The Shintaro Higashi Show - How to Create Judo Content

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

One of the main things Shintaro and Peter emphasized in their previous episode "What Can You Do for the Sport of Judo Right Now?" was to create grassroots content to promote Judo. This, unfortunately, may seem daunting to many people. How do you even go about creating Judo content? In this episode, Shintaro and Peter go in depth about their experience creating Judo content, and how you can get started right away! 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 Shintori Higashi Show with Peter Yu. Major shout out to our first sponsor, Levon. Thank you so much. Our first official sponsor. So we'll be giving him a shout out every episode. Levon, the man. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.

Yeah, well, and thanks for your support. All right, so what are we talking about today? What are we talking about today? We're talking about making judo content and sort of like a virality aspect of some of the stuff that I've done. Yeah. And what you guys can do to spread judo. Right. And make good content.

And everyone wants to be on Instagram. Everyone wants to showcase their skills. Yeah. And we talked about that. Like one of the things we could do to help grow judo in the States. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. things we could do to grow help grow judo in the states yeah yeah yeah yeah so though so let's kind of start about uh with how you maybe started and then what kind of lessons you've learned and then what you do now and we'll kind of go uh through that route yeah yeah so interestingly enough the first content that ever posted that went viral was slow motion judo how you have ever been listen to this friday night i go out yeah it was like a friday night after judo i go out i have a bender of a night i'm like four or five in the morning yeah but i have to teach in the waza in the morning yeah on saturday morning this is like when i was a little bit younger so like decided not to go home i decided to go straight to the dojo and sleep on the mats. Because I was like, I'm not going to make it.

Oh. But I was like, I don't want to sleep through my alarm and people walking in. Yeah. Right? And then I'm on the mats, like, passed out. Right, right. So, I decided to sleep in the locker room. Uh-huh.

You know, the locker room in my little office. Yeah. And then Eugene walks in at 9.30 or whatever it was. He walks in and he's like, hey, you good? And I was like, thank God you're here. I can't teach. Because I can't teach for me. Right.

And then, you know, he was like, okay, fine. And I'm like sitting there in the back office, like, you know, hung over his dog. And then I'm like, let's see what Judo videos we took yesterday. We were just kind of messing around, you know? So I stitched together. Friday night, you already had. Friday night, Judo, Salama came, Anthony came. You were probably there.

Yeah. Right. Kevin was there, all these guys. And then I stitched together, you know, we took a bunch of slow motion videos for some weird reason. I stitched together, you know, we took a bunch of slow motion videos for some weird reason. And then. That's probably when the slow-mo capability came out on the iPhone. Yeah.

So everyone was like just taking slow-mo videos of everything. Exactly. That's right. And then I stitched together, I posted it and I fell asleep. Classic. Yeah. And then usually comes in after class and he's like, you good? I'm like, yeah, I'm good.

I like got up and like went home. Uh-huh. And then I go home and I look at my phone. I'm not even paying attention to my phone. Right. I look at my phone and it's already like 40,000 views on this one so much thing. I'm like, what the hell is going on? That was on Facebook, right? That was on Facebook.

Yeah. So then it just started rolling and rolling and even within like a week it had like 150 000 it just started going nuts and it really pumped so much traffic to my uh kakushibudo facebook page yeah yeah so now all of a sudden i have 40 000 followers on uh kakushibudo institute you know judo page which i don't even touch anymore yeah right it's kind of just like sitting there. Yeah. And that was kind of the beginning of it.

And then I decided to kind of start making videos, kind of. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because you were putting out some instructions before, but it wasn't like, you weren't really focusing on it. Yeah. Some of them hit.

Like, I was doing a drop sand agi video that was quick. I did a sote video that was quick. Yeah. Some of them hit. Like I was doing a drop sand Aggie video that was quick. I did a Sode video that was quick. Yeah. And it was like two or three points that most people miss. Yeah. That not everyone mentions. And that was sort of my method, right? Yeah.

Like everybody talks about Sode, like you grab like this, you get the arm across, you put the shoulder underneath. But there's like little details that I'm very specific about. Yeah. Yeah. Almost like getting the knuckles underneath the forearm and then when you pass that shoulder underneath, crisscrossing the wrist.

Yeah. Right, and then hugging that wrist to your chest. Right? Right. Details like that, you know, that I think is very important in Sode. Yeah. And, you know, everyone does this Jamaal thing, right?

Like look at the wrist, pick up the phone, hand goes like this. Like, we don't need to hear that anymore. Everyone knows this already. Yeah, so your little angle on it, spin on it. Yeah, my angle on it, my interpretation of it. The thing that I think is the best return on, you know, the instruction, really. Yeah.

Because you don't need to hear, like, the foot goes at the top of the triangle. The back foot goes behind the foot here, and then the hand goes like this, and the hand goes like that. No one needs to hear that anymore. They've heard it a billion times. Their teacher teaches this stuff, right? Yeah. So, you know, one layer in a little bit more in depth, what are the best key points? What are the things that most people make mistakes? That's kind of my path there. So now between my instructions that were kind of like taking off a little bit, and then that one viral video now it was like sort of the beginning of something you know right so um let's so let's take some lessons

you learn from there like from the uh from your early days yeah so you really got lucky with one and then that kind of like look you know uh helped you focus like you helped you decide to focus on creating content more right so yeah so then then so what could other people do in the beginning though like you can't just rely on like oh man i'm gonna hopefully this will go viral yeah so having gone through that experience, what would you do if you were to do it again? Well, I think everyone's different and have a different spin on judo. You know what I mean?

I have a take on judo that's been built over the last 35 years of my life, too. Yeah, yeah. I mean, so my technique showcase might be probably better than most people who are going to decide to show technique on there. Right, right. So, you know, a lot of people who wanted to kind of get into this thing,

maybe have the best hara I've ever seen. Who knows? Teach your best techniques for sure. Yeah. Right? And then, you know, if you're a teacher, you have a lot more experience teaching it, so it'll probably be better, right?

More polished. But it doesn't, yeah. But it doesn't have to be technique. You know, my biggest thing right now is looking at memes. I love it. I send you memes all the time. I send you memes all the time. I send you videos all the time, right? Yeah.

And there's lots of relatable stuff around the dojo. That is just like the most relatable thing. Like that can be meme-ified. You know what I mean? Start with that. I think that's a big one. You know, tag me, please. I'll give you an example, right?

You ever do like, all right, we're going to do, I don't know, 10 rounds of five. In Mandora. You guys ever do that? Everybody, right? Yeah. All right, we're going to put 10 rounds on 10 rounds of five uh uh in mandoria you guys ever do that everybody right yeah all right we're gonna put 10 rounds on the clock uh five minutes a piece yep and now all of a sudden you're scrubbing for partners but you don't just like hey you want to go and then you do it and then that's over then you go to another one and then right depending on the size of the dojo too with the space constraint so you kind of generally do like hey

well number one you got somebody right you want you have someone for number two okay good good yeah yeah so then you're already kind of pre-booking yeah one through five or whatever it is you know and then always always you get like this like round number dyslexia where you're like double book oh yeah yeah yeah and then people are fighting over it dude we're three right we're three like no uh you said four it's like no you said three right time starting you know and then the coach is like what are you guys doing messing around and then somebody's out of a party like this guy said yeah three right so yeah so you're saying so it's the bottom line. So it's important to have your spin on things. If you're going to do instructions, like don't regurgitate whatever everyone's saying or you don't even need to be to be making instructions.

Just something you've experienced. Yeah, we definitely need more judo memes like that. You know what I mean? Yeah. And then, you know, the teacher coming in and stealing someone's like hey do you have somebody and then the guy's like yeah i have a four already yeah but he's like no you're going with me now that guy's out of a round and now right right right other partners like standing around with this hand raised like hey anybody want to be my partner yeah you know like that's relatable you know that's an observation you know

and sometimes you don't know if that guy is out of a partner, sat in the middle of the room with his hand up because he's too hard of a role. Yeah. No one wants to go with him. His gi stinks or like it's someone took his number four, you know, but something like that.

So relatable. It's like a universal thing. Right. Right. Right. You know what I mean? And then if you're in a much smaller dojo, maybe you can't prebook all the classes because everyone can't go out at the same time. You know what I mean? And something similar. It's like, Hey, you know what i mean and then if you're in a much smaller dojo maybe you can't pre-book all the classes because everyone can't go at the same time you know what i mean and

something similar it's like hey you know uh you want to go on this mat mat two mat two next we're up on deck on mat two right yeah but then you know someone cuts it and then you know what i mean first come first serve right if you live in a small dojo. So all these like different relatable things in judo, you know, you can like, uh, memeify really. And you know,

you can make content. There's a lot of creative people out there, you know, and I think judo community as a whole should kind of do a little bit more of this and share each other's thing and then comment on it. You know what I mean? If you make a funny meme, judo related,

and you tag me in it, I will. Yeah. You know who does you tag me in it, I will share. You know who does that a lot? Yeah, IJF. They make meme videos, like funny videos with these athletes a lot, I noticed. Really? Yeah. I didn't know that.

You don't see them on Instagram? No, I don't think I have, yeah. Yeah, they do a lot of silly things. At first, I was like, I didn't know what to think about. Because I thought they would be all serious and all. But I guess in a way, it's making Judah more approachable. Yeah, you got to make it approachable, man. I mean, like, this is the thing, right?

There's so many funny things that can happen in the dojo. You know what I mean? Yeah. How about this one? Like, you forget your sandals at the dojo. And then now you try to look around for people's sandals to use. Oh my God. You take a chance.

You just run to the bathroom real quick, hoping nobody notices that you're in the bathroom. Oh no. People do that. There's somebody that does that always, right? So now it's like, you got to do this thing like, all right, whose sandals can I borrow? Right, right. Or can I just grab someone random sandals can I borrow? Right, right. Or can I just grab someone's random sandals, right? You, like,

have a profile of whose feet is disgusting and whose feet is clean at the door. You ever do that? Well, I usually, when I was at KBI, I would always use

my brother's. Yeah, that's easy. And your brother's not forgetting the sandals. No, no. He's on. He's always on things. Yeah.

I love using Eugene's sandals. Exactly. And then, all right. So the things like this, the instructions with your spin on it or some, you know, everyday occurrences, funny things, memes, you know. Yeah.

And then. Relatable stuff. So that's the content you could start with. So now. Yeah, start with. Once you got your ball rolling rolling you've moved away from facebook and more into your youtube than now instagram like how was that transition like why you did that any lessons you learned from that so the youtube thing that really blew up first was my

how to lose five 20 pounds in five days for my week yeah right right trying to do a mock weigh-in so i was doing like a water cut situation and i like wrote that you were around for that time right yeah we went to the sauna together you know sauna and that got tons and tons of views and that kind of took off the youtube platform and then i was like wow you know i already have like three or four different things that kind of blew up yeah this is kind of fun and people kind of see a little bit more about me and yeah see what i do and i could teach some stuff and it felt really good the comments are very positive and yeah a lot of validation there right so i started enjoying it you know uh i didn't like really put myself on a schedule or

anything it wasn't until when i get my mba right right when i met the head of content at youtube youtube yeah at google she was in my class yeah dude what a what a lucky coincidence you know yeah yeah she's like uh super high up yeah you know uh in youtube at google and she you know just traveled the world meeting the highest level youtube like mr beast and stuff yeah yeah so she was like i was talking to her and i was like, oh, what's a good advice for me? You know, this is the situation I'm in right now. And she goes, just post every day for now. And then you'll, it'll pick up and just post every day.

That was, that was her advice. Right. So I was like, you know what? I can do that. And it was kind of sort of low quality, you know, iPhone technique videos. Yeah. But I'm good at those. I pump those out on daily.

Like you ask me questions, I'm like, here. You edit them on, on the phone too, right? Yeah. Yeah pumped those out on daily. People ask me questions on my career. You edit them on the phone too, right? Yeah. That's it. It was like, all right, class ends. Someone hold my phone. Let me get you a bouquet. Then this is what I do for Ipposanai. This is Kochi. There was no structure,

no anything. It was one take always. I would film five or six videos and then I would schedule them out for the next five days. Yeah. I was a cameraman for a lot of those too. For a little while, man. It worked real good. You know, every time after judo, I would film five or six and schedule it out. And then some, you know, times I would have like two, three months in advance of stuff.

Yeah. That's already scheduled out that I didn't even have to touch, you know. But then I started like getting better camera, getting better lighting, this and like kind of editing and thinking about it and seeing what techniques

and then it started to become a little bit like a job and then I kind of pulled back a little bit. But now like I have a guy helping me with it, Greg Reagan. You know, he's pretty,

he's very good. Probably listening right now. You know, so. Shout out to Greg. Yeah, shout out to greg if you guys ever need social media services that's what he does for work now yeah so g reagan what is his instagram let's plug this guy you know his instagram off top of your head uh no let me see no mine yeah g reagan one yeah r-a-g-i-1. So he's doing a lot of this stuff for me now,

which means I don't have to do it, so it's nice. Right. You know? But, yeah, that's kind of how it went. And we've experimented with a lot of stuff, right? Collaborations with Sensei Seth. I did that. That was pretty cool.

You know, I've done, like, a day-in-the-life vlog-ish thing. I've branched off during the pandemic to, like, teach your judo nonsense. It was a four-hour segment. I did all of it, you know, and some of it's fun. Some of it's great. I do like teaching judo on YouTube as like a resource, you know, because, you know, it's not as much virality to it. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. The specific right versus left cross body of Soto hand positioning stuff is never going to get a million views. Right. Right. It's just not. Yeah. Right. But it's very useful to the community.

Yeah. You know, so there's a balance between like some of the stuff that I want to go viral, five basic Judo throws, five of the most dangerous Judo throws ever. All these videos you could see on my YouTube, or if you sort by popularity, you know, and there's some virality style Judo videos that are good for judo as a community because it brings people in. Jiu-Jitsu guy watches it. Oh, I wanted it. Karate guy watches it. Oh, I'm going to learn how to do some of this stuff. Right. And then the technical side of stuff is a good resource for a lot of the young athletes who are up and coming. People who are,

you know, beginners, yellow belts, green belts can use it as a resource to learn, you know? So I like providing that service to the community on my own terms. Yeah. Where I'm not working for anyone, I could put it up as it come. Yeah. You know, whatever I think the needs of in terms of technique for the people who are watching,

you know, I like doing that, you know? Yeah. But that's not the path that you guys should follow. I mean, it can be, right? If you have the knowledge, skill set, and the ability to teach. i think you know yeah well so just as uh as a checkpoint to summarize a little i think it's uh what's happening what was that i pulled up instagrams to see like what kind of judo content might pop up.

Wait a minute. So, so, right. I think there are two points. Yeah. So we talked a lot about the content, what kind of content you can create.

And the second is, um, it has to be scalable. So like at this consistency, right? Yeah. Like that, the lady said for at YouTube said like you, you need to pump out.

You can't, you can't just expect, oh, like hopefully this one will pop off. Like, you know, it's going, it's going to go viral. It's more about consistently creating content. And at some point one of them will pop up. Yeah, for sure. And in order to do that, I think a lot of people think like, oh, in order to create content, I need the best cameras, I need all this editing software and whatever.

But as you saw with Shintaro, you don't need all that. You just need, like iPhones are so good nowadays with editing and stuff, so you should start with those like whatever is easiest to get you into without spending much money and then you can start once you learn the ropes you can start adding more stuff i mean this is kind of what we did with the podcast too we started with the members yeah we didn't even we to, we didn't want to spend any money. So we used to like, you know, record on QuickTime separately, right? Remember? That's right.

We did that. Jesus. We did it on a Zoom and then we recorded separately on the QuickTime. And then I'll like go through and then manually line it up. And then I realized, okay, this is not scalable. No, absolutely not. But you do it and you learn, right? Yeah.

It's like kind of messing around like judo you just go in and go every day and uh you know oh here's another good one too you can do you know tag your friends have your friends if you're sitting on the sidelines doing nothing record your buddies doing judo and then tag them that's cool that's yeah yeah and then that's very quick you know just whip your phone out and yeah record something record something tag it you know tag your friend if you take a group picture try to tag everyone in it you know stories if you tag someone they could reshare it all that stuff you know develop a community behind it you know yeah uh as i say this my kushibidu instagram has not been touched. Oh, right. Because you put most of your stuff

on your personal, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, that's actually interesting. So, how do you balance that? What's your take on that? Your personal and then your dojo.

I've actually been neglecting Instagram and all of it for a little bit recently. I haven't really been pushing it so much or even making content for it. The last few weeks, at least, you know, I go hot and cold with a lot of this stuff. As you know me, right? I'll get into something and then like I obsess with it and then I can't think about it. Chita is a lover.

He falls in love hard. I fall in love and I obsess over certain things and It takes me away from things that I should be doing. Right? Also, right now you're focusing more on your YouTube, I guess. Right now I've been... Yeah, it's going to sound horrible. I've been really into jujitsu. Oh, yeah.

Why is it horrible, right? No, but it's a sickness. I obsess over it. It's like there was this one dude, man. I mean, there's like two or three, but like they have this spider lasso thing and their lasso grip is just so tight. There's some guys that are just so unbelievably tight with that grip. Yeah. You know what I mean?

And yeah, this is the thing, that cat's paw grip, that's not allowed in judo. It's not allowed because it's very difficult to take off. Shit, right? That's Paul Grimm. That's not allowed in judo. It's not allowed because it's very difficult to take off. Sure. Right. But they do it in jujitsu. And sometimes you get caught in that lasso and boy, is it really difficult to take out, you know? So I'm thinking about all the different ways to get it off.

You know, there's like four or five different ways that I've been all experimenting with, but I don't have like a quick, fast go to boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Right. Yeah. Which bothers me a little bit. It really bothers me. The lasso comes in, you're supposed to like get rid of it right away, you know? But like, if you don't get rid of it right away, it sticks, right?

Yeah. And there's three or four different ways, but I'm kind of sitting there like, all right, which one do I want to do? You know what I mean? Yeah, I see. And then, yeah, that's not acceptable to me, you know? So it's like, I'm trying to like condition myself to be like, all right, this is the hierarchy of grip breaks when the lasso comes over.

And then bang, bang, bang. But I'm not able to do that yet. Do I see an instructional video come in? No, I can't teach something instructionally if I don't really have mastery. Oh, no, that's what I mean. That's why you don't see any Nwaza videos on my YouTube. No, seriously, I'm insecure about that.

Wow, you're a black belt now. BJJ black belt. It doesn't mean anything, though. To me, in my mind, like, even judo Nwazu. You have some imposter syndrome right now. Well, that's another thing. I talked about this last time. I was like, why I'm kind of self-conscious about showcasing my judo.

I wouldn't say imposter syndrome because I am a black brother. Yeah, exactly. But you're like insecure about it. No, I'm not insecure about that. I'm insecure about my judo skill and teaching skill for stand-up versus Nwaza skill and teaching skills for Nwaza. There's a big gap there. There's a discrepancy there.

But I don't think the gap or your base lot base level is so high that i don't think people will mind at all like i don't think you need to know but it needs to be best there's no judo instruction that parallels mine i'm concerned when it comes to stand-up right right i'm absolutely certain of this but then you you're self-conscious about newaza because of the you think it compared to to your stand of instructions, it's not as good. Yeah, it's not as good

and I haven't figured everything out yet. You know what I mean? Which I'm like getting there. Right. You know, so I should be like focusing on, you know, the business content creation,

all this, all this stuff that I'm doing, right? Real estate even, like that's something that I do, you know, and it's been being neglected. So,

well, well, a lot of people are not as good as you so what they might feel self-conscious about creating content including me like so how can you what do you say to them like you're encouraging them to create content i mean couldn't figure out i'm not telling you to do, you know, Tai To Shi if you're not good at Tai To Shi. So something you're good at, you're good enough

that you can put a spin on it, kind of. I would say just start. Yeah. I would say just start, you know. I agree too.

I think you should, you learn as you go. I think that's the best way to do it. 100% learn as you go. Yeah. And I want to help, I really do. If it's good, I'll repost it, you know, you learn as you go. I think that's the best way to do it. 100% learn as you go. Yeah. And I want to help. I really do.

If it's good, I'll repost it, you know, all that stuff. But yeah, I haven't really been focused too much on the content creation side. You know, Greg is there. He was on vacation. I'm going to see him on Wednesday because of, you know, the Glick session and he's going to be there. So we're going to film some stuff on Wednesday. If you guys have suggestions for videos that you want to see,

technically you let us know if you're a Patreon. Yeah. Right. Yeah. On Discord. Yeah. On Discord, you know,

99% of the Instagram messages that I receive, Hey, teach me this or show me that. I'm like, ignore it. So. Well, we,

we write everything down on, on, on Discord. Yeah. Yeah. We write everything down. So we'll have everything down on on discord yeah yeah we write everything down so we'll have that yeah yeah but yeah tag your friends film more judo right some things that you do that's unique that you want to share and this is the people you know this is the thing too right you know people i think want to gatekeep a little bit more their secret sauce they want to keep to themselves secret technique they want to keep themselves you know and for me i had a little bit of that too in the beginning it's like why am i going to share everything that i know all the good stuff you know and i've had black belts reach

out to me like dude you shouldn't share some of this stuff that is very high level i've had people tell me that too you know prominent athletes people who are have good accolades those guys were like dude why are you you know some people have said to me, all that should be paid material. Why are you sharing this and giving it away for free? But this is the thing, I have so many of those. Those kinds of things when it comes to standard material. That I don't mind sharing it. And when I see something very specific, repeated, imitated on different channels,

it makes me feel good. Oh, okay. I like some cred sometimes. You know, like, oh man, this is exactly the way I did it, exactly the way I've said it. And you know, it's pretty clear because like there's things that I do

that's very unique that I haven't specifically been taught. Well, what do they say? Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Yeah. Yeah. Imitation is the highest form. Yeah.

So like, you know, when I see this, the way, you know, like cutting the lapel hand and sleeve hand and all this stuff and squeezing and shaking and moving all this stuff. Like there's a terminology that I've, right? RVR, right versus right. You know, adjust the shoulder sleeve, this, that, this. And there's like a terminology that it's sort of a direct translation from Japanese, right? Because you hear the Japanese guy say like shibori, which is like squeeze, right? Squeeze ring, ring out.

Kiryu is to cut, right? So like, you know, as opposed to saying like, oh, break the grip. You say cut the hand, cut it, cut, right? So like stuff like that, not too unique, break the grip. You say cut the hand, cut it, cut, right? So like stuff like that, not too unique, but the combination of all those things in a context of this specific thing, right? I'm like, oh, that came directly from me. And that feels really good that I was able to help this.

And this person could use my knowledge to build their own clout. It's good for the whole community. Yeah, it's good for the sport, you know, so I'm okay with that. Yeah. But yeah, please share your best stuff, your judo. Make it a technical thing. Get creative.

You know what I don't see that much of? Three-person Uchikomi. Show us three-person Uchikomi, the way you do it. You know, there's lots of ways to do it, lots of cool ways. There's things that, you know, that's a video to in itself right right yeah it's a little bit tricky though like when judo class is running to run off to the side grab your phone and record something you know some teachers don't allow yeah yeah yeah so but you know do your best backyard judo judo. We need more judo content. We need more backyard judo. Yeah. More content.

I think the biggest thing is if you have all this, you may have all these constraints that we never did. But I think the biggest thing is there are ways to start creating without investing much. Everyone has a phone now. And these phones have great cameras, and they come with great editing software that's very easy to use.

You can start with that already. And then once you get going, that's when you start adding more sophisticated stuff. So, all right. Well, anything else about creating Judo content? No, you know if you see good judo content

share it share it and even tag me judoshintoynyc you know tag me share it just share as much

as you can it's a real thing that way you know you put it out there and yeah it's good

that's how you go viral community viral yeah that's right that's how you go viral community viral yeah that's right alright well thanks for listening hope this was very

motivating in some way and we'll see you guys in the next episode