The Shintaro Higashi Show - Private Lessons

Episode Date: June 14, 2021

Most Judoka participate in Judo in group settings, but some utilize private lessons. Are private lessons useful? How should we approach them? Shintaro gives his perspective based on his experience as a student and a teacher in private lessons. Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hey guys, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi show with Peter Yu. Today we're going to talk a little bit about private lessons, right? Are they good? Are they bad? Like, are they beneficial? Who should get those and how you should teach them, right? So I'm not only going to talk about getting a private lesson, but giving a private lesson. Yeah. So you've always given private lessons, but because of the pandemic, the ratio increased, right? No, before, when I was was younger i used to give private lessons all the time oh and then eventually i got to a point where i was like man i don't know if i

want to keep doing private lessons right and when i had a full kids program full adults program and then the dojo mat space because we only have one mat area it was completely booked from like 3 p.m all the way to like 9 p.m. I didn't have any time to do privates. And, you know, I didn't want to come in early in the morning and then like stick around and all this stuff. So I kind of just opted not to do it. And then all the private lesson inquiries that we got, I just kind of gave it to my staff. I see. I see. Yeah. So we did that for a while. That was pretty successful. But during the pandemic, when they said, hey, only one to one sports coaching is allowed. You can't have classes, blah, blah, blah.

I was like, all right, let me start taking on some private lessons. And I put it up on the website, and then people started hitting me up for it. Right. Nice. I see. I'm kind of still doing them now. I might have to phase them out the more the dojo rebounds from this pandemic era. But we'll see.

We'll see. I kind of like teaching it right depends on the person too right and there's a lot going on there in terms of privates i see so okay so the uh that's the situation uh your situation with private lessons so now let's start with uh from the perspective of students so perspective of students yeah like how should they approach private lessons like who could benefit them maybe we could start from there okay who could benefit them i'm not gonna say everybody uh there's somebody the types of people that are just good interpersonal learners who listen well and who could just thrive in that group setting right

people come in and then they're friendly and they have you know people that they already connected with and they're coachable and they have like sort of mentors already in the room. Like there's some people who can actually do that. Right. For those people, it's like you really need it. Maybe. Of course, it could help. Right. Depending on the instructor, it could definitely help. It couldn't hurt a lot of the times, but it's not absolutely necessary. It's not absolutely necessary. I think when you start developing things and you have sort of gaps in your game, even those people, right? It's very helpful to have sort of a coach in your corner that can take you aside and say, hey, here's a full hour of me and you just like interacting and then building on your skill set, your craft, right? So it is definitely beneficial.

But I think one of the most important things for the people who need it the most are the people who are like, oh, man, I'm too shy to get into the room. I'm a little bit uncomfortable, you know, in a group setting. You know, I'm a little bit scared to do like group classes like those guys, I think, you know, can really benefit from it. So like are these people who don't even who haven't even come to a group class like an actual practice or yes so like a lot of the times they're uncertain they don't want to be in a group class it's like they've never done judo or jujitsu or grappling arts before and they're like oh man like i don't really know right like uh i'm gonna go in a room like are they gonna choke me? Are they going to slam me?

I have no idea what to expect. I know nothing. Let me Google judo. And then they see judo highlights and people getting slammed. They're like, man, is this something that I could do? I don't really know. When they call into your school and they're like, hey, what's going on? I'm interested in doing judo, but I'm a little bit scared.

I don't really know. I'm out of shape. Should I get in shape first? When they're asking those questions, those people are prime candidates for privates because it's like hey why don't you just come in meet me you see right right i'll teach you how to do this judo stuff without getting hurt right we'll cover breakfalls a little bit we'll you teach you some skills that you could just use right away right in your your personal day-to-day life right like not like you're gonna go out there and start slam people on the street right so like just come in and meet me, and then that is a great way to introduce to that setting.

So that's one sort of candidate. Another one that you might see is somebody that already does BJJ who doesn't want to come into the room and relearn some of the basics, but they kind of already want to supplement what they already know. Right? I see. And then the mistake there a lot of the times is, hey, of already want to supplement what they already know. Uh-huh. Right? I see. And then the mistake there a lot of the times is, hey, can you teach me some judo for my BJJ?

And then the instructor has no clue what jujitsu is, and now he's teaching basic Kusodogari that he could never use. Right, right, right, right. So you need to have, on the teaching side, a very differentiated product. It's how to be differentiated and catered to each individual athlete right i see or else it's not really worth doing because so people with specific needs i guess that specific needs i guess in a way like the first group that you described the beginners they have specific needs and the you know cross trainers they also have specific needs yeah so like if you that's good right and then you know there's also you know the lonely person that needs sort of a mentor type or like a best friend figure like

that person you know with disposable income too like that person's a good candidate too because it's like okay you get to hang out with this person you get to grapple you get to feel good right and all that stuff like how's You know, like people do personal training sessions. Right. Right. I see. Some people need that. Some people need that. So people who like sort of that one-to-one interaction.

And it all does come down to the instructor too. Right. Right. Because you get a guy that's like not, he's like, oh, yeah, I'll go solo and slam the guy. And then all of a sudden that's not enjoyable at all. Yeah. Yeah.

So the instructor on the teaching side has to cater it to every athlete, like I said before. Right. Right. So it's like this two-way thing. You know, should I do private? yeah yeah so the instructor on the teaching side has to cater it to every athlete like i said before right right so it's like this two-way thing you know should i do privates it's like are you a prime candidate for privates okay who are the options to give you a private it's like going to shopping around for a personal trainer at a gym right right no different right i've been in the gym um you know personal trainer and they're trying to make me do all these weird functional movements like oh balance on one leg on a bose ball and then you know, personal trainer. And they're trying to make me do all these weird functional movements like, oh, balance on one leg on a BOSU ball.

And then, you know, it's like core stability. You engage in your glute medius, blah, blah, blah. And we're going to do that for the whole time. And we're going to stretch for the whole time. And it's like, no, that's not what I'm here for. You know, I need you to spot me on the bench. Right? And then they're like, no, we got to put you on a mobility plan.

And I'm like, okay, yeah, I believe in that stuff. I'm not trying to argue with you here. All of a sudden, this guy already lost me. Right, right. I see. So it's not just when you're at a dojo, you could also try to pick the instructor that you vibe with. You can definitely do that.

I think it's great if there's sort of a platform where some of the beginners can be in the group class and be like hey i really like that guy george right i'm gonna go work out with george right hey sensei can i do a private lesson with george because sometimes i i feel inaccessible right because i'm walking down and yeah the thing and i have my pockets of people and i give little feedback here and there to everybody but sometimes it's hard to come up and ask me for something right right right right i see i see all right so that's uh we kind of talked about like the uh who private lessons might be good for um so say okay so someone decides to do it like doing the private lesson

itself what do you anything uh you would want people to know how to so thinking about the teaching side right or not teaching side as a student like any any expectations we'll get to the teaching side yeah expectations just be coachable right and then you know when i'm teaching something don't resist it because like hey resistance is a different part of the game right i see and that always puts a little bit of a barrier right when you're trying something and the person's resisting and then when the instructor responds like hey stop resisting like that interaction right there can sort of set the tone right right it's like hey this is cooperative right and then if you want to get to the resisting part and then

the fighting part you can resist right we're going to do that it's a separate portion of the match we have to compartmentalize it because each and every portion of the class right is trying to develop a specific skill right if you're resisting right now like i'm not going to go for the stuff that maybe i'm going for right and then because sometimes in their head they're thinking like oh this guy does osorogari right he's showing me osoto but let me try to see if what happens if i resist it and it's like i'm trying to go osoto he's resisting it's like i won't go for a soda if you're resisting right right especially like attention is a big thing like if you're attentive and then you think that a soda is coming i may not go for a soda gary right i may or maybe it's like if i'm much bigger and strong i might just force it right

so it's like clearly sort of communicating that right is very important i see so be coachable don't resist right ask the right questions don't ask too many questions because it's easy to get just standing there and have a 45 minute conversation about something and then before you know it you only did six or seven reps right it's about doing it's more about doing yeah so like i'm looking at the clock thinking to myself like all right this guy's been talking five minutes all right let's break it up let's do some drills right and he does some drills so it's like all right you got like 20 reps in good you know 20 good reps right let me give you one feedback we'll fix it we'll do it again yeah boom and it says hey what do you think about this what do you think about that

it's like blah blah blah i'm talking talking talking it's like look at the clock two minutes go by okay all right so you got that let's work on this let's work on that you know and then spending that time drilling well that's like getting into the teaching side but spending that entire time doing one specific drill i don't think it's very beneficial right because you could drill that in the classroom setting right i see right so it depends on whether the person does group classes doesn't do group classes right so that kind of stuff changes and shifts the course of the private lesson as well i see so all right so i think that's a good segue to how to teach uh private lessons so i've never i've never you know done private lessons like i uh so i don't really i don't even know

how it's structured really so yeah can you give give us a uh you know a typical what i'll describe a typical private lesson session yeah like well it's different from every every student right so if the person comes in and they seem kind of like not so athletic or not so mobile or something like that i'll put them through a little bit of a warm-up right not even like a classic warm-up of like hey do this do that but it's almost like an information session right so like all right let's do this drill where okay let's jog it around the mat when they're jogging around the mat i'm looking at their gait right seeing how they stab how they run this person an athlete hey do you run are you long distance or do you go for runs and stuff like yes no maybe okay oh what kind of running do you do how long do you run for right do you do sprints no i've

always been a long distance runner okay so now so now this person tends to favor not-so-fast-twitch-two-way sort of a thing. Right, right, right. Or you have slow-twitch muscle fibers. That's their thing. It's like, if the guy tells me he runs frigging 10 miles a day, you know what I mean? Right, right. It's like, I'm not going to do certain things, certain explosive movements. I'm not going to try to build his judo game based on that.

Not that I'm trying to think long-term ahead term ahead two years what is the best judo for this person's body type i'm not really doing that but it's just gaining knowledge first like getting information about them also the warm-up is a big part of it i guess it's kind of a injury prevention too injury prevention too but the thing is like a proper private shouldn't be a freaking hardcore you know and some people want that you know i say i think it's very important to warm up into it right but the person the more skilled they are the more important it is for them to get the information so some gaining of the information doesn't require a warm-up right right for instance like ryu comes in who's one of my students now

probably he's like worked out he just came from the gym you know he's stretching all morning he's like working on his laptop stretching comes in he's ready to go hey i have a list of questions it's like hey okay we're gonna do 10 jumping jacks we're gonna do 10 squats we're gonna do this it's like that's wasting his time because he's already warm and he's very athletic already warm and the thing is like he doesn't need a proper warm-up right because we're not gonna be doing hard exercise we're just gonna have an information session first and as we're doing information session as we're doing slight drill okay let's do a combination what are we working on here ochi uchimata combination your step is weak let's work on it he doesn't need to be going hard to do any of these movements if he's going hard doing these movements he's doing the technical he's yes he's prone to injury but he's

not supposed to be going hard right trying to make the shape of the technique first and trying to understand the mechanics right so warm-up sometimes yes sometimes no depending on the person but generally speaking when they first come in they're jogging around the room i'm already assessing that let's see let's do a little bit of a stretch like twisting okay thoracic twist how much can you twist touch your toes like how tight are this person's hamstrings do you have any back problems they have knee problems things like that what is your experience already i know so much about them right right right what their athletic profile is right what the strengths and weaknesses are right and then the big question is like, why are you here? What are you trying to learn?

Right. Sometimes like, hey, I saw judo on the Olympics and then I loved it. I want to do judo competitively. Okay. That's one method, right? Right. And then it's like, oh, yeah, let's take him and make him an Olympian. It doesn't immediately go like that.

Right. Right. Right. Let's see how you learn. Oh. What experiences do you have? What is your background? it doesn't immediately go like that right right right let's see how you learn uh what experiences you have what is your background so now i could sort of start catering little by little so that this person's individual need and that's what the private lesson should be about right i

see it's more yeah personalized approach to teaching so what once you okay so after the warm-up session you assess you gain you've gained enough information about the student. Yeah. So I guess you kind of alluded to it, but you don't do hard round-up round-up all the time or anything like that, right? Barely. I mean, sometimes they want it, sometimes they need it. For instance, like they're coming in for the hour. It's like on their lunch break from work or something, right?

And they want to get a workout in also. Great. We'll'll do an information session does the person come for group classes at night yes we'll dedicate 10 minutes like this is what you should be doing tonight right these are the things that maybe you can fix all right what do you want to do next you want to do a little live yeah let's go you know a little rolling then we could do like 10 minutes 15 minutes of that and then we do some hard throws or something i'll take break falls too for somebody if they need it i see on it right and not always you know and then i'll do a little conditioning at the end so now it's like this person came for an information session has an agenda for the rest of the practices when he does

evening class right and then he got a workout and so you get one hour right and he got to hang out with me so it's a win-win for everybody that's the best deal that's the best yeah it's a workout and so you get one hour right and he got to hang out with me so it's a win-win for everybody that's the best deal that's the best yeah it's a good deal so that you know yes so sometimes i'll do one door sometimes i don't depends if it's needed when i see so the and then on the drill side do you do usually i guess it's a it's like a communication thing. I guess sometimes students ask you to show them specific throws, but do you also develop some kind of a plan for them? Like, oh, I'm going to show them this throw, that throw, this technique, that technique.

Yeah, so once you're in the private sort of pipeline, right, and you're like doing, I don't like pipeline because it seems too businessy, right? But like once you're in the private sort of pipeline right and you're like doing i don't like pipeline because it seems too businessy right but like once you're in that world of like okay me and you we have a thing right uh 11 a.m on tuesdays like you come in and i'm doing my best to teach you as much as i can right you have my full attention for an hour right so now when you're in the group class when you're in that sort of world it's like all right what does this guy need what is he doing and now i'll have sort of a brief agenda of like what i should do with this person on a tuesday i see oh he's not he's not gripping enough or like i have a private today this guy i've never seen him work out with a lefty before

because it's usually just me and him he just only started doing the group classes because group classes just opened right right so i've only seen him really like work out with me right verse right so then the other day he was in the room i said hey why don't you do uh around with that guy he's lefty anthony was in the room he's lefty and then he's going against lefty and he was pretty good against the lefty and i was like oh man like he knows a lot about going against lefties like strategically right but there's things about that that I want to sort of refine. I see. Is he intentionally going inside or outside position,

or is he just being forced there? And is he comfortable there? Do you know about advantages in that position? So it could be it is also like it's supplemental to the group class too. Yeah, absolutely. It's a feedback loop. And then he was turning a lot more this way. And it's like when you're watching him, he's going this the group class too. Yeah, absolutely. It's a feedback loop. And then he was turning a lot more this way, right? And it's like when you're watching him, he's going this way a lot more.

So it's like, hey, let's threaten a couple things going this way. So I have a plan, right? I see. So those are three questions that I'll ask him right off the bat. No warm-up required for that, right? Right, right, right. But if I'm just standing here talking like this it's just kind of like all right but we're stretching and talking about this hey i noticed you worked out with you know

anthony on uh right and you were doing right like inside of his house like was that intentional like did you feel comfortable there okay let's do a hip flex like we're stretching our hip flexors right all the stuff like twisting yeah you know at least like we're kind of getting into the mood of doing judo right i guess you got to be really efficient with time because an hour goes by really quickly really quickly if they're very interesting and interested yeah right right but if they're you know neither or like if you have a kid that doesn't really want to be there for 45 minutes and then the parents like i want my kid to do judo that's a different story how do

you approach those unwilling students they're rarely ever unwilling right but sometimes you get a kid that's not wanting to be there because their parents want them there and then they're like all right you know we're gonna make my kid a champion we're gonna put him in the room for 45 minutes with you and i never do an hour with a kid generally it's 30 minutes you know i see kids need warm-ups you know not really right but you kind of have to do it from a liability standpoint too it's like oh he got hurt and you didn't even warm him up right right the optics are bad on that right so with the kid it's like yes we'll do a warm-up i asked him about today how was school today oh remote learning sucked okay yeah i didn't like it either when i did it

you know all right let's start jogging let's do this let's do you know and it's three minute chunks of time always for me with kids it's like three minutes there's three minutes that can't do more than three minutes for uchikomi to get bored hey let's do ochi you know not for three minutes let's do ochi like to uchikomi for three minutes i see show me what you got yeah ochi osoro what move is that sasai show me iponzenagi you got iponzenagi do five. What move was that? Sasai. Show me Ipponsenagi. You got Ipponsenagi? Do five of them. One, two, three, four, five.

That's excellent. Give me Taiyo. All right, let's put them together. All right, three minutes go by. All right, let's do something else. It's more, it's almost, I mean, it makes sense, but it's a lot more work as a teacher than running a group session. Right? Would you say that?

Yes and no. Right? Group session, you're almost always teaching to the middle. Right. Generally. Generally. Not me. I teach to my favorites.

That's messed up. No, but like generally you're teaching to sort of the middle. You're teaching the average. Something that everybody can gain from. Right. If you have 20 beginners in the room and like five advanced guys, you have to teach a little bit more beginner curriculum. You have to. Right?

And then there's people who have like, you have to have a curriculum so it's scalable i'm not like that i don't do that right right so yes it's tricky and then while people are breaking up into little independent groups of working out and drilling you can kind of just walk around and give small feedback here and there hey right no don't do that don't hit head bottom you're stepping on the guy's toes he doesn't like it you know things of that nature right but with the one-to-one it's like very attentive they're both rewarding in their own way i see and they both have their annoyances in their own way but i think a healthy dojo should have some level of private instruction right not just from like uh diversifying your income stream situation but generally speaking there's probably a demand for

it some people need it yeah i guess that yeah and then just because you yourself as a teacher won't pay for a private lesson or it's like oh i never paid for a private lesson or i don't think anyone will pay for this there are people that are willing to pay for it because they want that kind of specific right differentiated attention and that also means you know if if as a teacher you've never done private lesson you can't just go and not do it you gotta like think more about it how to tailor better to the students yeah teaching private is a skill too man and then you know the only way you're gonna learn how to actually do it is actually doing it and it took me years to do this i always like in the beginning when i first did private and i was like you know 19 years old 20 years old there were older guys who were like hey man i know you're trying to you know

make an olympic team or not like can i help in any way like can i do privates with you so i could learn and i could help you and it was like a win-win thing like oh i was teaching privates back then you know i was teaching them stuff that i was doing competitively on the international circuit and i had no clue why they weren't able to hit it in practice yeah you know what I mean like the classic like uh right you know like Ippon Senagi set up you know like like you can't hit a standing Ippon Senagi in practice like why it's like you just got to go harder you just got to go faster I don't know right yeah so the more you do it right the more you're exposed to these like deep questions why do we start learning with osotogari first why should we even start teaching the beginning

of osotogari can i throw somebody on the street with this right all these questions that are like always sort of there but you've never quite exactly put your mind on it because you're busy teaching tile to the whole group right right right i see and really troubleshooting it because these guys will give you specific troubleshooting questions hey man you showed me that title the other day it didn't work all right why didn't it work who are you going against right right uh going to black belt was he right side left sided i don't know okay we got to figure that out because that matters yeah right right side left side okay did you set it up did he know it was coming if you're only going for tile he's going to see it step around it right did he have better position if he was stiff arming you and he's directly in front of you like this like you're

not gonna be able to get it right so you have to gain advantage first how did you grip what are the precursors did you set it up and all these questions like they're unable to answer it right right so it's almost like yeah we have to work together to come up with a solution and i have to know so now it's like all right next time you go with that guy i watch i see so now it's like oh i was watching you try to throw that guy with tayo you went for tayo eight times in a row of course he's gonna know it's coming right right hey the guy was stiff arming the whole time you know so it's almost like it's it's actually gonna help you help you as a teacher to be better at judo because you like you know they say the best way to learn is to teach other people too you know yeah to a certain extent you know and majority of the privates are slightly skewed toward the beginner side. Right.

Like you don't have black belts signing up and say, hey, you know, I want to do privates with you. Even though they should. I think they should. I think they have the most to gain from privates with me. You know what I mean? You think I should too? Yeah, maybe, you know, like this is the thing. You have access to me.

Right, right. You could hit me up anytime. You could go to a dojo in michigan and be like hey man i was working on this thing and i went for a sort of and we could talk about it and you know enough right right right right and we can we can just kind of talk about it we talk about it then if you're in the dojo which you were at kbi for many years right you're already on this path you're already doing judo three times a week you know and your wife hated it but you know three times a week spending you know, and your wife hated it, but you're doing it three times a week, spending, you know, three hours every time you're in there, right?

And then, you know, you're dropping a little bit, and it's like, hey, man, why are you dropping every four seconds? You know, that should come at the end of a combination. That should come, you know, cloaked, all your high stuff, like taiyo, soto, uchimata, you know, all your stuff. You have your tricky left-handed turn throw, right? And then you drop every now and then. Right, right. When you least expect it. Or like like how are you setting up right so it's like i could slowly tweak you right and watch to see if you're making those adjustments in class i know what i mean so

it's like yes it helps for instance if you want to learn something completely new or if you want to get a refresh right you know i see i see yeah and if you have the time and availability then yeah there's nothing it's not gonna hurt you it'll be great nice so you mentioned that you know you the best way to be a good private lesson teacher is to actually teach private lessons but you know uh is there do you have any recommendation on how to even kind of kickstart the process maybe there's a book that you read that was uh that were very helpful to you or some advice when people are starting out so that they don't just start from scratch i'll tell you this i took a lot of classes uh you know this i took ballet right

right class i took that class i'll take classes all the time all day and night just see what they're doing i've taken cardio kickboxing classes i've taken soul cycle class i've taken all the classes to see what they do that's amazing you know and i've taken a lot of private lessons too right i think that kind of let me pick and choose what i want and what i don't want you know if you're listening to this i did ballet for like you know pretty hardcore for like a year and a half yeah you had a little show and everything i did a show i did everything you would never expect this right but that was a great learning experience right the way they count and the way they ease into it like teaching ballet ballet, it's been refined over many, many, many, many, many years.

Hundreds of years. There's so much involved there in terms of hundreds of years. And then, right? And they're constantly doing what it's doing. You know what I mean? What is the progression to learn a pirouette when you just turn, right? What is the progression from one to two pirouettes, right? What is the type of feedback

that the teacher is giving right right some of it is technical some of it is dumb some of it's like oh think about you know a little string pulling you up through the middle of your butt whatever you know some of it's like visualization some of it is this some of it is like physically manipulating your body to be able to do something you know so doing all these different things for me helped me learn and i've done a lot of private lessons with a lot of people i've taken personal training sessions and that's a good one too because when you have a good personal trainer right yeah walk in hey how's it going chantaro oh yeah i'm doing good you know i'm doing bad whatever right x y and z i tell him about my day he's stretching me all right what are we

gonna work on today you know like i was thinking I wanted the bench or whatever it is today. I had questions like, what did you have planned for me? It was like based on your progressive overload schedule. Okay, so now he's thinking about my progression. Right now he has a structure. All right, back and forth. It's a communication thing. It's like, hey, hey we're best buddies but we're also here to work this guy has my best interest because this guy makes his money based on me coming back also right but it can't feel like i'm just buying his time right right and i want to feel that emotional connection where he's like hey i care about you man i need you to come in here man because i want you to get shredded right So now he's invested in me.

I'm invested in him. We're trying to grow together. That's like the ideal scenario. And I've had that from the learning side. I see. So I will never, ever hesitate for two seconds, even when I didn't have that much money. Not that I have a lot of money now. I'm not saying I'm rich.

Even when I was flat broke, it's like a private lesson with a good instructor i take it anytime i see you know what i mean interesting yeah that's a good way private lessons with people who were like very famous they just sat there and then you know barking orders at me and making me do stretching and stuff that you know i've had private lessons in boxing you know and the guy had me like you me doing the speed bag and doing burpees. I could do burpees on my own. Right. It's not really helping me at all.

You're terrible. I won't say that specifically but then I would guide him like, hey man, these are the things. He's like, yeah, no, you do the burpee. It's good for your conditioning. You're too fat. I'm not coming back. see i see that's a bad lesson i don't care what your title is i'm not doing it right you know on the flip side of that some people

want to work with a tennis pro i'd get tennis lessons for this guy he's a pro you know right right it doesn't really matter if the guy doesn't give a shit or if the guy's actually teaching you or investing. They just want to say that they have. And there's guys like that too. And then when I feel that, like I'm working out with A, Judo, whatever it is, X, Y, and Z, and that's the only reason why they're there, I won't do it. Right, right, right. Because that's not a win for me. Yeah, you're not really gaining anything.

Yeah. It's like the best is the interesting guy that I gain something from intellectually as well. It's stimulating. I feel good teaching them. Right. Because in a way, I'm gaining a best friend too, right? Right. I had to see this person on the interrupter for an hour,

which is a lot more than I get with you nowadays. I know. It's like we do this podcast. It's great. Every week, yeah. But it's, right? So yeah, private lessons are great, man. I think it should be a part of everyone's sort of thing.

I think there's a real skill to be able to teach it. Right. You know, it's not for everybody. But yeah, it's a very, very interesting phenomenon that just people don't really talk about it that much. Right. You know? Yeah.

So, you know, hopefully we talked a lot about the details of the private lessons that I didn't even know about, even though I've been around you and I know you've been doing that for a while. Yeah. On and off. On and off. Yeah. It's expensive, too, to do. Right. And I understand that.

Yeah. You know? But what isn't expensive yeah i mean you get a lot out of it you know you go to a movie theater for two hours you know you pay twenty dollars you go with you know three friends you front the bill it's 80 bucks right right you know what i mean yeah you go to dinner in manhattan then you know two or three people you take your girlfriend out you get appetizers and a dessert man you're done two hundred dollars right there.

You can hang out with me for an hour instead. You know what I mean? That's right. That's the trade-off. Yeah. So anything else you want to add before we conclude? Yeah. Shop around.

Talk to people. I hope some of you guys listen to this and then say, hey, you know what? Maybe I could really benefit from it. You know, find a good instructor. And if you're an instructor, considering giving private lessons, right? Give them little by little. You know, my important thing is, right? You don't want to feel anyone to feel bad. Right. You don't want anyone to feel taken advantage of.

And if you're starting off doing private, start off cheap. It's okay. You know, start off cheap, right? 50 bucks, 60 bucks, whatever it is. I know that's below market value, but you know, yes, maybe you're really good at judo, but maybe you suck at teaching privates. Right.

That is a skill. Yeah, and scale accordingly. And then eventually, once you have a Rolodex of privates where you're teaching people and you have a relationship, you're getting better and better at teaching, then you could charge more. That's just the thing. Because now you're more in demand, right? There's more value, right? You're giving value. You know, and that's just that's just the thing because now you're more in demand right there's more value right you're giving value you know that's a really important

idea you know you can't just say oh i'm gonna you know charge 300 bucks because that guy's charging 300 bucks oh i don't know 100 seems a little expensive i'm gonna charge 50 bucks it's like why right based on what right right right right so like you got to think about it in this way and if you're you know learning you know i'm not saying like shop around but like yeah you know really try to find the right teacher for you because that really is going to make or break you and private lessons can be be amazing it can be really an amazing experience for both sides yeah i like doing it and i think i'll always do some always do some try to be you know try to find situations where they could be win-win man that's all that's what it is yeah win-win good vibes you know sounds best friend feel but you know with certain boundaries too right right right

right right so yeah that thank you guys for listening as usual. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you guys for listening. And yeah, hit us up with any questions you might have and stay tuned for the next episode.