The Shintaro Higashi Show - How to Grow Judo in the USA

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

Judo is one of the most popular sports in the world practiced in over 200 countries. If you go to a Judo tournament in Judo powerhouses like Japan and France, you can find yourself in a packed stadium with roaring crowds. This is certainly not the case in the USA where Judo is dwarfed by the popularity of wrestling and BJJ. Why is Judo not popular in the US and what can we do about it? In this episode, Shintaro and Peter share their thoughts on how to grow Judo in the USA. 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, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. Today, we're going to talk about how to grow Judo in America. It's been a hot topic on Reddit, everywhere on the internet. So I kind of wanted to give my two cents alongside with Peter. Yeah. Also, this was a suggestion from one of our patrons, Roger. Thanks for the suggestion. Yeah.

So, you know, as you know, Judo compared to other countries in America, it's not that popular. I mean, that's like, yeah, wrestling among the grappling arts, wrestling and BJJ are the most dominant. Yes. In America. In America. So we're going to go a little bit deep dive into that.

This video is sponsored by ShintanoHigashi.com. Please go check it out and support me. I got some new merch up there. I got some new courses up there. 10-minute concise Uchimata and Seinagi video. We're going to do more. So please support me, ShintaroHigashi.com. Yep.

Sounds good. Yep. Support him, guys. Support him, guys. All right. So, yeah. So I think, yeah, what happened here? Like, why BJJ took off so much?

I mean, I guess wrestling, you can make a case that it's because it's integrated into the school system. It has such a big advantage. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think there's a lot of things going on here. And I think it's important to know where judo stands in terms of popularity in the world when it comes to grappling arts. And I think judo has the most countries participating in the world by far, hands down. Yeah. When we're talking about how to grow judo, how to grow judo, we're talking mostly in America.

Because they did this initiative in the 60s and the 50s where all the champions went all across the globe and spread judo. My father was one of those people. He came to the East Coast of the United States alongside with like eight or nine other senseis of great judo caliber. And they came and they taught. So that was sort of the beginning. And in the United States, obviously, sports like wrestling and jiu-jitsu are far more popular. Wrestling has always been popular because they're partaking

in the education system. I think that was very important because internationally, they had freestyle and greco. They had a very safe version, collegiate-style wrestling, scholastic-style wrestling. And I think that was much more of a pill that people could swallow in order to make it safer for people to do

wrestling. And I think that's one of the contributing factors. You know, no one wants to pay insurance and do this and kids getting injured all the time. If you look at the statistics in Japan of kids getting injured in judo, it is ridiculous. I read an article about that. Yeah. A lot of concussion and yeah.o, it is ridiculous. Yeah, I read an article about that.

Yeah. A lot of concussion and yeah. Yeah, it's like over 100 kids have died, you know, through, you know, breaking their neck or concussions through osonidari, you know, and this is Japan we're talking about here, you know?

So this is a real issue and I think there needs to be a safer alternative, you know? To the current competitive competition judo yes i mean i think france has a good idea we should really start modeling some of our stuff after france yeah you know what i mean the most important thing that i think france they have these tournaments with much smaller competition spaces that are efficient and fast for the coaches and i talk about this non-stop they don't need regulation math space

for kids. But you've heard me rant about it over and over, so I'm not going to go too much into that. Right? They also have a very robust ranking system, certification system for instructors. Right? They have these different belts and things you can do at certain belts, and they stick to it.

Okay? They don't teach kids under a certain age, Tani Itoshi. They don't teach kids under a certain age, Drop Sanagi. If they do, they're penalized for it in competition. Oh, so they have different, more strict sets of rules for kids. Yes, for different age groups. And I think that's one of the most important things. You go to a tournament over here, you don't know what kids are going to do.

Back belly-to-belly suplex. You get a kid that, you know, dives back for Ura Nage. You get a kid doing Tomonage, drop Sode and stuff like that. And it's like, oh, everyone should do whatever. But you know what I mean? Like some kids can't take those kinds of attacks. They just can't. They're not equipped for it.

If the dojo doesn't teach you, they're going to get bombed. Right? And then, you know, you hear all these, you know, tough guy assholes. Like, oh, they can't handle it. They don't belong in the sport. And that's precisely the reason why the sport doesn't grow. It's because of those assholes. And, you know, if you're listening right now, you know, those guys at the local gym screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs.

Oh, that guy, we don't need that guy. Get rid of that guy. Seriously. You know, and we need to rethink how we bring up our youth, you know, through judo to make it safer so people can stay in it longer. Yeah. Yeah. And then that kind of, then that they will grow into these hobbyists or competitors who will pay

into the system. Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, in wrestling, like they have a slam roll. If you lift them up with control, you have to bring them down with control. Yeah. Obviously with judo, it's a little bit more difficult.

Right. Right. Right. But like in wrestling, you know, there's no such a have to bring him down with control. Obviously, with judo, it's a little bit more difficult. Right, right. But in wrestling, there's no such a thing in freestyle wrestling in Greco. Yeah. You could suplex him up and side down like a 5.3, feet to the back, bang on the head. It doesn't matter internationally. But they say, you know what?

We don't want our high school kids doing that. We don't want our college kids doing that. I mean, eventually, when they go to that level, I mean, the idea is that kids will be skilled enough to be safe even on the throws, I guess. Yeah. At Jiu-Jitsu, you don't have to even worry about any of this stuff. Right. No one's really getting slammed. Yeah, and there's ideas like,

do you really want your kids doing heel hooks and stuff like that? You know, if you teach them properly, all this stuff, yes, maybe. But like, you know, in terms of like, I've seen jujitsu classes, like BJJ full-blown jujitsu classes that were essentially no different than judo. Yeah. It was like 90% judo. And then 10% of the time when they're doing Rondori, Rondori in air quote, it's all on the ground. It was the safest thing I've ever seen. I was like, wow, this is how all judo programs should be the safest thing I've ever seen. I was like, wow,

this is how all judo programs should be like. Right, right, right. I was like, what am I kidding that? Damn. I was like, wow, this is better.

No one's getting smoked. They learn the throws. They like the throw. They like doing the things and everything is safe. So, you know, there's that. And then you mentioned that.

So there's this rule aspect of it like for kids. And then you you mentioned that so there's this rule aspect of it like for kids and then yeah you talked about like licensure like uh for instructors like how france has this centralized robust uh ranking system for life uh for instructors so how do you envision that being implemented in america i mean, they already do. So if you register with the US Judo Federation or USJI, US Judo at the coach, I'm an international coach.

So it's like, then you have to do all the courses, which is like dealing with a minor. What can you do? Don't touch that kid. That kind of stuff. They have all these different things, concussion training, first safety training, and those things are already in place, right? Right. But the way they teach judo, how they teach judo, all that stuff is not really enforced

at all or implemented even. They have it. They have curriculum. Right, right. These are the suggested ideas. These are the courses that you can take online. They have these resources, but it's not marketed in a way where everybody who's a USA judo member knows.

Right, right. Jimmy Pedro and Travis does American judo member knows. Right, right. Jimmy Pedro and Travis does American judo system, and those guys have much more mind share when it comes to like, oh, judo system, curriculum, learning, video, because they have a robust system already. They're marketing people.

They run Fuji. They run judo fanatics. They're always pushing stuff out, content out. Now they're getting into the tournament running game with a smooth comp with their license. And everyone knows who they are, right? So they're doing a good job with that. So it's a start. It's a start.

But we need something like that on a high national level where everyone buying into it. Right. I see. It's more, okay, so that kind of innovation in the private sector kind of has to trickle up to the national government. Yes. And then the private sector, it's just not robust, right? Because, you know, you look at a guy doing jujitsu, they could do it for a much longer time. You have a lot of full-time instructors with no other options. You could do a jujitsu 10 years, 15 years nonstop without getting injured.

How many judo guys do you know that do judo hard 10, 15 years nonstop? A lot of those guys can't even walk. It's like, how are they going to dedicate their lives to this thing that was so difficult? They watched 10 people, 15 people in the room consistently, only the toughest survive, that kind of mentality. Why would they even want to be in? Right, right.

You can do jujitsu in a room of 100 students, and you could always have this thing. And then you hit this critical mass where it's very easy to stay in this community. You can make money in this community going around doing seminars in private. You can survive. And now all of a sudden, you're a black belt.

You're pretty good. Everyone knows you. You have an Instagram presence. Now you can just open up your own school. Right. You need a lot more of those, I think, you know? And I'm kind of talking all over the place here, right? Let's kind of step back and then

kind of summarize what you've been talking about so there's one safety and the instructor education and then there's marketing more business side of things yeah things that you want to focus on so yeah all right so that's the general idea let's kind of drill down into specifics of how to implement these things so um i guess we talked a little bit about uh safety side like kids uh anything about like adults like so you talked about kids you know for kids like let's ban certain techniques outright in competitions even and then. So how about for adults? Yeah. Chantel say,

yeah. What? What? Pete has a cold today, guys. So just say, oh yeah, sorry. It's really funny.

All right. So for adults, absolutely, you know, jujitsu did it. Yeah. Now jujitsu did it. So what you want to do

is get the critical mass and the most important thing is injury prevention. Yeah. And this is the number one advice that I have across the board. If you want to do is get the critical mass. And the most important thing is injury prevention. Yeah. And this is the number one advice that I have across the board. If you want to grow judo in America, you do it with yourself first. Don't go out to your local organization, make noise, and do all this stuff. You're not going to get anywhere.

It's super bureaucratic out there with the organization, the Hudson Judo, the New York Judo, the USJF, blah, blah, blah. No one wants to listen to you. You know, I've been bucking up the wrong tree for years what you you personally by yourself can do immediately is to first and foremost grow your dojo right if you're in a dojo and you have 20 students that kind of sucks right let's make it 40 let's make it 60 if you get to 100 students now you got a real community right there yeah okay 100 percent tribe of people doing judo i'm not talking about just kids i'm talking about adult judo. Yeah.

Now you have friends there. Everyone knows each other. You have your own cliques. You have your cohorts, all this stuff. Yeah. And now it's going to grow on itself. And in order to do that,

you have to make your beginners not do Rondori and get hurt. That's the first and foremost thing. Rondori is too hard. And I talk about this all the time. And if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, I did Rondori for years. And if you can't do Rondori, you don't belong in the sport, you are the problem. You're the toxic guy I'm talking about, you know, that's making it difficult for Judo to grow.

Because you have to think. Survivorship bias, yeah. Survivorship bias. You got lucky that you didn't take your ACL that one time. You got lucky that you didn't have to do Rondori or Travis growing up. And then he just beat you. So you quit, you know, because most of the guys would have quit going with Travis, right?

So all these different things. Right. And the most important thing I think is Judo Rondori has to has to stop at the white belt. You can't do it at the white belt level. I'm almost certain. Unless the guy has Jiu Jitsu experience, wrestling experience. Even then

it has to be a curated experience. You go with this guy who's very good at handling beginners. How do you handle beginners? Do you have a course for that? Most people don't. You do Rondori with that guy. Okay. What is that black belt going to do to that white belt? He's going to stop everything,

defend everything. Hey dude, you're doing a good job. You got to go like this. You got to pull the sleeve good i'll quit i'll quit right away guys like oh good good takes nine falls super fake that quit and stupid what am i doing aikido here you know like it's just done it's just it's not what they signed up for patronizing yeah yeah it's got to be a very curated thing right and it's got to be a very curated thing, right? And it's got to be a guided experience. Guided Rundori. Curated Rundori. Every step of the way. You know what I mean? And you can

teach this to your people and scale it. Do I? Not really. I'm kind of bad with this too. You have to curate this. Sometimes. You do a good job of pairing people up. Pairing people up up I do some of that and every now and then

I'll remind them right hey give them one technique takedown let them get one takedown that's it yeah right right

two to one one to one one to zero those are good you want to stay in that range make it like soccer you know what I mean like not too high score

yeah you know you don't want to shut everything out let them get good positions so they get experience going in and going out defend late stage defenses right don't just stuff everything on the. Let them get good positions so they get experience going in and going out. Defend late-stage defenses, right? Don't just stuff everything on the first try.

All these different things are important. But then, yes, no Rondori is first and foremost. But you have to ask yourself the question, why do most people come to the dojo in the first place? Why do they come to the dojo in the first place? To get fit and grow a spine. That's it. So, like, doing Rondori doesn't really do either of those things.

You could argue, yes, Rondori is going to get you in shape, but no way because you get injured more. You get injured faster, right? You redline first. You go out of breath. You can't really do anything, you know, and you're taking a beating and fear takes over and you're not really getting a workout.

Unless you're like mid-intermediate, high-intermediate, then yes, you're getting a workout. White belt aren't getting a workout. They're going out like that. You know, like going one or two things. They're not really getting a workout. Right, right, right.

But like drill-oriented. Oh, go ahead. Drill-oriented, yeah. Yeah. Drill-oriented, fitness-oriented. Yeah. Dedicated beginners class is a huge one. And I understand the time constraints and the space constraints. We have that too.

We're in New York City. We're in a very small space. Yeah. We can't concurrently run a beginner class and an advanced class at the same time. It's one dojo space. You know what I mean? You kind of did it back to back. Like, uh, you would start the beginner class like 6 PM and then, well, 7, 7 30.

You, you'll focus more on the advanced guys, right? Yes. Yeah. We've done that before. Yeah. Yeah. I might do like 6 30 or 7 30, 7 30 to nine. I might do that next. I might mix it up. I might really change it up. You know, I don't that before. Yeah. I might do like 630 or 730, 730 or 9. I might do that next.

I might mix it up. I might really change it up. You know, I don't really know. Yeah. But, yeah, that's the thing, man. But one thing is like BJJ, or at least the schools I've gone to, they let white belts roll. They're not getting slammed on their head.

Oh, I guess, yeah. They start on the bottom, yeah. When you're doing tachiwaza and you teach them kochi and they slam their leg into the other person's leg, it hurts. And no one wants to do that. You go for kochi and you stub your toe on the person's shin, it hurts.

And you get osorogari and you tweak your knee, it hurts. And you get taken down with a tai toshi, you land on your shoulder. Right. It's very scary, man. People don't want any part of that. You know, jiu-jitsu is great in that sense for beginners And you get taken down with a tai toshi, you land on your shoulder. Right. It's very scary, man. People don't want any part of that.

You know, jiu-jitsu is great in that sense for beginners because you're on the floor. There's so much less risk, right? Yeah. And you get the hug. You feel close to the person. You know, it's like you're being held the whole time. You know what I mean? Yeah. Even being held down, yes, it's very scary for a lot of people.

But it doesn't pale in comparison to like being slammed by someone, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I guess that's a big thing. So yeah, you have to be understanding. So it's like this, this aspect is covers both topics like safety and marketing like business, you know? Yeah. And then I think that you made a good point about starting from your immediate circle instead of trying to influence the guy.

I mean, it's kind of, you know, it's always like this too. Like even politics or companies, you start with what you can control and then it's better that way. Like instead of trying to go to the top right away and then influence. Yeah, because a lot of times you lack the influence even when you're just starting. Yeah, man. And all these guys were sitting on the board. A lot of these guys were very active in the judo community. They're sitting on these committees.

They don't own dojos. So they don't really know. You know what I mean? Yeah. They're sitting around. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. A lot of them don't have dojos, man.

That's the issue. You know, they don't really know. They don That's the issue. They don't really know. They don't really get it. They don't really understand our income depends on some of this stuff. And there's not enough collaboration between the dojos because it's very, very sort of ego-ish.

There's a lot of ego. You know what I mean? I see. There's okay, like jujitsu culture, like, okay, let's roll, let's work out the different dojos. But judo guys, they don't want to get landed

in front of their students. It's so instantaneous, it's so explosive, it looks really bad. A lot of the times they don't even do it anymore, because the older you get, the harder it is, you know? Yeah. Let's talk about that, too. I think someone from Discord brought it up, like,

would it make sense to partner with other schools, like judo school, or even VJJ Schools or wrestling? What do you think about that aspect? I mean, to a certain extent, I don't think that should be your first go-to. I think first and foremost, you need to look at the mirror and be like, hey, is my program good? Am I keeping good metrics? Am I keeping good marketing numbers? Am I retaining the right people Am I keeping, you know, good marketing numbers? Am I retaining

the right people? Is my product good? You know, and 95% of the time it sucks. I'm sorry. It's not good. It's just not good. And, you know, even I'm at fault because I'm saying all these things, but I don't do all these things, you know, because it's so easy for me to fall back on like, oh man, I'm here to see my buddies. I'm here to see my black belt. It becomes like sort of this exclusionary thing where I'm just kind of hanging out with my boys, right? So I'm completely guilty of this too. You know what I mean? So it's not

an attack on you personally coming from a place that evolved, you know? But we have to make our product better, right? Even before partnering with anyone. Even before partnering with everyone. And you have to understand what a good business is. You go to Starbucks, you get the same experience every single time. That's right.

You go to Starbucks, you know exactly what you're going to get, right? Judo school, not so much. Even my dojo. Oh, I mean, I can speak to that from my personal experience. Like, it's the reason why I've been, I was going to a BJJ school more than judo school around here was because I know that if I go to a BJJ school, I could get, I know that I could get a good training

every time. Every time. Every time. It's the same every time, right? 10 minute warmup, three different sets of techniques, right? And we're going to roll five rounds of rolls. We're going to do five rounds.

That's it. And I know that people will show up for rounds and I'll get like, I'll get to go with different people every round. Yeah. Formula. And you need that formula to make anything into a franchise. Right. Because it has to be predictable.

You know, you have to know what you're getting and consistently go in day after day after day after day. Right. In order to have certain growth, progression, you know. to know what you're getting and consistently go in day after day after day after day right in order to have certain right growth progression you know and people are more willing to pay for that experience of consistency yeah they want that they want consistency in their life and i'm at fault too because sometimes i don't feel like teaching i'm like i'm not gonna teach today you know like hey man next week we're gonna do tayo and then it's like i don't feel like teaching tayo

today i want to teach something else And sometimes you know There's rules right Never teach more than Three minutes at a time I break that rule all the time Three sets of three minute Instruction that's it

Three sets of three instructions Yeah Broken up by three minutes Of actually doing it That's 20 minutes right there Oh I see And then you That's it

Yeah Then you do Rondar Or whatever You know or throws Or whatever right that's 20 minutes right there. I see. And then you run. That's it. Yeah. Then you do run door or whatever, you know, or throws or whatever, right? That's a formula. You know, I'll give you an example. I went to a birthday party for my daughter, Fred. Right.

And, you know, when you're building a business, I'm building a business, and I need to distinguish between making yourself a job versus building a business. And I need to distinguish between making yourself a job versus building a business. Okay? I have created a job for myself to be at because the business relies on me. It's not a business.

I have a job and I made it for myself. Okay? See, that's one. The higher level... That's you at KBI. That's me at KBI. It's not the worst thing

in the world, but it's not a business yeah a business is a system of things put in place implemented that anyone could do lowest level employee can run it that's a business okay i see i went to a birthday party and it was so good it was so clean right and none of the people working it, right? They were all in like high school. And they weren't like spectacular. I mean, I'm sure they're fine kids,

but like they're the lowest level employees of anybody, anywhere. It's like the least paid, least whatever it is, right? They literally had a script that they had to read from and the system was perfect. Kids roll in, they're looking at the clock. Okay. It's time to dump out the crafts. They dump out the crafts on a table. Kids run over there, right? Five minutes later, 10 minutes later, kids start running around. They go over here. All right, guys, we're going to do cupcakes.

They go run over to do cupcakes. And then as soon as that happens, right, two staff runs over, cleans up the craft. Yeah. They go eat cupcakes. Juice gets served. Right. Two minutes later. Okay. Music starts playing.

Kids start going out and dancing. Okay, guys, we're going to play a game. They play three games. Literally three games. That's it. And you know what? Similar to my system. Okay.

Yeah. They didn't steal it from me. Right. Three minutes apiece, dude. The game was three minutes a piece literally three minutes three to five minutes a piece bang bang bang one of them was limbo you know one of them was like a freeze dancing thing right and were these guys like spectacularly clever charismatic amazing teachers of dance. No They're not probably not even professional dancers. No, they're hard, but they were very good because they'd fallen a script Right. Okay. Yeah, listen up like this was a script. Okay guys listen up when the music starts you're gonna do a chicken Music start they do the chicken dance right go like this. Those kids are checked out. They could do this in their sleep

Yeah, next is penguin and then the music stops like freeze and play right and then honestly three minutes in kids are getting

bored all right we're gonna play another game all right guys time for pizza bang going to get pizza

I see this a lot in BJJ schools yeah yeah they run if you notice judo schools in America don't have classes every day. No. BJJ schools do. Yep.

Does the head instructor always teach all of them? No. No. They teach the most popular night classes, whatever. That's it. Morning classes, lunch classes are run by lower belts that want to, you know,

get paid more seriously by BJJ. But I think the thing is, even if they're not professional teachers, they follow that script.

The head instructor has developed and then they could just go with it and then everyone, all the customers, the hobbyists, know what they're going to get. It doesn't matter if they show up at 6 a.m., 12 p.m., or 6 p.m.

Yeah. And then it's like, even for myself, I'm more willing to pay for that. Because if I miss Monday 6 p.m., I can show up Tuesday 6 p.m. It's the same deal. Same deal. Yeah. It's great. It's not fulfilling for the person teaching p.m. I can show up Tuesday, 6 p.m. It's the same deal. Yeah. Same deal. Yeah. It's great. It's not fulfilling for the person teaching it.

Yeah. It's the equivalent of like being a master teacher in a college could create their own curriculum and talk about anything on their topic of choice. Right? Yeah. I have a PhD in, I don't know, physics and I'm going to teach it this way

and these are my theories and this is amazing and let me talk to the most brilliant kids in the room and you know do all this stuff right change lives versus you're teaching in the doe and here's the common core curriculum and on monday we're going to do this on tuesday we're going to do this and they just follow the script and just blabbering along you know so there's a big difference there you know what i mean but how many superstar phd doctorate you know academics are out there who are at the top of the line in the Ivy League setting versus how many teachers in the DOE.

I don't know, 20,000, 30,000 teachers. And that's the difference. You know what I mean? And if you want to pull, you know, majority of your business in a capitalistic way for majority of the people and service those people, you got to do it like that. You know, I hate to say that, you know,

and I don't subscribe to it fully, but I think that's the first and foremost thing. You have to really think of it from a business standpoint. You have to think about retention, injury, fitness standpoint, all this stuff. And then I think that's the path to grow Judah and then when you can have 200 people in the room then you could hand select your advanced class

comp class teach that get fulfillment there first and foremost you need the money to be able to pay the bills and leave that shit job

that you have in the morning not everybody not everybody you know right that's also true like you can't

you know if you really want to grow it as a it can't be your hobby to run a dojo. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, I think the key, you know. So before you do that, I need the partnership. It starts with you really. Right.

You can partner with me too. And I guess, you know, you could kind of, I do these like one-to-ones online sometimes, you know, like a consultant. So you guys can go on the website and then schedule that. ShadorHigashi.com and I'll kind of give you a little bit of a rundown. Yeah. So it's a thing that you can do, you know. I didn't know you were doing that. I mean, I've only done it a few times.

You don't have to. You got back to me. So it's very interesting because a lot of people when they talk about this even on discord a lot of talk you know this discussion how to grow judo in america kind of yeah goes on to that all the problem with different organizations three organizations not centralized all that but you're saying that doesn't even matter no that's excuses's excuses. You guys are all making excuses and forget them. You know, why are you asking them for help? Yeah.

Help yourself. Help yourself first. Seriously. You know, it's a cool moment to like the government need to do this and give my student loans a break and all. No, go make money. You know? But it's kind of like that too, man. The dojo, you can grow the dojo yourself.

You don't need those guys to grow the dojo yeah i mean and then i think be selective in who you push out there in the competition circuit because right then you need a little bit of help from the organization to support those people doing the sport right right because you don't want to throw them into a lion's den yeah you know what i mean if you have a very nice, friendly culture and you want to throw them into the local dojo circuit and it's full of goons,

that's not good for anybody, right? You get students that don't want to do that. You know? Yeah. How I see it, I think from like,

you know, that debate about all private dojos versus like the organizations, I think they're, what you're, what I'm getting from what you're saying is that there's so many low-hanging fruits in the private dojos versus like the organizations. I think what I'm getting from what you're saying

is that there's so many low-hanging fruits in the private dojo right now. Like they're not even developed. I think you need that kind of grassroot private dojo foundation set and then upon that foundation, can you kind of influence and then maybe make the bureaucracy

of these organizations better? Like, it's not, you need both. Absolutely. Absolutely. Right now, the private dojo side is so lacking in America.

It is. But, you know, I've seen successes too, right? I know this guy, Kevin, he owns a jiu jujitsu school slash judo school out in New Jersey. He partnered up with a jujitsu guy. He's got a judo slash jujitsu program. And it's great. They have 300, 400 students there.

You know, it's amazing. You know, they're in Pennsylvania. They have a huge space. Yeah. I know Colton at his dojo. He has a jujitsu BJJ program. BJJ and judo go hand in hand, man. It really does. You know, you can like actually. It's about how you-jitsu BJJ program. BJJ and judo go hand in hand, man. It really does.

It's about how you package the product, I guess. But you have that package product, partner product has to be right. Yeah. I'm actually almost even part of the Taekwondo. Oh, yeah. I know a guy that did that. This guy, Jose Big Cosme. He's out in

LA. He's in California. And he did that. When he was like, oh, should I start my own dojo, whatever it is, he partnered up with a in LA he's in California and he did that you know when he was like oh should I start my own dojo whatever it is he partnered up with a Taekwondo guy and he learned all the things

they have birthday party this birthday party that all these things and you know if you're the guy that's sitting there like I'll never do that or I'll never sell out

or I'm not doing judo for money you're one of the people that have a problem you know you gotta kind of get over that a little bit you need money because money drives certain things.

And then you can't just teach judo for free, right? Then the quality of the instruction is not good. How many of you are there? How many people out there who are actually good at judo, right? Who could not work and teach judo? Right, right. Nobody. Nobody, yeah.

I know like two people that could do that, right? Yeah. So if there is money in judo, they could dedicate themselves to that and they had paid out for that so they could do it professionally without doing anything else. So they could focus on that. Right. And then have that. And then the more money there is in the sport, the more people are going to want to do that kind of a thing. And the more people will be in the sport, you know?

Right. I'm speaking like a true capitalist here, like you know you get where i'm coming from yeah right you we need more full-time instructors how do we do that keep people in the sport more and the first and foremost thing don't let your white white bills do randori seriously don't let them do randori period how do i make it interesting do like a kid's birthday party take a ballet class i'm not lying to you guys. Go to a goddamn dance class. Seriously. See how good they are at making you move for 90 minutes straight, dude. 90 minutes

straight, you're engaged. And you see some of those room, 40, 50, 60 people in that room. Take a class at Equinox, see what happens. I've been to those. I go, you know, I've been to the ballet class with you. Yeah. All the cycling classes, spinning

classes with my wife. Dude, they're amazing, man. I hate know i've been to the ballet class with you yeah i've been all the cycling classes spinning classes with my wife dude they're amazing man i hate though i hate spinning it was like let's go but i had a lot of fun bro i am i am telling you i take classes all the time just for that purpose and i said in the beginning i was like oh man it's so dumb i can't be in that room with those people you know like but now i'll take any class that you'll put in front of me if it's fitness related or whatever it is as market research yeah let me tell you something they do it a million times better than all of us yeah in judo no seriously and seriously. And you know what? I know. Those SoulCycle instructors are, you know,

they're so amazing that people dress up as them in Halloween. Yeah, they do. Listen to the message that they give you in class. Hey, you're doing an amazing job. Hey, buddy, you're amazing. Hey, what's your name? First timer. Welcome to the room.

We're going to make you fit. We're going to all do it together. Give each other five fives, leadership board here. All these extrinsic rewards, intrinsic rewards. Here's the thing. Here's the motivator. It's going to be 90 minutes. It's going to be the same every time. This energy. It's fun. It's music. Let's get going, guys. Start by the letter.

And then it's like, man, it is, first of all, fun. Is your judo class fun? Probably not. For most people in the room, it's not. It class fun? Probably not. For most people in the room, it's not. It's fun for the instructor hanging out with their best guy. That's me. I have a great time with them. And some guys who are new, who rub you the wrong way,

have no access to me. Because I'm kind of standoffish like that sometimes. Is that fun for that guy? No. Why would he stay? No. Yeah. Is that fun for that guy? No. Why would he stay? Yeah. I mean, he won't. You know what I mean?

And I have a little bit of a different level of celebrity because of the YouTube. Yeah. So people seek me from this and they see me online. They see the social proof. So therefore, they're much more likely to take more of this nonsense from me. You know, and even still, I'm very aware of all this stuff. So I try my best to kind of mitigate and then to cater and service some of these people. But if you're the average judo teacher who have that survivorship tough guy mentality, right?

Shensei was from Japan. I'm going to talk like I'm from Japan. I want to run judo like they did in the 60s in Japan. No. It's not going to work. It's just not going to work. I mean, you have to understand what Japan is like or other countries. Judo is state-sponsored.

It's kind of like wrestling. Wrestling, even in America, is run like that because it's integrated into the school system. There are a lot of kids doing it, and then you can kind of whittle people out until you get the top of the crop who go to Olympics. We can't do that with judo in America. No, no.

You can't at all. It's still going to work, you know? So that's my advice, honestly. And if you guys need help, you guys can always reach out and consult with me on trintorohigashi.com this whole thing is a commercial

because I'm a whore well yeah I mean this was a very interesting talk I think I mean we've kind of talked about this

here and there throughout our podcast but it's good to kind of focus on this topic a lot of people wanted you to talk about this.

And the contract. Oh, what's the contract? The last point. You got to have contracts. You got to have a membership, six-month contract. Or we don't do contracts with Dojo because, no, you're investing time in that person to teach them. They have to stick around.

They have to commit to you too. Yeah. Two-way street. It's got to be straight. You have to be tough. They have to commit to you too. Yeah. Two-way street. It's got to be straight. You have to be tough. It's got to be consistent. Consistent, tough law. That's what you need

to these people. Yeah. Also, it's got to be fun. It'll be a lot of things. And, you know, the whole roundabout thing I'm trying to say is there needs to be

an instructor education. Yeah. Everybody who runs a dojo needs these kinds of things to make it better. Wow. I think that's, yeah, a lot of people tend to focus on the organizations like national governing bodies in America.

But, I mean, let's not even get there yet. We got to grow the base, the foundation first, the private dojo. I want to hear from you. Do you think the best software engineers make the best CEOs? No, I mean, that's like a common thing, right? Yeah. So

in software engineering, used to be that, I forget the name of this hypothesis, is that but it basically says that the person is promoted until the position they're worst at and then they get they're stuck so as a software engineer you go through like a junior software senior software and then you've been to manager and then a lot of times software engineers are

bad at managing people so they're stuck there and they perform badly. So in order to solve that now, they have two tracks. Equal pay, you know, the individual contribution IC track, they call it, and then the managerial track. And you can always move forward.

So if I started as a junior developer, move up the IC rank, and then I was like, you know what? I want to do the manager. Then you try that, but now you can always come back to it as an IC, so you're not stuck at the job that you're bad at.

So it's like a common thing now. Yeah, what makes you a great software engineer doesn't necessarily make you a great manager. No. And same thing with judo. What makes you a great judo athlete doesn't make you a great judo teacher. Right. Those are two different things. And there's another layer, which is a great business person. Yeah. So there's three things you have to do, right? Business, teaching,

and begin a judo. Yeah. Right. So, you know, it's kind of like that, you know, software engineer, that's a great example. The higher you go up, the lower your testosterone goes down and the lower testosterone goes down, the harder it is to become a CEO. But yeah, I think that's a good point, you know, about being an athlete and a teacher and you have to like, if you can't do it all, you can, you can, you know, recruit people. Like, in order to do that, you have to have a business. And I think that's what Shintaro was trying to say, too. So, yeah, we talked about a lot. Let us know if you guys have any questions. I mean, the fastest way would be to support us on Patreon and join our Discord. Or you can also kind of have a scheduled consulting

session with Shintaro on his website shintaroguys.com Anything else Shintaro? Nope. That's it. Thank you guys for listening. Yeah. Thanks for listening guys and we'll see you guys in the next episode.