The Shintaro Higashi Show - Heart To Heart From Tbilisi

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

Shintaro recently traveled to Tbilisi, Georgia as one of the IJF commentators for 2024 Judo Grand Slam Tbilisi. In the midst of his busy schedule, he was able to find some time to sit down in his hotel room and reflect on his experience so far. What does it take to run a huge event like a IJF Grand Slam? What do the IJF staff members think about the current state of Judo? What has Shintaro realized about his own Judo journey through this experience? 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 episode. I'm doing this from Tbilisi, Georgia. That's right. I'm here for the IJF World Tour, the Tbilisi Grand Slam 2024. Not as an athlete, not as a coach, but as a commentator, which you can actually go check out judotv.com, discount code SHINTARO, and watch me commentate alongside Sheldon and Neil Adams, who are legends in the broadcasting game, in the judo broadcasting game.

So, yeah, how's it going? It's been a very, very interesting trip so far. It's been a very, very long time since I've been on an IJF tour. For those of you who don't know, IJF is the International Judo Federation. It's the governing body for all of international judo. So the world championships, the Olympics, the world masters, the grand slams, the grand prixs, those cover sort of the major majors of across the globe, high level elite judo. And they don't do too much like masters or veterans like that but

they're really really all about like the elite level competition the olympic games all this stuff okay so what is the world tour all right so back maybe like 10 years ago so you uh international judo did like a complete overhaul, and they wanted to make everything super professional, kind of like international tennis, and they have this whole system of the world ranking list, where now there's just so much depth in each category. You could look up people who are ranked to 500th, 600th. The list goes really, really deep, and everyone can check it out. It's a really cool thing.

Used to be World Cups, Grand Prixs, Grand Slams, Masters, World Masters, and then you have the World Championships and the Olympics above it. Now we have the Continental Opens, which is like the Pan American Open Series, European Open Series. And then you have the World Tour, which are the Grand Prix and the Grand Slams. The Grand Prix, if you get first place, you get 700 points. Grand Slams, if you get first place, you get 1,000 points. And as you can imagine, the six best results count toward your international world ranking list. So now there's a world ranking list, and that is the basis of in which

Olympic qualifications matter. So if you're the top 20 or top whatever it is, there's a direct qualification, there's wildcard quotas, et cetera, et cetera. So back when I was an athlete, I would come onto these world tour events in order to gain points, to try to make an Olympic team, obviously. And, you know, a lot of these guys who are out here, that's what they're doing for a living, right?

They're professional judo athletes. Now, in 2024, then when I joined, when I was actually competing, you know, back in like late 2000s, my career spanned from like really 2007 all the way to like 2015. So I had about a decade of fighting on this circuit. And you can look it up, too. You can go to judoinside.com, punch in my name, Juntaro Higashi, and you can see all my international contests. I lost 70% of the time. My record is abysmal, but I did fight the best in the world. Anyway, when you come out to these events, every country has a number of slots that they can send an athlete. So for instance, the Stablisi Grand Slam, every country could send two athletes per division.

That's it. One athlete per division, and they get two wildcard slots. So they get to send nine people on the men's team, nine people on the women's team. That's it. Eight-team man team, it's capped. So you better believe that when you come to these events, the people who are representing each and every one of these countries are some of the best in their own country.

This tournament specifically had about 500 competitors, and now this is excluding kids, masters. This is only adult black belt. That's it. That's all they're doing. Adult black belt, 500 of the best people on this planet coming to compete for Olympic points. So what's the difference between now and 10 years ago? Obviously the rules have changed a little bit and the feel has changed, but I think the biggest thing that I noticed was professionalism. It was very interesting because now in the venue, I'm on this side of the mat with staff. I'm doing commentating. We're all required to wear suits. There's a very, very professional feel where everyone there is truly staff, truly care about the sport.

And it's just unparalleled. It's not like going to a dingy gym back in the States or some local thing or a regional thing. No one's really doing it for money, even though there is a lot of money involved. It was just like a very, very interesting experience. And, you know, before, when I would go to a tournament venue, I would spend 90% of my time in the warm-up area because you would get to the venue, you would go to a tournament venue, I would spend 90% of my time in the warm-up area. Because you would get to the venue, you would go to the warm-up area,

and in the warm-up area, which is humongous, there is a big mat space, matches coming up, current matches going on on a big screen TV, and you just kind of wait your turn. And when you're not competing, you're like resting, hanging out, bullshitting with other people from other countries,

you're talking to your coach, you're listening to music, whatever. You know what I mean? But you spend 90% of the time there. And when you're gearing up to compete and then you see, oh, I'm up in five, they call your name, they come and get you, et cetera, et cetera. And there's these little kids that sort of volunteer for the event from the local judo organizations, and they hold on to your stuff so they have a little basket and they follow you along and then you put your wallet your shirt your

clothes your bag you just give it to them and they just hold it in a basket behind you and then you step up with your coach and then there's like this path right there's this tunnel and you like walk through the tunnel and then there's like waiting areas you go to judogi control where they measure your judogi you have your credentials you give your credentials you show your passport and then there's like waiting areas you go to judogi control where they measure your judogi you have your credentials you give your credentials you show your passport and then they let you go to the next checkpoint and it's like these series of checkpoints that you walk through until you actually get to the tournament arena it's super cool and you're waiting in the tunnel while you're waiting for your match and the match before you end and you go out into the stadium and man the stadium is packed i mean it depends where you go i hear if you go to dush stadium, and man, the stadium's packed. I mean, it depends where you go.

I hear if you go to Dushanbe in Tajikistan, you have an entire stadium, 5,000 people, full. People standing, there's nowhere to sit. Every seat in the stadium is full. And there's like 500 people waiting outside to greet the athletes. That's Dushanbe, Tajikistan. I've been to stadiums in France, full. Crowd is full. Tickets sold out for the World Championships. Tokyo Grand Slam.

Even Georgia, Tbilisi, where I was. It was just so many freaking people coming to watch over a three-day period, trying to get a glimpse of the hometown hero. You really, really see how there's people who care about this stuff from a spectator standpoint

and as fans, you know, and it's great to see. So anyway, you come out of the tunnel and people are watching and then you get walked out to your mat and then your coach sits down and you go out and compete. And that's it really. You get escorted out. You know, you can't really like go anywhere. You can't like sit mat side or hang out or go into the stands. You can't do any of that stuff. There's a section in the stands for athletes where like if you lost for the day, you can't like sit mat side or hang out or go into the stands. You can't do any of that stuff. There's a section in the stands for athletes where like if you lost for the day, you don't have to be in the athlete area. You can kind of watch in the stands in the athlete section.

That's pretty cool. You know, one time I was in the World Championships in Japan, and I got to sit in the athlete section after I lost first round, and I got to see Putin there, you know, because the VIP section was like right next to, and Putin had his, you know, bodyguards and such. And then, you know, it was really cool. But yeah, anyway, that's the athlete experience.

Totally segregated from the mat and this side of the mat, which is all IJF staff. And let me tell you, there's like a hundred people there, a hundred people staffed to the gills, everyone in suits, everyone good at their job. Everyone has a role. It was the most professional thing. We're on a telegram, staff telegram, like group chat, where all the information gets set. You know, we're on convocation. So everyone's kind of on the same timeline and hey your staff meal is served in the in the staff lounge in the vip lounge you could have your your lunch and you know there's waters coffees everything paid for uh there's a chat room for specifically the van to get you

to and from the tournament venue because hey hey uh you know the commentator team of four needs to be on you know the, the van at 815. And they'll tell you like, hey, van number four leaves at 815, you know, and you can kind of coordinate all this stuff. It was super organized. And it was massively just, it was just so impressive, really, how professional everything was and how polite everyone was and everyone's following protocol and boy uh you know when you go to tournaments and back home and you know there's people running around and you know uh it's really quite a different experience you know being at one of these things. And, you know, we had

zero interaction with athletes. Just when like Neil was interviewing the athletes when you're, you know, after the champions and stuff like that, there was some interaction and they're like, we see them on the mat, but you're not really hanging out with athletes at all. And we're staying at a different hotel. And, you know, I remember, like, being an athlete, you're in a hotel. Yeah, it's a good hotel. Your meals are comped, all this stuff. But the staff experience is much different. You know, we're in a really, really nice hotel in Tbilisi.

The meals are frigging delicious. We have single rooms. And, you know, the thing about athletes is, like, there's 500 athletes competing at this thing. You're in a hotel, a huge hotel. It's crowded. There's, you know, you go to lunch or dinner that's, you know, paid for. And there's tons of people there. But the staff doesn't have to interact with any of that.

And I think it's because, you know, it's probably better that they're segregated because, you know, it's a cover your ass thing. You don't want staff intermingling with athletes and trying to have, you know, try to bang them and stuff. You definitely don't want that. And, you know, it maintains that professional separation, which I think is very good for any organization. You know, the referees don't intermingle with the athletes and they're not eating lunch and dinner together. And when that kind of thing starts to happen, I think a lot of problems can arise because we're all human. You know, we're all attracted to one another and mistakes can be easily made. So, you know, that's something I never really even thought about. And, you know, you go to a USA Judo event

and you're staying at the same hotel with the athletes, with the staff, with the referees. And, you know, after you're done competing, you go back to the hotel, and, you know, the referees and the staff are just hanging out at the hotel bar drinking, and you get to hang out with them, you know? So, boy, was that a big difference. And, yeah, just a much more comfortable experience. Don't get me wrong. the work was grueling. The tournament starts at 9 a.m., we have to be there at like 8. Not that crazy.

But we're commentating the whole day, and then there's a short two-hour break, and then there's the final block, which I didn't have to do because I'm like training, a commentator in training. But man, you're there for 12 hours straight and you know it's three days back to back you get to the hotel like eight o'clock you're wired from the competition it's a lot of work for certain and you know everyone has their roles and they come to these events and a lot of these staff goes to every event. For instance, next week we're going to go to Antalya for the Grand Slam in Turkey.

And then there's a little bit of a break. And then there's Dushanbe, Kazakhstan, World Championships back-to-back. So these guys are going to be on the road for another three or four weeks in May also. We'll see if I get hired.

And then, you know, maybe I have an opportunity to do that. I don't really know. But, you know, this is sort of a trial run. But, yeah, what an amazing experience. And, yeah, it was a very unique perspective that I was able to experience. And even as an athlete, you don't get to watch that much judo because you're in the athlete area. So when you're in the athlete area, you're really thinking about yourself. You'll warm up. When are you fighting next? My teammates, I have to talk to my coach, help this guy warm up. I have to make weight, all these other factors. And yes, there's

a screen in the athlete section with the matches going on. And you're like, oh, maybe I'll watch this match. Maybe I'll watch that match. But you're not really, really watching judo. You know, you're really thinking about yourself and your team. But this time, I'm watching judo for seven hours straight. All the prelim matches, there's three mats going on at once. And, you know, whenever there's an interesting matchup, we'll go to that. And we're literally watching and commentating, you know, with no break.

I mean, we give each other breaks, but we're watching judo all day. The highest level judo. So what did I learn from that experience? It definitely gave me a new perspective on techniques that are trending, the way judo is going in terms of competition, how people are doing what, technique trends, things that are happening sort of on the circuit. And it gave me a new appreciation of the rules because when I was on break, I was able to sit with the referees and I was asking them questions like crazy.

It was unbelievably warm welcome for me because all these guys, you know, know me from YouTube. And if they don't know me from YouTube, they know me from when I was competing in and get my ass kicked. So they were incredibly receptive to me asking questions and talking to them, which is very useful for me. But yeah, let's start with techniques and rule sets. So the rules are always changing. And there's a lot of people out there who are complaining about the rules. Yes, they are. And the champions who are out here competing, they don are complaining about the rules. Yes, they are. And the champions who are

out here competing, they don't bitch about the rules. Real champions hear that the rules are changing and they adapt. And Neil Adams said this. Neil Adams is a two-time Olympic medalist, legend in the game, commentator for freaking 25 years on the IJF circuit. If you watch any judo online, you've heard his voice. Yeah, he said this. He says, champions will adapt no matter what. Guys who are not champions will sit there and complain and, oh,

it's another reason why they can't do something. And I was like, yeah, you have a good point. Do you like the rules? He goes, yes, I do. I was like, why? There's so many Shidos. He goes, it forces the do. I was like, why? There's so many Shidos. He goes, it forces the action. And it really does. They're so quick to give a penalty right now.

The first one minute, you might get two, three Shidos right off the rip. Because they don't want people not gripping up. They don't want people escaping. They don't want people stalling. Even when you have a dominant grip and if you're holding them there, it's considered stalling. And it makes the pace of the match much faster and people can say oh how can a referee or rule set dictate how the sport looks but that is the entire reason why judo doesn't look like brazilian jiu-jitsu and

brazilian jiu-jitsu doesn't look like wrestling because of the rule set and how different things are rewarded that's very acceptable different things are rewarded, that's very acceptable. Different things are rewarded in different ways. People can accept that, no problem. But different rule sets penalizing certain things, people don't accept in the same way. I'll give you an example. This penalty of not gripping up, right? This go one, two, three, four, Shido penalty, used to take a little bit more time. Now, in the first 10 seconds of the match, if you're not actively trying to put your hands on the person,

or if you're gripping and breaking away, like grip breaking and pulling away, immediate penalty to set the precedent of the match. And it creates momentum. You step out of bounds, penalty. Right away, especially if it's in the first minute. And yes, three penalties, you're out. They're much more hesitant to give the third penalty.

And there's a little bit of a delay in giving the third penalty for certain. Now, there's so many nuanced ways that the referees will interpret, and it's so unclear to the average consumer who is watching judo why things are being done. There is no explanation. But what's amazing about these world tours is that there's a world ranking list for these IJF referees. world ranking list for these IJF referees. I was sitting next to this woman from Italy and she was telling me about the

whole system and I asked her, what's your world ranking list in refereeing? She goes, I am fourth in the world. And there's a top 50 that can be invited to the Grand Prix and Grand Slams to referee. And then only the top 30 may qualify to referee at a World Championships

or Olympic Games. and the way these people are scored is how consistent their calls are and whether or not they get overturned so for instance if you go to a tournament and you say someone gets like launched and there's all yipon and the guy scores a throw the person gives yip, but then they video review it, they always video review it, and then they go, you know what, that wasn't any pawn, the back didn't even touch, that's a full-blown mistake, and that person gets penalized, and they get kind of, you know, adjusted accordingly, not like one mistake, but like the average, they get a grade for that tournament, and then it averages out, and it reflects in your rankings. Every single one of these events before the tournament begins,

there's a refereeing seminar, a seminar where they get together and talk about what happened last week, things that were good, things that were bad. Interpretations of the rules that, you know, maybe proceeds a certain way that might needs to be revisited. It's a constantly evolving study that they discuss within the group, within the organizations. And after the competition, they go back to their respective countries. And they're obviously the best referee in that country. And those people bring that information to the domestic level of referees. And there's sort of this top-down thing that happens that starts at the elitist of the elitist levels. And very, very impressive. I'm going to go on Thursday. I invited myself, kind of. I was

like, can I go to the referee seminar? And I asked a bunch of people and they said, yeah, sure. So I'm going to go and let you know how that goes. But boy, is it interesting, even stepping out of bounds. So if we're both engaged in the center and someone literally just shoves me to the edge and then pushes me out, that's not a penalty for me. That's a penalty for the other guy because he's just playing the game. He's not actively trying to take me down. But if we're doing judo and I'm like kind of escaping toward the edge because he almost throws me,

I'm trying to escape, I'm backing out, I'm backing out, and then we're near the ledge. I get there by myself. We're actively throwing each other and then he makes a push and then I step out of bounds. That's a penalty for me, stepping out of bounds.

And these minor nuances may seem trivial, but it truly does follow the principle of making the athletes engage and compete. Because if one person runs away, there's no judo. If one person in a boxing fight, like, gets out of the ring and runs down the venue, there's no boxing fight. So it may seem like, why are they given penalties, et cetera, et cetera. There's always a philosophy behind it. You know, even with the banning of the stuff, oh, here's an interesting

one. Head touch. When you go for a throw and your head touches the mat first, immediately disqualification. And you see the great champions like Ono diving their head down to the floor and throwing Uchimata. Now, there's no way he'll get penalty

immediately. And you know, the question arises, can he still be an Olympic champion yes he can you know and I think and we all think Neil Adams thinks too that he would adapt to something like that because champions are adaptable but the reason why

they did that is because it's dangerous and they do have a protocol to not show injuries not show bloody things. Judo is a tough sport. It's a contact sport. But they want to make sure the world sees the best parts of judo. And that's what really guides them. Because we don't need to be showing people breaking their arm, breaking their legs in a judo tournament to kids, you know, in France or Japan or Brazil,

all these places. So they want to do everything with sort of the next generation in mind. Kids do judo and they want to protect those kids by making sure that they're not exposed to the most dangerous parts of judo. And they want to use the rule sets to sort of shape it. It's kind of like the tax law, right? They give tax incentives for property owners because they want people to buy properties, make it look nice, so property value goes up. And then when you walk down the street in a suburban area, like the zoning rules and all these rules makes it so that, you know, property values rise for the benefit of everyone in the world, right? Everyone in the United States. It's a very similar idea. The IJF wants to make sure dangerous things don't happen so kids don't get injured.

And they want to present the best parts of Judah. I sound like a propaganda machine. And it's not because I'm here for the IJF or anything like that. But these are really my take on this stuff. And fight me all you want. You know, you guys are on YouTube. Complain about it in the comments. I probably won't read them.

Actually, that's not true. I might skim past it. I probably won't read them. Actually, that's not true. I might skim past it. I probably won't respond. I probably should. But just leave it in the comments. Okay, leave it in the comments and we could discuss it. Yeah, it's a good thing that the IJF has a certain vision and they wanna protect kids and make things safe. And that got me sort of thinking about all the rule changes that happened in the past, head dive rules, very strict about it. We don't want neck and head injuries for kids.

We don't want them for intermediate adults. Korean Sanagi, arm break, okay, how often do people break an arm with Korean Sanagi? How often is it successful? How often is it not successful? And the risk reward was just people start spamming it. And the more people do it, without the success of actually throwing,

but the risk of breaking an arm is higher than the likelihood of it leading to a successful throw, kind of has this risk profile that's, you know, really atrocious. Why wouldn't they want to ban a technique like that? So that made sense to me. And then, you know, I'm speaking to some of the best that have ever been, sort of who have taken on roles. Everybody at the IGF, they have done judo at some point in their life. Some of them are champions and some of them were on the world tour and some of them are just domestic champions, but every single one of those guys have done judo. So I'm talking with some of the best judo minds who are passionate enough to be out here on these trips,

some of the best judo minds who are passionate enough to be out here on these trips pushing judo forward, right? And I was talking to all those guys about the leg grab ban because that's a more popular thing people complain about on the internet. And they said, yes,

beautiful tegurumas where guys get skied and put down, massive motegaris and leg grabs to, you know, send people to the moon. Yeah, those are very gorgeous. And yes, they're in the old school classification of the Kodokan technique list. But for every one of those that you see, there's 10 terrible attempts where you're just diving on the legs. It looks like a rugby match.

It looks like a wrestling thing. And it kind of goes away from sort of that principle of judo, really. And, you know, I myself used to grab legs all the time. It was a big part of my game. Mostly, though, not to score, but when someone outgrips me and they were about to throw me, I would dive into the legs, take them down with a high crotch. And most of the time, I'd probably say 95% of the time, it wouldn't score, but it would get me out of a bad position. 95% of the time, it wouldn't score, but it would get me out of a bad position.

Now, if you're looking at it from a martial perspective, like a martial artist perspective, yes, that's useful, street fighting, all this stuff. But the IJF doesn't care about street fighting. They don't care about self-defense and all this stuff. IJF cares about growing judo internationally the best they can and putting out the best judo infrastructure slash product to kind of showcase the best of judo and that's partially why when someone gets accidentally punched in the mouth they don't show blood all over their gi they're very very quick they have a protocol if someone's bleeding even just a little bit they get sent off to the medic team there were like 10 doctors here, you know, working mat side diligently, covering blood, spraying blood,

making sure people are safe. It's very, very well staffed from a medical standpoint and getting blood off the geese, et cetera, et cetera. When someone gets injured, you know, every sport has that. The camera immediately pans away and it's not shown in the replays, although it sometimes do make itself online. But they like to control this because they're really, really thinking about the growth of the sport, the visibility, who watches it, and then the future of the sport. And that sort of leads me to my next thing that I was kind of thinking about from a marketing standpoint you know how can this be more of a thing internationally I had the chance to meet with the fighting films team and a team of seven people who were working on just the social for the IJF, and it was just really interesting how the whole thing was just, it was unbelievable, really, like, how many people were involved in this thing, this

judo, and how knowledgeable people were, yeah, and it was very emotional for me, you know, Yeah, and it was very emotional for me. You know, I'm going to digress a little bit now, but, you know, make it about me. But, yeah, it was something that was so close to my heart for many, many years. And ever since I could remember, I wanted to be an Olympic champion. And I was really nowhere near it, you know, in hindsight. I pulled myself into thinking, yeah, one day I'm going to be a champion. One day, one day, one day.

And yes, I was training, but I wasn't in the best of environments. I was partying and hanging out and doing all these different things. And I didn't quite do it, you know. And it's such a small window of opportunity to be able to do it because age matters, athleticism matters. And the older you get, the less opportunities you have to do well at these things. And, you know, for me to be away half the year just competing, it's just like not feasible, you know. So it did make me feel a little bit sad. just like not feasible, you know? So it did make me feel a little bit sad and seeing the Olympic champions and being around world champions. And, you know, I have this like sick narcissistic thing where it's like, yo, I could have been a world champion. I'm fucking really good. I'm the best

in the world at this stuff. But, you know, in reality, I'm not. And it's kind of a reminder seeing, you know, the world, former world champion Shemra Dishvili from Spain, who's actually from Georgia, and seeing that guy compete at my old division. And he's massive and he's an unbelievable athlete. And, you know, seeing that guy and then really thinking like, can I actually go out there and beat this guy on my best day? You know, and the truth is no. You know, and I hate to admit that. And it still bothers me to just admit that. It's just like a reality, you know.

And I'm not training as hard. And I'm 40. All these different things. But, yeah, there was a little bit of a sadness there that, you know, I am getting older. I can't be doing this stuff anymore. And I had a very interesting conversation with a member of the IJF staff. This was pretty high up. And I was telling him, I'm going to go to the training camp and work out with these guys.

And he was like, you go work out with those guys? Get out of here. And I was like, yo, I train every day. He's like, these guys are pros. I was i was like yo i train every day he's like these guys are pros i was like bro i know what these guys are like i trained in these camps you know 10 years ago he goes 10 years ago maybe you know and i like to think i'm better now than i was ever before uh but it just kind of made me feel sad a little bit, you know? And I used to always say during that time period, people who would compete in the Masters Division,

the Veterans Divisions, those guys competing there because they didn't do it, you know? And I'm going to never be one of those guys because I'm going to do it. I'm going to go and get on the world's ranking list, and you guys already know my claim to fame. to go and get on the world's ranking list. And you guys already know my claim to fame. I was 43rd on the world's ranking list. Pretty high.

But it was under the old system. When World Cup wins, 100 points. Grand Prix wins, 200 points. Grand Slam wins, 300 points. Now it's a different point system. So for me to only be getting medals at the Continental Open or the World's Cup level and get to a ranking now, which is much more competitive and the point systems are kind of worked out mathematically,

you know, I'm no 43rd right now. You know what I mean? Even at the skill that I had back then. even at the skill that I had back then. So, yeah, I forgot where I was going with this. But yeah, it makes me want to get back into it. And I was watching the finals from the mat side, and I was like, I have unfinished business. It's like when, you know, you have these, like, movies where people die and they become a ghost, and it's like, why are you a ghost, you know?

And at the very end of it, it's like, oh, I couldn't, you know, go to heaven or hell because, like because like i had unfinished business and i had to tell somebody i love them or i couldn't do you know there's a reason why that they couldn't just go into the afterlife because there's something left for them in this world right and you know it's every freaking dumb movie ever it's every love movie ever ghost or whatever it is with Patrick Swayze, all that thing. But there is still something for me there in the competition scene. And I've been training a lot of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the last year. And I figured maybe I'll get really good at BJJ and then I'll be a BJJ champion. Or maybe I could use the skills from BJJ and apply it to judo and have a competitive edge.

But I've been training a lot in the last year. And I didn't know exactly where it was going to lead to me. And I always told myself, dude, Masters divisions, not for me. Veterans, don't want to do it. But after being out here, for me to be back in the regular division for international judo, it's absurd. Absurd, because these guys getting so banged up, I don't even lift that much weights anymore. You know, comparatively, like back then, I was deadlifting in the 500s consistently.

I was sprinting, I was jumping, 10 pull-ups, you know, clean, benching, you know, 315, all this stuff. I was a phenom of an athlete. I was fat, but I was a phenom of an athlete. I was freaking strong, coordinated, fast. But I wasn't coachable either. That was an issue.

I wouldn't listen to anybody. But my mind is a lot better now. Body, physically much weaker. Had the stroke. Definitely some coordination deficits on my right side of the body. To fight in the elite division would be ludicrous. The risks are too high.

Maybe there is something for me in the master's division. I hate even saying that. But perhaps if I dominate my age category, I could go down in age, down in age, down in age. And once I dominate through all those age divisions, perhaps I could enter into the adult division, but only after I've proven myself in every age category, is what I'm thinking. category is what I'm thinking. Now, this is really dumb because I have a full-blown career at home with two dojos, a bunch of real estate. I have a daughter, single parent, all this stuff. I have responsibilities now, staff, you name it. Like, I'm freaking busy my responsibility to you guys producing product and shows and podcasts

and instructionals and all this stuff and YouTube which is a free resource for everybody there really is no space for me to do this but I want to. I really do. And I think my foray into that. Has to be.

Not this idea of competition. Or not competition. Or do you compete? Yes or no? Or I'm trying to make a world team. Not like that. It can't be that black and white. Somewhere there has to be a compromise.

And the way I approach it needs to be a little bit different. I think I have to. Sacrifice some training days during the week and use these competitions as training. Competitions are on weekends, Saturdays generally. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. If I go international, obviously it's going to burn the whole week. But most competitions, Saturday and Sunday. So I've got to make up for that time compromise by not training certain weekdays.

Not training. I'm always going to train. But make time in order to use all these different competitions that I may go to, but try to frame it in my head as practice. I'm going to practice at this event. I'm going to practice at that event, and I'm really going to study the rules, event and I'm really going to study the rules etc etc to be good at not just doing grappling but winning within the nuance of the rule set for instance there's this tournament coming up in this area. Driving distance. I'm going to go there. Do two divisions.

Try to get seven matches. That's my practice. That's a practice. It's practice. I'm not doing it for this bigger thing or that thing. I go to the dojo and do seven, eight rolls, seven, eight rendoris all the time. Every day I do that. But I'm going to sacrifice some of those weekday trainings

and just relocate it into a place where obviously I have to pay $150 for the entry fee, but the $150 for new people that I could train with, train against. Because training with somebody in the dojo is different from training against them in a competitive rule set, in a competition environment, in a particular rule set. environment in a particular rule set. And the question becomes, will I be sad based on doing that?

And I didn't mean to make this like a therapy session, but I had a moment this morning, I went to breakfast, and then I have today off. Today's Monday. And the convocation, I had three days of the tournament. Tomorrow we leave to Antalya and have a day in Georgia. And I was going to go to the training camp, but I was like, you know what? I'm not going to go because I was discouraged to go. Not only that, there's all other reasons.

I wanted to catch up on work, et cetera, et cetera. But I went to lunch to eat Georgian food. Hinkali. Freaking delicious. And I was sitting there waiting for my meal and I legitimately felt a little bit sad.

And I don't get sad. I generally never get sad. But I was sitting there and it was like, from the adrenaline dump of the tournament, being envious of the champions and feeling entitled that it should actually be me. Missing competition, missing my daughter immensely, and feeling a little bit of guilt that I'm in another country eating dumplings without my child.

And even just thinking about doing a master's division, which I was so judgy of. And take what you made from this conversation or this monologue. I understand that I'm making myself really unlikable with some of these things that I'm saying. But yes, the being really like, you know, judgy about the master's division now accepting maybe that's where I belong. It kind of made me sad, all these combinations of things you know and then I was like I got it I have to fucking

treat competition like training get back out there and be the best best version of myself and have to accept that I'm a master's athlete and then work myself back to the circuit

I can't just jump back into it do I have the right? yes I do because I was a former world team member so can I potentially under the rules, I mean the rules according to five years ago, I don't know what the criteria is now, but if it were five years ago, if you were a former world team member, you could just go on and walk onto the Grand Slam. From the U.S., granted that there's no one higher than you in the rankings already taking up those slots.

granted that there's no one higher than you in the rankings already taking up those slots. So yes, my reroute back in, doing the Masters, will that make me sad, is the question. You know? And that's where sort of my thought

is, and I was like, I need to go work out right now. So I'm going to go to the gym in, you know, 30 minutes and work really hard and all that stuff. And maybe I'll feel so good after that that I'm not even going to post this video because now I'm just like sitting here rambling about stuff. But yeah, what an experience coming out here, you know? And one of the things that I actually came to think about was, is judo really dying internationally? And when you come watch an event like this, it really isn't, because this is the product

at the highest of the highest but there's really no way to tell right and when you watch an organization like IJF put on these amazing events and how much money there is and the TV studio and the things coming in there's freaking 20 cameras and 150 people are working here full-time on this one tournament out of 20 tournaments that they may put on annually. And they're not only getting money from within, like jiu-jitsu. Jiu-jitsu guys do jiu-jitsu,

and they spend on jiu-jitsu, and that's all the money that there is. The consumers are also the product. And the product is sort of the consumption of it. It's like sort of this group collective resource thing. You go to the tournament, a jiu-jitsu tournament, and then everyone's spending essentially on each other. And it's like this thing.

There's no real outside money coming in. At these judo events, no real outside money coming in. At these Judo events, there is outside money coming in. If you look at the sponsors and how much it costs to put on one of these events, even just staffing each event, it must cost millions of dollars. And, you know, if you look at sort of the sponsorship Socar, it's like a local gas company and an oil company and this sort of gym, you know, franchise and chain is sponsoring it and OTP Bank and this and that. It's just like so many different sponsors, right?

And that's outside money coming in for visibility because they see that this is a professional product and they want to associate with the champions in the game. And at first glance, when you log on to Instagram and you see the champions and you click on their name and their tag, and there's not a huge following, you wonder, you know, are these real champions, right? Because champions have a big following. As opposed to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, you get a guy that does Jiu-Jitsu and they're tagging each other, they're following each other. And it's like this community that kind of builds on each other, right? And that's their claim. They buy into the family and the community. I think judo's a little bit different, you know? And I was telling somebody, you know, a lot of people recognize me

from YouTube, right? But how many stories was I tagged in, you know, in a three-day period? Three, four? Not that many. If I walk into a Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament, dude, first two hours, I'll probably get 20, 30 tags in a story just because that's embedded in that culture. It's sort of that culture where everyone feeds on itself. But judo is getting outside money, big money. And there's doing TV licensing deals, you know, because they have the broadcasting coming in. They have all this thing, the TV producers and that. They manage that. There's

a media team and the social media team and the people who are cutting judo TV, fighting films, judo gallery. Everyone's working together and they have this single feed and they have the Georgian commentary team, the Russian commentary team, Japanese commentary team. Some of those guys are in their own respective countries. I'm on the English speaking commentary team, Japanese commentary team. Some of those guys are in their own respective countries. I'm on the English-speaking commentary team. And then, you know, they have that feed leaving the venue and being purchased by the broadcasters of TV here, like an NBC or an ABC, and they're paying for the right to show that

and use that footage for the news or whatever it is, for their version of ESPN. And that happens all across the globe. And when you look at independent neutral or individual neutral nations, athletes, formerly known as Russia, you know, they have Gazprom and Rosneft and these massive corporations piling tons of money. Even in Brazil, OI, it's their version of AT&T, Seoul Airlines or Gol Airlines. They have airline sponsorships and all these different organizations pouring money into the sport. and all these different organizations pouring money into the sport.

So when you watch that, it's definitely a growing thing. But can you really for certain be saying that there's actual growth without tracking global KPIs, key performance indicators, like how many white belts are coming into the sport? What is the retention percentage of that? What is the average age of those people coming in? How many black belts are being produced annually every year, compared year over year? How many dojos are being opened?

All these different things. You know, competition statistics. They all work together. And there's no centralized statistical thing for grappling, really. I mean, not that I know of. But from what I saw on this trip, Judo is definitely not dying. Definitely dying in the United States. So what do we do? I don't really know, but I'm doing my best to keep the thing going.

And there is definitely a little bit of a disconnect between the people at the top and what's happening sort of at the grassroots level. And it's apparent. I was watching those referee seminars, referee things, and talking to the refs and the way things are going. It's supposed to be going towards the right direction for growth of judo, but it's not perceived that way. Leg grab ban, all this stuff,

kind of seems like it's killing the sport, but I don't think it is. So it's very interesting. It's just interesting. You know, and I don't really know where I'm going with this whole thing, but hopefully it was helpful. And yeah, I'm going to go to Antalya

in Turkey, Turkey now. And I'll let you know how that goes too. In the meantime, thank you very much to our sponsors, Jason Levon, David, and Judo TV. Yeah, sorry if I got a little weird in this podcast. There's always this like unfinished business situation and it's a sickness because it's not good for me to have this sort of get back out there compete you know and i become a lunatic a little bit i obsess over it you know and it's like i'll do anything to win and you know

it kind of becomes this thing where it's like, right, I love doing judo for fun and teaching and, you know, bullshitting and like showing you guys stuff on YouTube. But there's also that sickness in me where it's like, hey, I'm the best. I deserve it. There's no one in the world that can beat me. I'm going to own all judo. And, you know, this kind of thing that, you know, I think it's I think it's not just me, but it's a sickness, and I definitely don't want it to come back, but I also do at the same time. So yeah, sorry about that.

I got a little bit weird, but yeah, thank you guys for listening, and yeah, see you very soon.