The Shintaro Higashi Show - Martial Arts Cultures

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

Martial arts are always developed within the context of broader culture, and they always contain elements from the broader culture. Judo is no exception. In this episode, Shintaro and Peter talk about how Japanese and Korean cultures have influenced Judo and how we can develop a healthy Judo culture in America. Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. First and foremost, Peter, huge congratulations on being a PhD candidate. Oh, thank you. Yeah, that was a huge achievement for me. It just means that I won't get kicked out of the program now. Yeah, I never even knew what that really meant. I figured you were in PhD program or not in a PhD program, but now you're solidified your spot. You're good, right? Yeah, I'm a candidate now i can work on my thesis basically nice nice so all the coursework is done and if you want to master's out you can master's out right yeah that's right yeah i love that word mastering

right yeah that's the term people use you know a lot of times if people fail at becoming a candidate they master out just take a master's degree and then quit being a phd yeah you're entering in order to get a phd but you're like you know what i'm good with just a master's degree i'm out yeah right a lot of people do that and that's not a bad thing i know a guy that did that in economics and then yeah came to my mba program which is not as legit as a PhD program in economics. No, it's just not for everyone. Sometimes it's better to get a master's and do something cooler like getting an MBA and then starting a business. Yeah, I guess so.

So like a PhD culture in martial arts, there is also a very specific type of culture and that's what we want to talk about today right martial arts culture different martial arts culture and we're probably going to focus mostly on japanese judo and maybe korean judo maybe a little bit of bjj like things we are familiar with yeah oh yeah definitely i can't really speak on behalf of russian judo culture but i will tell you in russia they don't smile do you know this at all no no this is a real thing about russian culture it's like if you're smiling at strangers people think there's something wrong with you ah well that's it's kind of like i you know there was a culture shock for me when i first moved to america when people on the street will say hi to

each other not in new york not in new york not in new york yeah you go to the south or something people like hey how y'all doing it's like midwest too yeah but not in new york city that's right new york different places different cultures but yes definitely martial arts culture is very unique because we bow and there is this rigid hierarchy that's embedded in the system right and a lot of it comes from the japanese culture itself yeah japanese culture itself and people it makes its way into regular pop culture too i have a black belt in something i'm a white belt at something right so that's a thing right. Yeah. And we did an episode about that. Right. So in your opinion, what would be like, like as a newcomer to judo, say a Westerner,

what would he or she find most shocking in the judo culture? I mean, I think bowing first is a kind of a unique concept. Right. Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit people bow is uh it means something you know the bow right in so many ways and people use it as it's all this is a very respectful thing i will never bow to another human being or i don't want to bow to this and that but in japan it's a form of greeting it's no different than fist bumping someone you know you bow right in america you nod to people like yo what's up right yeah like the chin yeah what's up man like just acknowledging

the other person there you don't do that in japan you bow right you bow your head yeah oh hey what's up man what's going on how you doing right so that made its way over into the judo culture for sure because that's what people do you know it's not different than and i think people put too much merit i'm like oh judo you bow it's like no people bow in japan all the time right you bow to your teacher you know you bow to your friend like what's up man how you doing so you think westerners tend to make too much out of bowing yeah i made a video white belt bows too much on my oh yeah i love that that was so funny yeah yeah and i didn't mean to make people feel self-conscious about the bow right yeah it wasn't about that and the bell is a respectful thing too you know it's a real thing

like degree of bowing like you bow deeper if you're i don't want to say inferior but if you're lower on the hierarchy right yeah and then if you do something messed up and you get caught You know you go down to your knees and put your forehead on the ground the lowest right now, right? That's You know throw away your pride you're really really apologizing You know celebrities in Japan and Korea to there they do that a lot to apologize like press conference for apologies Yes, they do that. yeah specific yeah could you imagine that you've committed a crime we need you to formally apologize and you have to get up in front of everyone put your forehead on the desk and then bow yeah and then show how sorry you are sorry

you are yeah and the thing is most of these guys are faking it you know but it's a malady but it's important in the in korean and japanese culture yeah i think someone did that recently i forget who yeah i forget it was like some celebrity yeah was it lalisa from black bank i think she's good oh i know the there's a netflix show called singles inferno have you watched it no it's basically like bachelor in paradise basically like some five women five men they live in on the island together it's a match-up show right and one of the women uh it was exposed that she was carrying uh fake gucci and like fake fake Gucci and like fake Prada Chanel bags whatever yeah and then she she relied that they were real mmm and then she kind of got canceled so she

made an apology video that's another thing you know YouTube influencers in Korea they make apology videos oh interesting so that she wrote up she took down all her videos she wrote a little like script and she kept saying, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being fake. I will never do that. You know, kind of like that. So this kind of stuff, these cultural things from Asia leaks into martial arts

because naturally the majority of history judo has been done in japan martial arts right with japanese backgrounds have been developed in japan japan so naturally those people who get good in that culture come over the united states and then you have to bow onto the mat you have to bow to your opponent you have to bow here bow there about wherever right so now all of a sudden that gets embedded so how how do you think we should approach that as as americans like like in the i think your white belt video kind of touched on that like what's the right way to approach it you know this is a tough one yeah you definitely don't want to overdo it i guess just be use your best common sense yeah that's really what it comes down to yeah and there's things

about the bowing that in that video it's sort of like a spoof video, but like bowing to me, you know, at the bus stop or the restaurant or something like that. And it's very weird. You know what I mean? It's like, okay, you know, we're not in Japan. We're not in the dojo. This is just me. I'm a human being.

You know, it's walking down trying to get a burrito or something. You know, like you're bowing to me. And then, you know, from Western eyes, Western perspective, perspective it's like why is this man bowing to you right that's that's weird weird yeah what kind of cult thing are you running cult leader yeah that's right yeah and you know this hierarchical stuff in japan it's very real right there's senpai kohai yeah korea too the same words actually same idea yes and you know there's senpai kohai yeah korea too the same words actually same idea yes and you know there's senpai kohai and everything usually it's age related so yeah if you're older than someone you're immediately the senpai you have to speak in a formal way in spanish they have formal informal

language in japanese too i'm sure they have that in kore well. Yeah, same. Same thing. Age difference. You have to speak formally to older people. You can't really be friends, really. No. And it's from all of Japan, right? It's like corporate culture in Japan, too. It's time-related. It's seniority-based. You get promotions and you get pay increases based on time within the company.

So this really works as a system as a whole but when you're doing it in a judo context you bring it over to the western world and now all of a sudden you know i'm your senpai because i've been at the dojo for two years more than you and i'm wearing a green belt and you're in a yellow belt you have to clean because i say so it just doesn't work no no yeah right so that's where it gets kind of weird so that i guess that's another balanced thing i mean there you could bring some in as in like you know i'm sure there's a concept of senpai's taking care of the kohais yeah you know like in sunbaes in korea taking care of the fubes so i think that kind of beneficial aspect could be brought in, but at the same time, you don't want to be mean to the lower people.

So I try not, I never use Senpai Kohai or anything like that. I don't know. I try not to even use Mentor Proje because then it automatically sets this thing. But if a lower belt is going with a higher belt, I will tell the lower belt saying, hey, use this person as your guide.

This person's your guide. He knows a little bit more. You're not trying to compete with them. And you probably heard me say this before, but if you're a higher belt, you essentially have to be their guide. You're not senpai, and then they buy into this whole

medical kohai. Carry my bag. Carry my bag. Kohai has to be here before the dojo to clean, and then they have to leave after we leave in order to clean up after like we don't need to be doing that right now yeah you know and with age yeah in japan like you know you stick with something uh seniority across the globe right so right across the entire culture so if you're doing judo and someone's a couple years older than you

they have seniority there and then when you're hanging out outside they couple years older than you, they have seniority there. And then when you're hanging out outside, they're also older than you. Therefore, they have seniority there. And then they've been working in the workplace longer, they have seniority there. And it just kind of follows along always. Right. You're always moving along with your cohort. It's not weird because everyone's bought into it. Everyone's bought into it.

Everyone's a similar age. It's very rare that you get a 30-year-old person trying judo for the first time at the local though it's not not a real you know it's not a big thing in order to do that right so now you know you're in the united states there's a dojo this guy's 40 this guy's a lawyer that guy's a doctor or whatever it is he has a professional life he may be older than you but you've been at the dojo you know two years longer right like there's no reason why this person should be carrying your bags or cleaning up you know it's too easy to kind of go into that and it's really nobody's fault but the japanese senseis who came here to spread judo of course they're gonna put as much of the culture into teaching as possible because

it's their culture it's their judo system right so those people teaches these people and these people do it exactly the same that the sensei did and it just doesn't fare well optics wide wise right keeping that culture going when they're not from there i think it's important that like as you know we as a society like when we learn something from another country we have to look at it critically and then pick the right good parts and throw away the bad parts yeah i think that responsibility that you as an older person or more experienced person you are supposed to guy the less experienced person i think that's very good it is yeah i agree you can't be like you know look down on them or force people to do something that like chores and stuff here's another one they have senpai kohai

and then skibito here's another here's an interesting one it's not actually that interesting but you're at a very competitive university team right right you're a kohai because you're a freshman or a sophomore and even within your cohort you're at the bottom of the barrel in terms of ability to do judo well and this is like high-end competitive judo world we're talking about here okay right now all of a sudden you're not only at the bottom of the age barrel but your bottom of the barrel in terms of your cohort ability yeah you get picked up by the top senseis who have the best experience who are the best judo guys and now you automatically you've been assigned this role of being an assistant to give it though it's give it a yeah you have to

meet them at the dojo go run errands for them buy them juice well actually it's kind of an interesting thing because it is a paid sort of internship sort of a situation oh you get paid kind of like we'll get get some allowances or something it's like yo go get me a juice and then here's five bucks you can keep the change kind of ordeal oh it's like yes yes senpai right you go and get your juice, and then the best guys have two or three. Oh, my God. Yeah, so you're the king. You're a junior,

and you're at the top of your game on a full ride at a university at Kokushikan trying to make an Olympic team, and you got two or three of these guys running around for you. So you could come to morning training and be like, all right, listen, you go to all my classes and check in as me so i get credit for attending classes you go wash my gi and have my gi ready at practice and then you go get my

supplements protein shake creatine go and then you get to come to the dojos for fresh gi you get juice you take your supplements and then you train and then you can look over your shoulder and put your hand out and they will run over and put a beverage in your hand. They have to anticipate your needs. Kind of, yeah. And then every now and then you've got to be like, all right, man, thank you, guys. Here's $10. I see.

It's a horrible gig. Then you finish your practice. I'll never forget, man. I was there in Japan for training with my friend Anthony. You know Anthony. We're at one of these universities and we finished training and I'm hanging out with one of the top guys and he goes,

oh, Shintaro, I'm senpai because I'm older. Senpai, why don't you just leave your dirty gis with me? I'm like, no, man. I'm not like that. And he goes, no, no, seriously. Take your gi off in here. And then I took my gi off and I put it on the floor or just this little bench. And then he yells, hey!

And gets two of his little guys to run over. And then goes, today you're washing my gi, his gi, and Anthony's gi. And the kid's like, oh, yes, sir. And then he goes, like, you know, can I get you a drink? And I was like, I'm good, you know? Oh, they asked you, too? Yeah sir and then he goes like you know can i get you a drink and i was like i'm good you know oh they asked you to yeah and then beverage and then they were like they scurry away with the gi they wash it i come to practice the next morning and they have a nice gi folded in his cubby he has a little cubby like a locker oh wow it's gis and they just take it's all ready to go yeah but it's part of the culture right and i'm not saying that's good or bad it's like

being an indentured servant and i don don't really like that kind of stuff. But that's part of martial arts culture that fares really, really poorly when you bring it over to the Western world. It's even worse when people do this kind of stuff. Yeah, I can't even imagine that happening here. Oh, man, that's abuse. Liability. Yeah, that's abuse liability yeah that's abuse straight up you know and then these kids in hopes of doing this they get brought on by these guys and then the top dogs will teach them a little bit more

and then they get stronger and by the time their junior year comes around they get better so there's some give and take a little bit yes so there's monetary exchange and then there's also a little bit of skill exchange i remember this one kid was there. Boy, did he work out hard, man, during practice. Then it's his dream to climb out of that role, obviously. It's a cute thing. And then obviously try to make it. But you hear about this kind of stuff later down the line, some late bloomers.

That's the dream, right? 25, 26, makes an Olympic team. And somebody a couple years older is like, oh, this guy used to be my tschibito, used to wash my jeans. And then they're like, oh? 25, 26, makes an Olympic team and somebody a couple years older is like, oh, this guy used to be my tschibito, used to wash my geese and then they're like, oh yeah, senpai,

you know, thank you for your, you know, guidance or whatever it is. Service guidance, yeah, yeah. For mentorship, you know. Yeah, I see. But, you know,

more than, more often than not, it's not a good thing, I think. Did he make it out of it? I don't know. I haven't heard from him since. I don't know, man.

Oh, man. I mean, it must be tough because you have to run all these errands and you have to practice. I think, you know, even in Japan now, they're like trying to do away with this kind of stuff. Right. Because you don't want... Because a lot of it... Yeah. A lot of scandals lately, right?

Yeah, scandals. Yeah. Yeah. Like abuse. Yeah. Yeah, that's sort of the type of hierarchical culture and you know you see it bleeding over from generation to generation even if you look at brazilian jiu-jitsu lower belts are not supposed to ask higher belts for roles that was a thing

that i yeah i didn't yeah i didn't know that yeah it's considered rude but it's very interesting because yeah it has roots in judo and older jiu-jitsu but it started in brazil which i don't think is a very hierarchical culture as far as i know i don't really know like that about yeah yeah i'll tell you this though in japan everyone's very very punctual in brazil not as much and this like, you know, this is anecdotal. You know what I mean? But like a lot of my Brazilian friends, this is just my personal account. It's like, hey, man, let's meet at 3.

You know, get there, waiting for 30 minutes, 3.30. It's like, hey, man, where are you? He's like, I'm getting ready. It's like, man, I told you. In Japan, it's normal, right, to be there 20 minutes early to account for something that may potentially happen oh was that yeah has that been drilled into you too a little bit my dad's big on that he'll have a doctor's appointment right he'll get there at three and he'll just wait in his car for 20 minutes he'll go in and then you know wait 20 minutes and then 20 minutes before his actual

appointment he'll walk up and be like hey i, I'm ready for my appointment. I'm just here early. Oh. And then when he doesn't get called in in time, he's like, what the hell is this? You know? It's like now you're really surprised. You know? It's not. Right.

Right. He hates lateness. Now, my dad's never late. Ever. I see. That's from that old school. Yeah. You know?

So people will come into the dojo after work. Oh, subways were running late. They'd have their excuses. You know, there was a time at the dojo after work oh subways were running late they'd have their excuses you know there was a time at the dojo my dad would be like no get out of here go home if you can't make it on time i'm not i'm here on time you're not here on time you don't belong here you don't deserve to learn from me kind of uh you know without it being said explicitly like get out go right or kneel on the side for until you're ready to be what called onto the mat i must i must have been the troublemaker if you if i think later on he got loosened up but he got now it's very different now i'm very understanding it's like yeah you guys live in

new york guys careers subway is terrible subway is never on time i know one train yeah okay yeah yeah it's okay just come in whenever you feel like coming in. Right, right. But this is what will drive me nuts. If they come in late and they miss the instruction and they're asking, hey, what are we doing here and what's going on? Can you show me that thing? I'll be like, just because you're late

doesn't mean you should be taking up his time and wasting in time because he knows what he should be doing. You don't because you're late. Right. Yeah, you got to be respectful. Yeah but yeah i gotta be respectful yeah you gotta be so you gotta use your best common sense judgment which a lot of people lack common sense not a lot of people i shouldn't say that that's messed up but that's some uh you know martial arts culture

with the bowing the hierarchy the respect right there's a like i think you can't just take it as face value like you have to kind of see the whole context around those cultural practices like why people do it you know i mean there's a reason why yeah there's bowing and judo and there's a whole cultural background behind this so you can't yeah yeah pick and choose though don't put your belt on the floor that's another one never wash your belt is another one you ever heard of that one oh yeah never wash your belt yeah i never used to wash it until recently i i not wash it guys every day every time you wash it yeah i i put in the uh washer together with my ghee i know but like wash away all your knowledge why though maybe that's why my judo has been stagnant it started in sumo it's sumo culture because

the thing that they wear that people often mistaken for diaper is called the mawashi the black the thing that they wear around black the only thing that they wear when they're doing yeah it's called the mawashi right oh that's just piece of cloth oh that's what you're never supposed to wash that oh gosh i hope they wash it now i don't think they do in training you're not supposed to maybe oh my gosh okay but you know it became this thing right and when you're right dirty white belt is a black belt a black belt is a dirty white right right right everyone used to wear white keys white belt and then the keys would get dirty would wash it the belt is a dirty white right right right everyone used to wear white jeans white belt and then the geese would get dirty you would wash it the belt would stay dirty because you're not supposed to wash it the belt darker the darker the darker it gets with the more and more you train with sweat blood tears all this stuff right yeah so you're not supposed to wash

it because it's kind of like sandbagging it's like you have a clean white belt that you just freshly washed but you've been training for 10 years you're supposed to have a dirty belt and now you have a clean white belt that you just freshly washed, but you've been training for 10 years. You're supposed to have a dirty belt. And now you have a clean white belt that people think, oh, this guy must be a beginner. And then you smash him. That's not fair. That's not right. So what do you recommend?

Should I start washing my belt? I don't wash my belt. I never wash my belt ever. Oh, you do? You don't? Oh, okay. And there's a little bit of that superstition. Maybe if I wash my belt, I will forget a lot of this stuff and i won't be good anymore man you're you're not convincing me to not to

i see because i since i moved to michigan i stuck because now i have ready access to washer you know i did it before and uh in new york city i obviously but now i just threw it all together and then wash it. The belt doesn't get wrapped up in the middle of the twirling thing in the washing machine? I'm always paranoid about that. No, we had the drum one. How fancy.

But the one that you're talking about, the vertical one washes better. It's more powerful, I think. Yeah, i'm sure you guys have a lot of these sort of ideas in korean judo as well right yeah yeah i think the the i didn't okay so i have the caveat is that i didn't i hadn't done much judo in korea i mean obviously i'm korean i grew up half of my like i spent half of my life there but i when i did go and train that aspect of us in korea it's pronounced hyundai hubae because the usually you're right like just just like in

japan there are not that many hobbyists they're all these even the private dojos they're all going through the school system and they're kind of getting supplemental training so a lot of times during the summer all these like college kids who went off to yongin or something will come back and train with the high school kids and they'll like you know the high school kids will be just like that like oh my god like you know sunbae you know can i get you something yada yada but then the sunbaes will like them stuff and whatnot and i i i kind of like that it's kind of the two-way street where if you are like that they take care of you like they'll like take me out buy me some snacks and show the older person always pays you don't have to be yeah exactly that's right it's like like i remember like uh the students take their sensei's out and pay for their senseis. Like that became a thing.

I don't know how. Is that a thing? Well, you know, that's the thing that I've like kind of resisted because I don't like that feeling of that. You know, I hate the, you know, idea of the sensei making their students paint their house. You know, I hate that kind of idea, you know? Oh, yeah. Yeah. But it's like, I don't know in what sort of lineage, you know, it's kind of like playing telephone and along the way the message gets lost, right?

Right. The sensei pays, the highest person pays and you take care of the young ones and the Western guys like, let's all keep these ones. Yeah. They're powerful. And then add on to something, change something, students have to pay. Right. Like that's kind of. I know.

In Korea, if the dojo goes out to dinner, it's expected that the sensei, I'm sure in Japan too, like the sensei, whoever the oldest is supposed to just kind of quietly, quietly go and pay for everything. That also works with the culture because the longer you are in the workforce,

the higher your pay goes up because it's seniority based. So of course, yeah. And also you have gotten that treatment exactly right the years as a younger person right yeah so it's kind of perpetually going through the cycle it's not just like everyone's you know yeah you you pay it forward this guy yeah yeah he was my division for many years and he was someone i really looked up to. And I still do. He's a great athlete, great judoka.

And I competed against him at one of the world championships. And he beat me pretty good. But we had a training camp where he was there. And he had two sort of kohai, or the younger guys, that he was looking after. I don't know what he did, but he decided to punish them. And he made them duck walk around the dojo oh i should do that all the time in school and humiliate them by holding their hand so that he walked them like a dog there were two of them they squat down and they put their hand up and he had two hands and

he was walking them around the entire dojo and the and the French team's laughing at them, and the Italian team's laughing at them. And it's like, oh, and all these global judo people are there. And they're like, we're going to go home, and we're going to do this. No, I'm kidding. But it's like, it was a thing. It was like no one thought anything of it, right? But that kind of culture exists in judo and Korea and Japan. Even though they're cracking down on it now, they should.

They really should. They should. I mean, there's a line, right? When you're mentoring someone, yeah, of course, you have to give them corrections, but not humiliate them. They did that for two hours straight. They couldn't even walk after that. I wonder what they did.

Someone said it's because they missed morning practice or something like that but the person who told me is not a korean person so like it's like how could they have known based on that day right right yeah yeah that's funny it's kind of sad yeah but i mean that that that happens but yeah it's like there's some bad parts like that. But, you know, I think I like that idea, like paying it forward and, you know, taking care of your... Because, you know, younger people are not as experienced. So, you know, it's good to have someone watching. It's hard to take out just a pocket of the culture and then bring it out of the context from a different country. Bring it over here and do it.

You know, and it comes a little bit weird, too. Right. And now, especially with martial arts, because it's such a contact combat heavy sport, there's also sort of this goon culture surrounding it with the UFC and the people fighting. Not specifically UFC and MMA guys are bad, but it's not embedded in that respect based culture like in Japan. You know what i mean even though some people really buy into this idea because they think martial arts they think you know martial arts you know like bow and respect all respect yeah yeah it has such a weird connotation around this you know but it's a lot more you know unique in the united states i think

when you're doing martial arts based on who's teaching the class right right yes so much leadership the trickle-down culture from the person leading the class from the owner right that sort of shapes the way the dojo is how does this dojo feel that's the that's the responsibility of the senpai you were talking about senpai and were talking about, senpai and sensei, because you have so much power. You have to, I mean, what? I know we're talking like macro culture, but like micro culture within the dojo in itself,

like your specific dojo culture, that's really, really important to keep attention to. Do I feel safe in this room? Is the leader someone that I could sort of trust to keep me safe, to do away and discourage these sort of abusive behaviors? All these things are really, really important to look out for. Now I'm getting all preachy. Right.

Yeah. Yeah, but that's very important. I mean, it's not just about getting better at martial arts and throwing people down you know so it's it's about a community you know all that and culture is very important i mean i hope we gave you guys enough context around all these weird things that judo people do and maybe a little bit bjj people i don't know if they go like this i don't think they do but yeah oh yeah and then fist bump slap and bump whatever right yeah that that's from like yes there we go that's an yes because you know right now yeah right it's a beach culture and yeah oh yeah man you know right yeah so for that in that context that is what politeness means you know

that's how you are supposed to do that's a yeah so hopefully you know you understand the context so you can pick and choose the right thing maybe build your own you know culture around some positive things and right yeah start yeah i think that's the point yeah we gotta progress it also let's plug patreon hey if you guys have ideas if you want to give us feedback please join our patreon that's a thing right helps peter yeah you know help us yeah help us make this better you know i mean uh you guys are helping us pay for the whole service and the equipment and we have some great people on our discord yeah that's right we talk about a lot of different things

not just about judo I think we're like getting to the point where it feels like a community that's right people are polite in there right people are polite yeah very own unique culture and stuff and you know yeah that's right then we're trying to pull it in there right people are polite people understand all right yeah yeah i mean that's uh one thing i really wanted to push for respect and polite i don't want anyone you know yeah slash moderator

culture moderator i don't do it yeah i don't do it right now i'm the gatekeeper i don't do much right now because everyone's been great so yeah nothing really yeah no that's it cool anything else thank you so much yeah cool all right well thanks for listening guys hope this uh episode was helpful and bye guys stay tuned for the next episode