The Shintaro Higashi Show - Judo Styles around the World

Episode Date: January 12, 2021

In this episode, Shintaro and Peter talk about different styles of Judo practiced around the world. As a global sport, Judo is practiced in many different countries, and each has a unique culture and history. It is fascinating to see how each country has developed its own unique style of Judo. 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 styles around the world. Very interesting topic, right, Peter? That's right, because as a lot of you know, judo is a very popular sport around, practice around the world, and then each country has a different style based on the history and then the folk, actually folk wrestling style they have. And we are fortunate to have someone like Shintaro who has traveled around the world

and trained a lot of these people. And you, Peter, who is a Korean judoka. Korean-American judoka. I did train in Korea a little bit and I follow them closely. So I can also talk about that too. Yeah. I mean, it's a really cool thing, right?

Because there's so many different fingerprints. Like, for instance, you have a Korean style judo, right? That's what you came to the dojo with. Right. You did some training in Korea. And I have mostly a Japanese style judo. Right. And there's sort of that American thing going on,

which definitely we have been influenced by, by the great American judoka. So it's like a Japanese, Korean, American judo style. Right. And it's like a japanese korean american judo style right and it's a hybrid thing uh-huh yeah i think my style you can't really pinpoint like because i do a lot of things that korean typically known for koreans do to do and but at the same time i used to i feel like i used to yeah i used to do more but then now since starting to train with you, I've adjusted my style a little bit. But it's worked out well for me so far.

I don't think there's a right or wrong when it comes to this stuff. Every country is affected, like you said, about the different folk style wrestling styles. Every country is influenced by the champion that comes out of that right place right for instance like i know mongolia is a you know place that's very affected by the native wrestling styles and they had an olympic gold medalist who became a coach and then affected everybody's judo style because everyone started learning from him right and stuff like that happens all over the world and when you have a trained eye you could see the very differences in each of the places

right there's a cool documentary on you can find it on youtube where oh no shohei actually visits goes to visit mongolia and then tries out their folk style wrestling and it's very interesting yeah it's really interesting their jacket because they they wear this jacket where it only covers their shoulders essentially and the back like the upper part of the back so and they so their grip style is like that right like you basically they kind of like hug you yeah yeah over the shoulder around the triceps that's their favorite thing you can't grab a lapel because there really is no lapel like that goes down the body right you know upper part of the scap the collarbone yeah you could grab it and you know if you fight collar and tricep high collar and tricep it's not very common and then

you know if you've never fought a mongolian it's very very very tricky right and it's and it shows in judo they they go for a lot of these uh you know hip throws based on the tricep grips and not just not really the traditional like lapel and sleeve grip yeah yeah mongolian wrestling is a incredible incredible art you know and it's amazing how popular it is over there you know the genghis khan and all this i know you know it's one of the most popular sports i think it's uh horseback riding archery and wrestling those are the three main country sports right right they don't really like uh let's go watch basketball or play soccer like those are the main sports you know what mean? And everyone does those sports and they have an annual tournament.

I forgot what the wrestling style was called, but they have an annual tournament and it's no weight classes. And all you got to do is take the person down essentially. Nice. And it's amazing, man. And like you said, the Shohei Ono documentary is great.

And they heavily, heavily influenced their sumo style too. So they do sumo style. They do freestyle wrestling they start with that generally and everybody does that wrestling and then they branch out to other grappling arts yeah and then they take a lot from their original folk style which has been around forever which i think is one of the coolest things and mongolia produces a lot of uh uh top top sumo players too right like you said yeah yeah a lot of the, top sumo players too, right?

Like you said. Yeah, yeah. A lot of the yokozuna in Japan, yeah. A lot of them. That's crazy. Yeah, I think that's such an interesting thing. Like you start with this space art and then as you go along, I mean, Mongolia has a good wrestling team too,

just like the Greco-Rans and then the freestyle and then freestyle judo also yeah it's very interesting um and then all these styles how they show up and you you you've practiced mongolians in like when you're yeah training camps in japan too right you know i went to a tournament in cheju island in korea and we it was like an international tournament and the french national team was there the mongolian national team was there and i've never really trained with a bunch of mongolians before so i was like all right i'm gonna try to get as many rounds in with the mongolians right man they were really tricky they were really cool man but even before uh the practice started they were wrestling oh just hanging out and wrestling just wrestling hanging out wrestling pushing each other

out of bounds putting each other's hands on the floor. They were doing sumo. They were doing like Mongolian wrestling. They were just joking around and playing. They were doing that for like 20 minutes. So it's so ingrained in their culture. Yeah, I think that's what they do. They live on these big planes and they're like, hey, let's wrestle.

Let's go around. Yeah, it was very difficult. It's wrestling. You want to wrestle? You want to go around? So, yeah. That's amazing. It was very difficult. And I had the chance to go with Nidon, who was an Olympic gold medalist. And boy, was he tough. He was unbelievable. What kind of moves did he try to do on you? You know, this is the thing.

Like, I have a whole gripping system. He doesn't grip. He'll just let you grab wherever. And then he'll just reach around the back with one arm and then grab a tricep and then he starts trying to swing you around right around throw his hips in real hard you know he's not trying to do the small foot sweeps and you know faking the techniques he just throws the hips across i see and you know it's very very cool i really really, really enjoyed it. I see. Because it's something that I'm not very used to. Right.

So using a lot of momentum, swinging the person around and trying to clip the legs out so then the person rotates. Things like that I've never really experienced. Right. I think I should use some of that stuff. The more I get older, I'm limited by my mobility and stuff. And some of those techniques didn't require you to be able to lift a leg high or something like that. So that's the value of going international and seeing all the different styles. So in that sense, do you think, in a way, the traditional Japanese style requires a little more agility and flexibility?

Yeah, because the japanese don't really they never used to grip fight but the let's talk about japanese styles now yeah now they have put a lot of focus on it and you know they would usually link up 50 50 do some adjustments right adjustment in position to gain advantage and then they would have one or two throws that they were masters at right and that sort of style puts a shelf life, if you're just relying on crazy, fast, explosive Uchimata, let's say, with your leg going to the ceiling, you know, in a 6 p.m. sort of configuration,

where the leg is pointing at the sky. That stuff, like, if that's what you do, you know, you're not going to be able to do that past a certain age. Right, right. For instance, another one like if abe is a sode sanagi uh if he dislocates his right shoulder he's not gonna be able to rely on that kind of a style anymore he doesn't completely reinvent himself right he really puts his hip in and it's a crazy it's almost like a yeah contortionist almost yeah yeah so you know i've known people people in Japan who have an unbelievable taiyo.

And then they blew their knee out because someone rolled on top of their leg. And now they can't rely on that taiyo. And now, you know, everything that they've done, right? Not really gripping. Not really fighting for advantage. Putting two hands on and trying to explode into that taiyotoshi really fast. You know, whether it be timing based or, you know, reaction based uh now they can't do that anymore now they're done right so yeah japan does have that kind of a style right they've always been that kind of a thing

but more and more you see people increasing their range of judo for instance like maruyama who does you know tomonage yeah uchimaru also and then you have a guy like kato he's not so well known because he never really went international but he took second in all japan's i think he won all japan's too he's 90 guy and he is unbelievable and he does zero japanese judo i see zero you ever see him no i don't think i know kato that well yeah he went to kukushikan university oh okay he has a unbelievably weird style uh-huh and i went to i know no no i'm just kukushikan high school because i used to go there in the summers uh and then the coach would say hey this is a thing this is a system this is what you got to do you have to learn these throws and he'd say say, nah, not for me.

He's like, I'm not good at it. Yeah, he was such a maverick. And then he was never, you know, he got held back a little bit, right? In terms of like, I want to be on the team. I want to be on the competitive team. They're like, nah, nah. But he's like, I could win.

But because he wasn't so compliant, right? He went against the grain and he developed his own style, which is like unbelievable. Hisirwaza tomonage sumi gaeshi the stuff he does you've never seen anyone from japan do you know no one really knows him uh he has a couple of international medals right uh but you know he's a small 90 kilo guy right right he's kind of like me a small 100 kilo guy so he didn't have that much success internationally because he was very small

and he's not like insanely strong like some of these 100 kilo guys coming out of Japan, right? Right. So he didn't really rely on his, you know, physical strength and explosivity. You know, if you've got a guy like that in sort of the Japanese coaching staff,

you know, closer to the top and he starts teaching his students his specific style, you'll see a shift in right the type of athletes that come out and uh you know who knows i don't think he's gonna go that route but you know i would love to see something like that yeah but the but the uh you know the traditional japanese staccato went against was that upright uh 50 50 starting from 50 50 kind of relying on the techniques and whatnot right and i think the point is that uh like the emphasis of japanese judo style is that they don't try to rely much on strength really they try to rely on the

techniques and that the agility explosiveness i mean that's misleading too right because it's like uh you know strength and power is important right you linked up and you connect it to the person you have to be strong to pull them off balance right and technique uh and you know it does require a crazy amount of explosiveness to be able to dive into an uchimata right i mean right and so that uh like you said uh when you went to jeju island in korea and you also saw the french national team and you know france is another powerhouse of judo um we've we always have a lot of big visitors from france and they they have a completely different style of judo than we are used to so yeah did you get to train with the French national team there at all yeah yeah definitely Rene was on the mat which

is cool I'm not going there I'm a lot smaller than him and he didn't really want to go with me but you know the French French are very very educated in judo I think right it's just a very educated crowd I went to the world championships in France France, and it was a full stadium. It was like a full-blown sports. PAX stadium, yeah. Yeah, it was a PAX stadium. It was like a six-day event. Every day, they had different weight class competing, and the thing was full.

They had the prelims, and they had the finals, and they had the national singer. It was like a Mariah Carey of France coming out and singing. It was a crazy thing. And these kids would come up to you and ask for your autograph. They're just such a knowledgeable crowd in judo. And then if you're doing judo against a Frenchman, and then if you're kind of stalling, everyone would be like, oh, boo, Shido penalty, like the passive.

And they'll do that because they just know judo. They know the rules and whatnot, yeah. They know the rules. whatnot yeah they know the rules they know judo uh to become a judo coach you need like a degree there's like a judo degree a special training they have like uh if you're in high school you're doing like you know the graduation project right if you pick you know a sport you have to there's like a whole slew of it's a very very rich rich academic curriculum in France. And there's a million active competitors in France.

Right. So I think the judo Frenchmen are very, very knowledgeable. Right. I think you see a very wide range of judoka in France. Right. I just watched somebody – I can't remember who it was, a French person doing judo. And they were attacking from losing position very, very successfully going for sumi into monagi and stuff like that and winning position top high collar and going for osoto and harai and big throws right it was very it was incredible

right so the french have amazing judo yeah and that's amazing and you know we i i've made uh i've become good like really close friends with some of the people that came through from France to our dojo in New York City. And yeah, I've actually asked them like, oh my God, why is judo so popular in France? And then they kind of thought about it for a bit. And then they basically said, you know, the culture is apparently if you kind of peel off the exterior the french culture has a lot of common elements with japanese culture so apparently things like judo works work well with the french culture and they just like they really like it apparently french people grew up watching anime too a lot of anime really yeah i didn't know that yeah tivo told me that tivo told me yeah like he

did he do they eat sushi in france i think i've i've seen sushi restaurant i when i whenever i visit france i'm not i i don't try to go find a sushi place but i'm sure they do yeah i know in italy when i went to italy which is another judo powerhouse uh they have their uh favorite thing to do with sushi is um uh all you can eat sushi so you pay like i don't know 30 euros whatever and then you just you just keep ordering sushi like the raw fish and all that that was yeah yeah that was good dish well yeah that's the French, another strong powerhouse. And you're in Jeju Island in Korea. So I'm sure you ran into some Korean players. Yeah, the Koreans are very good, man.

Very good. They have a lot of drop Seinagi, Korean Seinagi. They love the go under the opponent kind of a thing. Right. And I think a lot of these styles get developed by, you know, a certain champion that needs to find a solution to a problem. Right. For instance, I have that one-handed attack system where I do lots of Ippon Senagi, lots of one-handed attacks in conjunction with my gripping system. So I attack the Ippon Senagi. I show the one-arm techniques, diving gosodas, whatever it is, in order to get my second hand on to then to do second two-handed judo.

Right. To fight for position while I attack and threaten the one-handed attacks so that people feel threatened. Therefore, I'm more likely to be able to put my second hand on. Right. And that was sort of a solution for me when I went to Japan back 10, 15 years ago. Japan's whole thing, you know know they used to always preach this like

put two hands on the gi two hands on the gi more control better throws but don't attack with one hand on the gi so I would put two hands on the gi and I would get bombed

every time right so it became this really uncomfortable thing and I wanted to grip fight and if I lost that grip fighting match I was going to get bombed

right so the solution was you know while I was grip fighting and if I lost that grip fighting match, I was going to get bombed. Right. So, the solution was, you know, while I was grip fighting, go for Ippon Senagi. Half the time,

it wouldn't work, obviously, you know, because you can't throw everyone with every throw, but I would be very offensive and then try to put the second Hanan and then if I got uncomfortable, I could cut that hand off and then go for one-handed attacks.

Again, like back in the day, it was like Kataguruma or a leg pick. Right. You know? So, Korea also, I feel, this is just a guess, right? You probably had a champion coming through the ranks, and they were a little bit shorter than some of their international follies.

And then they started developing this drop style, and they had huge amounts of success. And then they won, and then everyone looked up, and was like, I want to do that too. And then they started teaching everybody. And before you know it, everybody started doing a similar style of judo. Yeah. I think that's just my guess. I think that's really what happened. Because when I learned judo in Korea,

they really start with Morote Seoi Nage. They teach that first. know um uh they teach that first and then the way they teach it is they let they have you just squat all the way down just butt down yeah you know and then that they say oh that's how you do it how you do more to say when i get just squat all the way and then do it and then um so it's it's i i can't remember which world champion really started but even like jeon gi-young who is uh i think he fought you know at kosei when he was coming up as a hundred kilo world champion even a guy or top he is actually tall but he would actually do seven nages on other people and i think um and also i wrote a another another thing Korean people do is the one-handed tai otoshi, like off-grip one-handed tai otoshi, right?

Yeah. And that came about because I wrote an article on your blog, actually, about Lee Won-hee, who was a gold medalist and like a world champion back in early 2000s, he had to figure, he was a very cerebral guy. And then he said he was a righty. And then when someone was pinning his right hand, he didn't know how to, he had to figure out a solution to, because he said the European players were so strong that he couldn't break the grip. So he said, let's just use it to do a left-handed

one-hand taiyaki and then now everyone does it in korea everybody does it yeah everyone and you know you have to expect them to do that right right exactly even if you you know if i'm going out there and initial hand right side versus right side i get that sleeve hand like yes i'm gonna do something uh they're already going for one right you you've caught me with that one yeah but but i can't i can't really do that at kbi anymore because a lot a lot of people just expect it now but it's one of those things yeah it works once and then it's like okay if everyone knows it you know but it opens up a lot of other stuff yeah makes them you know hesitate right they lose tempo yeah right which is uh which is what you want to do with that yeah i think it actually for me works i i hit them more in the competitions than i hit in randori actually

yeah i mean you can't expect that if everyone knows what you do yeah exactly and another thing that another type of uh technique that a lot of koreans do isoi nage or the Korean seoi nage they call it and I think it was really popularized by Choi Minho which was the gold medalist in Beijing I think and he did he could go he was he was a very strong 60 kilo guy and once he just had that one sleeve grip and he could just twist and then just pull you off the ground because he was so strong he was amazing yeah i mean i heard a rumor that he could deadlift 500 pounds yeah something like that weight of 130 yeah i don't know if i i don't know if i believe that that was his thing though he was he he actually did power judo although he was a as a uh in 60 kilo and another thing now you can't do it anymore but in korea the the traditional style of wrestling

is called shirim and it's uh it's getting popular more nowadays apparently but uh it's a hip hip wrestling basically you you have a belt around your hip and then you know wrestling yeah it's a hip hip wrestling basically you you have a belt around your hip and then you yeah it's a bell wrestling you you start with the bell uh by grabbing each other's belts and then you stand up and you try to throw and because of that there's a lot of like pickup uh style like the kind of like taekwondo in yeah so korean people used to do a lot of taekwondo like they'll just go for the rules change yeah but you can't see that anymore because of the rule change yeah that's the beauty of judo right because it's a global thing and it has one system one rule set it's ruled by the ijf and some people say oh they don't do leg grabs this and that and all these different things but it's a

great thing that it's a unified sport across the world right yeah if you do judo you do the same essentially same in air quotes judo uh in germany beijing you know cuba puerto rico like you're doing the same sport right uh and of course each country like we're talking about now have different styles but that's amazing amazing thing right i mean and then people could take their own uh native styles and then influence their national style of judo which is like uh what a cool thing yeah you know i really think so yeah and uh belt wrestling is amazing man yeah it's like uh similar to we should do it yeah i know it's i i i love doing that like it so my brother and I whenever we go to the beach we don't

bring a belt out to do sit-ups so we would just grab each other's swimming trunks and then just go for it and it's really fun and there's some if people are interested you can really look things up on YouTube and yeah they

oh for sure the Mongolian wrestling if people are interested, you can really look things up on YouTube. Oh, for sure. That's a good idea. Yeah. The Mongolian wrestling, Korean serum wrestling, and people should definitely check out Sumo, too. Sumo's amazing, man. It's so underrated.

Anybody can play it. You just draw a circle on the ground. Right. It's like, all right, I'm going to push you out of the circle

or make you touch the floor. Right. You know what I mean? It's such a simple role. It's such a weird rep because, you know, they associate it with the fat guys with the diapers and all this stuff but the mawashi you know you grab it and then it's like something else to grab on except you know you got the underhooks and the physical like

greco-roman style thing it's a fun fun sport it's great to watch i would love to see like a sumo that's done you you know, outside of Japan. That's not in the, with the culture of like eating and getting big and the heavier, the better, you know, the fitter, the better sumo league. You know, that would be a very interesting thing to see, right? Just like, yeah, bodybuilder looking dudes doing sumo. I know that I've seen a short documentary about that. Like Americans doing sumo. Yeah. There's a sumo champion from Mongolia. I mean, obviously, he grew up in Japan doing sumo from an early age.

But he moved here. I think he lives in California. And then he was teaching people. And yeah, I think there's the Women's League and Men's League. They have a place in the United States. Yeah. What I think is tough is like if you have sumo culture in Japan, which is very, very strict and you have these sumo stables, they call it, right? And you're working up the hierarchy and the lowest guys have to take care of the higher guys and they have to cook and then they have to eat last and they have all these cultural different things.

And then, you know, even if they want to be sort of innovative and be like you know what i don't want to gain all this weight i just want to get jacked so i'm going to lift weights instead and not do all the traditional sumo trading stuff like it's very very difficult to do right right because of the way the hierarchy works and then once they learn it like that and then they come to the united states and they're like this is the way i learned it this is the way i'm going to teach it now all of a sudden it doesn't really cater to the taste of the western people right now it's not going to really pick up and it's not going to be that marketable you know what i mean which is sort of a shame a little bit right you know but yeah it's pretty cool how that kind of a thing you know infiltrates uh judo styles and yeah you know uh

yeah definitely really really interesting not that i'm not saying like sumo affects the Japanese judo style. Because in Japan, the judo is like its own thing. Right. You know what I mean? It's already a big, yeah, one thing. Yeah, it's like its own separate situation. Yeah. You know what I mean?

But if judo was very infantile in Japan, right? If it wasn't as developed and sumo was much more popular. Right. Then you would see much more of a sumo style judo i think yeah and i think sometimes they train together like you hear you know not a lot of japanese kids want to do sumo now i just don't right so if you do like go to any university and you look into the sumo team there's not many people in there i see unless you go to a top school right but i'm saying like for instance like kakushikan university uh-o team, like five or six kids or something, judo team, you know,

hundreds of the best, you know, all state champions. And those guys are all going to beat those sumo guys in sumo. Right. You know what I mean? Because it's a different type of an athlete. Right. Right. You know?

So. And you see, you see that this kind of, I think the point about judo being infantile in a certain country with and then this huge folk style wrestling is more popular and then those wrestlers getting fed into the judo system it's i i always i've been always fascinated by georgia the country of georgia yes yeah and they do something completely different because of the style of folk wrestling they have yep yeah they they can only grab this vest right yeah something so that so they go uh one hand on the lapel and then over over the back grip right yes and that's it that's as a google it as i go right yeah chidoba

you you've made some videos and you've taught us a little bit and i know some of us at kbi do that style because you you i think that's a it's a such an unorthodox grip i didn't even try to venture into that because i knew that i was like i thought for myself it was too late for me to integrate such a different style into my game yeah so i i only learned how to defend against it yeah the you know the the range is a little bit different it's a little bit closer but you know it kind of looks like the same similar vest from mongolian wrestling you know it's very very similar right and they both have that lineage from oh yeah the thing right yeah and then you know i love here's a

here's an example right you type in georgian wrestling and then uh you know it's mostly just regular folk style wrestling freestyle wrestling you see you know and that's uh and that kind of style is affected too but i think that the chitaa affects, it's a lot closer to Judo. Judo, yeah. Because of the vest, the grappling. So it influences Judo a little bit more. And those guys are extremely successful in the Judo world. And they have a very, very interesting pickup sort of style.

Right. And different gripping scheme, which is like very, very tricky if you haven't been exposed to it you know we had a bunch of georgians come to the right kvi yeah you know and every time they come i'm like oh man this is gonna be a tough one yeah they're they yeah they mean they are very strong and you know they they're they know their style and they use it very effectively yeah and i hate people who say like oh it's not technical it's all strength it's all power it's like no it's technique too you know it's very very technical like just you know just because it doesn't look like the judo that you do you know it's not not technical or it's all strength right you know like i hate you know that kind of a mentality you know you have to keep

an open mind everything you do and grappling a lot of it it's technique too you know and sometimes you need to force your way into stuff force your way out of stuff you know it's part of the game that's part of the strategy as well right you know what i mean and then being able to gauge your gas tank if you're trying to force everything you're gonna get tired really right right and then using that sparingly and using that as a part of your overall strategy, you know, very, very important. Yeah. And I know, yeah, like it's a good point because I never, I actually had that thought too. Like when I saw the Georgian style look like, oh man, they're just forcing their way into things.

But it's really not when you started teaching it a little bit. And then when I saw Georgians visiting our gym, you can do, there's so much subtlety in that grip. Yeah. It's very nuanced. You know, a lot of it is feel, right? And a lot of these judo cultures,

for instance, like Russia, you know, compared to Japan. In Japan, you do tons and tons and tons of Rondori. In Russia, they don't do that much Rondori. They do a lot more like slow playing, slow grappling, situational. And then if you put yourself in a Georgian grip, you know, the counter to that, obviously obviously is you grab the tricep so the georgian grip versus the tricep around the waist

grip you know and then they just sort of play in there and naturally they intuitively pick up the nuances of like a person shifting weight this way so i go this and i go that i block this leg in a certain way to you know take the person off their base right all these different types of things are you know part of the technique that's a huge part of the technique you know what i mean so you can't just discredit that and be like oh it's all right because it's really not i think it's you know what i mean these things all add up i think it's just a beauty of judo being an international sport and you just you can you can see how the whole sport evolves as more countries join in and you know now you see as you know japanese americans korean americans we learned the georgian style a little bit

you know i also know you know i've i've learned things from my french friends you know what they do and all i think this uh it's a good thing this diversity is a good thing you know that you the sport you never it will never stay stale in a way you know like never stagnant yeah stagnate yeah it's amazing stuff man you know if you look at russia yeah we're talking about you know the slavic kind of countries you know um they have they have sambo which is uh another one they just take the two most popular styles of grappling right judo and wrestling and they said okay let's combine them together judo top wrestling bottom yeah yeah wrestling shorts judo

gi top all right we'll call it a day you know i know uh very practical in a way arm bar uh leg locks we don't like chokes though yeah you know it's like they're all right they don't they don't choke right that's that's such a yeah they don't i mean maybe now they do i'm not sure do you know that combat sambo do you know the rationality behind that the choke of not no not teaching chokes no maybe they think it's like it takes too long to uh submit someone because you do have to hold if i don't know is that a real thing i'm not But I mean, in a way, joint locks come on faster than chokes. Yeah. Maybe that's why. That's true.

I thought you knew and you were telling me. No, no, no. This is a complete guess. But it seems like they're going for the efficiency and whatnot. Well, I always thought Samba was a national sport of Russia. I just Googled it. It's saying bandy which is like hockey.

Oh, I mean they're always good at ice hockey. Why does everyone tell me Sambo is a national sport of Russia? I mean there can be multiple national sports sambo is popular yeah sambo is crazy popular you know what i love about some of these countries though like for instance uh when i you know went to brazil i would go to these training camps and sometimes these local

sports gymnasiums where they would have like all these different sports right and you have like uh it's like a sports complex right of the gymnastics team training and then you would go there for the judo team there was a weightlifting segment you know it's like the olympic training center you know so i went to this place sojipe and then uh then when we were doing judo in there it was not all judo it was like half judo and half brazilian jiu-jitsu right and like that is amazing it's like all right we're gonna do one round standing one round on the ground one round standing one round on the ground. One round standing, one round on the ground. You know what I mean? And then you get a national champ over there slash world medalist like Flavio Canto, who

was a Brazilian jiu-jitsu champ and a judo champ. You have this crazy hybrid style. And once he's the coach and once he's teaching grappling, everybody's going to have that hybrid style. You know what I mean? So it's almost like that's how the national style of judo sort of gets molded little by little. you know what i mean so it's almost like that's how you know the national style of judo sort of gets molded right by a little you know what i mean and sambo is a great example of that right right because wrestler wrestling is immensely popular in russia you know

so i think it's really cool yeah the so speaking of the you know a coach driving like a champion driving the national style like it's kind of now come back home like the united states um what's yeah i i know now you know with success travis stevens and kella harris and jimmy pedro all these players and they've definitely had a huge influence on how judo is practiced here. And you yourself, too, you know, you're starting your own system and whatnot. So what do you think about American style of judo? Do you think there's a lot of influence? I mean, America is a huge wrestling country.

We have our own folk style wrestling, which is a little bit different than freestyle. Yeah. So things like that, do you think those things come up or? I, you know, that's very interesting. There's a couple of segments to the answer.

I don't think wrestling affects judo so much. You know, they did a little bit back in the day, but the American sort of way of life have a very combative way of like judo versus wrestling judo versus bjj they had that so there wasn't a lot of collaboration in between the different styles all right so there wasn't a lot of people cross training you know only recently i think people are having a much more open mind and you see dojos that teach judo and brazilian jiu-jitsu, you know, those types of crossovers

hasn't really, you know, come to fruition yet. You know what I mean? But I will say Jimmy Pedro, who was an Olympic bronze medalist. Yeah. Was he bronze? Yeah, bronze. World champion.

And he had a dojo in Wakefield, Massachusetts, Jimmy Pedro's Judo Center, you know, and I used to train there and it was a national training center. And all the best athletes in the United States would go over there and train full time or part-time or whatever it was and they do national training camps and you know because Jimmy had such success in Judo and a lot of the you know I guess the last two Olympic medals were from there right Kayla Harrison's from there Travis from there and they all earned Jimmy Pedro's Judo system right he's gripping heavy and there was a heavy because he felt like oh you know

what if we went with the japanese linked up 50 50 we'll never win that match right so just diligently grip if the japanese have two hands on you strip the grip you know just diligently grip being in better shape drag him to the ground and beat him in Nwaza. Someone goes for a bailout, goes for Sumigayashi, you split the legs, you pass, and you pin him. Learning that juji from top real good, chilling it over and over and over. So that sort of is shaping American Judo, I think. And they even came up with this thing called American Judo System.

They have a website, video, and all that stuff. You know what I mean? And I think that is, if they keep going, and if the people who have just recently succeeded so jb pejo was like the first generation of doing that yeah and kayla and travis and those guys are the second generation if they keep coaching and teaching judo they stay in judo and they influence the next stage then you know and if those guys have more success i think it really will start shaping the overall look and feel of american judo right but even now

because judoka from all across the country who don't have the luxury of training with the best guy or training at a big dojo they cross train in brazilian jiu-jitsu and they wrestle right and now it's much more of a thing so those guys are going to naturally have uh better nirwaza than sort of the average judo practitioner internationally right so i think this is just my guess i think down the line you know you're really going to see americans starting to take shape uh and having an american judo style that's specific to america uh but you know they're never going to have success internationally unless the governing bodies really push and support these athletes. Right. And then that's another thing.

Americans have some of the best athletes in the world. You look at any sort of professional sports and it's like, how come we don't have the same athletes in judo? And of course, there's not a lot of people doing judo. Why is that? You know, and of course, there's not a lot of people doing judo, right? Why is that? You know, and a lot of it has to do with culture and the different organizations that are behind judo, you know, and the people in it. And once we're able to sort of change that and, you know, revolutionize, you know, the training methods and, right, the right people get on board and, you know, bring more people into the sport.

Then, you know, you could have a lot of success and then you could see the american style judo really take place because not only are you teaching this new system you're teaching it to great athletes right we need to pull great athletes right it's too easy to lose the super athlete to basketball or soccer or baseball so why wouldn't you play baseball you know you make a lot more money yeah money and you know you get to join a team like if you're in high school like you get to you know hang out with your friends like what are you doing this you know oh i'm playing baseball it's like dude i'm playing baseball too yeah you know as opposed to like i'm gonna go to judo practice it's like okay that like uh yeah you know you kind of sort of have to be a

maverick you have to be something a little bit unique in yourself to be able to go into you know not do the after school school provided you know the traditional american pastimes right that that that's a good point because all these countries that have great success on the international stage, Japan, Korea, France, Mongolia, all these countries have a structured system on how to bring up this, how to recruit the athletes and then grow them and then keep them in the sport. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure all the different countries have their challenges too yeah right but i mean you look at japan judo is something you do you know if you have judo parents they're going to put you in judo local elementary school programs and you know middle school scholarships and high school scholarships and right it's a there's a path right clear path to like you go through these systems and then you could be a professional judoka right right and

when you're a professional judoka you know you get paid to do judo and then you know if you win an olympic medal you know right right there's career opportunities right there's a clear path like a pipeline to the career your future is clear as opposed to when you're doing judo in the united states and you're sacrificing i don't know going to college or something like that you know what is your your path to success in your you know right 20s and 30s there's none you know and that's what you see it when you go to a national training center it's like what do you want to do after your judo career right most of the time the answer is i don't know i'm just going for it yeah you know and it's it's a risky proposition yeah and i know you know korea definitely has it's not doesn't have a as

strong of a support structure as japan does for judo judokas but they do have a they do provide a career path in that like the most famous judo college in korea is called yongin and you can go to yongin university and then you can uh you can major in judo and you can also study like securities uh personal security and whatnot so a lot of people actually go it's like become bodyguards or like security experts and whatnot um so there is a path forward if you don't even if you even if you don't make it as a olympic athlete and whatnot and i think that's very important in that way you know i think on the biggest reason for american success in on the world stage for all other sports is NCAA I think because because if

you play these NCAA sports throughout your childhood you can go to college for free a lot of times if you're good yeah and I know like in college and they're all these Olympians are a lot of times American Olympians are college students that get to train in the best facilities that these huge colleges, state colleges, private colleges can provide. Yeah. And they let you take time off for the Olympics and whatnot. So in that way, do you think maybe getting judo integrated into NCAA? I don't know if that's possible or not if there's any i don't think it's possible because we don't have the personnel to support that i think right i know and even if you said okay here's let's just throw out a random number right you're

paying sixty thousand dollars a year for these coaches now let's hire a hundred coaches across the all the best universities in in the States. Do we have 100 good coaches? I see. No, we don't. I'm not saying I'm not trying to talk bad about the judo coaches out there, but for them to teach at a university level and to keep everyone safe and then try to produce athletes. We're talking about producing international athletes now. Not just teaching judo as an educational curriculum.

Here's Osoto. Here's Taiyo. I'm sure tons of people could do that well. But to coach these young athletes coming in a lot of the times with not that much judo experience and having them do judo safely, it's a big challenge. It's a huge, huge challenge. And I think what happened over the course of the last 20, 30 years is that people who learn judo in another country, like for instance, Japan, we did it like this, you know, we had 100 people on the mat, and we just made them do live rounds for two hours straight. And then you killed each other. And if you got injured, you got injured. And if you can handle it, you don't belong on the mat. That sort of mentality really

did leak over here. I see. I think that really kills the sport because people get injured. People can't sustain that level of training. You you know having a really knowledgeable coach that's able to differentiate instruction for each athlete based on their athletic aptitude i think that's very very important to grow the sport period to keep people in the sport right the the context is different for japan i guess because there is so much different so much different yeah yeah yeah i mean uh you know you saw with the old japanese people it's like oh man when i was young in japan like they would hit us with sticks and beat us over the head you know with bamboo you know and they would leave welts on our back if we didn't

do it right we're not supposed to drink water because it's soft right we talked a little bit about yeah yeah last episode check that out uh and you know you bring that over here and then you're doing that in states who would ever pay money to come and do that right you know what i mean the stakes are different the context is different you know so right now they're like all right we're gonna have judo in a you know university ncaa i don't think you could do it i see yeah i don't think you actually maybe you know if you get some of the i don't know. It might have to be a full-blown. I think there needs to be a grassroots system. Right, concerted effort to grow the base of the good coaches.

Kind of start with the local levels, and then eventually the sport has to be popular so that the university would want to, colleges would want to. They're doing this already. They're doing this like. Yeah. Right? They're doing this like, oh, grassroots judo this and grassroots judo that. It just doesn't work because the people who are in judo running these organizations all have full-time jobs. Right. They have full-time jobs.

It's not judo. Right, right. Right? That makes it very difficult. If you have nine to five and then now all of a sudden you have to create a curriculum and train staff and train people, it's almost impossible to do. We need more people doing judo full-time teaching judo full-time judo is their career there needs to be more money in judo because money you know you have to have money to be able to hire people right right and then this is the thing it's like oh i don't really care about money we're not going to do a contract at the dojo. Everyone gets Judo for free. That mentality has to change.

Because if you have a bleeding business, which is losing money every month, and now you have to work a 9 to 5 in order to support that bleeding business, you get there. You're tired from the 9 to 5. You're bleeding money. You're kind of resentful. You're pissed off. And now you're using that dojo just as a mean to beat on your students. Who's going to, and then you're going to ask that guy to come up with a curriculum to help the grassroots judo movement?

It's impossible. But if you have a successful judo business, and then you have 200 students and the dojo's making money, and that's all they do, and they don't have a job in the morning, and they could dedicate time to creating a curriculum and helping other people do what they do then now you're talking a different ball game yeah you know what i mean and i think it all starts with getting rid of that judo

should be free mindset right brazilian jiu-jitsu isn't free taekwondo isn't free right crossfit isn't free soul cycle isn't free why not Judo right keep the money within the Judo community so you could pay people to do it full time then you could start really building and developing

and then having people sort of spread this way right right and then you know once that happens you know

there's more money in Judo more people doing it full time as a career more people teaching it and then you could sort of have this collaborative effort. And then you learn from people who have done it already on the international stage,

right? For this example, let's just say like Jimmy Pedro or Travis, or one of those guys, or even me, you know, who did it to a certain level of success. Right.

And then that could really sort of shape it. And then, you know, you have enough people sort of feeding into this NCAA beast if we could, you know, have enough. Right. Right. To do it. Right.

That's sort of the dream, you know, and I would love to see judo go in that direction. Yeah. I don't know, man. Maybe not in this lifetime. Who knows? It's a challenging task that needs a lot of concerted effort from everyone. Like, you know and and you're right and uh it's then only then will we find uh like this american judo identity i guess that

yeah um and it'll be i mean we'll we'll dedicate an episode on this topic in the future it's an interesting topic and yeah the it's we have all uh like we have discussed a lot of international a lot of countries around the world have done it differently but they uh you know there are multiple ways to success and i'm we're hoping that america could find its uh american judo can find its own path to success definitely yeah definitely i would love to see that and i would love to be a part of that yeah you too yeah right yeah and hopefully this kind of thing you know podcast doing a podcast yeah maybe it'll help out in the popularity of judo in a way yeah hope so do we have any uh did we miss any countries let's see we didn't cover every country no cover georgia

russia france japan korea all right i'm trying to think of any maybe i can't go to uh Let's see. We didn't cover every country. We didn't cover Georgia, Russia, France, Japan, Korea. I'm trying to think of any. Maybe you could go to, we talked a lot about Asian countries and European countries, and then we only talked about the United States and Americas. Maybe you talked about Brazil. How about Cuba? How about Cuba? Cuba's great.

Cuba's super athletic, those guys. I've never met a Cuban judoka who wasn't just a savage right just unbelievable athlete um i don't know why it's but when you get a cuban you're like man this guy's right i fought the spain who was a world champ and boy was he uh he was a monster because if you if you see cuba is one of the countries that has most medals from judo yeah and it's right after i'm looking at this wikipedia article olympic games cuba is in the fourth after japan france and south korea wow and cuba has a great wrestling too yeah so i think i would love to know more um about their. Maybe they have a folk style, like wrestling too. Maybe

that was influenced. Because it seems like they are really good at these grappling sports for some reason. Or it could be that their national governing body supports the sports world. Yeah.

You're on the national team in cuba you right taken care of right you live pretty good yeah you know what i mean yeah anyway um so yeah so the i'm uh i hope this uh this episode uh kind of introduce you guys to uh the different styles of judo around the world. And then we encourage you to, you know, check these countries out and then kind of see them for yourself. I mean, now these athletes are all on YouTube and you can kind of try to see the different styles of how do Georgians grip,

how do Koreans fight, how do japanese athletes fight and all that and then you know i think everyone should take that in and then just don't um you know try to incorporate a lot of these elements together and into their own judo yeah yep yeah it's important man yeah lots of different styles of judo out there. Go check it all out. That's the beauty of the internet now. You can go on YouTube and check out anything and learn anything. But make sure you consult with your local judo professional. Very important.

Yeah. Right? Don't want to be going and doing some head bombing, head diving, Uchimata Georgian style and you've never done it before and you blow out your partner's shoulder. Right. Consult with your teacher first save this essay for us all right cool uh any uh any parting words for the everyone

please check out my youtube channel as usual right uh yeah that's it like share subscribe yeah all that stuff podcast is going to come out every Monday. Been live streaming. I missed on Tuesday, but I've been kind of doing it. Thank you, everyone, for listening and the support. It has been great. If you have any comments, reach out to us. We have Instagrams.

We have YouTubes. We have Facebooks. We have it all. Thank you very much, everyone. Cool. Yeah. And then thanks for listening and stay tuned for the next episode guys yep