The Shintaro Higashi Show - My Biggest Losses | The Shintaro Higashi Show

Episode Date: March 1, 2026

In this episode of the Shintaro Higashi Show, Shintaro and David Kim delve into the theme of loss, exploring personal experiences in judo and wrestling. They discuss the importance of embracing losses as opportunities for growth, the lessons learned from facing tough opponents, and the emotional impact of disqualification in competitions. Shintaro shares his journey of resilience, reflecting on how these experiences shaped his perspective on life and competition. The conversation emphasizes the value of vulnerability and the strength found in overcoming adversity.00:00 Embracing Losses: A Journey of Growth02:59 Lessons from the Mat: Overcoming Challenges06:01 The Impact of Disqualification: A Personal Story09:02 Resilience in the Face of Adversity11:54 Reflections on Loss and Perspective14:57 Finding Strength in Vulnerability🚨 LIMITED-TIME OFFER: 40% OFF 🚨The All-in-One Instructional Bundle just got even better.Every major instructional. One complete system. Now at our biggest discount yet.Grab yours now at 40% off : https://higashibrand.com/products/all-instructionalsThis won’t last. Build your game today.🔥 Get 20% OFF FUJI Gear! 🔥Looking to level up your judo training with the best gear? FUJI Sports has you covered. Use my exclusive link to grab 20% OFF high-quality gis, belts, bags, and more.👉 https://www.fujisports.com/JUDOSHINTARO 👈No code needed – just click and save!Links:🇯🇵 Kokushi Budo Institute (The Dojo) Class Schedule in New York, NY 🗽: https://www.kokushibudo.com/schedule🇯🇵 Higashi Brand Merch & Instructionals: https://www.higashibrand.com📚 Shintari Higashi x BJJ Fanatics Judo Courses & Instructionals Collection: https://bjjfanatics.com/collections/shintaro-higashi/

The Shintaro Higashi show is sponsored by Judo TV, your premier destination for live and on-demand judo coverage. Never miss a throat. Higashi brand. Train hard, live strong, wear Higashi brand. Hakuin AI. Hakuin AI helps you measure, predict, and solve customer churn. Visit Hakuin AI and start your free churn on it today. Hello, everyone.

Welcome back to the Shuntar Higashi show with David Kim. We're going to talk about losing today. Something I would think you have no experience with Shintara. You're just a winner. You know? 100 places on my record, dude. Yeah. It's all out there, I guess.

Yeah, let's throw it out there. You know, I've lost a lot, man, because, you know, whenever you take chances and you go up a little bit of a little above your pay grade, you know, you time to lose, right? You want to put yourself out there. I remember fighting in the senior nationals, like adult nationals at 15 years old. You know, took some losses there. But, you know, no one expects you to win at that age, you know, especially when you're fighting in the heavier categories. Yeah. You know.

And then going to the international circuit for the first time, taking some losses there. You know, you win something, you lose some, you know. Yeah. That's how it is, right? Yeah. I mean, obviously, I don't know when it comes, you know, from a judo perspective. But, you know, you lose all the time in life, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. Lose a contract, you know, I guess, you know, technically losing training, which is not that big of a deal. But, you know, it happens everywhere. Yeah, it does. You know, but most people don't remember your losses. You know, they remember that you were out there and they remember you were champions. And, you know, it's funny now because sometimes people refer to me as an Olympian on the internet.

I'm like, I have to correct them. Like, I'm not an Olympian, you know, for the record. And they think I was some amazing champion on the international circuit. I was 11 and 27 on the international circuit. So not even that good, you know, 30% win rate, maybe even less, like 29% win rate, which isn't that good, right? But I had a lot of domestic wins, you know, and tons of matches, wrestling also. You know, I had 100 wins in high school and wrestling and I, you know, had a winning record in college.

Not Division I, you know, someone just said that a little bit. He was a Division I wrestler and he was amazing at wrestling. I wasn't Division I had a winning record in college. I wrestled all four years. But it was Division III. I beat some Division I athletes. I beat Cornell guy. And that was pretty amazing at New York States.

But tons of losses, tons. Like I said, you know, I'm 11 and 27 on the international circuit, which isn't that good. Yeah. Well, we're here to learn. We're here to learn. They say the wise man learns from other people's mistakes. which is sometimes you just got to learn the hard way, right? And I think, you know, when you're doing something as hard as judo,

particularly when everything is funneling into these international tournaments, inevitably the entire globe is kind of funneling into the same tournaments. So I imagine there must be things you had to grapple with, no pun intended, but things that you had to, you know, overcome. And things that you just learned either technically or just from a competitor perspective. effective. Yeah. So what are, maybe we can break it down, you know, what were some things that you learned

either about yourself or about judo? I think some of the wins losses, actually, that taught me the most were going against great champions that actually had no business competing against in the time. You know, for instance, like, I look at this list and it's like Lucas Cropolic, you know, great champion. I think he's a two-time Olympic gold medalist, arguably one of the best heavyweights judo ever. Tumonger, 6'5, you know,

and that was an amazing experience, you know. It sucked that I lost, but like I went out there and, you know, as a young kid, like, you know, am I catching him with something, you know, and having that mentality, right? And at the same time, you know, Anai was number one in the world at the time, and I fought him first round. I think it was a Tokyo Grand Slam. It was definitely in Tokyo, right?

So, I mean, like, that was a great experience. and, you know, I knocked them down, you know, and now, you know, with the criteria now, might have been a UKO, maybe, right? When I took him down, it was like a high crotch to a single kind of a thing, and I knocked him down to his butt, and that was amazing.

You know, I lost against, look at me, sitting there, bragging about my losses, you know? But, you know, what's nice is that when you put your hands on those guys, it makes you feel like, you know what? I was able to knock them down. I was able to get a couple of positions.

And then you're like, you know what? Maybe I could get there. Maybe I could beat him one day. Maybe. And then it kind of makes you better in that way. And now, after that, going up against a guy that's 67th in the world, 80th in the world, even if they are from a powerful country, you know, in judo terms, you know, like a European guy. You're like, you know what?

I fought a knight. That's going to be as good as a knight. That's going to be as good as Coppolic, you know? So it's a confidence thing. I belong here, kind of. Yes, yeah. And then in hindsight, both of those guys are tall lefties. And I've always had a hard time with tall lefties, you know?

So I should have done a little bit more to account for that. Like I lost an Olympic trials in 2008 against a tall lefty. And then here's two taller lefties again. So, you know, and then Silva Morales, you know, from Cuba. I lost it in 2016. He's another one that's a lefty, right? Yeah. So having good strategies against these top players who are tall and left-handed, you know, like I should have put a little bit more time focusing on that and I did it, you know?

So that was kind of my bad. You know what I mean? Yeah. And actually, I bet you it's a challenge too because it's like, okay, now you've got to find a taught lefty to train with. It's tough, yeah. We don't have any in my gym, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So that's a challenge right there, unless you want to do judo on your knees or something. but like an oopalupa. Yeah, no, there were zero lefties in my gym that were that tall. And these guys are, Anay's at least 6-2, you know, Coppollocks was 6-4, 6-5. And then so you could get guys who are lefty.

You get taller righty guys and I had a bunch of taller right-to-guise, and I would have them switch sides. But it's just not the same. Not the same, no. Because they don't know what they're doing. No, no, it's just opposite side. So, you know, things like that, you know, I learned throughout the course, you know, Right. Yeah.

And I guess that's where a good coach would come in, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's where a good coach should have, you know, come in and said, hey, you've got problems with tall lefties. We got a, you know, I know a guy out in San Diego or something or Santa Cruz or San Jose, whatever. I don't know, whatever.

I know a guy. And we don't get a lot of reps with him, but we can come up with something. And, you know, I used to lose a lot domestically against drop right players. a lot. So we taught a lot of drop righties in the gym and then I faced a lot of drop righties in the gym and because of those losses I was able to fill that gap and then later in my career,

none of these losses in the international circuits, I don't say none of them, but a majority of them are not from drop because I was able to block, except Ariel Zetti, who was European champion of Israel. He was a great champion. He threw me with a drop left. Right.

But, you know, that was kind of, And you know, I learned that lesson too. It's very specific. He's right versus right, right? We are both rightings. So we would be gripping and gripping, and I would outgrip him, and he would let me outgrip him. So he could go in the other way.

Yeah, and then he would like, oh, shoot. And then he would pretend like, oh, you got me. And then he would do left to drop Morote with left grips. So that was his, like, secret move. You know? So that was the one that he caught me with, right? And he threw me to my back. Right.

That was like really the only outlier where I've got caught with a drop on the international circuit. Yeah. After I learned from my mistakes of losing, you know, to drop people, you know, in my earlier stage. You know what I mean? That's kind of sneaky, too. That's a sneaky one. It is a little sneaky. Yeah, he's very good.

And, you know, who can do that? You know, not that many people can do that. A true lefty drop from lefty grip after they lose, you know, the gripping fight. The right hand. Right versus right. You know, so it's like a gotcha, you know. Yeah, I guess it's a lesson for everybody, right? To have your little sneaky, your crafty move, you know, that you can pull out of the back pocket.

You're getting dominated. Yeah. And then, you know, I'm looking through this list on the international circuit. And then a lot of these matches, I lost, you know, just from sheer gas tank. You know, it's like, oh, these matches I was winning. This guy wasn't that good. He had no business beating me. You know, this guy was in Golden Score.

I remember I was exhausted there. So, you know, I could attribute like a good, you know, 10, 50 more percent of my losses on that, just having bad guessing, you know? Right, right. And the matches were longer then, right? Yeah. I think so. It was five.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, not three minutes, like, like it is now, right. Is it three or maybe, is it four? Oh, it could be three. It's three. Yeah. I think it's three. Yeah. I don't even know.

You should know, you got to watch these things. I know, I know. That's right. All those reactions. You and So, okay These are sort of the technical things That you could take away from losses

Yeah And the one that really kind of hurt me the most Was in 2007 You know The new criteria For that time period Was if you were a national champ

Right Already If you're number one in the country And then you won U.S. nationals You go to the world championships That was the selection criteria Right But if the number one guy doesn't win, then the number one guy and then the national champion has best two out of three.

Oh, so you have your own little trial kind of. Yes, and that was really cool because it incentivized everyone to go to the U.S. national. Right. Right now in the U.S., you know, the last year, the year before, it matters zero to go to the U.S. nationals. Because if you're on the international circuit trying to make an Olympic team, you're not going to come back and fight in a domestic tournament and risk injury. No. So most of the guys who already made it to that level never come back. And it's sort of like this like tier two, tier three.

Like, it was like a JV tournament almost. Yeah. It just mattered not at all, you know? Yeah, right, right. Yeah. Except the Olympic qualifications changed it. But back then, if you wanted to go to world, you had to go to nationals. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Right. And then the number one guy was Adler, Vollmore, who eventually went to the Olympics and won the Olympic trials in 2008. and I had beaten him in the finals to win the nationals, right? So that was kind of an amazing thing. And now all of a sudden, we have the best two out of the three situation happening, right? And then in that trial, the first one, I beat him also. So I beat him twice.

Right? So I'm like, oh, my God, this is it. I'm going to go to the world change. I just have to go out there and win again, you know? And then this is the first time I've ever made. I've never made a legitimate team out of that. You know, I've never made the Pan Am team, but I've never made a world. World Team.

So this was like the first taste of it. I had just won Nationals for the first time. Yeah. I did the year before I took fifth. The year, you know, I took like a third or something. But this was like my big, big moment, you know? So I go out there for the best two out of the three, the second one. And I'm winning with two minutes into the thing by penalties because the guy is just not doing much.

He's just kind of waiting his shot. I take a single leg and I reap the front of his knee, you know? That's immediate disqualification. Oh, no. Yeah. So I lose and I'm like, ah, no big deal. But then if you do something illegal and get disqualified for it, they disqualify from the whole event. The whole thing. Oh, my goodness. So I was disqualified for the third. That's two out of three. So you couldn't even compete. So that, so I could even compete in that. And that was it. He went to the world. Oh, dude. I didn't know the details of that. That, I mean, I think I knew about this match, but I didn't know.

That's how it went down. And I walked off and one of the referee, I was like, ah, you know, I was still like, all right, fuck it. I'll just, you know, come back and win the next one. And, you know, moving around and one of the referees is like, I don't think you understood what just happened, Chantara. You have to forfeit the next one, you know, because you got DQaeda stay. I was like, wait a minute, what, you know? And I was like talking to some of the USA judo people and they're like, yeah, man, you know, you did an illegal move. And I was just coming off wrestling season.

Yeah. So that's why, and it was, he was actually a tall lefty. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was actually a tall lefty, and he came over the back. I grabbed the single. I lifted up to my armpit.

Yeah. And then instead of going backwards, because he was already going forward, I clipped the front of his knee. Totally legit in wrestling. Yeah. Yeah. People would boo me, too. They're like, boo, you know, what a disgusting move. You try to injure this knee.

He's like, I just came off wrestling season. Yeah. Right. You know, because, yeah, it was 2007. You know? Oh, my God. Yeah. This hurts me listening to it.

You want to know what's more heartbreaking. I had a really rough year that year, my senior year of wrestling in college, you know? Yeah. You have to win the conferences to go to the nationals for Division III nationals. Right. I've taken third and fourth, fourth and third at the conferences. Right. Right.

You have to win it. Right. Yep. And then they have a wild card. And then my junior year, I was kind of an idiot and I got kicked off the wrestling team near the end of the season. You know?

Yeah, from partying and hanging out and doing it all sorts of to crazy stuff. My senior year, this was my shot. I had beaten multiple All-Americans. I beat the kids from Cornell. I feel great. I make it to the finals of the conferences. And I get pinned.

I get caught in a cradle. You get pinned, right? And then I was up for a wild card because they gave out wildcars. I think two or three wildcars came from a very tough conference. But they didn't give it to me because I got pinned in the finals.

Oh, no. Yeah. So it was like, I wanted to make it to nationals. I wanted to be an all-American, all this stuff. I couldn't do it, right? Yeah.

And then I was destroyed. And I weighed out a month or two, and I'm like, focusing back into training. I was like, man, you're resilient. You know, don't regret this. You're okay. You're going to be tough. And I was like,

tried not. to let it bother me. I like push it down, you know? Yeah. And then I was working out so hard and I get to this thing, and I blow it, dude. Yeah. It was brutal, dude. It was a rough ear.

Yeah. And then I remember at the sidelines, I was like crying, you know, at this thing, a little bitch. And then my father came and hugged me. Oh. Yeah. Interesting. I thought he's going to be a dick, but he's like, came and hug me. He's like, dude, it's going to be right, man.

And I was like, all right. Well, he probably saw you were working hard, you know? And then I lost an Olympic trial the next year. Oh. Yeah. It's okay, though. Yeah. You're doing just fine.

You're doing just fine. I'm doing just fine, yeah. And then, yeah, man, so these losses, you know, they kind of eat you up for a little bit, you know, but then you recover. And then I made a world team in 2010, world team in 2011. even though that's not like what I was going for. Yeah. It's still something I'm kind of proud of today, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So some of my losses. Yeah. He's got to keep going. You got to keep going guys. I got some funny ones too. Like one time this guy had me in a triangle, you know?

Oh. And then like, I postured up. I look at the referee and I go like this. And I put my hands out like this, you know? Yep. It's not working. And I was shaking my head, no. And then he like, tipped me over, pulled my arm across, and then finished me.

Oh, Gentaro. And then people were like, what are you doing out there? And I was like, I was trying to appeal to the referee that I wasn't being choked. And then he finished me. Yeah. And that was all. That would never happen now. Never.

Never happened. Yeah. All right. So something else was there for you. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, definitely interesting. And we all go through them, you know.

We all, like I said, we all go through them. And whether it's on the mat or in life, and you got to just keep putting one foot in front of the other and, you know, try to improve your position, as they say, in grappling. Yeah, I haven't spoken about these losses in a long time. Yeah, I know. But, you know, emotionally, they make you better, I think, you know. Because at the time, 2007, not making it to nationals in wrestling,

devastating. not making it the world's that same year devastating, and then not make an Olympic team in 2008 was devastating, you know? Yeah. But then you kind of make do with it. And then when you're 41 years old, dude, you're like, you know, I went for it. It's cool. You know, and it doesn't bother you as much, you know?

And then you have a kid and you're like, all right, now I got to take care of this kid. You know, it doesn't really matter by what I lost a match in 2007, 2008. It's so small in the grand scheme of it. You know what I mean? Yeah, the perspective changes. Yeah, no. Yeah, wow, this is supposed to be a 10-minute episode. I really kind of rambled there.

That's okay. Pour my heart out to David in the world about my losses. I'm a good listener. I'm a good listener. Yeah. But guys, you may have some bad losses in your history, but just become a dad or a mom. That's it. You'll change your perspective.

You're good. Change everything, right? way. That's right. But, uh, but, uh, you know, uh, you know, we all have things that we're wrestling with. So yeah, again, no pun intended. But, uh, you know, you get through it. Yep. All right. Yep. Great episode. Thank you. Catch you in the next one. Catch in the next one. Yep.