The Shintaro Higashi Show - Taking Judo More Seriously

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Shintaro and Peter have extensively discussed the 'everyday Judoka,' for whom competition and randori may not be the most effective ways to learn and enjoy Judo. But what about those hobbyist Judokas who wish to take Judo more seriously and compete at local levels or beyond? How can they best train with limited time? Which tournaments should they consider participating in? In this episode, Shintaro and Peter explore the middle ground between recreational and professional Judokas, offering insights for those looking to deepen their engagement with Judo. 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, Peter Yu. Today we're going to talk about the everyday judoka that wants to level up. Who wants to take it a little bit more seriously. Yeah. Go to the next level, right? And then break through a plateau. Yeah. So this was a suggestion from one of our patrons, Augustin.

Yeah. He basically wanted to ask about our opinion on, you know, hobbyists who love rough randoi and then love to compete you know because we usually when we talk about hobbyist versus serious competitors we kind of treat serious competitors on one side and the rest of them on the other and then we usually focus on more like the leisurely people but yeah you know he wanted to hear more about people more like him who wants to take it more seriously. Yeah, definitely.

I used to be one, so I could talk about it a little too. So yeah, let's have at it. These people still have day jobs, so they can't train twice a day or anything like that, but they want to take it to the next level. Like what can we do? Yeah. I think first and foremost, you have to make every practice that you can. Yeah.

And that doesn't mean doing hard training every single practice of the week. If the guy – if your dojo has judo five days a week, you can't do hard judo every single day. Yeah. Because there's guys who come in fresh on Tuesday and guys who come in fresh on Thursday. And if you have three days of very hard training and then those guys are fresh, you can potentially get injured. So changing your intensity based on which day, what day, what round, who you're going with. And always working on something with somebody. So whether I go with somebody lighter, somebody smaller, someone less skilled, I'm always working towards something.

With somebody. So you don't want to be the guy that goes in there and just smashes everybody now all of a sudden no one wants to work out with you right right right every round counts and you have to make every round yeah yeah every round counts and then this is one of the most understated things is double up doubling up on right when doing rounds they're going one left to another yeah yeah so it's like not doubling up like one back to back but like oh i'm the same partner two in a row oh i see i see yeah because if you're already serious you're doing most of the rounds right but let's say for instance when i used to train with travis all the time and

and jimmy pejo yeah right like going with him is kind of a luxury but it's also kind of a nuisance right because you know i have a bad day he's beating the shit out of me yeah and then it's rough and then sometimes it's like oh i want to get it out of the way when i'm fresh whatever it is but sometimes it's like yo we'll do one two three rounds back to route yeah right with no breaks so while the buzzer goes off and people are looking for new partners and floating around we're just still hitting it yeah because we know we're going to keep it right and then famously ishiii versus Suzuki, they used to train at Kokushikan together, and Suzuki told the story, like, Ishii, man, he'll be like,

hey, first round, first round, senpai? And then if he got him first round, he wouldn't let him go for like six rolls in a row, six rounds in a row. So you knew you were doing a 45-minute banger with this dude, and he's just not going to, he's unrelenting. Right, right. So it's like half of the practice is dedicated to this one guy almost, right?

Yeah. And obviously you can't be that selfish with your time if you're in a sort of a commercial gym. Yeah, yeah. But if you've identified certain people around your skill level who are also trying to get to that next level. Yeah. And then you make it clear to the coach like, hey, right?

For instance, let's say if you're at the kbi now yeah if you wanted to compete and gianni wanted to compete if you guys were like all right you know we both want to i might just even say like you guys doubling up yeah yeah right we do three minute rounds you know 30 minute 30 seconds rest three minute round so now it's like you're going six and a half straight that's crazy but maybe you do three in a row yeah three in a row right that way you get a high intensity high skill vendori all in one shot yeah you know what i mean and then you can kind of go yeah off and then rest or recover right that's one way to structure your training and then also like let's say you're not good with lefties so getting four back-to-back lefty rounds yeah you know what i mean right you go with gianni who's left four back-to-back lefty rounds. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Right, right. So you go with Gianni who's lefty, then Eugene's also lefty, and you go with Eugene, then Greg Lalos is lefty. Yeah. So now you have three back-to-back lefty rolls, so you do 10 minutes straight

of being in that mentality of going with lefties. So you're refining, refining, refining, and then doing things like this. Right. So those two things are kind of like the main things that i think to kind of design yeah your training to get to the next level so so that's the judo side like how to structure randoi and then we're not talking about uchikomi much because and we're at this point you are like above that kind of you know yeah um so how about

weightlifting like training outside of judo what do you what do you think what do you recommend for these people because i try to when i was really intense i would lift and do judo like on and on and off like alternate kind of but uh it's it's taxing on the body like you know like with a full-time job. So any advice on that? I think you don't need to lift like a five-day lifting program. You know, people do push-pull legs, rest, push-pull legs, rest like a bodybuilder. I don't think you need that. But you definitely need to fill in your weaknesses, right?

So if you're not that explosive of an athlete, you should be doing some sort of explosive movement. You know, and I think think cardio training is very important. Weight management is very important. So it's like where you are in the cycle, like, oh, man, I got to lose 10, 15 pounds. Okay, low intensity, steady state cardio. Doing lots of steps, doing that kind of a cardio. And then having once a week where you're just doing blowout sprints,

fast, fast, fast for explosion. Maybe like uphill sprints. And then working on mobility, you know, mobility, lifting, you know, filling in the gaps. Yeah. You know what I mean?

So like doing progressive overload to peak, you know, on the bench might not be very helpful. Because that's not the movement you were really using. Yeah.

Yeah. And you have to look at your energy systems. Like, do you gas out fast? Do your forearms get tired? You know, all these different things.

You have to design a curriculum for you, a training program for you. Right? And I do think majority of people aren't naturally that strong right and you can't just get strength from judo i'm a big believer in this right you have to have a foundational strength yeah so having like a lifting program when you're sort of earlier on in your life right whether you maybe you were an accountant your whole life all of a sudden now you're going to judo you've been doing it for two years you love it okay i want to take it to the next level implement the lifting program yeah right and that lifting program probably is a foundational

lifting program because you don't have the foundation for it right right but for me who've been lifting since you know i'm 13 14 years old yeah for me to go on like a push pull legs split with like all right you know uh eight exercises for the 14 years old. Yeah. For me to go on like a push-pull legs split with like, all right, you know, eight exercises for the chest, incline, decline, fly, whatever it is, doing that, it's not going to be helpful anymore. You know what I mean? So like majority of my lifting program at my age might be maintenance. Right, right.

You know what I mean? Keeping my explosive speed and doing sprints. A lot of what I should be doing is like weight management stuff. I see. I see. You know, and even when I'm doing lifting, it should be sort of circuit training. Because for me to, if I was competing at 100s, 220, if there was a physically like weaker thing that was happening where I needed to gain strength, then I would probably do, you

know, go back into like heavy benching, deadlifting, squatting, all those things. But I'm not. Right? So you got to look at where your needs are. I see. And I definitely do think there's a place for cardio and lifting. Yeah. It doesn't have to be every day, right? Because the majority of your training should be judo.

And if your weightlifting is taking away from judo to a point where you can't do judo in the evening, then you're not getting enough mat time. And we're talking about hobbyists who are trying to turn into serious hobbyists yeah for you know what i mean who want to compete in local circuit and whatnot i see it all the time man i'm gonna start deadlifting because you think that this is a great exercise yes now all of a sudden they're doing strong lifts program five by five and then they're doing the progress of they throw out their back they can't do judo you know it's like what was the point of that you know that's why i i couldn't really decide on the program so when i was like training hard uh for nationals for

example i just did like whole body like three big lifts you know bench squats and then uh deadlifts like i don't i don't do anything like really heavy. Then I'll do pull-ups. Yeah. And then that will be my weightlifting day. Yeah. So it was enough for me, you know. So you don't have to be like, oh, follow the best program or optimize to the max.

Yeah. No. And then if you do lift heavy in the morning and then, you know, you're fatigued in the evening go with people who are much lighter smaller weaker then you can sort of take a technical approach right right right and you have to kind of like adjust but you know you lift in the mornings you should be able to be recovered enough for the evening yeah eating properly sleeping properly all that stuff yeah yeah makes sense so that's that judo uh judo training supplementary training outside. And now how about competitions?

Like how do you pick the right competitions and like how do you, you know, get the team going together? You know, yes, it is an individual sport, but at the same time going to tournaments, you know. And Jimmy Pedro said this in one of our episodes recently, like every tournament has to be to be developmental yeah you never want to go into a tournament that you're just going to get smoked it's not even good for you right right it's too risky you can get injured every time you should be just slightly above your level so it's developmental and you learn something from it yeah and that's a conversation you have to have with your coach because even within the local circuit people know okay this this tournament's there, that tournament's there,

this is the points tournament, I know these gyms go to that tournament. So you can kind of figure out which local competition is going to be tough, not so tough. Right.

Right? So you kind of have to gauge that and then kind of have to have a group of guys going together to know, right, where you kind of belong. Yeah.

And the biggest thing that happens after you do the competition is you have to analyze your games. You have to analyze your matches. And then you have to be introspective about it and approach it from an intellectual standpoint. That's the biggest one.

Even when you do Rondoui at night, you have to dedicate some time to going back and then trying to understand patterns and mistakes. It's like me only playing Blitz and chess. Yeah, that's all instinctive. I played for like a year straight. I still sucked after a year straight.

I'm making the same mistakes over and over again. So you think, oh, in chess you should also try to play the standard game? Dude, I was not getting better at chess at all. You consistently beat me all the time in chess. I freaking suck at chess. I love chess better at chess at all. Eugene consistently beats me all the time in chess. I freaking suck at chess. I love chess.

I know you do, yeah. I suck at it. And I'm like wondering. And then I literally Googled five mistakes beginners make when they're trying to get good at chess. And the first one was like only playing short games. Ah, I see. That was number one. And I was like, all right.

I don't have the attention span for longer 20, 30-minute games. So I'm going to do instead of a five-minute blitz to a rapid 10-minute game. I see. So I did that. That was the first adjustment that I made. And the second biggest mistake was not analyzing your games. After the game, yeah. After.

I still don't really do it, but I do it every now and then. Yeah. Right? Which kind of gives you like, oh, you know. Yeah. Right? So those two things directly same with judo. Yeah.

You have to analyze your matches. You have to analyze your thing. Whenever you have a Rondori night, you have to go back and kind of think about it. Yeah. And be introspective about it.

Right? What worked? What didn't work? What could I have done better? You know? And also like picking the right competition kind of like instead of

always going for blitz that you like, there's something a little tougher, right? The rapid games. Yeah. Yeah. Nice, nice. So then, so you select these local tournaments

and eventually, you know, you'll get to the point where you want to go to regionals and like even to nationals and all that. Like what's your, what are your thoughts on that and this it because once you go outside of locally like you need funding to travel you may need funding to travel or you know it becomes a bigger problem so what do you like for hobbyists and what do you recommend like it's i mean you gotta have a nine to five at the beginning. You're hobbyist. You're trying to pay for this hobby. Yeah.

And it's starting to get costly. Right. And most hobbies are costly. Yeah. You know, true. Yeah. Good.

Try picking up golf. Oh, right. It's so much more expensive, right? Yeah. It's, it's not as expensive as,

uh, yeah, yeah. Oh, I mean, judo is not as expensive as, uh, golf. Yeah. No way no way so you know even if you're traveling like yeah you got a budget for that then you got to do it and you know if they have

training camps yeah they'll do that visit other dojos if they have open mats yeah trying to get different looks yeah right but like i always say man this is a good conversation to have with your coach because i have a lot of guys who are in my gym doing well doing local competitions and now they fool themselves into like all right i gotta get to the next level i'm gonna go all these open mats and see what happens and then they tear the acl or break their arm especially because it's like oh i'm shintaro i'm a green belt on the shintaro now all of a sudden yeah they're at a different gym and people assume that the guy is very very good right right and you're a guest and you're trying to smoke them and you just don't really get the culture

and now all of a sudden yeah you know what i mean they have black belts come out and kick the shit out of you yeah yeah that's not a good look you know we had so many guys like that so really you kind of have to have a open yeah kind of open dialogue with your coach about that and then start kind of not branching out but getting other looks new people and that's where it helps if you have a gym that has guests and visitors yeah right which you know some gyms do all the time yeah yeah because then especially in new york city because manhattan everyone coming here for vacation right right they go on vacation to bring a gi they hit me up can i come by and work out with you sure yeah they come and now all of a sudden my enemy guys have exposure to like a black belt from

the Netherlands or something. Yeah. You know? Right? A couple of different styles and yeah. Yeah. And then if they're honest about it with me and having a conversation, like how good is that guy?

Yeah. And then I could say like, oh, you know, he'd probably be like top 10 in the country or something like that, but he's not international level good. Yeah. Right? And now they can measure themselves against that person and now all of a sudden this person's like okay you know this is exactly where i am therefore these are the competitions that i i could potentially go to and then if they want to go to like a you know i don't know

president's cup it might be a reach yeah yeah because you're not even close to beating that guy yeah so let's stick local here or the higher level local levels or if you're not even close to beating that guy yeah so let's stick local here or the higher level local levels or if you're on the national ranking roster it's like alright let's go to an E level

or D level tournament even those you know E level on the east coast versus west coast very different very different yeah west coast is a lot tougher

with judo yeah more dojos so so that's on the serious hobbyist side yeah so let's kind of switch gears to the coaches side like over the gym So that's on the serious hobbyist side. So let's kind of switch gears to the coach's side, like over the gym owner, you know, who is supporting this effort.

So what do you do like when people come up to you and say, hey, Shintaro, I want to take things more seriously. I want to do more hard run dories and I want to do more hard on doors and i want to compete more like what do you how do you uh how do you help these people usually i mean i i'm at a point where it's like anyone could tell me anything yeah i don't see that in their actions i don't give any meaning to it yeah i mean people tell me all the time i want to compete i want to be a champion okay you know then i better see you every time i'm in the dojo i better see you here yeah you know yeah and when i don't see you here and then they show up i don't see them for three weeks and they're like hey man you know i remember our conversation like what can i do it's like no yeah you told me you wanted to do something i've been thinking

about it i haven't seen you in three weeks yeah you don't get to keep like just telling me you want to be a champion but if you you're there every day that i'm there right i see that you're putting out you're working hard asking the right questions doing all the things to put themselves on the fast track yeah it's like this you know i saw a clip you know derek from more plates more dates he's like the nutrition guy right he's the okay i don't know no different demographic but i feel like a muscle is down. And he's talking to this guy. And he's like, hey, I can't really lose the last bit of belly fat. And I always try.

And I always lift. And I do this many cardio. And Derek goes, well, do you count calories? And the guy's like, no. And he goes, well, there you go. Oh, count. Very minimal. Yeah.

It's like, oh, I'm doing this. Do you count calories? No. OK. Well, then i can't help you if you're not counting calories it's kind of like there's like oh i want to compete more you know yada yada and you would ask do you come to practice every day yeah do you come training every day then it's like okay no i'm doing everything i can all right how many times a week did you lift and run this week yeah Yeah. Oh, I, you know, all right. Yeah, not serious enough. I'm not wasting my breath. Yeah.

It doesn't mean that I won't help you, you know, and if it's a technical question and, you know, you're making a certain mistake and it's, I'll just tell you, but if they're asking me for something more beyond the scope of regular coach-student relationship, right, like, hey, I need you to help me out to get to this thing

and I want you to be my guy and I want to have access to you 24-7 and I want to call you and stuff like that. Like, Gianni has that. Yeah. Gianni at the gym. Man. He can hit me up anytime.

He really impresses me. I think he's one of the top. I mean, he's even a hobbyist at this point. He's pretty serious about this, yeah? Dude, he works in a very stressful professional environment. He works in finance. He gets up every day at 5, puts in the time to work out. He's 24-7 thinking about this stuff, asking me questions.

And then every time I'm at training, he's at training. Obviously, when he has work-related stuff, he lets me know ahead of time, right? But just his progression is just i know i it's it's very admirable to see him i i you know i've only met him a couple of times i've only you know done doing with him a couple of times but you you know you can tell he's like a serious guy and then you know same thing man he's like i want to fight and i want to be successful it's like okay you're gonna have to make 81 all right right how do we do that calories because he he when i met him at first he was competing in 90 i think or something like that he was like 210 yeah you know now he's cutting down and it's like all right you gotta

count calories oh wow it's counting calories right losing the weight yeah losing the weight putting in cardio working out with eugene twice a week and lifting and running oh wow okay doing judo doing jujitsu. And then he's working full time. This guy is 5am to 10pm every day doing this. Between training and work, training and work, training and work.

And it's like he shows me with his actions that he's serious and I'm like, this kid is worth me. Trying to give him everything that I got. You were sometimes traveling with him. You've been on his sideline, right? I don give him everything that i got you were sometimes traveled with him have you been on the his sideline right i don't know about that although i i don't always travel yeah yeah but eventually right whenever he he doesn't need me like that yet i see i see he just still

needs to get matt time in these competitions but then eventually when he gets to a point where is he gonna make it you know right he's close he has to win you know taking a third or a fifth at this event might make that decision yeah then when he gets to that level 100 i'm gonna be there for him yeah right but not yet i'm not needed like that there's other ways that i could help him right right that i don't have to burn a whole weekend for yeah i see so but yeah everyone you know they all say they want to be a champion everyone tells me this but yeah but can

you know are you willing to do what Gianni is doing I I did it for a period of time for the nationals but it I don't think I could have like

lasted this long like as Gianni has like for that's why it's so hard to make an Olympic team because you have to do it sustained for four years at a time

Olympic cycle after Olympic cycle it's tough it's so hard to make an Olympic team. You have to do it sustained for four years at a time. Olympic cycle after Olympic cycle. It's tough. It's a tough life. Tough life. You got to love it. You got to stay healthy. You got to be lucky not to get injured, et cetera, et cetera, you know?

Mm-hmm. So, yeah. All right. Well, this is, yeah, for those of you hobbyists who want to take it more seriously, this is what it takes. Not easy. No. hobbyists who want to take it more seriously yeah this is what it takes uh not easy no but you know if you structure in a way it's more fun i guess i mean there's a gradient to this too right like you don't have to go all the way to jianni's level you can still enjoy you know first and last out yeah first and last out philo man come to train get off work at 6. Head straight to the dojo. Be there. Have a conversation.

Talk to the people. No more happy hours. No more happy hours. Drill. I was about to say drink. Don't drink. Drill. Yeah.

Right? And then get extra mat time and then practice and stay after, man. Stay after. Do a couple throws. Ask more questions. Drill extra. Nick Brinsmay does that.

He's there first and he leaves last. Yeah. Consistently. Right? And that's extra mat time extra mat time and when you're doubling up the rounds you could also spare right the time that you would be walking around looking for a new partner yeah how you know it adds up pick a partner yeah yep adds up and you know what sometimes you pick a partner and you immediately go there's still 27 seconds to look for a partner. Work those 27 hours. You don't have to go all out because people are walking around.

But you can start entering your stance. You can start messing around with grips. Yeah. And you can start the low intensity like flow into the actual round. And that way you get, you know, I don't know, 15%, 20% more, right, roll time. Yeah. You know, as opposed to like the buzzer goes off, you fix your belt and then you get pushed out of bounds, out of bounds.

And you enter and you circle each other for like, right? Yeah. 15 seconds. And then the first time you put your hands on already 47 seconds has gone. Yeah. And then you lost a minute, two minutes left.

Yeah. That's a, that's a trick I used I loved it that's a trick yeah there was a Japanese YouTuber that did that

like it looked like him and this guy would go at it and they did every trick in the book to not engage and it was like a five minute round

of them not even touching each other is it what's his name Kawabata Kawabata what's his name the short Iata? What's his name? I don't think it was him. I think it was somebody else.

I see. I gotta check it out. But it was like, I gotta make that video. Yeah, you should. You can learn a lot from my recipe book. You know? It's like tying your shoes

in wrestling. Or the ankle band, you know? You used to yell at me a lot. It's like tying your shoes and wrestling. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Or the ankle band, you know. It's like you know your shoelace is untied and you wait for the belt to go off. All right, let's go, guys. Take down. Then you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You tie your shoe.

Yeah. And you got to tie the other shoe. Yeah. And then you like wrestle and then he touches your head and then you have to fix your head gear. Hold on, hold on. You got to look good yeah and then you take one bad shot

and you push him out of bounds and you like walk to the middle of the mat yeah and then you float around

and you're like wait no it's too crowded here let's find a better space and then you seem to know about this really well

I was a master at this no one better than me at that. So funny. Because I used to be hungover all the time. Oh, gosh. I see. I see.

Yep. Still make NCAA, right? What do you call that? All-American? Weren't you All-American? That's right. Yeah. No, no, no, no.

I was never All-American. I was All- American I was all state I didn't make it though I lost in the conference finals and then I didn't go to nationals I lost in the finals almost almost I know I know too bad well anyway this is how you

take it seriously with judo as a hobbyist and anything else? nope guys join us on patreon thank you guys for always listening and tuning in yeah thank you very much and we'll see you guys in the next

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