The Shintaro Higashi Show - How Judo Can Improve Strategic Thinking Capabilities

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

Judo is known for its physicality, but can it also be a "thinking" game? In this episode, Shintaro and Peter discuss this "thinking" aspect of Judo and whether or not Judo can improve strategic thinking capabilities. 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 Shinto Rahigashi Show with Peter Yu. Big shout out to Lavon, who's one of our sponsors. Thank you so much as always. And everybody who sponsored the show. Thank you very much. Yeah. You guys are the reason why we can keep doing this.

Definitely. Yeah. And also today's episode was a suggestion from our good friend Drew. And it seems like he wanted to take a very scholarly take on things. And he was wondering if we have any opinions on how judokin improves strategic thinking capabilities. Oh, that's very interesting. Strategic thinking. I mean, like all things, if you're a dummy, you're just always going to be a dummy.

But you can take an intellectual approach. and it'd be a dummy, you know? But you can take an intellectual approach. You know, it's the difference between reading Romeo and Juliet and be like, yeah, this poor girl and this poor guy got together. Their families hated each other. Now they're in love and then they died. You know, that's one approach to that, right?

You hear the story. That's essentially the gist of it. Or you can take a deep dive into it and like really read it and analyze it and do this and do that. So as all things, as a sport, you know, you could take that approach and then it can enhance your strategical thinking abilities.

And then what they call like higher order thinking, you know, critical thinking skills and things like that. When you're looking into judo, right. As opposed to just taking what's been taught to you and just repeating it and doing it and just hoping for the best, right? You're using it and try to attach it or make connections with other information

that you've accumulated in the past, right? Trying to synthesize this information into something new in your own method. You know, it's equivalent to someone reading a book and then writing a book report. Right. When you do that repeatedly, right, you're able to take that information in words and then output it, you can create your own spin on it you can come up with ideas

about it you're coming up with original ideas right some people can do that you know yeah and some i think it's also it's like a it's a way it there are different ways to enjoy judo and then i guess approaching it this way is a way to do it. Yeah. I know guys who can recall every second of their match. You know? And there's not too many of them, right? But there's guys who are very, very mindful who you could actually say, like, hey, that time we did Rondori, right? Minute three.

Three minutes and 20 seconds in approximately, right? It was like our fifth or sixth exchange. You went here. I went there. We were stuck in 50-50. Whatever the hell it is. I went for Georgian. Did you see that it was coming?

Did you time that society on purpose or like, and people can do that. It's like a chess master. Yeah. I see that in a lot of other professional players. Like I've seen an interview with a very famous Spanish goalkeeper and he could remember every single match that he's played and then what he, what he did. Yeah, that's right.

And then will, you know, doing judo, playing soccer, will it develop that ability naturally? No, he probably has some sort of perlection towards being able to do that, whether it's a good memory or he's just a mindful person or he's very introspective. Some people come to the dojo work out use it as a workout use it to socialize go home and never think about it right yeah so they're like all right it's wednesday i'm gonna go in and work out that guy is not taking that same approach as that guy i was talking about there's a guy in jujitsu also that i know is kid chaz he's unbelievable with this stuff he's like you know i went for the reverse delahiva

and then i tried to push and i tried to kiss the dragon and I came out the back door and I was trying to... It's funny names in jiu-jitsu, right? He's like, I went for this and you turned inward instead of outward, so I decided to do this instead. Oh, wow. And this guy can just recall almost every second of like the five to ten rolls that he did that day.

You know? And that person can go back and then troubleshoot and think about it and say, oh, what could I have done differently? It's the equivalent of somebody who plays chess. In chess, you notate. You're supposed to write down every move that you do in a competition. Exactly. Knight F3 or pawn E45 or something like this.

And then once you're capable of having that language, and then there's certain patterns that are just sort of natural, you know? No one's going to push their pawns up from the side in the beginning. You know, no one's going to make these silly moves. There's moves that most people will make logically, right? So now it becomes easier to recall. If it's random movements on the chess board, like random movements that no one will make, you know? This outside pawn,

outside pawn, you know, I push it up three times and then move the knight here, here, here, here, here, here, here. I don't think even the best chess master will be able to recall this because it's just nonsensical. You know what I mean? So by doing judo and by developing, you know, the understanding and the basic movement and the basic lines of defense and attacks that most people do, you know? Yeah. Right. It can help you develop this kind of a thinking if you take that approach,

if you train yourself to have that approach, you know? It's like you're taking a little bit of, because you're so used to all these patterns, you're essentially taking shortcuts to recognizing these patterns. Yes. Yes. So if I said to you, yeah right first left you're left i'm right you go lefty ponce and again you go solo and if it doesn't work you go back to that drop left you have three weak side attacks that chain together really well right yeah yeah you know what i mean like yeah exactly what i'm talking about yeah and you can visualize it and see it in your head right i mean but that's not specific to judo yeah Yeah. Like wrestling too, you know? It's like inside tie, collar tie, go for a throw by,

foot sweep the leg that comes across, you know? Like you could see that, visualize that. You kind of go. So can help you develop these kinds of strategical thinking abilities, you know, if you take that approach, if you train yourself to be mindful, introspective, thinking about the match, just trying to remember it. It's like when you have a dream at night, you know, and you have a dream journal on the side of your bed. I don't do this, but like some people do.

Yeah. I've heard about that. You can remember your dreams better, apparently. Yeah, because you're training yourself to do that. You know what I mean? And then you could sort of lucid dream. I remember Eugene was really into like lucid dreaming. Oh, yeah.

I read about that too it's like you can walk around and do anything you want or something anything on your dream like living inside your own head right but it's like you could there's some people who claim you could train that you know what i mean yeah but sleeping every day is not going to help you be able to do that right yeah you got to take that special approach right but i will tell you man to be able to be strategic under a certain type of pressure when someone's trying to slam you, I think that's a very specific thing to Judo. Because Jiu-Jitsu, you get swept, you get armbarred, you get tapped. Risks are much less.

But Judo, the risks are a lot higher. If you make a mistake, you're snoozing, and the guy clubs you in the face and throws you a sort of gari, you could get injured. Yeah, yeah. So you're much more attentive, I think, you know? Yeah. You have to make these decisions very, very quick, very, very fast. Is this guy going for a Soto? Is he trying to chop my knee in half?

How can I defend it? Is he faking that and going to the side? All those things have to be decided upon, and you have to action, make action on it in like a fraction of a second so yeah is that unique to judo i think so you know but then is there something similar like that in boxing and touch yes but then you know do you say like oh boxers are really intelligent because they have to it's a sweet science of whatever it's like with iq the average boxer i think bad you know what I mean

like a boxer that actually boxes and spars I'm saying and competes in boxing I'm not talking about the guy that goes to a 7am

freaking thing and shadow boxes and hits the bag goes to their finance job never spars and tells everyone that they're a boxer that guy's not a boxer

right right you know what I mean but I think huge difference I cannot stress that yeah I shoot these guys up. It's like doing what you call

yourself a judoka, I guess. I mean, you are different. I think one thing, kind of expand on that, is that yes, judo can help with this type of strategic thinking and all, and then you can also be, you can optimize yourself to be to develop these skills better with judo but that doesn't mean that just because you have you have good strategic thinking capabilities in terms of judo doesn't

mean you can't you those capabilities naturally translate to other areas, I think. Like, it doesn't make you a good chess player or a good business exec. Maybe some things could help, but you still have to practice strategic thinking in those areas, too. And then just being in it, overcoming these hurdles, and day in and day out.

You know, good judo grapplers or wrestlers or jiu-jitsu guys, they train every day, you know? They train Monday through Friday, two-hour practices, 10 hours a week at least, right? Yeah. Compared to, like, if you're doing judo grapplers or wrestlers or jiu-jitsu guys they train every day you know yeah train monday through friday two hour practices 10 hours a week at least right yeah compared to like if you're doing judo once or twice a week at one hour a pop two hours three hours a week you're never gonna catch up with those guys no no so like having that having ability to learn and like being in it like really trying to learn and get good at something will help you because you know what it takes to be very very proficient and good you know i think that's more what i got out of it i mean i'm not one of those people who like take journals after judo practice or remember everything i i'm one of those guys that you

describe like i i drop in get a good workout hang out and then leave but i do know that because i have prepared for competitions before i kind of know what it takes to get to a certain level. So I guess in that way, it's been a kind of mentality helps in other areas in my life. Just to like give perspectives on things. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

like when you go to training, you're good enough and great enough to know like, all right, these are the things that I got caught with. Why did I get caught with those things? You know? Yeah. You could, Harun weighs, you know, has 90 pounds on me.

But outside of that, like this technical stuff that you could kind of recall and understand. And now if you want to not make those mistakes again, you know how to drill them, you know how to do them, you know how to overcome them. Whether you have the time to do it or not is another thing. Yeah. And if you can string together practices relatively close to each other, where even you don't have to be fully recovered either. You could be mentally there, do a much lower intensity workout.

They use that as a recovery workout, but still be engaged, right? There's lots of continuity and frequency between the trainings. You don't have to remember everything and be meticulous and be organized. You just kind of have a feel for it, right? Oh, I've seen this before. I felt this before. Oh, on Monday, I did this, and it kind of didn't feel right. So I'm going to try to break through as opposed to if you're going once a week, you're kind of just doing your best shit

all the time. Yeah. You're not really building, right? You got to put yourself in bad positions in order to be able to put yourself in bad positions and like dissociate your ego completely. You kind of got to go every day because if you're going every day and then there's guys you just pounded on all the time, when you have a bad day and they're beating on you it's like oh i was just trying something new yeah right and then there's no pressure of winning or losing because hey man we're just training here me and you you know what i mean right right so you know i think all sports kind of has this and because judo is designed you know by the father jaguar okano who was called the educator yeah he was really big on that side of things yeah yeah big time like he was a big

proponent of like hey you know and japanese isolationism put japan in the olympics he was an advocate for the olympics of global unity through sport, physical education, and sport can unite us in all areas of the world. He was a big, big person outside of judo period, who spoke about education nonstop. So I think because of that, people are like, okay, cognitive thinking, higher order thinking, all the philosophies in these pedagogical areas. I got a master's in teaching, right? It's like scaffolding and all these different I plus one theory, you know, like Chomsky and all these guys, you know, random names. Like these guys have these ways, right?

That's the most conducive to learning, you know? Oh, Chomsky, I know. He was an education guy too. Oh, I didn't know that. he was a he's a education guy too oh i didn't know that i mean he's a very prolific guy i mean i know him as a linguist yes yeah but yeah i didn't know you know we we studied him in uh second language acquisition oh okay oh i have seen that yeah they talk about like how people learn a new language yeah it's like immersion and this and like if it's too hard no one will pick it up and interest and motivation is a factor like if you're dating a girl from ecuador who's chinese italian actually you want to listen to her spanish pop songs you're gonna freaking be

you know what i mean big motivator big motivator yeah yeah something i know a little bit about that you know spanish became my minor even though like language learning is not a thing that i was good you know you still speak fluent spanish no no not even not fluent at all i know how to say like random stuff that's it i can see i thought you did okay no i don't like the basics like when a guy walks into the dojo you know and the guy oh and the guy's like he speaks spanish you can converse with him okay judo's not free we do charge a mad fee this is the price the bathroom is there do you need a gi i got you you could buy a gi or rent a gi hey that's uh that's all you need really yeah that's very practical stuff have you done judo before where are you from? Mucho gusto. Mucho gusto. Adios, man. So, yeah.

So, I guess, yeah, like it can definitely help and then especially under stressful situations. So, maybe we'll like, have you have any like stories in your life that you think this type of strategic capability developed through Jo helped? I think so, you know, because this is the thing, right? I'm not like naturally smart kid. Oh, by the way, why are you saying that?

I was always a class clown, and every teacher I've ever had growing up who my mother would talk to them, they would say things like, oh, Shintaro's, you know, he's a little bit of a class clown, he's very disruptive in class uh never once was there like chantaro's a smart kid you know what i mean yeah yeah so i never had those abilities you know what i mean okay okay i was never academic i was never good at school you were just not into school i was not into

school that's one thing right because all i wanted to do was like work out, hang out, and laugh and bullshit. I was all about that. But little by little, I developed an academic side. A little bit more of a critical thinking side. And I think I learned that through trying to figure out how I'm getting through. And the response from my father was always, it's because you're too weak. Because you suck. It's because you don't have enough guts.

You got to work out harder. And then it'll just take care of itself. It was like the old traditional methodology. The negative reinforcement. You got to go to the gym. You're too weak. How can you not do this many pull-ups or push-ups? Like, why are you so physically weak?

Go to the gym. You suck. You know? And that forced me to like lift heavy lift heavy lift heavy right and then i keep getting injured you know what i mean yeah yeah so like there's got to be a better way to like learn you know lifting and martin rooney who's one of my first strength and conditioning coaches like i approach it in a scientific way these are the ways we're going to coach your training right aerobic anaerobic you know these types of training methodology where do you need

to improve progressive overload all these different methodologies you know what i mean and then i'm doing the judo too and i'm seeing all these different coaches going to japan and doing judo and now i'm asking these questions right and then they're being answered by some of the best guys in the world and then little by little it starts shaping the way i try to figure out how to grapple how to be better, how to learn. You know what I mean? I'm telling you, man, like doing the school stuff and then sitting there reading textbook, following the curriculum and studying for final dude. I was so bad at that.

It just didn't suit you, suit your style. Yeah. Teachers would be like, well, you know, Shintaro, he's not very bright. Did you actually said that? No way. Like, they just didn't know. I'm 90% sure some teachers were like, this kid is, you know, I was in like remedial English. I was in like 10th grade.

What English? Remedial English class. What's that mean? Like a class with like special kids and special. Oh, what? I mean like a like a class with like special kids and special oh well I was like me and I will never forget this is me Mongo and these like other dudes like Magaletti like there was like five of us that were on the wrestling team in the football team together they're all in the wrestling team in the football team wear these letterman jackets you know we're just sitting in the back and then the rest of the class were like special ed kids ah yeah we'd just be messing around on the back the

whole time just like laughing dying and what yeah she would just have thought that that was a good idea to put you guys all in the same class and miss cooper would be like shintaro enough enough get out and then like she would kick me out of class and i would like just roam the hallways and i would go to my like friends i know like my friend had like you know signs or something i'd be tapping on the window like oh and the teacher would come out like Shintaro what class are you you know it was like constantly that you know yeah and then I'll go lift and do the gym maybe I just wasn't interested but like I was never really an academic and yeah critical thinking higher thinking academic any of that stuff was just not part of who I was at the time, you know? But I think judo,

it seems like judo posed a challenge that you wanted to overcome, you were motivated to overcome, and then that requires some critical thinking, and strategical thinking, and strategic thinking, and then that's how you developed it. I mean, there's not a one way to

learn these things. And I think if anyone wants to excel at anything, whether it's like ballet or judo or anything that has like a component of figuring something out, then I think that can definitely help you get to the next level. And like I said, judo has that element of like someone trying to take your head off. You know what I mean? And if you don't figure it out, people will be smashing you every single day, day in and day out. And little by little, you're getting better, but you're just kind of spinning your wheels, right? Yeah. Just buying yourself time until you find someone that's going to, you know, beat the piss out of you even harder.

So there was a big motivator there. And I think it really helped me, like, trying to get better at judo, trying to learn how to be a better grappler, wrestling, judo, wrestling, or jiu-jitsu. Like, that really did help me eventually. And then I was able to kind of transition that. You know what I mean? Being interested in something. That's what judo taught me eventually. And then I was able to kind of transition that. You know what I mean? Being interested in something. That's what judo taught me first. Loving it, being interested in it, immersed in it,

and then taking a non-frustrated approach where I'm like, disassociating my emotions. Because I used to get emotional. I used to hate watching matches that I lost. But I'd be like, sit down and watch this match. But you lost because you're weak and you suck. You need to sit down and watch this and figure it out. Right?

But I couldn't stomach sitting there and watching myself get bombed with my dad tripping on the sideline. You see, if you could bench a little bit more, you could have pushed him away. You know, he's so physically weak. Right? I see. Yeah. But now I'm much more able to dissociate that. Right?

And then look at it from an objective thing. Like I was working on something at Jiu Jitsu, someone passed my guard and I sat in the bottom the whole time. Of course it sucks. And it's embarrassing because that guy is a lot smaller than I am, but I was working on something and then I could look back and be like, all right, how the hell did that guy,

how did I not see that coming? What could I have done differently? You know, without getting all like, I'm feeling bad about this. I don't feel bad about myself at all. I was trying something new. I feel good about myself that I was doing that, putting myself there.

You know what I mean? Better him than a 230-pound guy that might be in competition or something. You might have gotten hurt. Yeah. So like inversion stuff. I want to make my mistakes on smaller people. So when I go with a bigger guy and if I invert the wrong way, they sprawl on me, I blow my back, you know?

Yeah. I see. Yeah. I think, you know, I, I think that's a good way to approach it. Like I, some, when people ask about how to ask me, not that often, but some, can you believe some people ask me how to develop their own games in judo and pjj i'm sure you can do it you can do it so i that's the way like exactly how you described it like i think instead of trying to like oh i need to learn this and i'm gonna try

i don't know gordon ryan's like all this game and system, whatever. I think that's the wrong way to approach it. I think so. It should be that you learn the fundamentals, of course, and you try things out and then you identify problems. Like you're saying, oh, hey, I'm trying to invert, but it doesn't work. Then you figure out why is it not working? What can you do? And then you're kind of, it's almost like growing the game

instead of like building it, like in a structured way. I think it's easier in jiu-jitsu, like you said, because you put your hand here, why can't I, right? But in judo, it happens so fast, you can't even recall why you got thrown. Right. You know what I mean? Maybe your weight was back on your heel.

Maybe your hand wasn't pulling enough. Maybe, you know, the guy knew it was coming. Who knows? There's just too many different factors. It's too fast to remember it, you know the guy knew it was coming who knows and there's just too many different factors too fast to remember it you know do you think there's a way to frame judo in more more like closer to how bjj is i think so i mean if you're talking like right verse right losing position winning position you know things like this setting it up contextual judo like hey i went for uchimata twice he thinks uchimata's coming, so he sidestepped and attacked Taiyo.

That's how I got caught with Taiyo, you know, because I was anticipating Uchimata. Like, now that makes so much sense. As opposed to, I got caught with Taiyo. How did I get caught with Taiyo? Can you teach me how to stop Taiyo? I mean, like... You don't like those messages. No, like, can you show me how to, you know, I keep getting in trouble with Tyle, what do I do?

It's like, there's so much more to that. Just asking that question, you haven't figured it out. You know, you don't see the big picture. So my advice to everyone who's listening is you want to develop your own critical thinking abilities, plan, and make a judo that works for you. Understand why people do what they do. Borrow from them and synthesize your own methods.

Question everybody. Just because it's taught by a sensei doesn't mean it's the right way. And I think once you have that approach, then you can get good at that way of thinking. And now you can kind of build on that. And then eventually you could be a Nobel Prize winner. That's right.

And you guys better give us a shout out when you give the speech. I love this one, man. It's like I had a ballet teacher who was like, ballet people are the smartest in the world because they have to memorize really, really complex choreography for whatever it is. The smartest people in the world. I don't know about that. There's some physicists that are pretty smart. Once you're able to do ballet because of the fundamental movement, you're the best athlete in the world. I don't know about that. There's some physicists that are pretty smart.

Once you're able to do ballet because of the fundamental movement, you're the best athlete in the world. I remember you were very frustrated about that comment. Some ballet dancers are the fastest people in the world in terms of running. I was like, what about track and field people? You really think a ballet dancer running with their hands behind, like

on their tippy toes, can outrun Usain Bolt and the likes of a track and field superstar. And he was like, I'm sure he'll give him a good run for his money. What the fuck are you talking about? I was like, what? That's just delusional. That's like everyone, it's like nationalism. You know what I mean?

My country is the best because, first of all, you had nothing to do with being born the race that you were born. Nothing to do with that, right? My grappling sport's the best, whatever it is the best. That's all you know, though. How do you know that? You've never done all these other things, you know? Yeah, that's a good point.

Don't be a cold-minded. We all just like make fun of Taekwondo and Aikido by default as a grappler, you know what I mean? That's okay. That's okay because it's just kind of the culture, you know? And it's all good fun. It's all good fun, but... I'm sure they make fun of us too.

Oh, 1000%, dude. We're just like a bunch of, you know, we just hug each other all the time or something. It's so funny because in Japan, kendo and judo are always like making fun of each other, you know? Judo guys, judogi stink. They always say that, judo guys stink. And then judo guys are like, yo, you don't even know how bad, kendo and judo always make fun of each other. Judo guys, judogi stink. They always say that. Judo guys stink.

And then judo guys are like, yo, you don't even know how bad the kendo headgear is because you can't wash it. I know. It's like the ice hockey gears. They stink. So it's like judo guys are saying kendo guys stink and kendo guys are saying judo guys stink. And then judo guys are saying kendo guys get no girls

because they stink. And then kendo guys are saying judo guys get no girls because they stink and then kendo guys saying judo guys get no girls because we stink it's like that it's so you know news flash like we all stink yeah that's a good point we are we're all doing martial arts that no one really knows yeah and sometimes you just forget your gi in your bag. Yeah. And you know, it's not the gi that stinks sometimes too. It's like, then you pull out the gi, put your new gi in there. And it's not your sweat sometimes. It's someone else's sweat. You know, someone that was wearing a funky rash guard and has the microbes in there.

That gets transferred. Transferred onto your gi. Yeah. That gets transferred onto your gi bag. Then now you put your new gi bag in there and it just retains that funk it just seeps in

and it just never goes away well you know basically guys before trying to be strategic wash your gis and wash yourselves

yeah man I feel like we really digressed on this one no we stayed on point until the last moment we were just like

did we answer the question? I think so how can judo help with strategic yeah we'll ask Drew about it have does he still come around?

yeah he comes around yeah we'll ask him we'll personally send him the podcast and be like hey man yeah what'd you think

love Drew he's a very smart guy very smart very sharp yeah he's a lifelong learner too man he learns he plays learner too man he learns he plays the mandolin

he was in tech forever he started his own tech company right right and he's sponsoring us too right he sponsored us in the past uh

I have to check well he he always if if not materially he's always sponsored us always

with friendship yeah for sure Drew's the best so yeah thank you for listening Drew thank you for your friendship yeah

and hope Judo played a major successful role in your life I know helped you critical thinking skills hopefully

you know his business idea came about after doing Judo I think it's been a while yeah good so

alright well that's about it and we'll see you guys in the next episode yep thank you guys