The Shintaro Higashi Show - How to Make It to the Olympics in Judo - An Interview with Jimmy Pedro

Episode Date: January 8, 2024

How do you actually make it to the Olympics in Judo? Is it just a matter of being skilled at Judo, or does it involve much more? In this special episode, sponsored by FUJI Sports, Shintaro sits down with Jimmy Pedro, a 2-time Olympic bronze medalist and world champion, to discuss what it really takes to become an Olympian in Judo. How should you train? Which competitions should you enter? Where can you secure funding? Find answers to all these questions and more in this episode! 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!

Welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. Today we have a very special guest, Jimmy Pedro. How are you, Jimmy? Everyone knows Jimmy. Thanks for having me again, Shintaro. Yes, so this is going to be a four-part series. This episode is sponsored by Fuji. Go to Fujisports.com.

You can use discount code SHINTARO. And thank you to our other sponsors, Judo TV, Levon, Jason, everyone who's a part of this whole ordeal. Thank you very much. We're going to get right into it, and we're going to talk about judo competition. All right, Jimmy Pedro, the competition guy. First and foremost, let's talk a little bit about getting to the Olympics. That's like the biggest deal for amateur athletics, like wrestling, judo,

a lot of these guys. So what does it take to get to the Olympics? Sort of on like a technical level, like what it takes to be an Olympic athlete, and then really like the path to it, like what tournaments you have to sign up for, etc, etc. So it's, I mean, through the years, it's changed a lot, right? So making the Olympic team when I was a kid, meant that you just had to be the best in the United States. If you were the number one athlete in America, then you got to go to the Olympics. And every country got to send one athlete in each division in the Olympics. Today, you have to qualify on the world level, on the world stage. And only the top 16 athletes in the entire world in the sport of judo get to go to the

olympics so you can be the best athlete in in the united states or the best athlete in japan but if you're not top 16 in the world then you don't get to go to the olympics and then on top of that each country can only send one athlete for that country so if Japan has three guys that are ranked in the top 16 in the world they can only send one so it's it's much different than it used to be before there used to be as many as maybe 40 athletes in every division at the Olympic Games today there's only about 16 to 20 athletes in each division but they're obviously the best 16 or 20 in the world the other difference today is that every athlete is seated when they go to the best 16 or 20 in the world. The other difference today is that every athlete is seeded

when they go to the Olympic Games. So one through eight, the top eight guys in the world, the women in the world, they're separated in each quadrant by their world ranking level. When I was in the Olympic Games years ago, it was blind seed. Anybody could beat anybody, world champion, Olympic champion, could fight first round. It was a much different experience.

And you had a chance to sort of, you know, get a good draw if you went to the Olympic Games. Today, there's no good draws. You're going to have to be one of the best eight guys in the world and many of them to win an Olympic medal. But backing up to the original question, you know, what does it take to go to the Olympics? I mean, number one, you have to be a full-time athlete. Let's face it. I mean, number one, you have to be a full-time athlete, let's face it. If you want to be an Olympic-caliber athlete who actually has a chance to medal in the Olympic Games,

then obviously the only purpose of making an Olympic team is to try to win a medal, right? We don't want to get there and lose. You've got to be a professional. What does that mean? That means you can't just do judo three days a week and think you're going to make an Olympic team. You have to be somebody that's on a professional program, training judo at least twice a day, at least five days a week and think you're going to make an Olympic team. You have to be, you know, somebody that's on a professional program, training judo at least twice a day, at least five days a week. You know, in addition to that, having some sort of strength and conditioning program, you know, whether it's lifting weights, plyometric training, you know, some sort of running regimen where you're a professional athlete, both physically, you know, physically in terms of

conditioning, as well as technically in terms of conditioning as well as technically in terms of judo so what does the schedule like that look like if you were to just put together like a venue for somebody like a training menu what would that look like so you know most countries will do some sort of either technical training in the morning right technique training drilling drilling your newaza techniques drilling your Nehwaza techniques, drilling your Tachiwaza techniques, doing lots of Uchikomis, doing lots of Nagikomis, throws on the crash pad, maybe some rounds of Nehwaza in the morning, you know, live rounds of Nehwaza training in the morning, maybe an hour and a half technical and Nehwaza type training. In the afternoon, some sort of strength and conditioning, whether it's, you know, mobility exercises or, like I

said, plyometric type exercises or maybe even olympic style lifting obviously depends on your weight class and you know a lot of variants go into it but some sort of physical conditioning in the afternoon and then in the evening you would basically do a randori training anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours at night most of it is tachi waza stand up randori but you know at an academy like mine we split it 50 50 we do 50 percent new waza 50 percent tachi waza because we don't have the bodies in the room to get 10 good randoris in standing so we break up the training but it's definitely two trainings a day in judo minimally and some sort of other physical conditioning and then saturdays maybe one

training on a saturday and sunday being a rest day and when i was training up there we did like front loaded monday through wednesday and it kind of tapered off a little bit do you guys still do that kind of a thing we do that we do that because most of the competitions are on weekends and we want our athletes to be fresh fresh and rested on weekends especially most of our guys right now they're not at that olympic level of uh competition and we want them we want them going to competitions every saturday or sunday wherever they can go drive get in a car drive five or six hours to jersey new york canada wherever they got to go get as many matches as they can and not that we need them rested for that time period but we also

don't want them beat that beat the hell every day that we either that's true you know yeah so they're competing on weekends and yes that's it's hard to get a lot of extra bodies at the dojo on weekends the train that's true Monday through Thursday night is you know people you can get the recreational players to come in and be a good training partner during the week that's true that's true okay so that's like the training side of getting to the Olympics what are the other sort of like the characteristic side, the actual logistics of getting there by points or qualifications or whatnot? So I think before we jump into the competition side of how you qualify for the Olympics, I think the biggest thing that I want everybody to understand is

development is key. That as an athlete grows, it's important that they compete at the level that they should be competing at to develop properly what does that mean that means that instead of hurrying up and trying to make a world team or an olympic team or go to the paris grand slam it's important that the athlete competes at their level and learns and develops their judo at each level and can actually execute and do their techniques against local people first right so go to all of the local competitions get 10 12 matches in in a weekend and work on your weaknesses or work on your new techniques that you're trying to develop because judo is all about confidence you've got to be able to do the technique over and over again knowing that

it's going to succeed for you when you get to the highest levels and and by by developing properly and getting maybe a hundred matches a year in at the local stage and you're winning you know 80 90 percent of those matches then you're ready to go to the next level which is the international scene right and when you go to the international level you have to go where you can win i believe that every athlete when they compete should believe that they can win the competition that they're entering that doesn't mean that they have to win it means that they're physically and mentally and technically ready if they have a good day they can win the tournament okay and that gives them confidence when they go into the matches. Hey, I should beat this person.

And even if they do great, if they don't, at least they competed and maybe they didn't get beat by a phone in 10 seconds or got smashed in the first round. Maybe they got a lot of match time. They spent a lot of time on task, right? Because experience is key in Judo. If you get a lot of time competing,

you get used to competing. You get comfortable competing. You're no longer anxious. You don't have that, you know, you're not worried. You're not nervous anymore because it's something you do all the time. When you're not anxious, now you can think when you compete. You can learn, you can develop,

you can try new things because it's not about winning and losing. It's about developing your judo for the next time the more matches we get the more experience we get the more comfortable we get competing now we're learning then we come back to the dojo say what do we do right what do we do wrong what do we need to improve go to the next event when we start winning locally and regionally then we go nationally once we're winning, then we go internationally at a level where, again, we can get a lot of matches. Hopefully, wherever we compete, there's some sort of training camp afterwards where we can train for a full week against people that are better than us so our level can go up.

And really, the competition isn't about winning the tournament. It's about believing I can win when i get there whether i win or i don't doesn't matter i'm going to go to the training camp and i'm going to get my hands on as many good people as i can so my reactions my level everything goes to another level and we're developing we're getting better we're getting stronger each time we compete or we train and when i'm ready and i can win at that lower-level international scene, now I'm ready to take the step to go to a Grand Prix and test my skills. And again, when we first go to Grand Prixs, we don't have a lot of money.

So we want to make sure that there's a camp after the tournament or I can stay and train in Europe or train in Japan or wherever it is and get those Randoris and get my hands on better people all the time so I'm chasing better people and I'm only as good as the level I train with you know so if I'm training with good guys my level goes up if I'm the best guy in the room all the time I'm only getting worse I'm not getting better so I've got to chase the better people you know yeah um in order to qualify you know for for the national team let's say you know the theory what is national team for our listeners like what does that entail the

national team quite honestly united states judo right now doesn't necessarily have a national team where they say you're a national team member but it's somebody that represents the united states outside of america right i thought it was top five in the country he has the right to go international so if you're top five in the country you're on the national team essentially is that not you have to be on the national roster you have to be on the national ranking roster to go internationally yeah that's it you might have to have a certain level yeah you know but so theoretically like one of my black belts can you know go to jimmy

pager invitational right which is an e-level tournament or is the d-level tournament uh it used to be an e-level tournament it's no longer any level okay so let's say if i go to an e-level tournament not me but like one of my guys go gets a point he wins the tournament he gets on the national roster now he could go international competition if he's a i think if he's a black belt and he he's on the national ranking, now he can go into national competition? I think if he's a black belt and he's on the national ranking roster and no other athlete wants to compete in that event, he's able to go to the open

tournaments, like the Pan American Opens, the European Opens, that level of event, yes. Nice. That's pretty cool. So they won't stop anybody if they're willing to pay their way, and they're on the national ranking roster. Yeah.

They can go do those level events. And that's the way it should be. You don't want to hold somebody back that's willing to go pay their dues and pay their time. But that athlete should have to medal at a certain number of those events before they're eligible to go to sort of a Grand Prix level event. Yes. So what's the qualification now to get through the system? those events before they're eligible to go to sort of a grand prix level event right yes yeah so what's the qualification now to get through the system it's all outlined on on us us judo dot uh us judo.org or usajudo.com has the national ranking rosters they keep a roster of all the athletes what they're currently ranked on in the national scene and they do have some criteria to get to the next

level of events but soon as you like make that level where you're your top I'll say once you make the level where you finish top five in one of those Pan American opens you're automatically ready to go to like Grand Prix Grand Slam and even represent the team potentially at, you know, at the Japan, you know, Japan Grand Slam, Paris Grand Slam, which is a big jump. Yeah. Huge, huge. A lot of our athletes aren't ready for that. No. But yeah. But in order to make, in order to make the world team every year, there's a, there's a criteria to make the United States world team. And right now, in order to go to the world championships, you have to be, I think it's currently top nine athletes

on the world ranking list are eligible to go to the world championships. So what does that mean? That means that if we take the first place person, or should I say the people with the most amount of points on the world ranking list, they go they rank them one through one through nine in the united states and whoever those people are you get to go represent the team at the world championships but we can only have a maximum of two two athletes in each division so if there's a third athlete that's ranked in that top nine in the division that person doesn't get to go it'll default to the next person on the list interesting interesting so theoretically right if

someone was let's just say like 73 kilos like your division who's number one at 73 is jackie natsuka right yeah for the u.s and then is there somebody behind him so it was dominic rodriguez okay he recently got injured he tore his acl well partially tore tore his ACL so he's out for a while I think he's since moved up to 81 kilos but he was going to be that he was going to be the second person that went to the world championships at 73 he injury defaulted and pulled out the next guy in line was a kid named Kai Wallace the Japanese boy all right he declined he declined going to the worlds because he's still a junior. And so it went down to the next person on the team.

Okay. So you don't have to be like top nine in the world. No, no. You just have to be top nine ranked amongst all the Americans on the male side and top nine ranked on the female side. So for the World Championships, we said nine men nine women usually okay that's it that's it wow that's a unique thing right it's a new it's it's fairly new yes yeah so what's harder to win the world championships or the olympics you think excluding the fact that the olympics comes once every four years let's just say on a given year

olympic year 2024 you've already made it versus 2025 let's just say on a given year, Olympic year 2024, you've already made it, versus 2025, let's just say 2026. They actually have a world championships now every year, including the Olympic year. Including the Olympic year? Wow, interesting.

So they have a world's every year now. So it's every year they have a world championships. At the world championships, each country gets to send nine representatives. Their best nine. They can pick any divisions, but they can only have two guys per weight class. So Japan, for example, typically they send two people at 73 kilos. Yes, they do. Ono and Hashimoto.

And they also send two people at 66, Abe and Maruyama. That's who they typically send. And they send one in the other divisions. But at the World Championships, it's a much deeper field of athletes. You'll have as many as 80, 85 men in a division at the World Championships. Whereas the Olympic Games,

you're going to have a maximum of like 22 to 24 athletes. Yeah. There are like wildcard situations, right? Like continental quotas and things like this that kind of come into play. Yeah. So there's 16 of the best in the world then there's like wildcard slots and then there's refugee slots and then there's there's continental quarter slots wow wow to answer your question the world championships is harder to win than the olympic games currently than we're in the in the world of judo but it comes around

only every four years so there's a lot more pressure you know there's a lot more anxiety there's a lot more focus attention on it so from a i guess uh an anxiety or or pressure situation the olympics has more pressure attached to it yeah but technically you got to be a lot better to win the world championships yeah do you remember the time when they used to do the top six in the Pan Ams, qualifies the weight class, and then the best guy, if the weight class is qualified, automatically has a spot in the Olympics? Remember that one? Yeah.

It changed quite a bit over time. Like I said, when I was an athlete, my first Olympic team, all I had to do was be the best American. We had an Olympic trials. They invited the best five people in each American. We had an Olympic trials. They invited the best five people and five people in each category. Went to an Olympic trials and you fought head to head. Whoever won that tournament, if you were the number one ranked athlete going into the event, you're automatically on the Olympic team if you won the trials.

If you were ranked two through five and you beat the number one person in the first olympic trials we came back and we fought a best two out of three scenario head to head yeah to see who was the best in the country and then we got one slot per category so we used to send seven men seven women went to the olympic games when i was young as i got older the o the Olympic field started going smaller and smaller. And it became where you had to be ranked, you know, in the Pan American Union. If you were top so many in the Pan Am Union, then you reserved a slot for your country. Then there was a trials for that slot. And that's who we had trials for, the people that qualified.

Then, now it came to a point where I think when Travis and Kayla and Marty were competing, it was the top 22 athletes in the world. Yes, that's what it was. Got a chance to go to the Olympics. Yeah. And now we're down to only 16 athletes per category. So it keeps shrinking and shrinking. Yeah. Why is that?

And becoming harder and harder. Why do you think they're doing that? Because the Olympic, all of the Olympic sports are growing. Every year, whoever hosts the Olympics gets to introduce new sports to the Olympic Games. Yeah. So I think, I forget the sports coming. Flag football is a sport that's coming in 2028, as an example. Yeah.

There's a lot of new sports. And as they create new sports, they've got to take away from existing sports to create space and slots for the new sports because the olympics is too big for people to host they can't put all these people in a village they can't they don't have housing they don't have infrastructure they don't have sports fields so they've got to shrink down the number of people in each sport to make way for the new sports i say get rid of like swimming you know it's like freestyle 50 freestyle 100 freestyle 200 and then you go relay and then you go backstroke breaststroke but if i say come on you know really they have they have a lot more opportunity let's say that than we ever will yeah those guys are like i'm a 19 time olympic gold medalist it's like how is that even possible

right yeah and i'm 22 years old that's yeah so what is the path if someone's listening right now they're like all right I want to make an Olympic team like what do you think aside from like being blessed with good genetics being blessed with a good coach already they have like judo support system they have the money to be able to travel like in terms of like what competitions should they go for like what is that logistical path well when they're ready when they're ready to step up on the world stage so they've already developed properly they've already done everything to develop and they've won you know at that local regional national and lower level international level and they really have to they have to get on the world circuit

they have to be a full-time judo athlete they're not going to be able to work a job they're not going to be able to go to school full-time the rest of the world is doing judo full-time yeah being paid to do the sport of judo and they're training twice a day they're competing all the time so the only way to beat them you've got to train like them you've got to be like them okay yeah so you've got to be a full-time judo athlete. What that means is that you're going to spend somewhere between four months and six months away from your house. Yes. Competing, traveling, and training around the world on the World Judo Tour in order to qualify for the Olympic Games, which means you need a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah.

When you think about it, right, in order to qualify for the Olympics right now, you have to have six results, six results each year. So in order to get six results, you probably have to, unless you're a superstar, you probably have to compete in a minimum of 12 events. Minimum. Minimum, 12 events. That's 12 times away from your house. You have to understand there's not a single tournament in the United States that will help qualify you for the Olympics. There's not a single tournament right now in Canada

that's a Grand Prix or Grand Slam level that's going to get you enough points. And in fact, there's nothing in the North or South Hemisphere that will get you enough points to qualify for the Olympics. So you've got to be competing in Europe, Asia. Basically, Europe and Asia

are the only two places that you can qualify and get enough points to make it worth your while. But there's Continental Opens in the Pan American region. There's just not enough points? You only get 100 points

if you win a Continental Open. Yeah, that's not a lot of points. How many points do you think? If you win a continental open yeah that's not a lot of points how many points do you think if if you if you win a grand prix level you get 700 points so the grand prixs are worth seven times what a continental open is yeah so you can go to a grand prix win one match maybe get a buy win one match you get more points than if you won the continental open so when you're like trying to qualify for the olympics all of your events have to be Grand Prix, Grand Slam, World Championship, or Continental in order to make it worth your while.

Yeah, you know, back in the day, there was a different point system, right? It used to be the Continental Open was the World Cup, but I remember I took third at the Brazil World Cup, and that shot me up so high. I was like, holy moly, now I'm like, whatever it is. But I guess they really put a gap between the Continental Open and the Grand Prixs. Right? So the World Championships used to only be worth, like, 700 points if you won a World Championship.

Yeah. And a Grand Slam was, like, 400 points. The Continental Open was 100 points. Yeah. So they were pretty close. Now the World is, like, 2,000 points. Wow. Jesus.

It's worth 20 times what a continental open is yeah you know the grand prix i'm sorry the grand slams are worth like a thousand points so like 10 times what a grand what a continental open is so you've got to be going to grand prix grand slam level tournaments in order to qualify for the olympic games which means you're always fighting against the best in the world, which means you've got to be able to beat, and everybody's seeded, so you've got to be able to beat one of the top 10, top 15 guys in the world,

just to get past the quarters, to get any real points. So it's a tall order, but you know. It really is, yeah. Yeah, so all you've got to do is win an Olympics, win a world championship, get some points there, win like four grand slams, and you're good. You qualify for the Olympics.

Is that right? You've got to be top seven. Yeah. And grand prixs and grand slams all the time. Yeah. Or posting medals in order to qualify. But the Pan Ams is a huge one. Pan American championships, right?

Used to be that was the golden ticket. It's not like that anymore? Now winning the Pan Ams is equivalent to winning a grand prix. It's the like that anymore? Now, winning the Pan Ams is equivalent to winning a Grand Prix. It's the same level as a Grand Prix tournament. I mean,

700 points is not bad considering how much easier it is to win a Pan Am compared to how difficult it is to win a Grand Prix, right?

No question. No question. So you have to get to the Pan Ams. That's kind of the... Depending on what weight class you're in. Yeah, that's true.

If you're in the 57 kilo female division and you've got to gucci you got to gucci and you've got rafael a silva that's a tough one yeah not so easy man that's brutal but yeah yeah so i mean it's it's a tall order and in addition to those 12 you have to realize when you go to those 12 tournaments, you're getting on a plane from America and you're flying over to Europe or you're flying all the way to like Japan. You're talking 12 hours, 15 hours of travel. Yeah, yeah.

Giving up four or five days, right? You're going to fly in a day or two early. You got to make weight. You got to compete in the event. You're on a plane. You either come home or you stay for a week or two of training then you go to the next tournament you know what i mean so like you're on the road six months out of the year if you're trying to go to the olympics today and they're still doing like the you know the tours right asia tours happening there's like five or six back-to-back

over here european tour happened in five or six back-to-back kind of not as not as back-to-back as they used to be shintaro so that's not good no used to be i could go korea china grand slam in japan that's what i did i did the korea open china grand prix and then the tokyo grand slam and i stayed in japan for two weeks after that was a five week ordeal dude you know it was a lot you can you can do some back to back but most of the time there's two weeks in between the tournaments now they're spread further apart which means you got to be on the road even longer yeah i mean and stay are the training camps two weeks now they only do three day training camps after the tournament they go monday tuesday wednesday everybody pretty much goes home thursday

wow goes to another event why did? Why did they do that? I mean, I think it's a, it's a lot of infrastructure for the, you know, a lot of the people stay for the training camps now, the three day camp. So a lot of people will stay and they just have,

you know, 600, 800 athletes staying for those camps. It takes a lot of infrastructure to pull those off. And do you like the new system? I don't. I mean, I i like i like the way the world tour is set up yes i do like it but it's it's there's an unfair advantage to the europeans and the asians and there's not enough money in north and south america if you think about it brazilians americans

canadians yeah we don't have any grand Prix Grand Slams in North or South America nothing not a single tournament but it used to be Brazil Grand Slam was a thing

I fought in that one they don't have it they can't afford to run the tournament anymore it's too expensive to run those events how much does it cost

to run those events I'm not 100% sure but they have to they at least have to come up with like $350,000 in prize money to run a Grand Slam. Oh, yeah, there's prize money. So you're probably talking half a million dollars.

You've got to put out a half a million dollars that you might never get back. I mean, you probably won't get it back, right? I mean, unless you have like TV sponsorships and this and that. Man, that's brutal. It just not on tv enough in brazil or or in in the united states to get our money back so it's a huge investment and there's no reason for the europeans and the asians to come over here to america to compete because they have so many in their backyard why would they have that expense why would they deal with jet lag when they can just fly an hour or two hours and get all the tournaments that they want?

Yeah. Do you remember the Miami Grand Prix? Miami World Cup? Remember that one? They don't have that anymore. That was a really good one too, right? Yep. You coached me in that one, remember?

Yeah. That was awesome. Yeah. I mean, it's great experience for the athletes in our country. Having Grand Prixs in this country is good for our athletes. It gives our young guys a chance to compete against the best people in the world on your home turf. You get that level of energy where you're confident.

You can't wait to show yourself and shine. The other people are dealing with jet lag for once, so it's great for our athletes because they're tired and they're moaning about jet lag, whereas we do it every day. Every competition, we're always dealing with it. So it gives us a little advantage that way. I used to love when the tournament was in Colorado Springs

because then not only did they have to deal with jet lag, they had to deal with altitude. Colorado Springs is a really difficult place to compete. It is. You're talking about altitude. You had a gas tank, so you were really shot in there. Jeez. Man.

Yeah. Man, I would love to see some tournaments come back over here. Through the years, it's changed a lot. But I will say this. The World Judo Tour right now is super professional. I love how accessible the media is. You can watch any event anywhere in the world, live streamed, all great broadcasts with commentary. At the click of a button, you get to watch all your favorite players.

And it's amazing because it really brings judo to the whole world. Yes. Do you watch judo TV? All the yeah i watch every event i got two screens going at work going at work i got one screen watching judo one screen responding to emails yeah it's a lot of fun i love it yeah it's great judo tv is unbelievable you guys can also who are listening get used discount code chantaroaro and then get a subscription. It's the best. It's the best.

So, all right. Here's the next question. Sure. BJJ guys always say Abu Dhabi Championships is our Olympics. ADCC is our Olympics. And some people argue that the ADCC is much tougher to win

than a Judo Olympics. What do you think about that? Not even close. Not even close. Yeah. Not even close don't don't don't get me wrong like the guys that win the adcc are very very skilled right like i don't i don't discredit i don't discredit i don't just you know gordon ryan is an amazing athlete right he he's he shines at adcc heads and tails above everybody he went he fights the whole he fights the whole tournament, wins the whole tournament, fights the super fights, fights the opens. Like, he's a phenomenal athlete, right?

And so are the other guys that are winning. But if you look at, like, you just look at any sport, right? And you look at the number of people that actually dedicate themselves full-time to doing that sport and that sport alone yeah they don't have the depth they don't have the level of competition that judo has right not yet they'll get there but not yet um you give it 15 years 20 years these little kids like judo has in all of these countries people have been groomed since they were three four or five years old to do job right and they've grown up in a system in japan and in russia and all over the europe where they've done judo since little kids and they've got half a million people in france doing judo for example right so the person that comes out at top is going to be very very skilled

they're 100 dedicated to japan And that's 200 and something nations worldwide where you've got GEO that starts as the little kid level and goes all the way up to Olympic level. If you look at ADCC rules, that's a brand new rule set that is just being introduced to the rest of the world

and is just now getting organized around the world. Like, I'm in partnership with the ADCC through Fuji Mats, and we help support the growth of the organization. And they're now, like, I don't want to say on steroids, but, like, that organization has exploded. It has really exploded, Shintaro. Like, the rest of the world is starting to get into no-gi grappling.

And a lot of wrestlers, you know, specifically D1 wrestlers, are getting into that sport. A lot of judoka you know specifically d1 wrestlers are getting into that sport a lot of judoka are now getting into that sport like there's a lot of people that are starting to get into nogi jiu-jitsu yeah and it is growing exponentially around the planet it's growing exponentially i think it's the fastest growing sport in the world right now other than probably pickleball you know nogi grappling is the second biggest growing sport in the world and in the next 10 years it's gonna it's just gonna continue to explode so but is it the olympics the olympics of grappling but how many people actually do no gi grappling since they were little kids

until they're adults not many countries the united states really strong now brazil really strong but the rest of the planet not really okay same question same question comparable judo olympics wrestling olympics i know this is like a popular thing that people have been like clipping from you know uh sehudo talking about it kayla talking about it uh and because you wrestled division one you wrestled brown and then you know you're everybody around you in boston area they also wrestle cross train too right so you know a lot and your brother wrestles at a very high level so where oh your son sorry so where does that like sort of what is your comparison on that with judo wrestling making an olympic team being out there on that circuit are they very different or uh they are very different again it goes back to the number of countries and the number of yeah number of countries doing the sport full-time from the time they're a little kid until they're

an adult yeah you know at that at that olympic level even the united states doesn't do olympic wrestling from the little kid age. We do folk style wrestling. Very true. All the little kids in this country grew up doing high school and collegiate

folk style wrestling. They don't even get into freestyle, some of them, until they're after college. And then they start learning leg laces and they start learning

the game of that. Yeah, parterre. But it's obviously trickled down lower and lower to the high school level because a lot of kids in the summertime, all they do is freestyle. They compete all the time.

They go to Fargo, right? Correct, right. They compete in a lot of events now. The United States is the best in the world in wrestling right now. Yes. Our athletes are number one in the world. We're the Japan of judo. American wrestling is what Japan is in judo right now,

the number one team in the world. So we dominate. More than Russia? It's far harder. Right now, we're better know american wrestling is what japan is in judo right now the number one team in the world so we dominate more than russia it's far yeah we right now we're better than russia and russia wrestling and our athletes and we're deeper than russia we've got guys two three deep that could win an olympics they just can't make our olympic team it's far harder to make our olympic team than it is actually sometimes to win that olympic gold medal for the americans um but i would say it's still harder to win an olympic medal in judo than it is to win an olympic medal in in wrestling just because again comes down to the number of athletes that do the sport full-time from the little kid level till and the number of countries that participate in the sport as well and

the number of countries that are investing money in the sport as well. That's true. And the U.S. Olympic team. Globally, judo is a much bigger sport than wrestling is. But in the United States, wrestling blows judo away. It's 50 times bigger. 100 times bigger in the United States. It's easier to make our Olympic team,

it's easier to make our Olympic team in judo than it is in wrestling, without question. Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. And you know, I guess a lot of people make this sort of misunderstood perception on like, oh, BJJ is 10 times harder, because it's much more visible that Jiu-Jitsu population is much bigger here, right?

So people kind of assume like, oh, winning ADC is much more difficult because there's all these people doing it here, and it doesn't seem like there's a big population of Judo here, but in our home turf, there's there's all these people doing it here and it doesn't seem like there's a big population of judo here but in our home turf there's not a lot of people doing it right right so it's not a recognized sport in this country really so how do you make an olympic team in wrestling do you know the system there too um i don't but you know all olympic sports now are based on on a on a world criteria so United States, I believe in wrestling, the United States athlete has to qualify the

division. So we can send whatever representative we want around the world. If they're ranked as an American in the top probably 15 or something in the world, if an American is ranked in the top 15 in the world, we get a slot to send our best guy to the Olympics. And then they have a wrestle-off in the United States, which world we get a slot to send our best guy to the olympics and then they have a wrestle off in the united states which athlete is going to go to the olympics and take that slot so we still have an olympic trials in the sport of wrestling to go to the olympic games but that's because we're really deep like it yeah at the world in wrestling there's like 10 weight

classes in the world championships. But at the Olympic Games, it shrinks down to like six. There's only six or seven weights in wrestling at the Olympics. So we've got like Jordan Burrows, for example, world champion, let's say, at 79 kilos. That weight is not an Olympic weight. He has to cut to 74 kilos and wrestle against Kyle Dake to make the slot. Oh. A lot of times,

a lot of times, we have two of our, we have two world championships, I'm sorry, two world champions wrestling off for the one Olympic slot because they cut one of their weight classes out. It's not an Olympic weight class. Were you there when the Olympic trials

had judo and wrestling in the United States? Remember that one? Were you around for that? You were competing then, right? Didn't you win it? That was awesome. Did you win it or no? That was awesome.

I loved it. Yeah. That was so cool, right? We had judo, wrestling. It was side by side. How amazing was that? I would love to see something like that again. I think it's like a once in a lifetime event.

I don't think it'll ever happen again. Did you compete in that? I think I was coached. That was 2008, if I believe. It was 2008. Yeah. I was coaching my first guys at the Olympic trials then.

Yeah, I remember Travis made that, right? He was there for that. Wow. Man, Eldred, DePopolo, all those guys. Right? Remember those days? Olsen beat Rick Hahn at that trials. That's right.

That's right. Wow, man. those days travis b uh cohen yeah so let's talk a little bit about like the olympics and like you're talking about professional athletes internationally right these guys get paid to do their sport and i'm sure people want to know like everyone always asks me like what is it like with the professional system in japan but outside of that i don't really know what you know the professional system in japan but outside of that i don't really know what you know the professional pay scale is for a lot of these countries maybe you could tell us a little bit about that i'm sure people find that really interesting huge disparity some countries have no money some athletes fund themselves to all the events yeah they get no money to travel they don't get a stipend they get nothing they just do it because they love it and they can't make the

olympic team and they've got the money to go spend. Then on the other side of that, you have countries like Japan and Russia. When Russia, when Gambo was running the Russian national team, Olympic team, his budget was $20 million per year. Wow. For his athletes, to pay his athletes, to train his athletes, to compete across on the world stage that the russian team was sending a team to every ijf world tour event and all of those athletes

including their juniors yeah get paid a monthly stipend to do judo full-time um the guys that just took the falls for the national guys got like like $500, $700 a month just to be the training partner for the people that are trying to make it. And the national team probably gets $3,000 a month as a stipend to train. Plus, they get their housing, they get their food, they get all of their international travel covered. And on top of that, they win the prize money along the way to do judo full-time.

And those guys, when they win a world medal or an Olympic medal, they're getting paid a million dollars. They're getting paid $250,000. They're getting paid real money, you know, when they succeed. What about the U.S.? The United States right now probably has, when I was coaching, they had five athletes that got paid monthly stipends. They were on contract to be professional athletes.

And they made anywhere from like $40,000 a year up to $80,000 a year as their salary. But then they had bonuses on top of that where our top athlete might make $120,000 a year. And our other athletes had a chance to make like make like 60 000 a year doing judo full time plus getting all of their trips paid for plus whatever money they could get that's not right now though right that's not right now right now i don't know who's being paid but it's a similar system where let's say our top athlete yeah dogano jack ganeska they're probably getting paid somewhere between 1500 and 2500 a and $2,500 a month between the Olympic Committee and USA

Judo to train full-time. They're on contract to train full-time, and a lot of their travel is being picked up either by USA Judo, the Olympic Committee, or by NYAC and sponsors. That's right. What about Canada? They have a carded system, right? Like card level

A, B. That was a nice system too. They got, you know, what is it? Four grand, three grand, something like this a month? So, yeah, I don't know the stipends that they're getting, but the Canadian system is funded by their lottery. So their lottery gives money to their Olympic committee. Their Olympic committee gives money to their sport. The lottery lottery?

Yeah. The government lottery funds their sports program. gives money to their sport the lottery lottery budget yeah the guy got the actual lot the government lottery oh funds funds their sports program oh wow that's pretty cool you know but our budget in the united states is somewhere around six or seven hundred thousand dollars a year that's to run every program we have in the country that includes senior athletes junior athletes paid staff olympic level you know, that's training centers, that's everything. You've got six or seven hundred thousand.

I think the budget in Canada is more like a million and a half. Oh, wow. I mean, it shows, right, with the results, you know, because you kind of need money to go to these tournaments, you know. It's not like in Jiu-Jitsu, it's like, oh, let me go to the Charleston Open and gain, you know, IBJJF points, or let me go to the New Haven Open and do this. You can't do that in Jiu-Jitsu. You've let me go to the New Haven Open and do this. You can't do that in judo.

You got to go to Europe. You got to go to Japan, like you said. And it's very costly. Each one of these trips is like 5, 6 Gs. Minimal, right? So you go to 10, that's $50,000, $60,000 that just goes straight out of the pocket. Well, that's what I'm saying. You need a lot of money to go to judo.

As an American, you need a lot of money to be on the Olympic team today. Man, so if you're listening and if you don't have a lot of money, don't even try to make an Olympic team. Is that what you're saying? Pretty much. You've got to have financial backing. Yeah, you do.

You've got to have the financial backing. When I was competing, I was fortunate, Shintaro. I had a Japanese man who was a host father to me. Through a mutual friend, He was an exchange program. I went to Japan for six months. He gave me a place to stay. I didn't pay any money in rent. He sponsored me as an athlete.

I got up and I worked out with him on Sundays in the morning. I'd have to go to judo training on a Sunday morning. After getting the crap kicked out of me for Monday through Saturday, I'd have to get up on Sunday and do uchikomis with my host father, Mr. Homa. I'd go to the gym. We'd do like 500 uchikomis. We'd do some weightlifting. We'd go in the sauna.

He'd take me to dinner. He'd say, good luck training. You know, good luck training for the next week. But I was lucky. I had someone that looked after me. And at the same time, United States Judo, the federation, they took care of me too. I was getting a monthly stipend to train full time because I had world medals. I had Olympic medals.

So I was getting two grand a month, three grand a month. And New York Athletic Club too sponsored you too, right? Yep. That's great. Without the NYC, I wouldn't have ever medaled in the Olympics. I would have had no chance. Wow. I wouldn't have had the funding to do so.

And the same with Kayla, same with Travis, same with all the athletes that went through, Ronda Rousey, all the athletes that went through the New York Athletic Club. Without that club, they don't win their medals because they didn't get supported. You know, until, you don't get supported from the Olympic Committee until you win

something. But how do you get to win something when you don't have any money like me? My parents were divorced you know i was in college as a starving college kid my parents were divorced a firefighter and a teacher they'd have money to send me around the world nyc funded me until i was good enough to get the money from the olympic committee you know the same with kayla and the same with travis and the same with ronda they They got funded by the NYC. Then they got good enough.

They got money from the Olympic Committee. Then they could go on and win an Olympic medal because, you know, they were posting good results. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. There's so many different paths to get there, right? Like I've heard people who are like on the U.S. Army team in wrestling, like guys who are in the Marines. They're on the wrestling team. Their entire job is to just wrestle and they get a paid salary as if they were doing Marine duties.

I know a guy in Italy, he's a firefighter, but he doesn't have to do any firefighting duties. He doesn't have to run into burning buildings. He just has to train and then compete in the World Fire Games, police games. Same with a lot of countries. I think Germany has something like that too. Yeah, they do. So these guys, it's a world-class army you know world army combatives program they they basically take the

best of the army navy air force they put them in a combative type environment they train full-time and they actually represent the military in their competitions and germany does it and a lot of like their policemen yeah firemen uh army people and they that's their job. Train judo full-time, go represent our country as a combat athlete or as a soldier, and they represent them proudly. And they get paid a salary as if they were a firefighter

or a policeman. And it's amazing. The Japanese pro league is something else, though, right? They get a corporate position, right? You work for Toyota, you work for, I don't know, like a gambling thing or this. It's like regular corporations. Like Park 24, do you know them? Yeah.

It's a parking lot company. Yeah. And they have like a corporate division and like a finance division and accounting division. And there's a judo division where you get paid a full salary as a salaried employee going through your yearly thing. And there's a performance bonus. Right? That's the way to go, really, if you can get on board. salaried employee going through your yearly thing and there's a performance bonus right like that's that's the way to go really if you could get you put the yeah you put the big logo on your chest you go to judo you go to judo you hang out wake up late go to judo in the evening get your 15 rounds

in and when it comes time to the company tournament everybody's watching you don't want you you know make sure that the 24 guys beat the jra racing guys just do five five man team event five against five best team wins yeah and they're the pride of their their company yeah what a cool system a lot of money into that program a lot of betting tons oh yeah there's a lot of money that's what we need that's what we need man so if you were to leave everyone who's listening who has olympic aspirations and you know i i talked a lot of bjj guys and they're always like hey i want to make an olympic team in judo what does that even look like and you know i'm not going to be one to say don't even try it's stupid you know i'm not trying to say that but like i want to encourage them to try to get onto the judo path as well

because we want to grow judo in the country so you know right so what would you say to those guys who are maybe young guys or jiu-jitsu guys stop right now because as shintaro and i talked about every olympics up until 2028 you have to you have to qualify around the world you have to be top 16 in the world that's a very tall order for any brazilian jiu-jitsu person to try to aspire to be however in 2028 the united states is going to host the olympics we the american team we are going to have seven men and seven women represent the united states we have to put one person in every weight class but we get the privilege to put our best athlete in every weight class on that olympic privilege to put our best athlete in every weight class on that Olympic team. So we need the best seven men and the best seven women are going to represent Team USA

in LA 2028. If you're going to start judo, now's the time to start because you're going to get a chance to qualify and it's going to be the easiest time ever in the history of the United States to qualify for the Olympics. And that's going to be 2028. And listen, I was even talking to like Shanji about Victor Hugo. Like, if I could get Victor Hugo

to fight heavyweight right now, we might be able to put him on the Olympic team in 2028. Because he's got six foot six. He's got a great background. He could actually make our U.S. Judo Olympic team as a heavyweight. And he's to be the best jiu-jitsu guy and then the best judo guy

with the right training and preparation. Yeah. Step on the mat. We need to recruit a strong heavyweight, female and male, for the 2028 Games because at the Olympics there's also going to be a team tournament. So it's three women and three men. One of the men and one of the women is the heavyweight. So we need good heavyweight in order to be competitive at that at that olympics as in the

team event so now's the time to start if you're a jujitsu athlete and you want to make the transition i say go find a judo dojo and get started today because we might even have a trials so the best american might get a shot at a u.s based trials trials to make that Olympics. USA Judo hasn't decided yet how they're going to pick the team, but I venture to guess it might be a trials-based opportunity. You know what? I would love to see you make a comeback and try to make that thing. I would love to see that. Would you ever?

Does that even enter your mind? It's got to. It has to. I got to go get, if I'm going to do that, I got to go get knee surgery because I'm in so much pain with my knee. I'd have to have it fixed so I get full range of motion before I can even. Let's start right now, Sensei. You got to do it right now.

Today's the day. Let's get knee surgery. How's your shoulders? I'm good. I actually tore my bicep. So I had a lot of pain in my shoulder. And I didn't know why I had pain in my shoulder for so long. And all of a sudden, one day I did one push-up. Yeah. And I tore the bicep tendon. lot of pain in my shoulder and i didn't know why i had pain in my shoulder for so long yeah and all

of a sudden one day i did one push-up yeah and i tore the bicep tendon and now i'm pain-free the pain's gone i can do everything full range of motion did you fix your bicep nope it just functions that's crazy i don't need it anymore it It works. Wow, 2028. That's a whole thing, huh? Coming up. I'll only be 58, Shintaro. What do you think? Nah, you got it. You know, Big Jim was benching 225 until he's 70, right?

Is that right? Pretty much. How old is he now? Because I remember when I was there at your gym, he was in his 70s and he's been, what do you bench, kid? I was like, I don't know, 225 for like seven. He's like, well, I'm benching 225.

You got no business. Right? So you're still good, right? He's 77 years old now. Is he still benching? I hope he's benching. He still works out twice a day every day. What a savage. I love that. He is. Tell him I said hi. I will do, brother. Alright, Jimmy.

Thank you so much. This is a great episode. If you guys are listening, find Jimmy Pedro on, what is your Instagram you guys are listening find Jimmy Pedro on what is your Instagram Jimmy Pedro at Jimmy Pedro USA at Jimmy Pedro USA

and then Fuji Sports US Fuji Sports dot com and Fuji Bats dot com baby nice awesome thank you very much Jimmy

alright brother appreciate you