The Shintaro Higashi Show - No Leg Grabs!? Mongolia GS | The Shintaro Higashi Show

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

This episode of the Shintaro Higashi Show dives deep into the 2025 Mongolia Grand Slam, where Shintaro returns from his trip to break down the biggest stories from the tournament. From massive IJF rule changes to standout performances and the evolution of ne-waza, Shintaro and David Kim unpack it all with insight, humor, and a few travel tips.00:00 – Lounge Life at Incheon Airport04:00 – Back on the IJF Circuit05:00 – Big Changes to the IJF Rule Set08:00 – Out of Bounds Rule Debate12:00 – Tournament Highlights and Athletes to Watch15:00 – Judo's Popularity in Central Asia18:30 – Breaking into the U.S. Market19:00 – More Rule Changes: Yuko, Head Dives, Bear Hugs23:00 – Evolution of Newaza (Groundwork)30:00 – Judo as a Professional Sport32:00 – Mongolia and the Spirit of Judo🚨 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/David Kim YT/Instagram:  @midjitsu ​

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Welcome back to the Shantara Higashi show with David Kim. I just got back from Mongolia. We have a very special episode. I was at the Grand Slam as an IJF event. How are you, David? I'm doing great, and I'm excited to hear about this. Not only about the event, but about this spread at the Incheon Airport lounge. Oh, it was unbelievable.

You know? Unbelievable. So that's what I'm excited to hear about. But it sounds like there was a lot of Mongolia did very well. Yeah. And I heard that there were some rule changes that were instituted. So I think there's been a lot of new information coming out. Yes, tons of exciting.

stuff a lot of stuff to talk about you know first and foremost though before we get to the really good stuff uh you know i've done like the airport lounge thing the platinum medallion thing this have this credit card that credit card and i was so annoyed by all of it you know that i just kind of like canceled most of my premium credit cards recently started over and then i'm flying through inch on airport in korea and then i go to the lounge and it was the most unbelievable experience ever did I had a seven-hour layover that went by like, you know, in an instant. So that's what I have to, so this is like, what made this so different than every other lounge that you've been in? Well, because they all sort of feel the same after a while, but obviously, I'm not.

But the first and foremost, the food, they had like a Bibbibbop station. Have you been there? No, I've never been there. It's so good. It's so good. It's like, you know, Bibbibbub, obviously, you get the rice and this and that. Yeah, yeah. And then the quality was good.

And because I was there for seven hours, I had, like, the lunch, you know, spread and then the dinner spread. And then they had, you know, Bogogi and the Korean Fried Chicken and the Binbaugh Station and then the snap. It was unbelievable, man. The food is great. And there was a relaxation lounge with a massage share. And it took a while for me to snipe one of those. I had to, like, camp out outside and wait for someone to come out, right? And then I sniped one.

And I was on the thing for, like, honestly, like, two hours. I took a nap. I had my headphones on. It was like unbelievable, you know? You must have been like a nice piece of veal. It was amazing. Yeah. And you know there's showers there too.

So I like took a shower, you know, massage share. I had Bibbon bop like three times. I want, there was a TV lounge area. I was watching CNN. You know, I charged my devices. It was playing on my iPad. Dude, seven hours flew by, dude. Nice.

But there's no lounge like that in the United States. It's all trash now, you know? Yeah. Unless you could do like the Delta One. there's zero value in a lot of these credit card point things now because the price is so high. It's like a coupon book. You know, these lounges and these American airports are terrible. And then it's just not worth the money anymore.

And I cancel most of it, but I kept one Delta Reserve card. That's your option. That's your option. Yeah. And then I went and I was like, here does this thing get me into? They were like, yes. And I was like, all right. Thank God.

Thank God. And I'm like, you know, man, I might even just cancel this card too. And I walk in. I'm like, whoa, you know, they have a full spread here. And I was like, this is it. You just went to town. You know what, man? Did they have ice cream, too?

Did they have ice cream? Did they have ice cream? No, they did not have ice cream. Oh, thank God. Yeah. You would have gotten even more. So much so that, like, I'm looking at flights to Japan now for the Tokyo Grand Slam and stuff.

Not that I could choose the flight, but, you know? Right. I was like, you know what? I want to fly through that airport. Yeah. And Korean Air Delta are like the Sky Alliance situation. So I'm like, you know what? From no on.

Forget Jal, forget Anna and A&A. I mean, those guys have lounges too in Japan that are really good. But I was like, you know what? Fly through Korea. Fly through India. So. Well, I'm glad Korea could take good care of you. Let's just get into it with Mongolia.

I mean, this has been, I think, your triumphant return to IJF commentating. You know, what are some of the highlights of your trip? I mean, I think first and foremost, a new rule set. You know, they made major changes in gripping, stepping out of bounds, and then head dive stuff. Okay. So let's take them one by one with the gripping. because that seems like the most fundamental thing. What's going on with the gripping?

So gripping historically has been the most stringent rule set of you can do this, you can do that, you can't do that. And, you know, a lot of people have the theories. Originally with the Japanese-style judo versus like the Russian-soviet style judo because of all these like native wrestling roots with jacket wrestling in these Soviet countries, they had all these unorthodox grips that weren't this right versus right classic Japanese judo. So, you know, the Japanese people who control. judo back in the day didn't really like it you know so there's like that traditional judo that was

clean and then they had like this russian style european judo and then they were always battling rules sets of like what grips you can do cannot do don't stick your fingers in the ghee because your fingers can break et cetera et cetera oh yeah that was the whole thing yeah yeah yeah yeah and it just became this like really really nuanced thing of like you can do this you can't do that you can grab like this if the ref doesn't see it how do you appeal to the ref that this grip is illegal or whatever it is. How do you do these positions without kind of getting penalized? There was a whole gamification behind these, like, really subtle things that no one if they

don't watch judo will understand. Right. But this time around, first time ever in the history of judo, they were like, you know what? All grips allowed. Ooh. Yeah, we won't paralyze anything. Nice. Yes.

So it's like, there was this like, if you could do a cross-collar grip if you attacked within five seconds. You know, you can't put the fingers in the sleep. but you can if you hide it cross grip you can do this you have to attack off of that you can't hold double sleeve and push down and then stall all gone so now did people immediately take advantage of these rules or are they okay even the japanese you know like i made a video about like right versus left when the hand's really high and we saw the japanese all japan champion you know just reaching up and sticking all four fingers inside the sleeve and then yanking it down and i was like that's really cool we never used to see that before that never happened pistol grip allowed cat's ball allowed sticking the hands inside the sleeve allowed two on one everything literally everything and now did you made it more interesting because people had to rip the sleeves out you know and one of the things back in the day was oh you know cats paw and then pistol grips were illegal because it's so difficult to get rid of those grips and it causes stalling

which is negative judo but now people grab a pistol grip they are you yanking on these things for dear life like literally like ripping the hands off the so it was like all these finger tape you know flying and it was kind of almost like it was brutal it was actually beautiful you know and I loved it wow really cool do you think um so what do you have any insight into the motivation behind this rule change like what was it just purely because it makes it easier to adjudicate or was there some other motivation that you know of I know for fact these referee and I didn't know this until I started going out to the IJF circuit. They do like a symposium.

Every tournament, when they get there, they look at all the footage that were somewhat controversial and some things that, you know, and they review all of it. Right. And then it's like ironclad, like what the bylaws says, clear cut, there's no like, you know, there's some interpretation for certain things that discuss it. And they go from tournament to tournament to tournament. And there's like the refereeing commission. There's the directors, the refereeing supervisors.

There's a whole ranking system. within the referees right right so the people who are at the top that are deciding the rule sets those guys have been in the game 20 30 years a lot of these guys are competitors like like dasorov who was a champion back in the day with gion who was a Korean champion from like 1992 he was oh he oh yeah yeah yeah he's a really cool guy by the way super cool yeah unbelievable guy legend he's a big deal man he's a big deal and so he's on the thing too and then you know it's like all right you know the circuit's done the olympics are done you know we're going to come up with a new rules set what can we make better how can we make the sport better and then the world championship okay

let's make some minor changes for the next three years until the Olympics what are things that are working what are things are not working so they're always kind of doing this whole thing now you know and it's always kind of shape-shifting but it's been trending you know for the better the last couple of years the last decade or so and uh you know i never really knew so much goes into it you know yeah pretty amazing actually so that was the first major change yeah yeah and then I think they're out of bounds. I didn't love this rule set. I didn't love this rule set.

But they wanted to do away with the stop and go. It's like you step out of bounds for two seconds. You touched the outside area, stop penalty. So you had a lot of like pushing games, you know, and, you know, but you couldn't directly just shove somebody from the middle out of bounds because you're not trying to throw and you're not trying to score. And their whole rule set is based on negativity, judo, negative judo. Yeah.

You have to be going towards a throw, towards a takedown. That's the whole idea. So how do you enforce that kind of a thing? Is like, am I trying to game the guy out of bounds? Or am I actually trying to get him to push back and throw? A lot of it were up to interpretation. They would slow do frame by frame. It was very difficult to kind of do.

And there would be guys who would attack and then like run into the edge off a throw and then just kind of block and then push the guy slightly, gain two penalties. Then maybe they gain a third and they win, you know? So they wanted to kind of do away with this. And then the stop and go name. of like out of bounds come back in out of bounds come up and it's kind of yeah hurts the flaw so they go you know what no stepping out of bounds if they touch the out of bounds area we'll give them a few seconds kind of like circle back in and

if it doesn't you know they go about out of bounds like yes if they're completely off the area like we'll stop it and bring them back in but we'll just keep it going yeah and then we won't penalize people for being on the edge playing on the edge stepping out of bounds because they want to do away with like penalty forcing judo yeah they want that continuous uh action yeah so but you know which makes sense which calls a lot of issues because guys who would like be winning by a score with 30 seconds left will just go to the oh go to the edge and every now and then they'll be like all right you're clearly stalling we'll give you a penalty but they'll float to the edge and do a shitty attack so now you can't really give a stalling attack

because they're attacking but it's not really a real attack and then they're just kind of floating out of bounds and just buying time and playing that you know so there's a tradeoff yeah so I don't love that I didn't think it was great you know yeah but wrestling has pushout rule sumo is a pushout rule based thing

I can't remember what Samba does but I think they do also so it's like the inbound out of bounds area that's another topic that's kind of like a very tricky gray zone area that I don't think they've completely figured it out I liked it when it's like dude if you touch one foot out of bounds you're done

yeah Because it does make it that if you touch out of bounds, you get a penalty, so you're pushing back in and then guys ripping throws on that reaction, you know? But yeah, it's going to make that edge work very, yeah, very gaming, you know? Because if you can turn and just, you know, it just feels a little bit weird.

Maybe they need to put it in a pit. Maybe they do. They do. They do like the gyps and things, you know? Yeah. I don't know how that would work. I don't think that would work as well. Judah. But you know, it's interesting because it's like the grand slams, you could do

8 meter by 8 meter fight space, but the world's in Olympics are doing 10 meters by 10 meters. You know, and that's kind of a set space regulations. But it's like, do you really need 10 by 10 for lightweights? You know, that same stepping out of bounds and fighting within the boundaries and all the stuff is different from 8 meters by 8 meters to 10 by 10. You know, so the strategy is slightly different. Shouldn't it be somewhat consistent? You know, do we really need 10 by 10 space, you know?

It's like all these different. ideas come about everything is like protocol standardized you know so i didn't love that this new rule about the out of bound stuff you know okay so in terms of the players yep um it seemed like it was a very good tournament for mongolia a lot of the home a lot of the home athletes did very well and and i think that you had um a few japanese people to uh very uh do very well um herioto shirakane i think yeah he did pretty good uh was a debut yep um lightway kid. Nice kid. Yeah. Yeah. One gold. Even there was a, was there like an older school veteran guy that came out from Spain?

I can never tell though, because, you know, it was a Sherazade de Shvili. Oh, yeah. Shurzadishvili. Yeah. But I can never like that. There's so many names that sound like that. So I always get confused. Pretty cool, man. The circuit is unbelievable. Like you have all these guys who have Russian back names who were from the Dagestan Caucasus region. Yeah. Right on that border of Georgia and Russia. You know, that whole mountainous region where they're all living in the mountains grappling. And those guys are fighting now, you know, obviously you can't fight for Russia. They have the band.

So they're fighting for IJF. They're also fighting for Bahrain. They're also fighting for UAE. And share of the registrily, he's a Georgian, but he fights with Team Spain. Yeah, right. So there's a lot of the shuffle going on because it's so difficult to make it out of, you know, Russia, essentially. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So any moments or matches or athletes that stood out for you?

Yeah, I mean, I like this guy, Knut Flauev. He was unbelievable. He's an Uzbek guy. And he had some spectacular thralls, man. He didn't win the whole thing, but he was amazing. I liked seeing this Mongolian beat, the All-Japan champion. That was kind of cool. Oh, right.

Because the All-Japan champion now, he's kind of like not the best All-Japan champion. Like, you've seen All-Japan champs in the past who were just a, A phenom killer. This guy's kind of like, he's a little fad, he's slow. He's not like fast and exposed. He's like good, obviously, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he wins matches, but he's not like a spectacular phenom. You know, he's not like in a way or like one of these guys. So, you know, and he just got thrown by a Mongolian dude. And, you know, it was kind of fun to see that, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm sure, I mean, in Mongolia, a Mongolian guy doing the, you know, making the throw. I mean, the crowd must have been awesome.

But, you know, I love, like, all these, like, native wrestling styles being represented now because of the new okay to, you know, these rule sets now. You're with the gripping and all the stuff. And I think it's a great thing for the sport. I really do, you know. And I had a nice chance to talk to all the executive guys on the IJF. And that's kind of the benefit of going to these things. You know, you get to talk to these leaders, right, in the world judo.

And you get to ask questions. And, you know, it's unbelievable how, like, the Uzbek and the Tajikistan, guys and how popular judo is over there you know yeah yeah yeah i talked to the guy who runs usbekistan judo he's from tajikistan originally he does uzbek judo and bagdasorov who's the head guy you know is also from there i didn't get the chance to talk to him but like this guy was telling me you know about how huge judo is over there and i was like listen man like these guys make money you know i asked him you know these like he's like yes he goes he goes shuntaro man they're million is he goes these guys have five houses four cars you know he's listed out champions and

you know he's like these guys that's their dream you know we're in a developing country and these guys get millions dollars just like you know like high level like they have the best lives you know once they make it to that level you know they get fed they sleep they train and they get to this place and they're superstars yeah and i was like wow and you know we're talking about dushanbe Tajikistan, and they love it so much. Their native wrestling style is very close to judo. I don't know if you know. Oh, I know.

It looks almost identical. Right. It's been around forever. And so, like, you go to a Dushanbe Grand Slam. It's like the entire stadium is full with like 5,000 people outside waiting to get and watching the Jumbo Tron going crazy, you know? So it's like an experience and a half, you know? Yeah, that's one thing Americans, I think, don't realize is just how big judo is.

outside of the US. It's a very sort of fishbowl we have here. But when you go to these other countries, it's just a completely different ballgame. Different thing. And I was talking to one of the finance guys and I was like, hey, where is all the money come from for IJF? And he goes, linear TV

is still our biggest revenue stream. Like regular ass TV. You know, like the Mongolian Grand Slam is playing and then they want to play it on TV in Uzbek. Right. And they have to pay IJF for the TV broadcasting. Right, right, right, right. And they just have it on.

And then there's commercials and, you know, hey, judo will be right back. And then they're like, oh, you know, here's a razor that you got to buy and Gillette Uzbekistan.com, whatever, you know. Right, right. And they get all their money from that. I mean, it's unbelievable. That is crazy. Isn't it crazy?

Yeah. When you consider the conversation here in the United States and how everything like you just, you know, like late light, Stephen Colbert. Yeah. You know, the justification there was that, you know, late night is losing money and things are going to streaming and you just broadcast television,

you don't have the eyeballs that you used to have historically and you can't get rates and it's sort of this vicious cycle and to hear that in the other parts of the world, it's still, you know, supporting these types of endeavors

is very interesting to me. Well, judoTV.com is catching up, you know, little by little and they were mentioning some of these countries like, you know, Russia and Georgia are the number one, you know, in terms of subscribers and such. Right. But they really want to break into the U.S. market.

You know, that's partially why I was approached in the first place. Yeah. But it's like, it's very difficult to, I don't even know how to do it. You know, if anyone has ideas, you know, reach out to me. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a chicken or the egg thing because you need to have a, you need to have fans. Yeah. You know, to drive the, uh, the adoption of, you know, judo TV or anything like that.

You know, I mean, if you were talking about baseball or football or something like that, And, you know, it would probably be an easier discussion because you know you have fans in the United States. But when you think about judo fans in the United States, I mean, you know, how many of them are there? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Maybe they need like a F1 Drive to Survive type series on Netflix. Maybe you need to do that.

They do. You know what I mean? Like put put that on Netflix and have a little, you know, sort of, what was it, the ultimate fighter for UFC? You know, that sort of brought them into the mainstream. F1 Drive to Survive. Now they got the F1 movie. And then, you know, maybe judo can do something similar. I'm going to go back to the rules.

Okay. You've got it. You pulled it out of the air. But another one is Yucco. They brought back Yuco, which is the smallest score. Oh, that's right. Yeah. So, you know, before you had to have Wazario Epon, and now Yuco was brought back.

It used to be historically Koka Yucco, Wazari. Paul there's four scoring criteria but now they brought back Yucco which is five second pin hold down and then also like if you get thrown to your front at an angle. For Yucco yeah so if you go for a throw on it

unless I land flat on my stomach there's no score but if I fall even slutby at an angle my stomach down they're going to call that which I like that you know which I like that so it's like a take down you know yeah yeah right right because again you can't just because now if you flop

you're to brisky. Yes. And this is the one I was thinking about. Ready? Okay, go. Head dive. Yes, that was the one. Head dive.

That was the one. They spent the last decade and a half trying to make Judo safe and head touches the floor when you're going for a throw. It's really, really dangerous. Oh, no, used to put his forehead down, head dive, all this stuff. People broke their neck, kind of dive in their head underneath and rolling over. Head dive, head dive. And then they said, you know what?

We don't want kids bridging off their head. You know, when you go for like a Tomonage, or like an overhead sweep, guys will dive to their forehead and spin off their head and it's really risky. Yeah. You know, so it's like, they're like, you know what? If your head touches the mat,

we're going to just disqualify you. Right. But then it's like, did you dive to your head or were you put on your head? Yes, right. He threw me, kind of, but then I landed on my head, kind of, and is it okay if my hair brushed?

Yeah, right. Some people have longer hair. Is it like a graze? Is it like a side thing? did it put my neck at risk and they would nonstop argue each infringement every symposium when they would get

they would just spend all their time looking over every single neck dive head injury sort of risk frame by frame took forever right right so they're like you know what let's give it of all of it if you want to go dive onto your head you guys are pros go for it

so then they said you know what cadets they'll be penalized which is under 17 juniors and seniors men you guys a professional if you're going to go on your head go on your head do whatever you want that's a hard one that's a tough one i feel like that's a hard one yep and then also another one the bear hugger rule so the new rule for this one usually you can't clasp your hands behind the back yeah right you could and then you couldn't and then if you had a hand on the ghee you could and then if one hand went then another went

there you could now they're like you know all this complicated if you have one hand on the ghee you could die for it and then clasp your hands to kind of make it more simple yeah yeah yeah yeah and make it easier for themselves. And then the leg grabs obviously know they didn't come back. But you know, I was talking to one of the referee commission guys. And then, you know, maybe he wasn't a referee commission, but he was a supervisor. And he was like, you know, we thought long and hard about the leg grab stuff. But then we looked at the statistics from back in the day.

And then when you're you're looking at a wrestling thing now, it's wrestling. Yeah. It's wrestling with a ghee. You can't close the distance. You put the hand on the ghee. It's very hard to score, which is a simple single leg takedown to throw. the back and then it becomes this thing it's like a non-high scoring non-high amplitude thing and then you know guys are using it to just dive to the legs whenever in their bad position it's like it just

wasn't you know it didn't make sense yeah it didn't really make sense so you know it's really so many people are going to be disappointed because it was all that like hubbub remember yeah yeah at the end of the last season or whatever like oh they're gonna bring it back you know thinking about it to my days of wrestling and dudo also when the leg grabs whenever a big strong guy got in on a high upper body grip. I would honestly just drop to my knee shooting on the leg and then try to rustle them down. They would just belly down because there wasn't a score. Yeah.

And it was just kind of really bad for the flow of the match. You know, it was like a stalling tactic for me. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know, man. It's like it wasn't, uh, yeah, you know, with hard gripping, all gripping allowed, you know, you could shoot it on the legs. I think you'll have a very, very low-scoring thing.

And, you know, wrestling had the problem as well. Everyone takes talking about wrestling. They're like, people aren't shooting and taking each other down enough. Right. People take them down once and then ride him out for, you know, riding time. Right. And then you have two to one riding time. Yeah.

You know, it's not an exciting match in the collegiate. Not a lot of wrestling. And then they were losing a lot of these viewers. You're like, you know, we've got to bring this shit back. Three point takedowns, right? Yeah. You turn them for two seconds. You get two.

turn in for three you get three turn in for four so that's like people freaking out when they get taken out yeah yeah yeah right so it's like you need to have different rule sets to shape the way the action is happening right and I think judo's won a good job with that truthfully yeah because I mean frankly it's cooler

when they get thrown it's much cooler yeah it's just you know we all know it's cooler between that and the ashwaza yeah I'm there for the Ashiwaza I like that yeah but yeah

High crotch, you know. Neuazza is getting better, judo-wise. Are they letting it go a little longer? They're letting it go, but there's... People are getting pretty good at Nuwaza. Judo rule, Nawaza. You know, and it looks like sort of freestyle Nawaza, freestyle wrestling ground, Parterre.

Yeah, and then there's a lot of guys cross-trading. Oh, the turnovers and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, you know, the same criticism like, Jiu-Jitsu is better on the ground. It's like, no shit. You spend your whole time on the ground and there's no rules.

You can just do anything on the ground and time goes to infinity. Of course, it's not the same thing. It's going to be different. But judo nanzah doesn't look like jiu jih Tzu at all. There are a lot of nuances that the rule sets kind of shape. If I'm on bottom and if I stay there for a next amount of time, they're going to stop it and stand you up.

So the person engaging on the ground needs to create forward progression, needs to create sort of movement and flipping and turning. And a lot of guys are gaming that turnover. over to pin and then to resist that basing out and then they're attacking the arm they're attacking the neck and it's pretty sophisticated now at this point because of this sort of rules that hasn't well you can win yeah i mean you can win and i think everybody's exploiting every little nook and cranny of yeah i mean it goes back to like the sunota episode right i mean she was great on the ground and you know there's a lot of cross training and you know guys on this circuit won't admit to it

But there's a lot of guys who cross-trained in Jiu-Jitsu who are not doing open guard, but using a lot of these Jiu-J-S stuff and using that mat time to refine their judo gram. Yeah, right. Yeah. And then there's guys in there that are super proficient at both. Yeah. J-Di-Lat, J-Belt, j-J-Dil, double black belt, you know, and they're not allowed to compete at anything else.

The IJF is very straight because the guys are treated like thoroughbreds. They're like professional athletes. Yeah. And you're in the IJF stable. Yeah, IJF pays you, the ministry of sport pays you, the International Olympic Committee puts the money in the organizing Olympics

and they pay you and the private clubs and sponsors. So they're not trying to let these guys go into a jiu-tizu to get injured. Yeah. They're not doing that, you know? So they're pretty strict about it, but they cross-trained.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, and you see some new school judo ground that doesn't exist anywhere but there. And it's a beautiful thing to see. I have to ask anything. Anything in particular that, do you have an example of what only shows up in judo in that Nawaza? Because obviously the reactions are completely different, right?

Like it's like you just can't, you know, you're just that whole turtle game and that like, like that just doesn't exist really in Jiu-Jitsu. So I mean, it does. If you're on bottom, you're in Turtle, you're incentivized to stay there. Yes. In Jiu-Jitsu, you're pulling guard, you're trying to escape, you're trying to regar, you're rolling, diving, all this stuff. So you need to put hooks in to control their hips.

Yes. And you don't need to because there's no incentive to pull guard or escape. They just need to stay there. Right. So what they're doing now is they're taking, you know, instead of a belt crib, which is loose, they stick their hands inside the belt and wrap their hand on the belt like one of the traditional wrestling styles. Oh, yeah. Like, do you know the Korean wrestling, belt wrestling?

Yeah. What's it called against Sam? Sham. Oh, God. You should know this. You're Korean. on. I know. I can't remember. Yeah. It's like Korean sumo. Yes, yes. And, you know, with the same kind of, same outfit. Yeah. So they will put the hand inside the belt and wrap it. So there's

zero slack, you know, it's so tight, you know. And then they insert like a foot and then they try to pull the person onto them using their butterfly hooks. It's like a butterfly sort of thing, you know? And that's something completely different that only happens really in Judah. Maybe they didn't do it in, like, Turkish oil wrestling when they put the hand in to the thing. You know, and then, like, see them. They have this thing, but it's very amazing. You don't see it. And that doesn't exist in Jiu-Jitsu.

No. Nobody's doing that. Yeah, but it's like the interplay between like, okay, you're on the bottom, you're going to stay there. What two grips can I take? Back of the belt, back of the collar, because everything in front is protected. And then from there, the interplay between top-side triangle and then pulling it. onto that hook. Top side triangle,

pulling onto that hook, crucifix, attacking a wrist, you know, sitting them to the side, trying to put one hook in, you know, trying to attack the neck,

doing the British strangle. You know, like there's like five or six different things that can, and usually it starts with this hand wrap because you could almost always create forward progression.

And when the ref sees that you're sticking your hand into the belt, they see he's going to try something. He's going to do it. Yeah. So they let that go and that buys him

five to ten seconds of extra mat time on the ground. Yeah. I mean, it did seem to me just being a very casual viewer of these matches that it did seem like they're letting them work a little bit, a little bit more if it's clear they're trying to, you know, turn them over and do some stuff. So I thought that was really cool, you know. And then people were getting better at transitional Neuilaza because there's only a limited amount of time, five to ten seconds to create forward momentum. So stuff attacking off the grip on the ground. somebody misses diving for certain things

doing these quick attacks off the transition you know there's this like top side arm wrap sit there's this like you go wrist on wrist from the backside and then you dive to the other side

and you're like sort of in cat dog position but with an interlocked arm you know right right right right right lever and put them back that's another one you know and the front headlock too there's a rule of like you can't stand up with it because it'll put too much pressure on the neck and now they're doing front headlock turnovers not the choke because it's too right you know neck crank versus choke but

you can now crank it if you're on one knee to roll them over kind of like a resting front headlock turn yeah you like you yeah you flip them over yeah so it's like that is much more clear so people are going for it because they know they're not going to get penalized so like all these different things that there was it's like they're letting people do and then people are getting better and better at it. So now there's action, reaction, defensive maneuvers. Oh, I think that's good. Yeah. And you have the potential of a definitive finish, do. Right? Like, that's probably what they're

looking for. They want a definitive, you know, epon or submission or something that's clean. I definitely think there's flaws to judo and then waza if you're looking at it from a martial lens. Right. Right. But of course. This is sport judo, you know, that we're talking about. You know, they're pretty clear. with like, hey, this is what we're doing a sport judo, there's a martial side to it

and there's a traditional thing of like if you're an asshole, you're getting kicked out of the thing, you'll be bad. They don't play with any of that stuff. It's very, very professional. Even the coaches get them to sit in the coaches' chair. They could only coach during Mate, like tennis. They can't coach all the actions going on.

They get one warning. The referee turns around and goes, that's their first warning. Second warning, they're out. And they can't sit in that coaching chair for the rest of the day, which hurts their athletes. And there's zero tolerance. So it's a pretty good system, you know, very respectful.

Pretty cool. I like it like that. Yeah. Like me and my children. Yeah. No tolerance. Zero tolerance. No way.

That's a discussion for another day. Yeah, it's a whole other thing. Yeah. Well, it sounds like you had a great trip. Sounds like between the Incheon Airport, the Mongolian crowd, and, you know, the rule changes and all the exciting matches. It sounds like you had a very good trip out there. You know, it's a cool little factoid.

You know, they have VIPs and important people that come in through the thing, right? Yeah. The president, the former president of the Mongolian Judo Federation was also the former president of Mongolia. Yeah. So he was there, huge deal. Yeah.

It was just like hand, cabs were hanging around. And it was like, oh, my God, that's, you know, president so and so yeah yeah i do want to visit mongolia it seems like an interesting spot you know it's very weird you know uh oh is i mean it's not weird but it's you know the scale of which mongolia was with the conquer oh yeah right how much they own you know versus now it's a country of three million spread across this thing and there's a 1.5 million in the city it's like empty yeah it's like new york less than new york city it's unbelievable really you know

New York City got 8 million I can't remember but it sounds like that yeah with the boroughs and everything yeah there's so many high rises going up now you know

funded by the Chinese and the Russians because you know they're landlocked between Russia and China you know yeah yeah and so there's a lot of money

coming in there you know but half of the population sounds sketchy lives on the on the steps step yeah you know they did a documentary

on one of the former champs and then the documentary team the fighting films crew that does all the judo gallery yeah they're going tell me about it And they go, oh, we're looking for the so-and-so family, the champion, you know. And they had the translator.

And they're like, they're that way. But there's no, there's no address. Yeah, yeah. You got to just find them over there. So they would just take off into the mountains for two hours, find a yurt and walk off. And we're like, hey, we're looking for these guys. You know where there? And they were just going over there.

And they were driving the direction over there. And then hoping that they would find them because they're nomadic. Right. I would be absolutely freaking out. If I drove off into the middle of nowhere with zero directional GPS and roads, everything looks the same for six. Can you imagine that? Yeah. But there he was.

They eventually found him. Right. They interviewed him. And what happens is they would wrestle, you know, in the fields. Yes. And they would enter these tournaments and if they were good, they would get, you know, called over to the city and they would just live and train there, you know? Yeah. That was my dream.

remember my, one of my kids was taking, and don't take this the wrong way, they were taking horseback riding lessons, very bougie, but that didn't last too long. But my hope was like, oh, maybe I can get him some archery lessons and you can learn to shoot from horseback. And he'll be my own little nomad rater. That's what they did. That was the AI revolution of back in the day in Mongolia, for them to be able to ride those horses that shoot the arrows backwards and and then have long-range weapons when no one did. Yeah. You know, just like the sheer scale of Mongolian history is just, you know.

It's insane. And there were nomadic culture, so they didn't have these walls and structures. Yeah. So they would go to conquer this town or whatever. It's all mine. Yeah. If I can go there, it's mine. They would shoot the thing and then be like, you know, look at all these walls.

What are we going to do? Divert the river and then flood them. And then they would come out and they would be running around on their horses. Insane. Insane. Can you imagine that? Well, they didn't do that great in Japan, if I remember correctly. Yeah, they couldn't get there.

Yeah. Insane. Insane. Oh, man. Well, I think that's a good episode for today. Thank you. Thank you, David. Oh, you're very welcome.

And, yeah, we'll see you guys in the next episode. Yep. Thank you.