The Shintaro Higashi Show - Judo in Self-defense

Episode Date: December 14, 2020

In this episode, Shintaro and Peter tackle the age-old question: Is Judo good for self-defense? Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hey guys, what's going on? Welcome to the Shintaro Higashi show with Peter Yu, and today we're going to talk about self-defense, judo and self-defense specifically. Right. So I know that this is probably the most frequently asked questions for you. People ask me all the time. Yeah. So why, just to get us started off, why do you think that is, like, that is the most frequently asked question? that is like that is the most frequently asked question well you know people want to defend themselves right it's like oh i'm gonna go to the movies with my girlfriend there's gonna be somebody that's rowdy there you know can i protect her can i protect myself right you know people say like i need to avoid conflict and all this stuff but it's like sometimes conflict finds you right so they want to feel confident like hey i can walk through these streets of new york city or

wherever you're living and i could defend myself and you know that's very important to a lot of people to feel secure and strong and being able to control the environment really right yeah i think the point you made about controlling the environment is uh it's good i actually uh think if you know self-defense or you if you feel confident that you can defend yourself it's easier to avoid conflict even because you're kind of like you said controlling the environment removing all the

as many variables as possible so and that allows you to be more cognizant about the environment and then maybe stay calmer and then maybe, you know, stay calmer and then just avoid conflict altogether. Yeah, avoiding the conflict is really important, you know.

And a lot of the times when you do martial arts, it's a very humbling experience. Right. And you see how vulnerable you are. You join a judo school, you go in there, there's 30 people, you're the smallest and the weakest sometimes, and you get ragdolled, you know. And then, right, that happens all the time.

Right, exactly. I remember, i'll never forget there's this massive dude that walked in where everyone's like oh my god this guy's huge right he must have been like six two two hundred pounds good fit person and he was already a judo brown belt and here you are you know much shorter in stature software engineer like hey guys i want the prince and big smile on your face and this guy was like all right i'm gonna go after him right and this guy came at you and you slammed him and then the guy pulled his calf and then he quit but like that's a humbling experience you know what i mean no one in the in a million years would have thought that guy would have been able to right you would be

able to take that guy just based on appearances alone you know not to say you don't look like a tough guy you know well yeah it's humbling i try to i try to uh kind of hide my toughness i guess yeah and it's humbling you know the real you know the reality of it you know a lot of these people watch a movie they feel overconfident and they think that they can you know i'm pretty athletic you know like you look at you know know, Nate Robinson, the NBA player. Like I've never boxed before. Oh, yeah, I saw that video. You know, Jake Paul. That stuff happens all the time, you know, every single day.

So once you do martial arts, you're humbled. And now, you know, the abilities of some people with that particular skill set. Therefore, you're a lot less likely to get into a conflict. Right. So let's just get into the crux of the issue is judo good for self-defense oh absolutely what's your take on that yeah now i think it's great uh there's a lot of direct and indirect skills that you gain from judo uh one of the things that people might say is like oh but you're never wearing a jacket you know right so you got to carry around two jackets and every time you get into it you get the jacket

no i'm kidding with that but uh there's a lot of things about judo that can definitely help with self-defense i don't think it's the only uh thing that you need to do to defend yourself but the real long question is it depends because right who are you defending yourself against and all these other questions really come to mind you know is the person skilled at striking is the person not skilled at striking right right are you defending against someone that's bigger and stronger than you right and there's sort of this like there's this graph you know it's like uh yes you can overcome strength and athletic ability to a certain point. And people talk about this a lot in the martial arts community.

But if I were to defend myself against a gorilla, a gorilla doesn't have any skill. And he's built like me with two arms and two legs. He outweighs me. He's more athletic than me. He doesn't have any martial arts training, though. So theoretically, he goes to grab me. I take him, par hand shooting on the legs take him down it's like no that's not gonna work you know what i mean i'm just imagining yeah the people who are listening for those who are listening yeah you should never try to fight a gorilla. But yeah, I think a lot of people tend to forget the intricacies of the situation.

There's a lot of variables involved. The technique, the weights, the strength. And then they all come into play. And in that way, judo, I think, tries to eliminate, it tries to bring itself close to that kind of situations, you know, because thanks to this concept of randori, the free practice, right? The sparring. Yeah. So that's definitely one of the biggest parts of the sport that's helpful. And it's not unique to judo right if you look at wrestling if you look at sambo right those grappling arts that you train

very yeah very high intensity level right and you're getting used to being you know putting your head down and grabbed and yanked on and then you're tired and it's a full throttle thing right it's your body against the other person's body in a way where you guys have a common goal which is conflicting right with one another and then you guys are going live which is that's what it's going to be like it's really it's real world stressors right and sometimes when you're doing boxing you can't do that yeah i mean you can you spar but you can't spar day in and day out. Judo, wrestling, you go in there and you're sparring every single day. You know, five minute rounds, five rounds of them, like five by five, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. You're going hard, you're going hard.

And there's something about that that really helps you mentally. Some guy comes up to you and puts their hands on you, like really puts their hands on you to take you down or whatever it is it's like oh shoot like i've been here before right that it's very familiar yeah that mental aspect is a very important yeah that that you know yeah controlling your nerves and the level of adrenaline that's rushing through your body. It's just a lot of times everything goes out the window, right? When you're not able to control that. You just forget the techniques and you're just like swinging wild. Yeah, the mental stuff is huge. You know, just like the way you said it, you know,

with controlling your nerves and all that stuff. But, you know, a lot of the stuff, it's like, okay, what do I have to lose versus what do they have to lose? Right. You know what I mean? If you're getting into it in new york city with someone that's just a crazy person you know that's right off the street they have nothing to lose and you know you have everything to lose right oh man i have a kid at home and it's like right could i take this guy down and you know pound his face and yes but i'm not going to because i have a kid at

home who's relying on me you know it's like I got to go home to my child. You know, I can't get locked up here or whatever it is. You know, not just that, but like attention is huge. You know, like are you walking down the street listening to a podcast? Maybe you're walking down the street listening to Shintaro Higashi's show. He is so funny, blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden, you know, you get jumped. Right.

And then, you know, like you're discombobulated. And now all of a sudden, where did, you get jumped. Right. And then, you know, like you're discombobulated. And now all of a sudden, where's your judo man? You know what I mean? You didn't even have time to give him the jacket, the spare jacket. Right. And so now we talked about how judo system, you know, especially around free sparring can help with with self-defense both physically and mentally. But there is some criticism out there about judo in that,

especially around the rule sets around the randori, the sparring, where the leg grabs and then, oh, you can't punch or all this. So what do you say to that there's always criticisms for every rule set and every martial art right people have this very high i'm not on uh boxing i love boxing i box myself but it's like you look at any boxing match and how what percentage of time are they linked up in that clinch position a good portion of the time every round you see like three or four times where they're just like clinched up and they're like of the time are they linked up in that clinch position a good portion of the time every round you see like three or four times where they're just like clinched up and they're like okay you

know like nothing bad can happen here let's look at the referee like that's the biggest it's a huge gap in boxing right you know it's like oh i'm gonna knock you out knock you out and if you have very basic boxing skills and then you could only just play defense and then try to force a clinch like people could do that even with a nice big skill gap in the two boxers. And I'm not talking about can I close the distance between Mike Tyson and then force a clinch. I'm not saying that. I'm talking about two boxers, high-level boxer and a mid-level boxer. Can the mid-level boxer force a clinch and then throw them?

You know what I mean? So every rule set, every sport, every martial art has gaps like this. boxer can the mid-level boxer force a clinch and then throw them right you know what i mean so every rule set every sport every martial art has gaps like this right you know it's like you could argue like oh muay thai is excellent for kicking somebody in the head it's like what if you're wearing jeans right you know what if the guy yeah it's like okay what about look at combat sambo you kick punch shooting on the legs everything about combat sambo is the way to defend yourself okay what if the guy's a knife right you know what if you get pepper sprayed first you know yeah like i pepper spray is great you know a lot of people have it you know people can

purchase it on ebay yeah they might be far more effective actually yeah very effective and you know it really always does come down to the question of who you're defending yourself against. If you're defending yourself against an MMA fighter because you spilled beer on his shoes or something like this and the guy was pissed off in a bar and he's shoving you and he has 30 pounds on you and you did three months of judo classes, you're going to get rocked. Right. That's without a doubt. And then people are going to be like be like oh judo player gets beaten by mma fighter it's like well that's not really what happened right you got to take it the whole context skilled fighter yeah beat the piss out of somebody who just started judo a couple weeks ago or a couple months ago yeah so there is tons of context that gets taken out of it you know it's

the classic question of like wrestling versus bjj which would win it's like what are we talking about here hi right right and you see these things on youtube i saw a video the other day of like a kung fu master versus mma fighter oh my god we might have watched the same video it's like was it a compliation of every all this stuff but sometimes it's not fair because i saw one the kung fu master was like 40 something years old out of shape and small and then the mma fighter came out and like he's like young strong and broad like it's like all right it doesn't matter kung fu or mma like that big dude you know probably gonna mold the guy no matter what you know what i mean like that's not fair it's not you're not

comparing apples and apples yeah apple that way I mean? You're comparing, like, apples and monkeys. Like, that's how different the thing is. Right. That's cool. Yeah. And then, so another aspect about the judo rules that people often criticize is the ippon. So the fact that judo matches don't go continue until someone actually submits you know we say oh i think a lot of brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioners tend to you know raise

this concern but i do i i do want to recognize that yes yeah there's in a way that makes sense you know it's on the mat especially like sense you know but it's on the mat if especially like if you throw someone it's not like the person is completely done so what do you think about that the aspect oh should we in this self-defense context do you think we should try to practice until we we can get like the goal is to get submissions instead of just throwing someone i mean if you look at our dojo the way we used to train you know we don't i don't throw you once and then it's over the time continues right it's a continuous perpetual thing right it's like all right you have five minutes on the clock you're doing your round time ends you go with another

person five minutes on the clock whether i get doing your round. Time ends. You go with another person, five minutes on the clock. Whether I get taken down or you get taken down. And given the space constraints, right? Because if I'm doing groundwork and if I'm looking for submissions and then if the person next to me is doing stand-up, it's dangerous. But given the time and then the right amount of space, it's like, okay, we're continuing to the ground. Take the person down, slam them, pin them. And you know, at my dojo, you're not holding someone and pinning them for 20 seconds. You know, I say control them for five seconds.

One, two, three, four, five. Let the person try to fight out. Let them go look for a submission. It's all in how you train. You know, if you're training only for the IJF and the international training, you know, just with your goal being I want an Olympic gold medal. Okay, then train that way. Just with your goal being, I want an Olympic gold medal. Okay, then train that way. Train for that rule set.

Train to gain every advantage under those rule sets. But the training is not always like that. Because at the dojo, any dojo, you got people who are competitors. You got people who are non-competitors. All those different things. So yes, the Ippon ends it in a judo match if you're doing a judo match in a competition but in the practice room that's not usually the case right right and it really does come down to your instructor you know if you're only doing okay takedown wins it and that's it and then you know you're doing nuwaza and okay you hold them for 20 seconds and that's it and then you have two guys

just trying to pin each other the whole time right and then you're pinning them and then time goes 20 seconds and then you get pinned again and time goes 20 seconds and that's your almost your entire round you know like two standing exchanges two times in the ground holding each other for 20 seconds each you know that's a three minute round right there you know that you get nothing out of that right right as opposed to like yeah go ahead no i'm just uh kind of throwing the question back at you like so do you do you you are recognizing that you know the focus of judo ruleset that which is ipon is not quite aligned with the goal of self-defense in a way because that's somewhat yeah right because the e-pawn is

about uh taking one point and the point is about control right so it's like you have to have control to put the other person's two tops of the shoulder blades down into the floor right right and i'm going to indirectly say that if you're capable of lifting the person up over your head and then slanting their back the two shoulder blades the scapulas down into the ground, you have enough control, right? You have enough control to a point where it's like, okay, I'm going to put them on the shoulders or I'm going to put it on their head, right? And when you're training in that way to develop the balance, right? The goal is me take your balance while I keep my own, right? If I take your balance and I knock you over and if I lose my balance, we're both going down. There's zero control, right? If I take your balance and I knock you over and if I lose my balance, we're both going down. There's zero control.

If I take your balance, I could create a fulcrum or all these different leverage ideas or physics. And then I'm slamming you while keeping my balance. Then I could apply force into the ground. That is the game. So the more control, the better. Even when you take down, even when the pin positions, you're controlling your opponent. You're restricting their movement. And then you could go into a submission. So the E e-pawn stuff i think is very valuable because if the goal is self-defense like oh it's everything's got to be martial uh we're gonna get

me and you on the mat uh we're gonna try to slam each other on our head and injure each other that's more of a real life scenario then we we're not going to make it out of there. Right. Right. So the Ippon, I think has big merits. You know, you need to train in that way or, you know, just the injury risk is too high. That's an interesting point you raise about control because it's actually,

if you have done judo, you probably know that it's actually harder to control the person while you're throwing the person. Like it's trying to make sure it's harder than just like oh take down and then anything goes it's actually harder to make sure you know you need you need to practice more to make sure ensure that your partner lands flat on the back and and then you know i think this uh i when i took bjj classes they emphasize this point too uh the control before submission you know yeah you got to establish your oh i think they say position before submission in a way you have to establish control and position before you can go

for any kind of attack yeah that's very true yeah so yeah that's uh uh that's i think a good segue to because you mentioned some other martial arts uh so that as as um people may not know actually uh you also practice other martial arts like you mentioned boxing but you also do japanese jiu-jitsu and aikido and karate you've all done it all yeah i wrestled i did i did all of it i literally done all i probably haven't done any like chinese martial arts right or like the filipino eskrima stuff with the sticks like i've never really done those um and one day i want to get into it you know there's merits to all of this stuff right i think yeah so let's talk about that i don't like let's talk about aikido first because i know i do see a lot of like i think in this context of self-defense uh aikido gets a lot of

Aikido gets a lot of flack in a way. Yeah. A lot of that. Yeah. So as an Aikido practitioner, I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are on that. Yeah. So that's a very good one and a controversial one. A lot of people listening, they're going to nod and agree or be like, oh my God, that's crazy. I think there's a place for it.

I really, really, really do. It's not fair when people are watching Steven Seagal, an older version of him, and saying this and that. It's just not fair because he's an older person. It's not the martial art, I think, for for self-defense but that's not what it's for right you know what i mean and the reason why i think there's a place for it is because there's going to come a time where you can't do judo there's gonna come a time when you can't box anymore there's gonna come a time when you can't do jiu-jitsu anymore but maybe you could do some aikido right and you know it really always comes down to the individual athletes and the variables

like we talked about right right if you get a super athlete like LeBron James, right? And you teach him Aikido from the best Aikido teacher in the world, right? That guy's gonna be able to hit a lot of those techniques. Right. Like in real life. In real life, yeah. Why not? You know, he has great hand-eye coordination. He's fast and athletic. Guy's swinging wildly. Guy has no experience striking. You know, he's like falling over throwing these punches already right now and then like a simple shove in the right direction which you know what aikido is right misdirecting and pushing and you know taking the person down yes right but when you watch the choreographed training of aikido it literally just looks like a dance and then it's

easy for people to be like ah there's no merit here but a lot of the times it's like symbolic of like you push in this direction then i could take you in this direction right and there's wrist locks and aikido that are pretty effective i think you know reaching out grabbing a wrist and then twisting it and taking the person down i don't think it's very effective right but like a simple arm drag to a back take right or something like this and then pulling the person down when they push back into you, like that could definitely work, right? Any technique can pretend, you know, they say like a broken clock is right twice a day. Yeah. It's right once a day if it's a digital clock, right?

It's kind of like that too. You know, there's techniques in Aikido that will always work. Right. Not always work, like under the right conditions. Right, right. With the right variables at the right time so you know the problem with aikido a lot of the times is you spend all your time doing aikido and then you don't expand your horizon to the other martial arts and then you

say oh aikido is great for self-defense and i could defend myself against mma fighters and then you start teaching this idea that my martial art is the best. My martial art works the best. And now everyone who's taken that class is like, oh, yeah, this is the way. This is the only way to defend yourself. False sense of security. Yeah, man. And I've been to a Krav Maga school one time. Right.

You know, like I saw one Krav Maga school. I walked in just to say hi and talk and, you know, asked around. And I was like, maybe I'll go check out a class. I do that stuff, you know, because I love martial arts. Right. And the guy was like, what do you do? And I kind of didn't want to give him my position of like, oh, I do this martial art, that martial art. This is before I was famous on YouTube.

Yeah. So, you know, I'm like, oh, nothing. I just lift a lot of weights. And he goes, lifting weights won't help you in the streets. I'm like, okay, you know, that's a weird thing to say i was like how about judo though and he's like judo's garbage you know that'll never work on the street people don't wear their jacket i was like what about boxing he's like boxing you wear these huge gloves on your hands your hands are bare right now what are you gonna do if i attack you and punch you in the mouth

i'm like man this guy's freaking aggressive you know and he's like krav maga is the only thing that works if you join our program you'll be able to defend yourself against knife attackers, gun attackers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, man, this guy. He's like, I could take any MMA fighter. And I'm like, what, this is what you teach your students? That's extremely misleading. And it's coming from a guy that was probably like 130 pounds soaking wet.

He's older. He looked like he's smoking cigarettes. I was like, this this guy there's no freaking way that this guy is who he says he is right and he has a massive following right and i was just like that is a disservice that is a sin you know what i mean that is messed up that's so i'm not just you know making fun of krav maga i'm just saying there's people like that in every martial art yeah yeah i yeah and that you raise a good interesting point about this mythical street like a lot of a lot of criticism about this martial arts like aikido judo

even bjj like people uh talk about how bjj is not good for uh not necessarily good for self-defense situations. And a lot of times people just kind of point to this mythical idea of the street. I think we kind of talked about it in the previous episode about Japanese judo technique names. But when you want to have a constructive discussion about a concept, you need to have a shared definition

and yes yeah yeah i don't even know what the street means in uh when a lot of people talk about the streets of the streets man yeah well i don't even know like what is it like oh is it the bar or is it the you know the the avenues and the streets of new york city or like at the street mall anyway yeah i digress a little bit but i think i think oh yeah we we should be careful about mentioning the streets like oh does this martial art work on the streets yeah we should come up with a uh definition oh man what is the street what are the streets i i'm cooped up here so now the streets is just my living room in a way i need i have no idea i i don't i don't even want to venture into that because i know

yeah it's it's a i think it's a dangerous thing because it uncontrolled environment boom yeah i think oh yeah that's a good it is still a little vague but i guess in a way yeah you would just say for example we just say a competition is a in the under your definition would that would come there's a lot of things being controlled right temperature is controlled right right someone you know throws a bottle they get kicked out right a lot of things are controlled there's rules you know what i mean so out of your comfort zone in a way yeah yeah yeah the streets you know and that's the thing when people think self-defense they always think one to one right right but it's never one is it ever one to one you know uh i've been in a couple of

scuffles in my day you know when i was younger and it's rarely ever one-to-one? You know, I've been in a couple of scuffles in my day, you know, when I was younger and it's rarely ever one-to-one. Yeah, you're probably with your friends. But I've seen like fights on the street where these guys were like,

all right, me and you, right? Me and you, right? You know, just me and you, right?

And then they start doing their thing and then this guy's friend just jumps in and like hits him in the back of the head. Like, that's happened. You know, I'll tell you one story, man. I was in a bar once on New Year's when I was 22, 23 years old.

And this kid got into it. With you? With another guy. Oh, with another person. Okay. And then I tried to stop it. I was like, hey, guys, come on. It's New Year's.

And I literally put myself between it. And then, it's so stupid. I literally put myself like, guys, relax. Happy New Year's. Let's all chill out. And one of the guys is an fbi agent and he's like i'm a freaking fbi agent man i'm freaking fbi agent man i'll freaking throw you in lock the slammer and blah blah blah and i'm like no relax relax you know like he's yelling at this dude and then one of their friends tried to throw a bottle at one of them and nailed me in the face with it.

Oh, nailed you. It was a bystander. Like, I think it was this guy's friend wanted to throw a bottle at this guy. And then his friend from over there whipped the bottle and, like, missed both of them. Oh, my God. Freaking nailed me in the forehead. I hope you're okay. That's actually quite dangerous. I tried a puffy eye.

And then it was like pandemonium. People freaking, you know, scrapping. Oh, after that, everything goes. And then I got behind this dude, and I put this guy in a chokehold. And then the bouncers come, right? And then as I'm holding this guy, these random bystanders just start throwing body shots to this dude. Oh, to the guy who you are not even like my friends you know okay not even my friends just random dude i'm like holding this guy

i got nailed in the bottle and then you just start these guys start shoving and i grabbed one of them and then i put him in it and i didn't want my back exposed so like right back step like all the way back to the bar because the bar is pretty close and then like and then just like try to push myself up against something so people aren't behind me right and then i'm like holding them awareness situational and then i see the bouncer like walking through right i'm like ah and then he's like coming over and he's like shoving people out of the way right and then these random dudes just punching this dude and i'm like oh my god it's yeah that's and then uh there was a lot of bouncers because it was like new year uh-huh and then like uh it was really cool how uh they're trying to kick me out and then these guys who

were hitting his random dudes like he was trying to stop it he was trying to stop it oh they all like came to my defense uh-huh and then i was like a hero for a hot second oh so you got but you got to stay in the bar too yeah i got to stay nice good time my buddy mike was there he was throwing hands it's crazy it's crazy that's but like that there's nothing martial about any of that right you know what i mean uh there's some martial but like that guy i i was not i was aware i was attentive you know i mean i was drunk but then i got hit in the face with a bottle right there's no it's like you should have parried it if you box you should have parried it and if you did you know weapons training and you know there's good chance like i had both my arms linked right that you know the person next to me could have

thrown a huge right and then taking me taking me out yeah this is without a doubt you know right and the bouncer is much bigger than me so it's like i could be choking and then taking me taking me out yeah this is without a doubt you know right and the bouncer is much bigger than me so it's like i could be choking and then the bouncer could get behind me and put me in a choke and now i'm forced to defend the choke i let the guy go guy turns around and starts booting me in the stomach nothing i can do about it right i mean so it's like you gotta not get yourself in those situations i was young yeah well i think important point there to note is that thanks to your training i think you know you like there's a big contrast between that guy you and the guy who was just like trying to get in the action and then throwing punches

you know i think you had the awareness i think that's the important point like whatever martial art you take yeah whether it be judo bjj aikido whatever i think it'll at least give you the mental space during this crazy crazy time to control yourself and control at least remove as many variables as possible like you you walked back to the bars to so that yeah you know no one is behind you and they're trying to take you down or whatever yeah yeah so on that you can't remove all the variables that's the thing and when you're confident like oh i could you know survey the room and control and figure out all the exits are and put my back to the wall when there's more than one attacker like you're fooling yourself you think you could actually do that you know honestly man it's

like if i would have had two more shots or like three more beers or something like this that could have ended disastrously you know if i would have nailed and if you would have hit me a little bit harder with the bottle of the guy right it was just like a lobbing bottle right you know but if you would have really whipped it and nailed me in the face if i went down and these guys started kicking me in the head you you can't control those variables. I got lucky. I got extremely lucky. And the best thing probably to do from a self-defense standpoint is these two guys are arguing about this guy's FBI and that guy's that.

And then you spill beer on my shoes. Don't hit on my girlfriend. It's like, all right, let me stay out of it. And I think that's the lesson that in hindsight, it's like you got to stay out of it yeah don't get yourself involved especially if you have family it's like i'm not saying anyone not to you know step in when there's a conflict i'm not saying that but you know just from a purely self-defense standpoint and self-preservation you know if things are going on and things are crazy you can't get involved right you know and then yeah you know people kind of joke about

Oh the best self-defense technique Is for you to Take running Like You know Start running Yeah You know what I mean

Yeah So Now that we covered Aikido And I talked a little bit about Self-defense situations How about Now How about Japanese Jiu-Jitsu

A lot of people mention that in the context of self-defense especially because it kind of still has the both elements right the striking and the grappling yeah striking grappling that's a tricky one too you know because it depends who your teacher is right i remember my father's kushiyu jiu-jitsu the japanese martial arts style there was a heavy emphasis on the fighting side right especially my father was younger not so much in his later years where he was like all right i don't really want to see people you know doing all this stuff but you know in the 80s and 90s even when i was growing up we had tuesday night sparring and it's like you could do light shots to the head hard shots to the body and then you

could take the person down so it was kind of like mma rules you know what i mean and then after we finished uh doing that sort of sparring on tuesday nights then we would also do nirwaza training which is just straight up ground work and submission work but you could go do like fake punches to the head sort of thinking like when you're like kind of slapping like you know they have that combat jiu-jitsu stuff right we've been doing that you know and that was part of the japanese jiu-jitsu curriculum once you get to the brown and black belt level you could train and then friday night was just straight striking sparring right right like uh with the pads and everything with the chest protectors with the headgear and the foot and the shin guards all that stuff you know what

i mean so you know it depends where you learn japanese jiu-jitsu but the traditional style of like the person goes like that and you tuck your chin and go like this and go like that you know that may not happen right if you're just memorizing those specific sequences and you don't have any improvisational sort of element to your training then that's going to be a problem when the person does go for something that you've never really encountered right because you can't sort of consciously say okay that's that technique technique three from the side attack position yeah you're like engage combat form number eight you know like and start doing this like it just doesn't work that way yeah you know what i mean so you need that sort of non-cooperative

combative training in your tool set to develop some of these improvisational skills. And some Japanese jiu-jitsu martial arts really emphasize this. Right. You know? It's kind of going back to the point about control, like removing the variables. Control, removing variables. And if you're a great martial artist, right, you think about this stuff

and, you know know the ultimate thing about martial arts is self-improvement right you're making yourself better and how do you make yourself better right not by going to a school listening to this one guru and just doing everything and not really thinking outside the box you have to challenge some of this stuff right take all the information with a grain of salt and then you got to grow on your own right and then a lot of the times you know the person next to you needs to get better so i'd make them better and they make me better and it's a mutual beneficial synergistic relationship and once you kind of have that then you could start elevating yourself above just the technique people only see the technique it's like oh you know uh krav maga technique combat one to five

aikido technique one to eight which one works more why this one was selected you know all that stuff yeah great you know and that curriculum stuff is real you need a linearly progressive right uh curriculum to to learn you don't need it but you know it helps right and some people like to think in that way but you need the element of like me versus you let's see what happens these are sort of the rule sets so we keep each other safe right right and then we take it from there so that's my sort of two cents on japanese jiu-jitsu but you know some people really thrive in that environment and some people really thrive in just the nitty-gritty of like grinding heads and grinding right you know combative sort of a setting right so there's

a place for all of it it's just really having the instructor being able to elaborate right these things you know not just saying my style is the best you know if someone comes and choke you you go like this and then if they're just limited to the techniques then they don't know anything yeah right they don't know right so it's you know your job also as a consumer because it is a consumable product a service to be educated and to think outside the box and you know use your own brain right so on that note we're gonna kind of switch gears and then talk rest talk about wrestling which is i guess not a martial art technically but it's you know it's it's i consider martial you think it's a martial yeah anyway so you're uh for those who don't know

shintaro is an accomplished wrestler um not that accomplished but you know accomplished enough like a couple accolades you know won some that. That's accomplished in my book. I guess so. Anyway, so what do you think about wrestling in this context of self-defense? I think wrestling has the biggest component of the non-cooperative combative side, which is takedowns. Right. And takedowns are hugely, hugely useful. Taking someone from their feet down to their floor is amazing because if you're standing everyone's semi-athletic people walk around all day trying to fall over you know i

mean you take them down you put them on the ground and they have a lot most of the time no clue what to do right especially like you can't throw a punch from the bottom like if you aren't skilled and trained to do so right you get a lot more punching power coming downward right with the assistance of gravity right you know what i mean so immediately when you get a lot more punching power coming downward right with the assistance of gravity right you know what i mean so immediately when you have a person swinging wildly there's always a chance of that one punch knockout of like i got caught on the chin i go down right but if you could take him down hard right that's less of an issue yeah you take him down hard boom they hit the ground they're like ah hit my shoulder on the concrete on the way down and now you're on top of them and

they're trying to throw these you know punches from the bottom with their back to the floor where they can't build momentum or push off the ground you know and they have no real kinetic chain to transfer that energy all of a sudden you've taken away their only only chance of winning yeah right whether you know how to submit or not right wrestlers are athletic enough and know enough and do enough to stay on top after they take the person down because that's their entire goal. So if they could take you down, take away the only shot that you have connecting

for that one lucky punch, and then if they could stay on top and then throw down punches, that's a huge advantage. Of course, without taking into account the variables of, is the person skilled themselves, weight difference, how long you've been training, and how many people you're defending against. But I think that's why wrestling has huge, huge merits in this world.

And I think it is a martial art. I see. Because my definition is just a word itself, martial, warlike, art. Right. Art. You know what I mean? It's, warlike, art. Right. Art. You know what I mean? It's like warlike art. And then it's like imposition of my will versus you.

Mm-hmm. Right? And it's territorial and space and, you know, fighting for this is mine. Mm-hmm. Right? These are my goals. Right. I need to accomplish something.

Opposing goals. Yeah. Yeah. So it's hugely beneficial. opposing goals yeah yeah so and that's hugely beneficial so uh i'm being a little i might be being a little um uh pedantic here but you know the this is a personal question of mine because i wrestle in high school too you know uh when you are taught shooting in wrestling yeah you kind of travel on your knees in a way you have to to go because you have to get low level change and all that. But you can't really do that on this mythical streets where there's no padding.

The streets. Yeah. So I know you. Yeah. So what do you what do you do? That's a very interesting question. Very interesting question very interesting question i love that question i have a phenomenal answer for it that i don't think a lot of people have

the same answer if i'm going to pat myself on the back here the drop step why do we take the drop step in wrestling why don't you just shooting on the legs without taking the drop set right uh why level change that's what i was taught to go on. Why do we need the level change to do that? To come lower than the center of gravity, I guess. See, I should have been thinking more. I should have been thinking more when I was being taught about this. All right. Three lines of defense for takedown defense, right? Right. Your arms, your head, and your hips. right two lines three lines of defense for taking

takedown defense right your arms your head and your hips those are the three lines of defense right you want to clear the arms and the head to access the legs for the shot right if the your opposing person your uke is very low in their stance because they want to keep their head and their arms and in between you know between you and my legs you see what i mean so if they're taking that natural low stance you have to go even lower and the only way you can go lower if both people are squatting down is to take the drop step right but if you're fighting somebody if they're upright and their hands are up right now all of a sudden you don't need to level change because all you have to do is a light squat and now all of a sudden, you don't need to level change because all you have to do is a light squat. And now, all of a sudden, your head and your arms are below the person.

So you have access to the… That means you can just go straight into their body. I see. Maybe not even access to their leg, maybe access to their hips. So you actually don't need to take a drop step. And people train the drop step, drop step, drop step. But I did a split stance double leg takedown, you know, on my YouTube channel. Go check that out guys.

Yeah. Uh, right. So it's like a upright position, you know, people are throwing hands and things like this. And, you know,

I know somebody's going to comment below like, Oh, you're going to go for a double standing double. You could eat a knee to the face. Right. Of course you can eat a knee to the face. Of course you can't, you know,

like who you're defending yourself against, you know, an MMA fighter. Yeah. If you just shooting on the legs, you're going to eat a knee to the face of course you can't you know like who you're defending yourself against you know an mma fighter yeah if you're just shooting on the legs you're gonna you're gonna eat a knee yeah you know what i mean do you have any striking skill to feign and show and posture to the other person hey i might punch you in the face so then they go like this for the defense and that's when you blast in on the double right without doing a drop step because you're already lower than the person. Right. You've already cleared their arms and their head. Now all of a sudden you have to clear their hips.

But do they know how to defend with their hips? Probably not. Most likely they cannot. Right. Right. And if you have a good position, athletic stance, you literally just double leg tackle them right off their feet. And now you take them down. And then, you know, you can control them down to where they hit their head first or back first or all that stuff.

To the mythical streets. Yeah. In the mythical streets. That's a good answer, right? Yeah, it is. I think the context. I think you keep coming back to this point. It's the context.

You have to think about the context you're in. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's a good answer. Yeah. As I've always heard about that. It's hard to, when you're in yeah that's uh well yeah that's a good that's a good answer yeah yeah as i've always heard when you're in the wrestling room right or you're doing mma class it's like this is how you shoot a double and then people are teaching the drop step the drop steps like when i wrestled in high school this is how we learned it right this is how i'm going to teach it to you and it's like why do we do the drop step because it's level change okay and everyone's doing it

but if the person in the room is there specifically for self-defense there's no need why do you have to take the the drop step you don't need to right you know what i mean you don't need to bring your knees to the floor why uh can you do this on concrete it might hurt my knee it's like yeah just don't take a knee when you're shooting in the streets then, the mythical streets then. It's like then, okay,

then why are we drilling it this way? Right. And then most of the time they don't have an answer for that. Yeah. Right. You need to. But for you teachers out there,

now you guys have an answer. I think, yeah, you need to, all this like standard techniques, the way they're being taught right now, you have to, there is a reason

behind every single technique the you know and we have to understand that reason yeah to in order to expand beyond that yeah and that's a good point um so now uh let's talk about the big one, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, BJJ. BJJ, the greatest I know, the big component or the big marketing strategy they went for is that on the mythical streets, 90% of the fights go end up on the ground. So you got to know how to do that so i know it's a big selling point in bjj so huge selling point huge yeah so what do you what do you uh say to what do you think about bjj as a self-defense martial art oh it's one of the best yeah it's one of the best for sure but like everything it comes down to the individual athlete and the teacher right the teacher matters so you know, and having a different style of jujitsu, right?

Is very important. If you do a deep half guard and that's your primary game, right? That's the one of the worst ones because your head is right in between the guy's legs when they're sitting. And then that punch coming down to your face when you're deep half guard, that's really, you know, that's a knockout punch. Right. You know what I mean?

So then all of a sudden, if you think of it that way deep half guard you know you can't really do you know what i mean if you have no takedown abilities and you sit guard right and then there's two people yeah there's no way because you know the whole entire thing is like oh keep my legs in between us right on bottom position open guard concepts blah blah blah but if you have two people walking around this direction there's no way you could keep your legs in between both and can you defend yourself yeah you can you know what i mean but it really depends like are you a sports jiu-jitsu person you know there's instructors that sort of specialize in that stuff uh and is that you know the same jiu-jitsu that you get from this other guy that's only teaching sport in a gi?

Right. But I do think there's a lot of stuff in BJJ that's extremely useful. And I come back to the concept of non-cooperative training. You have to have cooperative training first to be able to make the shapes of the technique. Right. You have to have a cooperating opponent having a neutral position or giving you the right looks to be able to coordinate the drills and the techniques right and once you get to a point you have to do resistance training not resistance like in the way of the weights but a non-cooperative and combative training right and jiu-jitsu have a big element

they call it rolling right judo calls it randori uh vj calls it rolling and then wrestling calls it live right live yeah you know what i mean and they have that so of course it's going to help right you know jujitsu is great one you know the question of judo versus jujitsu you could make that argument all day you know i could slam someone and end it yeah yeah you can you know but if i don't succeed there and if i'm on the ground with a high level jiu-jitsu guy their submission game is superior right i said it i said it you know i know that you know what i mean so it really depends and how many people are you defending yourself if you're on the crowd of new york city subway and you know you get four kids i don't want to say kids but like four people

attacking you you really really don't want to be on the ground. Right. You know, and that's one instance where judo may take the cake. Right. You know what I mean? All of a sudden, maybe you're in a dark alley and you're going up against someone really, really big and strong. Right? Take them to the ground.

And it's just one-to-one. Take them to the ground, you know, and maybe you can't take them down, right? Maybe you can't throw them in judo because the guy's just such a freak athlete maybe he played football and he's just a freak you know what i mean and you've only done judo for three months but a bjj person can pull guard and that big guy's not gonna know what to do right and then maybe they go you know i don't know i'm just doing it the guy goes right into the guard to ground pound and then they could slip it and then take his back and then now they could rear naked choke. But can the same judo practitioner with the same amount of months in training do that and execute that?

Probably not because that person probably just learned Osorigari. Right. You can't train all of it. You don't have time to learn all of it. You just cannot. Right. You know what I mean? So those are sort of different variables.

cannot right you know what i mean so those are sort of different variables and you know uh can you do bjj only self-defense where you have zero knowledge of striking no you can't right right so you need a little bit of the striking knowledge you need a little bit of the standing stuff you need a little bit of the ground stuff you know and martial artists have to sort of start looking at it you know in the whole with the contextual view right you know what i mean so in that within the like while we're talking about the context i know within bjj there's a big debate about you know traditional bjj versus sports bjj i i'm not quite sure on the terminologies here but you know the yeah you kind of mentioned the sports bjj i i'm not quite sure on the terminologies here but you know the yeah you kind of mentioned the sports bjj side and then the i guess the more traditional side like what do you what do you think about that divide in in the context of self-defense like so even in judo there's the

same thing right there's that sports side and then there is the traditional side and even if you look at boxing you have the people who spar. So when people come into the dojo, it's like, yeah, I boxed for fucking three years. You know what it is, right? It's like, did you really box or did you go in 8 a.m., hit the pads, hit the mitts, talk around,

and then you've never really gotten the ring. Right. You know, I would say like if you go to a boxing gym, 95% of their clientele don't go in the ring. They don't spar, right? Because it's the Wall Street guys. It's the moms and and dad they want to get a workout before work after work yeah pads feel like they know how to punch somebody you know what i mean and it's the same idea with judo and jiu-jitsu and every single other martial art you know i think it's beautiful that judo and jiu-jitsu

have a sport aspect to it where they could compete at a high level right because when you have high level competition a lot of people doing it a lot of people following the rules keeps the athletes safe and they could really compete and then sharpen their game and then compete with each other it elevates all of it it elevates the entire technique new ideas come about right i cannot believe that guy did that cabarelli lift off with the leg in judo right oh i need to learn that i learned that you know he learned that i teach it all my students do it now they're doing it that's becomes the standard and someone in russia is going to learn to counter it and then someone counters it and then it just elevates the sport and all of a sudden now there's this entire sequence and pattern of attacks and defenses that wasn't really available you know 20 30 years ago and now some of that stuff can it

be used in a martial setting maybe you know there's very very interesting stuff that can potentially come about in competition that's right like for instance if you look at sorry to interrupt you like kanibasami right you know crazy dangerous people getting injured all the time you like take it out you know and then jiu-jitsu is like ah let's experiment with it let's put it in the thing a little bit right in the nogi thing and it's working and it's working and people are learning it learning to do it safely and people blowing their knees out but they keep doing it and now there's a whole system based off kanibasami you know like shooting in and sliding in to gain range by pushing off on that hand right or you could just do the kanibasami for the first hand or the far leg or, you know,

hooking in and then going for a roll for a rolling knee bar, which transfers over to like the sambo side rolling knee bar series. And, you know, that stuff comes from sport, right? It comes from the sport martial art. And now all of a sudden you're in a situation, you know, big guys locking up with a hard overhook or underhook, and then you could go for it and then take down a much bigger and stronger opponent in a martial

setting. Right. So they actually really need each other. You know what I mean? The sport versus traditional, I think that debate should be over. Yeah. You guys need each other, you know, more than you think. You know what I mean?

That's a good point. You can't just be traditional. Yeah. Right? Because if you're just traditional and doing things your sensei did and the sensei's senseis did, nothing will ever get better. They knew what they were doing 100 years ago. Not really. Yeah.

You know, like the time is the best now with the information sharing. And look at all these people that could listen to this podcast now and fill their heads with my ideas. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I could be wrong, though. I could be wrong. And maybe 20 years from now you know all these ideas that i'm talking about can be challenged right and it's obsolete right

you never know that so sport traditional need each other right that's a good point i think we we talked about this a little bit in uh in the japanese judo technique names uh episode in other in any field yeah there is a there is a it needs a way to you know pit different techniques against each other you know it happens i i'm talking about the more computer science computer engineering field because that's all i uh i that's what i know best and that in even in that sense, we have many competitions, even among researchers and companies, we have these benchmarks, like how fast can your computer go?

Calculate this simple problem. Yeah, it's not realistic, these benchmarks. It's not... Like Cinebench? Huh? Like Cinebench? What is that? No, when they have the graphic thing with the Texas GPU.

Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, okay, yeah. That kind of stuff. Like, you know, supercomputers, they have this competition. And then this organization publishes every year of top 100 supercomputers in the world. And they use this simple like mathematical thing and then you know ai models do that like oh given this data set how accurate is it it's not

real those are not realistic but it's a way for people to test different techniques out and then compete against each other and in some ways i think it's in the same way sports aspects of these martial arts serve that purpose yeah you gotta yeah i love that i love that yeah i think i see this parallel a lot like i think it's important to yeah it's a physical activity martial art but in any sport really but you need to have this kind of scholastic view on things too i think so what you're saying is you train and you build a prototype and then you have the algorithm and you put it through a computing system in order to collect more data and then you bring it back right and you are i love it i love it because yeah like if you have that new algorithm okay how good

is it i don't know like unless we have some kind of way to test it against another algorithm which is the benchmark which is in martial arts it's the sport you know it's the are you getting a phd or something i'm trying i'm trying my best i i don't know yeah getting a phd did you go to princeton is that where you're at yeah i did go yeah anyway i feel kind of insecure now no no like talking about goon stuff like i gotta punch the guy in the face and both and you're like well actually you know looking from a scholastic you know yeah you are you have the very you have a very scholastic view on things on martial arts and I think it's very refreshing to hear I think especially for me

so now let's move on to we talked about a lot of grappling arts well Japanese has some striking elements in it but let's talk about pure striking arts taekwondo, boxing muay thai all that what do you yeah as a grappler primarily grappler what do you think about those uh

striking arts in the context of self-defense that's a great one and i think they all have their merits right and that's always sort of the idea and you know you could make uh little things about each and every one of them for instance like if you look at boxing and he's like yeah you defend your head by just going like that and then but you have this entire 16 ounce puffy thing protecting your head here right and if you're in the streets and you don't have that then of course there's a huge gap you know all around your fist right that you could potentially defend uh the that punches could come through. Right. You know what I mean?

And then you have the old school mentality with the karate of like, oh man, hand wraps and gloves. You're not really training your hands to punch someone in the face with hard parts of their head and this and that. So you could kind of make that argument as well. And then the kickboxers and all this stuff will argue also like the boxing stance you know the lead leg sort of takes like a little bit of a inward turn right in order to maximize the the power of the jab right you know what i mean and if you kick to that lead leg it's very easy to blow that knee out or do some damage there so that's why naturally kickboxing muay thai will have their toes pointing forward or slightly out to be able

to check those kicks right right you know what I mean so it's like who are you defending yourself against it really comes down to that you know what I mean uh if you're a boxer and you're a purebred boxer and the person takes a very low shot to your legs because your hands are up high and you know like you can't time a knee to it because you don't know how to knee somebody right you know right and I think Muay Thai has a lot more elements. Like they have the elbows and they have this. And they kind of have a good clinch system. Right.

Right. To basically, they can't like reap from the inside, but you could attack from the outside to do, you know, foot sweeps, judo foot sweeps. You know, and if you're a Muay Thai guy, I think the best thing you can learn is the clinching circle de ashi which is like one of the most you know i used to do a little muay thai too the downtown uh with joe sampieri yeah he was a legend right right unbelievable striker and we would spar and he was so good he would just be like come on hey gosh you kicked me in the face punch me in the face and i would be swinging for six seven minutes straight not connecting once you know and you would parry and pop me in the face and kick me in the face. And I would be swinging for six, seven minutes straight, not connecting once. And he would parry and pop me in the face and kick me in the leg.

And he would just cut these angles. It was unbelievable. But when we got in the clinch, of course, he could throw elbows and knee me in the stomach. But I was pretty confident, that circle foot sweep. But I showed it to him. And he's unbelievable. I'm not trying to be cocky or anything. But that's a technique that can potentially work for Muay Thai guys.

That's something that judo can help with. You have to kind of do it all. Context, context. You have to kind of do it all. Muay Thai, boxing, kickboxing, the striking stuff. Taekwondo, yeah, they have the kick, but the point-scoring stuff

doesn't really translate over. But there's a Taekwondo, yeah, they have the kick, but the point-scoring stuff doesn't really translate over. Right. Right? But there's a taekwondo champ, I think, in Japan that's unbelievably tall and athletic and powerful. And, you know, you teach that person kickboxing, that person's going to do good. Right. You know, it comes down a lot to the individual athlete as well. I hope I kind of answered that. But, I mean, even taekwondo, like, if you see Olympians, they kick hard. the individual athlete as well all right i hope i kind of answered that yeah but i mean even

taekwondo like the if you see olympians they they kick hard i mean you probably don't want to take kicks from them i mean it's no of course not yeah every every martial art yeah different focus but has merits and you kind of talked about how you have to do it all so that kind of begs the question how about mma yeah it's self-defense idea is that mma you know it kind of incorporate everything so what yeah yeah is it the ultimate self-defense martial art then oh that's a very good question i don't think it is you know because you just said the word martial art and i think with martial arts there's comes sort of embedded philosophies that are very important right right and i think judo is the one that has that the most right it has sort of a code of conduct code of ethics it has mutual welfare benefit and respect right it has all these things

embedded in the curriculum that sort of is written about that's studied you know that got you know like going way back you know what i mean and And I think that's very important. You can't just have that where you're just bound to your teachers, this and that, and falling into this hierarchy. I don't think you can just do that. Right. Right?

But in judo, you have that. You have the ideals, right? And then the code. And people generally go by it. You know what I mean? And you go to a combat sporting event you know you see it all the time people getting into arguments and fights and stuff like this you don't see it that much in judo you do see it yeah you do see it right without a doubt you

know and you know there's always people that come in and you know who are who are assholes right straight up yeah any anything you know not just judo, but even in chess, they're assholes. Yeah. Right? So you can't really help it. Right. But MMA,

it's great for fighting. It's a sport fighting thing. I know mixed martial arts, it's taking from the best, but the ultimate goal is to maim someone. And being a martial artist, right? That shouldn't be your goal. Right. You know what I mean? There's a funny story but the ultimate goal is to maim someone and being a martial artist right that's not

that shouldn't be your goal right you know what I mean I had a there's a funny story that I just recently heard there's this guy who did MMA

he's a jiu jitsu guy he's awesome and then he was saying like he was in the ring or the cage and he had like eight fights or something he went to kick the person

in the head the guy guessed wrong he ducked down he was about to connect oh uh huh and the moment of impact he was like dude I can take this guy's head off right he made eye contact with the guy guessed wrong he ducked down he was about to connect oh uh-huh and the moment of impact he was like dude i could take this guy's head off right he made eye contact with the guy

and he was like oh man i don't know if i could do it and then he pulled his kick spun around right as like with the momentum right and then the guy came in took a shot took him down and hit him in the face you know like yeah that kind of stuff like but that guy is he's you know maybe he's a real martial artist right mutual respect and benefit right. But that guy, maybe he's a real martial artist, right? Mutual respect and benefit. Right. You know what I mean? I think there's a place for MMA.

Yeah. I'm not saying there isn't. I watch UFC myself. I love it. But it's for the very select few to be able to do that. You can do that and get a PhD, taking those shots to the head all the time. You just can't do it. Could I run a business, getting in the ring and getting punched all the time?

It's very difficult. And for the people who love fighting, it's good for them. It could be a good outlet. It could be an outlet for them. And then, yes, you could take MMA classes. But I guess it is. Yeah, it's a good martial art for self-defense. It is, yeah.

Because it brings a lot of the elements in a fighting context, right? So, yes, the answer is yes. MMA is a good one for, but how well are these people being trained? I want to make the argument of being a specialist, right? I like the idea of being a specialist. I like the idea of being a specialist. If you're a specialist grappler, then you can learn some of the boxing elements that are sort of the defensive side. And then you take that path. Or if you're a specialist striker, you learn good takedown defense.

Not to get taken down. But of course, you're going to eventually get taken down. So but of course you're gonna eventually get taken down so you have to learn a little bit of the ground too right right but i think there needs to be there has to be a case of the specialists like specializing sort of in striking or grappling first and then sort of venturing off right if you're learning trying to learn everything right i think it's very difficult like look at sciences and bring it back to your yeah yeah you can't get a phd in physics and chemistry and bio and you just can't get a phd in everything right right you know but then you get a phd in something you get some papers published and then you could link it with

other things and then businessmen bring you in and exploit you and try to integrate it into a product. And you can't, right? And I guess some people just, oh, I'm going to do everything. But how many people can do everything? Engineer their own product, understand supply chain management and being able to manage a team properly and do the business backend and doing all that stuff. And then taking an exit from soup to nuts from start to end yeah how many people can do that by themselves they can't you just can't do it right so you kind of have to have a sort of specialized path that was a very good analogy

i think so pat myself back for that one it it now like even expands to this point about creativity in a way um so uh even in everything you do creativity is important but creativity is not something that just a lot of people think that it's it's like an epiphany where you just kind of randomly get the idea from the divine power or something. But in actuality, like you said, specialists are able to be more creative because they know this one field well. And when they venture out to other fields and take different ideas, they don't have to know the nitty-gritties of everything. But if you know one field very well and you're a specialist in it, fields and take different ideas they don't have to know the nitty-gritties of everything but if you know one field very well and you're a specialist in it you're grounded in that field but you can

then you can venture out to other fields and bring out different ideas and mix things up and that's when creativity happens and then even in martial arts settings yes you you want to, like, there are different fields like judo, BJJ and all that. What you want to do is, yeah, whatever it is, you need to stick to it. Aikido, whatever it is, and become a specialist and then ground yourself into it and then bring other ideas into it. Even in whatever your goal is, self-defense and whatever. Yeah. And I think you got to find a good teacher. Yeah.

That's first and foremost, because a good teacher yeah that's first and foremost because a good teacher can teach you all the wrong things right right right right right and you know i don't want to say i'm right and they're wrong but you know if a self-defense martial arts teacher said this is the only martial art you gotta get out of right you know if a martial arts teacher said you know you have to get my name tattooed on your chest and go anywhere else you know you're that that's that's another one yeah you know that's sort of a red flag right You have to get my name tattooed on your chest and go anywhere else. That's another one. That's sort of a red flag.

And it really does come down to the instructor, what their knowledge is like. If they're saying, if they're using like, this is the best, that one sucks. All or nothing kind of a mentality. And they can't, I guess, eloquently explain to you the intricacies of this sort of a thing. Right. You might have to get out. But the problem with that is also like people can't, I can't have this conversation independently with every single one of my students.

Right. There wouldn't be enough time in the day. Right. You know what I mean? So I'm a little bit guilty of that too. You know, you have 30 people on the mat for judo and people like, Hey,

does judo work for self-defense? And I'm just like, yes. That's it. right you know it's like hopefully this podcast will kind of provide you with this avenue i guess yeah i think that's nice you know yeah it's like anytime it's like hey does judo work for self-defense like dude i just did a whole podcast right you know i don't know if you have time yeah but yeah i think so to wrap up um yeah we met we talked talked a lot about context and you know it's what the mythical streets are not just one monolithic thing it's about the context, context, and how every martial art has something to offer. Yeah.

And you need to be open-minded, and you need to find a good instructor that can guide you through that path. So having said that, do you have any parting words for the listeners? Yeah, I think you need to have some sort of non-cooperative training. Right. Always. Yeah. that's huge you know uh and if you're a little bit older and you can't just do full-blown sparring situational combat of sparring right you know uh you're inside control i try to escape you're pinning me i try to get out you know working the clinch where we could go light shots to the body right right uh situ we'll start with the leg and then we'll try to finish the takedown whatever it is you know you have to adjust it

for yourself if you can't do it and then you know sometimes you just can't do that in a class setting when everyone's doing this and everyone's doing randori uh but having an open dialogue with your instructor is huge because maybe they can cater right there's always time you know in the dojo where the mat space is not being used. It's not like a very well-run business a lot of the times, most of the time, because you're a martial artist. You're not great at running a business. Same with my dojo. So you need a little bit of that.

And I think the one thing we didn't really talk about is kata and form. But that does fall into the category of cooperative. You need you need that to make some of the shapes yeah yeah you need to have the basic coordination and all this stuff so there's a place for it right and that's the answer most of the time there's a place for it you know someone came up with the set of moves you know for a reason right but you have to think bigger you have to think what is your opponent doing who is your opponent who's teaching you the stuff what about this what do these guys think you know and it's like kind of almost treated like a religion right you know what i mean yeah let's talk about religion next oh man we're getting we're venturing out so yeah judo is good for self-defense, as is a lot of other martial arts. And yeah, please watch my YouTube, follow my Instagram. This is the podcast.

Podcast every week. Yeah, I'm not very good at this part, but yep. And your live streams. Live stream every Tuesday. So check it out. Tuesdays at 9 p.m and i've been doing it we'll see how long that lasts but hopefully it lasts yeah not that popular you know some people like it yeah i mean that's a that's another way of uh giving back to you guys so yeah well thanks

for listening guys um and uh stay tuned for the next one yep thank you guys and thank you peter thank you