two spot right by that converging mirror. And right behind him was me. Nice, nice. So I'm following the number two guy.

And then the girls behind me are following me. Oh. Yeah. Making sure they're doing the right. And this is not the advanced class. This is like sort of the intermediate beginner. This is a 10 a.m. on a Tuesday, you know. Uh-huh.

Right. Damn. And now all of a sudden it's like a Tuesday, you know? Uh-huh. Right? Damn. And now all of a sudden it's like I'm friendly with these people. Class ends. People are scurrying out. You know, new people are shy. They're like out. Now I'm like sitting there bullshitting with the guys who do this for a living.

And we're talking about dance. We're talking about this. You know, how many pirouettes can you do in a row? You know, oh, I could do six without warming up or whatever it is. How many can you do? I hit three before once row you know oh i could do six without warming up or whatever it is how many can you do i hit three before once you know like right and now like the communication for the jargons there like i'm always in the mix of talking about this stuff right there are so many parallels to judo and bjj schools here but everything you want to learn you can do it in this manner. If you're in school and academics, it's this way.

Right, right. If you, what is it, football? Like, you know, you got to be on the coach's radar, you know? Yeah. Right? It's like if you are not on the radar, don't practice, don't ask questions, you're just part of the room, you're not very good, you're just going to be sitting on the bench the whole time. Yeah, yeah. But there's kids on that team, remember, when you're in high school?

Like, why is this kid starting? Why is this kid getting playing time? He freaking sucks, right? Oh, it's because he's the coach's favorite. Why do you think he's the coach's favorite? Tries hard. Tries hard. Tries hard on the radar.

Tries on the radar, yeah. Maybe pays for private lessons. You know? Yeah, that's true. Like, anything you want to learn in a class setting yeah this is how it's done dude you know man i did ballet like two three classes a day dude i did that right i remember you're so in it you even had a eventually had a little show of you for yourself yeah i did all of it dude nine nine o'clock class was to do until 11 11 to 1 and then i'll go to

the gym and then i'll go to the dojo. That was my schedule, like, majority of the days. And sometimes on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I didn't do judo at night, you know, I would go do ballet in the evenings. On Tuesday night, I would do this class called pop ballet where they would do ballet class to a song. A pop song? A pop song. And Heather Hawk taught this class, and she was like this super hot blonde woman. She was like a little bit older. Like, she was like 40-something years old. And yeah and dude immediately i was on the ladies radar dude because

i walked in there and she was like what are you doing here kind of she's kind of like yeah stand office about it right yeah i was like oh you know and i just started chit-chatting and she was like is this guy like a creepy dude doing this right right like well this is like a little bit more intermediate level you have to have experiences like i've been dancing with dann these guys forever, you know, for almost a year and a half. Like I take all these classes in the mornings. I'm like a morning class guy. Yeah. And she was like, welcome.

Yeah. Where do you want to stand? And I was like, I'll stand right over here and then did the thing. And then little by little, man, she like took me under her wing and she'd be like, right? And sometimes like I was missing the musicality of it. And then she would just be like, grab, hold in my hand. my hand she was like give me your hand and she'll hold my hand and like and then me and i'd be blushing you know all that stuff and it was the best i guess i kind of had that it's like me showing up to the bjj school in michigan

just like randomly like uh you know with the raggedy gi that's clearly not a beginner i guess but then everyone's like who is this guy but they're like oh i know shintaro and then dave garbo knows you and all that yeah yeah yeah and then you know you're a nice guy you're not killing everyone hopefully yeah no no you're respectable yeah right and then you know you're just a friendly guy and i'm sure you were on the radar you know that's a track to success with any I was on the radar yeah Dave always wanted to go with me because I'm a judo guy he did judo yeah we would do standard rounds you know and people watch what blue don'ts you can walk into a gym jiu-jitsu gym and start doing yeah I was with the instructor within a month I mean there yeah consistently first

class every time he would ask. That's amazing. See, that's amazing. You don't have to have gone to Princeton to figure this thing out. No. You know what I mean? No, it's all thanks to my connection to Shintaro.

And then I came. It's all you. I did come consistently and then trained hard. I went hard. that's probably helped anyway and then you quit yeah because i'm i moved and i uh you know i wanted to focus more on judo again you know how's that going it's good it's good i'm probably gonna go tomorrow are you in with the top guy well i i go to christian's gym now so oh so you're oh you're in with the top guy? Well, I go to Christian's gym now. So you're in with the top guy. I am in.

Yeah. Take a picture with him and send it to me. Okay. I will. I have no idea what he looks like now. No, he's the same, man. He's the same now. He didn't gain weight?

I think he gained over the pandemic, but he lost it all, I think. Okay. Yeah. He's still strong. Do you do rounds with him? Yeah. Still lost it all, I think. Okay. Yeah. You still strong? You do rounds with him? Yeah. Still strong. Beats me out.

Yeah. Nice. Guys like you at the gym? Yeah, I think so. How many guys are in the room? I would say it's kind of a weird situation because it's like half club judo people and half through the school to take the class. So I would say the club people are like 10 people.

Nice. That usually, I think that's how many that will show up but then the class people will stay on and then kind of

do rounds together too. Yeah. So, it's good. There are a lot of young people so it gives me a good workout. Yeah.

And also to ask, answer the question that somebody else had. We're going to do a separate podcast about it but leveling up from here. Yeah. Because it just kind of segues into it so nicely. Yeah.

It's identifying the crop of guys that are also on the radar and spending more time with them. Yeah. And then doubling up on the rounds. That's another one that's super, super underappreciated. Doubling up on rounds. We'll dedicate a separate episode for this. Yeah. If you want.

Yes, we can. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Sounds good. So we talked about all these strategies to,

uh, you know, going on the fast track to success. Anything else? No, man. That's it. All right.

Cool. Please join us on patreon guys yeah yep and you know talk to other grapplers on our disco server and we'll see you guys in the next episode