The Shintaro Higashi Show - Interview with Jessa Khan

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

Shintaro sits down with Jessa Khan, the gold medalist at the IBJJF World Championship 2023. They talk about her BJJ journey, and her upcoming fight with Danielle Kelly at ONE Fight Night 14 on Sep. 29, 2023. You can watch her fight on Amazon Prime, and follow her on Instagram @jessakhan. Join our Discord server and start chatting with us and other grapplers by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. Today, we have a very special guest, Jessa Khan. She's a 2023 world champion in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. She's fighting in One Fight Night 14 on September 29th. It's on Amazon Prime. It's a very, very unique event because it's an all-female headliner. How are you feeling today, Jessa? I'm feeling good.

You know, I just finished training, so I'm excited to do this interview. Awesome, awesome. What did you train? Where were you? Can you give us a little bit more details? Yes, I'm here in Costa Mesa, California, training at Orange Jiu-Jitsu Brothers. You know, I'm training for my upcoming fight this month with Danielle Kelly. Awesome. Yeah, you have a win over her already, right? From Who's Number One? Yes.

Nice, nice. How was the content of that match was that a great fat or how did it go it was a good fight it happened about two years ago i was number one um the reset was pretty similar to how one championship is um the same it was 15 minutes suddenly and one is okay only so pretty similar nice nice well i came out with the win but i was unable to get the submission over her um but i probably the whole the whole match i was pretty much leading the fit leading the pace to fight nice nice and other any advantages with this rule set or um you know it's pretty similar to the one that i did i will have less time you know 10 minutes but um yeah you know i've been studying like like, my matching period and, like, just for recent matches.

So now I'm kind of, like, adjusting my game to, like, hopefully get the submission over her this time. Awesome. Awesome. And we'll circle back to your strategy and your training and, you know, ideas about the Daniel Kelly fight. But first, I kind of want to start off from the beginning. Like, how did you get started with BJJ? I read that you are a United States native, right? You up in texas uh yes i kind of lived all over my dad was in the navy so we you know we bounced around a lot but uh i started jiu-jitsu in hawaii actually my dad got stationed oh cool okay two years and uh started with like a helson gracie school nice how old

are you uh i was about eight at the time. Okay. So that's when you started BJJ? Yeah. That's interesting. There's a lot of judo in Hawaii too. You know, I'm a judo guy actually. A lot of Japanese judo situation happening over there.

Yeah. Did you do any judo over there at all? No, not until I got a little bit older. Nice. Nice. Where did you do that? Sorry? Where did you do judo?

In Virginia. Oh, very cool. Okay. Yeah, so you really were all over the place. Yeah, so I'll kind of give you a little backstory. So I was born in Texas, lived there for a couple years, and then we moved to California for a couple years, and then we moved to Hawaii. Yeah, I started jiu-jitsu there, lived there for two years.

After that, we moved to Maine for one year. Okay. And then to Virginia for almost four years, and then back to California, and then to Virginia for almost four years. And then back to California. And then my dad retired from the Navy. And now you're in California. That's where you live.

That's where you train. All of that. Nice, nice, nice. That's amazing. And you have very strong ties to Cambodia, right? Because I read everywhere like Cambodian, Cambodian champ, Cambodia this and that. So you're kind of the Cambodian star. Half Mexican.

But in 2018, I'm stolen from Cambodia. Started a jiu-jitsu team like to fight like internationally and like they reached so that's kind of like how i started getting more involved with like my cambodian roots okay so do you ever go there and then do you train yeah i've been there four or five times now Oh, it's probably really great, right? Beautiful over there? I mean, it's nice. It's still like third world country. But some parts of it are nice. And yeah, it's still different.

What's the BJJ scene like over there? Do you go there, train, and do seminars and stuff? No, so actually, Cambodia actually only has one jiu-jitsu school. Wow, okay. Yeah, so normally there you get a lot of foreigners are just coming in and out of cambodia that like want to find a spot to train so then you get a lot of visitors yeah vacation rolling the best sorry vacation rolling yeah as far as i normally go like a week or two before I'm gonna compete for them Yeah, a couple weeks after you're trained with it. But uh, oh, yeah. Yeah you there's not really opportunity yet Today seminars just because people come on. Yeah, they're very limited on their resources

like you know what that they're funny on and Some of them are so right on shame with jiu-jitsu is Sounds good. So you compete for Cambodia in the 2018 Asian Games? Yes. Oh, nice. This year. Great.

And then they called it the Nwaza event. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, so they say Nwaza, but it's pretty much just ground games like Jiu-Jitsu. Yes. Yeah, they have Gi and no Gi. So most of the events are Gi, but we had C Games this past year, and Cambodia got to host it. So we actually got to decide to have Gi and no Gi.

So I got to compete in two different divisions. That's incredible. That's incredible. And then do you always compete for Cambodia, or do you ever compete for the U.S. when you go to like know you said you took a bronze oh you didn't say but we already know like you took a bronze of the 2023 european championships and the santa cruz international open like did you compete for cambodia or the united for those events that i do um it's got an organization ibjjf and for those, you don't represent a country whenever you compete.

It's just the judo gym that you're training at. Nice, nice. But it's national. I represent Cambodia. Oh, that's pretty amazing. So what are some of your, like, current training methods, like, that you're getting ready? You're obviously out there competing a lot, winning a lot. You know, are there specific things about your game that you want to work on?

Like, you know, strengths and weaknesses. Like, what are some of your ideas about that that you would want to share with us? You know, there's so many different types of training styles at AOJ. You know, we get a lot of people that come in and out of AOJ to come train. You know, Professor Guy is my main professor. And he's pretty much been with me ever since like i was like a little orange belt for you know orange belt okay yeah he's definitely helped evolve to my game and you know every year you know we're always trying to add new

tools to our game and get better and right now our main focus is nogi so we're just trying to you know work on techniques that will happen in our fight. Yeah. You know. I mean, I guess it is nogi season, right? Like, pans are coming up. ADCC trials are coming up. Yeah.

Do you plan on doing any of those guys? More people from AOJ are starting to train nogi now because we're stiff to nogi season now. Nice, nice, nice. That's great. And what is your style of jiu-jitsu, would you say? Like, what is your game? Like, do you have a strong takedown game? Do you like being on top or bottom?

Normally, I prefer, like, you know, pulling guard and then going from there. I normally pull guard to get on top or, you know, pull guard to submit. But I feel well-rounded being on bottom or top. And also, for my takedowns, you know, I did wrestling for a couple years. So, I'm... Oh, okay. I like that, like, situation. Nice. Tell us a little bit more about that wrestling. I'm kind curious i wrestled in college myself so it's like i love that stuff i actually started club wrestling but wow i think it was only like maybe once or twice a week you

know i did little tournaments with like my club and then then i kind of stopped. And then once, whenever I moved from Hawaii to Maine, I lived there only for a year. And that's pretty much like how I blew up with Jiu-Jitsu. I was just Jiu-Jitsu at the time. And I was fighting like a Naga tournament like every week. And that's pretty much like how I grew my name on like social media and stuff. And once I moved to Virginiaia that's when i started wrestling from middle school so i wrestled both years from middle school and then uh that's when

i actually started judo and then i got to like my yellow belt and stuff what uh so judo wrestling bjj you do all of it yeah and you mentioned social media so like do you have a instagram account that some of our followers can follow? Plug that, you know? Yes. A lot of people listen. So on,

um, I love for everyone. Follow my journey. And what is it? Forward to this. Jessa Khan. J E S S A K H A N. Yes. Perfect.

That's amazing. That's amazing. So now would you say like, I mean, you see, you would say, but like you are, you know,

uh, what do you say? Is this what you do full-time 100% of the time? No, this is what I do full-time. This is my life, you know. Nice. I train in the morning and I teach in the evening. Nice, nice, nice. You know, that's where my consistent money is by teaching classes.

Okay. There's a great job of that and they have, like, many opportunities for everyone that's trying to be athletes to also get the opportunity to try to teach you know learn and become a good instructor and do you do private lessons too they're like uh in flow of that is that something that you do so i do private lessons um pretty often you have consistent group of like little girls that i teach that want to be just me yeah that's. And that is definitely one of the questions that I always ask our guests, you know, advice for young grapplers, but we'll get to that when we get to it.

What's the women's grappling scene like right now, where you are in the world? Like, I know for sure, like, it's definitely growing, especially in wrestling. Women's wrestling has taken on a life of its own the United States. Like, what does that look like to you from where you're sitting?

Yeah, I mean, women's grappling, it's like what did that look like to you from where you're sitting yeah i mean women's grappling it's definitely growing up for like every sport right now is growing you know definitely all this social media attention but um you know jujitsu right now we're getting a lot more females that are getting recognized for their work and getting like now like paid the same as men um we recently had another event that a couple people were watching that was BJJ stars and now this female like eight man bracket now they're actually getting paid the same amount as a man so like that's a huge stepping stone for the sport as well. Yeah I agree you know like all these shows like you know who's number one and even one fight night for a lot of women competing it's it's kind of amazing love it love it so what specifically are you doing in terms of

training for danielle kelly like can you tell us a little bit about her style her game and like the ways you're trying to obviously you don't have to go too much in depth you know because competing against her you don't want to give away your secrets right like i'm only gonna go for a clock show right you don't want to do that yeah i mean you know i'm training as if it was like any other competition or any other person you know i don't really focus too much on the other person's game i feel like sometimes you know that stuff gets like into people's heads so i don'd like to train that way but um you know i've obviously you know i still have to study her game just to like know what to like look out for but i'm mainly focused on my game you know improving on um you know certain aspects of my game now i've always had a really good well-rounded

nogi game you know always attacking very aggressive um you know always good at like finding ways to get to the submission or to the back um this time i've adjusted some of the submissions i'm doing that way i can actually get her to tap because like i said about two years two years ago when we fought i was attacking a lot and getting like submission after submission but just nothing would work you know she just had a very good and she was very flexible so now i'm figuring out like what submissions actually try to attack this time around in order for yeah so do you get into like positional training where you're like trying to work on finishing mechanics from certain positions like is that a big portion of your training or do you just kind of roll and then just try to get to that

position in order to work on it um you know i switched it up there's people where i go with are just mainly for hard rounds and there's certain people that go with that or for me to try to hit these new you know like you kind of have to balance it out because uh you know it's hard when you're training with someone just like hard sporting all the time because they're like both people aren't really able to open up because we you know we just train together so much so yeah sometimes i go with a couple people that are a little bit lower level but i'm able to work on my new techniques and do like situations boring and you have a lot of people your size too because i know you're on the lighter side especially when it comes to the weight class and stuff like this but do you have a lot of training partners that are your size who are female who are good as you

that challenge you in the room or you know what does that look like but yeah recently um we've been having a lot of girls that are starting to join aoj and like even some of like our little ones that are coming up um there's tons of girls my weight um everyone's kind of like spread out as far as level you know we've got a couple blue beds got a couple purple brown but we're all pretty similar in size and you know there are a couple girls that challenge me that i train with like i said there are some that i normally use to like help with my technique in like certain situations nice nice so is danielle kelly like is she like uh her feet or like what would you say her best strengths are what would you say her weaknesses uh i mean i know you didn't want to like you know make it about her so much but i'm

we're just kind of curious you know i'm sure the listeners are curious because they see you listening to this they kind of want to hear about the other person a little bit too and you know they want to hear what's going on in your head when it comes to this stuff and how you view her going into this fight so i mean i think she also has some good takedowns um i know in our fight that we did she was able to take me down and i was trying to get a guillotine off of that so that's like one situation that might possibly happen this time around again yeah you know she was just she had a really good defense she was very flexible i'd say that was probably her best thing that she had to her game was being very flexible. But yeah, I feel like the match is pretty much going to go

the same way like that it did two years ago. Awesome. You're pretty much going to be seeing me pushing the pace of the fight and trying to hunt after that submission. I'm going to be definitely even hungrier this time around. Definitely. But yeah, nothing that she did

that was really threatening in her match so it's kind of hard to say like how this one would go all right so what is your favorite takedown what is your favorite throw and what is your favorite submission oh yeah that's a good one right i think single legs single legs are easy like there's so many ways that you can catch them. Therrilles. I guess maybe, like, hip toss. Always fun. Yeah, but I know the way I like to do it is, like, I like to counter when people do a single leg. You get, like, a one. Oh, yeah, yeah.

From there. It's nice. I love that. Yeah. And then, favorite submission is probably armbar. Oh, armbar's great. Or you can just, you can hit them from any position. That's true. you're talking about the

kimura variety or like the straight variety for the armbar yeah straight you know sometimes belly down sometimes a little shoulder lock and close guard yeah awesome love it love it so last two more questions right before we get going. Thank you so much for being here, by the way. What does martial arts mean to you? Like, you're a lifelong martial artist. You've been training it your whole life, and that's what you do full time, right? So you've dedicated your whole life to this. What does martial arts mean to you?

You know, it means a lot. Like, I feel like no matter what martial art you're in, like, you're all, it's like all of it's important. And, you know, I really respect, it's like all of it's important. And, you know, I really respect, like, everyone's love for the sport. You know, especially for one, you know, grabbing, like,

all girls' headline, the card. And I think that's so, because everyone's also in a different martial art. It's not like it's just one big jiu-jitsu tournament. It's all spread out.

There's jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, MMA. And I think that's really awesome. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about this card, right? One Fight Night, September 29th. It's on Amazon Prime. And like we spoke about, it's an all-female headliner.

What does that mean? You know, that's amazing. It's great for the sport. Yeah. You know, like I said, girls are finally getting more recognition for their hard work as males are. And I think that's very important for the next generation. And I'm happy I'm given the opportunity to be a part of that.

You know, this is, if I win that belt, I'll be the first one ever to win a belt for submission grappling and one championship. And, you know, that's, that's going to be a part of history. And I'm so glad I could be a part of that. Yeah. I don't think I've ever heard that before. All female headliner fighting event, whether it's MMA. And this is a blend, right?

There's MMA, there's Muay Thai, there's jiu-jitsu or grappling. Or they call it submission grappling. So that's an amazing thing. Congratulations for getting there and hope for the best for you, you know, getting out there. If you have any advice for younger grapplers,

maybe some of your students that are watching you or listening to you, what would you say to them? I'd say to keep chasing after your dreams. You know, anything is possible as long as, like, you're willing to put the work in and you're dedicated. You know, this is a big stepping stone for a woman's jiu-jitsu, for a woman in general. Yeah, for sure, for sure.

You know, like I said, I'm really happy to be a part of that. You know, I'm going to try to do my best to make history, bring home that belt. And, you know, I hope the next generation of, like, younger girls that are into jiu-jitsu will also have the same opportunity or even bigger. Any practical tips for the younger grapplers? Like, always carry sandals in your backpack or something like this.

Or tape. Tape is a big one. I don't know. Probably bring an extra hair tie. You know, us girls. That's huge. That's huge. You know, I have longer hair, so I definitely always scramble around looking for it, right?

Have a stash in the dojo. Yeah. Very important. Well, thank you, Jessa. Thank you so much for being on with us. We hope for the very best. Guys, if you're listening, One Fight Night, 14, September 29th

on Amazon Prime. Check her out with her fight against Danielle Kelly. It's going to be great. And thank you so much, Jessa, for coming on for this interview. One last thing. Where can we find you one more time?

You can find me on Instagram at jessacon. And you can also find me on Amazon Prime the end of September for my one flight with Daniel Kelly. Yeah, awesome. Thank you very much. Thank you.