The Shintaro Higashi Show - Talking Judo with Travis Stevens

Episode Date: November 30, 2020

In this episode, Shintaro talks with his old friend, Rio 2016 Olympic Silver Medalist Travis Stevens. Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to the Shintaro Higashi Show. This episode is a conversation I had with Travis Stevens, an Olympic judo silver medalist, and an old friend of mine. I hope you guys enjoy. Welcome everybody. Thank you guys for tuning in. I'm here with Travis. Me and Travis have many different types of relationships. We're teammates. Can you not say relationships? Yeah, very intimate relationship. I don't know if you guys know that about us. We were very close friends. We made dinner together one time and had cordon bleus.

Do you remember that night, Travis? I do not. Yeah, come on. We watched a movie. We did it in a movie after training. It was awesome then. One of the best nights of my life. I can't remember. I don't even remember that. Oh,

I didn't make the quarter. You made the quarter on blue. Yeah. I don't even know how to do that. Yep. Dude, we were training at the Pedro's and then you came to the athlete house. Cause that's where I was.

I was living in that little back room and the basement. I came to the athlete house and made you guys dinner. No, no. You made, we made dinner. made you guys dinner. No, no. We made dinner. Then Cooney was like, dude, I've never seen Travis in the athlete house hanging out like this before. Then we played video games and we watched a movie.

That looks like this. You ate a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups by yourself. That's 100% true. Then I was like, it was a family bag too. That's 100% true. And then I was like, dude, you didn't eat that whole thing? It was a family bag too. And then you had a two-liter thing of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi,

and you drank that whole thing. You remember that? I mean, I've done that plenty of times. That's not labeled into one event. I still have no recollection of ever making that. Nor do I know how to do that even today and we did it we did I bought it and then just heat it up because that I could have done no we you brought you actually we went to uh what is that grocery store down the street from the athlete house not Wawa not Mercedes no no it was a grocery store Shaw's was it Was it Shaw's? Yeah, I think it was Shaw's.

And then we bought grilled chicken, you know, the breasts. And then we cooked it in the backyard and we put ham on it and we put cheese on it. We did that. So anyway, we were teammates. We were both red and white. Yes. Travis got a red and white belt. That's amazing.

Right. Huge congrats to you. Still late to the party because I've been that for many years already. And then, yeah, now we're working too together. We should actually talk about how they denied me twice. Yeah, let's talk about that. What is a red and white belt? What does that mean to you, Travis? Offend us. I mean, I'm not really 100% sure I know how to answer that because, I mean,

correct me if I'm wrong here, but the only time you would ever wear a red and white belt, it's designed to signify the person in charge. So if you had two six degrees and a seventh degree on the mat and the seventh degree was wearing a candy cane belt, the sixth degree should wear a black belt, right? There should only ever be one candy cane on the mat at a time, right? Like he's in charge and everybody else is kind of underneath him, right? Like when you line up at the dojo, the black belt. Yeah.

So where do the candy canes line up? Are they intermixed? I don't know, man. I don't know. There's lots of different really isms, right? Like you're not supposed to wear it in training. You know, I've heard that before in Japan. Like you see in a way still wearing a black belt in training.

Right. And then I heard things like you only wear it as ceremoniously. Right. And then if you're teaching, you would wear it. So, but if you're a weird thing, with if you were teaching a class would two people be teaching a class or would there be one person teaching and everybody else helping i don't know man i was uh you know michael kazitsky that name sounds very familiar he's the guy from back in the day yeah he's the guy from ph. He does the USA Sambo stuff.

You've seen him around, man. He has tons of athletes. Every competition he brings his guys to is competing. He's a great guy. He came to visit my dojo one time. He brought like eight guys, and then he brought his red and white belt, and he was like, Shintaro, let's do Rondori. You know, and he's a little bit older than I am, but we like did Rondori. We're both wearing our red and white belts, and I thought it was kind of cool.

You know? By the way, hi, Richard Quimby. He's the same. Do red belts doing Rondori. I don't know if I've ever seen that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what does it mean to you? Does it feel good that you finally got the, right? uh, right. Um, if I had to put it into terms that I think people would understand, it would be like somebody giving you like a scratch ticket as like a gift, right? Like

you found it in your stocking, right? Cause people do that. They put scratch tickets in stocking and then you scratch it off and you won a million dollars yeah to find out it's a fake it's useless it's worthless that's pretty much what it feels like it's like they make this like oh you got this thing and at the end of the day it provides me no value zero value you think so zero value it doesn't feel good to say, you know what? This is one of the milestones. It's so coveted. People work their whole lives to get it. And then they get it and they're like, man, this is like really amazing. But that's like a self thing. Like it makes you feel good because you've been chasing that thing. Yeah. True. True. I never chased a rank.

chasing that thing yeah true true I never chased a rank yeah I did other things yeah yeah so for me it's like when people make a big deal of it I'm like yeah yeah with you in this world like that's what you're gonna praise I feel like you're offending every person that's ever gotten a red and white belt that's watching this right now i think everybody set a goal like if you set a goal to get a red and white belt you should be proud of yourself yeah if you praise yourself because you stayed in something long enough to get something and you have trouble staying in stuff and following something through you should be proud of yourself. I don't have that problem. True. Yeah. You do tend to stick with things, right? We all know that. Yeah.

It just doesn't, I don't know. It doesn't do anything for me. It's kind of like the Olympic medal, right? I couldn't even tell you the last time I looked at it. Okay. No idea. It's not hanging on your wall or anything like this. I don't even know where it is. Jesus. All right. Let me ask you a question. You're calling Jimmy Pedro. He's your mentor. He's taking you and said, Hey, let me teach you my stuff. And then he puts his belt on you. And then you guys put up your Instagram picture. I mean, come on, that has to feel good, right? He never put it on me. Or did he hand it to you?

Yeah. Yeah. But that felt good though, no? No. You know what? I was in the middle of trying to teach some 15 year olds, some competitive, you know, I had a job. it was interrupting my job yeah you know you and uh kayla were sort of on the opposite sides of this i think because i remember when she had an excellent stripe on her black belt that jimmy put on the belt she loves it and she was like man she was so happy yeah i remember that and then you

happy yeah I remember that and then you you took it off one time remember my belt I remember the class I was like why is this on my belt it's interrupt. There you go. It matches your shirt. It matches your shirt. All right. Look at that. Ooh, still folded. It feels good. I mean, come on. It feels good.

It feels good. Have you worn it yet? What does this represent to you? Let me ask you that one. Me? Me? What does this represent to you? This right here.

I don't know. I mean, like all things, it's a symbol of my hard work. You know what I mean? I worked hard. Now i'm in a place where i could teach judo so i get recognized for that and i help people yeah let's back this up let's take this step by step this is a symbol of hard work i mean it's something it's not a symbol of no work that's not what i work hard for and for clarification this is a symbol of hard work that's right what can it be a symbol of no work. No work, hard work. This is a symbol of hard work. What can it be a symbol of?

It could be a symbol of your commitment to time in the sport, maybe. Yeah, okay, but that's a good thing. That's not hard work. Yeah, but it's hard to commit to something for over 20-something years, no? Is it? I mean, how old are you?

I'm 35. Did you commit to that, or did you just exist? I existed, yeah. I existed. But judo's a tough sport, you know? I think – well, anyway, you, me, Kayla Harrison, three youngest to get it. Congratulations, whether you like it or not. Can you tell us a little bit about the thing that you just mentioned in passing, how they failed you twice?

Let's talk about that. Yeah. So I guess there's like prerequisites to this thing. Yes. What are they? Do you know what they are? Yeah. Time and rank. Time and rank. There's an A-level. What are they? Do you know what they are? Yeah, time and rank.

Time and rank. What is that? What's that? What is that, time? How many years you've been at a certain rank. Do you know what that is? No, it depends on whether you're an A-level athlete, a B-level athlete, or a C-level athlete. Do you know what that is?

If you're an A level athlete, uh, you know, I have no idea. So I'm, I'm genuinely curious. Well, it depends on which organization you got it from.

I don't know which organization you got it from, but in the USJF, the JF denied me twice and still denies it. So this came from USA Judo shockingly enough. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. The USJF, it's like, if you're an A level athlete, So this came from USA Judo, shockingly enough. Okay, interesting. Yeah, for USJF, it's like if you're an A-level athlete, then from fifth to sixth, you have to write out six years

or five years or something like that. So it's like this linear every year, every couple of years you qualify. And then you have to give back to the community, and there's all these different little checkboxes that you need to go through. Wait a minute. You're an A-level athlete, and you have to write out six years, meaning you had your fifth, and then six years later you get your sixth? I think something like that.

If you're a B-level, I think it's like. How did you do that? Huh? How did you do that? I was on the world team twice, and then I was considered an A-level athlete. But you got your fifth and then waited six years and then got your sixth. Well, so in the New York, New Jersey region, we have this thing called a promotional tournament.

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. How old are you? I'm 35. You're 35. Yeah. When did you get your fifth?

I got my third degree when I was 18. That's not what I asked. So let me see. I was 18, third degree, four years later, 21. I was fourth degree degree and then i was like 25 and i was like you were from fourth or fifth in a year no no no no no it was like 18 i was third degree because i competed there's a promotional tournament that i won five in a row five in a row third degree you're 18. Four years later, you're 22 with your fourth. Or five years later. I wasn't an A-level athlete then. I'll give you four.

I'll give you four. Give me five because I wasn't an A-level athlete then. So you're how old? You're 23. 23 years old. And then fourth to fifth would have taken another five years, right? 30. And then I'm 30.

And then five or six years later, which is now, I'm a red and white belt. But I did the whole bureaucratic process of like applying for it. And then you get deductions, right? So it's like, oh, you have a club that's like point whatever percentage of the time off. There's all these different criterias for deductions in time. Like are you sitting on a board of a judo community thing? Do you volunteer your time? Do you do this?

Do you do that? And then some people are asking these guys the skills, but it's not really like skill-based, you know, because sometimes people can be incapable of doing judo maybe right wait a minute so let's let's first up here because i got another question what what check boxes like what areas like you said run a dojo is a box yeah committee great whatever like yeah with their i never looked at the paperwork so i yeah i couldn't even tell you but i'm curious oh that's probably i don't know off the top of my head but it's like uh timing

grade competition coaching right contributions to judo so you know all these different things like so from my time from winning world masters yeah to making the olympic final i started an organization sit on the board of an organization raised a quarter of a million dollars put into the sport of judo yeah Yeah. Coached over 900 athletes, took two teams to Europe, coached at a dojo. Yeah. And was denied twice for not doing enough in the sport. You know, I don't think it's like that. I think it's got to be like some kind of, you know,

paperwork situation or administrative situation or if you can't document like that you earned up to fourth or something i don't know man what are you asking me for i don't know there's other people that you probably ask i don't really care it's more just like uh you know the part that really annoys me about it tell me when they denied me their response was this yeah travis should fly back to washington state for a weekend and practice kata yeah and he doesn't even have to do a good job as long as he makes an effort. Yeah. Pass them and give him his six.

Yeah. But that doesn't make sense. Cause I don't think the cut is a requirement for the sixth. Kata is a requirement for up to third degree. I've also done the first three katas and passed. So, but that's not the point. The point, the point that really upsets me was they denied it and their stipulation for passing me was me spending my own money to fly out there for a weekend and do a shitty job.

It was like, if you don't even care how I do, why would you make me do it? And it's like, well, you just show the effort. And I'm like, it degrades everything about this. It's degrading. Yeah. You know, the USJF, I'm not trying to say anything bad about them, you know. But it's. Put me in a tight spot here, man.

I'm not, I'm really trying not to talk bad about anybody here. You know what I mean? Put me in a tight spot here, man. I'm really trying not to talk bad about anybody here. You know what I mean? It's kind of like that's why I think these types of things don't mean that much to me is because a lot of times they're not really earned. You didn't earn that rank? It's not about that.

All right. Let me ask you a question. What means a lot to you? You show up to a tournament and everybody gets a medal. Okay. Is the medal important? I mean, you know, if I'm- The second.

I have cancer and I'm taking chemo and I show up and I get a medal. Maybe that makes me feel good about myself. You know what I mean? It makes you feel good about yourself, but it doesn't make it disvaluable. No, that is fabric and sewn together. Even the mentality of wearing it is useless. All right. So let's shift the conversation a little bit to what in judo is valuable to you then? You've already said, ah, you know, my Olympic silver medal. I don't know where it is.

This red and white belt that I've, you know, earned, it's like whatever. So what is valuable work ethic work ethic determination um goal setting yeah um yeah we gotta we gotta comment here this is so travis and yes you you are absolutely right this is very much so travis. The pursuit of greatness. Pursuit of greatness. Not being great, the pursuit of it. Meaning regardless of where you start, you strive to be better, achieve more, and accomplish what you set out to do. That's really what judo is. When you step out onto that mat, you step out with a confidence that says, I'm ready for this. Not knowing the outcome, but you step up anyways.

Going into the dojo every day, like trying to throw people, trying new things, developing and learning. That's inspiring. That's true. It is nice, yeah. But like a lot of times, you know, it's like the jujitsu thing. You get promoted just because you exist. Yeah. Just the timing grade stuff. Yeah. All right. Let me ask you a question. So in your ideal world, right. Of like this effort-based meritocracy situation, do you think there's a better system out there?

A hundred percent. Tell me more. Um, okay. Let's say, yeah, let's say time and great. I'm all for it. But what if, what if in order to get that next rank, you actually had to demonstrate your judo? I don't even care if it's a video. I would love nothing more than to see all the red and white belts lined up at an event

and demonstrate Uchimata. Some people are old. Some people are very, very old. If you don't have the ability to teach judo anymore do you deserve to be promoted any higher yeah but what is the ability to teach though you know can he be old can he be you know 80 years old and teach if yeah why not i knew a guy named mr koga out of san jose state who was like 80 and doing randori with the kids he practiced his sweeps he would take falls didn't your dad just do a demo

with you on youtube yeah he did yeah great very popular much more popular than my stuff which is kind of great like he had the ability to like demonstrate and show. Also, you do watch my YouTube. I said I wouldn't. I said I wouldn't become a member because I was right. Right. Happy to support and watch and get the view count up, though. Oh, yeah. Thank you, man.

Appreciate it. Appreciate it. So if you guys are also checking out, Travis also has a YouTube channel. I'm sure everyone knows here. Right. I mean, we probably have such an overlapping base of viewers. No way. are also checking out Travis also has a YouTube channel. I'm sure everyone knows here, right? I mean, we probably have such an overlapping base of viewers. No way. No way. I don't think your viewers are mostly BJJ. No, I think most of them are judo. I just think just like in judo,

there's like a martial artist and then there's a sports practitioner. in judo there's like a martial artist and then there's a sports practitioner and i think they're two completely different yeah people two different avatars so to speak yeah man interesting stuff all right let's take some questions what do you think i Want to take some questions from the audience? Fire away. Fire away. All right, let's see. Make them difficult. Make them difficult. All right, let's – if anybody's watching,

they want to get the most offensive thing from Travis, like just shoot the questions in there, and then we're going to fire it off. Let's go. Anybody have – let's see how many other things Travis can offend tonight. Well, I'm not trying to offend anyone. I think the original standard was there. Yeah. And I agree with it.

Oh, here's a good question. What do you think judo is better at than other grappling martial arts? I think dedication, hard work, goal setting, mental toughness, fortitude. And I think respect. I think those would be like my, my key takeaways. If we're going to compare like judo to other grappling martial arts, then, then those would be the ones I would say. Cool.

So what do you think about like the judo and BJJ situation? I know that's a very popular theme and we've actually briefly spoken about it on your channel and if you guys haven't already go check out his channel it's very good he talks a lot about judo and jiu-jitsu um I guess you'd have to elaborate on you know the situation that is that is a very broad life conversation like he is in the comparison in the developments of the sport and like what are we what are we looking at for that like just in the comparison of the two sports all right i'll be more specific what is bjj doing right that judoka should follow a little bit more of?

The number one thing that jiu-jitsu nailed out of the gate was – This is good. I can't wait to hear it. Right out of the gate was you can do it and it works. Day one. Day one, you walk into any jiu-jitsu school, that guy on the mat is going to teach you something, and you know what?

It's going to work. I don't care what it is. It's going to work. Yeah. All right. Judo, can't do that. Not at all. It's gonna work. Yeah. Judo can't do that. Not at all. I agree with you on that.

And I think that's a huge, a huge hurdle for dojo owners and the judo community on, you know, needing to get to that next level where people are interested and happy with the sport because you know what you don't leave with that dopamine rush of like oh man i feel really good about myself judo leaves students that first time feel i'm a worthless piece of shit yeah it's like do this osoto gari go try it it doesn't work man and then you try it again and again and you get counted again and again i mean think about it first technique you learn in judo

is osoto. How long does it take for you to actually throw someone with it in live on dori? Months? Three months? Five months? I think the part where judo really missed the boat was the athleticism that it takes

to be a good judo player, and the mat awareness and personal awareness of space and you being able to control and manipulate your own body yeah i think a lot of people can't do that and i think a lot of people would want to do that and i think jujitsu right out of the gate nailed it yeah hands down so do you think judo can recover from this and then learn from that and be like okay you know uh what do you think about that um believe it or not if you actually go on uh shout out to him for being able to pull this off but chuck jefferson has a podcast right now and it's awesome have Have you listened? I have, I have. Yeah.

So, um, I catch it. I only listened to one episode. I only listened to the Justin Flores episode and man, that was amazing. Um, you should go back.

Um, you'd find this super interesting because he did one with the head of the IJS marketing department. Yeah. All right. No, Mark used to work under him, doesn't anymore it's the guy that works above him who works side by side with visor to grow judo worldwide hey here's a quick question

i don't want to forget it so i wanted to actually yeah just finish and then i i want to do james shackleford's question so his his big thing is actually like why aren't we coaching the values of judo rather than um the competition of judo right like if you're a kid and you're learning how to do forward rolls and simple kaiten ukemi's and you know different break's like, Hey, I'm teaching you how to protect yourself. That's valuable. But when we teach a kid how to do a forward roll, that's like, man, you can't, we got to get to the judo. Yeah. We got to get to these things over here. And it's like, I think we missed the boat on praising them. Like jujitsu praises people for being able to shrimp because they like, you can get out of side control.

That's important. Yeah. Being able to get out of a pin and being able to bridge over your shoulder as like not praiseworthy. Yeah. Hey man, anybody that can hold a hundred pounds on their neck. Yeah.

You know, doing reps over time, like you should be praised because not everybody can which means you can do something that other people can't do which condition question I can see the question let's answer that question he's been very patient Thank You James how do you feel about Donna her feet-to-floor instructional series I have not looked at it I've seen some of the stuff on well I mean I mean it's got like 14 hours. It's got like 100 and something moves to it.

Like I'm a busy guy. Yeah, you are. You're very busy. You have a lot of – how many jobs do you have now? John's got a lot of jobs. I do. Yeah. I do.

But you must have saw the advertisement for the feet the floor right he talked about the five different metrics that makes a good takedown for jujitsu and stuff i do and and i'm glad he made it because i'm i'm really i'm praying that people now that he's released a system because i've been saying it for years i was like you guys don't understand you jujitsu people you cannot compare jujitsu to wrestling to judo just like you cannot compare mma to boxing they are highly skilled, developed people at that. Jiu-jitsu is a very dumbed down version of that. Like it's just,

it is just like MMA striking is a very dumbed down version of boxing. If you just look at the striking aspect of it and jiu-jitsu people always fall prey to well i don't want to end up in somebody's close guard well i would have just taken the back oh i would have just done this and it's like i'm glad you would have done that but i never would have done that in a jiu-jitsu match'm not stupid, but they always try to like pull people into these little realms. And John has finally been like,

Hey guys, guess what? Takedowns are different for jujitsu. You can't take wrestling and bring it to jujitsu. Cause it, guess what? It won't work. You'll get guillotined or Hey,

you can't take judo into jujitsu. Cause guess what? If you don't make the right adjustments, you get your back taken. It's like, hey, no shit, Sherlock. People don't get it. Yeah, you're right. You're right, man.

Some of the stuff that I was listening to on the five things, it's like, oh, yeah. It seems so obvious to us who have been grappling for so long. You know what I mean? But a lot of the times it's not obvious, right? I think that was very good. We have another question here. I think a lot of the takedowns that he has in his instructional, I think 100% they work for jiu-jitsu. You try that in judo, you're going to look like an idiot.

But that's why it's geared towards j towards jujitsu because it works over there. You can dumb down judo into doing things that don't work. I remember doing a podcast with Flow Grappling and they were like, hey, we've got these guys who are really good at takedowns. Can you watch them and give us your input?

I was like, that was garbage. That guy sucked. Yeah, Travis is the wrong person to ask for that. Jesus. Oh my God. Because I'm looking at it through the lens of a judo guy. That's true. That's true.

All right. What is the greatest fear you have felt on and off the mat? Tips for first competitions is using finger tape preposterous. I'll take the finger tape one. If you have a messed up finger, you want to buddy tape it and make it stronger. Right? Don't listen to him. Don't listen to him.

And then you want to buddy tape it. You know, I know Travis don't try to believe in tape it's hands travis show us your hands but that's not what you're gonna hurt people telling people stuff like that that is bad information you know what terrible information don't do that i don't know man i'm believe guys hey get that question out of the way so people can see my face. Listen, I've seen you using tape. I've seen you using tape on your fingers. I got some tape here,

guys. I got some tape here. Check this out. Check this out. This is what Shintaro wants you to do. He wants you to take the tape like this and he wants you to tape it to the other one like that. Right.

In some fashion, there was right in some fashion there one example that was one example there's lots of woman why you would use tape there's lots of reasons right now look now look one example one example look at my hand wait there we go look at my what happened to your knuckle I punched a guy in the face we only would you do that? Jesus, Travis. This is YouTube. This is PG-13, man. Jesus. It's Sunday night. Hey, hey, you either let me pass your guard or you don't.

If I'm trying to bear and blow you to your back and you're defending, I'm going to pop you and knock you back and take your back. Anyways, when you do this, right, this is a funny angle for me. When you do this, this muscle, right, this bone structure, right? Whoa, Jesus, this is weird. Okay, I'm going to look at my hand instead of you guys so I can focus. This bone structure right here is out of alignment. So when you go to bend your finger, it gets pulled off of alignment. So if you have like a hint of a fracture or anything like that,

it's going to cause you long-term pain and damage. What you want to do is you want to go on Amazon and buy some foam, right? It's super soft. I used to travel with, as it, with an athlete. And what you want to do is you want to take that little piece of foam and you want to go like that that way your finger is gaps because when you put your hand up naturally there's these little gaps and pull them together the alignment is broken and you can't quite make a fist so you put a little bit of a gap here all right can you answer the other question what is the greatest fear you have felt on and off the mat? Does Travis feel fear?

Is that an emotion that you have? Here's the time I felt the most fear on a mat, right? I was fighting in Belgium when I was younger, and I was fighting Ashley Gonzalez from Cuba. He was 81 kilos at the time. Yeah. I didn't know who he was. It was my first time ever fighting a Cuban.

And he was a righty. And I was thinking to myself, like, oh, I got this. He's right-handed. I'm going to win this match. No problem. He walked out there. He snagged my sleeve with his hand. And I went, oh, shit.

Yeah. Oh, shit. Yeah. Oh shit. I tried to move my arm and break it. My arm was frozen. Yeah. For those of you guys who don't know, there's a different level of like strength when you're talking about judo players, when, when they grab you, sometimes you, they're just like, you just can't move like it's like he is a straight jacket because they've they've established what it is they need

iliotis is really good if he grabs your neck and your sleeve you feel like your whole upper half is stuck like yeah your feet are moving and you're you're trying to like shake but it's like your arm over here is like flailing. You're stuck. Yeah. You know, like I felt that with, you remember Oredis Despain? Remember him? And I fought Despain and he put two hands on like this and I was like, oh my God, what

am I going to do? What am I going to do? No answer. I had no answer. No answer. It took a knee instantaneously. I was like, nope. All right.

How about this? Do you like 2010 rules better than now yuko or no yuko david oshima i know him he's amazing thanks for watching david is that how you say his last name oshima not oshima oshima that's the problem Oh, Shima. Oh, Shima. That's the problem. It's not Shima. Phonetically in Japanese, that's not Oh, Shima.

Oh, Shima. It's very monotone, the Japanese. It doesn't have the intonations. You know what I mean? You know, it's like Oh, Shima. Right? It's like I know Oh, Shima. Just say love his family. Great family, you know, mike and those guys all right what do you think um i like the newer rule set interesting interesting

yeah i think the igf nailed it because with the penalizing negative judo situation um you know as a as somebody who's always looking to score yeah there is nothing worse than beating the crap out of somebody for four minutes and scoring like three yukos like a coca and then out of nowhere like you get caught for wazari or like you know what you've been beating the crap out of this guy and you've thrown him for two yukos and then all of a sudden like you get caught for a third shot and it's like i'm the only one trying here yeah yeah i know what you mean you know because it's very uh subjective right the ref decides is it a yuko is it a wazari and you know all these favorit you mean, you know, because it's very subjective, right? The ref decides, is it a Yuko? Is it a Wazari?

And, you know, all these favoritisms take out, you know. But the part I really like about the rule set is you throw a guy twice. It's game over. Yeah, I do like that a lot. I'm sure a lot of people are talking about leg grabs, though, right? You want to talk about that? Yeah, let's have that conversation. I like it.

Yeah. I like it. Let's go leg grabs here. Let me ask you a question. When someone gives you a question and you're fielding questions, do you sit there and say, all right, what can I say to offend everybody watching? Is that what goes on in your head? No, not even a little bit. All right, cool.

It probably should, though. I could come up with some pretty a little bit. All right, cool. It probably should though I could come up with some pretty witty stuff. All right, lay all these people asking questions. I love it. All right, leg grabs and then we're going to go on to this one next. You talk about leg grabs. What changes would you make on any turning throw in BJJ? If I'm doing jujitsu personally and I'm trying to throw people, I would stick to say an Aggies, no G Matas, no nothing, no horizon, nothing crazy from a standard like upright position. And my whole goal would be to over rotate. So I could almost come out 180 degrees. Right. So instead of being like back to

chest, like you would normally pick somebody up, I would try to go like three quarters of the way through and then snap their head over the top of me like a Korean sale so that they land face first and I can take the back. The only time I would do like major hip throws is if I'm coming up off the floor into a standing position. Because then we're a little bit more stuck together. But if you try to do like a big Uchimata or Harai off the rip, it's too easy for the guy to like gator roll and just roll you through. Hey, you want to plug your American judo system situation?

Because I think that's what we're here for, right? You want to talk a little bit about? We're just here to talk about judo. USAjudo.com. What is up with USAjudo.com versus USAajudo.org like what is up with that like i want to know more about that travis usajudo.com does stuff for the people of judo where usa us judo.org um does stuff for the high performance athletes. Interesting. And I guess I saw with like a little niche that needed to be filled.

So we, since I've started judo fanatics with the guys at BJJ fanatics, there's definitely a need for online learning um but the one thing that jimmy and i feel is as americans meaning like u.s canada mexico whoever there's not really like an identifying style of judo yeah but when you look at everybody who's ever won an olympic medal and you only look at their judo their 100 is a style of judo that is successful and that's what we're giving people on this platform and right now is it like a pay and play situation where people subscribe and then pay per video or i could pay for travis steven' Uchimata system. I heard you guys talking about a live coaching situation.

Yeah, right now we're doing like a six-part judo lessons course. Every three days we're going to release a brand new part. I think today was part three. I think I teach the strangle that I did to Turkish Philly from how I started to learn it to all the different drills and skills that I did to develop it so that it could work at the Olympic level. And I kind of walk you through that development process so that you guys can practice and learn as well. But right now, everybody can go there, sign up. It's 100% free and everybody's going to get those six videos. And then once it goes live, we're going to have two types of memberships. There's going to be one that is a monthly membership. And when you're a monthly member to the platform,

you're going to have access to a hundred percent of the video content on, what is that was that my chin or your chin i don't know man you have a much more distinctive chin i got all these like scars from like like scars from when i used to compete and stuff yeah all right so bjj hobbyist white belts should I train Judo or wrestling to improve my takeouts? We talked about that a little bit. All right. You want to give a quick situation to that? Because you're my guest here. I would say Judo. As a white belt hobbyist,

there are two sports that are more similar that can be adapted to each other. So while you're at judo practice, the skills that you're going to learn over there, while not 100% of them can be applied, 80 to 90% of it can. When you go into wrestling, you don't need to know how to leg ride. You don't need to know how to leg ride you don't need to know how to like spiral somebody you don't need to know like how to scramble in certain situations or it's just as you start getting more experience in wrestling you get farther and farther away from jiu jitsu right like a basic single leg a basic double leg a basic high crotch was even questionable that you would ever do in jiu jitsu because it leaves the neck exposed yeah so it's very limiting judo as you get better

your jiu jitsu gets better as your jiu jitsu gets better your judo gets a little worse so all right how practical is judo in a street fight man i'm having fun just going through these questions and picking them. It's amazing that you could just put it on the screen, right? I didn't want to do that on this thing. I'm learning this thing now. I would say judo is more practical than BJJ when it comes to a street fight. Now, I say that with a grain of salt because some asshole is going to clip that out and forget to add the rest of this statement.

Yeah. If you were in a, in a very confrontational position where somebody is right next to you, looking at you, you go and threatening you to do something. Right. Before anything else has happened, you feel threatened and you want to strike first right do you throw a punch do you hit him with a double leg that gets a little hairy because now you two are entangled where the fight is not over right but if i grabbed if i just grabbed your shirt and smashed you with tayo and then walked away and ran, I'm out of the situation. It gives you that ability to create distance and catch your partner off guard where he can't get to you.

Where jiu-jitsu is about, I want to be in the fight. I want to have this confrontation, and I want to end the confrontation. But for me, judo in a street fight, like you should a never be in a street fight. You should never even be in a situation where you're that angry at another person. You should just walk away. You ever got in a fight? If somebody is coming at you, I'm not answering that question. If somebody ever, you could, you could diffuse the situation by throwing them and walking away and getting away quickly. You can figure it out.

Yeah. All right. Let's do grassroots judo organizations. And then I have something. Oh, Chadi's on here too. Grassroots judo organizations. Um, I don't think they exist in the United States. organizations um i don't think they exist in the united states

and i do but i think the american judo system would be nice for the grassroots people right who are trying to get in and have like a linear learning thing right where it's like okay i'm learning from these people who are experts that are going to teach me the basics of gripping get based position um really the usajudo.com is a support system for clubs like yours or clubs like Skelly Judo or clubs like Epone Dojo where it's like, hey, you sell a twice-a-week membership, right? Who, me? Yeah. For kids, not for adults.

Adults is unlimited. Yeah, so twice a week for a kid. Well, what if that kid really wanted to learn more or like still be- No, they can do it three times. We have options for everything. But I feel the void for a lot of those places out of YMCAs and youth centers that are like Tuesday,

Thursday only, or only Monday, Wednesday. And it's like, people are looking for knowledge. So now they- Yeah, I put Chadi up here. Chadi, I love, I don't know if you guys you watch chadi stuff travis i have no idea i might he has all these like historical grappling videos that he's been posting on youtube it's amazing stuff man like he talks about like kimura the legends of back in the day and the champs that you know came right so that's a huge shout out to chadi you know i like his stuff um yeah

i just wanted to tell that yeah i gotta take a look man i gotta take a look but yeah it's really not supposed to like replace your dojo it's supposed to be like an added resource for knowledge and development so that if you're feeling stuck or you're at home, like, ah, so-and-so like kept grabbing my back and like, I'm trying to figure out how to solve it. Now you have a resource online where you can go look at all the gripping scenarios because your coach is at home having dinner with his family. Man, Chadi is so popular in this chat. Everyone knows Chadi, right? I told you he's famous. He's getting there. All right. Here's the question for you. Of all the types of weight training, which are the most important ones for judoka?

I like how this just turned into a Q&A session from the crowd. I like this thing too. Like it coming out right here. Like it's such a nice little, it's a beautiful thing. That's a super tough question to answer. at that chaddy chaddy everyone loves chaddy stuff man the chaddy just came and hijacked their stream good chaddy's channel is dope look at this yeah chaddy's the man in all right yeah i don't know it's uh this is the best crossover ever yeah

because people just that's why it's important to hire professionals because some people they start everybody starts somewhere different some people need you know 100 explosive work some people need no explosive work and they need mobility work you know it's true it's filling in those voids yeah i guess i guess if i had to like put a staple across the board for everybody i think a lot of judoka who don't reach their potential in the international scene who are talented they spend too much time in the gym thinking they need to get stronger. I remember getting in a conversation with people and they're like, hey, man, how much you deadlift? And I'm like, I deadlift enough to pick you up off the floor no matter how much you're resistant because you're only 189 pounds. I'll pick you up regardless of how much you flex and that's all i needed so for me i had these like benchmarks

and i would train to get my minimums up to those benchmarks and i never cared how high my max went above it and i would never find out would, no matter how tired I was, I would have to meet these benchmarks and make sure like if I'm exhausted, if I'm tired, if I'm coming off a training camp in Europe, can I walk into the gym and bench 285? The answer is yes, then I'm strong enough. And I would just make sure I've met those benchmarks. All right. I have a question for you, Travis. What is next for you? I know we talked a little bit about this before. What are some of the things that you see down the horizon that excite you? What are some of the things that you're working on, even though I already know,

but I think our viewers want to know. Now that you're not so much in the public spotlight as a competitor and you're trying to put out instructionals out there right if you guys don't know travis is a bunch of judo videos dvds um all that stuff uh what's next for you uh you know completing the usajudo.com portal that's really going to be my like drive home driving force. And hopefully it becomes, you know, a living, breathing resource for everybody. We're even, I'm even going to work with a couple of insurance companies to help school owners out with their insurance to. Oh, shoot. Okay. Yeah. Something that actually.

That would be a great resource. Yeah. You know, something that actually is a great resource. Yeah. If you can do a one-stop shop for dojo insurance, or you could even have a tool where you can educate dojo owners about CRM system and product pipeline and lead generation and all this stuff. I know you're in the marketing division at Fuji, so you kind of understand like the facebook ads and all this stuff and you know if you can sort of apply that knowledge to

the dojo business then i'm sure it'll help you know that's been my biggest thing right if you double the membership at every dojo in the country you're going to double the usa judo membership period yeah and they're going to be more money left over for dojo owners and people like you and me and people who are in the game that can sort of give back to the community even more and reinvest and reinvest and reinvest, you know? Yeah. So we have all the technique side for like the practitioners. We also launched a full, we will be launching a full suite of dojo consulting. Oh, good.

Yeah, we've broken out the dojo consulting into an overall package also buy segments of the package where it's hey you need more revenue at your dojo why don't you try running these internal and external events or you have trouble retaining students we have that package over here where you can meet with the consultant and download all these resources to retain students here's one for you, Travis. Man, Kid Genie is on fire right now. I believe Trojan did one at the Athens Games with judo. I think it was like a commercial.

I remember that. I think so. So my first response is maybe. Oh, man. Yeah, there's a lot of good judo out there now. I know Justin Flores is putting out content now. You're putting out American Judo System. I actually started a podcast too, so you guys can go check that out.

Did you really? Yeah, just me and Peter talking about judo stuff. It's kind of like the Dojo Lifestyle podcast, you know. And I'm sure you can relate, right? You run a dojo. How's that going? COVID kind of kicked me in the teeth, but I'm not complaining. It's, you know what?

You got COVID, didn't you? Huh? You got COVID. I did. Tell us about that. We want to know. I got really tired for a day. And then I lost my sense of smell.

And then since I had to shut down the dojo just because, you know, you can't obviously be running a business and have that yeah so it left me to work from my computer for 20 hours a day and i did that you like it so i did land covid right you know what really shocks me was since december i've been to Italy, South Korea, Japan, France, all like kind of hotbeds for COVID. I came back, got nothing. Or maybe I didn't. I'm just one of the people that brought it here. Maybe.

Maybe you're ground zero. Maybe you're the person patient zero. See, now that would be something to hang your hat on not this thing oh my god i love it let's go down in the history the dojo is it coming back little by little or what's what's next for that like is that something that you want to? It's not at the moment. It's pretty much been a standstill ever since COVID and it's been slowly moving, losing members just because as the media pushes, you know, us into more lockdowns and more restrictions, people were more nervous.

And I've actually lost quite a few members, not because they have an issue with COVID, but because their loved ones around them do. You're very welcome. There's some funny people in here, huh? You have a very interesting audience. I definitely do. Do we have others who help you with the business part of the dojo?

Yeah, I had a lot of employees, but now I don't. Just because. Because we're hitting on your business yeah dude man i am back to the roots of like back in the dojo teaching you know privates and one-to-ones now i'm in there taking fielding calls answering emails all that stuff you know i started essentially from zero you know because i shut down billings department for kbi in like august so now i had literally zero dollars coming in and then i had to start all from scratch it's kind of a nice feeling you know it's like starting from a white belt travis you can't even say that with a straight face why do you bullshit everybody nah i'm not bullsh nobody, you know? Yeah, you are.

No, but it felt good to be back there. You know what I mean? Yeah, at the dojo, not starting from zero. Yeah. No, yeah, no. It feels good to be back at the dojo. Yeah, starting from zero, yeah, it did not feel that good. But, yeah, we'll see how it goes, man. Dude, this COVID stuff is detrimental to grappling sports.

Right? It's hurting some more than others. Like, it's not really affecting jiu-jitsu too much. It hurt judo more than it hurt jiu-jitsu. Why is that? Because jiu-jitsu people own their leases. What do you mean, huh? What do you mean they own their leases. What do you mean, huh? What do you mean they own their leases?

Like they're the actual people that lease the property in which the dojo is run out of which means they control it. Okay. Well, if you run, if most judo schools are run out of YMCAs and Boys and Girls Clubs, they don't own. Like if the Y doesn't want them back, they can't. Oh, okay. I hear what you're saying. I hear what you're saying.

Where jujitsu is, man, I got to pay my rent. I don't care. I'm opening. Yeah. So you think a lot more jujitsu people kept opening and just. Everybody's training. Everybody's training. In jujitsu.

If it's a select group of people everybody has their dojos opened and running for sure in some weird small capacity yeah yeah full blown you know no but they're doing something that even if they're keeping a majority of their students into like zoom calls and like other things they have a percentage of their like competitions like look at flow grappling you think all these people are competing and not training somewhere they're just they all train somewhere yeah look at that one no not even a little bit but kalita is amazing she's a great judoka man she's a great competitor no not doing it why not why would i that's what i pay ryan for okay i guess i see that uh you really think i want to teach standing seo on kalita and smash her through the floor and then see what happens later yeah it's not what i want to do yeah i don't teach i don't teach fluffy

judo that's true you go very hard man you throw your forehead in there and you punch that head in there and you go over the back and then you second drive that head into the floor yeah man she's not gonna like that no she came out with a video too didn't she though recently she did i made her do one on yusankaku she was like hey you should just film that and release it, nice. Do you have any other videos coming up? Anything else you want to plug? As a side note that anybody that becomes a member on USAJudo.com, you're going to have 100% access to all videos about the American Judo system. So you don't have to buy them from anywhere. You can just become a member and watch whichever ones you want. We have skills and drills, developments. How many videos do you have on there? Currently? Yeah. Over 500. Wow. That's a lot of videos. Dude, YouTube may not know this,

but I've been off of YouTube for two months now, two and a half months, not because I have not been working. I've been trying to build this platform. So Jimmy and I reshot all the American Judo system DVDs. We reshot skills and drills to teach people like different drills to help them develop. We shot all the dojo retention stuff to help people. And then we're shooting all the Instagram and YouTube content that's been going out over the last couple of days. Let me ask you a question. You filmed all this stuff. Are there any overlap in Judo Fanatics videos that you've

done? No. It's all brand new content. The only ones that are up on Judo Fanatics that would be duplicate content are the DVDs titled American Judo System. that would be duplicate content are the dvds titled um american judo system yeah and the other ones would be jimmy's grip like a world champion 2.0 is on the back end and then i did a naiwaza mastery course that has tons of different like naiwaza series in it so what i did was i took

out all the individual series is so like if you wanted to learn how to do juji like we broke that off into its own product if you wanted to learn how to like wrestle and do risk control you could put that it's really hard to focus with you doing that and i'm kind of doing it just to piss you off a little bit he said that because he's in new york kelita is uh a champion right yeah she was ranked number one in the world for a while yeah she's very good yeah yeah all right any other good questions out there any other good questions last call on the questions because it's getting Wow.

I mean, how long you want to go for? I could go forever. My kids are already sleeping. So I got nothing to do. I'll work all day. I'm going to work. I was shooting with Jimmy before we did this. American Judo videos.

Yeah. Good for you, man. Jesus. Good for you. Always, always working. We are always working. Yeah. So you have a lot of jobs right Jesus. Good for you. Always working. You are always working. Yeah. So you have a lot of jobs right now.

You have Fuji. I'll shoot you a message, Shintaro, at 5 a.m. tomorrow just because I want you to know that I woke up and started working. Okay. Well, I will be sleeping then just so you know. I will not be. I'll be getting up in the morning, walking the dog. Do you walk the dog or does Kalita walk the dog? I have English Bulldogs.

Nobody walks the dogs. They don't go for walks? Of course not. Why not? They're English Bulldogs. They're luxury dogs. They sit on the couch and they sleep 20 hours a day and they walk like 50 feet and get tired and sit.

They're exactly what I want. I was an athlete all my life. You think I want to go for another workout? I'm all set. You don't work out anymore? I do, but at my own tempo when I want to. So what is your workouts? I know you just said the other day to me that you never step on the scale anymore, ever.

Is that true? Yeah. Why would I do that? I don't step on the scale so much that I just took out a life insurance policy and I refused to step on a scale for the doctor. And he just took my weight as is. What? Really? So you went for, what did you do? 30 year term? 40. I don't think that, is that a thing? 40 year term? It's 40 or 50 years. I can't remember. All right. So you did the term.

Arbitrary number. Let me ask you a question. So then they were like, all right, so what's your height and weight? And you're like height, you know, whatever. And then weight. I weigh 220. And they were like, okay. Yep. Really? Yep. Didn't do it. Refused to do it. Not doing it. Why wouldn't you make yourself lighter?

Be a lot cheaper. No, it wouldn't. Yeah, it would be. Because they go by BMI. They go by BMI. Your premium would have been like 10, 20% cheaper if you would have said 200. It's true, man. I just got this for my kid.

Insurance in search agent ran the numbers before we did it on what it would be. And it didn't change it. Cause I would have had to have been under like one, 189. And there was no way I would be under that. Like the doctor would have looked at me and been like, yeah, you're not doing that. There's's like a there's like a window in there for my height that like you fit in it's not by like one pound or two pound it's by like chunks so so you took out a life insurance policy yes interesting oh man i am officially adulting. You are. How old are you now? 32, 31.

34. Are you 34? I was 30 in Rio. Married, life insurance policy. What else is coming up? I want to know more about Travis' life. My life? Yeah.

What's going on? What is new and what is next? I just got another English Bulldog, so now I have two. Well, that's exciting. Oh, it's my buddy James on. You got to give this guy a shout out. He's really cool. He's one of my guys.

You see this video, the picture? That's him throwing in my dojo, right? That's terrible form. That's terrible form. That's messed up, man. What are you talking about? Look at his right foot. Who points their right foot out in a way? Oh, my God.

If he wants to do Uchimata properly, he's down so your hip rotates into the throw for power. All right. Did you just say it was Uchimata? Yeah, maybe. I don't know. Even if it was Uchimata, it's still...

Jesus, you're such a dick, man. You're shitting on my people. Jesus, Travis. Holy moly. He's better than you, though. I thought you were... Oh, man. I'm going to revamp my, you know, image. And I'm going to have a warm and fuzzy thing now. And I'm promoting USAJudo.com.

But, like, guys, that's the type of stuff I see all day. When I look at judo, I just look at all the ways it could be done. Oh, my God. Jesus, Travis. He makes one mental fix where he focuses on making his big toe down. He increases the number of people he throws, guaranteed. Okay, okay. Let's talk about this, BJJ.

Let's go back to BJJ. All right, who's your favorite BJJ player? Myself. Not excluding yourself? Myself. Not excluding yourself? Myself. Excluding yourself? My brown belt self. All right, how about this?

A video like instructor, jujitsu instructor now, the person that like talking about jujitsu, like who's your favorite uh probably john donna but that comes with a grain of salt because a he was my instructor and b i don't watch other people so it's not like I like, Oh, I watched this guy's instructional and he did a really good job. Hmm. I don't,

I don't do that. I don't, I don't have time for that. No, because I remember when we were younger, we're like a lot younger. I remember one time he said, yeah,

I watched that Koga video. It was awesome. The Ippon Sanagi video. I heard you say that. I did. I went off when he said, yeah, I watched that Koga video. It was awesome. The Ippon Senagi video. I heard you say that. I did. When I was a kid, I used to go to tournaments, and they used to play on VH tape at the tournaments on the TV, and you used to just stand there and watch it.

That's what you did as a kid between matches. You used to go to the booths and watch the videos. Yeah, I did. So you did used to watch it. Interesting. Why does that come as a shock?'ve never seen 120 bones i have it's the best thing i've owned i owned it love you know what the biggest problem with 120 bones were tell me they never showed the athletes failing and it and to uneducated people in the sport of judo, when you're looking at those athletes doing those throws, you don't realize that even at the competitions or even within those matches, they missed that throw 90% of the time.

And so when judo players are developing, they want their throws to look like theirs. But judo is like golf. Like you need to take a lot of swings and hit one right it's not like golf where it's all that's a good metaphor that's a good metaphor you got to try you need you need data inside your brain and inside your body where it's like you can gauge it and then you can score in a way it was the same way like everybody shows all these highlights in a way and and it's like, hey, guys, he fought thousands of matches. You think he's only got the 100 throws? No.

He's got tens of thousands of throws and just, you know, these are the nice ones. Yeah. Here's a good one. I got to tell you, man, I really like how you could just pop in. Wait, what was that? About blood? An opponent's blood? Something about you wanting to drink the opponent's

blood? I don't know. That's a little weird. That's a little weird. But you know, relatively speaking, we haven't had any crazy, weird questions. But I have drank my own blood in a match. I have done that. Tell us more about that um i have like a little

snaggle tooth here it like it sticks out and you can see where like my lip right here it's kind of pressed out it's like a little scar tissue we can't really see it you gotta show you gotta get closer to the camera that's a high-def camera i know you can see it you're kind of coming in blurry actually right now that's because your internet sucks my internet's fast man i got verizon i pay for the best one it's like 500 upload 500 download it's insane bro that's not even one because they have gigabyte speed i'm in the i have a seat but no i do but it's just i'm far away from the router that's why oh so you're using Wi-Fi to stream.

You didn't even bother plugging into the Ethernet. No, man. It's far away. The thing is the kitchen. You know, I don't want to go. What am I going to plug in my laptop in the kitchen and talk in the kitchen while my kid sleeps? You can buy a hundred foot Ethernet cable for like 20. Yeah, I'm not doing that.

I'm not doing that. This is fast enough. It's your Internet. Just show us your tooth, man. Just so you know, I've got 200 foot ethernet cables running around the dojo. I cut three holes in the ceiling just to plug into my computer. So I know my... What is your download and upload speed right now? Gigabyte speed. Okay. Plugged in. No Wi-Fi, no nothing. And then I cut a floor in the ceiling

and ran another cable down into my dojo so when I stream live I can plug right into my computer. I don't mess around. High quality content, high visibility. Someone said get a refund, Travis. I like how i control this and i could just pop up anything i want up here guys guys look at this hey well look at this grab it's on aol he's not aol it's a messenger aim did you used to have aim no

He's not AOL, it's a messenger. Aim. Did you used to have Aim? No. You didn't have Aim? No. What was your screen name? I didn't have it.

Jeez, why didn't you have Aim? You know, I didn't have a CD player until my senior year of high school. Jesus. Yeah, I just didn't have those luxuries. I was a poor kid. I remember you telling me about that, actually. So thanks for rubbing that in. Someone wants to play Runscape with you.

I don't know. Anyone can explain Runscape to us? Might be fun. I don't know. I doubt it. Travis don't have anyone can explain runscape to us might be fun i don't know i doubt it travis don't have time for aim these guys are too young to remember dial up i remember dial up yeah seems like a walkman guy yeah he does never had one yeah walkman you know you can talk to him because he's, you know, doing this thing. Never had one. And you know what was really frustrating about that is when I was a kid,

my sister had two stereo systems and an MP3 player before I had a CD player. Just throwing that out there. Do you have a younger or older sister? Older sister. Wow. Is she an athlete? Amateur athlete. What sport?

Soccer, mostly. Is she a great athlete? No. No? No. What does she do now? She was in the military as a military police officer. Now she's going back to school and working

for the u.s postal service doing something are you guys close or not no no probably not to most people in family relationships interesting interesting where does she live? She lives in Washington State. That's right. Yeah, he came a long ways from over there. Do you like that USA Judo shirt? Or did you just... You do?

I like it. Why? Are you sure? You really like it? Huh? I just got it. I just got it i just got it leah said why don't you send uh yourself some usa judo shirts and i was like all right i'm wearing a fuji mat shirt oh nice nice nice yeah i like it you know it's simple it's clean you know what i mean

you didn't like it i designed it it. Did you really? I did. Man, it would have been so awesome. I illustrated it. Oh, it's so stupid and ugly, blah, blah, blah. And then you were like, I designed it. No, I like it. I like it. It's a good shirt.

I hate it. I thought it was stupid. I remember when I made it and I was like, this is going to crap out. All right, let's play a game here. Let's try to get Travis to say something kind and positive. How about that one? Say something. I don't know.

Do you like doggies, puppies? Do you cuddle with your puppy? Yes. Oh, man. Travis, your image shattered. So relatable now. I don't have an image. You do have an image. I don't have an image.

All right, let's have people start commenting what Travis's image is like. Their impressions of Travis should be good. I like how we're gonna get people's images of me who have never met me. This will be fun. Actually, some of them might have at tournaments, but I'm usually pretty friendly at events unless I'm competing at them. Oh, this is a good one. Do I like Joe Biden? No. do I like Joe Biden? No. And the sole purpose for that is I don't follow politics or anything going on, but people tell me that he's going to lock us down. And that's bad for me because my business is

rely on being able to operate. So locking back down and, you know, going through all of that for a second time would cripple some of my businesses. Yeah, definitely. I hate him just for that reason. What about Andrew Cuomo? I don't even know what that means. That's the governor

of New York. He's very pro-lockdown. I can tell by seeing your restrictions, and I would hate that good thing i had my workload um i do i think the rest of the world hates him but at the same time it the things that he put in place help people in my situation as far as business owners and place help people in my situation as far as business owners and entrepreneurs and you know it it helps me as a person regardless of anything else he does so it's so interesting you're wearing a red shirt too i'm actually wearing a blue shirt it's almost like a political situation not that i am i don't really want to expose my political affiliation.

I'm actually dead down the center. You know, I have slightly, you know, conservative views on certain ideas and slightly leftist views on certain things. And, you know, that's a real big head thing to do. It is. Yeah. Why would you do that? Do what? Just kind of like be agnostic and play down the middle. But then mention middle but then mention it and then mention your views are over here and then over there and not give examples all right here's one i'm slightly a fiscal republican slightly right but i believe in like you know climate change i believe in those things some of these social safety net stuff is oh here is a good

one i gotta i gotta quote okay now it's his turn to talk and now he's got another question i like nope that's not it what this this here's a good one have you seen this kid these two kids that live in the middle of nowhere do these like crazy flipping judo i think they were like a japanese you ever see these guys they have uh the patreon account right yeah yeah i i don't know who they are i've never seen them in real life stupid stupid in the words of big jim stupid judo stupid judo man all right let's see if we get jeff say something nice uh oh let's talk about big gen love big gen i love big gen what was it like training with big gen for you i mean i know

what it's like but let's hear from you um he is a very very difficult person to get along with at first especially for athletes and people from the outside he has his own language um that you kind of have to understand and speak to get through practices day in and day out and understand um through practices day in and day out and understand. Like when he says like five, five and five, I don't know what that means. If you, if you haven't been there, you'll be stuck around the room trying to figure it out. And then he's going to yell at you for not doing what he asked.

And it's like, but you didn't tell me anything. Yeah. Cause he's, he has a lingo and a way and it's how he operates and he doesn't sway for anybody. But he actually has everybody's best interest at heart and he's really there to help and, you know, get people to as good as he thinks they can be. Yeah. And it's hard for people to understand that because if he doesn't think you have what it takes to go all the way, he'll tell you. Even if it's your dream to go there, he'd be like, hey, you should probably retire

and go do something else with your life. Collier Judo Brothers. I've only seen a couple of their clips on Instagram. Some of them look really cool. Well, while we're on the topic here, before we go back on what I said before, I've actually only seen some of their highlighted stuff. I've actually never been inside their platform

to see what they actually teach people. Yeah. Here's a good one, Travis. Do you remember that time the Brazilian girl gave you her number at a judo tournament? When did that happen? We're all fighting in Brazil. And then this Brazilian girl ran over and then gave you her number. I remember that.

All the Brazilian, everybody, it was in the lobby of the judo tournament, right? So everyone was there. And then the girl ran over like, oh, Travis, you know, and gave you her number. And you looked at it. And you looked at her. And then you crumpled it up and threw it over your shoulder. And then everyone was like, oh, my God. And then, like, man, that was so savage.

Do you remember that? I don't. There's another story that you have no recollection of. Oh, my God. What were we doing fighting in Brazil? What were we doing? It was Grand Slam Brazil. Yeah, I don't remember that.

I think we were roommates. I don't remember that. I think we were roommates. I don't remember that either. A few times. Man, what do you remember, Jesus? I remember when Nafantov at the Brazil Grand Slam switched me right on right and planted me from the top. Think about that. Just let that sink in.

Yeah, usually it's right on left. that just let that sink in yeah usually he faked me out so hard with his uchimata that i bit so much he could switch me as a righty that's insane yeah i would have loved to throw that to see if my viewers would have got that like why is it so rvr switch why is that so? He's legit that guy. Yep. You know, um, Bachman from Germany. He was like six five. He threw me standing say and I'll get that tournament and I'm freaking five nine. So yeah, I was embarrassed to have bronze at that tournament. That matters. You know what else happened that was super crazy at that event? Kuni almost got knocked out by Hirooka. Hirooka, the Japanese guy, because he did a standing Korean seyo and Kuni bit so hard that when Hirooka pulled down,

Kuni's feet never left the floor. The back of his head hit the ground. Jesus. He came in so fast that Kuni's feet never left the floor. And he just, boom, bounced his head off the mat. I remember that trip specifically because we had the craziest layover. And we had to sprint from one side of the airport to the other side of the airport do you remember that and that guy that was leading the way was like hurry hurry and we're

like we're in flip-flops and carrying luggage like yeah we were freaking right yeah i remember that and there's some we did not i did not think you could make that we could make it but we did all right let's see any other interesting uh stories travis that you'd like to share from back in the day i mean i don't think any of the stories are all that interesting i think it's interesting you know travis running trying to catch the airplane i don't know that was kind of fun you know here's a story here's a story. Here's a story. So we were sitting in, where was it? Washington, D.C., flying back from Europe.

And we were all dead tired. There was six of us. And we were flying back to Albany. Or was it Boston? I can't remember. But we're sitting there waiting for this plane to take off. And we're just sitting there. And they're like, okay, the plane is boarding. And we're're like i don't really want to get up and stand in line we'll just wait for the line to go

down and then we'll get up and go down well we were sitting there for like 20 minutes and sure enough like this line just people just kept adding and we were like jesus so i go up and i asked this lady and i'm like hey are you guys still boarding for that flight? When's it over? And she's like, that flight left. And we were like, excuse me. And she was like, yeah, it's left. She's like, who are you? And we're like, there's six of us who need to get on this plane. And she's like, I've been calling all of you through the intercom and you guys didn't show up. And I'm'm like we've been sitting right there for 45 minutes and she was like i don't know to tell you we rented a car and drove back geez yeah watch the plane take off and just it is what it is you remember that time we looked for that kramer sauna suit in Japan? Yeah, you were useless.

For guys, you were useless. Dude, all you wanted was that Kramer suit, right? You couldn't get it. Dude, we couldn't find it anywhere. There was no we involved. I had to speak.

Oh my god. Tell my side of the story. Travis, all he wanted, we fought in the Tokyo Grand Slam. All Travis wanted was his jacket. He was like, I want this jacket. It's the best jacket in the world. It's like $300. It's Kramer suit.

He even had a picture of his. He's like, Shintaro, can you help me find this jacket? And I was like, all right, let me see. And I look at it, and I'm like, yeah, I could help you find this jacket. So I'm just talking to everybody. I was like, yo, you know where I could get this jacket? You know where I could get this jacket. And I was like, All right, let me see. And I look at it. And I'm like, Yeah, I could help you find this jacket. So I just talking to everybody's like, Oh, you know where I can get this jacket? You know where I can get this jacket? And then people be like, Why don't you try that store? Why don't you try that store? And Travis not speaking Japanese. I was like,

I'll take you Come on. And then we went all over Japan, Tokyo, looking for this jacket. We couldn't find it. And then Travis was at the end of the day, we looked all day. I spent my entire day travis like you know what you're useless i was like yo i was like travis what the hell man like i'm helping you all day trying to find this jacket but eventually you got one didn't you yeah because we were walking back from the train station and it was across the street from the tokyo dome at that running store and i saw it in the window because it had a

very particular design on the jacket and it was designed for cutting weight yeah so you ended up getting it was i there when you got it i can't even remember i just because the store was closed i went back the next day oh and then you got it yeah two that's a great story wasn't that in that great story yeah you were just like i was like you want to go eat something you were like i freaking hate japanese food and you were shitting on japanese food like man japanese food is good remember that what do you eat nowadays do you have a favorite food cheesy lasagna cheesy pasta of course funfetti cake all day i've got two boxes of funfetti cake at home i might even make one tonight all right let's do this question man james has a lot of good questions man um i do know how to box. Not kickboxing, but just straight boxing.

I used to go to Lozon's MMA and hit pads with his striking coach and do a lot of the striking and MMA classes. Nice. How long did you box for? Two years. Nice. Sounds fun. You spar? You want to spar sometime?

You want to put sometime? Huh? You want to put the gloves on? I'll spar with you. I'll spar with you. Yeah, I'll do that. That'll be – you know what? We should charge for that. Next stream yard, we're going to be sparred.

So we had this Japanese guy come here named Kensuke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know Kensuke, right? Yeah. Did he leave already or where's he he lives in california now i think okay yeah he decided to like take on mma and like be an mma fighter so he comes to the club one day and he knew that i had trained and he goes travis i want to spar with you and i was like no you don't and he's like no please i want to spar with you. And I was like, no, you don't.

And he's like, no, please. I want to spar. So one day after practice, after a morning practice, we put on the gloves. And I was like, do you want to put on the little gloves or the big gloves? And he goes, I want the little gloves. And I was like, are you sure? That's really going to hurt. And he goes, no, the big gloves will hurt more.

They're bigger. And I was was like all right it was not a good experience for him what about andrew jacob he's doing mma now yeah he can't do anything he just oof oof olympics happening yes or no oh oh hey judo highlights that guy awesome highlights look at that does he does wow man judo highlights just got a nice positive comment from Travis it's amazing he does good work he does he does great work yeah yeah um Olympics happening yes or no yeah um olympics happening yes or no i'm gonna go with yes 100 yes yeah because i think the japanese people

are a little crazy like i could i could honestly see them going you know what we're gonna have the olympics and here's what we're gonna do everybody that's gonna's going to compete at the Olympic Games is going to fly into the Olympic Village. You guys are all going to quarantine for two weeks. You're going to get tested. And then they're going to keep them in this little bubble. And then they're going to vaccinate the entire country of Japan so that everybody is safe.

And they're not going to allow any – They'll pull that off. They'll pull that off. Who is Judo Highlights? Do I know him? I don't know. Do you? How do I know who you know? I don't know. Do you? How do I know who you know?

I don't know. Why would you even ask me that? I keep a Rolodex of all the people Sandaro knows. Let me go through your Facebook friends list and see if I got the time for that. Close reference, right? Let's see. Judo Highlights. You want to out him or no?

Who is that guy? He's a guy who makes really awesome videos. American? Is he an American? Wouldn't you like to know? I'm curious. He paid you in yen, so. Oh, wow.

That's right. You see, guys? Detective Travis up in here you guys like that how do you not pay attention to the things you do it's right there i was paying attention to that it didn't uh go by and register just like the guy outward didn't register right that didn't click with you either when you looked at it yes this guy see this guy too everyone getting on me on my case now it's like paid in your show everybody should hold him accountable another one guys you know boy scott oh he's from new ze, but he lives in Japan. Very cool.

Very cool. Peyton Yen, another one. All right, enough, guys, enough. Any other questions for Travis? I'll field some questions, too. You guys want to shoot me some questions? Anybody interested in what I have to say tonight? All right, let's see.

Start with different throw systems early on or start with sleeves hey wait i have a question oh here we go start with a question yeah i have a question for you for me okay going back to what you had said earlier why is the first throw you should learn as a white belt oh soto i didn't say should i didn't say should you said it is. No, no. That's just the go-to, generally speaking. I think you should start off with two legs on the floor. Ogoshi, Koshikuruma, something like that. Okay. We're on the same page.

I was going to call you out on it. Oh, good. I actually said this at a USJF meeting. Why do we teach Osoto first? We really shouldn't. It's a very difficult thing to do. Wait. Hold on. You said that okay what was the response of what when you said when i said that yeah they're like you just do the minds of judo there it is you guys heard it for your first

that is the people running this country. You just do. That's my reasoning. You just do. Not judo specific, though. I think a lot of organizations, you know what I mean? Hey, Shintaro. You just do. You should put that on a t-shirt.

How to run judo in America. Just do. Just do it. How about this one? Throw him! Throw him! when the guy's sitting in the coach's chair you ever heard that one grab him and throw him you ever heard that it's like i'm freaking trying but are you but are you sometimes or are you trying to not get thrown because those are two completely different things very different things how was this one ole bischoff beef i never had one yeah me and bischoff just i don't know what it is people love it that was like but just me and him as like when we're off the mat yeah we're friendly we say hi to each other we acknowledge each other the The second we try to do Randori with each other, like coaches are breaking us up,

like people are putting us on opposite sides of the dojo, like holy hellfire just rains down on the place. I have no idea why. Skincare routine. This is very important. I take cold showers every day. That's my thing. I don't really take warm showers that much. Why would you take a cold shower? You one of those Wim Hof weirdos? No, I love cold showers. I feel like sometimes you have to earn a

hot shower, a warm shower. You have to earn that shit. And sometimes I don't deserve it. So I take just cold showers. And it's actually better for your skin time out time out you have to earn a warm shower you know my cousin told me this i don't know how true this is but in germany when you want to call someone wimpy you call them a wondershirt which means a person that only takes warm showers yeah wait can we go back to Yeah. What do you want to go back to? How would you earn a warm shower? Help me out here. It's your thing.

How would you not know? No, I mean, I do know. It's like, how would I earn it? That's a good question. For instance, like if I was shoveling snow you know I'm gonna ignore you it's pretty cool right there's like a gas snow things on your wall that's like the things I have to do to accomplish this is there is it like written down somewhere not really it's just kind of by field and intuition you know sometimes just like yo i deserve a warm shower today you know what i mean and it's really good for your skin you should start taking cold showers travis fuck that

i'll pay the heat bill i'll pay the water bill i'm i'm gonna use it yeah okay all right but interestingly enough right changing topics here so one of my one of of my BJJ students was in today and we were training and he was talking about how people are deferring on their rent in a lot of places, right? Just due to COVID not being able to pay. And he said, the one thing that goes along with deferring with your rent in a lot of states is deferring on the utility bills. So he said in, in Matt in Maryland, where he's at right now, he said the utility departments are into like $65 million owed. Oh, wow. And they said, if Biden goes into another lockdown, he said the utility companies may just shut down. Wow. Which means that if we go into a lockdown, you'll be living into your house with no electricity, no heat,

no fridges, no freezers, no gas, no sewage. It would all just turn off because they're privately owned companies. Yeah, some of them are. So yeah, food for thought. Anyways, back to your I have to earn things. No, I mean like I just like cold showers too. It just like wakes me up. It's refreshing.

Good for your skin. Every now and then I'll take a warm shower and maybe like once a week I'll take lotion. Just like I have this hypoallergenic skin-friendly lotion and I'll just put it all over my body. Do you use skin lotion? Fuck no. Do you use shampoo? Do you use shampoo? Of course. Oh, you do use shampoo.

I would have taken you as the kind taking the bar soap and then like the Irish spring on the arm and then the chest and then the head and just all over. Right? I would have taken you for that. No. No? No. of the head and just all over right i would have taken you for that no no what kind of shampoo do you use that's very important stuff here i think head and shoulders all right yeah it's does that i don't know i was just wondering it comes on the target shelf in like a giant bottle with a pump so it's like eight bucks and i I was like, sold eight bucks.

I don't got to come back here and buy it again. It's very judo view, you know, head and shoulders, like a shampoo and conditioner. It's very efficient, right? Saves a lot of time because you're a busy guy, right?

You don't use skin lotion. Oh, you know, your skin never gets dry. No. Interesting. Yeah. It's very bizarre.

Why is that bizarre? No, I mean, I just never met anyone that never uses skin lotion ever. Never. I hate lotion, all types. I don't even like sunblock because it's like a lotion. You don't wear sunblock? Nope. Do you go outside a lot though? Nope. You seem like kind of an outdoorsy guy, though.

Woods, though. So, yes, I'm outside, but not in direct sunlight, so to speak. Let's talk about Travis Steven hobbies. What are your hobbies? Building businesses. Okay, outside of that? Working. Do you ever just go camping or go to the movies?

I don't think I do a picnic or. No, I schedule a date nights with Kalita twice a week. And we technically have three days, but I'm allowed to skip one because we only I only have to appear at two but you tell her that you're not gonna go right yeah yeah yeah I'm like hey man I'm really busy we're gonna have to move Thursday to Saturday and then we'll go out Saturday so what do you guys do you guys go to Russia I have two options i can either do like what is like a brunch like a breakfast slash watch

trying to explain brunch like it's brunch stands for breakfast or lunch i love how you have to explain that yeah like somewhere in the middle there yeah or i could do a dinner like somewhere in the middle there yeah or i could do a dinner so it's brunch or dinner that's you generally the date yes and no phones no emails okay no distractions and is that fun you guys chat joke around and yeah nice man i can't imagine you on a date I mean I am the memory that's true that's true man yeah what no nothing man just uh, good times, huh? How many people are watching this thing? I don't know, 160. I cannot believe that there's still people watching this. We've been ranting and talking nonsense for an hour and 40 minutes.

Hopefully they all go create accounts on USAJudo.com and get some free judo lessons. And go check out my podcast, too. Don't forget about that. So I can listen when I wake up at five o'clock in the morning to go to work while you're sleeping. Do you get up at five? Yeah. Good for you. I got a lot to do.

You don't sleep that long. You're not like a long sleeper. Four hours. Four hours. That's it. I like five to six is like my like money time slot um four is a little rough yeah but yeah i'll be in front of my computer guaranteed by 5 15 jesus do you probably slept more when you were an athlete i don't know oh for sure you have to yeah i do yeah i own two dojos and recently i've been working for

fuji yep that's my work two dojos you know i have a little real estate situation going to real estate i have real estate yeah i'm a landlord um but some of my land you know tenants are not paying rent right now so you know that's just how it is you know and uh that and then uh yeah i do a lot of stuff a lot of stuff hope that was uh helpful all right post the links and oh let's post your thing on the chat. Oh, yeah. USAJudo.com. It's not that hard. USAJudo.com. How come I can't see anything? I don't know. Oh, wait.

I was able to run a dojo and make a living, but with COVID right now, that's very difficult. So hopefully things get better. Where would you recommend I go if I want to learn both judo and BJJ equally? I live in Manhattan. Did some BJJ years ago. I mean, come on. That's an easy one. That's like –

Can you figure this out, Travis, now that you could click around and stuff? No, I can't do anything. I can view the comments now that I could uh click around and stuff no i can't do anything it's like i can view the comments now that you see now that i hit that button it only took me two hours to see that button in the right hand corner but i can't do anything with them really it was on it was glad i could do this stuff to you what was that wait go back would that say you jealous of my hair would that say you jealous of my hair spotted i like you to be jealous of mine because it's like even across the top he can't grow a beard like i got the best of both worlds it's easy to take care of people like it it's trendy and it's something i've been doing i haven't been clean shaven since the 2008 olympic games did you? No, I did not know that.

I did not know that. Alright, you know what I've been getting a lot of? I'm going to send this. I've been getting this a lot. People have wanted to know this. Wait, judo highlights. Put that comment here really quick.

Right here. Right here. How'd you miss that? Right here. No joe's making money here in japan though it's sacrificed in a country to teach judo wait yeah you know that can't be true no there's local dojos that do make money teaching judo but there's so many options wait a minute you're telling me the program the coach at Tokai University does not make money? No, he makes money. He makes money. Okay.

Well, what about all the elementary school teachers that teach it? Yeah, they do. But judo programs are cheap in Japan too. You know what I mean? Like Yoshida, I know, has a big dojo. You remember Yoshida? Yeah. Yeah.

But like, yeah, it's tough to make it. There's so much competition. Irrelevant to the people that get jobs. Like the guy that teaches for Times 24, he doesn't make money? I don't know. Like I'm a firm believer in having clubs in places where it draws a lot of attention and memberships like inside ymcas but there has to be a professional side of it to get the influx of cash because you need cash to do things yeah so all these school owners that are doing stuff are you jealous of shintaro's ears he's jealous of mine get out of here john what do you see that oh i have some cauliflower look at that it's cute right

it's cute you like that charles didn't i do that to you? No. Oh. Moisture, I should take 10 years off. Why do I care about what I look like? If you don't like the way I look, look away. Cause I can't change it. Yeah, dude, you really should. How old do you think I am right now? You think I look 50?

Yes. Bring it. 60. I wrote that in the comments. Judo breakdowns. I am. I've given a lot of people cauliflower years. I've given myself cauliflower year on my cauliflower year.

You got a good one good one look 58. wow those are some 32. someone wrote 32. i look at teachers are university employees that's very true yeah yeah yeah but they're making money not a lot of money but they get paid enough to make a living. Yeah. It's not like they live on the street. This is a good one. Shintaro who? Me, bro.

Me. Not a lot of Shintaros out there. I mean, I think there are. Mine's a pretty common name let's go try this he went first name last name on the other guy he did oh here's a good one i'll let you take that one do i think ronda rousey was a good judoka yeah she was i think she had a lot of natural talent and she formed a style of judo that fit her own natural abilities i don't think she would have won in today's judo because she didn't have a lot of like judo she did a lot of leg grabs a lot of ankle picking kind of like

quote unquote like dirty judo yeah where she grinded out a lot of leg grabs a lot of ankle picking kind of like quote unquote like dirty judo yeah where she grinded out a lot of things see i do want to talk a little bit about the dojo business the judo business you know we have to start changing the mindset right uh can we can we back up to the guy's thing about 99 of dojos don't make anything? Because I'm confused. In Japan or are you talking – He had mentioned Japan. He's talking about Japan, right?

Yeah. I'm so confused. Did Ron defy at every practice? Pretty much. I know who Michael Spiegelman is. Yeah, I've seen him around. You know, this is the thing, right? I talk about this sometimes, but like in California,

there's so many judo schools, and they try to compete with each other on price. And if you compete with each other on price, it's a race to the bottom. You know what I mean? Nobody cares about California. No one cares. Hawaii, judo.o conversation is about japan no i'm just saying in general japan too man they compete on price hey how much you're charging judo a hundred

dollars uh ten thousand yen we charge over here nine thousand yen and then it's a race to the bottom always and then people expect to get judo for cheap judo should not be cheap you spent your whole life training judo it should not be cheap you know what i mean you have a phd in a in a very specific martial art you know people that's the value that you provide you know what i mean and that's one of the things i think there needs to be some sort of a re-education you know people come to my dojo too sometimes like i have a black belt i just should not have to pay and it's like you know what no you know i mean as a mean as that sounds you know uh what was with that lip thing i don't know what you're like yeah what was that me like thinking it's my thinking face

yeah like that you should put up a mirror and work on that, because that was not a good look. Yep. 100% right. You see that, Travis? 100% right. Me, me. Yeah, that's the problem, man. That has nothing to do with

the debate on 99% of... We'll just leave that up there for the rest of the evening. Shintaro, 100% right. Travis 100% wrong. I never even made a statement. 0% wrong.

Right. Oh, look. Do you know Sergio Pessoa? Of course. How would we not know him? see that guy shintaro lie he didn't leave it up there the whole time cool which guy oh yeah yeah yeah i figured it was time to move on you know yeah so any tips on making judo better in the united states, Travis? Yeah, we could burn USA Judo to the ground. Everybody become members of USAJudo.com

so that we can get an influx of cash to rewrite the Judo systems in America so that we can popularize the sport to the mainstream to increase membership cashflow so that we can actually develop our youth in a systematic way that produces champions and we can stand behind and monetize their image to not only grow their popularity to mainstream, but also to entice sponsors to being a part of it. It's hard to

get sponsors, get people involved into the sport get donors involved into the sport when you are best athletes your premier people have social media followings of like a thousand people yeah it's like what are you doing how do you look at an account like judo gallery at 600 000 people and our organization at like 30 and then our athletes at two it's like our own people don't even care and that's the job of the ngb to actually you know push them their image turn them into champions a lot of like what you know flow grappling has done for the bjj's people they've turned them into stars through marketing taking average joes and turn them into people yeah see 76 a month you know 76 a month man you can't really make a living off of that you know especially if you have operating expenses and

things like this you know what i mean 76 a month guys guys really quick hold on shantara i'm terrible at math but i got to do the math really quick. Hold on. Hold on. I'm going to use a round number, like $100. Okay. Let's say a judo practice, you go to a judo practice twice a week. Yeah. Twice a hours. That's 16 hours. $100 divided by 16 bucks. That's $6.25 an hour. Did I do that right? I think so.

I don't have a calculator in front of me. I feel like that's against the law. But maybe that's just me. That's not even minimum wage. That's not even half of minimum wage in a lot of states. Yeah, it's messed up. That's what we that's what we're expected to give it out for. You know what I mean? That's not

right. You know, chapter gotta eat. Whoa, look at this. I pay 800 yen for 12 judo sessions of money here in Japan. sessions of money here in japan but now time out but time out it so like in europe right when you talk about judo they're usually influxed by the cities and states to be so in japan who pays the rent who pays for the tatami who pays the utilities is that something that like the cities all fund kind of like a boys and girls club like i'd be curious no because if it is then i could understand paying that because it pays the coach it's subsidized yeah exactly all right quick shameless plug you come to kano martial arts on 27th street gary st ledger is a bjj black belt and a judo black belt uh he'll teach you both and it's also my dojo too so quick shameless plug of mine yeah man you're right. Travis judo shouldn't be so

cheap. You know, it's really messed up how that is. I think there need, Oh look, one 25 here at $28 in the UK. How do you expect judo teachers to make any sort of living like this? You know what I mean? And if the judo teacher can't make a living running a dojo, they have to get a nine to five and they work a nine to five. They tired they're exhausted then they come to the dojo the quality of instruction suffers too you know what i mean so oh 25 drop into a j flow class and didn't get to run door with anyone good wasn't worth it i know j flow is kind of great though right are you asking me or telling me no no yeah he's great he's great i love j flow he's got some good technique 125 in vegas 60 a month the teachers are volunteer there needs to be re-education there needs to to be. If you could spend $47 on a SoulCycle class,

you could spend freaking $30 on a drop-in judo class. You know what I mean? If you spend $8 on a Starbucks latte, Chino, whatever it is, then you could spend, you know, for a drop-in class. Don't you think, Travis? No. You don't think so? I don't.

What do you think? I think for that drop-in class you're not you're not getting anything you're not giving them anything you're not that and that's the biggest problem with the judo system worldwide when i pay when i pay 40 for a soul cycle class what am i getting I am getting an 800 calorie cardio burning workout. That's fun and energetic. If I walk into your school, no judo, and I say, hey, I want to pay a $50 drop-in fee, what am I going to get? Well, you're not paying $50 at my dojo. I'm paying 45, 35. I don't care what it is. It's usually $20 or whatever. What am I getting?

First of all, you get a workout. You get to tap into the community. How many calories am I going to burn in that workout? Probably 400 maybe, 300. Doing what? Doing drills, drills and scales, body weight exercises. All that stuff.

You get to dip your foot into the judo world, right. And meet some people who are sort of in the game that could sort of guide you. And then, you know, you get access to me, you know, you get to ask me questions, my opinions about what they should do from a martial arts standpoint. You see how complicated that is? Like the soul cycles pitch is simple you come you get a workout it's going to be fun it's going to be energetic you're going to burn this much so okay same question back to you someone comes in and pays a drop in fee to you what do they get in return they get to attend class

that's it whatever it is it is, it is. Because I only do jiu-jitsu. And that's the problem with judo is you can't actually participate in anything because the learning curve is too steep for how people run classes in dojos. Yeah, but we don't let the beginners do randori in the class.

You know what I mean? Irrelevant. Why? Because you can't get a good workout doing Uchikomi's not knowing any of the steps. You're too confused. It's too convoluted. Like anybody can ride a bike. No, but there's exercise that we could do that are sort of judo related. Like for for instance you ever take the sleeve in the sleeve and you're pushing and pulling yep you know what i mean like that is a judo related judo specific exercise that you could do it is i mean anyone could start and do you know what i mean but what happens when the class is doing something else you're not a part of it not really i don't think you can make those claims because you've never actually

seen my class. You know what I mean? I was using your class as a theoretical example to all judo schools, not just pinpointing you exactly. Yeah. Well, I think I'm a little bit different than a lot of other schools if I say so myself. but yeah, no, I do see your point. I do see your point. You know, I, we're doing Ochi Osoto combination. Guy steps out, we do Taiyo. Okay. Go. It's a lot different than like, you're going to go for these armbar, you know, you're going to take the arm across lapel. Cause you could coordinate this jujitsu stuff a lot easier.

You know what I mean? So I do get where you're coming from. But even jujitsu has that problem because they don't it's i don't understand what you're arguing with me about though right i'm talking about the re-education of my judo class should be valued at a certain price it should not be free correct the problem is is you can't command that price because there's no instantaneous value received. There is though, because there are people paying it. Because they they're looking for the community aspect. But when you want to scale the business to the masses, you need that instant gratification. And jujitsu has bridged that gap in

the middle between where like the la fitness is and the like i'm just gonna go lift some weights simple easy to do i pay my membership i pick some stuff up i put some stuff down i'm done and i do it on my own time all right why can't you charge bjj prices in america you can you can right you can and some people do yes i will do a clinic in vegas how about me and travis go out there and we'll put on a boxing match for you guys too um reach out to me dm me let's see yeah dm him because i'm busy he'll handle it i don't think rationalizing saying you can afford pay x is for y is a poor argument is not about what I can afford. I can afford a lot.

It's a little confusing. No, he's saying that it's not about what you can afford. It's about what it's worth. And his argument is on your side where it's like, but the value you're getting is great and i'm saying you can't educate somebody who doesn't know on those values on day one without having some hook that they leave feeling like they've gotten value and that's and that's a super hard thing for a lot of people to learn because what of judo do you give them that they can do on day one like when you walk into my jiu jitsu school yeah i can get you out of side control day one i can get you to stand

up from close guard day one but let me let me okay so who are we teaching and what are they right those those are important questions guy comes in he wants to learn let's just say also theogari let's just say osotogari okay just because osotogari is sort of the universally first technique i teach this person osotogari i know it's stupid i know let's just bear with me here okay teach osotogari can they hit it on somebody standing in front of them uh someone that has no experience no martial arts no nothing, just average Joe Smough on the subway, hey, man, you stepped on my sneakers, bro. What are you going to do about it? Can they grab him and throw him a Sotigari?

To someone that's never felt a Sotigari, and I think the answer to that is yes. Yeah. So there's value there. There's something that they could learn on day one that they could take away with them that will be with them. I'm not saying it can't be achieved i'm saying we don't sell it worldwide as a community yeah which is the problem and a lot of that comes down to the professionalizing like you said of schools like you have multiple classes i would love to count the number of judo schools that run a fundamentals class that educate people

on like, these are the basics, here's the intermediates, and they move through the system so that they're with like-minded people doing like-minded things as a group because what happens is what am i wrong about i don't know what i'm wrong about let's see you don't have to reinvent the wheel oh tohoku i love dave Oshima. I love the Oshimas, man. They got some real nice judo. Clean. All right.

I agree with Travis. No instant gratification with judo. I've been through it for years. We have developed a system that works. Yes. It goes back to what is the intro lesson of judo that you do for people? What is the life cycle of somebody at your club? What is like all these questions? And it's like, I get that some people have like these little tidbits of answers.

Yeah. On a grand scale as a sport, we are so focused on the sport that we forget about the core values of what the sport does for you. And we don't instruct people when they come into the dojo on what they're really getting and what the real value is. And then the pie in the sky is, yeah, you can be an Olympic team member or be, you can be a part of this guy's Olympic journey and help him along the way and be a part of the Olympic experience. We don't sell those types of things. The intro lesson is use their strength against them. Interesting comments. In Russia, oh, this is going to be good. Back in the day in my

block, if you didn't know judo, you would always be smashed. Good old days. Yeah. Interesting comments. Interesting comments. Yeah. See, there's a guy that said he had a 75% dropout and now we're down to 10% so what about your member retention numbers? Travis, how are they? From people who actually walk in the door? Yeah. Ah, we sign up about 90%. That's pretty good. Yeah. And how many make it past a month? How many make it past three months, six months?

I would say of those 90, about 75% make it to three and about 50 make it to six. Okay. That's actually not that bad. Do you do a one-year contract? No contract, month to month.-month all month-to-month wow interesting interesting yep does jimmy pedro's dojo have a contract six and twelve yeah six and twelve right what do you think oh my buddy joe can is over here oh you can get the

you can get the six videos for learning judo at usajudo.com just go make an account and it's 100 free my dojo is successful we can start people on the ground and taught them the basics tons of chemi drill it in the beginning and then build them up. Here's a question that judo schools need to answer. You want to teach the masses, figure out how to teach judo, get people a great workout, make them feel accomplished without hitting them with the floor. Figure that one out because you don't realize it, but falling six feet in the air, that's scary. The ground, even though you're standing on it, the ground is really far away from hip high.

For somebody who's really inexperienced with taking falls and your body doesn't have the conditioning and the impact, that's going to be hard to go to work the next day. Very true. Very true. And you need to have an answer for that yeah you know cardio judo needs to be a thing self-defense judo needs to be a thing you know i always have this thing of like uh the judo tournaments right for beginners this should be maybe like a technique demonstration segment you Judo highlights has it. He's like, judo is too hard. That's a cop-out because it doesn't have to be.

Like, why do we have to make it so difficult that we don't want it for other people? Like, why? Yeah. Like, why should you ever have to be forced to do randori? Sure. You're absolutely right about that. Randori is very, very difficult.

So much. You're telling me you can't figure out a way to teach people all the different throws of judo in a cardiovascular way to keep them in the sport? I don't know. It just seems illogical to me. Yeah. to keep them in the sport i don't know it just seems illogical to me yeah i agree with you man our white belts never do run dory you know um and that's what skelly told me too me and skelly you know uh for those of you don't know he's a usa manager he owns a judo school in jersey he's an amazing guy amazing coach and a friend right travis um and he too says hey you know white belts should never do andori ever ever ever ever and i completely agree with that and for the first six months

right for you to do andori is normal for a lot of us who's watching this channel to do andori is a normal thing but i think as beginners they should never be exposed to that big fall that big ball it takes that one time travis even smashes you on your head that you're gonna say you know what this sport's not for me right travis same thing with competitions like there should be an event for people where they can just demonstrate their judo that's not i just said that i just said that yeah i just said that i Yeah. I just said that. I've been saying that forever, right? Like white belt division, show us your taiyo. Boom, do a taiyotoshi.

But even from a 6.2 or a 4.7 or whatever it is, they go home with a medal. But even from a grander scheme, right? Like there should be a fundamental curriculum within, for your white belt, your test. For argument's sake, right? To a tournament where you can be judged on your application of these throws. And then all white belts nationwide can enter a tournament where it's freestyle

and it's just show me your creative way of pulling off these throws with these sound steps. You put your feet in the right place. You put your hands in the right place. Your ukes take good falls and help because you got to judge the Uke's just as much as Tori. Yep. I like that. And then we should also have mat areas that aren't full competition.

You don't need that much space. If you're running a kid's tournament, man, you know, like I don't like going to a tournament and there's formats running and you have 500 kids competing and you're there till fricking 1130 PM. Like that's just the worst for the sport you know what i mean moms and dads don't want to take their kids judo tournaments because it takes

all day but judo highlights is he's like so you're saying in soccer there should be tournaments where they don't compete they just show me how to kick their entire sport and world championships dedicated to the act of juggling the ball. Yes, you're absolutely right. There's an entire industry developed and devoted to it. You know, I love how, like, you're usually the gung-ho tough guy, right? Like, this has got to be this thing. But, like, on this issue, right, you're sort of on the opposite side of the spectrum.

I find that very endearing almost you know how much you care about the sport to sort of make a soft version so people could enter into it i find that very interesting i don't even don't say that yeah it's called lifting i don't i mean at that point at that point to judo highlights you know comment let's just remove kata from all of judo because that's not randori let's just get rid of it why i see where he's coming from i do see where he's coming from you know there's some diehard randori fans out there they're like judo's randori you know and i think

a lot of the old generation used to be that way right like if you can't handle what is huh what is kata why do we kata lame. People don't like it here in Japan. I mean, I saw Inoue do Kata with his brother. It was very beautiful. Yeah, that's pretty cool. They denied my rank because Inoue did Kata with his brother. Their actual response. Well, Inoue showed he did it, so Travis should do it. I mean, I'm just saying I like that Kata that Inoue did with his brother.

Inoue got told to do it, had to do it. Yeah, Japan's very bureaucratic, right? There's no denying that. I mean, it's very difficult to get away from those things. So you're right, man. I think Judo Highlights has some good points in there for sure. I think he does. And I think, again, there are some good points in there. I think he does.

And I think, again, there are two types of people in this world. There are people who play soccer and there are people who juggle the ball. We can have people that compete and do Randori and that's their focus and they're athletic and they're driven and they're competitive and they love it. Yeah. Why can't we develop the Kata side of the judo world to help build the foundation and build the technique so that we have people that are experts in technique? Yeah. Man, Chadi thinks white belts should do Rondori with each other. White belts can hurt each other, though.

Like big time. White belts are so dangerous, I feel like. Hey, guys, here's what we should do. Here's what we should do. I got it. I got it. Tell me. Talk to me.

Let's get some really strong males, right, in their 20s to 30s, right, super competitive, come into class. Let's just put some boxing gloves on them, teach them how to throw a one-two and put them in a boxing match. Let's just see what happens. No neck building strength, no like how to wear your mouth guard and how to bite down and how to breathe. No like instruction on, hey, if your nose breaks, don't sniff in really hard. Cause you can do damage. Let's not teach them any of that. Let's just throw the gloves on them and say, Hey,

figure it out. Trial by fire. Cause that's how we keep people. Let's not make sure they take good falls for a while. Let's not make sure this. Yeah, I'm making it judo highlights i'm making it that's coming to usag.com i'm telling you i'm gonna change the game yeah i'm gonna change the game and then carl's gonna be hired to run all of my events for forms. That's like that tattoo. She's a spectacular 8.3, 8.5.

Yeah. Right. Hey, and my subscribers are going to get special preferential treatment. So if you subscribe to my channel, you know, automatic nine automatic tens. Right. Anyway, let's do closing remarks, Travis, because we have an early day tomorrow. You're a quitter. You're a quitter.

I'm going to lie next to my daughter. It's going to be great. She's sleeping. I'm going to crawl in. She's two and a half. Such a sweet little kid. It's going to be amazing. We'll do another one of these.

This was a huge success. Sure. Closing remarks. sweet little kid it's gonna be amazing we'll do another one of these this was a huge success sure closing remarks um everybody should go to usajudo.com and sign up for a free account um get some free judo lessons from jimmy and i um follow shintaro's channel because Shintaro's channel because he releases some funny content. Funny, huh? And yeah, Shintaro versus Travis Boxing Match Live coming to you, right?

We actually have a wager on the table, right, Travis? Me and you? Do we? Yeah. Do you remember this wager? Half the things you say, I don't remember. I don't know if you're making it up right now or if i when we were there one time i was fighting in the team or something like this you were fighting on the team and do you remember this i mean i fought on a lot of new york athletic club teams so yeah

so we had this team a and team b i was on team B. Team B did better than Team A. And then there was an unbelievable cookie place called Chickalicious in Manhattan. And then you were like, oh, man, I want to get something sweet to eat, but I don't want to just get a chocolate bar across the street. Do you know any place very delicious? And I was like, yo, I got you. And then I went down there and I got you like a cronut or something. Remember this? And then we ate it. And then I went down there and I got you like a Krona or something. Remember this? And then we ate it and then you loved it. And then that night we were at the New York Athletic Club dinner party and I got loaded. I drank way too much. And then I was telling everyone I could

take Travis down right now. And then I was trying to get in a wrestling stance and wrestle you. And you were like, get the hell out of here, man. Stop doing this shit. What's wrong with you? And then I was like, I'll bet you you right now a thousand dollars that i could take you out in a wrestling match and then we shook on it remember this and then you never took me down nor did you pay me well no we've never did it we never did it yeah you couldn't i could wrestling yeah wrestling it's not a chance that's a great wrestler all right so we'll do this we'll do a wrestling video and then a boxing video okay you want to go in there just for shits and giggles should we have a catch

weight i'll wear my black belt you wear your red white belt and we'll see what happens you wear your red white belt and we'll see what happens i love should we make should we meet at 178 i don't i wouldn't even step on the scale you take all my jelly guts and everything it just is all right so usajudo.com i have a podcast now goes just search in tointaro Higashi. It's on Spotify, I think. What is Louis Paviana saying, like, why no kata? Did he miss the entire conversation that I had? The entire conversation. Did he miss it?

Where? Right here. Right here. I don't even know. I can't do nothing. I don't know. It's like, what is this one two three four five oh it moved i don't know just push it all the way down it's right at the top of

the page on my what are you saying like i can help you figure it out he said travis do you see judo as a hundred percent sport why no kata here it is. I feel like he missed, he missed the entire, Hey, he's a candy cane belt too. Look at that. Yeah. Kogi Mundo.

So I don't know. I must've missed the entire conversation. He's gonna have to go back and rewatch it. Yeah. Well, great times. Thank you, Travis.

I'll see you tomorrow morning. Wow. Look at that. Somebody just called me fat. Travis blown up Nicholas Gill and weight. Wow. Christian OLS. That was not nice. They subscribed to my channel too. That was mean. That was very heartfelt. I like it. I like it get moirman to set it up who's moirman you know adam moirman you've heard him but what is he doing why would he set it up i don't know that's what david oshima said

that's weird That's weird. Kenshin, no. Let's see. We wrestled together at Hunter. Interesting. Kenshin. All right.

Opinion on Jocko. Here we go. You like that? I thought we were ending this. I'm having so much fun. It's pretty fun. It's pretty fun. It reminds me of the old times of my friendship with Travis that Travis just doesn't remember any of it.

I remember that one time where I got mad at you, and I made you do like nine rounds in a row with me until you vomited. Yeah, because I remember that. I remember that. You know, that was brutal. I still have nightmares about that. Again. Yeah. You know why? Because I was doing really good the first two rounds and you're like, again, again, again, again, again, again. And I was like, dude, six rounds were in, man. Like I need to take a break and go with someone not so good. You know, like I was pretty tired. Again. Again. That was brutal. I hated that. I did not feel good.

Yeah. Good times, huh? Good times. Is the American judo team better than the Canadian judo team right now? You can't even take that seriously. Canadians are tough, man. Canadian judo team is pretty good. They've always been good.

Right? All right. pretty good they've always been good all right all right man these comments are just we need leg grabs leg grabs always you know the most common questions like leg grabs self-defense does this work in self-defense and what do you think judo bjj right always always has those questions you know why people like leg grabs because they're easy they're easy it's instant gratification it's simple it's easy to understand and anybody can pull it off right like i can tell you right now hey as somebody who's never seen any judo and you've got a little bit of athleticism just a little bit grab the tricep grab the leg pick them up and turn them easy to understand people get it double leg easy to understand easy to get instant gratification

very true thank you guys for watching the videos. Always. Thank you guys. I greatly appreciate you commenting and interacting with my videos. I know no one wants to, you know, this thing, man, Travis, I polled everyone. I'm like, what do you guys want to see more of? My father, Nogi, Nwaza, Vendori, and I put vlog in there. It got 1% of the votes. No one wants to see what my life's about. Isn't that heartbreaking? No.

Why would anybody care? I don't know, man. I wanted to start, like, venturing out into blogs. And I was like, ah, man, anybody want to see me, like, you know, hang out, eat some lunch or whatever? And people were like, no, we're good, man. Just keep putting out judo stuff. Heartbreaking. I would love to see a day in the life of travis vlog i'd love to see that like hey guys what's going on living the life of travis why don't you

come to boston yeah and then just vlog my day just instagram live it forever and just watch me sit at my computer for 20 hours i should go up there and hang out with you and then make a video with you and then we could do that uh wrestling video and then yep you know it's a boxing video so that when your back hits the floor really hard it won't hurt so bad it'll hurt your pride and then we'll get some cookies together right travis and then you'll forget about it. You'll just be like, remember that time I went up to visit you? We did a vlog together. And then we got some cookies.

And you'd be like, I don't remember. No, all I remember is you would have lost. All right, guys. Thank you guys for watching. And yeah, have a great night. Right, Travis? I don't know I will see you guys later and I'll see you tomorrow morning Charles