The Shintaro Higashi Show - Wrestling With Olympic Wrestling Gold Medalist Rei Higuchi

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Shintaro recently participated in special training sessions with the Olympic Wrestling Gold Medalist Rei Higuchi as the translator, and shares this incredible experience with Peter. They dive deep into the technical side of wrestling, highlighting the unique challenges and nuances of grappling terminology across languages. Shintaro recounts how the session was not just about technique, but also about understanding the mindset and methods of a champion. The conversation covers Higuchi's systematic approach to training, the benefits of small group training pods, and how these lessons can be applied to judo, BJJ, and beyond. For fans of grappling sports, this episode provides rare insights into the mechanics of elite wrestling and the cross-disciplinary connections within grappling arts. (00:00:00) Introduction (00:01:00) How Shintaro Met Rei Higuchi (00:02:22) The Role of Wrestling Terminology (00:06:00) Training Session Structure (00:07:32) Cross-Pollination Between Wrestling and Judo (00:09:03) High-Level Insights from Rei Higuchi (00:13:41) What Are Training Pods? (00:26:46) The Grand Unified Theory of Grappling: Push, Pull, Angle, Kuzushi (00:34:56) How Rei Higuchi Uses The Grand Unified Theory of Grappling (00:43:28) How Can Hobbyists Use The Grand Unified Theory of Grappling?

for me because there's zero risk of getting guillotined. I can defend it for sure. But I don't like guys cranking on my neck even if they're not going to finish me because I don't want to risk it because I've hurt my neck multiple times before. So it's just kind of not worth it. Why would I do that if I could just take a downward inside trip and foot sweeps? Right, right, right. But now I'm much more confident with my single.

You're using these three collar tie things, clears, and then you're faking the shot, but how much are you faking it? How do you make him believe it? And you're really introspectively thinking about it, and the coach is kind of guiding you, right? Sell the shot, elbow pass, right? Angle push, right? You're not driving into him first.

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi show with peter you today we have a very special episode what i learned from wrestling with rey higuchi he's an olympic champion just this past summer 2024 paris olympic champ unbelievable wrestler dude and i had a chance i was hired actually as an interpreter yeah so so it's a very exciting opportunity you had like so can you give us more background? So you are hired as interpreter. Yes.

How did Ray end up in the States? So one of the biggest Cornell donors, he's a very influential man with Cornell Wrestling. And if you don't know the world of wrestling, Cornell is a powerhouse. And obviously, Cornell is an Ivy League school. It's a great place to be. It competes with Peter's alma mater.

What was it again peter what school did you go to i don't know some school in jersey yeah yeah princeton yeah he's such a princeton snob but anyway yeah so he's a hugely influential guy and he flew we don't compete at wrestling though that cornell's like way better at wrestling than oh yeah yeah destroy princeton it's terrible no i'm not i should say that they're very good too but anyway yeah he was here and they really wanted a japanese english translator who speaks wrestling yeah because if you would have had just a regular japanese i'm sure there's a million people more qualified than me to translate english and japanese right because my japanese isn't like

you know there's not academic japanese it Japanese. I can't talk about politics or economic stuff. But this is the thing. I speak wrestling. So if you're like, oh, kalatai, throw by, you know, high crotch, crack down, et cetera, et cetera. What Japanese interpreter is going to be able to translate that to Japanese wrestling terminology, which is a whole new language? Yeah. Such niche. It's the most niche

thing you can imagine it's like all right we need a guy who understands wrestling pretty at a relatively high level yeah right because the guy who hired him it's not just like oh go teach a seminar on a single legs and you know a couple things here and there it was like a week-long thing like multiple multiple sessions deep diving the guy who hired us he's very very knowledgeable deep diving the guy who hired us he's very very knowledgeable he's a student of the sport he analyzes it super high level so he had very specific questions oh specifically like clipped out certain magic like 2019 world championships quarterfinals this is what you did minute two you know i want you to ask him about that right so you need to be able to have the knowledge of wrestling. Japanese terminology for wrestling.

American terminology. So it was a very niche thing. Just basic, interesting things that I figured out was fireman's carry. In Japanese, the literal translation...

It's airplane throw. Oh, they don't say a cataguruma. And at first I was like cataguruma. Yeah. Because I figured, and he goes, yeah,

he's like, yeah, people do call it that. We know what it is. And it's the same move from judo, but we call it, Hikokinage. Oh,

Hikokinage. The literal translation is airplane throw, which is kind of like crazy, you know? Oh, I see. That's interesting. Very. we'll talk about this nomenclature too because we had a dedicated episode for that long time ago but can we can you first start us off by giving us the rundown of ray as a wrestler like kind of like which weight class uh lightweight 57 kilograms yeah really really light freestyle right freestyle yeah and he has a very decorated career yeah right he went to the olympics twice 2016 and 2024 so in

an eight year span oh what happened in tokyo or 12 years ago he didn't qualify there in tokyo oh okay but he had a very very long career he took silver the first time and then he took a gold this time so he's not really a young man anymore in terms of wrestling. He's 28. In terms of lightweight wrestling, he's at the tail end of 20. He's pretty old for that. Heavyweight's another story. We all know this.

There's guys in heavyweight that are like pushing 40. Because lightweight's so dependent on reaction and speed and all this stuff. But he has the perfect style for it. I'll talk a little bit about that. Why don't we talk about that? What's his signature move?

What's his strength? Single leg takedown. Single leg takedown. In Japanese, it's a one-legged tackle. That's what they do. One-legged tackle. It's like katashitakuri. That's literally tackle of the one-legged is the way they say it.

And in America, snatch single sweep single traditional single low single there's many different variations of it that's it yeah one term right right oh just like one leg it's like all single legs i think in korea they also call it tackling instead of shooting but anyway okay that's interesting yeah and you know i don't want to get too deep nitty-gritty into the technical side of it you know because uh you know i mean a lot of it was a closed practice you know i did some amazing things so you know i'm not trying to like this you know throw the all the information but i want to make it correlated to judo because and jujitsu because most of our listeners of that you know and uh yeah maybe wrestlers would tune in i don't know

it might be interesting for them but you know i want to make it a little bit more about right the common threads and what i learned overall the biggest points for our community because if i get deep into the thing about like a wrist control and this and two-on-ones and blah blah i feel like we'll lose everybody you know yeah yeah so all right so 57 kilo decorated wrestler coming to train with like run seminars with the cornell wrestling team no oh no it wasn't okay he was here for a week to teach this guy's kids wrestling oh the kids he has four kids and then this is the thing right he's a cornell donor he's a very very close connection with the cornell team so he brought him up there to prepare you know certain people and meet people and this and that and connection.

Oh, so it was more like a private thing. We were there for three days. So we were in New York, New Jersey for like three days. We did sessions here. And then we were in Cornell for three or four days. By the way, that program up there, unbelievable. Seriously, blew me away. Blew me away.

They have their own dedicated building. Top program. On the mat, you have like yanni vito you have this kid that was just a u20 world champion so you really have the cream of the crop you get like five six dudes that are already established at the super highest level you know they're all in the thing together and incoming there was a kid there gabe boissu was there okay serge boissu's kid serge boissu wrote out a huge judo figure wrestling figure all the stuff hisou was there. Serge Boisou's kid. Serge Boisou, Mirakwachi, Rhode Island. Huge judo figure,

wrestling figure, all this stuff. His son was there. I was just wrestling. I was like, oh my God, Boisou, what's up? There's a cross-pollination

between judo and wrestling there. There were a bunch of people with judo influence there. For instance, there was this kid, Ryder from California. Big judo kid, wrestled growing up.

Did judo growing up also and now he's there for wrestling. Japanese-American kid, that was pretty cool. A lot of guys are like, yo, my dad did judo. Byron Shapiro, right now, current U-20 world champion, wrestling on the Cornell roster. His dad's a judo guy. Oh, okay. So very cool.

All right, so that's a scene like a bunch of different obviously college wrestlers and i guess he taught the kids too so like so we did like a kid session there and when we went to cornell vito averaj who just made the world championship team for the u.s huge deal yeah dad runs a wrestling club out in long island everybody knows vogar i was everybody knows vogar right in new york wrestling and i met him before because i wrestled chris weidman in college yeah yeah yeah and then vogar was coaching chris weidman during when i was wrestling and he was like don't tie up don't slide by slide by and guess what weidman would tie up slide by take me down slide by take me down and then you know

i remember you told me this like you what we wanted to throw chris right oh of course that's that was my thing i was a thrower you know i wasn't really wrestling at a high level you know i had no top bottom you know i was just trying to force the tie up and throw you know but wide man was lead leg left and he had a very good slide by and then so every time i would go to tie up he would just slide the arm across and then just kick me out. And it was very, very – it was a big mismatch in our wrestling skill set. You know, I got destroyed. But Vogar was coaching him and now his son Vito,

the world team, and he's up there training at Cornell. And I got to see Vito versus Higuchi, you know. Oh, okay. I'm not going to talk too much about that, you know, because it was a closed thing. Yeah. And then, you know i'm standing by he was like oh we're gonna do two matches whatever it is you know take as much

time as you need between the breaks and then he would ask me questions i would interpret it and blah blah blah and then they would talk technique afterwards hey what did you you know what was the reaction what were you looking for there hey did you know that i was gonna go for that hey can you show me that ankle lacing that you did and i was right there in all of it you know this was like a very high level like everyone was an expert wrestler there and then they were just like sharing experience and asking questions and all that like it was like yeah like a step beginner oriented seminar even though like the kids the kids okay right even though you know those kids, the kids, right? Even though, you know, those are kids, the father is a wrestling savant. Oh, okay.

The one that invited everyone. Yeah. Russ watches every night. He watches every, he has a database of all the top wrestlers. He scouts them. He watches them. He has notes on them. He has files and files and files on every single wrestler that's out there, you in the world in the ncaa right so he's

a savant himself so he's getting higuchi to coach his kids but a lot of the questions are coming from the dad and he's asking these really really good questions that are deep diving super specific stuff he's asking you know because a lot of these champions have unconscious knowledge they do certain yeah yeah you know what i mean and i'll and I can't they don't know how to verbalize right yeah so he's asking the Gucci about a single leg and he goes oh yeah this is how I do it you know I lead the front leg but chose a single leg and Zach the guy goes no no no uh I want to know when you put the back knee down and when you put the front knee down and the physical cues for it and what are the differences when you go for the back knee down single when you go for the front knee down single and the kid's like you know he's kind of like i don't know yeah

i don't know let me let me try to figure it out and he goes look look pulls out video clip here look the knee goes down here this matches here and then you're doing these two different shots and this is my theory what do you think about it and the guys and then he's like deep diving thinking about it working it through and he's like yes actually you know the distance of that lead leg matters when i decide will i put the front knee or the back knee down and here's the reasoning why right and then there would be sort of a counter thing so that's like okay what are the keys for that you know i see she's that thing like hey i noticed you don't do the cheat step, but sometimes you do. Why?

You know, like, is there a reason why, like, you do certain things and how? And then it's like, oh, you know, I show the cheat step when I take a shot, you know, to make, to telegraph it a little bit. Yeah. So the next time I take that cheat step, they react as if a shot was, a bad shot was coming. Right. And then, you know, then i capitalized on that until i'm dragged it all decided whoever it is and then dude it was just like such a high level i know it's crazy yeah and i got more out of that you know hearing the guy ask questions

to the champion because i've been around olympic gold medalists who can't explain anything that they're doing I've been to seminars with Olympic champions where I was like this is a huge waste of my time yeah I've been to many many seminars like that like things like they're showing the classic textbook techniques

when they themselves don't even do it that way yeah it's like I remember I asked a champion one time you know uh soda can you show me soda he's like yeah you go like this you go like that it's like no no like uh the way you do it yeah you know back then I didn't have the ability to be able to like deep dive into it like you know how do you set it up and that's such a even that is like two basic of question why set it up when the ham goes across the spot yeah it goes to the sleeve and i go like this okay you know how do you bait that position how do you know when that position

is coming so let's let's kind of talk about his this father um that organized everything a little bit like how was he a wrestler himself yeah he wrestled corner okay okay so he he was a wrestler himself yeah division one yeah good wrestling phenomenal wrestler yeah yeah good wrestler i mean different era he's 50 you know and uh he's just kind of been around wrestling his whole life loves it loves it and honestly i don't think there's i don't think i've ever met anyone that deep dives into grappling that that much i see i see and he doesn't even do it anymore, obviously. You know, so it's like...

Does he do his kids love wrestling? Probably. I don't know. Yeah, we're not going to talk about his kids. Okay. I was just curious about how... He's training his kids. Yeah, yeah.

He has a training pod. You know, a lot of the guys, I realize, some of the top champions, they don't put them in a wrestling club somewhere just all set it and forget it they don't do that yeah a lot of these dads take it into their own hands and you know i had a little bit of that yeah when you know i would do judo two or three times a week at the dojo when my dad would come over like go put on a gi. And it was like the worst. You know what I mean? Why, why? I'm sitting there eating chocolate and watching TV, and my dad's like, go get your gi.

And you're like, god damn it. Because you know my dad's going to start yelling and screaming, and oh, it's so weak, and why are you so weak? And go give me some push-ups. You can't even do this many push-ups. And it just becomes this thing of the tears start coming. Yeah, yeah. My mom starts chiming in. And then my dad's like, shut up.

Not shut up, but like, ah. And then it's like, you know, then she makes me a cake. And then it's like I'm getting fat and I'm eating my mom. It was a mess. You know what I mean? So I've been through that. But a lot of these guys, and that was a bad example of a pod. But these guys have their kid, two or three training partners for each kid,

and it's a symbiotic thing where now all of a sudden you have a room of 10 kids. I was able to talk to Yanni, who's one of the best grapplers right now in the U.S. He's a legend now at this point. Four-time NCAA champ for finals. One of those guys. Seriously, one of the most dominant wrestlers right now currently. And he grew up like that i said he was a little boy all the way till like he went away to college his dad had his basement wrestling thing 15 kids and he goes every single kid in

that room trained every day minimum state state finalistum. Every single one of those kids got a full ride to college. And now you have the NIL, name, image, and likeness. They'll give you $100,000 a year. You're wrestling four years, they'll give you $400,000 to wrestle on top of your ride. So these things are what it's doing.

With free college and you make money too. Well, could you imagine you go to Cornell, you wrestle four years, you walk away at 400 grand, no debt, with a Cornell degree. Ivy League diploma.

Dude, what a huge event and wrestling could give that now. Wrestling, you could have that, you know? And then so this,

these pods, it's like a whole new thing and I was kind of thinking to myself too, like, you know, like, maybe,

because I've taken my kid to a bunch of dojos, including my own. Yeah, so the pot is amazing. Like you have the NIL now name, image, and likeness, and then you get a hundred grand a year to wrestle. So you could go to Cornell University, get 400 grand on top of your scholarship for no debt coming out. You have an Ivy League degree and 400 grand in your pocket. Forget it.

You're in a golden opportunity here. All because of a lot of grappling and a lot of these kids wrestles in a pod and you know what yes they go to voguards or whatever it is and they do these open mat or like training sessions a lot of that learning happens in these small group settings they got 40 kids in a room in a wrestling club, and I'm going through it with my kid, dude. I've taken her to everything, really judo, jujitsu. Not just judo, jujitsu, but ballet and this and that and after school. The majority of it is just trash and a waste of time

because they fill the time with all these useless things that everyone's always done. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Because a lot of it is just class management. And if the business matters, right? This is a business-driven thing, and you're talking about numbers and filling the room

and having teachers controlling the kids and this, that, this, and classroom management, it's a completely separate thing. The goal is to make money, use every space and time, and then keep the kids coming back. That's very different. And yes, kids can excel at that. But having a whole pod, five to ten people with dedicated training partners, two hours uninterrupted, where you're just drilling technique, doing technique with a really, really smart analytical grappler teaching you,

it's a whole new ballgame. So this pod is not part of a scholastic process, right? No. It's like an ad hoc private thing. I mean, yeah. So a lot of these guys I know have done it. And they do it in Japan too a little bit. You know what I mean?

How do these get organized? How is it sustainable? I'm saying. You just kind of have to be lucky. It doesn't sound that systematic. You know what I mean? Well, I mean, there's always a crazy grappling dad in every sport. Who's very knowledgeable. And then you just kind of network and figure your way out.

All these guys. Now I was exposed because of this whole thing to some of the dads are the best wrestlers in their age eight to twelve that age range and i was talking to those dads and bro they know everybody they go to these things they network they have like oh this kid's the best that kid's the best you know this kid no one knows because he's never competed but he's taking down all the best top kids in the country right now. We're going to go see him in Pennsylvania. This is where he trains.

We're going to go there. We're going to see him. We bring him back. We train our kids. We coach our kids. And they have coaches who are technical coaches. And some of the dads are like, no, I didn't wrestle. I don't know.

But I'll take them certain places. And then they sort of like around the network of stuff get pulled into the orbit of some of these guys who run these little pods and now the rest is history you know what i mean i see they get very and you know it's a it's a win-win really most of the time because the guy who's running it majority of the time is he's doing it for his kid yeah yeah you know i know a ton of judo coaches now who run dojos for their kids second to their careers. Yeah. For their kid.

I spoke to Chuck Jefferson. He has kids. He's running a dojo now. And I was like, oh, dude, I never thought you'd just kind of have your – he's like, yeah, I do it for kids, man. You know, I want to build a dojo for my kids so I can kind of be there with them and spend time with them. If you're running a dojo and your goal is to make your kid into a champion

and you're at a dojo day and night, and then, you know, it's like you don't have to pay for babysitting. It's like, all right, kid gets out of school. I pick my kid up and we're going to the dojo together. That kid's going to get one-to-one sessions with me, maybe a couple of pod sessions with like some of the best grapplers in the class or the school or wherever it is or other gyms. And then you have a kid's program and that kid's going to teach the little kids.

And then that kid's going to do the class, do the older kid's class. He's going to stick around while the adults are gone. right right right but you know it's very difficult to do i think and foster a love for grappling because a lot of these kids you know you see all these successful kids and some of them yeah yeah but we'll do a dedicated episode about you know pod training and it's something that i'm also considering myself for my daughter like i said man a lot of programs i put my kid in and you know because i am who i am 95 of that was out there's dog shit you know like even ballet dude because you know you know me i did two years about yeah yeah and you know what like even ballet, dude, because, you know, you know me. I did two years of ballet. Yeah, yeah. And you know what? Even in ballet, I networked my way in with the top level gays and the girls who were freaking crushing ballet at the New York City Ballet at the professional level. I'm talking like core, principal dancers, all those guys.

I had the teacher who loved that guy. He loved it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He coached Amar. Amar Amasad. Yeah, I remember that. He was the first Indian principal dancer of the New York City Ballet. And he became my teacher because he freaking loved me. Maybe he was trying to bang me. I don't really know. I kept my boundaries straight. I was like, yo, bro, don't touch me. But I'll come to

your class. And then you get exposure to that. And then he also had little pod training sessions. I remember the other day he had a little like posse going on. He had a posse. He would teach at steps. He would teach over here. He would teach over there. And there was a group of dudes, right? Because they're, you know, he's mostly teaching for male, whatever it is. He would follow them

around. The girls do. They would follow them around to everywhere he taught. Outside of the other stuff that they were doing. You know know because they believed he had like a secret sauce right and then i got pulled into that and i was like whoa this isn't like just doing regular bar with gen pop yeah even the intermediate advanced class this is way difficult when you're in those classes and when there's 45 people in there yes yes, some of those chicks are pros. Yeah. But the teachers walking around

maybe gives extra attention to two or three people in the room. That's it. They walk around and they'll say your name once and give you one or two corrections. That's it. But you're in a pod of five, that hour and a half is worth like a month of training right yeah that's why

i remember when you invited me like it i had never done ballet before you went to saturday morning intro i'm this is i know for even even then like i got extra attention thanks to you because i was your friend and i had hung out with him before and just yeah i learned more probably because of that and so these things i think exist everywhere you know and if you're extremely likable coachable has a little bit of talent and you're dedicated i think you get into these rooms where future champions are sort of bred you know i mean i i so this story reminds me of all these dads stepping in, like LPGA, like one of the key reasons Korean ladies golfers dominate is because a lot of times their fathers would like drag them to every practice. Even if they are not golfers themselves,'ll study yeah or everything and they'll just

kind of tailor go after all the best coaches it's not really a team sport so you don't need a pod per se but like yeah you know and i think that's why a lot of times children of athletes also become successful athletes them professional athletes themselves because they have this you know pod or network yeah the network and you they have this, you know, power network. Yeah, the network. And you speak the same language. You know, you see it in chess. I'll give you an example.

My cousin, not Eugene, the older brother. Oh, okay. He was like a child prodigy, off the charts IQ, you know. And he started playing chess and he was a super high level chess player from the time he was like. I didn't know Ken played chess. Yeah. From like four, three or four years old to like nine, ten years old.

Oh, wow. Super high-level, right? Yeah. I don't remember his rating or anything like that. Yeah. But he, one time, played a game with – You know, they have Bobby Fischer, the legendary kid. His coach, one of his coaches, this Russian dude, right?

And then he played a game with him. Bobby Fisher's coach? Yeah, yeah. Holy shit. Super high level guy, right? And then he goes, I don't take students. I don't teach anymore. I'm done. I'm retired. I'll do shit more. But I will teach you some. Yeah, and then

those guys were like, my aunt. I was like, nah, you know, we can't really afford to pay this thing and that. Right, whatever it is and it was a situation and the guy goes i do for free you know that what this reminds me of um the williams brother of sisters the tennis stars happens everywhere you got everyone's gotta check out the movie King Richard, and it's kind of fascinating how they're that. He was not a rich man from Compton, so he kind of basically did this, like convince coaches that his daughters are phenomenal

so that they will coach them for free. Yeah. Even me, man. I've done that. I'll teach your autistic kids for free. I will lift with you at six in the morning, et cetera, et cetera.

And they freaking quit. And you know, I had a few of those things. Yeah. Not everyone works out. I had a few of those. And now I'm just like, forget it.

I'm never doing this shit again. But if it was for my kid, it might be a different story. Yeah. Right. For my kid. And then I have a couple of training partners that I could bring in the room with them.

But you know, I think it's very tough thing to do and it's risky you know you put your kid in something like that and majority of the time it's not a financial incentive to do so it's because i want your kid to train my kid right and all this stuff but you get wrapped up in the wrong coach and you can't you know and oh this this is wonderful look at these accolades that this guy has maybe he's not a great coach or you maybe just don't know right so you have to be an educated consumer you know but these pods exist yeah it's a it's a real thing but this isn't about pod training we're talking about higuchi yeah yeah oh yeah we kind of sid sidetracked here so you kind of saw how these pods

benefited from Ray and Gucci so what else happened you said you can't really talk about what they actually shared I can talk about anything I want really it's not because I don't want to talk about this I want to talk about other things

like for instance the common thread I really want, I mean, it's not because I don't want to talk about this. I want to talk about other things. Like for instance, the common thread. Yeah. What's the common thread? Jiu Jitsu and wrestling. Yeah. And I think this pod,

pod training is kind of one of the common threads. Like, you know, to be a champion. God, I'm not talking about this. This is an interesting sidetracking digression. Yeah. I'll tell you this.

The most fascinating thing. Okay. Right. And the most, the way I got to the singularity, I'll tell you this. The most fascinating thing. Okay. Right? And the most... The way I got to the singularity. Okay. You know what? You're a science nerd.

Explain to us the singularity. I don't know if the analogy works here, but singularity is like in the middle of the black hole where nothing can escape escape i guess that's the event horizon and singularity is like the focal point where every all the mass is concentrated i guess that's where the answer exists to tie all of modern physics together isn't that correct no one knows what's in there so i don't know if um there will be a lot of things that we could

study i don't know i'm not a physicist there It got particles in there and that's going to give us the answers. We don't know what's in there. And I found the singularity. Yeah. So singularity of grappling. You're going to define this. I found it. You found it.

Yeah. What is it? What is it? I can't go. I want to preface it and then build it up a little bit. The way I got to this was I'm trying to translate wrestling.

And in American wrestling, you're talking about this position, that position, even the kata, inside position, elbow grip, you know, about this position that position even the katai inside position elbow grip you know this grip that grip whatever it is inverted wrist cross wrist whatever right yeah japanese don't have names for any of it i go kalatai right leg lead elbow grip and he's like we don't really call it that i was like what do you call it

it's just kumite kumite like gripping hand fighting and we do call it kumite or kumikata like hand right kumikata is the linking hand kumikata the way to link yeah right so kumikata, the way to link. So, kumikata in judo, kumite in judo, right? They have identical in wrestling, in Japanese, with no position specified. The only thing that was specified was lead leg right, lead leg left,

kenka yotsu, ai yotsu. Ai yotsu, yeah. Right? Just like in judo. They don't specify that they never specify lead leg right lead leg left

whatever it is of course if they're leading with their left leg you're leading with your right leg you shoot the single on the front leg

whatever they do this stuff but there's not as much focus on it in judo there's a lot of focus on it yeah kenka yotsu

right versus left strategy ayotsu right versus right strategy gripping is very different gripping is a lot of focus on it yeah yeah kenka yotsu right versus left strategy iotsu right versus right strategy gripping is very different grip is a little bit different wrestling wise also yeah okay push pull kumite kuzushi kuzushi they say kuzushi? Angle. Push, pull, kuzushi, angle. Push, pull, angle, kuzushi. Push, kuzushi, angle, kuzushi. You see this? That's the singularity.

Are you saying those are the core concepts? Push, pull, kuzushi, angle, four. And then I was working out with Glick on Wednesday. Another world-level guy, by the way. Just all sorts of world-level these days. Doing jiu-jitsu with him. And we're doing some guard work and we're rolling. And from bottom, push, pull, off balance, angle off,

on the hook, leg, wrestle off, right? Yeah. Glicks on bottom, we're working out. He's going for it on the hook, pushing, angling my body. He's trying to angle me away by off balancing, keeping my balance. He's trying to take my balance and try to angle off, right? Create a flank position.

And as I'm pressuring in, he's trying to off balance me push pull angle kazushi right i saw it in wrestling i saw it in jiu-jitsu and then i went to judo at night and i'm teaching the stuff and i realized i don't push too much pressure forward i don't teach that as much but if you look at the best japanese they push they pull off balance faint angle off attack defeat and i was like that is the singularity of grappling period i i think i i think the better term if you want to use this kind of physics uh reference is a grand unified theory of grappling singularity i love it because because the analogy of we're peering into the black hole right we don't know what's really there and whatever we might find in there whether it's the higgs field the higgs boson particle whatever it is

yeah may unify all of physics. And you heard it here first. The singularity of grappling, push, pull, off balance, angle. And even angle is kind of a tricky theory, right? Tricky idea. Because if you're dead facing each other, I take a right, he takes a left. We're still mirroring each other, right? But it's the idea of the person facing away, but you're facing them. That's what body angle is.

How to game for that. You know, push, pull. And when he's pushing back, right, you're angling off's what yeah body angle is how to game for that you know push pull when he's pushing back right you're angling off driving and taking him off and then when he goes to push back you change levels and now he's off balance right right right same thing as you don't grab a sleeve push across you push it back overhead pull the head down and then you go for a turn throw right mmm singularity I I okay so that's very interesting because uh i mean it's it's it's also kind of funny that you're bringing up physics because i think uh i just watched interstellar the other day on tv that's why interstellar that's the only reason why no i said uh this i'm kind of

sidetracking but just to keep it short and it's kind of fun to think about this later in physics there's a very big chasm between quantum mechanics and theory of relativity it's just they uh mathematically it's not reconcilable so everyone's goal has been to find the grand unified theory that could bring both of them together yes and yes a lot of theories have been proposed to be like that string theory is one and like i would say some people say oh maybe yeah like you said like if we peer into singularity we can find something but we just are not capable but in this bringing that back to grappling we have this competing theories right or uh like quantum mechanics and theory relativity there's you know there's bj and there's wrestling but you want to your goal and everyone

a lot of people a lot of grapplers goal is to unify all that to make this grand unifies theory of grappling yeah the best style whatever and your your theory kind of like how people have proposed things like string theory and the higgs boson and all that you know that is an attempt like in this case push pull kuzushi off balancing and angle is your that order but any in any order yeah in that it's your theory that could unify that could be the basis for the grand unified

theory of grappling yes and you know me having never taken physics since 10th grade you know these four pieces

work integrally together it's like up quark down quark right quark left quark and I am certain that's what I am yeah if you're a physicist comment down

below and then just call us all call our bullshit yeah but definitely i'm not trying to claim any of this stuff is real physics by the way yeah like i just said i just saw but it's funny okay so so these four concepts so like yeah intuitively yes makes sense. Like that's like the basis of everything. So what, uh, having spent time almost a week with Ray. Yeah. Yeah.

And what, so why did you, what did you notice specifically about these four concepts? Like the, how they translate from wrestling, how they apply to wrestling and judo and BJJ. Specific incidents about his single leg or anything like that. So he really said, as he's teaching, there's three phases of grappling, really.

There's the head fighting, or kumite. And this is all push-pull, angle-off, whatever it is. And there's the actual shot which is the technique equivalent yeah and then there's entanglement that's what he said there's three phases right and then jude is the same you know you're good fighting you enter ochi or something that's the execution of the technique and then sometimes that goes to osoro sometimes you resist a certain way you try to cut back whatever it is right you know and now all of a sudden we're in this entanglement and then it can translate from there to the ground and then it continues right so

that is like sort of the fundamental structure framework and within that the way he puts together all these different things maybe three or four things for each position, each idea, and then how they integrate with each other so seamlessly, and it's systemized, right? And it feels like he's a million times faster than you. But then after spending a week, we're talking about running, lifting. He's telling me he's very slow at sprinting he's not a fast sprinter he's like if you look at every single wrestler senior level wrestler in japan i'm

definitely at the bottom half when it comes to oh and he has a system that he created like for instance his ankle lace is completely different than how anyone else in the world does it it's the opposite and i don't want to go deep into it and give it out to Secret Sauce over here, right? Because, you know, it's privileged information. They should have made me sign a non-disclosure.

But anyway, without going too much into it, he invented it. This system. In order to compensate for his physicality. Maybe yes, maybe no. And, you know,

we were asking him like, how did you come up with that? You know? And he goes, maybe no. And we were asking him, how did you come up with that? And he goes, trial and error. I failed at 99% of the stuff that I tried with this stuff. I could never do it as good as the other guy. And I had a hunch that this was one of those things. And I explored it. And I got to it. And it really required the genius of the guy who brought him here to be able to

draw that information out yeah you know and it also required the genius of me as an interpreter to pull that information out of him yeah in a very respectable way that has you have to take into account right this guy's japanese you know yeah and then when he's given his answers it's kind of fallen up diving a little bit deeper and asking the right questions kind of to kind of bring everything to the surface yeah and then i can bring it back to the other dude who's a genius so we just have three geniuses in the room yeah really that's just right that's what we came down i mean that's when amazing things happen when you know man you gotta be in the room yeah you know what i mean and when do you ever

get a chance to sit around with an olympic gold medalist for a week yeah and have exposure to that yeah not just me in the room but with another guy who is feeding some of these, a super analytical guy, you know, businessman genius. And, uh, yeah. What,

what an incredible experience, you know, and I've been around Olympic champs in judo multiple times. Yeah. You know, they taught me the most useless shit and it was the most underwhelming experience. Uh,

I'll tell you. And I was like, what? Uh, but that was also good because it was like if this guy uh is an olympic champ maybe i could be too you know yeah i mean this is completely disregarding how much work they put in you know what sort of training centers are at accessibility to coaches and then uh physical there's a million different other factors that

kind of go into like whether an athlete becomes successful or not. But, you know, this is just kind of a small piece of it, you know? Yeah. So having established this new grand unifying theory, your singularity, whatever you put it, push-pull, Kudushian angle. So what can we...

So that's just mostly for the setting up portion right yeah if you have a great framework for i mean because that's the first point of contact for gripping and fighting hand fighting and all that stuff if you have great hand fighting it's very difficult to get in on a shot yeah and if you have very good gripping it's very difficult for someone to throw you yeah right yeah that's where everything sort of starts. And then you have the actual attacks. And even when you're attacking, there's the entanglement, and then you go back to the attack,

and then it goes right back to hand fighting and gripping. So it's like sort of this flowing thing from one thing to another, and each one of those pieces have two or three options. And then the mental side of it is showing that you're going to do something and doing something else, like a misdirection thing that I talk about in judo all the time. Yeah. Yeah.

You're setting up shots 40 seconds later into the mass. You're almost like a time traveler. Yeah. Like an interstellar. You're in, you're really into this physics move right now. I watched the movie. That's why.

So how much the Martian? Yeah. A bit right now. I watch the movie, that's why. If I watched The Martian, it would have been a different... Another great movie. Another great book, too. Everyone should read it. I love the book. Anyway, so how can we... Let me tell you about rationing your food on Mars.

You've got to ration your calories throughout the week when you're grappling. Growing potatoes too in your backyard. Mine potatoes. Eat them. How can we apply this concept in our

day-to-day training as hobbyists? I feel like a lot of these things probably come naturally after hours and days and years of training for champions, professionals. But how can we hobbyists

utilize these concepts? Man, this is almost too valuable to give away for free on a podcast. Yeah. So I want to thank our sponsors. Yeah. You want to thank our sponsors, Peter? Yeah.

Jason, Drew. Wait. Jason and LeVon. God damn, Peter. Drew. Yeah. It's your job. I never like.

Drew, Jason, and LeVon. Thank you. Yeah. I got them and Lavon. Thank you. Yeah, I got it right Yeah, if you appreciate this quality content deep inside the looks of High level grappling, please. Yeah Subscribe like follow us give money on patreon because you know me and Peter we're doing this for free Judo TV calm. Thank you very much we have the tokyo grand slam coming up

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Okay. I got one because she's so fed up with all this inventory that's sitting in her basement. That's just not selling because I have not put any effort into selling it. Yeah. Well, you have. You've been like. Not like I was in the beginning. Oh, I see.

That's for me. I mean, my guy, my social media guy makes one or two posts and that's it. And then I don't post it on stories. I don't link it. I haven't in a while. And it's just I got to push it really. But you guys are listening. Like all this free, very deep, incredible value information. Please support us.

Support us. Yeah. Patreon. Patreon. Yeah. All right. So what were you just talking about what was the question yeah so how how what do these things how do these things matter to us hobbyists yeah so you gotta find the proper way to drill and i hate using the word drill

because it's really like the d word no one does it right no one does it right tell me and uh i was trying to teach some of this stuff to glick in the room oh he came to work out yesterday and three ways to get clear the car tie it was one of the things that we were just trying to do it yeah he does this he does this he does that right in the nogi setting wrestling wrestling yeah okay what did you say to me peter wrestling wrestling yeah okay what did you say to me Peter doggy yeah so hand fighting yeah you're in the cow tie yeah three ways to do it how they work together and then interchangeably doing it push pull throw by push push, pull, fake the shot, fake the shot, angle, drop the hands, right? Snap down, snap down the hand.

And now all of a sudden you have a system, right? You're not teaching, I go here, you go there, I go here, you go there. You're teaching three pieces and it's up to you to put it together. Yeah. Five minutes. Just doing it slowly slowly and figuring out new paths of how they work together and then connecting new three pieces to things that you're ready to do for instance we just talked about three ways to clear the khalatai and how that can work with shot feints and arm drags right now all of a sudden you're playing a

different ball game you can spend 20 30 minutes doing that just that and then if you're able to apply that to your already systematized thing that i go for this i go for here right i try to get to i want to know whatever whatever it is it's probably not that good, right? But you're trying to get this new thing. And it really truly becomes like this skill acquisition drill where you're doing it 30 minutes to an hour with the proper guidance, with the proper coaching within the pod where the coach is sitting there. No, no, no. You're not really faking that faking that shot right you're

faking the shot with your head but reach with the hand maybe the guy's not going to react if you're just juking with your head yeah and that was one of the advice that higuchi gave me oh we're hand fighting it's coming up the video on instagram because i specifically said hey let's hand fight yeah can i film it and then put it on instagram it'll be good for both of us and he said yes right yeah so we're hand fighting and i'm faking these shots and nine times out of ten i fainted and everyone sprawls or reacts he didn't react at all so i was like why you know yeah he was able to give me a very good reason yeah why right so same idea you're using these three kalatai things clears and then you're faking the shot but how much are you faking it how do you make him believe it and you're really introspectively thinking

about the coach's kind of guiding you right sell the shot elbow pass right angle push right you're not driving into him first you're driving him he's pushing back you're changing levels of that shot now you're faking the shot with a level change not your hand right so it's two different type of faints you see what i mean yeah so like this kind of training is insanely valuable and even now back in my day in the early 2000s 45 minute grind matches we used to do yeah every school did it hofstra did it iowa did it we did it at Hunter. 45 minutes, pick a partner and just pound the shit out of them.

It's not like that. We're at Cornell on Friday. We wrestle matches. They wrestle three matches. That's it. Majority of the training was this conceptual thing. Obviously, that example that I used,

I didn't get from Cornell or Higuchi. That was a drill that I did with Glick. But that's how I do it with judo too, a lot of these times, right? Because you want to minimize time where they're just freaking battling each other and throwing and everyone's on self-preservation mode, trying not to get injured, ripping stuff. That's just too dangerous.

So having this kind of training methodology where you're stringing together a lot of different ideas preservation mode, try not to get injured, ripping stuff. That's just too dangerous. You know? So having this kind of training methodology where you're stringing together a lot of different ideas and then it's not a linear track to the takedown or the throw. Yeah. Grab here, go here, go here, go there. I fake a thing and I go Kochi

and then I go Senagi. Who's going to be able to hit that live? Nobody. Right, right. Right? You have gripping and the constant push-pull, game position, right? Angle off, try to – Kazushi, attacking. And this kind of training, I think, is the best ROI.

And a lot of the stuff that they're doing now at Cornell and even Higuchi trains like this now, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday off, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday off. With technique in the morning, lifting in the morning. Tougher evening training sessions with situational training, positional training. Situational is like 30 seconds left, down by one. One minute left, down by three.

Judo, hey, 30 seconds left, you're down by a score. One minute left, you're up two Judo, hey, 30 seconds left, you're down by a score. Yeah. You know, one minute left, you're up two shitos, force one more penalty. Those kinds of trainings, that's situational. Positional training, all right, you're outgripped. Let's see, work out of it. You have 40 seconds.

Person getting it, you know, dominant grip. Let the person try to like, don't just try to bomb them. Yeah. Situational training, positional positional training drilling the proper way d word right because most people don't drill properly yeah and then i think that's how you really improve and it takes a really good skilled coach you know i'll give you an example we're doing leg grabs at the dojo again and we're doing og into a leg pick everyone kind of doing it wrong right but i know exactly what they're doing wrong not enough face pressure with the hand on the chin

right because we're doing collar you know what i mean they're not off they're not driving the hand onto the chin head over the leg to pick it you know everyone making that mistake i probably wouldn't have been able to catch that 10 years ago no way i'll demonstrate it yeah like whoa that shit looks real good but when i'm watching it i'll probably be watching where they're grabbing on the leg and i may say you see like i'm grabbing right below the knee like right behind the knee with my middle finger right right i may give details that don't really make a difference and that where you grab on the leg is dependent on how long that guy's leg is and how long my arms are yeah it doesn't matter as much as where my hand is placed on the chin so like having a coach like that you know i see game changer

knowledge is what wins i think you, being a genius like me. So yeah, that's my, you know, takeaway. It was like a very cerebral experience. It's very scholastic almost. Yeah, it's something I needed, I think, because, you know, I don't get excited about, you know, when they approach me, you want to translate for Olympic champion champion i was like no yeah and i that was really literally my reaction i was like well i'm gonna

sit there and translate oh he's hungry he wants a cheeseburger you know he wants pizza he like loves pizza he's dying to try american pizza oh gosh no way dude you know yeah was like my initial thing oh gosh no way dude you know yeah was like my initial thing right and even going into it i was like ah you know yeah but then when i remember yeah you were telling me you're like you you didn't know what to think of this yeah yeah well yeah i'm gonna translator yeah in my mind i'm thinking like how valuable am i even going to be because translation you know i'm not like perfect in japanese you know like my japanese is like smart high school level uh early high school reading writing forget it like middle school level reading and writing you know you give me a newspaper i'll be like you know you know what i mean so i'm like not qualified really to translate everything in a literal way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, if they were talking about politics, I wouldn't know what to say. You know? Yeah, right. So anyway, it's like I was kind of uncertain. And then when it began and he's showing the single leg, I was like, oh, boy, you know. But then when the guy who brought him in was like. Let's break it down.

Yeah. You know? When you get your wrist grabbed, you accept it. Right? Why? And he's like, well, no.

I don't want him to grab my wrist. I'll re-pummel. It's like, do you though? Yeah. It's like, look at all these clips. No, you don't. And then he's like... do you though? Yeah. It's like, look at all these clips. Yeah.

No, you don't. And then he's like, I was like, he knows more about Ray than Ray knows about himself. And then I was like this. I was like, what do you mean you accept bad wrist grips? Yeah. You just let the, I mean, what do you mean? Like you, he just lets the guy grab his wrist. He goes, yeah.

And he shoots off of it. I'm like, what? How does that he shoots off of it i'm like what how does it make sense i was like yo how does that make sense and the guy's like i was like he's like all right let's figure it out and post it on the thing and i grab his wrist and he does something i'm like whoa what was that yeah yeah i said well you're never going to be in a situation where the guy doesn't grab your wrist so i do these things you know and that's going to be a paid video that i'm going to make so that then i was like i was in i was like and then i was like i cannot wait for the next session we were like at lunch with like the cornell coaches and i was like man when is this going to end so go back yeah you, and I was like, you know what I mean? I was like itching to get back in the room to ask this guy questions, but mostly not ask him questions me personally,

but to see what kind of questions this guy had to ask him. So it turned out to be like a very, very fulfilling, enriching thing. And now, you know, I've done two practices already since i've been back right i did you know judo with glick jujitsu with glick i went to essential this morning yeah and my shots were 10 times better obviously i've been thinking about like grabs because the you know the ijf and things like this yeah and i'm just kind of like it's something new that i'm exploring again because like grabs and judo have been taken out for so long right yeah yeah and then with sort of some of this proper clearing you know shooting is a lot better and you know my best shot is a high c which is the most useless in jujitsu yeah because the neck

exposure and my single leg i use a knee pull single leg right you know the type of a single leg right yeah yeah but now that i've been so exposed and so coached well by these guys and listening in my single leg was just as good as my high c which opens a whole new layer of grappling for me because there's zero risk of getting guillotined i can defend it for sure but i don't like guys cranking on my neck even if they're not going to finish me because i don't want to risk it because I've hurt my neck multiple times before it's just like a risk I don't want to take

I don't want to be stuck underneath a guy that's heavy as me so it's just kind of not worth it why would I do that if I could just take a bad inside trip and foot sweeps but now I'm much more confident with my single so it kind of like opened up a new thing of me,

you know, cause I was never great at the single. It was like a Nipo single high C was my thing. And then just forcing ties and throwing was my wrestling game. Zero top bottom. Back in the day, I had zero. Now I was a two back in the day,

zero, but now you're becoming a more complete grappler oh yeah there's always so much more to learn yeah and hey gucci we kept asking who coached you who taught you where did you get these ideas yeah a good portion of it majority of it was self-taught man that's uh he yeah i mean at some point like who who going to teach him these things, like, you know, at this so high level? And then probably at this point, like, it's very unique to him too. Unique to him.

And this is the thing, man. People try to copy the champs, but you never see any champions in history has a carbon copy of someone else that preceded him. Yeah. It's always something that they kind of synthesize and put together themselves. And a lot of the times, it's not them. It's always something that they synthesize and put together themselves. A lot of the times, it's not them. It's their coach that helped them

put together this synthesized thing. Man, this episode is really long. Should we break it into two parts? No, I think we're at a good point to wrap it up. We'll do this. We'll air the first 20 minutes and the rest of this paid.

Maybe something like that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't even know how to set that up, but I'll figure something. I'm kidding. Yeah. Yeah.

No, it's a very good episode. And thank you very much for the person who hired me for that gig. It turned out to be one of the best gigs. What a serendipitous, Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. be one of the best gigs. What a serendipitous, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good. All right. Well, Grand Unified Theory of Grappling. The singularity. The singularity.

Yeah. I'm going to Google singularity. I really don't know what singularity is, you know. So I'm going to Google it and I'm going to make my arguments for it

through chat GPT and send it to you. Okay. Sounds good. All, sounds good. All right, man. All right, thanks for listening, guys. Hope you guys found this very helpful and we'll see you guys in the next episode. Продолжение следует...