The Shintaro Higashi Show - Judo Around the World

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

Shintaro was an international-level Judo competitor who has gone on many tours around the world. In this episode, Shintaro and Peter talk about Shintaro's experience competing and training around the world. They talk about how different countries train, what the atmosphere at competition venues are like in different parts of the world and other fun experiences Shintaro had. Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

hello everyone welcome back to the shintaro higashi show with peter yu today we're going to talk about judo around the world that's right so he's yeah shintaro is a well-traveled judoka yeah many many countries countries yes and now i'm revisiting the traveling teaching judoka i'm teaching some seminars coming up i'm doing a seminar in las vegas in march i'm doing a seminar in north dakota in april i may try to do one seminar away seminar a month the people who have gotten through to me to get the to do these seminars have been our patreon through the podcast so obviously they get preferential treatment so please join us on on Patreon. You get all the perks. That's right.

Yeah, there was a time when I used to get a lot of inquiries about seminars, and I used to do a lot of them, mostly local back in the day just out of the convenience. But the inquiries are starting to roll in again just because, you know, pandemic is kind of winding down, I guess, or people are tired of it. I don't really know the situation with that. I'm not an expert. Yeah. Even though sometimes I pretend to be, but they're rolling in, but they're rolling in.

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm doing a seminar. Let me know. I'm pretty open about sort of my pricing situation. It's usually 50, 50 with the gym. That way the gym can make a little bit of money i can

make a little bit of money there is a floor i don't want to leave my door outside the house my beloved new york city i don't want to leave new york city for for peanuts so there is sort of a minimum yeah all right but we know we'll get together and do it and also join us on patreon but judo around the world that's what we want to talk about today. Right. So, obviously the U.S., but we're going to go outside the U.S. Outside the U.S. That was one of our questions, too, from a Patreon. Oh, right. And then the first country I guess we need to talk about is Japan.

Because you spent a lot of time in Japan. Yeah, a lot of time in Japan. Even Jimmy Pedro, the great Jimmy Pedro, one of the best U.S. judokas to come out of the United States. He spent a lot of time in Japan, even jimmy pedro the great jimmy pedro one of the best u.s judo coaches to come out of the united states he spent a lot of time in japan too right and right there's a lot of training in japan usually it's not these business dojos that do it big right a lot of the business related dojos the capitalistic like club dojos are for kids and they're used to develop the youths are for kids and they're used to develop the youths. Once they start that and they have a foundation, they get pumped into the elementary school, middle school system and they compete through high school, college.

It's a whole university system. Right. It's like collegiate sports. Yeah, it's kind of like NCAA here, right? Yeah. There's no basketball clubs that you pay into and then take basketball lessons for $200 a month. They don't

have that. You can get private lessons. You can join a league, but most of the people who play basketball, they develop their skills early on and then they play on a couple teams and they join their middle school team, the high school team. Hopefully they get to the NCAAs. It's kind of like that in japan right yeah i see so it's all systematic yeah even the pros

once they finish the university system get hired by a company to do judo full-time those guys a lot of the times train with their alma mater so the universities are where it's at oh so they don't train with them with the teammates with their teammates sometimes they do yeah of course they do but a lot of them train for instance i knew a guy who used to compete for this company called senko and they had a team of about 15 judo guys and they had one practice a week on wednesdays in the morning. Just together? Just together. And then after that practice, they have to go into the office because they're a corporate employee.

They usually say hi. They sit at a desk for a couple hours and they really, literally do no real work. Oh, they don't? But they're employees? They're employees, yeah. So they show the face. The judo team's coming on Wednesday.

You know, hurrah. And then, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, they get to train wherever they want. That's a very interesting system. Yeah. I mean, that's one system, right? Yeah. Yeah. And one of those guys is a Kokushikan guy. Yeah.

Kugimaru is my friend. Yeah. And he would train at his university. Kokushikan. Kokushikan. Kokushikan. And then sometimes he would go to Nichidai. I see.

So you jump around the university as well. Yeah. That's very interesting. Yeah, the police academy has training. So now, back in the day, you only trained with your club. That was it. You're a Kokushikan guy. I went to Kokushikan for middle school, high school, college. That's all you trained.

But now it's changing a little bit. There's a little bit more cross-training training especially if you're at the top yeah yeah if you're like an average person at a university and then you show up at another university they're not what are you doing here yeah but if you're a name and if you're a pro or if you're right then you go you know obviously you have to do the song and dance of like hey sensei you know may i come train is it okay and you have to ask your own sensei hey may i go train at this university because this guy's over there and then the senseis have to kind of you know say thank you and then you kind of have to give a gift there's like all these little for japanese formalities right right right right but if you walk into a room kakushikan university on any given night

when they have training it's like 100 people sometimes the georgian i when i went the georgian team was there especially the summer it's popular right good there's four teams in there yes so that's kind of what it's like judo in japan so so there's not as many commercial clubs that you would think. They are out there. Right. But it's not something that people do as a hobby as an adult. And just one quick question, because the professional judokas are very interesting. So do only the top guys from each university get to become pro?

Like, who becomes pro? Do you apply? It's not always the top guy. Yeah, you kind of have to apply. And there's this whole thing in Japan. Like, once you finish university, you go out and get a job. And then you're kind of married to that corporation long term. Right, right. But if you're doing judo pro,'s almost understood that yeah you go in there

you serve your time as a judo pro and then you move on to other things because generally you enter a corporation you're there for life in japan but this is the problem you're 23 years old you're killer at judo you join a corporation like toyota or something and you're doing judo for them full time you do seven years you're 30 you retire from judo now you're expected to do all the same work as your colleagues right zero work experience actual work experience so it becomes very very difficult so usually that's when you sort of quit resign go teach judo become a teacher coach start your own club things like that i see i see that's generally how it's done generally i see uh super generalizing everything here yeah we're just doing a quick overview of things yeah yes so it's a nice little life you know they give you a salary a corporate salary

and in japan it's not like a meritocracy it's like an age thing where you join a company this is your starting salary and every year it goes up. So you're matching some companies better than others, and you get a performance bonus based on judo, not based on actual work, which is pretty cool. So if you win competition, you get a little more here and there? Yes, and it really depends on the company. Some companies have lower base and more performance bonuses.

I knew somebody that would work for a parking lot company. Like they owned one of the biggest franchises of parking lots in Japan. And this guy said like, yeah, base is not so high, but you know, you go to the All Japans and you win one match. It's $10,000. Oh, nice. Something like that. I was like, wow, that's pretty good. And that really attracts the sort of, right?

I know, guys, you could join the police force, and that's a little bit different. If you're joining the police force, then you're kind of policing and training. I see, I see. And those people generally, yeah. After you're done competing, you could stay and just be a cop. Right.

Because that work experience is not as important. Yeah. When I spent a summer in japan i actually studied japanese there for a couple of months in college and i uh i did judo and then i did judo at a uh like a government-run facility it was like a martial art facility for all kinds of martial arts and then i think you know it was very cheap because it's government funded and now all those came actually the hobbyists came there so instead of those private clubs you you people you seem to go to those things yeah it's like a ymca kind of deal i guess yeah they have a lot of that even

kodokan it's open practices. And some nights it's great, some nights it's not. And it's pretty great, you know? Cool. So Japan, I guess we could cross the small sea to, we could briefly talk about Korea because I just spent a little bit of time in Korea too. It's very similar to Japan in the sense that there's a whole

school system yeah and then you bring through and then the you know the famous universities yongin yeah you know yongin's so famous yeah that's like the it was actually founded as a martial arts university and some people call it korean senagi university that's i mean everyone went to Yongin, pretty much. They're going to replace the name to IJF Obsolete University. There's no more Korean Sanagi. I'm sorry, guys. Yeah.

They do have pros. A lot of times they work for, I guess, government employees, I guess, hired by city halls. I see a all of that and then Interesting thing is the Korean What do you call what do you call that when you bet on a horse racing or the horse racing betting company? Yeah is like the biggest sponsor of judo in Korea Japan too. Oh really? Yeah, they love the horse betting companies love judo for some reason

i don't know what the you know there might be yeah exactly yeah they love the betting they love the judo the fighting no i didn't know that it was because in korea that a lot of good ones good uh judo guys out of university go to those companies and yeah yeah and then but i did i trained at a private club actually uh when i was there for a summer yeah so their whole focus was training high school kids so that they could get into yongin that was their big thing because the the owner was a yongin graduate and yeah yeah so i trained with a lot with a lot of those high school kids yeah well yeah it's the a lot of countries you know depending on where you are have different sort of funding criteria and funding things and you know now that

we're on that topic i mean like canada has a carding system too and they have a level athletes b level athletes and the government pays you know a couple thousand dollars a month based on that oh that's good a couple thousand yeah canada has that and they have a very good judo program it's very concentrated in montreal because you know nicholas gill i see an olympic silver medalist and shido khan and mr nakamura is up there so they have a long history of judo and I tend to find going all over the world, like the history with the big champions who sort of made it per se and had TV time. And those people generally tend to build a following.

Right. Like Naidon in Mongolia built a following over there too. And he was immensely instrumental in popularizing Judo, although he's in a lot of trouble right now. Oh, he is? Yeah, Na bar he was what happened gold medalist he's a he was a politician he became a politician right or was it a different guy maybe that i think yeah yeah no no there's a uh i think it's a different person but mongolian presidentian president or something used to be a judoka or something. But what happened to Naira?

He beat up his friend, and then the guy died. Oh, I remember reading about that. Yeah, he was an Olympic gold medalist, Olympic silver medalist. Yeah. And then he beat up his friend and he died. So now he's in trouble.

But he was big in bringing Mongolian judo to the forefront of IJF. Right. You know, there was Israel also. Right. I think they took a lot of influence from the Russians who moved. The Russian Jews who moved to Israel had a big influence. Oh, I see. I see.

Right. So, like, if you look at, like, judo in Brazil, it's a little bit different because the pioneers from Japan back in the day during the global initiative moved over, right? Like Maeda. From Japan, yeah. Yes, and the forefathers of Brazilian jiu-jitsu moved from Japan to Brazil to spread this art, and it kind of went from there.

I see. So there's a huge Japanese influence in the grappling community in Brazil. So would you say Brazilian? You've been to Brazil. Brazil is awesome. Would you say Brazilian judokas follow more Japanese style of judo? Tend to, yes. So if I look at Mongolian judo versus Brazilian judo,

Brazilian judo has much deeper roots to Japan, and their style is much similar to mine or yours than it is to a Mongolian style or compared to a Russian style. Because those guys have influence from Sambo as well. Sambo wrestling and they have

their own hybrid grappling martial art. And that has seeped into Bulgaria, Kyrgyzstan, all those Istans and the former Soviet countries. Yeah, I see. So when you do judo through those places, it has a different feel to it. I see. So which country should we go next?

We kind of did a whole broad stroke. Broad stroke? I don't know, man. Let me, let's see. Maybe Western Europe. France is a big one. France is pretty big. You know what was amazing about competing in France was just the education of all the active spectators.

They fill in stadiums, right? They fill stadiums. Yep. Filled the entire stadium when I was there for, was it the world championships in 2010 or 2011 didn't it was insane just say someone some kids came up to and asking for autographs and stuff yeah but they were asking everybody to not just specifically yeah they were still yeah it's a good feel it's very cool yeah yeah yeah it was uh i did it at the the New York Open when I was a kid. I would go around all the competitors and have them sign the brochure.

Oh, nice. And then these USA Judo athletes would look at me like, what is wrong with this kid? Why? It's so cute. Like, hey, Roddy, Roddy. You know Roddy Ferguson? Like, can you sign my information packet

and he's like alright kid got it all right like that but it's like that on a much bigger scale and you know when you're doing judo in France everybody knows what's going on right passiv-passive this person get it's a very educated crowd so when you're going for stuff even when you're like grip fighting you know you hear people like oh oh oh you know like you can kind of tell that person gets over the hand dominant you know they're like oh it's coming oh it's coming right so the popularity of judo is different than from country to country right fighting in brazil was amazing uh even the grand slams like the during the prelims during the day you know no one no one's there is

prelims right but you make it to the finals yeah because the prelims usually happen between nine and like noon or one o'clock you make the finals you come back for the finals in the evening right so people buy tickets to it yeah yes and then a lot of the times if there's a champion competing a lot more people tend to come and And all the local high schools will bring students. Yeah. Like, I want to take a field trip after school today. You know, Grand Slam finals or something. And then the stands will be packed.

All local high schools. Yeah. All these kids, local clubs. You know, they have those little sound makers. Brazil is really cool, man. I got to tell you. And Brazil, judo in Brazil is very, very popular. clubs you know they have those little sound makers brazil is really cool man i gotta tell you and brazil judo in brazil is very very popular do you do they follow the scholastic system like japan

and korea or do they have more private clubs you know that i don't really know but i did see lots of signs for judo all over the country and judo was all over tv even when i turned on the tv it's like oh interesting hey guys you know grand slam is happening right now and you can watch it right here you know i assume that's what they were saying i can't speak portuguese right but that was uh really cool you know and different countries kind of have a different feel right and different attitude towards judo i know uh france speaking of the system uh why i've we had a french guy uh we actually had a lot of french guys at the dojo right but i talked to one of them and then he is saying they have more private clubs actually then yeah that's it's

actually not the scholastic system but the more private because i could be wrong but that's it's actually not the scholastic system, but the more private cause I could be wrong, but that's uh, yeah I have changed but based on the friends. They have a very robust licensing system to Licensing in top five Oh to run like to run a school Yes to run a school to teach judo. It's a separate license It's almost like you know, if I want to teach English I have to get license it's almost like you know oh if i want to teach english i have to get an english degree i see and in france it's kind of like that too you have to have the proper certifications proper rank united states you could just you know slap on a belt and sign a lease and you're good yeah you know there's no governing anything that right controls any of this stuff yeah i see zero

interesting you can open up a dodger right if you're listening to this and you have a little judo experience you could literally just open up an llc sign a lease to a place put down mats and start teaching judo literally without having to talk talk to any other national governing bodies no it's a wild west i mean if you want insurance yeah you know usjf usj those guys act as insurance carriers but you know you could also get private insurance right yeah you could go to like uh you know martial arts insurance companies and then they're usually underwritten by like nationwide or something to get that put down that's what i teach judo it's the wild west it's insane it's not like that interesting yeah so all right so we covered some countries so how so you got to

experience all these uh got to do judo in all these countries thanks to lots of countries the ijf world world tour is that you went on the world is that what's what's that system like like used to be now it's a little bit different that you know correct me if i'm wrong but used to be world cup grand prix grand slam and then above that is like the world masters world championships olympics so you gain points through world cup grand prix grand slam obviously the higher you go the more points you get right and they're all international now i think the world cup's called continental open i see so you know they have that all over the place used to be four grand slams four grand prixs bunch of continental opens

and then you just go compete and then go to a training camp and then you go to the next one right yes so there would be tours south american tour it would be two continental opens a grand prixs and then a Grand Slam after that. So it would be like a month-long stint. It would make sense to go to Peru, come back to New York, Argentina, come back to New York. So you would go down to Peru, compete. Obviously, you have to be top five in the U.S., whatever qualifications it is at the time. You make a team.

You fly down there. You compete. You do a training camp, and then you go to the next location. Compete. Do a training camp. Go to the next location. I see. So I remember I did one.

It was like El Salvador, Venezuela. Ended in the Miami Grand Prix. I see. Yeah, so it was like a three-part system. So out of all the tours. All the way from Monk. Yeah. Oh, so this is not long. So out of all these tours, oh so this is not long so out of all these tours

what's the coolest place you've been can i throw in a humble brag there oh yeah sure go ahead it's not even humble just straight up brag it's like one of my biggest accomplishments it's not even like all because i want to match or i wanted this it's just like the people that i shared the podium with at the miami grand prix oh okay krop kropalik two-time medalist he won my division yeah okay amil mechich who was the european champ at the time and then it was luciano cojera who was the olymp the world champion from brazil and then it was me on that podium yeah they all have like a head and a half above me and it's like i look so out of place but it's like one of my favorite pictures it's like i look at that i'm like oh man you know

what a podium huh yeah yeah it's like oh i guess i was kind of good back in the day it's like very nostalgic you know what i mean right yeah so what was miami the coolest place you've been to oh no way not even close. I loved Samoa. Samoa. I competed in American Samoa. Yeah. And it was like the worst to get to because it was like three connecting flights. I was on a plane for like 30 hours.

We had like an eight-hour layover in New Zealand. Oh, wow. Yeah, it was brutal to get to. But I remember like driving from the airport to the hotel. driving from the airport to the hotel and you know you're driving along this like coastline and these grassy patches where they have these open huts and it started raining like crazy and there was this big fat simone dude just sitting under that hut and all his kids just playing soccer in the rain bare feet oh wow yeah and it was the coolest thing it's like yeah yeah and it's like you know that's so cool you know and you go there and you compete at judo you know and it's just like this thing

it's like this tropical paradise so yeah it's like this tropical you know sports center that you're competing and it's kind of dingy but it's like kind of bright because it's the sunlight seeping in and it's like uh it's like a different planet different world oh interesting yeah and it was really cool because like all of the oceanic countries are there new zealand australia i fought those guys you know that was like really what an experience you know getting to travel there and doing judo there i went to pan Panama. Panama. That was really cool. We went to the Panama Canal the day before

to kind of like walk around. Oh, wow. Yeah. And the coolest part was I fought Aredis Despain who was a world silver medalist

the year before. Oh. And it was so freaking hot in there. It was like the gym didn't have air conditioning, no ventilation. Oh, gosh.

The humidity was like peak. It was like it was so freaking hot that's health health uh hazard it was a hazard in every way and i'm going against disdain yeah right and this guy is overheating oh and you want to know this is a panama grand prix right and he's like sitting on the sidelines and he's bitching at his coach about something. Yeah. And he's sweating profusely and he's like fanning himself. Yeah. Oh my God, it's so hot.

And then his name gets called up and I'm fighting in the semis with him. And then he doesn't even want to go up. He's like, oh, he's like, I got to do this. I got to do Gio. Like, it's so freaking hot. But you know, this is the craziest part. He's from Cuba. Oh, okay. So I thought he this is the craziest part. He's from Cuba. Oh,

I thought he'd be used to it. Yeah. Right. And then like, it was like the most uncomfortable, hottest match I've ever, it was just hot, humid.

I couldn't breathe. The ghee, like it was like worse. It was like, I can't even, I felt like I was in a faint. Yeah. I could see the guy.

In fact, we were both like fading. Yeah. Yeah. What happened? Did you win? I was up by two sheeters. Cause he got two penalties for like, I could see the guy we were both like fading yeah yeah what happened did you win I was up by two shiros

because he got two penalties for like you know he barely went for anything oh okay he barely went for anything and then I grabbed his legs

and that's when they just made the rule change for the leg grabs oh for hanso kumake yeah it was immediate

hanso kumake oh man that's lame because yeah that was like a weird time when they were exploring right like if you touch the legs you're out because before it was just a war a shido yeah yeah and you know what his legs were kind of dangling and i kind of grabbed it out of instinct but it's like i think now it's like did i just want an out oh because he because you were so miserable. Because I was so hot. Yeah. And I felt like I was in a faint.

It was like only two minutes in the match and I felt like I was in a faint. Yeah. Maybe I'm exaggerating. But in my mind, it was brutally hot, man. It's like, you get to these tournaments, you know. I went to Brazil one time for not like a major competition, but like a US versus Brazil tour US versus Brazil versus Argentina and we fought in this town Porto Alegre and the mats were freezing cold I don't know why they had like stored him outside brought him in after whatever it was

Were ice cold and I couldn't feel my toes Was it too? Yeah, but because it was hot outside, they were trying to... Or was it the winter? No, I think it was cold outside. Oh, okay. Really cold outside. The mats were just freezing cold, and I couldn't feel my toes. Oh, gosh.

I fought Leandro Gonsalves, who actually did pretty well recently at one of these things. Isn't he an Olympic silver medalist? No, I don't think he got that far oh okay but i remember not feeling my toes and but yeah man really cool experiences traveling i went to korea cheju island oh yeah china oh you have a fun story about north koreans that you saw in cheju oh yeah that's right no no it wasn't cheju it was in china oh it was in china okay yeah so the north korean team had brought a they have a pretty good team actually they're a pretty good team yeah but they are not they kept to themselves they didn't look at anyone they didn't say hi to anybody

they were there i knew that it was in china yeah and i remember sitting in the hotel lobby or the hotel bar and then i see the entire north k Korean team just pile into the lobby of the bar. Right. And then the North Korean coach said something, and I assume it was something like, do not make eye contact with anyone. Do not talk to anyone. Do not say hi.

You have two hours to drink as much as you can and go back up to your rooms. Never mention this again. And those guys just started throwing back drinks for two hours like screaming like like they've never went out before right and the coach is like all right time's up and then they just every single one of them just complied and just left short and it was like they were never there in the first place maybe it was like an hour it was like i was there yeah i saw the korean team north korean, and then they were gone. And they drank so hard, so fast.

It's very bizarre, man. I got to tell you. It was really, really interesting. You didn't even train with them or fight them? No, I don't think they stayed for the camp. Oh, okay. Yeah, because it was part of... Korea was the World Cup. And then we went to China for the Grand Prix.

And then we went to Japan for the Grand Slam. I see, I see. And then I stayed in Japan for two weeks after that to train with Kokushikan. So I was away for like four or five weeks. Oh, wow. Hard life. Hard life. Hard life, man.

Finding laundry to do. You try to do laundry in the hotel, they charge you an arm and a leg so that's tough right oh wow you spend a lot of time in grocery stores at different countries that doesn't get mentioned so often but you know that's just how it is it's like yeah these backstories are very interesting because people usually just see the cool Ipons. Yeah, getting stuck in Brazil, you know, missing a layover. And, you know, what do we do? And no one speaks Portuguese. And, you know, one time I went to Peru and ate ceviche. Oh, yeah.

Got food poisoning. Oh, gosh. The night before the competition, right? It was a couple of days after the competition. Oh, okay. But we were the competition, right? It was a couple days after the competition. Oh, okay. But we were going to go Peru to Argentina. And then I went to Peru. I competed.

I was doing the training camp. And I saw a friend from high school who was living there. And he's like, let me take you out to local cuisine. And I'm like, I don't know, man. And then he got this thing. It's ceviche. But the juices of the ceviche yeah it's called leche de tigre it's like tiger milk and you drink it okay it's like the you know

fish juice and like citric acid you know slime and stuff and you know i drank it and boy i've never been sicker he still can't eat a ceviche. Shin Chara still can't eat ceviche. I haven't had ceviche since. Yeah. There's a reason, you know, did you hear about this? Usain Bolt, when he goes away internationally for competitions, he only eats McNuggets, apparently. Oh, yeah.

That's a thing. Yeah. Because it's consistent everywhere. Consistent everywhere. Yeah. You could eat fast food i knew this kid michael aldred who used to have a mcdonald's meal at every single country he visited uh all the same all the same yeah i mean they have different like local menus and

stuff right nuggets are all the same i guess yeah pretty cool how that is yeah all right judo in the world man that's a lot of cool stories a lot of judo out there country to country it's different it's pretty cool now on my youtube people reach out to me from all over the place half the time I don't understand what they're saying so I'm sorry

if the message doesn't get through but yeah that's judo around the world if you have any questions join us on patreon and ask away yeah that's right and uh thanks for listening and stay tuned for the next episode yep thank you peter thank you everyone