The Shintaro Higashi Show - Why Judo Sucks

Episode Date: October 2, 2023

You are a dedicated Judoka that loves everything about Judo. You train hard at your local dojo even though the facility is not great and there are not that many people to practice with. One day, you get an opportunity to drop in at a local BJJ school, and it's a completely different experience. The facility is brand new with working showers, and there are always tons of people to roll with. You don't want to, but you can't help but ask the question, "Man, why does Judo suck?" In this episode, Shintaro and Peter discuss this provocative question. Why does Judo suck right now, and how can we make it not suck? 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 have a very special episode, Why Judo Sucks. Okay, well before we talk about why judo sucks, we're gonna give a quick shout out to our sponsors, Levan and Jason. Thank you so much guys. Thank you so much. You guys are doing judo and you guys love it, but you know, judo sucks. And thanks to your support,

we can talk about it on this podcast. That's very, very true. Yeah. So, yeah, what aspect do you want to talk about? What aspect of Judo? I mean, there's a lot. And this is kind of tongue-in-cheek. I'm kind of joking around, half-joking around.

And, you know, a lot of it is because I'm doing Jiu-Jitsu jujitsu and i've wrestled yeah yeah and you have access to some of the best champions in the world here in the united states yeah right i'll never forget man when i was in high school kale sanderson came and did a seminar legend my high school yeah that's kale sanderson yeah how did wow came to your high school came to my high school we didn't have to pay a dime wow yeah and then let me tell you something i could have a conversation with him and i bought a t-shirt to your high school? I came to my high school. We didn't have to pay a dime. Wow. And then, let me tell you something. I could have a conversation with him. And I bought a t-shirt and he signed my shirt.

It's like, Dear Shintaro, keep working hard, shoot for the stars or something. Kale. Kale Sanderson. You know what I mean? That's accessible.

He's a gold medalist wrestler. Olympic gold medalist. Super coach. Yeah. Yeah. He went undefeated in the NCAAcaa accessible yeah you know what i mean right i went to henzo's before and gordon ryan was there and i was able to roll with him yeah you know what i mean accessible right i know brian glick he knows john donahue like if i wanted to

glick would take me yeah yeah we could go to texas and i could see gordon ryan yeah i could work out with him if i wanted to. Yeah. So that's accessible. Yeah. You see what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Judo, these champions are inaccessible. I mean, they're accessible to me because, like, I'm Japanese and I can go to Japan. Yeah.

And I can access those guys. But if I fly to France, I don't speak French. Yeah. What, I'm going to go to Russia and then hang out with Denisov? So that's more about, like... I can't speak French yeah well I'm gonna go to Russia and then hang out with Denisov so that's more about like I can't do that you're saying that's a problem of

not having a lot of champions in America like judo champions like with Travis Stevens yeah there's Travis yeah Kyle Harris

yeah I mean yes yes and no yeah there's much more many more champions outside of the country than here

yeah as opposed to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu most of the champions are here in the states they're absolutely accessible and then the culture

behind it is like a sort of a micro economy even within that culture people buy videos they go to seminars people fly in seminarians

or clinicians all the time in Judo there isn't really that culture in that sense it's more like well i guess in you for wrestling like kale sanders did like they people have seminars but aren't they kind of similar because they're more like scholastic sports maybe yeah you could go to a camp in the summer like a wrestling camp you know hey these are the clinicians that are going to be there this guy wrestled here this guy wrestled there

right and then there's leagues yeah there's leagues right in wrestling we're talking about like ncaa's division one division two division three or aau whatever yeah or whatever it is right but like division one these are the main schools. This guy wrestled for Iowa or Iowa State. You know, let's have him over for a seminar. What was it like being in Iowa or Iowa State? They have these big programs with a lot of money. Yeah, yeah.

In Jiu-Jitsu too, right? There's affiliations, right? Oh, this guy is from this affiliate. There's a lot of students there. There's money in these micro economies of life. Yeah, yeah. Right? In Judo, there's not much of not much of that yeah you know how many dojos do you really know in the united states not that many yeah right they're all doing their thing independently in little pockets and they're isolated it's very difficult to kind of like really bring everyone together because everyone's so worried about injuries and such. Yeah.

Right. I see. It's like a very tough thing to grow, I think. Right. Because the numbers are not quite there to support that kind of an economy. Uh-huh. You know, I just got an inquiry today.

It's like, Hey, we're a small school. I think it was in Wyoming. Yeah. Thank you for reaching out. Uh, we're a nonprofit organization.

We have a, you know, not that many students or whatever it is. Can you come? What is your fee? I'm like $2,500 plus hotel and flight. That's kind of a flat rate for a lot of these schools now. And it's like they're kind of priced out.

Yeah. Right? As opposed to like a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school, like a mega school with 300 plus students. They're not going to get priced out by that. We'll just charge everyone $50 a head. Right? Easy. Right, right right you know what i mean so that kind of makes it not such a good experience not a good not a good product almost in a way yeah yeah like you're joining a group right you're joining a community but the community is not quite big. It's a little bit too niche. I see.

You know what I mean? I see. That's why judo sucks. In terms of population, between the three main grappling sports, wrestling, BJJ, judo is the smallest. In the States. In the States? Yeah, yeah.

Globally, judo is number one. Yeah. Right? You think we can take a slice of pie like a slice of that global pie somehow like kind of like bring that influence into the states you know little by little yes because finally ijf did something really good judo gallery yeah yeah i felt which is their instagram account over a million people follow it and they have good quality clips from the IJF tour.

I love that. That's amazing. That's what we need. And we need guys in the US to share it. I'm always sharing and reposting their stuff and tagging them. To spread judo more on a social media thing. And that's another point. Why judo stocks people aren't on social media enough. You go to a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournament

everybody's broadcasting it online yeah i see they tag each other like each other's things comment on each other uh i don't want to call it like you know the word the cj you know a little bit of a circle jerk yeah no a little bit in a good way in a good way it's supporting each other yes they're supporting each other. It's supporting each other. There's a lot of love in the community. And then, oh man, you took a silver medal at the Open, or you're going into the majors. And so they live online.

Well, I know how that feels. Because when I was in college, I was one of the few kids in the school that did judo. What school did you go to? It's a school in Jersey. Yeah. Was it Princeton Community College? Yeah,

something like that. Yeah. Man, you were dying to fill that in. You were just waiting for me to bring that up. Man, so douchey.

I did not, well, it was irrelevant, but. So when you were at Princeton Universityeton okay i was at princeton judo at the princeton university judo club in princeton new jersey that's right and oh my god i went to a local tournament in princeton and then in princeton okay well basically what had happened was i went came back i i won some medals but then it's like no one knows no one cares yeah like i know it's like you know i mean it was kind of before the days of all this crazy social media

like the instagram wasn't really a thing whatever but yeah but it kind of you know i didn't really feel like it was kind of sucked you know like yeah all I trained all that and then no recognition, you know? And you know, the self contained community has to overcome the mainstream neglect. Yeah. If I post something from judo, not to my judo community,

but randomly before my judo follow. Yeah. Okay. If I posted me on the podium, it could have been a tough tournament. It could have been Liberty belt. Yeah. Or I don't know.

President. Tournament names that mean nothing to 99 of the world all my friends from high school would be like oh it's kind of nice that you're still doing karate little buddy those trophies chop chop yeah judo chop master right whatever yeah you know what i mean so the self-contained community of the judo people has to overcome and out noise those people who are non-grapplers who don't matter but it does matter if you have you know 137 followers and your community is your community from your school whatever it it is, right? And then you're posting videos of yourself winning judo matches. And all your friends are like, you know, you get 14 likes or something and it kind of stings.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Like you're almost better off like doing lip syncing TikTok videos and posting it because more people will watch it. And they think they'll find it more interesting. Find it more interesting and appeal to the general public right but the community if it's strong enough yeah right it'll overcome that and that's what jujitsu has that judo doesn't so it's like they're bouncing off each other but then because that's force is so strong it kind of spills over to the mainstream a little bit or the mainstream matters less i see i see because this self-contained community yeah is so powerful

right not powerful but like it's sustained sustaining yeah yeah it's like a self-sustaining like validation machine yeah you know what I mean? But wouldn't you... You could make a case that maybe instead of an echo chamber, you think they're... Your circle jerk comment was kind of like... It could be bad for the community too, no? Maybe.

Yeah? Kind of. I guess it depends on the exposure you have. Like Torum and... But this is the thing also, right? Yeah. Kind of. I mean, I guess it depends on the exposure you have. Like, tournament, you know, yeah. But this is the thing also, right? Yeah. When you're a grappler, let's just say a jiu-jitsu person. Yeah.

And you take a Pan American medal. Yeah. As a blue belt in a master's division. Yeah. You could post that you are a Pan Am champion. Yeah. And the community gives tons of likes, tons of things, lots of engagement. And you could call yourself a champion or a medalist.

And there'll be numbers to validate that. Because of the likes. Of the likes and the following and the thing. So now all of a sudden, you're a professional athlete with a huge following and now when you go to work with normies normies I call these people

non-grappling with normies and you go to work with normies you're an accountant or something your peers looks at your Instagram and sees that you have

11,000 followers and 472 likes on this one thing where you're like doing this sport yeah wow you must be a professional athlete is the general gist so you could appeal to the mainstream normie culture it's like it legitimized your activity yeah Yeah, it does. It really does. And that's something that jiu-jitsu has that judo doesn't. Right? I see that.

I see that. So that's why judo sucks. We have to be better, guys. We have to repulse each other's bad techniques and whatever it is. And you know, this is the thing too. At least jiu- Jitsu has an opportunity to compete

in the same tournaments as the champions. Right? Yeah. Judo, there's one world championships. Masters, they have that too.

Veterans, right? But there's one world championships. And you're not going to get there. You have to be top two in the country. That's it. You're either number one in the country or number two in the country yeah that's it yeah you're either number one in the country or number two in the country yeah and every country gets to send two delegates that's it

yeah there's no brown belt division there's no you could just sign up for it there's none of that yeah so you there's access to that in jiu-jitsu that there isn't in judo there's also access to pan-ams uh-huh it could be a pan-american champion but that's super tough as in judo like you can't really

you can't do it it takes that one guy yeah exactly or two guys yeah right so you could access these same tournaments

with the champions and you could say you're a pan-am medalist you could say you're a world medalist even like the New York Open or the Chicago Open or the Denver Open those are opens and there's a certain level associated with it yeah right but then if you look at the divisions blue belt purple belt heavily contested

70 80 people black belt division a lot smaller oh you're talking about bjj yeah oh yeah but it has an illusion of like this thing like wow you did it and i'm not criticizing jujitsu they're doing an amazing job they're marketing machine yeah right and they're using it as a platform to market and then appeal to the mainstream public too and it's working because people start doing jujitsu it's safe not like judo judo is very unsafe for 90 of the population it's much safer and there's an opportunity to compete at a very high level in air quotes yeah and compete and be a world champion or a world medalist in your respective belt and age division alongside the champions that are here right now who are the best in the world, arguably, right?

Right, right. Gino, there is none. There's no dream. There's no dream. Can't be a dreamer. I'm going to go to the Olympics one day. Everyone's like, no, you're not.

It's a tournament once every four years. It's extremely difficult to do. I'm going to be a world champion one day. Good luck. It's even tougher to do I'm gonna be a world champion one day good luck it's even tougher to win the world championship it's even harder to win the

world championship I'm gonna be a world champion in jiu-jitsu one day yeah one day for sure without a doubt

you know I'm not criticizing those guys I'm saying it's great for the sport judo doesn't

have it and I'm jealous I don't know how that could happen in judo doesn't have it and i'm jealous i don't know how i don't know how that could happen in judo though it's like already it's like wrestling also doesn't have it because it's all they both are so i guess it's a double-edged sword to be an olympic sport it is you know it's it's uh it's overly specializes the sport, I guess.

You know, the government support is necessary to send these athletes to the Olympics and world circuits. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the infrastructure is already there. I don't know how you could do this in America. Yeah. And judo is dangerous oh

judo is dangerous but yeah it's a maybe it's just I mean it's the nature of the sport how do you

yeah I don't know I don't know I don't have the answers take out throws and just do ground no but banning certain techniques I don't have the answers. Take out throws and just do ground. No, but banning certain techniques in different levels is big.

And, you know, that was a huge criticism, you know, for Judo when they do stuff like this. But why not do it at different ranks? This bell can do this. This bell can do that. No drop Sanagis before. Boo. Bell, whatever it is. Jiu-Jitsu is doing it now.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean. even like no gi masters worlds if you're over 30 there's no heel hooks allowed oh i did not know that yeah because you know these guys gotta go to work yeah and these guys gotta keep feeding the machine we need more population doing it yeah you? So these are some ideas why judo, you know, sucks. I mean, obviously I'm half joking. Yeah. You know what I mean? You're noticing a lot of things from, like, doing BJJ nowadays. I mean, a lot of this stuff was, like, I've already kind of known before

because of the wrestling. I wrestled in college. I wrestled in high school. It's a machine, right? There's tons of people doing it. You're part of this community, this massive community. They care about each other. I'm not saying judo guys don't, but we could be better.

We could be safer. We could have more people doing it. We could have more of a community supporting system. It shouldn't be all these little micro-dojos who are in isolation in all these remote areas, super spread out. We got to be collective in pushing the sport forward.

So actually, what I'm hearing is that there's a spectrum, right? Like one end, there's BJJ where it's all grassroots, more geared towards hobbyists, so on and so forth. And on the other hand, there's wrestling in America or international judo, where there's tons of government support, super professional, specialized. There are gigantic machines. And judo in America is in this weird space where it's kind of grassroots. At the same time, it doesn even have like this infrastructure built so you're what you're suggesting is that you it goes we go towards more like bjj in america i think it'll be good just having more population of people doing it safely yeah i think is the best

and my number one thing you know i have all these like little things yeah for instance when i'm teaching class my number one philosophy that guides know, I have all these like little things. Yeah. For instance, when I'm teaching class, my number one philosophy that guides me when I'm teaching class is total engagement. Yeah. Everyone engaged.

That's why I freaking hate like a karate class where two people are doing kata and everyone's just watching. Yeah. Yeah. 90% of the class is checked out. Even when we're doing like

forward rolls and stuff and there's half the class are standing on the wall, that's not total engagement. I don't like it. Yeah. Right? So total engagement is my philosophy when it comes to like in the training room

and when it comes to growing judo, it's, you know, everything should be guided by growing dojo memberships period if you're a usjf new york state judo how can we help the sport double everyone's membership not price volume of people doing it yeah right help support the gyms to be better right so now when there's more money coming in at the grassroots level theoretically we're going to double the number yeah right this will be double the number of competitors double the number of fees going to the united states judo federation right and the

money just kind of flows up and then imagine if every school average dojo i don't know let's just say 87 students was the national average or something. Let's just say. All of a sudden now the national average is 160. That math's a little bit off, but you know. Yeah. Let's just say that's the new number. Yeah. Now there's actual money in it.

Now there's more incentive for people to come train and open up new schools. Yeah. So now there's more people starting it, more people choosing it as a full-time career. It's like a virtuous cycle. Yeah. It's a virtuous cycle, virtual cycle yeah so that's what we need more money in the sport how are we going to get more money doubling right and spending money on programs that educate dojo owners to grow their own school right and having those owners interacting and networking and pushing the whole judo sort of agenda or the goals right so we could develop this community you know so how can we i mean yeah it's easy to say we're going to double the membership but

what can we do what are you are you are you making videos how to run this i should i should but i don't really follow my own advice when it comes to a lot of this stuff. Sales training, proper follow-up, looking at the retention numbers and sending out retention phone calls and texts and stuff like this. I got to do some of that stuff. A lot of the back-end stuff. But education, really, education. Educating dojo owners. Yeah. Right?

Maybe even pairing up with BJJ and then working with those guys a little bit more who knows you know i think it's kind of happening but we got to be better yeah as a community we really do and these are some of my thoughts on why judo sucks you know i love the sport itself man i can't get enough of it and i think it's the most dynamic beautiful thing ever yeah and i think a lot of people don't see it because they're too blinded by the one throw. It's not contextual, and that's sort of my mission to kind of get that information out there

in the form of a YouTube video. Hey, look what's going on. What are these champions doing? What are some of the tactics that you don't see? And then kind of putting that out there, and I think I'm doing my job, you know? It's up to the community to share. I see a lot of comments like,

oh, I don't even do judo, but I watch your video, Shintaro, and all that. Yeah, I see a lot of comments like, oh, I don't even do judo, but I watch your videos, Shintaro, and all that. Yeah, I see a lot of those. And maybe it's just my passion for it. Yeah.

It just spills out. And hopefully some of them will convert into actual judokas. Hope so. Yeah. Hope so. I get messages all the time. Hey,

I, you know, I've been watching your videos for years. Yeah. I finally started. I got the courage to go Thank you so much Two weeks later I tore my ACL

I quit I get emails like that all the time And that's education We need more education for the owners The dojo owners The people who are at the grassroots level We have to be better That's why Judo sucks Hopefully this was somewhat helpful the people who are at the grassroots level, we have to. We have to be better. Yeah.

Yeah. That's why Judo sucks. Hopefully this was somewhat helpful. A little bit negative, a little bit clickbaity. I know, yeah. Thank you for listening to my rant. We got to be better, guys.

We got to be better. So take every content that I produce and just reshare it. Yeah, a little bit of that. I tell you, we have to be louder than the mainstream critics. Yeah. With the Judo chops. And then, yeah a little bit i tell you we have to be louder than the mainstream critics yeah well you just with the judo chops and then obviously that stuff doesn't faze me anymore you know yeah me neither

i mean i'm so used to it i just kind of go with it now it's like i'll judo chop you right well we have to be louder than that yeah i mean cooler than the football players and the baseball players and the guys who are actually doing big sports yeah mainstream sports so you can yeah you can share your throws and i think we mentioned this before if you guys if you send those videos to shintaro shintaro will share them back too i have not been doing it i'm sorry you know this is the thing right guys if you're gonna make videos on on tiktok or youtube or instagram don't do it as hard as you can where you're flopping around and stubbling your feet okay the best technique that looks most aesthetically pleasing are the ones that you have full control yeah which means when you throw someone and your

feet are rooted and you're not taking little mini steps to catch your balance right right okay those are sort of the most aesthetically pleasing videos. Yeah. So I would focus on that, doing the technique slowly, and then make sure that your feet are planted. Those are sort of the main tips for me if you're going to be making videos online. And if you share those good videos with Shintaro, Shintaro may share them back

re-share them I mean yep yep alright well I think that was about it I was more

I mean the title was a little click-baity but I think ultimately we want this to be constructive because all we everyone wants is

for judo to grow in America that's exactly right yeah that's exactly right yeah that's exactly right yeah all right that's about it and for this episode and we'll see you guys in the next episode thank you very much guys