The Shintaro Higashi Show - Sensei

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

Shintaro has had many sensei throughout his long Judo career, from his father to Jimmy Pedro. As a sensei himself now, he reflects back to all the influences his sensei have had on him as a Judoka, as well as a human being. 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 you how are you doing peter good to see you i know i don't and people are telling me how you you sounded so sad in the well dude i was sad i was sad it was a very dark episode i was talking about my judo career and reflecting and it was just me being sad mostly the sadness came from you not being here just oh well i missed you too but you know i now that project's out of the way so awesome yeah well we're back on track so what are we talking today what are you talking about today i kind of wanted to go through the way i learned judo and my senseis my mentors and my teachers uh yep that's what i wanted to start with today yeah so another personal episode huh

like kind of a little personal yeah yeah i'm sure this is helpful, you know, because it's really a mentality about learning more than anything. Right. Sounds good. So let's start from the top, you know, for your first sensei, your dad. My first sensei, my dad. Yeah. Three years old. I was in the dojo.

Right. He didn't like explicitly teach me. He had a very unique teaching style. Right. Like go figure it out was sort of his main thing. Just being in judo, in the dojo, that was first and foremost. Then if you're in the sport, you're going to learn it no matter what if you're around good people. That was his entire philosophy.

His focus was trying to recruit good students in his dojo to surround you, I guess, with good people. Yeah, making judo fun was his first and foremost thing with me. I remember him telling me explicitly once, I've seen all my judo friends pushing judo onto their kid and yelling at him and teaching him and beating them into submission to be better champions, and he's like, I've never seen it work. Right. I've seen it work, right?

I've seen it work, but it takes a very special of a kid right to accept that kind of a teaching right so he took a different approach with me he was very very relaxed took me to the dojo made me love it associated going to judo with fun right right i think yeah what you said is like i i've seen it and i've seen it personally too like in you know kids getting pushed to the yeah to the edge like in and then a lot of times they i i totally get it why they would just quit in high school or something yeah you know i saw the most savage 14 year old once he was a kid but he was beating grown adults like throwing them standing soda and he wasn't like a big kid like me right he was like a small kid just very skilled 95 pounds throwing grown adults right right you know and he had a bunch of injuries by the time he was 14 15 years old quit judo never came back you know yeah that's

very sad because yeah very sad he could have been champ you know right so yeah i was actually i must say like you know it's a pleasantly surprised me that you your dad didn't take that approach and then you actually love grow to love judo yeah i mean there's a lot of times where he was strict and tough with me right going to tournaments when i didn't want to go right yelling at me when i did something that was not supposed to be done you know so it's like so he did i guess he tried to strike the balance i guess you can't just yeah once you got serious yeah yeah yeah once you know i was you know 14 15 years old things started getting a little bit more serious right right and then if we're taking these trips to go to these travel tournaments you know he wanted me

to be prepared right so make sure you're putting in the proper preparation sportsmanship these were things that it was like i would never he would never be okay with me not following through on those things you know right right like i lost once and i was so pissed i got into it with this guy from georgia right and then i lost a close one and then so i took my judo gi off and i threw it you know oh okay like yeah like what you're doing the like after right after the match on on the mat yeah yeah like as i lost like uh you know the guy was being a dick the whole time and uh you know i may have given him the finger i may have taken my gi off and threw it oh man right and your dad was in the stands my dad was in the stands and he was furious he was furious right as a teenager back then i'm a teenager yeah you know uh yeah it was yeah it wasn't just about

it wasn't just about being good at judo for him it's just uh yeah the holistic sportsmanship yeah all that stuff was a big part of it right right? Right. His biggest thing was like, yeah, you go out there, it's okay if you lost, right? If you lost because you were scared and you ran away or you didn't compete properly or something like that, if you lost because I wasn't prepared, then he would be really mad. But if I went out there and just went against somebody that was much better than me and they slammed me, he'd be like, oh, yeah, you know what, you went for it, right? Right. Let's go back and fix what we did you know what you made mistakes on and let's learn from it and he's pretty cool about it nice so then what was he yeah what kind of

pointers did he give you like because he seems like he was pretty hands off and then let you figure things out on your own but yeah at the same time after tournaments he did give you pointers or things sometimes it was kind of tricky for him to give me real pointers because i wasn't very accepting of a lot of the feedback that you know i probably should have accepted especially when it's difficult with your dad right right you go out there and you lose against somebody and then you're all pissed off and you go home and he's like all right we're gonna watch the videos if we're gonna watch film i don't want to watch film so like we would argue about that you know and we'd have different reasons why this person was beating me right right

right right you know and a lot of the times my father's thing was like hey you're not working hard enough he's out working you he's in the gym you know every day he's lifting he's doing judo five days a week you know you're not working hard enough uh you're lifting hard enough are you strong enough are you fast enough you know all these different things right it always kind of came back to that as opposed to like look at this right side versus left side situation right you're fighting for inside position and you know he's crushing that hand and there's a strong post because you know it was never like that i guess that's like the feedback he got growing up like just a traditional yeah traditional he's never he said he never got technical feedback when he was growing up right in the kakushikan system because i remember one time the top the head coach came up to me and said hey gashi yeah go like this you got to pull like this

and then that was it that was the only feedback he's gotten in college and he said that's what it was you know and kukushikan university is like that you have a hundred people in the room uh-huh right you're just putting in so much time the guys who are the best in the room we're gonna get better and better and better right right because there's just so much talent in the room and so many so much depth that the the top will just naturally become yeah the best in the world i guess and there's many different coaching styles teaching styles right i've encountered many different coaches and teachers who specifically taught i've had wrestling coaches you know in the new york athletic club room who would sit me down and give me a dissertation for two hours straight and then i realized oh man i spent two hours in practice today and i didn't even break a sweat because

this guy was just teaching me everything he knew and was i able to use some of that stuff like maybe right you know but that was like on the opposite side of the spectrum i think you need a healthy balance of both right right right and my father was much more get in the room work hard train hard right if you do really work if you do good work we're gonna have fun you know we're gonna get some ice cream after this i should right kind of like that it's like hey man we're gonna go to florida we're gonna compete in the junior olympics or the junior nationals we're just gonna hang out and go to disney world but you have to do good all right if you don't do good we're just gonna get on a plane we're gonna go right home

no family vacation right did you go to Disney World? Yeah, we did. Yeah. He would never. Oh, he probably wanted to go. I'll tell you the best one. Yeah. I'll tell you the best one where he bribed me.

I kind of didn't want to do this as a little kid. Right? I didn't want to go to all three junior nationals because they have three. Oh, because of the. Right, right. You have the junior Olympics. There's three. So if you win all three, you become this triple crown champion situation.

Right. And then at the very end, I was like, man, I man i don't even want i don't want to go you know i'm like you know yeah and he's like listen i'm not supposed to bring this up uh your mother is very against this but if you win i'll get you a super nintendo oh you gotta go we gotta fight hard you have to win right i was like was like, really? Right. And, you know, I probably didn't really, like, think that I was going to win, you know, because my mom was so against that. Super Nintendo. Yeah, Super Nintendo. But then I won it. Right.

And I got really lucky that year. And it just, the stars were aligned. Right. You drew the right people. Drew the right people. Like, I was losing in the finals, too. Like, I was getting ragdolled. I was down by, like, Wazari two Yukos or something, you know. When that's, too like i was getting ragdolled i was down by like wazari two yukos or something you know that when that's like i was getting ragdolled and then very

very end of like click the kid with the coachy uh as he went to try to counter me backwards and he went straight to his back oh man that's what i looked at my dad i was like did i just do it am i getting a super n? It was the best. Yeah. Man. And then they actually got you. They got it, but then it was very short-lived. What happened? What happened?

I got in trouble at school. My mom threw it away. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. I got in trouble at school. My mom tossed it, but she didn't really toss it. She hid it in the attic, but I would find it.

Ah, I see. And I would make a deal with my father. Like, if I i had a good practice i could go up and get it or something and then one day my mom just had enough i had like a school i did something in school i think i got i was like in a snowball fight or something i hit this kid in the head with a snowball but it was like an icy snowball and it's something like that right and then my mom was like that's it and then it was forever gone yeah the garbage man came because i thought she was bluffing she literally walked up to the garbage man goes you have kids right and guy goes oh yeah yeah you know i have four kids you know they're

x years old and right my mom goes like here's super nintendo and just handed him all the video the game the video consoles the cartridges cartridges, everything. And I remember, like, standing out there. It was, like, Saturday morning or Friday morning. I was, like, crying in my underwear. Like, Mom, you can't do this to me. You know, my mom was like, nope, I told you many times. You know, you keep getting in trouble in school. And then she gave it away.

So she was a tough sensei. Oh, yeah, yeah. My mom was tough. My mom was a lot tougher than my dad that's partly why my dad probably couldn't be strict at the dojo he's like okay i can't have his mom being like you know really strict and i can't have him at the dojo and be really strict at the dojo too there's a nice little balance there right right yeah so i guess in that way you know those uh your parents as two senseis kind of

balance the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. So then eventually you, I guess, kind of grew out of your

dad's tutelage in a way, I guess. Yeah. Somewhat. Little by little, the older I got, like he sent me to

Kokushikan high school. Right. Right. Over the summer when I was in high school. school right so that was like sort of my first way out of the the home dojo right you know and i was already kind of experiencing a new teaching method through my wrestling coach in high school in high school right and he had a interesting teaching style and he taught everything very generic stuff because he did himself didn't wrestle but he was a great coach right he was a good physical education teacher oh he didn't great guy he wasn't he's not a wrestler himself he wasn't a wrestler himself

but you know he was a great coach he was just like a good he oh that's amazing yeah wrestling women's swimming and all this stuff and he was just like a physical education teacher uh he taught me all the generic wrestling stuff uh and i listened to him i see and then i also went to the new york athletic club to wrestle i started going to new york athletic club to do judo also with mr matsumura who's my father's kohai right right and then you know i'm starting to get exposed to different ideas and you know going to kakushikan university though uh high school in the summers though that really sort of changed the game that's uh i'm actually curious about your wrestling coach in

high school um and then you know we'll go to other coaches too of course but because it's interesting to me because you know when i first started wrestling yeah um actually i i never experienced this but the year before i joined they didn't have a coach so they asked some random substitute teacher to yeah yeah coach and like he's not a wrestler but he was trying to you know make the team help out the team yeah it didn't work out too well but i'm very curious how your coach you know uh managed the team and then you're saying he was a good teacher great coach so what what kind of things stood out with his coaching methods like a little bit tough yeah yeah i was definitely a tricky person to coach i guess right because i came in with a slew of background in throwing right right right so he didn't really

have like the technical thing to you know integrate the two things right if you had like greco-roman experience or like threading that underhook and then like connecting or shooting a single climbing up the body all that stuff like technical side yeah it probably would have helped a lot but you know he didn't so he said hey this is a generic way that wrestling is taught here's's the head pop setup. Here's this setup. Here's the chop. Here's the double. Here's the single.

And you're just drilling it in practice, right? And then every now and then, he'll be like, listen, man, you have to learn how to wrestle, but use your judo. Use your judo, right? And I was like, how do you do it? He goes, you know, maybe when the guy shoots in on a single, you pull his head up, and then now you're locked up, and then you go for a throw. So I started just doing it more in practice i see i see and the more i did it the more i figured it out and i had the luxury of you know morning i woke up and went to the gym

my dad took me to gym six in the morning right i went to school like a regular school boy and then afterwards i would go to wrestling practice and then after wrestling practice my mom would pick me up and take me to Judah. Wow. So yeah. And then sometimes Tuesdays and Thursdays, even if I didn't have Judah, I would go into the city and wrestle at the New York athletic club. So this is during the wrestling season.

So I got a lot of grappling time during the wrestling season. I see. So sometimes I would like drill the regular stuff in practice and I would be thinking about it and say, how could I combine the two? And then the coach high school coaching would kind of give me ideas and then i'll go to the new york athletic club and then sometimes i would see these guys and i would just ask them right hey man like there was a greco roman coach there oh he was great and he kind of gave me some

tips like how do i you know use judo in a wrestling context and things like that. Right. I see. So, yeah. So did, did your wrestling coach have a, so he was a more like a inspire, inspirational figure. Like what was his? Yeah. He was very inspirational guy. Yeah. Right.

He was very charismatic. He was very strong and he was like a big dude, bald head, like a tough, tough, hard nosed physical education coach. Right. Phys ed teacher his whole life

and he really liked me uh he really liked me and then he would say things that like all these little isms right about like never giving up and training hard and right and uh you know he was such a great communicator that like even when i was feeling in a way like oh doing sprints or even i used to like run and lift on my own like i would hear him telling me like man you gotta right right train hard grind and then one time i remember he gave me this video cassette of uh iowa the season oh documentary yeah yeah iowa wrestling season and boy was it he was like watch it you're like that's high-end rest that's like high level wrestling wrestling, right? You'll see how tough these guys are.

That's how you need to be. You got to be tough. So I went home and I watched it. And I literally took everything literally. Just absorbed it, right? Right, right. And there was a scene where it's like, hey, you know, the person's on bottom. You're not just letting him go.

You're not just cutting him loose, giving him one. You're doing a hard mat return, boom, one time just to let him know that you let him go. Right. Yeah. And I took that to like heart. Like I was like, Oh, that's what I have to do.

So I was wrestling this kid in a, in a match and kid had no business like doing right. He's good. He was trying, but he is, wasn't an experienced kid. Right. And every time I took him down,

not just letting him go. Cause I was, you know, I didn't write, I just pick him up and slam him. Oh, Matt return. And then let him go. down not just letting him go because i was you know i didn't write i just pick him up and slam him oh matt return and then let him go matt return let him go and my coach is like what are you doing man like what what are you doing oh the coach yeah he was like i was like oh well i i just watched that thing you sent me and yeah that's what they told me like that's horrible sportsmanship like i don't never want to see that again

you know oh okay yeah yeah so there's a little bit of uh conflict there but you know he was that kind of a guy right he was like always in my face pushing me pushing me i guess that's i mean it's high school sports like the most important thing is to instill in the uh in the kids about this work ethic discipline more than just like yeah techniques and whatnot yeah yeah you know and i was a very good at judo and wrestling naturally right around that time and you know it's kind of not fair too because i grew up doing judo since i was three right right now by the time i'm in high school right freshman sophomore year i've already had all this experience yeah i'm wrestling

most of these kids who have never really wrestled before yeah like me like we're just yeah yeah just picking it up so naturally i had a huge advantage right right and i'm going in there and every now and then there would be somebody that would challenge me yeah you know in a match and you know i had a pretty decent record in high school like over 100 wins and stuff but i would feel a little bit scared, right? Oh. And I felt, yeah. And I was like, oh, man, I don't know if I could beat this guy. And I remember, like, losing a match and then just be like, ah, you know what? Like, I didn't fake a knee injury. But I tweaked my knee just a little bit.

And I didn't want to go out like, oh, this kid actually beat me. So I went down. I was like, oh, man, I tweaked my knee. My knee hurts. That's why I freaking lost. And my coach was like, don't ever do that. That garbage that's trash you know it he got in a single he took you down it's because you're not working on your defense and he like kept me honest right that's good so yeah yeah that was really good yeah and then you know i had this relationship

with this guy uh where i could tell him like hey man i don't know i'm like scared of this guy shooting low singles on me because i don't know how to defend it. And truthfully, that coach didn't know how to defend some of these things either. Right, right. Because he's never really experienced. Yeah, he's not wrestling. There's no YouTube how to defend the low single. Right, right.

I remember like sophomore year, state qualifier, I lost because this guy wouldn't tie up with me. He's just running all over the place like away from me, wouldn't touch me, got to his knees and shooting in on low singles. And I've never experienced that before. He took me down once. I get back up. He took me down twice. And I'm already like kind of broken.

I'm like, man, how do I beat this guy? And then I lost. Wouldn't tie up with you. Yeah. So I was like runner up in the county, which sucked that year, you know. And then obviously I learned after that. But yeah, he was a good coach for that reason right i guess he was tough at the same time he lets you feel comfortable enough to be honest and vulnerable with them yeah so you know he was a great coach to me like i will

always be grateful and then my college wrestling coach was actually similar too. Bob Gadenzi. He was another one that wasn't the best wrestler, but you could tell that he cared about me. He really cared about me. And I was a real, I don't want to say screw up back in college, but I was hanging out too much. I couldn't be controlled. I was doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.

Always getting in trouble. I got kicked off the team. I kicked out the dorm know it was a kind of a little bit of a mess but he cared about me you know and uh he cared about me and uh we had a great relationship and we would talk about you know far things far beyond wrestling right what do you want to do you know how are we going to get there you know to ask him about career and his life and you know we would just spend hours just chit-chatting in his office sometimes you know what i mean that's amazing was another one yeah so he was another one uh that was a great coach and i remember like the team got in trouble i got in trouble right and uh i was being i was like

getting kicked out of school right and then he was sitting out me and he's like shantar man he's like what are you doing it's like what are. Right. And then he was sitting down with me and he's like, Shantar, man. He's like, what are you doing? I said, what are you doing? Right. And I thought he was going to like start yelling at me and getting mad. And he's like, you're breaking my heart, man. He's like, you're breaking my heart. You know?

And I just like, I was like, man, I gotta be better. You know, I just gotta be better. Because you don't want to disappoint these people who care about you. Oh, I was so disappointed. I disappointed him. Like, I can't even, you know, like I, yeah, I really disappointed him. Yeah. But I was a decent wrestler in college, too.

Right. And so, like, having a guy like that in the room who's looking out for me. Right. Come on, man, you can do it. Come on, man, you can do it. Right. That made me train harder. Right.

You know? And whether that ultimately led to me being very successful in grappling, I don't know. But it really was, you know, each and every one of these people who've taught me had like a big part in my development as a human being and in my grappling style too right you know man it's like a watching coach carter or something all this like a bit yeah this coach yeah but these coaches are like i mean i think that's very important like it you know it's a lot of times you know people act out because you know they for whatever reason right but then you know the if they know people realize that there are people that care about them you know is we can

really come back and yeah that's amazing and yeah no it's great you know and uh i'm very grateful for everybody that you know helped uh raise me essentially right right because some of these coaches still did really good things like in terms of like from a technical standpoint too like you know uh coach bob had a great top riding system and he was like let me show you how to throw legs right right right and break the person down as they're building the base you put this leg in there and you have a cross body ride situation and he would do it to me and like pound me you know uh shoving my mat into the floor and stuff and then i was like okay this is what it feels like getting it done to me and he would teach me afterwards like hey this is how you do it of course most of the time he's just teaching

the room right but if i asked him a question it's like hey man can you show me this after practice like you'd always stick around and show me you know so i had great assistant coaches in the room in college right coach cory right he's in another one that led by example taught me a lot of interesting wrestling stuff right right soto right he's another one i remember a couple of the takedowns he showed me right inside control as they're switching in you chase and shoot it's very It's a very timing-oriented technique, right? Right. So I picked, like, this technique from that guy, that technique from that guy, you know,

and it's just a good coach. I remember I can tell you right now, it makes you want to be better, period. Right. And that motivation, like, man, I want to be better because this guy is putting in so much time. He cares about me. Yeah.

That motivation alone can lead to much better right results right right it's not this is how you do a front headlock and this is the only way and this is better than every other way a lot of times it's not even that you know right you have to be self-motivated yeah and then it's having good sensei it helps and yeah so on the other side of the pacific when you went to japan yeah how was i know you kind of mentioned that their style is not like very like on the opposite end from what you had in high school or college like they're pretty hands-off and whatnot how how was uh did you meet any cool senseis there that you that impacted you a lot yeah so in high school a kakushikan high school system is one of the best high school systems in

the world for judo you have 100 people on the mat right right they're all in high school and you have a bunch of coaches and it's very very fundamental oriented right so you're doing lots of drills lots of nagakomi lots of drills lots of combinations things like this and they will teach you and they will teach you right they will teach you a fix but it's very much generic still right and if you're on the team if you're like a starter then they'll put in a lot of time but i wasn't one of those kids because obviously i'm just they're just visiting yeah yeah right so i'm not really getting that sort of direct hands-on teaching but i would sit there and listen to what the coaches would say

to a lot of the top athletes there. And it wasn't very, very specific. It was very vague and general. For instance, pressure, pressure. They would say, pressure on, pressure on. So a lot of the times it's like, what, you just push into the person? It's like you're not supposed to push in judo, right? And I remember them asking that question specifically, and then one of the coaches like all right come

here let me show you something if you have your elbows out and you're just pushing into the person they're going to turn and throw you right if you could limit their ability to turn by controlling their collar hand then you can push right yeah and then you bring your elbows together so there's no space for them to bring their body inside then you could push that's what you i mean by pressure right so that's what i'm saying pressure pressure pressure there was all these different things that would have to happen when they said one thing pressure and pressure on pressure on they would say right and then i didn't really understand it until i asked i see i see yeah did did they have like a mentoring system going on too or something like

that like senpai kawaii situation oh yeah yeah super hierarchical right right yeah i see so you know you have the head coach who's barely says anything right the top top dog in the room for the high school right they're just kind of sitting on the chair and then like okay we're doing this next and they just kind of like hang out and they have a bunch of younger coaches who were just out of college those guys are young and tough and they just went through the university system so they're unbelievably good and they're you know wrestling with all the kids and throwing them around and then being a lot more hands-on and that's the guy i learned from i see moto he was awesome guy he and he was telling me about this pressure thing and then he would say okay yeah you're pressuring your pressure and they can't turn so they push

back right and that's when you move to the side and do you know society or something and as their posture is being broken right as their oh shoot that's when you adjust to better position i see right so like it was incredible how he did it you And he would show me and I would work out with him. And he would just put tons of pressure on me. And there's no space for me to turn. So you can't throw him. Yeah, so I can't throw him. So I'm like, man, this is a huge pain in the ass.

And then I drive back and then he's immediately going for something. Right. Off balance, boom, advantage. And then as soon as he's winning in position, he would slam me. Right. No mercy. Big hurrah. No mercy.

You know, like, and it's like, holy moly. Right. How do you stop that? You know, when you get back up and he's right back in your face putting pressure. Pressure, pressure, forward, forward. And you know the formula at this point. And it's just one segment of what he does, right? Right, right, right.

But you're like eating it day in and day out and i worked out with this guy you know almost every day and he's literally just ragged all of me with using the same stuff over and over you know what i mean so it's like i'm like in there trying to figure it out trying to figure it out and now i'm trying that same sort of pattern on other kids high school kids middle school kids right so this coach may not have specific as hey do this do that do this do that like he kind of gave me this idea right and he would do that to me over and over i see i'm receiving it trying to figure out how to defeat it and i'm learning it now trying to do it to other people i see right that so that was a very very good i guess teaching methodology right you know and some people care about their students they want to teach them this way but each the coach has to

know how these kids learn and right whether he knowingly did this not i don't really know right and then you have to have your learnability right how do you learn how do you learn the best way and this is the way that i i kind of learned you know that's uh actually that's a good uh segue into my next question speak uh like kind of on the mental side it's it's a we talked about this in an earlier episode but it's a it's a grueling grueling experience just going through the whole system and i'm sure kids you know not all kids could adjust to that but like did they how did how did the whole coaching staff kind of handle that side of things like kind of like kids you know feeling worn down i guess you know not uh like not being able to keep up in a way what did that ever happen yeah you know because the season would begin and you hear about kids running away and stuff like that because they're young they

start these kids elementary school champions they recruit them into the middle school program the middle school program is full throttle right high school program full throttle you're on that track of being the best of the best trying to they trying to pump out Olympic medalists through this pipeline. Right, right. So it's really no joke. And because they've already recruited some of the best kids from the nation, you don't really have, I don't want to say laggards, but people who are like that in the Kokushikan system.

It's got filtered out already. Yeah, you're already getting the cream of the crop. I remember this kid, Yokotaota he was like 13 years old benching 300 pounds you know 150 kilos like it's unbelievable right he's like 5 10 200 pounds and he's like 13 years old and he's like benching you know like crazy amount of weight i'm like how is this even possible right right you know it was insane right so he never really saw too much of that i see there would be kids who would walk on who would say like oh kakushika and i know has the best judo program i'm here academically but i want to join the judo team and those kids would never be able to keep up yeah i mean yeah those

did the cut from a different cloth almost right and these kids would work really hard because they're they're doing that full time it's not like oh i'm gonna learn this and major in that and go to college and study that no they're there to do judo their path in life is already set for them right my daddy did judo i was a champ in elementary school i'm here i'm gonna be the best judo player in the world right right so and you know they very, very dependent on the coaches. So they have to work hard to prove to the coach like, hey, I'm worth teaching. Hey, I'm worth you looking at. Right.

So they're always, always, always pushing hard. I remember this one kid got like heat stroke. Oh gosh. Yeah. Twice in one week. Like he's pushing himself so hard. He was a lightweight from Hokkaido. Oh. And he was like 140 pounds,

but he was working, outworking everybody. Oh. Outworking everyone in the room. And then one day he's training and he's training. Coach would always make an example. I'm like,

hey, this kid works hard. That kid works hard. Right. And he would just straight up say, like, he's not very good, but he's going to be good.

Because he works hard. Yeah. Yeah. And people would like, kind of make fun of him a little bit. Like, you're not that good. Right. Why do you work hard? Why even bother? You're never going to be good. You works hard yeah yeah and people would like kind of make fun of him a little bit like you're not that good right why do you work hard why even bother you're never gonna be good you know people were kids are mean yeah yeah yeah teenagers one day yeah he's pushing himself

pushing himself everyone knows this kid is pushing himself and he just freaking collapse oh gosh yeah they take him to the hospital he comes back in the next day he trained again well he walked into the room but he wasn't allowed to train oh okay okay two or three days he's going light you know he's like drilling and stuff and the coach is like hey man seriously take it easy yeah right and it takes a lot for a coach to say that right yeah and then he's back in the room you know full throttle four or five days in and then he does another one of these and just like falls over oh my god and then i remember the coach brought everyone in was like listen that's how hard you have to work right if you're

working hard because right and then you're saving energy for later like you have to deplete yourself every single round every single match yeah right that's how hard you have to work like that's the standard for everybody in this goddamn room like if you're not working that hard right you're never gonna be anybody you're gonna always forever be right and then he was like it was like a great speech only it was a great speech and i was like and he's just at the hospital oh you know like something amazing i have to do like he came back and he kept working hard and everybody in the room right was like you know kind of you know was like yeah this guy's not that good but now all of a sudden they were inspired by him right the room was different after that yeah yeah it was different and i don't know if he ever became very good

yeah i don't know and that's the sad part about training judo in a young system like that in japan like you can blow your knee out and be done no one knows you right but you know you coming up in that collectivist group of like everyone's pushing each other to the top and driving each other to be better right everyone's inspiring each other and the coaches are in there and fundamentals and right everyone's vying for the top spot in the coach's eyes right and once you get there the coach is like teaching you everything. Suzuki and those guys talk about it too. Right, right. Suzuki, Saito sensei.

Saito was an Olympic legend and Suzuki was an Olympic legend. And Suzuki would say, man, after practice, the coach would say, hey, come over to my house. They had a dojo. Obviously, you can't do that nowadays. But come over to my house. There's a dojo in the house. And then they would just do judo until 11 p.mm you know oh wow yeah that's what it takes sometimes one in the morning coach like hey listen i need i have this thing i need to show you so i don't come come come to the dorms right

now i'll meet you in the dorms and it's like one in the morning they're doing judo a little crazy right you know but like if you're the best of the best, you're the top. Right. And you have the best coach in the world. And then you have the work ethic. And then the coaches caring about you. And they have that. And something like that can potentially work. But most people can't handle that kind of volume.

Right, right. I know I can't. I don't care. If one of my wrestling coaches is like, hey, man, one in the morning, we're going to go for a run. I'm not doing that. I'm sorry, coach. I love you doing that. I'm sorry, coach. I love you, man. I'm going to go.

I'll see you at practice tomorrow. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, it's kind of, yeah, that whole system is pretty crazy. But, I mean, I guess that's what it takes to stay top like that. And people romanticize about that kind of a training and that kind of a relationship. But, you know, truthfully, it's not for for everybody you don't get a lot out of that sometimes you know because it depends on your learning style too right right a lot of the times it is a technical

situation where you need to learn technical stuff yeah and then they they it works for them because they pick the right like the people students who have that kind of learning style yeah you know we're also talking about people who are already coming in with a very big skill set right right if you're an elementary school champ you're 12 years old you're in sixth grade right you've already done judo for 12 years right yeah something like that 10 years or whatever it is yeah you know you've already had coaching at the you know the city dojo level you already had right monday tuesday thursday friday judo regimen you're already in shape you're already strong you're coming in with a very good foundation now you're doing judo six seven hours a day right with the best coaches now you're

learning their style their ideas right right dang yeah it's very different you know so now by this nice to see that yeah and now this by this time you're like competing and whatnot so you know i'm sure you've met a lot of mentors and senseis along the competitive circuit maybe from your teammates you know a lot of advice so how any cool experience from that yeah you know i will go to these like tournaments international tournaments that will take part of these camps right and then i would see guys on the team the u.s team or the argentinian team or the cuban team and then sometimes i'll just ask them like hey what is that thing that you did can you show me and half the time they can't really show

me they don't really know what they're doing like you just uchimata you go like this and you stick the leg in between you know yeah like a lot of these guys don't know what they're doing. They're just good intuitively because they've done so much judo. But there's some people in the mix that can actually teach you stuff. Right. And they would teach you stuff. Yeah, they would teach me. I remember this was early on before Travis Stevens was the Travis Stevens.

Yeah. We were drilling at a tournament somewhere. We were both teenagers or something like that. Maybe he was a little bit... Yeah, we were drilling at a tournament somewhere we're both like teenagers or something like that maybe he was a little bit yeah we were both like teenager maybe we were like in our early 20s and i'm doing ochi and he goes hey man i do ochi like this and the way he showed it to me i was like oh right yeah because i had like a little bit too much distance in our upper body so he's like i pull him in lock him in and then i stick the leg in and then i drive right i try never to have my arms extended when i go oh gee right right i was like oh that's cool yeah you know and then didn't think much of it but then i was like okay you know that's an idea right and

then i'm talking to this kid brad bolin he does this you know bow and arrow choke and we joke he calls it the bolin arrow choke he's so good at it and you know i was like hey how do you do that thing and it was unbelievable right it's like collar you sit him and the person resists the sit and then he switches direction goes to the to the bone arrow choke so maybe i should yeah he alternates between i probably did already he alternates between sitting choke sitting choke sitting choke so it's like kazushi choke kazushi choke right every time you go to base out to not get turned out you have to spread your limbs and as soon as your hands go out wide the neck opens up and then you're going for that collar choke so then now they're fighting for the thing and now

they're locked in tight so now you're trying to sit him so they have to open up their limbs to base out but he was the master at this dude i will never forget man we were in like venezuela or something fighting in a tournament he's fighting brazil and this brazilian is beating the hell out of him he probably thrown him probably six or seven times never on his back and before yukos and wazari's right there weren't wazari's yukos and wazaris right there weren't wazaris yukos weren't cumulative right right right right this guy must have thrown brad probably like six times and then brad caught up oh nice nice yeah and then i remember him teaching me this and it's like wow you know his choke is really really good he can choke everybody with it so something like that you know that i've really tried to make my own yeah did i master that technique uh and use

it successfully in competition no because i wasn't very good at the there was like i just didn't really care much right for winning and there was like just because i had my biases on my feet yeah right and i mostly used there was as a means to just burn clock right right burn the clock and rest because i didn't have the best gas tank right right? Right, right. I have a lot of gaps in my adrenal system. So, you know, I would be tired and I would just use that time to rest by just sitting in, sitting in, just putting weight on them, right? So did I ever use it successfully as a part of my system? Not really, but I know it now, you know, thanks to that interaction with him. And I really internalized it.

now you know thanks to that interaction with him and i really internalized it and if i ever do you know i'm in a place to really teach somebody to get to the next level like maybe they could take this knowledge and use it and be successful with it many times over right yeah and how so on the technical side you guys always shared and like internationally like even in training camps everyone shares teammates and things like that right and there's a little bit of like okay on the technical side, you guys always shared and like internationally, like even in training camps, everyone shares their techniques. and things like that. Yeah. Right. And there's a little bit of like,

okay, you know, Brad goes to this dojo, Jason Morris is school and they're, you know, my, their number two guy

in my division is, you know, the guy that goes to school. So there's a little bit of that, obviously, but I would ask everyone and anyone like, what is that thing that you did?

Hey, can you show me that thing that you, how do you do that Tomonage? You know? And half of the time I'm expecting like, oh, I just go like this, you know? It works. Yeah. 90% of the time it's almost like that. Yeah.

But sometimes you get something out of it, right? Because no two Tomonage at the high level is the same. Right. There really isn't. I see. You know? And then there's a ton of, ton of context surrounding it. Like what is the same right there really isn't i see you know and then there's a ton of ton of context surrounding it like what is the entry what is like sort of the misdirection that's

happening right right what is the timing how is he cloaking his attack because if you know it's coming it's much easier to defend right right so all these different things like i would ask and sometimes i'm not even asking like a lot of the times at these international training camps, it's like, lightweights on. They're doing their Vendori. Five minutes goes by. Okay, time. Next, heavyweights on.

73 and above go out there. Okay, lightweights on. So when the lightweights are going, I'm standing on the side. You just can't have everyone fighting at the same time. Right, right. So during that time, I would watch all the lightweights. And then try to soak in whatever you see yeah like aaron cooney here was another one we would always be we were on the circuit at the

same time he had a very very like fast moving senagi lapel korean senagi situation i'd ask him all the time like hey how you doing that you know could never do it i see but i would always ask him yeah you know and he would do his best to kind of explain to me and i would never be able to do it but right so how and then so that on the technical side that's what happened a lot of sharing but uh like i'm sure you guys traveled a lot together you know travis queen hero and all all of the people and i'm sure there was some tough times that you had to get through together like maybe someone lost an important tournament and all so what did did you guys have uh what kind of what kind of experience did you guys share in that way like mentoring each other pushing each other as

like senseis to each other basically yeah you know it, right? Because people lose a match. They want to be left alone a lot of the times more often than so. And Travis, he didn't want to be spoken to. Right? It's like he's cutting weight. Don't talk to him. Oh, okay. He'll literally look at the person like, why are you talking to me? Don't talk to me.

Yeah, and just like walk away. Yeah. Right? So there is a little bit of that you know and you support each other especially you're on these trips and a lot of uh the camaraderie happened between you know the time that you're stepping on the scale right when you're cutting weight because you're sitting in the sauna and you're like how many do you have you have four pounds or five pounds yeah whatever whatever so that's sort of the time that you'd kind of develop that bond

and then you know after you lose sometimes like a kid just comes over put their hand on your shoulder or something like that you know they get it right they get it right right so a lot of the times it's like you don't need like that you know overt pep talk of like hey man everything's gonna be okay yeah because you know we're kind of all in it together and if you're on the u.s team more times than not 90 of the people on that that team has just suffered a loss in that competition right because team usa is not too successful on the international front right right yeah so there was a lot of that a lot of uh camaraderie in that sense but you know you kind of got it it's tricky because when you're on these teams, you don't have your home coach. Right, right.

You have a national coach. Right. Right. And then, you know, a lot of the times I moved to Jimmy Pedro. Jimmy Pedro was a big influence in my judo style because he was my coach. I lived at the training center. I lived in Jimmy Pedro's house, right? He has an athlete house.

So when he would be on the team yeah when he was the coach that's great because he's seen me practice day in and day out but you get a jason morris on you know coaching that team like he doesn't know what i do he doesn't really pay attention to to what i'm doing you get another coach right you develop these little relationships with these coaches too because you go to all these different tournaments it's like oh he coached me at that tournament he coached me at that tournament but i've had coaches on those things like hey go for uh you know drop tayo go for drop tayo it's open and i'm like i don't freaking do that move i've never done that move in my life how am i gonna do this to this guy now for the first time ever like

you know i'm not like explain saying that to him while i'm doing right the match but i see yeah i didn't i didn't think about the fact that you know the the national coaches come and go like for different trips yeah generally yeah so jimmy pedro was great because i lived there right right he was my coach and he taught me his entire gripping system right which is a big thing that i was lacking at that time so i listened to him right i learned it i internalized it i'm in the room with all the guys you know travis kayla and so i'm like kind of living that whole experience with them and they're already very good at what jimmy pedro is teaching so i'm trying to emulate that right and jimmy's in the room and because i was like relatively closer weight to him and he would

be like hey come on kid come on let's go and. And he would beat me up with his left side tile situation, right? And he would be on these trips with us. So that was a really good experience, and I loved the way he coached. Yeah. Right? And if you don't know, his father, Big Jim Senior, right? He was another one that's a great legendary coach who introduced Jimmy, right? And a lot of the stuff that I learned from Jimmy Pedro, Jimmy Pedro learned from his father.

I see. So there's definitely a big trickle-down situation there. And Big Jim was tough. You have to be tough. You have to go out there. You have to do your very best. That kind of a coach too. So he was a motivational speaker.

He was a great communicator. He was a great technician. And that, obviously, Jimmy Pedro did really well for himself. Right, right, right. With a couple of medals. So then Jimmy has a similar teaching style and a similar coaching style where he's very invested in his athletes. And he has a speech, his motivational stuff.

And now there's all these people learning from him who are eyes wide open years ago, like absorbing everything. And I was very fortunate to be sort of part of that so that yeah so he's another i guess that the theme is that your sensei your coach uh has you know if if they care about the students and whatnot then this it's it's like a more like a symbiotic relationship i guess like the students take him better and then yeah it'll push the coaches and all. Yeah. Yeah.

Dude, I always believe like I can't coach anyone that doesn't want to be coached. Right. Right. Right. So it's a two-way street, seriously. Yeah. You can be the best coach in the world, but if you have a kid that doesn't want to be there, they're there because their parents are forcing them, then that kid's not going

to learn. Right. Right. Right. So it has to be a two-way street. You have to have a coachable kid right who respects you right and i've had people who tried to be my coach who i just didn't respect what they knew yeah you know i've had a lot of that too like we're talking mostly good instructors right and sometimes instructors are lacking technical skill they made up for just in

this way of speaking and motivating and caring and you know me wanting to do well and perform for them all this stuff right but then i've had coaches who i was like man this guy doesn't know anything i don't respect him i don't like him i'm not gonna associate myself with this person right right i had that many times too i see right yeah so it's not just that but yeah jimmy was great jimmy big jim senior was great because when i was living at the athlete center big jim senior would teach just 6 a.m classes he would teach elite trainings class which was six in the morning to seven no because it was six to seven and then conditioning from seven to eight or something it was like two hours in the

morning so i'd see big jim every single day i see i see right and he was great he was spectacular he was more he was more on the was he more of a technical coach or more of an uh inspirational coach he did a little bit of the both he did a little both right and he would tell me give me advice and you know i remember like he was telling jimmy senior and jimmy pedro said to me one day like hey my father called me and told me that you were putting work out there you were putting out some work out there you were training really hard this morning yeah yeah good job and then that meant so much to me you know i was like right man big jim senior said i'm working hard you know because you respect him so much yeah i respect him so much and he has a very high hurdle of like

this work i see i see you know and i've always been kind of branded as like sort of a lazier athlete yeah yeah so i've heard people say stuff about me like oh hey gosh he could have been good he was just too lazy you know really and this yeah yeah there's some truth in that and i've heard big champions say that about me too big champ right like who that for champions i don't want to say but like i've heard champions say like i don't know if he's lazy he's too weak wrong division what so yeah so and you know some of that's true right i'm not working as hard as the the people who are known to be working hard right i work hard to my own standard of working hard but when jim senior said that he was working out hard,

and then Jerry Pedro, who I respect, who's a world champion, who's an Olympic medalist, said, hey, kid, I heard you've been working hard. It made me like, it just lit a fire under me. Like, oh, yeah, all right. These guys think I'm working hard. It's like, I am working hard. I am a hard worker. You know what?

I deserve it. I'm going to be a champion now, right? It's just like this thing. Right. That's important, too. Yeah. You've you gotta have that champion mentality yeah yep and then uh you know when they're sitting in the coach i remember at nationals in 2011 or something he's like you outwork these guys right you can go out there you're better than them you're gonna beat them you know and then i'm listening and i'm like yeah yeah right then, you know, well, Nashville's that year, right? Nice. You know,

those words really like you hold on to it. Right, right. You know, because you respect them, you believe them, and you trust them. Right.

So if they're saying that you've outworked them, that you're better than them, it's like, I must be. Right, right. Nice. But they're honest.

They're honest. Well, that's why it matters. I value that the most. Yeah. Because I've had coaches before fighting, you know, I've fought many top 10 guys nice but they're honest they're honest well that's why it matters i value that the most yeah because i've had coaches before fighting you know i fought many top 10 guys in the world i spoke about it last week fighting the number one guy in the world and i've had coaches telling me like you got this man you're better than him and i was sitting there like man like i don't believe you right you know what i mean it's like what what do you mean I'm better than him?

This guy's number one in the world. I'm like 48th or something. Like, I have no business being on the mat with him even. But I've had coaches tell me, like, Shantari's number one in the world. He's very good, you know? Yeah. You might catch him with something.

You appreciated that honestly more. Yeah, yeah. It's like, you know, he's coming over the back. I remember, I think it was Jimmy that said, like, he's tall, he's going to come over with the left hand yeah you could duck it shooting on the legs and maybe you put him to his back right no and i did i duck it duck the arm shot in took him down i didn't score over on the pass no i didn't go over on the pass oh you didn't i didn't really have that over on the pass back then oh okay anyway yeah but it was like one of those i appreciate that honesty right

you you yeah you did i think you kind of you're on that side too you're you never try to kind of fluff people up by saying oh you're better than them you're outworked um whatever sometimes i believe it sometimes uh if i believe it i'll tell them right tell my auntie that like dude you're better than this guy. I don't see a world where this guy, on your best day, you'll ever lose to this person. Right, right. Right? And if they're super nervous about it, maybe that's the thing that they need to hear.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the beauty of being a good coach, right? Understanding what this person really needs to hear in that time. Right. Sometimes you need a person walking up to the tunnel going into that match sometimes you just need to get the guy off the mind off the match right distract them like talk about stuff everything outside of judo because all the judo and the

preparations have already been done there's nothing you can learn now right and i that's like one of the things that really bothered me the most about a lot of these coaches not a lot of them some of them they're like trying to give them advice and teach them new things in the line like yeah the guy goes for like this you gotta go for it's like man if you're trying to teach them and try to coach them technically now like it's too late right because your body won't do it yeah body won't do it you know maybe they've reviewed it done it watch film and now they're there and just reminding them maybe and maybe that's what the athlete needs who knows right right but it has to be like this is my need my athlete needs that like that has to be

a thing right you know so now let's say you know keep going on that uh uh thought process now you've had a lot of good senseis and some bad ones i guess but so from now you're on the other side you're you're a sensei to a lot of people now like especially through youtube and stuff so um what do you as a sensei what do you strive for and do you like and you also mentioned how it's a two-way street between the sensei and the students. How do you approach that? A brief touch on that. How does it feel to be on the other side now?

Good. I like it. I really like it. My goal isn't to, I've told you before many times, but to my audience, my goal isn't to like, oh, I want to make the most amount of champions and I want my name to go down as the best coach on this planet. That's not really my audience. Yeah. My goal isn't to like, oh, I want to make the most amount of champions. And I want my name to go down as the best coach on this planet. That's not really my goal. That's not really what I'm trying to do.

Right. I'm trying to teach judo. Yes. Right. I love teaching judo. I like being a part of this thing. Right. I want to teach people who I want to teach that want to be taught.

Right. That's first and foremost. Right. And YouTube is really nice because I have access to more people outside the walls now and then now people are seeking me out through hey i saw your video hey i bought your fanatics video dvd hey can i come train with you and like that sort of kind of nice you know right everyone kind of says this but the people who really want to do it will show up and then we'll keep following up with me right i'm not asking people to do that but it's really nice to teach somebody yeah who want to be taught right and they appreciate it and i've put so much stuff out there on youtube now and

videos this and that so it's like now people can i don't have to repeat myself too often right right people like i have a kid like we both know luca he watches all my stuff online nice sometimes they'll say like hey i i watched this thing i listened to this thing i saw this other thing what do you think about that there's a little bit of discrepancy there and we could talk about it uh-huh right which is nice because i don't have to take everything i know and just throw it out the person he's already sort of consuming a lot of my ideas pre-talking to me. Right, right, right. Right.

So they already have sort of this base knowledge through what I've already produced out there. Now they're coming back and now we could talk about it on a deeper level as opposed to me going through the basics of put your hand here, put your hand there. Right. Right. So that makes it very fun for me. I see. Because now we're talking about the whys of what we're doing and then why am i doing this why am i doing that and then am i able to clearly

concisely teach this person yeah and you can generally tell right if i'm like looking into the kid's eye and i'm like hey this is why you do this and then they're like okay i'm not being concise i'm not clearly communicating to this person right right right so that makes it more interesting and then sometimes he's asked questions like hey how do i do this korean senagi i'm going like this it's not working okay but it's harder for me to troubleshoot some of the stuff i'm not specifically watching him actually do it in live right right right right so now i'm paying a little bit more attention. It's like, this kid deserves my attention because he's working out hard. He he's right.

He deserves it. Okay. Now I will, I will watch and learn. And now I'm trying to figure it out. Why he's succeeding, why he's not succeeding, what he's doing right and wrong.

So that makes it more fun. Right. And now, yeah. Yeah. As I was supposed to give him a generic, a generic answer, like,

Oh, you're not going hard enough. Right. That's bad coaching. I think. Right. So now I'm teaching this and now I have to question myself, like, do I know this technique

well enough to be able to troubleshoot this kid's Korean Seinagi and actually teach him? Right? Do I have the ability to say it's not working because that's the only thing

he's going for now? Mm-hmm. And the other person knows this. Right, right. Are there the same types of threats the one-handed like is he threatening this is he shaking he's moving is he in good position all those things and is he doing it in conjunction with all the stuff that he already does okay what's his entry like how close are his hips is his hips close enough right that's a very general generic thing that can part of the troubleshooting of korean seonagi right right so that makes it fun

that makes me question my knowledge too which makes me grow yeah great on the opposite side of that it's like coaching someone else and like talking about them and motivating them properly in just like changing them and shaping their sort of being, right? That is fulfilling in itself because I get to make a difference in this person's life the way my coaches made a difference in my life before. Right? And of course, my father is the biggest one. Yeah. I know he's there.

I know he cares for me. I know he loves me. I can reach out to him anytime. Right, right. Right? So similarly, I want to be able to give that to someone, but I don't want to give it to just anybody, right? You can call me anytime. Yeah. anytime yeah ask me about judo you have access to me 24 7 even before

our friendship even as a coach athlete yeah right back many times like you felt when you were in the city you were able to rely on me right and like i like giving that to the people who i believe deserve it yeah i think that's what you emphasize is really important like the the two-way street thing you know if yeah like right now luca i'm i'm so happy to see him like growing as a judo player and as a person like he's more being more cerebral like thinking about different things and yeah and now because you you show that you care about him he's gonna give more to you like he's gonna try harder yeah you know all that and same with me too you know it's uh we i really like my new york experience really revolved around you and judo

you know and we you know we didn't really it was like you were a mentor figure while i was there i mean i'm still you are still you know you know i always talk yeah of course you know i because honestly i don't know if you remember but when i first moved to the city man i was just like i you know you know me i like i'm i don't i'm not straight smart yeah yeah you go through a bad break yeah and all this stuff yeah and it was it wasn't yeah i like that i really like that you know you are a teacher that cared and you know i'm glad that we could thanks man grow the friendship and we're at the point like now every time i go to a different dojo at michigan i like report i like report back to you i text you right away i like hearing about it yeah i like hearing about it and uh yeah man because judo is such a it's a tool for

self-improvement right and that's what it's about you know martial arts self-improvement you know people get too focused on this oh i'm gonna be a champion i want to be in the olympics and this and that like forget all that nonsense yeah it's. You're doing it because you want to be a better person. That's really the ultimate thing. And maybe you choose to be a competitor, but if you're only, I only feel good if I'm going out there and winning, you're not really being a full martial artist.

That's just my opinion. I think there's ways to approach it and having a good coach who kind of can guide you on this path of self-improvement, I think is's ways to approach it and having a good coach who kind of can guide you on this path of self-improvement, right, I think is a good thing. And, you know, I learned from my students too, man. You know, you come into the system and you're learning and doing your judo. And, you know, I've picked up some techniques from you, that one-hand Korean tile. I'll always watch out for that.

Yeah, I guess I kind of brought that into KVI. Especially if you're a Korean person, I'm just going to just immediately make that connection with Peter's one-handed left Korean tie, right versus right, like grab that sleeve first. I feel like now I can't do it anymore. Everyone knows about this now. I mean, if they listen to this podcast,

they know about it now, right? You catch a lot of people with it. You want to put that out there first exchange, third exchange, fourth exchange. Like, even if they know you do it, right first, right, they get comfortable putting that hand on first. Yeah. You might catch them. You could always surprise somebody with it.

Yeah. You know? I do. I do. Whenever I go to a new dojo, I usually catch some people with that. Yeah. Yeah. Feels good.

You're a bastard. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. There was, you know, thanks for telling us all this you know great sensei you've met throughout your life yeah and i i really enjoyed uh listening to these critical stories i i hope you know everyone can find someone a good sensei like this you know one way or another yeah uh like shintaro said martial arts is more than just winning so um any parting words to the listeners uh no not really to my listen i mean yes to my listeners but thank you for all the people who've ever taught me right uh this is the

most important thing i think about martial arts right when you see the person doing judo out there winning yeah you see that person as a champ right it's not that 90 of their judo comes from here 10 comes from there you know this and the mentality side like 30 comes from their father yeah right it's a combination of all the people you ever interact with in judo right right a lot of people uh had part so you know really understanding that I think is really important. Right. So don't get too cocky. I'm a champ.

I did all this by myself. It's like, no, no one did it by themselves, especially not in grappling. Right. Especially not in martial arts. And you're doing it because you want to improve your life and there's like an overall collective good that's also happening when you take part of this sort of athletics right right and it's very important to remember that and to be a good person and share some of your knowledge yeah and so the others yeah so we could all sort of grow together you know and that's my message lift each other off yeah i know it's fine your podcast

thanks for listening guys yeah um i just want to say we we just hit uh 10 000 listen uh since we started um so thanks for the support and you know hopefully we can grow even farther yeah thank you ever want to borrow bother somebody at two in the morning peter has an instagram that attended to 24 7 yeah i'm all about the likes yeah all right well thanks for listening and stay tuned for the next episode