The Shintaro Higashi Show - Should I Compete?

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

Judo places a huge emphasis on competition, but is competition for everyone? It wouldn't be an overstatement to say every Judoka has asked the question "should I compete?" at some point during their Judo journey. What'd be the best way to answer this question? In this episode, Shintaro and Peter discuss some of the factors to consider in answering this question. Join our Discord server and start chatting with us and other grapplers by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. First and foremost, shout out to Levon, one of our sponsors. Thank you very much. It's because of you that we can make this amazing podcast with so much information and interesting judo-related stuff, grappling-related stuff. So thank you very much. And if you want to support us, there's a Patreon and all that, right?

Peter is in charge of it. Peter, do you want to plug it? Yeah. So basically, all the links are below in the descriptions. You can support us monthly, and then you get to join our Discord server and then we can chat with us and other grapplers online. Yes. Please support us. And today we're going to talk about one of the, I think one of the most talked about topics actually, but we never dedicate an episode to it.

Should you compete? Yeah, should I compete? I get this question daily on the regular i get guys coming in like hey man you know i'm not very athletic i've never done judo but i really want to compete you know uh do you have a competition team like people love the idea of competition you know right right so we we had an episode about how to prepare for it but i think it's worth talking about if you should compete. And we talked about it a lot. I mean, I guess your thesis has been that you don't have to compete. You don't have to compete.

I don't think it's necessary. I think sometimes it could do more harm than good. And I think before you even ask that question, you just don't have enough information at hand. What is judo competition like? What are there's, you know, for instance, like you go to Taekwondo or something, or you grew up doing Taekwondo, you could compete in form. Yeah. You could compete in like a cooperative demonstration division.

Yeah. And you could also compete in sparring with modified rules. Yeah. Sometimes there's age division. Sometimes there's weight divisions and belt divisions. You just don't know, right? Like if you just walking into a dojo and you're like, Hey man, all these guys are doing competitions. Like should I compete?

You have no idea what you're walking into. Right. So I think, you know, you should express this to your coach. And then the first thing the coach should say is, Hey, go, why don't you go check it out? Why don't you go watch a competition? And if they say anything outside of that, I'm going to be a little bit like wearing. I should be a little bit skeptical. Like, yes, of course, you should go compete.

Let's train. We'll do this. We'll put you on this package. We'll put you on this training program. I don't think that's the right approach because you don't really know whether you're cut out for it or whether it's something you actually want to do until you actually get to see what that's like.

You know what I mean? So the first step would be just to observe, like, see a local tournament and support your teammates and then kind of see what it is. If you have teammates that are going. Yeah. You know, and sometimes you're part of a dojo or a club that, like, is very into competition. Right. And I'll give you, like, an example. Like, I know a guy that runs a judo club and he has three kids and all three of his kids do judo so like that's you know and his kids are competitive so like everyone on that youth

squad is competing because he's trying to build a community of competitors right and the primary focus of that competition team is so that his kids can have a group like a community going to these things right i'm not saying like he's just doing it for his kids right he's also running a dojo teaching all the kids and like inspiring he's doing all the right things as a judo coach right you know what i mean that club's a little bit different than then let's just say like the you know for fun let's just kind of like grapple and like learn a little bit of self-defense i mean versus like the dojo that does like not kids judo but like kids martial arts yeah that's a whole

other animal right you know and i know jujitsu schools that do this kids martial arts and their version of the competition is demonstration forms that's it you know even though it's a jujitsu school they do mostly regular form slash martial arts training for their kids. And eventually they get funneled into the jiu-jitsu system, right? If they're much more serious. So it's like a general after-school activity kind of thing. Yeah, I know those are like that. Out of those people, out of those kids, if they're interested, they can dedicate more time into actually doing BJJ, I see.

I know a jiu-jitsu school that's packaged themselves as an MMA school. People come for MMA because they think they want to be cage fighters. But nine times out of 10, these guys are not cut out for cage fighting. They're not professional MMA caliber people. They think they are. But the moment they get popped in the mouth, it's over. They don't want to do it. They quit.

They're soft. They're just not those kinds of people. So they use them. And then they funnel them into the jiu-jitsu system and people end up loving jiu-jitsu and then they stick to jiu-jitsu. Because it's less impact, like easier on the body.

It's easier on the body. More people can do it. And then they fall in love with jiu-jitsu. They compete in jiu-jitsu. And then if they want to make that transition back to MMA, they have the MMA program that they could be part of. Yeah. So it depends all on this kind of a thing.

What kind of competitions are we talking about? Yeah. You know, so you have to have an open conversation with your coach about this stuff

before you annoy your coach. Okay? Before you, you know, you just signed up, you've been doing it for three, four months. Oh, I want to compete

because I'm freaking tough and all this stuff. Before you do any of that stuff, right, you got to answer it for three, four months. I want to compete because I'm freaking tough and all this stuff. Before you do any of that stuff, you got to answer some of your own questions first. You got to try to get as much information as possible. Talk to the competitors in the room. What is a good tournament to go watch?

What tournaments are the guys going to next? These kinds of things. What is the preparation like? Do you want to be a part of that? What weight class should I be in? All these different questions have to be answered. And the more information you gather by sort of being in it, talking to competitors, going to these competitions and watching, right? Yeah.

Even scoping out the guys that you're going to be in division with. Sometimes, right? You go to these local tournaments in judo. It's a novice division. White, yellow, green. Right? Sometimes you're a masters Sometimes you go uncontested

And then they just jumble one big masters division Yes, there are weight classes But there's black belts in there Yeah So you gotta sit there and watch I've seen that I had novice green belts from my dojo Go to a masters competition

And fight brown belts and black belts Who've been doing judo for 15 years. Yeah. Yeah. Are you okay with that? Right. Yeah. There are a lot of variables here. So you talk to your coach, you talk to

your teammates, and then you've watched some tournaments and you've gathered enough information. So what should you... Can you just say, okay, I'm ready. Can you just answer that question, I'm ready to compete. You know, I think a lot of us are not very good indicators

of our own progress. Some people overestimate themselves, some people underestimate themselves. So it's very difficult to accurately gauge whether you're ready for something like this. But the one thing you can control is the output in training. How much training are you doing? If you're coming to something like this. But the one thing you can control is the output in training. How much training are you doing? If you're coming to the Giro twice a week and you're kind of out of shape,

you have no business being in these things. Because you're going to encounter someone that trains two, three times as much as you, who's in great shape, who might be a better athlete to begin with. That guy's going to smoke you. So you kind of have to know where you stand on these things because you don't want to go out. It's like progressive over. You know what I mean? So you kind of have to know where you stand on these things because you don't want to go out.

It's like progressive over. You know what I mean? If you're just starting boxing and you go against Mike Tyson, he's going to take your head off. You're going to be injured. You're going to be dead, right? So you want to like, obviously, that's an extreme example. You know what I mean?

But the risks are very high when you're doing judo competition, right? So you have to like kind of know where you are, where you stand, and where your training is, you know? And you have to gauge that. If you're training all the time, and where your training is. And you have to gauge that. If you're training all the time, let's just say you're doing, let's say, three days a week judo. Three days a week judo, you're running twice a week, lifting twice a week. You put in seven workouts a week consistently over the last six months. Man.

Okay? Yeah. And you're a green belt in the room, and you can do very well with all the green belts. Okay? You go into a competition, there's still a risk of being exposed to a technique or like a judo style that you never encountered. For instance, we don't teach a lot of Georgian stuff. We teach it, but nobody really does it. So you go against a Georgian kid from a Georgian judo club, when they encounter a guy that's coming over the back Georgian, you can probably get thrown.

Right, right, right. But it's good exposure to gain that experience, right? But sometimes that loss can delineate your motivation or you could get injured. And now you've been taken off the path because you simply just weren't exposed to that stimulus. And there's no way to be exposed to all different judo styles if you're not competing, right? Right. So to be okay with that right it's a huge thing there's like i think you mentioned two aspects of this so first is the physical aspect

where you can get injured or because you encounter something that you you had never you've never encountered before so and there's another one the mental side of things that you might take the loss or the failure which is pretty much pretty inevitable unless you're a phenom i guess and then you may not you know take it well take the failure well yes yeah that's the thing so how how would you let's go over the physical part of things. How would you, because you do have to, like you say,

you do have to, there's a lot of benefits in competing. Like for example, like it's a good test ground and then you can actually, Judo can improve a lot by being exposed to different styles. But how do you minimize the risk

while trying to take advantage of all the pros of competing, the benefits of competing in terms of physicality? I mean, being in proper shape, right? That's a big one. You know, if you're going out there and you can't do a full five minute round or a four minute round, you know, then you obviously need to work on your conditioning. Right. Sometimes you have four matches in a day, almost, you know,

relatively close back to back. Sometimes they'll give you time to rest sometimes. Right. Yeah. And in that case, you have to be able to do four rounds, four minutes straight through it. So 16 minutes straight, you know, not straight, but like, you know, a little bit of time in between.

Right. So if you can't do four rounds back to back in your dojo, like, you know, you're not there yet. You know what I mean? You got to be strong as possible. You know, your joints and mobility and all that stuff that plays a role in this stuff. You know what I mean? You got to be strong as possible. Your joints and mobility and all that stuff, that plays a role in this stuff. You know what I mean?

So that's sort of the physicality. There's a bare minimum level of physical ability that's necessary. If you don't lift, if you're not running, if you're eating like shit, and then if you're just doing judo twice a week and you're telling me you want to compete, I'm going to tell you no. You know what I mean? Right, because it's all risk is there like you're not doing everything you possibly can to put your best foot forward and the injury risk is so high what are you gonna get out of it you're probably gonna lose and you're gonna feel bad you're gonna quit you know what i mean that's probably worse off as opposed to let's not compete in this thing let's

get you keep coming back for a year and maybe you'll be in much better shape next year right around now and you're just in the best shape of your life. And now you're training much more. And now maybe, you know, you go out there, even if you lose, you have a,

you put your best foot forward and prepare for something. And the reward is there. Right. And then you could build off of that, you know, but if you're a fat mess and you're not training. Yeah. Yeah.

The coach has to be aware and then really be able to guide their students yes I think it's irresponsible for a coach to be like alright guys we're going to this thing everyone sign up who wants to go

anyone want to go yes yes yes yes let me just sign it let's bring everybody you know and I've known coaches who do like alright

you know I'm burning a Saturday for you guys this is a coaching fee you know coaching fee is 25 bucks a person you know

it's not that much right you got 20-30 guys going you got 30's not that much right right you got 20 30 guys going you got 30 guys going that's 600 or whatever my mouth is off yeah so it's not bad you know like so i i know guys who do that you know what i mean uh but even then it's like a little bit irresponsible i think because you know it's not good for your business either because how do most people take failure not well most people can't take good, even like constructive criticism in the office. It has to be neatly packaged.

It's got to be like a compliment sandwich. One nice thing, one constructive criticism, one nice thing, right? Man, I love the way you write, but you could potentially work on this. But the work itself is great. I love the way you're putting out work.

Okay, maybe it's digestible. Maybe that person goes, all right, you know what? You're right. I i gotta fucking work on this thing right maybe right uh so you know most people don't take failure well or criticism well some people cannot be coached properly you know and sometimes like we're having a conversation with someone that just walks up to you like hey i want to compete and you know nine times out of ten before i go into this deep thing of like hey all right let's see why you want to compete are you properly training what is it going to take to get there do you know what to expect all this stuff it's a waste of my breath so sometimes it's like no right you know what i

mean i should just point them to this podcast from that one yeah i think that's it's one of the uh one of the main motivators for doing this podcast, right? That'd be good, right? Yeah, repeat questions. So, okay, so we talked about how to answer the question of should you compete in terms of physical aspect, the physical aspect of things. And you

alluded to the mental side, too. Like, let's talk about that. How do you, how can you tell if you're ready to compete mentally? Like, should I compete mentally? And am I ready? Sometimes, you know, sometimes you just can't tell, right? But then having an honest conversation, let's say some kid is working really hard in the

gym, right? And he's motivated and he's doing it. He wants to get better. And then he's talking to me and he's like, hey, I want to compete in Express. You know, I want to ask the question to that kid, like, why? What do you think you're going to get out of this experience? Why do you want to compete in Express. You know, I want to ask the question to that kid, like, why? What do you think you're going to get out of this experience? Why do you want to do it? If they have a good question, sometimes some people kind of have it intuitively,

they kind of have this feeling, right? I want to pressure test my thing. I want to be, you know, stronger. I want to be, you know, mentally tougher. I want to, you know, make sure I can perform under pressure and all these different things, right? And, you know, whether or not they played sports in high school or just competitive sports, period, plays a role.

You know what I mean? Playing baseball, getting up there, everyone's watching, your mom and dad, and you're like up at bat. You know, you strike out, you look like a loser. You know, like that pressure, right? If you've been exposed to it, you know the merits of that already.

Right, right. But if you're like, oh, I've never played sports and not, you know, 20 something years old, I'm kind of like this spineless guy that just wants to get tougher. And I found martial arts for that purpose. I need, I was something missing and I want to be, you know, stronger, tougher. I want to be a better version of myself. That person who's never truly been tested. Maybe he's an accountant or something right he's never had any athletics or something like that he sits in an office all day maybe his back problem whatever that person we have no clue how he's going to handle that pressure right maybe he has a panic attack side of the mat which that happened before you know

and you talk them down you know i've had guys who you know just can't perform can't do it they want to leave you know what i mean uh and you kind of have to make a decision on who, you know, just can't perform, can't do it. They want to leave. You know what I mean? And you kind of have to make a decision on the fly, you know? And sometimes the answer is like, hey, man, if you walk away right now, you're going to hate yourself for the rest of your life. You got to do this. You know, knowing who he's going to go with. Right.

Right. So you got to talk to the other coach. You got to do all these different things. You know what I mean? So you have to have somebody really that's in your corner that has your best interest who knows you in your corner not necessarily in your corner but to guide you you know because i'm not always at these things right because my priority is being a dad on the weekends you know what i mean so four guys wants to go to a local tournament i'm like you you guys go if you want i'm not going i'm not going for i'm not burning a sundae at the park with my daughter for four guys.

I'm sorry. I've been to a million of these, and I don't even think it's a good idea for half of you guys to go. I wouldn't say it like that, but I just can't justify it. Right. You know what I mean? So in terms of mental preparation, like to see if you're ready mentally to compete,

if you have some competition experience, maybe you already have that intrinsic motivation. So you can kind of, we can kind of, like, I guess in some sense, you can say that you're ready to compete mentally. Is that what you're saying? You know what it's like, man? You go through a hard breakup, right?

Yeah. And then you're talking to your therapist. You're talking about it. Oh, she said this one time and I was ruminating about it and blah. And then my childhood, you know, my mom didn't love me the way I needed to be loved. And you go through all this shit and then little by little, you talk about it, you get it, you understand it. And then little by little, you know, one day, six months in, you tell your therapist, like, I think I'm ready to put myself out there again. You know what I mean? And then sometimes the therapist is like, you know what?

You're right. Why don't you download Hinge, the best app on this planet? We're not sponsored by Hinge, by the way. No, they should sponsor me though. I'm a huge consumer. I see. One of their best consumers. But anyway, so it's kind of like that, right?

You're talking to your coach. You're having an open dialogue. And you have to answer this question before you even get out there. Why are you doing this? Have you ever done this before? What do you think you could get out of it? Do you think you're prepared? What do you think it takes to get out there?

What do you think your competition is like, right? Have you spoken to the guys in the room who have gone, right? And I love it that Gianni is out there now competing on the world circuit because the guys who are intermediates who are looking at competition, now they say hey that's where i want to be i want to be able to watch the live stream you know on judo tv or whatever it is you know like the the pan-american opens are not very televised properly well like higher end you know judo tv stuff like you could watch so i want to get there i want to get

there you know so you know seeing that and then talking to those guys, being in the room with some of those guys, I think it's a huge help. I see. And then once you have that sort of a thing, and then you're like, you know what? I could dedicate myself to going, right? Then you can kind of even think about it.

But if you can't even string together three weeks of practice consistently back-to-back, three days a week, then you really have no business even thinking about this stuff. And that's okay though that's okay because it's not everyone's thing people have work people have family

people have this people have that you know what I mean people like to drink yeah you know like people like to go out on Friday night

get loaded and then you know be hungover on Saturday and Sunday watch movies and then like limp into work on Monday

and then just come to judo twice a week and make friends and work out every now and then that person that's fine God bless you i love you you know how come to the room do judo i love you man but like competition is not for you unless you want to take this thing seriously you know what i mean right right so i see so it's more of a dialogue you gotta have basically you're aligning yourself with the coach and everyone around you to see so that everyone can kind of help you make that judgment if you should compete or not.

Yeah. The risk, high risk, you know? Yeah. High risk, low reward. Because you get a medal. But, you know, sometimes, sometimes, you you know you need that validation like why am i doing this right you know day in and day out getting smoke training putting in the time you need that medal every now and then you need to go out there and just smoke someone and be like wow

you know sometimes you have like that need to show the world what you got yeah this is the art this is my craft that i've been working on and the world needs to see it you know it's your art right what is the painting without any eyes on you know what i mean that's right so we've talked a lot about how adults hobby adult hobbyists may answer this question if if they should compete or not and you kind of taught briefly mentioned it earlier and i'm very curious what you would say about this topic about if kids should compete so you know you said that there's a gym owner that you know whose kids compete regularly yeah so I guess that was in the family so a lot of times I think kids have more of a extrinsic motivation I guess from their parents and whatnot?

Is it... I'm sure you've seen a lot of those cases. Is it fine? Do you really need the kids to have some intrinsic motivation instead? I'll tell you this, man. When I was in elementary school, I was in a swim team. In the summer,

my mom would put me in the swim team. Because it's kind of chubby. She was like, you know, we'll put you in the swim team because it's kind of chubby she was like we'll put you in the swim team so you're doing cardio every day it was like a

two and a half hour workout just swimming back and forth I sucked at it but there were very competitive guys in the room

not in the room it's not a room it's in a pool but you're in there every day with these kids swimming non-stop

doing laps doing drills I freaking hated it we had to compete at the end of the season But you're in there every day with these kids swimming nonstop, doing laps, doing drills, doing laps, doing drills. I freaking hated it. We had to compete at the end of the season. Multiple competitions. It's a season. It's a summer season.

Yeah. The thing goes off, you jump in the water and you fucking swim back and forth. I take last or eighth or sixth or whatever. It just does not matter. There's no real consequences. These kids swim year round. Some parents are like, yo, I'm a D1 swimmer.

My kid's going to be a swimming champion. I couldn't care less about those kids, right? Because I felt like I could take these guys down at will. I had different values, you know what I mean? I cared about different things, but I could limp into it, no problem, right? I could just do it. It felt like I was going to jump into the water and drown.

I'm swimming back and forth. I may come in last. I did it actually pretty good. But it doesn't matter. The consequences are long. And usually we still got a participation. At one time, they were like, nobody wanted to do the butterfly. I was like, I'll do it.

And I got a sick medal. I almost couldn't even finish it. It was like me and a couple other kids. And all the kids, when you're at that age, they look like they're drowning. Then the butterfly. Dude, I competed in one day, dude. I don't know why, but my dad was like,

just do all of them. Just say yes to everything. So in so many events, I was like backstroke, breaststroke, relay this and that, and then butterfly. No consequences. I don't swim year-round. I do a fraction.

It doesn't matter. But you're doing judo once or twice a week. You're playing chess on Wednesdays, soccer on Thursdays. Friday, you're doing reading and writing. You get a Russian kid that's doing judo six days a week with a judo dad, you know, and that dad's love depends on how well that kid does in competition. That kid will put you on your head.

You know what I mean? So in that way, the consequences are much, much higher. And I know kids that got injured, good kids that got injured in these competitions, because yes, there's's like let's not make the kids do drops let's not make the kids who tiny toshi runage or suplex is kind of dangerous

at that age so let's kind of not do it all that stuff does not matter when you're dealing with some of these tough competitive clubs in fact they teach it to their kids specifically hey if the guy gets overhead and they go for a turn throw, you wrap the waist and bomb him on their head. And they're drilling suplexes. Seven, eight-year-old kids. You know what I mean? And the kid that's at my club

doing it once a week, in between math and hockey or whatever it is, it's just, you know, so like, unless you really know Right Like unless the kid's Really doing judo I can't really recommend it

I just I mean I see Just the general population Of my dojo Like okay There's an exception There's kids who are

Very very good Who's dedicated Who come many times a week Yeah Those kids yes Right If you're doing it As an after school activity

If you're doing it As an after-school activity. If you're doing it as an after-school activity, no. Amongst many, yeah. That's why Taekwondo is so good because there's demonstration,

there's form, poomsae, they call it, you know. Yeah, poomsae, yeah. You actually, we talked about this in one of the episodes,

old episodes, you talked about having like a forum competition for kids, right? Yes. I'm a huge, huge believer of this. Yeah.

If you look at my kids program, how many kids compete? Every, let's look at every single dojo on this planet or in the United States, right? And look at their kids program. How many of those kids compete?

All right. Very small percentage. Yeah. How many of those kids who compete end up quitting because they freaking hate it? A big, big, even bigger percentage. Yeah. Okay.

I see. Well, let's just say we could tap into like the 90% of kids that are going to judo but not competing, but they could demonstrate an inside trick. They could demonstrate an asatagari, right? And they could get some of that validation. Yeah. And they could get some of that validation. Yeah. And they could get that competitor status. Because a lot of these schools, when they have competition teams, competition classes, this two-tiered thing, right? The hierarchical thing that happens, right?

Right. You become first-class citizens at the dojo if you're competing. And you become second-class citizens if you're not competing. You know? And that's messed up. It's really messed up. It's not fair. I know life is not fair.

Right? But what happens to those kids who can be motivated who could get to that level right those kids never end up doing it because they say you know what you know i'm not cut out for this is generally what happens you know what i mean right i'm telling you we had this kid like for years and years and years came to the dojo two three times a week both his parents were not great athletes. The kid just wasn't hardworking at all. You know what I mean? Yeah.

And we had this conversation many times. The parents were like, I want to take him to this competition. I want to take him to this competition. I kept saying no. I was like, the kid's not ready. How can we get the kid ready? You know, it's like,

you know, like a very difficult conversation, you know? Yeah. And then a few times, man, they like took them to these competitions and he was like a team, like 13, 14, a lot of time. And he got fricking smoked.

So they took off despite your warning. Yeah. Or I was like, I'm going to suggest against it. And they would sometimes just go and I'll find out about it afterwards. Right. And then sometimes they would question me like, yo, how come, you know, like you're teaching them judo three times a week. My kid can't win. Yeah.

It's like, first of all, there's a bunch of kids in the dojo that I teach that are winning. Yeah. You know, but that's not the point. And I think the real issue was that the kid wasn't an athlete. Yeah. That can happen. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's just the kid wasn't an athlete. Yeah. That can happen. You know what I mean? Yeah.

It's just like, yeah, base talent, right? The fundamental talent. But he didn't work hard. You know what I mean? Like, well, you know, you need to put in the time. You need to do other things. You know, he was doing baseball, this and that. And he had like a full schedule.

And it was something that he did on the side. You know, like if you're doing that on the side, how do we expect him to compete against these kids who do it five days a week you know and there was a communication breakdown because they had this idea that this kid was a phenom he was like my kid's so good he's already a blue ball which is like that thing is misleading too just because he has the highest belt in the room it means he's been doing it for longer right and when he's getting beat by like green belts and such it's a it's a huge shock to them yeah you know because they've never done judo they've never done rap you know what i mean right right and i used to tell the dad like yo you should take a judo class and see what it's

like because he was so like hard on his kid when it comes to this stuff. He's like coaching from the side. He's like a hard-nosed guy. But this guy never played sports. Visibly, you just never played sports. He's the softest fucking dude. I'm like, dude, what are you doing? And he's yelling at his kid from the sidelines

about him doing push-ups. At one time, I said to him, why don't you get out of the land and do push-ups? Oh my god. Why don't you show him how it's done? I think that's... Oh, yeah, I have a shoulder issue. You know what I mean? That really bothered me.

You know what I mean? He's forcing his kid to compete, and I'm telling the family, I don't think it's a good idea. You know, it was just like a mess. You know what I mean? So I'm very mixed feelings about this stuff, you know. Especially kids, I guess, yeah.

Like, especially with kids, the issue can be more complicated because of what you just described. Like, there are more external influences, I guess. Like, for an adult hobbyist, you know, you're an adult. You make your own decision if, you know, you're an adult. You make your own decision. If, you know, despite everyone telling you no, not to compete, you still go ahead and compete and get hurt. I mean, it sucks that you got hurt.

And then, but at the end of the day, the responsibility falls on you. But with kids, yeah, it's tough. I mean, don't get me wrong. It sounds like I'm so anti-competition, but I've been through the circuit and I think there's very, very lots of great things that you gain

from competing. Right. You know, so, you know, I'm for it too, right? There's a lot of pros

when it comes to the stuff, right? Pressure testing the system, you get exposed to new styles. Yeah. And then, you know, going out there and competing

under a rule set. And, you know, when you're training in the dojo, there's no penalties. There's no gamification. When you step out of bounds, it doesn't mean anything. Right.

So there's a lot more other things that you have to keep track of, which makes it a little bit more of an interesting game. You know, I could go out there against a non-experienced person, force two penalties, and kind of ride that, you know, and let them make a mistake. That's a whole other skill in itself. Right. You know, you could beat guys without 12.

That's the craziest thing. Look at jiu-jitsu. You could pole guard, sweep him once, or pole guard, get one advantage and keep it and win it. And a lot of high-level guys do that. That's a skill in itself. And also, I'm talking about her because we've had her as a guest, the Tara, you know. She's one of the cases where competition worked out great.

She was, you know, such a mature teenager already. She was doing great at school. And also she was very dedicated to judo. And her dad also trained. And I think that a lot of things went well. Then you are fully behind her competing. Like you went to a lot of the competitions with her and all. I think after a certain point when you're in the room and you're doing very, very well and you beat most of the people,

eventually you're going to want an accolade to validate your standing in the sport. You know what I mean? Once you're beating most of the guys in the room and you're training and you're putting the time in and you're dedicated and you care and you want to be exposed to new games and you want to be able to sharpen and be exposed to new ideas,

there's no better inspiration than going out there and then rolling the dice in the black belt division. You know what I mean? Every now and then you get a guy that's top 10 in the world, even in the local division. There's a Georgian guy that competed for Team Georgia. He was an Olympian that moved here. I don't know what he's doing

here, unloading trucks or something. He's like, this works. Does manual labor and then competes. I've competed with those kids. Those kids are killers. New York State. Yeah, New York State Championships. Once you have that, Championships. You know, once you have that, like, oh man, I fought a guy that was on

the world team or national team of this country or that, you know, I could compete with some of the best guys in the world and, you know, you kind of know where you're standing and you have, like, some of these accolades. You took third in the New York States. Yeah, yeah. You took seventh in the nationals, right?

That's an accolade that no one could ever take away from. You know what I mean? Peter Yu, who is he in judo? Like, oh, I'm a black belt and I took seventh at nationals and third at state, New York State. Wow. Okay. And now you have that for the rest of your life.

You know what I mean? That's kind of a good feeling. Right, Peter? Yes. Yeah. I mean, you could say that the state tournaments are not as big, but still, I went out there and fought those guys. New Jersey State

champ, I was that. New Jersey State third, New Jersey State champ, Nationals, that was a... Not a lot of people can go there. That's a great day. So I think at one point it's nice to have somebody's accolades and put yourself out there that take the risk. Yeah. You know what I mean? And you'll always have that. And it distinguishes you from somebody that never stepped out. You know what I mean? Because it's uncomfortable. Right. And like I said, the risks are very high for a very low reward. But when you get that reward, you know, you can wear a proud. Yeah. right? I was on the national team or I was on whatever it is.

I was on the team. You know, I was able to make it to this level, you know, that a lot of people cannot. So in so many ways, yes. But the preparation to get there, I think, it's immense. Even at the local level, you know, to be properly prepared, to know what is expected, really, to, like, do well at these things. properly prepared to know what it's expected really to like do well at these things you know and i think most people just want to do it because of their ego or they think that they overestimate their own skill or they think that they're special when they're really not you know i mean that sounds harsh right but yeah i think are you in shape are you putting in the time

do you know what's out there you know and all these things warrant a conversation with somebody that actually knows and gives a shit, you know? To summarize, yeah, we talked a lot about, you know, covered a lot of topics. But to summarize, the most important thing is to have realistic conversations, I guess. You know, you have to be real about where you stand and where others stand. You have to have an honest conversation with people around you about this. It's not a simple question of, once you get your blue belt or whatever, you're ready to compete. It's not as simple as that. It's not as simple as that.

Talk to your coach. All right. That's about it for today's episode. Anything else? Nope. That's it. All right. That's about it for today's episode. Anything else? Nope. That's it. All right. Cool.

All right. Thanks for listening, guys, and we'll see you guys in the next episode.