The Shintaro Higashi Show - Old Man Judo: Charleston Recap | The Shintaro Higashi Show

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Starting point is 00:00:22 All right, a little recap for my trip that I went down to South Carolina. Thank you so much. First and foremost, Billy Gavigan, for setting every. up. That was amazing. I did three seminars down there and I was able to take part in the Veterans Judo Open. What a massive need for that. I want to personally thank Hector and Ray Marquez for setting something like this up. They do two veterans tournaments. And you know, it's kind of confusing with the veterans lingo. So usually it's the Masters Division. So Old Man Judo, right? Masters Division. The IJF wanted to take that word Masters and reserve it

Starting point is 00:00:59 for the master's tournament like they do in golf. So, therefore, now we say veterans, even though it has sort of like a military connotation. And for me, it was like veterans. You know, former Marines and Army players competing in this day? No, we're talking about people over the age of 30. And there was a huge need for the divisions, for these people to compete and do judo at

Starting point is 00:01:21 because, you know, a lot of the times you sign up for a local tournament and you're waiting around forever because of the kids. there's kids so many kids matches going on the 500 people tournament which is like sort of an average local tournament you know maybe like 250 to 500 is like sort of an average mid-sized judo tournament uh you know they have three mad areas and then majority of those are kids and then you have a very very thin population of adults and even a thinner population of masters doing it maybe you get five or six adults fighting in the above 30 and you know what there's a lot of judoka who are out there who are older that want to compete so ray was like you know what i'm going to open this thing called the veterans judo association and uh you know it's like the fifth or sixth judo related organization in the united states but their whole mission was to just do tournaments for people 30 and above and they do two tournaments annually south carolina veterans open was one of the events that i just went to and i parlayed that with three seminars down

Starting point is 00:02:26 there. So it was an amazing thing. So first I want to talk about the veterans open and why there's such a need. Judo has a budgetary restriction in the United States. USA Judo is low on funds. They struggle all the time, paying their athletes, paying coaches, paying good help, you know, marketing guys. They just have always been constrained financially. So they should raise money is kind of the thing. And they hired Keith Bryant to raise money to raise money. and his whole campaign promises I'll raise five million dollars it wasn't raised you know and there's a lot of unhappy people who said you know oh my god you were supposed to raise his money okay whatever that's in the past that guy's gone now all right so where do we get this money

Starting point is 00:03:13 you know we're not getting it from the athlete's families or guys who are in their 20s they don't have money but guess who does have money you know guys who are have disposable income and their late 30s and 40s. And those people should have somewhere to do judo, show their judo, and get treated in a certain way where they could give back to the younger athletes and give back to the younger programs. You know, I go down there. I think they have the biggest master's turnout they've ever had. It was like 180 guys, almost 200 guys competing in this, all above 30.

Starting point is 00:03:48 And, you know, the most professionally run, it was like so smooth. No issues. Everyone has a great attitude. It was just such a great tournament. In and out, we were out of there by 2 o'clock. Everything, like, it was just so clean. You know, it was just so clean. And then you're hanging out talking and chit-chatting and everyone's networking and what do you do? And I'm a real estate developer. What about you? I'm a retired doctor. What about you? I own a law firm. What about you? You know, like everyone is a professional. Every single one of those guys and you know i'm not saying like they're all rich i'm not saying that but those guys are the guys that need to be put in contact with the u.s judo system to be able to fund a lot of the

Starting point is 00:04:40 things in the programs that are coming up to the ranks so we keep money in that judo community you know and i'm not just saying it because there's a lot of older guys with money there and all the stuff but these people buy geese they pay for privates. They fund seminars. They host seminars. A lot of these guys are dojo owners that have guys like me go teach seminars at their gym. We need more guys. We need those guys in the sport doing judo showcasing their abilities to sort of pass along the torch to the younger generation to say, hey kid, you know, there's a career in judo. Let me tell you. Look, I'm 45 years old and I'm still doing judo. I'm competing. I have a dojo. I'm a doctor during the day, but I have a dojo at

Starting point is 00:05:22 night. You know, like, come, come. Let me help you. Let me teach you. Guess what? Chantaro's coming and we're going to give them four grand to do a seminar. Come, I'll fund this thing. And, you know, we need guys like that. We need people like that to stay in the sport, keep doing this thing. And, you know, we're trying to work out the logistics, but we're trying to get that tournament to New York in January. So definitely keep an eye out for it. Veterans Judo Association. they're doing amazing things Always reach out to Ray You know, Billy's a big part of it

Starting point is 00:05:55 Hector, those are like the three main guys, I think But yeah, that was an amazing thing Old Man Judo Keep an eye out for it, okay? Also, about the seminars that I did down there It was a really, really great thing You know, we go down there A lot of the old guys were down there

Starting point is 00:06:11 For the tournament And they were able to do Two or three of my sessions That I was doing seminars At each one of these places and boy, was it a great turnout. If you guys are ever interested in hosting me for a seminar, you let me know. You could reach out to me and then we could discuss details.

Starting point is 00:06:30 But yes, definitely veteran judo open, veteran judo, master judo, huge need for this. So please do your very best to support it. Go to the Instagram page, like it. And if you're a guy over 30 or girl, guy or girl, sorry, girl too, because they had women's vision. If you're over 30 and doing judo, definitely try to get involved with the association. And I think, you know, we have to first and foremost do our part and go to these events and support these events for us and the future of USA judo. Thank you very much.

The Shintaro Higashi Show - Old Man Judo: Charleston Recap | The Shintaro Higashi Show

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