The Shintaro Higashi Show - How Hard Should I Train?

Episode Date: October 26, 2021

People frequently say we should train hard. But what does that mean really? Should we give our 100% at all times? Can we take a break? If so, how much? These are important considerations when you're training Judo and other grappling arts. In this episode, Shintaro and Peter discuss what exactly it means to train hard, and how hard we should train. Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi show with Peter Yu. Today we're going to talk about how hard should you go in practice. That's right. Before we do that, we're going to plug our Patreon page, right? Right now we have zero patrons and zero people on the Discord, so you have full access to us, right? Peter does this for free on his spare time, which he doesn't have a lot of because he's getting a PhD, right? So thank you so much for doing this for free, but you know, if you're out there listening and you love what we're doing please support us on patreon right patreon so yeah uh it's it's you know you just need a few bucks here and there like whatever you can support you um and then like shintaro mentioned you get to join our discord server and then you know how hard it

is to reach shintaro on any kind of social media right now because he's one of the big influencers out there yeah he gets too many messages that's right but in if you decide to you know support us on patreon you get to join our discord server and it'll be more personal we'll get to you faster um so you can ask us more personalized questions and stuff yep cool all right back to the main program so hard how hard should i train yeah judo how hard should you train you should train hard but i mean hard is such a relative situation right right a lot of the times when we talk about like how hard does that person go a lot of times we're talking about like aggression when we're doing randori right right because you could do the burpees really hard or you could take the warm-up really seriously and work through the warm-ups like properly and like

push yourself right but no one's really talking about that this is specifically talking about the the randori randori situation or in jujitsu it's rolling right in wrestling it's called going live like hey you want to go live right right i see so that's what we're talking about specifically in right the non-cooperative game right right when it's combat oriented right i'm not talking about like you know forms or aikido or other martial arts that have form-based practices now this is like me versus another person kind of right this is a such a big part of any kind of grappling arts because the the main you know advantage of grappling is that you can go as hard as you like i guess without really yeah hurting the other person but i mean there is a big chance yeah there's you can still hurt each other

definitely you know and you know people talk about this a lot more in boxing and striking arts they say how hard should you spark right right one right because it's always understood when you're competing in the boxing ring in a boxing fight or you know a kickboxing match right you're going as hard as you can right so it's like how hard should you spar is always in front of the dialogue but it's not really so much in judo jiu-jitsu or wrestling and grappling arts yeah i think i've been just told that you just you can go as hard as you can unlike other striking arts that's a lot of a lot of times people that's what people say yeah a lot of factors to take into consideration right where are you in your training cycle who are you training

against right if you're black belt you shouldn't be going really really hard and tense on a blue belt or a white belt right right so that so let's like so let's kind of step back and then see like what where you should even start to in trying to answer this question yeah so what what what would be something you would think about first i think the first thing you have to think about is what are your goals right because some people want to go to the dojo break a little bit of a sweat they don't want to get hurt right they're doing martial arts as part of like oh you know i want to learn something i want to get a little bit of a workout

in right that person who's coming from work after a nine to five who just want to make friends and be part of a community and right workout that person has no right just not no right but like no business going 100% all the time competing with everybody right it's only going to get them hurt it's only going to get the other person hurt it's only going to really go against his goals of like okay if i want to make friends and work out and then not get injured right going hard and run dory or live like that goes up against everything what your goals are right right and it's easy to fall into that trap of like someone's going hard and now you're returning it now you're falling into that culture of oh everyone goes hard

in here right which is not a place you should be at right right you definitely don't want you want everything in the room to be differentiated to you. To you, yourself, and your opponent. So on the flip side, how would a more competitive player, maybe you're a junior and you want to make it into the international circuit, how hard should that person go in Randoi situations? It depends on your opponent and it depends on where you are in your training cycle on a daily basis weekly monthly yearly basis right it's like hey you have a tournament you know in three days that's an important tournament you're not gonna go crazy

hard you're just not gonna right that's like the most obvious answer right sometimes you have a tournament way farther out and you're like yeah okay you know i could kind of you know you take an inventory of your body like i have no injuries i could go really hard today but you're sort of in this skill acquisition phase you know i remember when i was trying to learn uchimata for the first time like when i was in like my you know mid-teens you know it's like spamming it really hard got me nothing right right and that's how i approached it at the time right because that was sort of the common traditional methodology right right now i know's how i approach it at the time right because that was sort of the common traditional methodology right right now i know better right i see gotta go slow because balance

is important right there's that inverse ratio the harder you go right the less refined your movements are uh-huh right it's like learning a tennis thing it's much more intuitive if you think about tennis right here's how to do a forehand ah great the ball comes and you hit it as hard as you can right the thing's gonna go this right there you have less control right right the harder you hit it the less control you have so it's like when you're learning tennis it's like no no go slow go through the movements like this you go start from here go from here go from there right it's kind of like trying to pick up a golf swing why doesn't any of this stuff apply to grappling man it should it should 100 yeah right when someone's holding on to you and you try to do

something like all that knowledge all that like common sense goes out the window because you go into survival mode right right yeah you have to use your higher order thing in your brain right that's right the executive functions and things so that so though that idea of cycle especially for a competitive player is quite interesting to me because i've you know i never really i only know like i only have cursory knowledge of that but so can you kind of nationals yes right so i guess from that i think i kind of got this idea of cycle. But you've competed internationally a lot. So can you give us a quick rundown on what that cycle might look like? Just curious at each stage how hard you were going at Andorri?

Yeah, so first it's like I look at the Olympic cycle, right? How close are you to the Olympics? Where are you in terms of points? Right? That really, really matters. So you're going out there, you know, it's an off Olympic year. So now it's like right after the Olympics or something. The best guys in the world aren't really out there in the circuit.

I see. Right. So that's sort of a different cycle than let's just say two years out from the Olympics when everyone is going into a mad rush into these competitions to gain points because every year your points get cut in half oh i see the closer it is to the olympics the more value each and every point has right so the best guys kind of come out of the the woodworks and say okay now it's time to pick it up two years out right so even within that olympic circuit the international circuit you have the european tour where all the european tournaments are bundled together right and then you have the asian tour

which is bundled together and you have the south american tour the oceanic tour right stuff and the reason why they do that is like european tour you could go to you know continental open right compete week after you could go to a grand prix in another country uh you know a week after you go to a grand slam and you could sort of link together like kind of like a tour obviously geographically it makes sense right right so you're competing and now you're doing a training for the week and then you have to go to the camp right because no one's going to go to europe come back to the united states go to it right come back to united states go to germany so you stay in that country uh so the asian tour is happening

like for i remember like late in the winter around november december i would you know do this for years on end it would be korea china japan that was like sort of the trifecta for the asian tour right it would be like a world cup in ceju island in korea and i will go to the grand slam in chindown china and then i will go finish at the grand slam in japan so in between everybody would stay all the best people who are competing the number ones twos and threes would be there right they would do a training camp and just uh everyone comes in together and then practice like how so do you go did you go hard do you go hard in that randori situation because you're so close to the competition yeah yeah so i'll give you an

example like i i went for i flew into korea for the first leg of the tour right i'm there a week out and i'm training with the guys in the u.s team no one really doing randori but i'll do hard and wasa for the first two or three days that i'm there. Especially I'm pushing because I need to cut weight. Because I used to, you know, actually I was cut. I wasn't, you know, I was pretty heavy actually in a heavier division. But, you know, I would cut weight. So depending on how much weight I had to lose, I would vary my training. But in terms of like Rundori, it wouldn't be an aggressive Rundori because we were both competing that same week.

Right, right, right. We wanted to preserve our hands. We don't want to be very jamming up our fingers but we're still going hard by the sense of like intensity of the workout is high because we're trying to lose weight most of the time i see if you didn't have to work out then lose weight because you're already on weight or something like this you feel really good like there's no need for you to really go hard right you just want to break the sweat and go through the drills and the movement so i see i get all the rust off so like the number one two guys would just kind of do which which call me and then kind of like light rolling so to speak like yeah i mean yeah where

they yeah pretty much right before the competition so the competition happens and now you have training camp monday through wednesday but now you're not working out with your own team you're working out with the entire world right right so the monday tuesday workouts generally are much more intense i see i see yeah you have like a morning session or evening session and you get to train with the best people in the in the entire world right you see like uh i remember at that korean uh world cup especially teddy renair was on the mat oh wow team was there the mongolian team was there the french team was there so i would go with like the french guys the korean guys Korean team was there. The Mongolian team was there. The French team was there. So I would go with the French guys, the Korean guys, the Mongolian dudes that fought Naitan in practice.

Oh, nice. Yeah. So you would go hard, pretty hard. I was going hard, yeah, because I was sort of beneath them, right? Naitan's an Olympic champion. I am someone that's new coming on the circuit. So for me, it's like yes i wanted to be respectful but i needed to prove sort of myself like how where do i yeah you have to gauge yourself

like yeah yeah so that was the goal right how can i compete against this person so i'm not going to go out there and go soft and you just kick the hell out of me right you know ultimately kind of did but like yeah i wanted to go hard right Right. But, like, Tuesday, Wednesday, like, going into Wednesday, like, I know I had to compete on Saturday. Right, right, right. So, like, I really needed to start preserving and lowering the intensity of the rounds. So, I would pick a little bit more rounds with the U.S. guys or something. Well, not really U.S. guys, but, like, you know, guys who I know, right? And it's like, hey, man, me and you, we've seen each other.

Like, for instance, there was a guy from Australia. His his name is mark anthony not like the singer but like a different yeah like he was great you know and he you know at the time like i see him at every tournament and you know us is not a powerhouse in judo as you know and australia is not a powerhouse in judo so like we kind of had like a similar dog yeah underdog yes yeah you know and like it's different you know when you're rolling you know 30 deep from japan you're the one and two in the country and everyone's a sponsored athletes and everyone's freaking decked out in like sponsorship gear then you know you roll roll in and it's like that you know anyway me and him like we would work out together and then like especially later in the week you know we were in different categories so it was like you know light round right we got it we got each other uh something

like that i see so i have so yeah it really depends on where you are in the cycle that's very interesting so yeah so then let's kind of bring it back home so you're back into the tour and i think this will be more applicable to a lot of the listeners so you're like far away from any kind of competition tour um like what kind of intensity are you looking for i guess we're kind of touching on the skill acquisition part of things now yeah skill acquisition and also like you know age really matters too right so if i went on the circuit right now right it's like sometimes i have like the urge yeah which is crazy right if i went on the circuit right now and if i was at a training camp it's like there really is you know skill acquisition yeah that's that's a big part of it but i already have sort of my system my skill sets right right so it's not really that

kind of a reason why i'll be training a lot of it's going to be like all right gaining what the other person does and getting the feel for the timing. Right. So like there's no need for me to go hard anymore, even at these international training things. So skill acquisition really, you know, is something that I could do sort of in a slower paced environment. So I don't need to be able to do that. Right. And that really affects how hard I go. And then, right, age and, you know, where you are in your competition life cycle also matters

too right and now we're bringing it home back to a home dojo yeah but not just specifically to me but anyone who's trying to acquire a skill right right you have to bring down the intensity you can't learn if you're going crazy fast crazy hard it's like that tennis example yeah right the harder you go the less control you have right you want to develop control first and then add acceleration add intensity add aggression like later right after that skill is there yeah i mean it doesn't be nuts when the white belts are kind of going crazy and they're like got something to prove and like look how tough i am look how strong i am look how aggressive i'm going but it's like that's so stupid because you know why it has to be controlled more i guess all ego-based stuff yeah i see you know what i mean i thought you're supposed to go hard it's like yeah you're supposed to go hard push yourself when we're doing push-ups you know you're taking a knee while

we're doing push-ups and you're going taking water breaks when we're doing conditioning like you're not really going hard proving trying to prove to me that you're hard and you're like just going aggressive against other people who are right you do that you know i see yeah do you think there's any place in aggression like or is it just i guess we're talking more about like control aggression i guess yeah because there's a mental side of judo right we're talking about this and some people can't handle that kind of uh if it's controlled aggression yeah you know it's very common in wrestling you know if every time you shoot on somebody like on the legs and then you sprawl hard and give them a cross face sprawl hard give

them a cross face now the person's like man i really don't want to get cross-faced again i'm not going to shoot anymore right right you've effectively shut down their offense because of an aggressive counter that you were doing that's not you know it's technically skill like it's a technical skill right so in that sense like it's a mental game that you want right right so like i know i've done judo with people in the past who sort of can't handle that kind of aggression you pull their head down really hard and then you you nail them with a foot to shin or something like that hard shin to shin and then they go down now they're like not really in it mentally right so like there is a place for that when you're competing in training not so much but if you're training someone right and you want them to be

sort of harder and you want them to overcome some of those mental barriers then Then it's a little bit required to get a little bit of this. There's guys in the dojo who are, you know, I don't want to say soft, but they're like they can't take that intensity at all. Like once they encounter you like the headbutt or something a little bit like a little tiny bit of a dinger, they immediately shut down. That person needs those stimulus to really harden themselves a little bit right and then it's like one of those things it's like uh you know if the person who's doing it to him right it really matters right because it's like now all of a sudden it's like no i'm doing it for his own good and i'm beating on him for his own good that generally doesn't work out so very sounds patronizing yeah so that's now we're kind of going into the uh aggression uh i mean the training partner situation like how which

training but you gotta take that into account yeah right are you going with someone who's less skilled than you uh can you handicap yourself right can you right learn something going with this person who knows a lot less than you who's smaller and weaker than you oh right so going hard and intense against that person right usually not a good good look right right what if you're hurt right i was nursing a foot thing for a month right i hurt my foot you know yeah so it's like there's no way that i could go intense because i can't push off my feet and be agile so i needed to go with people who were going to go soft and slow and kind of work through some of these movements and need to be like sort of a flow movement right even if it is a smaller weaker person if that person stepped on my foot i would fall down because it was hurting so much right right so it's like i'm bringing the

intensity down because obviously i'm hurt and that person also is bringing their intensity down because i'm hurt and i got a lot out of that one right i'm like specifically thinking of around when i was like working through an idea how would so then on the flip side would you ever go with someone that's more aggressive when i'm hurt no no like yeah so like not when you're hard but would you ever would there any uh ever be a situation where you want to go with someone that's aggressive. Yes, because I need it. I need it. I 100% need it. So this is specifically to me. Let's just say there's 10 rounds in the dojo.

10 rounds. Okay, I'm doing... And that's approximately... You don't get 10 rounds. Maybe you put 15 rounds on the clock. You do every other... Maybe you get 7 on a good day because the mat's crowded.

Right, right. But let's just say I do 10 rounds and within those 10 rounds right if we're looking at like skill stuff i'm looking at like i want this many righties this many lefties i want to go with a drop sanagi person i'm going to drop kataguma person i want to go with a taller person shorter person right variably like all these different skill sets and skills that you know i want to be exposed to consistently because i'm only going with righties consistently, I'm not going to get good against lefties. Right, right. So that goes without saying, but I'm going to take that completely out of the picture.

We're going to talk specifically intensity. That's it, period. Right? I want to develop some skills. I'm going to go with someone who's not going to be as aggressive. Right, right. I definitely, definitely want to go with a George who's going to elbow me every now and then. Because generally when people come visit my dojo, they usually want to work out with me.

And when they do so, they're bringing the entire culture from their own home dojo. Which usually isn't exactly the same as the culture in my dojo, which is much more learning oriented. Right? So that person's like, yes yes we're in the dojo doing 20 hard rounds and every even dory you go hard as you can that person is gonna go hard against me right he has something to prove right he wants to know how he's gonna fare with me right so i want to be able to you know keep myself sharp yeah to where i could kind of deal with that and then control like a flailing person not that george is flailing he's not uh but i need that to stay on my toes and stay sharp i see every round i do is skill and smooth and flow that doesn't give me an accurate

picture of what is actually out there in terms of judo and grappling and fighting and self-defense right you need someone that's going to pop you in the mouth by accident you need to be able to shake it off and keep yeah yeah and keep cool on the pressure right that's a big part of martial arts so it's like going back to your goal like what if your goal is to maybe uh try to work on your composure during a competitive like a match competitive match or in for your case like when uh when someone comes to break your dojo in a way you have to be uh you have to be like because you can't be just composed without practice so yeah that's right yeah so so think if your if your goal is aligned you can't

you can't seek out for aggressive aggressive people with training partners with more intensity. And that's totally fine if your goal is aligned that way. Got it. You have to know yourself. You have to know yourself. You have to know your opposition. Right. And I talk about this all the time.

And I've mentioned many times that you have to build a psychological profile for yourself, psychological profile for your opponent. That way you can sort of get the most out of it right it's sort of this game it's a game at the end of the day right right and it goes far beyond this is a soto this is ipon senagi this is the move and me trying to throw you i see you see what i mean yeah and i think this is applicable not just to me doing judo with everybody but for everybody who's training in the room right you know that person who says i only have one speed right that person's not going to get better in my opinion he's going to limit himself and you know there's going to be people who are listening like

i only go one speed that's what i'm known for and i'm a black belt and i've had a lot of success it's like yes but you could have been a lot better. Right. You do one or two things good, and then you aggressively do those things, and it works on 90% of the population. That's why you are who you are. Right. But could you fight out of that position? Can you work out and get something out of going with a green belt? Yeah. Can you develop skills where you want to develop your skills?

If you want to learn Tomonage, can you learn Tomonage? A lot of the times the answer to that is no no no and hell no because they got one speed they got one speed it's like that's that's stupid right you know i mean it's like you gotta not do that you know and i used to be like that too i have to admit yeah because it's the old school mentality of like you want to go as hard as you can, as long as you can. You want to be the hardest working person in the room. That wasn't good for me. It took me a very long time to realize, wow, this is not the way. When you're going through it, you don't know any better.

Because you filter out stuff and you hear what you want to hear. Right. And for me, big, strong, athletic, just like this whirlwind of a, you know, this hurricane athlete was something that I really aspire to because like, we're watching Mike Tyson, right. So you treat every,

and then, you know, like, so watching Mike Tyson, right. Oh, she's hard. Yeah.

Right. And I'm watching like Otto Schwarzenegger lift weights in pump and iron right and these are like my young like 1990s role models and heroes so it's like of course like you gotta train hard you gotta train hard and you know and people who you know we didn't have the internet yeah right we had a semester we didn't really have the internet the way it is now right so i just didn't know any better and i figured that was the whole way that was the path yeah yeah so for me i didn't know what i didn't know and for me to break through that to a higher level of thinking training like that took a way way longer than it should have i see you know not like i regret it you you learned to yeah i learned yeah

now i could teach this. Learn from my mistakes. If you hear somebody say, that person only has one speed, don't go with that person. Unless you want that intense route. Unless your goal is that. Your goal is trying to handle that aggression. But if you're nursing an ankle injury, don't go with that person.

If you're trying to learn something new, don't go with that person. If you went out last night, you're a little hungover and you're sleep deprived, don't go with that person if you're trying to learn something new don't go with that person i see right if you you know went out last night you're a little hungover and you're sleep deprived don't go with that person then they'll get a hard day at work you know because your boss is riding you don't go with that person or maybe you need maybe so the and then the corollary is that like the um if you are that you don't want to be that person because you're kind of limiting yourself to the training partners because people very limited people don't necessarily want to go with you so yeah so then uh it you talked about the how the traditional way of judo training judo was like going all the way hard all the time and

then i remember on that note i remember during practice you kind of sometimes would talk about the different training methodologies in different countries so you'll say like the way russians train is different than uh the way the japanese train and they you know they're both big two judo powerhouses but they have such contrasting training methods in terms of this kind of intensity so maybe can you give us a little bit about that the russians do a lot of like play fighting they don't do that many rendories right so they don't go super hard they'll spend like four or five hours just like messing around in position, going for stuff, going for lifts, kind of flowing from thing to thing.

And I'm not saying Japanese don't flow, but they do a lot more hard randori. I see. Yeah, they do a lot more hard randori. So that's sort of like the most obvious side of it. But if you look sometimes in the room that you're in, in judo, who's going hard? You're looking around.

Who's going hard? What looks hard, right? So like flailing arms, going hard, grunting, all this stuff, and then spitting out of techniques and fighting techniques until the very end is considered hard, right? There's a guy that came to my dojo recently, and then you would try to throw him, land on his shoulder spin off his head like fall on his side like always like trying to ball up and trying to resist to the very very end and i was like hey man stop fighting it so much to the end you can get hurt and then the guy was like wait a minute you don't want me to resist it's like no you i want you to resist but i want you to embrace the fall no i want to fight till the very end and essentially it's like do whatever you want you. You're going to get injured. But the Japanese will train hard,

but when they go beyond the point of no return, when you break past the tipping point, they'll relax and take a break fall. I see. So boom, they get right back up. Boom, they get right back up. So even within the Rondori timeline, even the hard ones, if they get past a certain tipping

point they'll go limp and relax and they'll take a break fall it's to preserve your body right it's the idea of taking a break fall right so you could get fall down and get back up fall down get back up right right then this person that came in he was like trying to fight off everything like landing on his shoulder every time like i know i'm never gonna go to my back he was like trying to fight off everything like landing on his shoulder every time like i know i'm never gonna go to my back i was like man that's the dumbest thing i've ever heard like i i didn't say that exactly i was like man you're gonna get hurt right right did he what is he right now i don't know hopefully hopefully oh he did get hurt he did get hurt okay not at my not at my club but he competed and i like, I don't know if he should be out there competing yet.

Oh, I see. Got hurt. Got hurt. Competition. Got thrown on his shoulder. Dislocated his shoulder. Oh, man. Yeah.

And that's like. I wanted. He sent me an email. He was like, I got my shoulder hurt. And I almost was like, I told you so, but I didn't. Yeah. I didn't want it to. I didn't want it to.

Oh, well. But it's like, that's it's so dumb like because i could have been avoided right it's it's preventable and you know we want to be able to do judo until you're you know how many years old it's like that person's probably thinking it's oh i went in a competition the person just knew more than me and i got thrown on my shoulder and i got hurt not really right yeah that person went hard in the room yeah wouldn't give up an inch i see that person's not gonna have a long training career because every time he's in the room and doing dory his risk of getting injured is super high yeah right until he's the one good enough to be dishing it out right and in that case he's not going to be exposed to the same risks right i bet you he won't get there because he's

going to get hurt right so the the idea is that you can go hard depending on your goal depending on your training partner all kind of like where you are in your cycle but important thing is even if you go hard at the end of the day like when you're going over the tipping point you need to take your fall yeah and that's why we learn break falls you know so that you can get back up and train train longer yeah yeah hard is also like how hard do you try to finish the technique when you're stuck right I see like you're ripping the arm bar out kind of thing or yeah like Osoto versus the soil yeah you're locked in yeah you're trying to gain that leverage right right like how hard you go uh-huh you guys both black belts are you guys both green belts

yeah yeah harder you go the less control you have right right exactly control is the name in the game it really is judo is a control-based sport right showing your opposition controlling how hard the person falls right and then the more control you have the more you could say you know what i'm gonna put this person on his head or i could just decelerate him and put him down softly right right right that's your ultimate goal but it's too close to the heart right like me getting held down by someone me getting taken down by someone this person ragdolling me and then that ego takes over right no one wants to feel that no one wants to get their head pulled down and then you know pushed to the ground and then held down against their will so it's natural to

resist that in an aggressive way right yeah get off of me get off of me right and it's very psychological it's very emotional and then all those human factors play a role in this and that's why i don't blame the people or i don't fault the people for being the way that they are and i will sometimes say you know like a guy in my dojo he's like you know ron i love the way you go hard i really yeah you're gonna hurt yourself you gotta yeah right and then i'll have this conversation i'm having in a much shortened right but like i love the way you go hard and i love your heart and spirit because people associate with high intensity with heart and spirit uh yeah i love that but it's got to be control it's got to

be purpose behind it reason behind it all it's not just about controlling your opponent it's about continuing your controlling yourself too yes it really is yeah yeah nailed it all right i think that's a good place to end um anything else to add no if you're listening and if you got this far please subscribe to our patreon yeah right it's a great little thing that peter set up not me because i don't have any technical skill didn't take much but yeah i need support i i just like to say you know you guys are already supporting us a lot but you know if you want to if you really appreciate our work small amount every month will go a long way um just to keep our quality up and we want to get better at this too so

please support us if you can um thanks for listening and stay tuned for the next episode 14 that's right yeah i'll show you guys i'll take videos with that all right thanks for listening and stay tuned for the next episode. If you need an iPhone 14. That's right. Yeah. I'll show you guys. I'll take videos with that. All right. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for the next episode.