The Shintaro Higashi Show - What Judo Can Learn from Wrestling

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

The American wrestling system is known to consistently produce quality grapplers. What's the reason behind its success, and what can Judo learn from it? In this episode, Shintaro and Peter discuss their theories on why wrestling in America is so successful, drawing from their personal experiences. Join our Discord server and start chatting with us and other grapplers by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi show with Peter Yu. Today, we're going to talk a little bit about wrestling and judo and how judo can learn from wrestling. Yeah, this was actually one of the suggestions from our sponsor, LeVon. You know, he's one of our biggest sponsors. LeVon's a man. LeVon's a man.

Yeah. He always gives us very interesting suggestions and here's another one. So he basically wanted to see, he first pointed out how wrestling programs always seem to produce good grapplers with good fundamentals. And he was wondering how

they do it and if there's something wrestling programs do that judo schools can learn. Yeah. Well, I think first and foremost in terms of like producing champions i think it's a population issue you know the demographic of people wrestling from a young age it's so much bigger than people doing judo from a young age right this is the thing a lot of the times you do judo since you're a kid we lose these athletic kids to

regular sports like baseball soccer, soccer, basketball, because it's embedded in the school system. You know, people want to, you know, have friends at school and do things together with their classmates and such. If you're wrestling in a town, let's just say in Pennsylvania, and you're growing up wrestling

and you're going to club wrestling things and middle school wrestling, and now all of a sudden when you're in high school, you're going to join the wrestling team. You know what I mean? Right. So those are the two biggest factors i think in producing great champions but i think levon's talking a little bit more about

like the structure of the practices and such yeah yeah right yeah so you i wrestled in high school and you wrestled pretty much all your life too like you wrestled even in college yeah i wrestled high school and college and i did a little bit of freestyle wrestling afterwards i just i kind of always in it you know every now and then I'll just wrestle with my buddies. So I'm very deep in the wrestling scene, not like crazy deep, you know, like judo or jiu-jitsu. But like, yeah, I know my wrestling pretty good, like the community and the culture and how they train and things like that. Right. Good.

So let's kind of jump right into the practice structure. Like, what do you see as the biggest difference between judo practice and wrestling practice? And I guess we might have to talk a little bit about how judo practice are run at hobby schools in America and then competitive schools

in Japan or something like that. I have a feeling that judo practices in japan like the competitive ones are probably similar to how wrestling practices are run in the states in the competitive gym yeah absolutely 1000 and this is i could only speak on american judo and american wrestling because i've only experienced that i mean yes i've experienced global judo international judo like in japan i used to train there all the time.

But specifically, like we're looking at like American wrestling systems, you know, high school and college, things like this. And then we're looking at judo in America, right? That's what we're talking about. All right, so just in terms of like practice structure, they do a lot of like warming up and such, like fundamental movements.

But the biggest difference to take is in the beginning of wrestling practice, they do a lot of hand fighting and that's equivalent of grip fighting. Yeah. You know, it is kind of mostly leg grab shots, right? So like penetration shots, sweet single shots, they drill these over and over, obviously, you know, uh, but they do a lot of hand fighting emphasis on hand fighting. You know, if you look at some of the most successful judo clubs in the United States, let's say like Jimmy Pedro's club or something like that, they focus a lot on grip fighting.

So there are similarities. You know, I feel like a lot of business oriented gyms, you know, commercial gyms that are teaching judo as a business and providing that as a service, they do lots of showing throws. Oh, Chiyo Soto, here's a takedown, here's a tile. But they don't really talk about setting up the attacks. They don't really focus too much on gripping and hand fighting and positioning. Yeah. You know? And in wrestling, there's a huge focus on stance and motion, hand fighting, taking your opponent out of position.

Right? Out of your stance. So I think that's the most biggest difference between like the general commercial gym versus like wrestling. Why do you think that is? Why is it just because that's more important in competitions? It's definitely important in competition, but the way the judo curriculum has been structured historically, it's like the go-kill, let's just say. Here are this segment of techniques.

There's hand techniques, foot techniques, hip techniques, and such. So they're classified. Do you know these moves? Do you know those moves? Do you know those moves? You know what I mean? And people don't really delve too deep after that, right? Right. Once you know the throws.

Yes. Once you know the throws, right, go ahead and try it has always been the way, you know? And even Japan, it's like, okay, go ahead and do it. It was kind of like the methodology, right? Right, right. And then you're practicing it on a cooperating partner cooperating partner but in wrestling there's much more of a focus on a non-cooperative aspect and if you look at every sort of training how much of it is cooperative training versus non-cooperative training if you look at the average jiu-jitsu class in the gen pop class like 30 minutes of

technique it's like learning drilling it's all cooperative and then 30 minutes of non-cooperative drilling it's all cooperative and then 30 minutes of non-cooperative cop like time right where you're actually rolling with somebody yeah so it's split 50 50 um you know what i mean right right right and then even during the drill time like in judo you can have different grip fighting things and taking each other out of position and doing these drills to enhance your randori time there's a bridge between drilling live randori and there's like a little bit of progression in the between you know i talk about this all the time and uh hand fighting provides just that taking the opponent right looking for timing looking for setups you're not really taking each other down i mean i see i see interesting well this is just neutral we're not talking about

the ground yet ground yeah okay yeah so the more takedowns and now you see that like so even in japan even in competitive like focus like a competitive competitive college practice yeah they don't do much of this drilling they definitely do drill right so it's like all right guys we're gonna warm up we're gonna run sprints everyone break a sweat we're gonna stretch lightly all right guys grab a partner we're just gonna do hand. We're going to run sprints. Everyone break a sweat. We're going to stretch lightly. All right, guys, grab a partner. We're just going to do hand fighting for 20 minutes or 15 minutes or whatever it is. Or sometimes they go like, all right, we're going to do three minute goes of hand fighting and then just taking each other out of positions. And then we're going to go like just drilling. I'd say sometimes they do drilling first. They're like, all right,

three and three, three takedowns, three takedowns, you know, make sure you set up all your moves. See, that did a little bit of a difference too, right? All right, guys, we're doing Uchikomi. As opposed to doing Osorogari 10 times, 20 times and swapping partners, right? I like the idea that the drill actually begins with setting up your hand, setting up the move, and then entering. I see. So that's something we do at my dojo. I say, like, just static Uchikomi.

There's a point of diminishing returns. Do three or four sets of static Uchikomi, but focus on know point of diminishing returns you know do three or four sets of static uchikomi but focus on moving focus on setting up your moves do sort of like combinations and misdirections and things like this as opposed to just a static uchikomi right i know dojos who do static uchikomi like 20 minutes straight like yes that's yeah from old japan they used to do that that's because they had five hours of training they had five hours of training so of course you're gonna say hundreds of people yeah yeah and then like hundreds of people they had five hours of shade it's like all right we're gonna spend an hour everyone do a thousand uchikomis of your favorite move you know you do that no one's gonna keep coming to judo first of all right yeah

and then the class is almost over you know you can't do anything else so that's a good segue like so yes so there's a reason why judo uh commercial judo gyms in america focus on the gokyo like the throws instead of all the setups and whatnot yeah and then there's a reason why wrestling practices it's called scholastic wrestling practices in america focus on more of the setups because it's more conducive for competition so is it good do you think it's a good idea to borrow that uh from wrestling yes yeah I don't like my guys just do static uchikomi for a very long period of time I think it's a waste of time you know uh I wouldn't say waste of time but you know like there's a point of diminishing returns always and if your time is limited to an hour or two hours in practice

I know my dojo starts at seven ends at nine right yeah and then the second half is all There's a point of diminishing returns always. And if your time is limited to an hour or two hours in practice, I know my dojo starts at 7 and ends at 9, right? Yeah. And then the second half is all Rondori. The first half is mostly drills and Nagatomi and 3-person Ichikomi, all these different things. So during that time period, you have to really use your time wisely. We don't do a long, dragged-out warm-up.

I think it's a waste of time. You know what I mean? The best warm-up is the movements you're going to do in a much lower intensity you know state you know what i mean so like a low intensity workout warm-up that is like the actual judo and then drilling in a way that's not just static uchikomi so i'm a big believer in this you know yeah yeah in so many ways like my judo practices are like wrestling practices you know right right i see see. So you think that actually helps to attract more hobbyist members?

Yes, I think so. I mean, the Gokyo, the curriculum is great. People like thinking, I know these moves. I know all these moves. Right, right. But when they actually

get to Rondori, there's a huge disconnect when they're actually trying to hit it. And this is the same idea as wrestling. You walk into a wrestling club, it's like, all right,

here's how you do a double leg, single leg, and a high C. Yeah. Basic shots. All right, what are the variations of it? Snatch single, sweep single. Everything else is essentially the same. Yeah, yeah.

Now you just chain stuff together. You learn some front headlock. That's your entire stand-up game right there. Yeah, yeah. All right. So, you know, first, your drop step has to be pretty good. You're working on that. You're working on that.

All right, we're going live. You're diving for the legs. Never works. Guys just sprawl, put you in front headlock right yeah so it's like why why isn't it working you're not setting it up so there's now all of a sudden there's a setup the actual shot and then the finish is distinguishing those three things you know and in tachiuaza so many times it's like that too but it's not exclusively taught explicitly taught right gripping good position snapping, setting the thing up, attacking Ochi Osato in a combination setting,

and then you hook that leg and how do you finish it? Three or four different ways to finish it, three or four ways that the opponent might be defensive and react a certain way, main lines of defenses and how to overcome those things. Right, right. It's a lot harder to teach that. Yeah.

And when you're running in as a business, always, you want to do things with scalability in mind. And if you put it together in a curriculum, it's like, all right, Monday, we're going to Ochi's.

These are the drills that we're going to do. Would you call me three person? Would you call me crash, Matt, Rondori? Okay, great. Wednesday,

we're also going to do Ochi, but we're going to do a different type, right versus left. Friday, we're going to go to Osoro, Ochi to Osoro. Done, right? Now,

it's kind of, that way you can get a little bit, you know, people like that kind of curriculumized thing, you know?

So then it kind of gets lost, right? The coach that's there who knows everything, who's running practices day in and day out, who's like trying to make champions.

And you know, if you look at it, if you go to any high school wrestling program, how many of those kids compete? Yeah, single one of them oh you mean okay i well i thought your high school wrestling practice but then there's a varsity team and then if you're a second string you don't really like you get what like one person% per. You're competing. Oh, you are there. And I guess if you go to individual competitions, you go.

JV? Yeah, you're on it. Maybe you're not first string on the dual meet lineup and you're like, you know, sitting on the bench. But you're going to get an exhibition match. You're going to be wrestling JV. Even like there's freshman leagues and such. Even middle school, they have their own thing. If you're wrestling, you're competing.

Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. I see what you mean. Yeah, you're definitely going to get some mad time. What about judo, commercial judo programs? How many of the people in the room are competing? 5%, 10%? 5% is high, I think.

5% is high. You know what I mean? So you got to kind of like, you're not doing everything with the design to produce champion to make everyone nasty for competition because people people are gonna get hurt doing this stuff especially the older you know and you have to look at like what your demographic or your dojo is you know there's a lot of hobbyists coming in people who want to get a workout and who go to work all day come back and then they're kind of like oh man i just need to reduce some stress whatever it is you know yeah so if that's your main demographic you know like do we need to be like, you know, snapping

each other down and like a hand fighting and, you know, working on different things and just put them through the grinder, stricken, you know, grind them down to a nub. Like, it's like, you know, we don't really need that. Right. They want to be in the room, get a nice workout in and go at your own pace, follow curriculum, get their belts, feel good about themselves, you know? But then, but you don't like that. You're saying you don't run it like that.

And then you think drilling and this type of grip fighting and all that make things more interesting to, even to hobbyists. Oh yeah, for sure. But you know, it's different, like if we're doing more like, you know, hand fighting, like hard hand fighting, right? Yeah. You have to reduce the intensity and make sure people kind of know, right, what and who to go with, you know hand fighting like hard hand fighting right yeah you have to reduce the intensity and make sure people kind of know right what and who to go with you know so there is a place for this kind of teaching methodology and i'm a big fan of it you know yeah i'd say yeah so it's uh it's

so the reduced intensity but it's like it's you're just very uh instead of having people just go down the line and then do which you call me yeah it, you're trying to make it more dynamic and engaging. Yes. And there's also a lot of situational wrestling in wrestling too. Yeah. You know, borrowing from like deliberate practice, you know. Yeah. Books written on this stuff.

Yeah. And this is a great example, like tennis. If you have a bad backhand, a high bad backhand, right? And anytime someone good can just put the ball there and you're not going to hit it well. Right, right. So it's going to be a gap. So, all right, how many times are you going to encounter that high backhand if you're just playing recreationally? Right, right, right.

I don't know, 10 times a game. Maybe, I don't even know, game, match, whatever they call it. 10 times every time you play. But if you're like, all right, we're going to deliberately shoot the ball or hit the ball. I don't know tennis. But we're going to make you encounter the stimulus, you know, a thousand times. Right, right. Just this.

Focus practice, yeah. Yeah, it's like deliberate focus practice. So now you have a thousand repetitions with the thing that you suck at the most. Yeah, yeah. As opposed to if I'm just going in there and playing tennis casually, it may take me two years to receive that same stimulus. So in jiu-jitsu, it would be like, all right, I suck at clearing the belly heave-up. All right, let's get you in belly heave-up and let's just drill that over and over and over and over and over again.

Same thing with wrestling. All right, guys, we're going to start with a leg. Single head on the inside, leg back sprawled. Ready, set, go. So you're doing the situational drills, you know what I mean? Right. So in judo, the equivalent to that, I don't do it as much, but like, you know, the Uchimata position, inside leg

position, you know? So you go hip to hip, slip the leg in there, ready, set, go. And then you try to go back and forth, kind of. Yeah, back and forth. Person with the leg raised is trying to counter it, maybe step over it or pull the leg away and then do, like, a dashi or something. Person with the leg on the inside is trying to finish with shimada, you know? It's so common in wrestling, but you never see this in judo.

Yeah. I don't want to say never. I don't want to say never. And, like, even when I was at Jimmy Page, it was, like, over-under. Yeah. Person misses tomodagi, person misses shimada, actually, they back to the floor. We're going to go over-under pass, okay?

Back hits the floor. It's all cooperative. The moment you dive in for that over on the pass, it's live. So you have that stimulus. You're going, you're exposed to that so many times that in competition, someone goes for a drop sacrifice and they're on their back, bang, you get to hit it right away.

You know? The famous match, Travis Stevens got to the final with that, right? That's right. I heard a story. Jimmy said, Travis, thisvis got really tough you know uh travis had a bunch of losses against him or something and he goes maybe he'll just drop his back and you'll pin him yes that guy goes for assuming he tries like oh shit bang over on the pass you know no chance yeah big finals you know what i mean so those kinds of deliberate practices

you know being in the positions that you're often in, really, really, really help, you know? So I could see the benefit of that, especially for the competition. But again, I go back to this, you know, this point about how that would help the hobbyists, because that's the vast majority of people. Yeah, it's not gonna, you know, and I say this sometimes too, it's like, all right, we're going to work transitional nirwaza, right? Yeah. Going for a throw, whether it's proactively

transitioning to nirwaza or reactively transitioning to nirwaza. Proactive is like forcing Sasai and then dropping to the knees and then attacking the back.

Right? That's a proactive transition versus reactive. It's like, guy goes for a drop senagi. Now you're reacting to that as soon as you're diving onto the person's back, right?

We could just drill that for two hours over the course of a month and be really, really good at it to a point where anybody goes for a bad turn throw, you could strangle them. Yeah. Right. Anyone in right versus right, you could force a side, take them down and go for something. You could take advantage of it. Right. And it's a huge gap in most people's game that would be the best time spent in order to win matches. But if you ran a practice like that for two months straight,

it's not interesting. It's boring as fuck. Excuse my language. It's so boring. It's so boring. And here's the thing. I hate training like that, you know? I remember it's like, all right, we're going to do Jiu-Jitsu from the top.

We're going to do that for the next 30 minutes. And it's like, oh, my God, I can't even. And, you know, some people can, like, stay focused on that one task and look at all the different minute details and see how they react and see how, try to put the knee here as opposed to there. You know, like, you hear, like, when you go for topside Jiu-Jitsu, you put the knee on the close side here versus the far side here. You know, people kind of, like, have that kind of thing. Usually it's the close side here, you know. Right, right. But experimenting with the close side here versus the far side here you know people kind of like have that kind of thing usually it's the close side here you know right experimenting with

the far side here and then you know levering with the shin and doing this and adjusting your grips and you know putting the hip into your wrist into your pocket of your hip first and then you know the way you pull the leg around if they're not rolling there's so many different pieces to focus on right right uh but that's not for the average person yeah you know that's for like the autistic person that wants to be a champion that's absolutely fascinated with stuff that wants to win yeah you know what i mean i hated it you know i i'm like a little bit better at like finding the fun in that now like honing in but you know that's it doesn't really cater to my personality you know

what i mean yeah so like that's not for the average dojo guy right you could have and this is the thing right if five percent of your gym is competing and you run a practice designed for those guys to win you know win in air quotes right you're gonna lose 95 of the people yeah because most of them that's not their goal for most of them. That's not their goal. You're wasting everyone's time then. You know, the guy that wants to come and break a sweat and do you know what I mean? Yeah, I guess that's

a point. Like, LeVon mentioned how wrestling programs generally produce grapplers that are all around athletic and they're technically competent. But for commercial judo gyms, that's not the goal no but you know you got to look at also the population yeah we see some of the best wrestlers right at the best you know mma this and that but they're for every good great wrestler that's a phenom athlete yeah there's a bunch of

shitty wrestlers that no one knows that just got their butt kicked you know for four years in high school and they just never liked it yeah you know or the out of shape guy that just got their butt kicked, you know, for four years in high school and they just never liked it. Yeah. You know, or the out of shape guy that just like quit after two years. Cause you know, it just took a relentless beating every day. Yeah. You know what I mean? But in terms of like,

you start wrestling at a young age and you have a good coach, you know, it can develop you into, you know, cause the coaching thing has been around for a very long time. They've been wrestling for a very long time, and there's money in it. The NCAA is behind it. There's Division I, II, and III. There's just a big amount of population, and people say, oh, there's no money in wrestling.

Think about how many jobs are out there, coaching jobs, and how much money is being paid to these coaches, how many seminars that people live off of. I know guys that are making, there's tons of guys making between $30,000 and $200,000 a year coaching wrestling. And not even that, it's like you can go to college. You can go to a good college being a good wrestler. That's a lot of money. Yeah. Full scholarships. That's big money right there. You go to like Brown or something and you're paying $45,000 a year times four. That's $160,000.

You don't have to pay because of wrestling. That is money in the sport through NCAA. Not like, bro, there's a million dollar contract. There's no equivalent to that in judo or jujitsu. Even jujitsu, there's no equivalent to that. Here, you could have a career as a wrestling coach. And then you could teach phys ed or do this or do that. But you're just a full-blown coach here at this university level. And your salary is this. And

all you got to do is recruit and run the guy's class. And then you just got to produce champions at a division one level. Here's a hundred thousand dollars. You know what I mean? There's no jobs like that in judo or wrestling. None. In Japan, there are. We're talking strictly in the United States. But there's money in the sport. there's money in the sport there's money in the so if you build careers all for this stuff therefore people are going to be much more incentivized to be in it fully how many dojo guys do you know that have deja you think those guys are sitting around all day thinking the best way to run an actual commercial class no no they're freaking busting their ass as a nurse or a school teacher or whatever hell it is. And they're dragging themselves into the dojo.

They're bullshitting, grappling with the guys and doing what their sensei taught them to do. Yeah, I see. It's probably outdated. You know what I mean? And nothing against them, you know? Those guys, thank you guys for your service. We can't do any of this shit without you. You guys are the fundamental building blocks of Judo in this country.

And I will never do anything to discredit them or devalue them. But that's a big difference between the guy that's getting $150,000 a year and that has a budget of this millions of dollars for this many scholarships. And they're recruiting the best kids in the country. That's an organization to have. Even if you look at like, I used to go to like Hofstra University WrestleLoft. Because my best friend was a coach there

in college. My best friend from college was a great wrestler and took fourth at World Team Trials. He wrestled D1. He wrestled with me too in my program.

And then he was the assistant coach at Hofstra and he'd be like, yo, come, we're doing Wrestle Off. Dude,

packed house. Oh, wow. You know what I mean? Like, and it's very, very serious, dude. Scholarships, you know, i mean like and it's very very serious dude scholarships you know kids with scholarships like they this is what they do man 24 7 day in and day out you know what i

mean i guess one way to think about these uh dojo owners who have day jobs and then like still like showing up to evening practices imagine if they had the same passion about judo, but they are fully, you know, full-time judo coaches and dojo owners. Yeah. Picture this. You have no other option. This is it. You're the produce champion or you're fired.

What are you going to do? Yeah. You're going to sit around and look at the best programs in the world and try to emulate that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But there's's much more focus

on the competitive side. The actual, not just the moves. You know what I mean? Not just singles, high C, and things like that. You're looking at

all the different reactions, positions, you know, transitions. Setting it up. How do you chain these moves together?

You know? You do situational training. So let's close with this i mean i might be opening up a can of warm and you don't have to finish your thoughts uh but um so it seems like wrestling the focus is in the scholastic sport ncaa that and olympics i guess feed into that but usually it's about the collegiate competitions but judo doesn't have that and i know that judo had a chance to join the ncaa i remember in the 80s or something yeah what are your thoughts on that should judo be an ncaa sport just like wrestling i think it's tough man because

do we have enough qualified teachers to support that. You know, how many teams are they going to be? And they're going to have to like, and let's just say, for instance, where they say, all right, let's pick the best 10 coaches, the best, the most successful gyms in terms of like number of students, you know, ability of the coaches and stuff like that. And let's approach all of them. Let's just put them on a list, you know? Yeah.

All right. Me at the top of the list. And then, you know, list you know yeah all right me at the top of the list and then you know you get like all right edliddy uh you know san jose guys then jimmy pejo and uh you know some dojos yeah colton and uh all these guys who've you know in the game all right guys you're gonna leave your job now and coach at this university like will you do that will you close your gym like what how are we gonna do that no all right so now we can't get those guys in the room like they couldn't pay me enough to move to yeah yeah university of texas and be a full-time coach here they couldn't do it right i wouldn't do it you know even if they were like all right here's three hundred thousand dollars for you to uproot your life and move to texas to coach i won't do it because it's like my whole life is here

yeah seven hundred thousand maybe i do have a price right there's definitely a price but like uh all right so now let's look at tier b guys you know what i mean like all right so are they gonna is that gonna be a very good competitive program no man like the infrastructure is not there yet you know what i mean we need more people to be invested in judo. More coaches, more athletes, more everything. And I think out of that, I think judo's on the right path, I think. But we've been stagnant for a little while.

A couple decades. I see. I think the current population, I think it's very hard to support this. So you're saying just because one day judo becomes an NCAA sport right now, it's not going to really solve the issue. We need more growth.

I mean, there's got to be a program, right? For instance, I'm hired by Columbia. That's right down the street from me. Jimmy Pejo, you know, goes and does Harvard. It's in Massachusetts, right? And then some other, you know, maybe like some shitty Jersey guy can go to princeton which is like a shitty school you know princeton community college that's where you went right

peter yeah yeah i called it right and now all of a sudden you kind of have like an ivy league situation you know and it's like they also have to split their practices between the gym right your dojo and the school and now it's like uh you know five dojo five school you know division and it's fought nationally like that kind of a thing now then there's scholarships from that now that maybe right and the word gets out and there's a scholarship opportunity so now more people are sticking it through high school as opposed to you know good example is fencing because fencing only has one division so if you're doing fencing you could go to do fencing in college you know and it's one of those loopholes and you could say

you're a division one athlete when you're applying for jobs at goldman sachs like i was a division one athlete it's like fucking no you weren't you know you dabbled in fencing and you like walked onto a team uh but you know you know whatled in fencing and you like walked onto a team uh but you know you know what i mean they're different from like a division one wrestler yeah you know what i mean i played d1 ball in a very competitive yeah i'm not shitting on fencing yeah i kind of am but like you know what i mean so like little by little you could kind of build clout i think there's ways to do it but i think it's very very difficult unless you get the best guys to do it i think we just need more people in judo period you know and uh you know there's a huge

opportunity now with the online with the ijf doing what they're doing with judo gallery you know we're much more visible and we're getting so much credit from the jiu-jitsu community even wrestlers are reaching out and saying hey you know shintaro i know you do i want to put my kid in judo that's the rest of their whole lives so now know, before it was like a little gimmicky thing. It's like, oh, you do judo? Like, he's probably good at throws. Yeah. That was it.

Right. But now people are understanding the global nature of judo. And this is strictly U.S. speaking, right? Yeah. In Japan, it's like the opposite. You know, Japan judo, everyone does judo. It's in the school system. Wrestling, it's like, ah. And, you know, you get guys who are like decent judo guys in middle school who go to high

school and they're like you know what i'm not gonna be the best at judo let me transition to wrestling you get a lot of guys that doing that in japan you know it's kind of the reverse i heard a lot of people go from judo to sumo too something like that i mean if you're big you know i see maybe yeah yeah i heard that too yeah yeah but so okay i see i think that was a good point you know yeah you know that's actually how the way you described it is how ivy league started the term it was a sport sports league of all these old colleges yeah they just started just started playing football, I think, and then it became a thing. Yeah. So maybe.

Could be, that could be the thing. That could be how it's done, you know? I don't think like a rolling out NCAA thing and just everyone hiring random coaches, I don't think that'll work. Yeah,

yeah. It has to have a core. It would have to be very cooperative with USA Judo and, you know, involved with the right people, but,

you know. Nice. USA Judo as an organization the right people. But, you know. Nice. USA Judo as an organization is a very small organization. They can have time to juggle this and that. They have the funds to even support. Right, right. And it's tough. It's really tough. But I think it would be nice if Columbia hit me up.

You want to be my coach in this Judo team thing. Oh, man. That would be amazing. They have a good wrestling team too right so you can maybe still some other guys yeah there's a jujitsu program

there too oh nice there was an intramural judo program there for a long time didn't you teach at Barnard yeah I was an adjunct

professor at Barnard that was amazing it's an all girls school I really fought in that yeah well they did approach me to coach at Columbia It was amazing. It's an all-girls school. I really fought in that. Yeah. Well, they did approach me to coach at Columbia, the thing, but it was for no pay. And I was like, I can't burn these hours.

Well, Columbia, if you're listening, approach him again with some money. Maybe he'll be interested. $800,000. Nice. Yeah. All right. money maybe he'll be interested 800,000 nice yeah all right well i yeah i think there's a lot of interesting things uh we can as a judo community learn from wrestling but it's not yeah the context is important you know it's not wrestling and judo don't exist in in the same world i don't think yet but you know it might be in the future and well maybe that's not the best way to go about it but i think we can certainly learn certain things from wrestling especially around this um uh drilling aspect for competitions but

yeah not it's a complicated situation but anyway yeah it's a bit complicated yeah a lot of moving parts yeah alright well I hope you guys enjoyed this episode

and we'll see you guys in the next episode