The Shintaro Higashi Show - Guests From Japan

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

Recently, Shintaro hosted some special guests from Japan who are high-level Judokas. It was such a unique experience where they shared so many out-of-the-box Judo ideas to Shintaro and his students. In this episode, Shintaro tells Peter about this experience and what he learned from it. (00:00:00) Introduction (00:01:19) Visitors at the Dojo (00:03:05) Shunsuke's Background (00:04:23) Gunji's Achievements (00:11:03) Gunji’s Unorthodox Grip Fighting Strategies (00:22:56) Getting Valuable Knowledge Out Of Judo Competitors 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! 10% off Judotv.com with promo code: SHINTARO Buy one get one free www.clnwash.com with promo code: SHINTARO2024

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show. Peter Yu. Peter's back. We're back, we're back. I made a joke a couple weeks ago. We did a couple of solo episodes because Peter was out bougieing it up on the yacht or something or whatever the hell he's doing. Playing golf with his business friends and such.

So he was just kind of too busy for me to do the show. So I was kind of hurt. So I was like, you know what? We had a little beef. I'm going to do a solo episode. And people were like, oh my God. People were sending me suggestions for co-hosts I swear to god

Really Okay Yeah Well One guy was like Get Vinny Mancuso Back on there Oh god

I see I heard that one Well Guys I'm not going anywhere You know He's There was no beef

The beef was In Shintaro's Personal stuff Yeah I think Yeah The way it was phrased It sounded like Oh oh, man,

did we have a disagreement or anything? But nothing. You know, we've been friends. We've been best friends for so long. And, you know, we are open communication here, you know? Timeline issues sometimes, you know? Like you had a wedding on a yacht somewhere. You're doing bougie white tie stuff.

You know what I mean? And Peter is like, you know, he's up there. Yeah, well, I mean, we,

yeah, we have both, we both have business schedules, so it sometimes doesn't line up and then I had to ask Shintaro to fill me in,

you know, but it's all good. We're back. We're back. We're here today. Yeah. So, what are we talking about?

We're talking about a guest. Guest. We had some unbelievable guests from Japan. We have guests at my dojo all the time and if you're a guest not like living in new york new jersey you're flying

through new york city you're coming to the dojo pay a drop-in fee seriously we're gonna do a meet and greet package because these people take up so much of my time when they visit hey what's going on you know and like people who are there that live in new york new jersey doing trial class who are trying to like ask me questions how to sign up and these people latched on to me as i'm gonna start doing like a meet and greet package or something oh you're gonna kind of round them up to the end you can come on this day and then you'd like a like a leader class like all that right yeah last week we had a night where we had four visitors seriously from everywhere we had one from london ecuador another one from south america and they were all like oh my god and they were like asking me questions yeah you know meanwhile

like you know i still have to run my regular class they don't want to work out with me i'm like i don't want to work out with you oh a celebrity here i know it's a little bit of a celebrity hood and yeah it's not getting out of hand you know and i want people to come yeah right but you know you're at a reasonable like setting right and yeah no i'm not trying to discourage anyone from coming just be respectful and you wanted to talk specifically about these guests from japan i don't i think there were a lot of videos about them you know they were incredible at judo you You can check them out, guys, on Instagram and YouTube. And, you know, so this is the nice thing about having that Instagram reach.

It's like, hey, guys, special guest tonight, whatever it is, and I can tag them. So if you reach out to me ahead of time and you have the pedigree, I will definitely do that for you also. It gets our people riled up. It's a very nice thing. You know, you get a little bit of visibility out in the world. So it's a nice thing. Yeah, so tell us about how they came visibility out in the world. So it's a nice thing. Yeah. So nice thing. Yeah.

So tell us about how they came to visit, like from the beginning. Like how did they reach out to you? What, what, what, who are they? You know?

Yeah. Let's start from there. Shunsuke is a guy that's done Judo his whole life. He went to Keio High School, Keio University, was a professional Judo coach in Japan. Oh, dang.

He moved here to start a resort. A resort. Because he's from, his father and his family has like this resort thing in japan like a onsen hot springs resort so he came to new york exactly okay exactly so he came to new york to get an mba from columbia university oh man smart guy yeah smart guy yeah and then he wants to start a spa in New York City. So he's been living here for a little while. He wants to start a yokan in New York, like the traditional Japanese hotel. In Manhattan.

Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. So he's been in New York for like four years, three years. And he dips into the dojo every three or four months. Oh, he does come from time to time. Okay. Time to time. Shunsuke, he does.

He's an awesome guy, right? He's a cool guy. Okay. Time to time. Shunsuke, he does. He's an awesome guy. He's a cool guy. I love him. Great judo, nice guy, smart guy. He has connections from his KO high school university days.

Right? And then when Vitaro Goto, who was the junior world champion, he came through him. Because they were at the high school together.

Yeah. And then also this time around his friend gunji who was a two-time all japan competitor he qualified for all the championships yeah that's probably that's probably harder than like the olympics yeah yeah i mean maybe not the olympics but it's very very difficult and i'm going to talk about like what that actually means and what that skills level is represented oh yeah maybe i don't have the reference point yeah so tell us but they're best buds from high school oh man in new york for three years this guy kunji

okay because his wife got a job here and he like came with his wife oh okay okay so shunsuke was like yo can i bring my friend? I'm like, yes. And then we're going to talk about his judo. Because it was unbelievable. He said some things that were spectacular and off the beaten path. I want to talk about that. We have three guests. Shunsuke, Gunji, and Ryusuke? No, Rytaro.

That was another time. He came like five months ago. So it was just Shunsuke and... Gunji. Gunji. Shunsuke and Gunji. Okay. To give you a reference of how good this guy actually is, right?

Gunji. He qualified for the All Japan Championships in the Open Division. So there's one All Japan Championships that is like the All Japan Championships. No weight class, right? No weight classes. Shohei Ono competed, lost second round to the 90-kilo guy. It's just like an unbelievable high-level thing. What's his weight usually?

He's about 250. 250. Oh, so he's 100-plus. Yeah, 100-plus. Yeah. Because it's open division. Yeah, yeah. It was like a big, to give you guys some sense,

it was a huge deal when Inoue Kosei won it. Won all Japan as an under 100 kilo player. That's right. That was a huge deal. There's a few 90 kilo guys. Oh, really? Yeah, like Kato from Kokushikan won it as 90. So it's been done, but it's very rare to win below that.

It's always 100 plus guys, generally. Anyway, he qualified through the qualifiers of Kyushu, which is the southern part of Japan. So Japan has got Kyushu, the mainland, the northern area, this island that no one really cares about. Shikoku, Kyushu. It's like all of the south, essentially, Kyushu. And they're known for their judo.

They're also known for their ramen. So he won that and then qualified through that twice yeah gosh so if you look at that right and then the skill level to be able to do that in a country like japan you're probably on a given day like can medal at world championships i feel like that's kind of the guys who are that level yeah that you know are sometimes like make it through at these grand slams or the high international world tour events no one's ever heard of these guys they just walk on and then win and beat olympic medalists world medalists so he's at that level dang okay yeah so he came and when he started warming up i was like today is the day that i'm gonna get smoked in front of everyone i i literally thought that and you know last time

this shunsuke brought another dude he was a junior world champ former uh in my category uh so i thought i was for certain i was gonna get smoked yeah yeah yeah and okay oh good the video of me throwing a muchimada it was beautiful oh yeah yeah from like like kind oh good the video of me throwing a muchimata was beautiful oh yeah yeah it put him like like kind of near the wall and then you like you launched yeah right yeah yeah i felt i felt so good oh dude yeah i was so nervous too you were you nervous this time more nervous i was i was like because he's much bigger than me too oh yeah 200 pounds right right this guy legitimately has 50 pounds on me you know he's big he's fast he's good and he was doing some grip fighting stuff with gianni who's pretty good yeah yeah

yeah you know he's definitely top of the country gianni yeah yeah gianni like top 10 in the nation you know in the u.s he's one of the best guys in his category always and this guy made gianni just gripping just gripping I was like I made him look like a baby yeah I've gone with Gianni too I mean he's really good and I just can't even I was like oh boy this guy is gonna slam me if you're thought that if your dad had been there you here to called you a little a little chicken I was like why aren't you going with him or he's going with it no no I mean this is the thing he's like shown his techniques this and The theater called you a little chicken. I was like, why aren't you going with him? Why aren't you going with him?

No, no. I mean, look at the thing. He's like showing his techniques, this and that. There's a little nuance. It warms up. And then it gets time to Rondori. And he goes, Sensei. I was like, yeah.

He goes, I had two ACL surgeries. Oh, dang. Yeah, he goes, I'm not doing Rondori. And I was like, thank freaking God. I was like, thank you. Thank you. Oh, I'm like,'m like good just chill out you don't want to injure your knee you know who knows how stable it is too bad that's so bad oh i really wanted to work out with you but you know uh yeah just sit on the side and hang out okay oh man okay i see so yeah so okay so that's how it went unfortunately you didn't get to show off your skills against him

but no i mean i say this but i really did want to also work out yeah i mean but i've been very spearing on the randori the last like month or so oh why is that i dislocated my pinky oh okay and then uh i've been doing a lot of jujitsu and focusing on alignment i've been working with a business advisor this guy already he's amazing yeah So I've been really focused on that side of things as opposed to like training all the time and just grappling, lifting weights and just kind of letting the businesses run on autopilot. I'm really trying to focus my attention

back on sort of the business side of stuff. You know, so he's been of tremendous help. He's probably listening. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Thanks, Artie. Yeah.

He's been helping me out with like podcast stuff you know you know because i don't know i just we just started it yeah without knowing anything it's like a side hobby but he's really trying to get us to become more professional so yes yeah so anyway i haven't been doing too much randori uh but he taught some stuff yeah so yeah so what did he show so i'm like can you just show us your Uchimata? And he's like, okay. And then he's like looking around and he's like, can't really speak. He's like, I got to go like this.

You got to go like that. Yeah. And then you stick the leg in between and everyone's sitting there like. That's the basic stuff. Yeah. And then someone asks a question. He's like, well, you go, like, you know. I was like, just throw him once or twice.

Boom. Right? Everyone's like, oh, my God. You're going nuts. And then it's like, all right, can you show us how you did that? And he's like, well, you know, you take the hand like this and then you take the hand like that. And then it's like, all right, guys, just drill for a little bit.

And then I pull him aside. I'm like, hey, I watch you grip fighting. The way you went right side versus left side, keeping that sleeve hand and not letting the guy get the sleeve hand. Talk about that. Talk about why you accepted that collar hand right side versus left side. Very specific stuff. Oh, because Gianni is lefty and he's righty.

Yes. And then we had a bunch of lefties in the room already. And then he just accepted the collar grip, like the inside collar grip? No, he would accept. So he would take the collar collar, and then he would keep away with the sleeve and then accept the hand on the,

so he would accept double collar. Oh, from the lefty. Yes, yes, yes. Does he go outside then? He goes outside, inside both oh okay okay but he was very good at it and then sometimes when they wouldn't bite he would reach and grab that sleeve and keep it in a way where you couldn't regroup the sleeve and i teach it all the time keeping the sleeve tight keep it using your thumb to lever and there's always no space

i'm always like talking about doubling up on that grip folding that sleeve doubling so there's no space in the sleeve taking the slack out yeah using a meaningful sleeve grip yeah he did the opposite oh it was so loose it was so loose oh so i was like yo what is that and i like just had a conversation with him in japanese yeah he's like well let me tell you yeah right and he gave me this long drawn out thing and we're just having a conversation and i was like okay mate guys everyone come inside i was like say that teach that and i'll translate it in english yeah just teach it to me in japanese okay again exactly how you just said it yeah and then he was like all right yeah you know inside position outside position i

put the pressure like this usually people don't like to put the elbow in but i put the pressure down i slide the lapel down and then i keep the hand away and then when they punch that sleeve into the lapel i catch it i push it against my chest and then i roll it to bring that hand down and now i'm in a 60 40 position oh man i i yeah i want i wish i had been there, man. And then I go, do you cut that hand off from there? Yeah. He goes, no, because I'd rather be 60-40 winning position than 100-0. Oh, why is that? Because when I cut that hand off, when I have two hands on,

when he has one hand on, I'm fully offensive. He's fully defensive. Now the onus is on me to create movement or he forces a bailout yeah yeah now I have to transition it was and the opportunities lost and he almost always has one or two of those shots I say so I don't want to prevent that I want to prevent that so he wants to give the his opponent some like false sense of safety almost yeah so he goes i don't want to be fully dominant i don't like trying to throw a guy

that's fully defensive it's very difficult it's hard to create movement yeah and then i was like wow that's really interesting mind you he's 250 pounds yeah yeah so you can kind of take that yeah of course he's gonna be if he's in 60 40 position with me oh there's no it's very very unfair right because you know what i mean so when you reverse it when i'm going against him me being in dominant 60 40 against him doesn't overcome the weight and the size difference yeah yeah so you got to take this kind of advice with a grain of salt i think but i liked it that he goes 60 40 70 30 there's a sweet spot range and then sometimes when they feel too threatened because you're gaining more events 80 20 the more they get defenses the more they're going to get locked in and then the more you have

to sort of retreat and let them gain some position that's such an interesting point dude that's like i want them in this zone specifically dude what a nugget of wisdom how interesting what a golden nugget of wisdom like holy shit you know like now i think back like i think I think I've kind of, like, thought about it in passing. Like, I, because, yeah, if you're too dominant, they just flop down. Yeah, they flop. Yeah. And you're right. It's, like, really hard to create movement when they're, like, just sitting on their butt, you know, like.

Yeah. But he's like, if you give them a little bit of hope, you know. And he goes, sometimes the advance is just a little bit of hope you know and he goes sometimes the advance is just a little bit skewed right yeah to where they don't

really know that they're in trouble yet guys yeah the caveat is that I feel like this is like for once you get

into the groove of doing Randori like I think this type of advice may not be too appropriate for beginners would you say that

yeah beginners don't know what we were talking about they're just standing there like this guy's so big when is he gonna show us that Uchimaru

it was clean the video's on the Instagram guys by the way right can you throw him again that's all they got out of that

but our brown belts green belts, our intermediates were like, oh, mine's blown. My mind's blown. And then the sleeve stuff. Oh, yeah, the loose sleeve. Yeah.

So he goes, sometimes they're just not engaging. Lapel, lapel. Opposite kenkai to a right versus left. By the way, if you're listening and you haven't followed or subscribed to this podcast go immediately do it oh yeah oh and then let's do the sponsor yes immediately subscribe guys right now yeah and then thank you so much for the sponsors jason lavon joe yeah thank you so much. Judo TV, Discount Coach Intaro. You can watch all the best world tour stuff.

And then Higashibrand.com for all grappling gear merch. We have belts now. Let me see. What? Belts? We're doing belts. See this? Oh, holy shit.

Okay. On the other side, we have this thing. I did this thing, right? Yellow, orange, all the way up to yellow, orange, green. It's soft. Because they're not good at tying their belts yet. Oh, okay, okay. So it's very soft.

It's very easy to tie. It never comes off. So you can just kind of like wrap it, tighten it. It's soft. There's no commitment. You know, it doesn't fall off it's not a whole it's not a thing it's almost like a handicap belt you know what i mean uh right it's like uh and then when you get uh i can't remember if it's green or blue intermediate ranks

you get the thicker stronger to where you have to tie the belt properly in the traditional way. Yeah. Or it won't stay on. That's the soft touch only a grappler designer can implement. You too can be a Shintaro Higashi black belt now with this. You don't even have to do jewelry. You just buy it. Do you do embroidery yourself? No, I don't do it. Well, i mean like yeah okay so you can ask for like yeah the all the characters customizable no i'm not doing that yeah yeah oh you gotta you gotta

take your embroider oh okay okay so no there's embroidery yet with the higashi logo it's a higashi brand belt but if you want to put your name on it, for now, you got to do it yourself. Yeah. Thanks for shitting on my product. No. Now there is beef. No, no. This beef will be, yeah.

It's for constructive criticism. Yeah. Thanks, Peter. All right. So we're talking about sleeve stuff. Yeah. So, yeah. Now the. So we're talking about sleeve stuff. Yeah. So, yeah. Now the soft sleeve, what happened?

So I teach a way, right, where it's like you grab the wrist and then you clip the bottom of the sleeve and you collect the sleeve and you double up. So there's no slack in the gi whatsoever. And that's sort of semi-traditional. Yeah. Not in a competitive way because this is like modern high level judo that's not explicitly taught every single high level judo guy on the international circuit who is successful does this kind of thing already it's never really taught it's something that people just kind of little by little pickup over the years you work out with nicola skill you don't work out with

anybody who's the top of the world judo because they know how to do it well yeah but they grab your sleeve and you can't grab theirs yeah right so what he's doing is trying to get to the 60 40 thing with the baiting yeah for them to get double collar yeah and when they're just completely disengaging how to get the sleeve right yeah so he'll reach and then just catch it just very loosely and he goes the moment you start collecting and re-gripping and then tightening they go immediately berserk oh because they're like threatened they feel threatened they don't want you to do those things yeah especially high level judo guy knows when they grab a certain sleeve they're like oh shoot this guy i told you the story about my father yeah grip up with me yeah then i'll grip with him and be like ah amateur

right uh for years and years right right because he was trying to see like how i was mechanically grabbing the gi yeah yeah and he would make it this thing like it's chi or it's energy or whatever it was but you you guys probably know like if you've done grappling for a long time as soon as you tie up when you're wrestling or like once as soon as you take the grip in bjj or judo you just kind of feel how good they are yeah you can kind of tell yeah yeah so he snatches the top of the sleeve and it's extremely loose yeah right so what he goes there's only two options yeah they're gonna try to rip away yeah or regroup the sleeve yeah rip away as they're yanking their elbow you follow it loosely yeah right while you're

in the hand to create a frame on the inside collar yeah and then when their arm cannot retreat anymore that's when you re-grip into a tighter sleeve grip ah or that's when you retreat this hand and pull it back in yeah he goes he doesn't tighten it majority of the time he keeps it loose and every time they go to re-grab the sleeve yeah he'll flick the hand down or flick the hand out to make sure that the knuckles are facing his wrist so the person cannot re-grip the sleeve oh and because it's loose there's a lot of movement when they're trying to catch and re-grab the sleeve and that's the timing when he could yank the arm up and then go for a big turn throw. Because the arm needs to be loose to create the movement

in order to try to re-grab the sleeve. Dude, that's some advanced stuff, man. I don't even know a lot of us can really implement that. He did that. He did it to where it's like I was watching him gripping and there were guys who did grip fighting with him for three minutes,

didn't touch the sleeve once. Oh, because he keeps it loose and then like almost like water, huh? Yeah, he's like flicking it, moving it around. While monitoring the other hand. And then every now and then he'll be doing that and then he'll cut this inside lapel hand. If he's on the inside, he'll like shove the shoulder in, rip the hand. And then so now all of a sudden you If he's on the inside, he'll like shove the shoulder in, rip the hand,

and then so now all of a sudden you have no hands on the gi. And he's clearing the arm to the inside. You have no hands on it. He has two hands on it and he'll slip that leg in for Uchimata.

I'm going to try to do this next time. It was very masterful and it was like unbelievable that a heavyweight was doing that. But it went against all the rules of like, this is a meaningful sleeve grip. Yeah. Which was like, kind of blew my mind.

So some of these things that I was able to extract out of him, it was like pulling teeth. Because in the beginning, he was like, what do you want me to show? Like a throw? Because he's never really taught judo. No. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And then so that was extremely valuable yeah you know and then we did like a q a sort of a thing at the end and then the guys

would tell me and i would prompt them initially so it was like the questions that i may naturally come like yo but it wasn't like what do you think about this can you show it it was like all right let's fucking mess around here. Yeah. And I'm shelving the thing on. What is your go-to from here? Yeah. And then he'll do it a few times.

And I'm like, all right, this is what you're doing here. Yeah. You're not just throwing the elbow over. Yeah. But there's a way that you're bending, putting outside pressure on my lead arm. Right? He's like, well, I'm attacking the wrist first. I'm like, oh, how are you doing that?

He's like, well, the hand is positioned on this collar, so I want to pull this hand inward, angle my body, and then bring my shoulders to the outside. It's like a wrist lock. And once that's bent, then I shelf my forearm across the outside at this angle. And now his arm is useless. That's when I go ahead and reach and then clip that sleeve

and now you can't re-grip it because i'm flicking this hand around and then that's when i throw which amount of hair i was like wow you know so that's a question that was asked by one of the students that i asked him beforehand and then i was like all right q a you asked that question i asked him again we already kind of rehearsed it And now he's able to like give it to me in Japanese again. And I can translate it. And it looked like a very informative cinema-like fashion thing. Yeah, yeah. It was awesome.

It really was great. And then we drilled it. You're being a good moderator. Because, you know, yeah. That's my like special skill. Translation and extracting judo knowledge out of people from Japan. That's very valuable. That's a very big advantage, the fact that you can do that.

Like I said, we discussed this, right? Like, they don't really make instructionals. They don't? Yeah, why would they, you know? No. Yeah. He... All this language.

Make him make an instructional with me oh yeah maybe you should do like a tour in japan and then just like yeah yeah have like ono shiho make a instructional with you yeah did he make one is it uchimanaana or Hanegoshi? Once and for all, yeah. Did you throw that French guy with Hanegoshi or Uchimana? Does it matter? You'll be like, I don't even know.

It looks the same to me. It matters on Reddit. That's what matters. On Instagram, too. Anyway, these are the kind of things that i love you know when people yeah join us and then they have something to share yeah and then you know i could provide a platform for them to be able to share it you know yeah man if you have a high skill you could come by yeah work out with us it's a great thing but you know be a drop in fee do the right thing you know don't yeah you know what i mean that's right um don't be weird don't be weird that's so all right so that so this this was like a very informative visit and this type of high

level guys coming in uh from japan and they're uh they have like all this like you know the fact that they didn't really know how to explain it and then you're like trying to extract it out of it so like do you think they should learn to do this more or like to teach better is that like a you think that's like required like because it's like so it's a pity that this type of knowledge is lost like how can we even like work on this here no you you can for sure you gotta make sure your knowledge is up to date you know you gotta be watching videos doing stuff always learning first and foremost yourself yeah when you see a guy like that you could pinpoint exactly what's special about their skill and what's different yeah and then when you have a

dialogue with that person it's like all right these are the different things that i'm doing now you could immediately recognize it and then learn it and then reteach it you know and then on monday that was on monday yeah and then we did the repeat of that kind of when he wasn't there on wednesday like i showed it again and i asked some of the guys that were there like hey what were all the things that you remember and i made those guys show it right and now all of a sudden it's kind of embedded. And then today would have been the perfect day for us to like, go do like a final.

All right. This is what we've been working on all week. But today we have a leg lock seminar thing happening. Oh yeah. Yeah. Renee Sousa. So it's going to be a completely tangential thing. That's going to be unrelated to anything we've been doing.

But a lot of my lefties who have been working on sleeve catching and sleeve gripping and preventing the re-grip, those guys got so much out of it. So now, we'll see if they could make it their own.

It's my job now to remind them, hey, remember that thing we did the other day? And then they've been working on it non-stop, it's like you know the way i show it too is still useful too yeah that's also very good like don't forget that you gotta go in between ball sometimes you catch it loose and you whip it around and sometimes you catch it follow it and then re-grip it and make it tight yeah you know it's a very very unique skill to be able to do this there's nothing to even do a throwing technique. Yeah. It's more contextual, grip fighting, positional stuff

because the Japanese do extremely well. Yeah. You got to be knowledgeable yourself. You have to absorb it in a way that will help you, right? Yes. That's right. All right. Well, anything else?

No, check out my belts and stuff and that Peter's, you know. If you buy one, I'll embroider on it for you. Don't say that. Now I'm going to hold it to you. I know. I don't know how to do that. Higashibrand.com.

Please check it out. Thank you very much, everyone, for listening always. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast. Wherever platform that you're listening on, follow it. the podcast, wherever platform that you're listening on. Follow it. And then, yeah, thank you very much for your support, always. Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you guys for listening, and we'll see you guys in the next episode.