#427 – Neil Adams: Judo, Olympics, Winning, Losing, and the Champion Mindset

Neil Adams is a judo world champion, 2-time Olympic silver medalist, 5-time European champion, and often referred to as the Voice of Judo. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – ZipRecruiter: https://ziprecruiter.com/lex – Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/lex to get special savings – MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/lexpod to get 15% off – LMNT: https://drinkLMNT.com/lex to get free sample pack – NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/lex to get free product tour Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/neil-adams-transcript EPISODE LINKS: Neil’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/naefighting Neil’s YouTube: https://youtube.com/NAEffectiveFighting Neil’s TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@neiladamsmbe Neil’s Facebook: https://facebook.com/NeilAdamsJudo Neil’s X: https://x.com/NeilAdamsJudo Neil’s Website: https://naeffectivefighting.com Neil’s Podcast: https://naeffectivefighting.com/podcasts/the-dojo-collective-podcast A Life in Judo (book): https://amzn.to/4d3DtfB A Game of Throws (audiobook): https://amzn.to/4aA2WeJ PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: – Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast – Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman – Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman – Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) – Introduction (09:13) – 1980 Olympics (26:35) – Judo explained (34:40) – Winning (52:54) – 1984 Olympics (1:01:55) – Lessons from losing (1:17:37) – Teddy Riner (1:37:12) – Training in Japan (1:52:51) – Jiu jitsu (2:03:59) – Training (2:27:18) – Advice for beginners

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lex Fridman?

  The following is a conversation with Neil Adams, a legend in the sport of judo. He is a world champion, two-time Olympic silver medalist, five-time European champion, and often referred to as the voice of judo, commentating all the major events, world championships and Olympic Games, highlighting the drama, the triumph, the artistry of the sport of judo, making fans like me feel the biggest wins, the biggest losses, the surprise turns of fortune, the dominance of champions coming to an end, and new champions made. Always speaking from the heart. And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast.

• 0:45Lex Fridman?

  We've got ZipRecruiter for hiring, Ace Leave for napping, MasterClass for learning, Element for hydration, and NetSuite for business management software. Choose wisely, my friends. Also, if you want to work with our amazing team, or just want to get in touch with me, go to electstreaming.com/contact. And now, onto the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out the sponsors. I enjoy their stuff, and maybe you will too. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter, a site that connects employers and job seekers. Filling your life with people that bring out the best in you is difficult, challenging.

• 1:28Lex Fridman?

  It's a puzzle, but it's a deeply worthwhile one. Because the experience of the minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year of life, surrounded by people you like, who inspire you, who help you notice the beauty of life, but also challenge you, such that through the struggle, you become a better version of yourself, the best version of yourself, hopefully.

• 1:59Lex Fridman?

  All of that is one of the most beautiful ways to live life. So if you're hiring or looking for a job, ZipRecruiter is great for that. See why four out of five employees who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Go to ziprecruiter.com/lex to try for free. That's ziprecruiter.com/lex. The smartest way to hire. This episode is brought to you by the bringer of naps called Eight Sleep. And it's Pod 3 cover. I've talked to a lot of Olympic athletes, CEOs. I think the, it's kind of fascinating to discuss with them because they've already accomplished, in many cases,

• 2:42Lex Fridman?

  they've already accomplished the really grand big things, the Olympic gold medals or running, starting, scaling, running and winning at the game of business. And then when they look back, the big lesson in terms of health they often go to is the value of sleep. Now, it's hard to know whether that lesson is supposed to be learned. You're supposed to fail and then you learn it. Meaning you spend your twenties or your thirties or some stretch of time sacrificing sleep. And it's not actually a sacrifice. It's a gift to the gods of excellence. So it's not like, it's not supposed to be that way. It's not a mistake. It's not a failure.

• 3:27Lex Fridman?

  But when they do look back in a kind of offhand way, they'll say, I learned the value of sleep. That I'm just a better thinker, better performer, more efficient, wiser, all those kinds of things when I get a full night's sleep. But anyway, the moments you get with your bed, use them wisely. So I love Eight Sleep. It allows you to cool the bed down, warm blanket. It's heaven. Check it out and get special savings when you go to eightsleep.com/lex.

• 4:04Lex Fridman?

  This episode is also brought to you by MasterClass, where you can watch over 180 classes from the best people in the world in their respective disciplines. I watched many of them, loved many of them. Let me bring up Martin Scorsese. He has a masterclass on filmmaking. He made a lot of incredible, incredible films. Goodfellas. I know you're not supposed to give an Oscar for that kind of thing, but why not? Give the man an Oscar. Raging Bull, Casino, Taxi Driver. Genius. And then Shutter Island, The Irishman, the new one with the Killers of the Flower Moon. I mean, just genius, genius.

• 4:48Lex Fridman?

  By the way, I got a chance to recently meet and shake hands with Leo DiCaprio. And I went out to nature with him. It's just the depth of curiosity he has about the world, about ideas, about the natural world, about the visual world. That beginner's mind forever still there, burning bright. It's good to see. Anyway, Martin Scorsese really breaks down simply the way he thinks about filmmaking. And that really is the only way to learn about geniuses like him,

• 5:33Lex Fridman?

  is to hear from them, to see the genius in the words and the spaces between the words. Get unlimited access to every masterclass and get an additional 15% off an annual membership at masterclass.com/lexpod. That's masterclass.com/lexpod. This episode is also brought to you by Element. It's an electrolyte drink that's sodium, potassium, magnesium that I think is foundational to the way I approach diet and life. What I eat once a day, which is what I mostly do these days, or if I fast for even longer than 24 hours, getting the electrolytes right is a big part of that.

• 6:16Lex Fridman?

  And what is it about fasting that brings clarity to the mind? I mean, some of it is physiological, I'm sure.

• 6:26Lex Fridman?

  But some of it is just that feeling of longing, this physical longing for satiation, just feeling a little bit incomplete and sitting in that feeling. But it's not the completeness that's needed for a good life, for clarity of thinking. It's the longing for completeness. So I'm a big fan of fasting, but you gotta do it in a healthy way. Element will help you out. Get a sample pack for free with any purchase. Try it at drinkelement.com/lex. This episode is also brought to you by NetSuite,

• 7:11Lex Fridman?

  an all-in-one cloud business management system. It's like the machine within the machine that finds the common language for the different parts of a business to communicate. I'm still slightly haunted by a thing I read a long time ago that Jeff Bezos said, that every business eventually dies and that you want to prolong the life of a business as long as possible. But I don't know why that broke my heart so much. Like it always does, the finiteness of good things. I would like to believe that businesses, groups of people, people themselves, when they're good, they last forever.

• 7:54Lex Fridman?

  When they do good by the world, but that's not how it works, does it? Anyway, I think about the finiteness of great businesses. And I guess, as Jeff Bezos said, by the way, amazing human being. But as Jeff said, the whole job of a leader, of a manager of a business is to keep that first day thinking, keep innovating, reinvigorating, being ready to pivot, to make hard decisions, all of that, every single day. It never ends. And yeah, use good tools for that, for the job of running a business like NetSuite. Over 37,000 companies have upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle.

• 8:39Lex Fridman?

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• 8:47Lex Fridman?

  This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Neil Adams.

• 9:13Lex Fridman?

  You are a five-time European champion, world champion, two-time Olympic silver medalist. Let's first go to the 1980 Olympics. Where was your mind? What was your preparation like? What was your strategy leading into that Olympics?

• 9:27Speaker 02

  That was my first Olympic Games. So my preparation was a little bit different to how it was the 84 and the 88 Olympic Games. And I'd kind of done part of the preparation as well for 76 Olympic Games. I wasn't quite old enough for those, but I was first reserve. So 1980, I'd had four years build up and I was hungry and I was one of these young athletes. And I see them so often now that was developing and, you know, full of, I won't say I was full of myself, but I was, I was certainly confident of my ability and

• 10:06Speaker 02

  I wanted to conquer the world. And I'd had a couple of really tight matches with the current Olympic world champion. So I knew that there was possibility that I could get there for the 80 Olympics. So building up to the 80 Olympics was, was quite interesting because I was kind of coming through the weights and I was halfway in between the 71 kilos weight category and the, the higher weight category of 78 kilograms. And I got third place at the 79 World Championships, the weight below, for the whole year at the higher weight category, didn't win or lose a contest. So I'd beaten everybody in the

• 10:51Speaker 02

  world. And, and then I had to make the decision as to whether to drop. To the weight below because I was seeded in the weight below. It was a different seeding then. See, and so I decided to drop into the weight below because I was seeded in the top four. And as it happens, I think it was probably the worst decision I made. Well, because, simply because, I mean, it was the only contest that I lost was the final of the Olympic Games in that year.

• 11:22Lex Fridman?

  So you're a young kid, what, like nineteen, twenty at that time, full of confidence, vigor. So the decision to cut weight, how hard was it for you to cut weight to the seventy one kg division?

• 11:34Speaker 02

  I've got to say that it was the hardest because as I was going up, I was, you know, it was seventy three, then it was seventy four kilos, seventy five. So I was moving through the weight category. It wasn't like I was stuck in the middle and then I dropped the odd time to compete. It was literally going up in weight by a kilo every, every month. And then by the time I came to a month or two before the Olympics, it was really hard. Fought the European Championships at the higher weight category and won that. And so everybody that was in the, on the Olympic rostrum at the European, at the Olympic

• 12:14Speaker 02

  Games was on my rostrum at the European Championships. So was it a mistake? Yeah, because I didn't have my diet sorted out. My nutrition was appalling. And when I, you know, it wasn't as kind of readily available as it is now for the nutrition. And I would say that if anything lost me that final, other than the fact that I was fighting, somebody was terrific. You know, he was an excellent, brilliant athlete. But definitely didn't help that my nutrition was, was not very good.

• 12:48Lex Fridman?

  Okay, so you lost to Ezio Gama. There's probably a lot of. That we could say about that particular match. Maybe let's zoom in. What were your strengths and weaknesses judo wise in that Olympics? You said you haven't really lost a match. You won the European Championship leading into it. But if you had weak spots, okay, you already said diet, but specifically on the mat in terms of judo.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  I think that's none of the fights lasted time going into the final, you know? So I won fairly quickly and every match by Ipon, you know, way before time.

• 13:24Lex Fridman?

  Do you remember how? Do you know how you won the matches?

• 13:26Speaker 02

  I won them by throw, a couple of throws for Ipon. And then arm lock for Ipon semifinal was an arm lock against the East German Kruger. And yeah, I just, I was flying through, you know?

• 13:39Lex Fridman?

  What were the throws? Do you remember?

• 13:41Speaker 02

  Tayatoshi, Uchimata, my favorite kind of toku was my favorite throws. And, and then Jujikatami as well, you know, which was a Jujikatami roll against an East German who I'd beaten before, but always had a really tough match. But managed to beat him well.

• 14:00Lex Fridman?

  So you had a beautiful exhibition of Japanese type judo in the first two matches. You threw people and then you also did the neowase. You unbarred a person. Great. So you're going into the final. What are the weaknesses going into the final against the Italian?

• 14:15Speaker 02

  Like I say, taking nothing away from him as a great athlete and a brilliant judo man. And, and left, which was not good for me. That was definite no, because I hated fighting lefties, still do. But I'll tell you why in a minute.

• 14:30Lex Fridman?

  Great.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  It's one of those and but I think as I went through the contest, we, we had an eight hour break from the semifinal to the final. They took us back to the Olympic Village. Then we had to come back in and then we had to start a warm up again. You know, so I kind of lost my momentum. I had to start again and I never, I didn't, I just didn't. I had a job to get going. I got halfway through, started to rescue a dying match. And, you know, I was kind of one step, half a step behind all the way through. So never really got into it.

• 15:05Lex Fridman?

  So why do you hate fighting lefties? And lefties are, we should say, overrepresented. In terms of the high ranks of judo, I don't know why that is.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  Well, you know, the thing is about a lefty is a lefty will have more opportunity to fight righties, you know, right-handers, because I mean, seventy, seventy percent of the population are right-handers, thirty percent left, so they get to fight more right-handers. And it's just a fact, you know, that happens. So the thing that they hate is fighting left against left. They don't like, they would, they don't like it left against left. Whereas a right-hander will go right against right, you know, but, but the opposite is awkward.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  For me, because just simply I like to go on to the sleeve and then I like to dominate the grips. But the actual angle of the, of the opponent wasn't what I wanted, you know? So I had to work hard, really hard against it.

• 16:07Lex Fridman?

  What happened in that match?

• 16:09Speaker 02

  It was a split decision in the end. And so to lose an Olympic final on a split decision is, is pretty, you know, it's something that's still on my mind. And, you know, I think that it's a strange one because I can still wake up. That one and, and four years later at the Olympics, because I was silver medalist at the, the Olympics four years later as well. And yeah, it still haunts me.

• 16:36Lex Fridman?

  Do you sometimes wake up and think like, man, I should have eaten better? Or like, or maybe like a specific grip that you're like, ah, I shouldn't have taken that grip?

• 16:45Speaker 02

  I do, you know, I mean, the diet side of it is, it's difficult to, you know, to, to really admit that, isn't it? That you, you went to an Olympic Games and the one thing that you really sucked at, right? Was one of the most important things now at, at world level sport, you know, where you've got the nutrition, you know, we've got it. You would think that most people have got it sorted, but there's still people making mistakes. There's still people that haven't got it totally sorted.

• 17:14Lex Fridman?

  And then there's people like Travis Stevens, who I think. Doesn't care. He'll just have atrocious nutrition and he just makes it work. I think the way he spoke about it is you can't always control nutrition. So it's best to get good at having crappy nutrition.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  It's a good way of looking at it. Yeah, maybe that's what I did.

• 17:35Lex Fridman?

  Exactly, exactly. Do you remember what you were eating? Are we talking about like candy or?

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I got a sweet tooth in, but I wasn't, it wasn't really. I mean, I didn't have a lot of money at that particular time either, you know, so the diet wasn't steak and, you know, good nutritional salads and things like that, you know, I did what I thought was best without, you know, proper advice. And the crazy thing is, is that I had such good advice as well. You know, when it came to kind of fitness training and things like that, we're quite ahead of our time. And, you know, we really had it nailed as far as the conditioning was concerned. The judo training as well was, was way in advance because I was a good trainer and I trained more than most.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  I would, I can honestly say that. It probably got me away with, you know, a lot.

• 18:27Lex Fridman?

  Where was your mind? So mental preparation going into that Olympics? You said you were confident, but is there some preparation aspect behind that confidence?

• 18:37Speaker 02

  I think in the early days, I didn't think I was going to lose. I never thought it was possible to lose. And I think that I went into every contest expecting to win. So when it didn't quite go my way, I didn't lose that many contests, you know. So the only ones I lost were in the final of the world championships or in the final of the Olympic Games. So I didn't lose that many. I never lost a European title, you know, I had seven golds at European Championships, you know, five seniors, two juniors, under twenties. And I never, I never lost a final, you know, so it was, and then I only lost two on a split decision, you know. So it was, I didn't lose that many, but, and, and my attitude was that I wasn't going to lose and I, I couldn't lose.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  You know, so I was always surprised when I did, when I, you know, something happened.

• 19:26Lex Fridman?

  In Neil Adams, A Life in Judo, written in 1986, you wrote, "Ever since I can remember, I have wanted to win. It wasn't the ordinary feeling that children have when they take part in their first primary school sack race on a grass track, or even the keen determination of a young swimmer prepared to train early in the cold winter mornings in order to make it into the county side. With me, the desire to win was and still is as much a part of me as my arms and legs. In other words, it wasn't something I learned as I grew older, but rather it was deeply rooted in me. Perhaps this competitive instinct is the greatest difference between my public image

• 20:11Lex Fridman?

  and the view from the inside. So people see the kindness, the warmth you have, the charisma, the excitement, but there's this big drive to win inside you. So what's behind that? Can you just speak to that, that drive to win and how that contributed to your...

• 20:31Speaker 02

  You know, when I, when I look back now...

• 20:34Lex Fridman?

  This is a lot of years ago, we should say.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  It is a lot of years ago.

• 20:37Lex Fridman?

  Is that true?

• 20:38Speaker 02

  It is, it's not far off. No, you know, it's not, when I think about it now, because I'm a, I'd like to think that I'm a different person now and, you know, since I've kind of calmed down, I see athletes now and I see them, they, they, you know, and they're kind of arrogant, they're, they're walking, it's a strut, you know, and it's a kind of a confidence, isn't it? You know, and, and as we're older and as I've become older, I've calmed down and, but, you know, it doesn't matter what I'm doing, it's still that will to, to win, you know, and, and I'm much better at masking it now if I don't, but it still bothers me as much.

• 21:20Lex Fridman?

  You're talking about like, I don't know, even just like stupid silly things like, like, I don't know, a game of pool or something like this, or just anything?

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm still trying to win, you know, like, so my son loves to, he loves to play me at bowls because I'm useless, you know, and I'm, I just can't throw a straight ball. So he loves playing me at that, you know, but it bugs me that I'm not better, you know, and there are certain things that I do, it really bugs me when I'm not good at it. And I guess it's one of the reasons that, you know, long after I'd finished competition, Judo... People still wanna train with you, you know, and even at a like kind of um an older age, even now, if I do in a seminar or you know, they'd still, you know, do you still do? Do you do you wanna still go and can I feel it?

• 22:10Speaker 02

  And you know, one of the things that's in me is that I just uh all the way up to forty years of age, so from thirty, when I finished competition up to forty, I could still train with the best and I could still go with anybody. And then when forty hit, I kind of things started to fall off a little bit, you know, and I used to get, you know, either my hips or my legs and my knees and and I realized that I had to pick my practices and that rankled as well. And I had to then just calm it down a little bit, otherwise I was gonna be injured and I was gonna be uh, you know, it's it's not a good thing when you're getting older and you you've still got the same competitive mind, but things change.

• 22:52Lex Fridman?

  So it's still there, you get on a on the mat? Probably even now, right? You get on the mat with a world champion, you know, you still, the current world champion, there's still a little part of you.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 23:02Lex Fridman?

  Could I still toss this guy?

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Do you know, and

• 23:04Lex Fridman?

  Kids these days are soft.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  I did. Well, you know what, some of these athletes, I mean, like, I I give you a prime example, right, is Ilias Iliya.

• 23:13Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  All right, I I mean, he is a monster, right?

• 23:17Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  And you just, of course you couldn't, you know, because he just at sixty something, you couldn't. But you like to think that you could, you know, and

• 23:27Lex Fridman?

  You could, you never know, you gotta find out.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  You know what you would do? What you can do is you can cause them problems, but and they feel it immediately, but you'd last a minute, you know.

• 23:37Lex Fridman?

  So you've trained with Ilias Iliya, I've gotten a chance to train with him as well, he's a really nice guy, really great.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  Guy. He trained with me, we were training together, every hotel that we used to go into, we'd end up in the gym together and we'd train. And this one time he was in there and he just wanted somebody to to grab and grip hold of and so we ended up doing this kind of grappling in the middle, you know, like the people doing weight training and much, you know, the different things, watching these two madmen doing uh, I'm glad we weren't on a mat at that particular time.

• 24:08Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 24:09Speaker 02

  But good fun.

• 24:09Lex Fridman?

  What do you think about that guy? He, like you?

• 24:13Lex Fridman?

  Achieved a lot of success when he was young.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  Seventeen, you imagine that seventeen, eighteen years of age and he's able to compete with the men. And there's not many men can do that, you know, and it doesn't happen very often. It happens later with the men and often they're not physically as developed as they, you know. So from me, for example, I fought Nevzorov, who was world and Olympic champion. He was the current world Olympic champion and they sent me to the European Championships senior at seventeen. And so that doesn't happen very often and I fought, I pulled Nevzorov. So I fought Nevzorov and I had him really worried, you know, because I, he expected without a doubt to come out, throw this kid, you know, and junior.

• 24:59Lex Fridman?

  And he was like thick and shredded, like he's a man.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  He was shredded, he's like, there's a picture of him in his judogi and his judogi is just cut and it's, you know, and he, and he looks the business and there's me in this baggy, like, yeah, skinny kid inside this baggy thing. But I, you know, I, and the thing was, is that the more he tried and the harder he tried and the more he panicked, the further it went away from him. And so, you know, of course he got, he got the decision at the end and deservedly. But I worried him, you know, and so, and, and so for me, that was a massive step forward because

• 25:40Speaker 02

  a year later I was, you know, starting to fill out and two years later I was competing for the Olympic title, so.

• 25:50Lex Fridman?

  I don't know if I remember, but Elise Iliadis is interesting because even at seventeen, I feel like he was doing big throws, like literally lifting them with his.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  Just rips them out of the ground, you know, and I was saying to, to Nikki, you know, my wife and we, she said, what would you do now? That was different than the way you did then, you know, and I said, but I never had any pickups, you know, I didn't, that's not, that's not what we did. You know, but you have a look at the, the young Ukraines or the, you know, the young Russians or the young Eastern Bloc. Mongolians and they're ripping people out the ground. I mean, it's it's just different style of judo and it's it it just looks different. But now they're starting to do traditional style judo as well.

• 26:36Lex Fridman?

  So can you speak to that with the different styles of judo? So for you, you mentioned Uchimata, Taitoshi, these, these. How would you describe them? They're like these effortless, less lifting off the ground and power and like strength and explode and more timing and

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, movement.

• 26:52Lex Fridman?

  Position, movement, momentum, all this kind of stuff. That's more traditionally associated with Japanese judo. Cause like for Japanese judo, the traditional judo, like you're supposed to throw people in a big way without much effort.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  And of course, we, 1990, we saw the introduction of all these Eastern Bloc countries, you know, the

• 27:16Speaker 02

  there were so many more. I mean, it was Soviet Union when I was competing. And then, of course, in 1990, everything changed. And then there were so many more of them out there, different countries where, you know, that that their wrestling styles were were introduced into judo. To put, you know, put a jacket on them and let's get into judo. So judo kind of changed shape. It it changed shape from this upright, standing, you know, the and and having to know the technicalities of how to get a a body that's weighing forty, you know, um, fourteen stone or, you know, whatever it is up into the air and using the momentum and the balance and the direction and and the skill

• 27:58Speaker 02

  to do that and knowing how to do it, you know, and how to use movement. And then you get, you know, the wrestlers and and the the leg picks and the double leg, single leg, double legs and, you know, and it kind of by 1995, you know, judo was was bent over. And so it was the IOC that went to I J F, International Judo Federation. And they said, You've got to change this, or we're just gonna have one wrestling style. It looks like wrestling with judo, with judo jackets on. So you either change it, or we're gonna take one of you out.

• 28:33Lex Fridman?

  By the way, we should sort of clarify, when we say people are bent over, that's usually how you see freestyle wrestling. Wrestlers are more bent over to defend the legs and so on. And traditionally judo, people are more standing up because that's the position for which you can do the big throws and all that kind of stuff. But I think the other case to make for banning leg grabs is, you know, a lot of people are using it for stalling and not for beautiful big throws and all that kind of stuff. So it's not just not to make it different from wrestling. It's also like you want to maximize the amount of epic throws and dynamic judo and exciting stuff to watch, right?

• 29:10Speaker 02

  Win by judo, not by wrestling. And I think that, you know, the ones that were shouting about it were the wrestlers, right? Because they like to compete with both. They like, they want to do both. They want to do, you know, their wrestling matches and then come into judo. So basically, I mean, what we've said is they learn to do judo and there's nothing stopping you then from doing both, right? But not from the other way around. All right, so rules always dictate development. They'll always dictate which direction it goes. So if you introduce a rule that states that you cannot dive at the legs and just pick up, then you'll have to do it standing up.

• 29:53Speaker 02

  And also, it increases the possibility of defense with the hips. Because actually, good defense judo wise, standing up is with the hips as opposed to sticking your arms out and then sticking your backsides out there just to defend. All right, so if you attack me and I move my body in the wrong place, so I'm in the right, wrong place at the right time, so you don't hit the right target, and then also I use my hips. You know, so again, it's a form of judo that was being lost. So now we got it back.

• 30:28Lex Fridman?

  Well, so let's go there. Let's speak about judo.

• 30:32Lex Fridman?

  As if we're talking to a group of five year olds. So what is judo? What are some defining characteristics of judo as a sport? As a way, as a martial art, as a way of life, all that kind of stuff?

• 30:44Speaker 02

  I think, you know, when you say it is a way of life, I mean, the, um, I think the, the great advantage that we have in judo, my young grandson, so I got two, two little boys that are three and a half years of age, love going to our dojo. They love it, you know? So dojo was the first word that they used. It was one of the first, so when they come to see us, you know, so to see my wife and I, you know, it's like dojo. It's not grandma, granddad, you know, it's a dojo. So dojo, they take their shoes off going into the dojo, you know? So they have respect for where they're at, you know? And I think it has that kind of feeling that, uh, like I tried to build my dojo

• 31:29Speaker 02

  with a feeling of reverence. It's kind of almost peaceful, you know? So if I like, I'm not religious, I'm not a religious person, but I like going to old churches because when I go into an old church, doesn't matter, you know, what the religion within the church, but it, there's a, there's a reverence in there.

• 31:45Lex Fridman?

  Reverence is a good word. It feels like a really special place, no matter which dojo you go to. It's just you bow and there's a calmness before the storm of battle or whatever it is.

• 31:58Speaker 02

  And respect, you know? I mean, look at the respect, you know? We were just talking about it just before we came on, on air. We were just saying that we very, very seldom do we have a situation where there is animosity other than them fighting, you know? So I'm, I'm not saying that they don't fight each other because sometimes it does turn into a brawl. And at the end, two people bow off and show their respect, you know? And, and one of the things that, you know, like, so a champion, I see people winning events and they're good judo caro, they're excellent, they win world championships, might even win the Olympic games, but a great champion for me.

• 32:41Speaker 02

  Is is somebody who treats uh who who does the right thing when they lose, you know. So when you see them lose, that's when you see the true them, you know. And actually, that was one of the biggest things that I had to really cope with, you know. So when I lost that Olympic Games in Moscow and also the one in in um Los Angeles. The hardest thing is when the microphone's in there and and you've got to be respectful and nice and and the hardest thing is to smile. But actually, some of the great champions, you know, they'll they'll go, that's just one match, you know. I remember uh we've got um we've got one great champion, Agbeg Nanou.

• 33:26Speaker 02

  She's a five-time world champion, so Olympic champion. She's got she's favorite as well to to get this Olympic gold medal, French. What a great champion she is, you know, because um she lost one of the matches. I mean, she'd come back and um uh she'd uh given birth, come back af- after giving birth, and everybody was going, well, was she, you know, but then she and then she lost one of the matches on the way through. And she said, oh, don't be, don't be upset, you know, it's just one match. It's just one contest, you know. Next time, I'm gonna put it right. And she did put it right, and now she's back up there and she she won the world title back. So, you know, the these are great champions for me.

• 34:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I mean, that's the right way to see it, but it's also tragic to lose the Olympic Games, you know.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  Twice.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  Yes. It is tragic, and I do I do have sleepless nights.

• 34:23Lex Fridman?

  I mean, that's the the magic of the Olympic Games. Anything can happen, and your nineteen eighty Olympics were very different from the nineteen eighty-four. But if we just linger on the um on the eighty and just your what we're talking about.

• 34:38Lex Fridman?

  How much you wanted to win? Do you love winning or hate losing more?

• 34:43Speaker 02

  I hate losing more, but I love winning. When I won the world title a year later and I had no doubt when I went in that day that I was going to be world champion, no doubt.

• 34:57Lex Fridman?

  So you won the eighty one world championship?

• 35:00Speaker 02

  At the higher weight.

• 35:02Lex Fridman?

  At the higher, the seventy eight?

• 35:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 35:05Lex Fridman?

  KG.

• 35:07Lex Fridman?

  Actually, can we go there? What was going through your mind? You ended up unbarring a Japanese fighter. I talked to Jimmy Pedro, a friend of yours, somebody who said you were a mentor to him for many years. And he's told me a bunch of different questions to ask you. But he said that was a really special time. That was a really special, like dominant run you had. And especially finishing with an arm break against a Japanese player. So take me through that. What do you remember from that?

• 35:41Speaker 02

  I think that it was, so my weight was better. I didn't have to lose weight. That was one thing. So the nutritional side wasn't as important, but probably, you know, it still wasn't as good as it could be. My nutrition, although it was getting better and I was trying to eat the right things at the right time.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  But I still trained really well and I was so confident there going into that world championships that I could win it. I had no doubt in my mind that I was going to win. But, you know, obviously a corner of your mind, you're thinking, just don't make mistakes. But, you know, this is the incredible thing is, is that once you start to ask you, once I see contests change direction when I'm commentating, so I can see somebody who's in there just going forward, just trying to win. Right? So that, and that's a difference to somebody who's trying not to lose. And it's two different ways there, you know? So sometimes when you, so when I was world champion, then I had a period of time where every time I stepped

• 36:48Speaker 02

  out there, I was really afraid of losing. And I think that that's what happens later on in your competitive career. You know, the great champions manage to come through that. Teddy Rene is one of those, you know, he just, he puts it out there and he keeps beating them, you know, so they can't take it away from him. You know, it's fantastic.

• 37:10Lex Fridman?

  So stepping on the mat, every single encounter, you're trying to win. You're looking for the grips and the, with the intention to throw, throw big, even when you're ahead on points, all that kind of stuff.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  That's a really good point is that if you go ahead in a match and you look at the clock, it depends when you go ahead. So sometimes you can go ahead in the first minute and you've still got three minutes to go. So I see the ones then that go into, I don't want to lose because they go into defensive mode. And then sometimes they can lose it on penalties or something can go wrong. And the other one comes on strong and then they can sneak the contest. And so it's, it's really difficult, but what, when I was coaching, I was trying to always encourage that positive attitude for the full four minutes, five minutes then.

• 37:59Lex Fridman?

  I've competed a lot in judo and jiu jitsu. I've always hated that part of myself. When I'm up on points by a lot, you look at the clock and it's what you do when you look at the clock. Minute and a half, you're really tired and you kind of quit. You just defend.

• 38:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:16Lex Fridman?

  And I hated that part about myself. It's like that.

• 38:18Speaker 02

  Saying, don't do it.

• 38:19Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Well, as opposed to just go out in, in judo, that's a for a big throw. Just keep going for the throw and jiu jitsu is go for the submission. Like throw caution, like win in the real way versus on, on, on points. I hated that part of myself. I mean, mostly underneath that is cowardice induced by exhaustion.

• 38:39Speaker 02

  Exhaustion's the one, isn't it? You know, but it is, isn't it? It's a mindset as well, you know? So actually trying to get your mind positive all the way through, you know? So I, I mean, if you listen, when I commentated now is I say, I hope that they don't change the mindset and that they keep on, and they are going forward all the time, you know? And actually they're then more difficult to catch. We had one just a couple of weeks ago and he lost in the final second of the contest. Lost the final, he was the only one to score. He got penalized all the way up. Two seconds to go and stepped out of the area and you know, but he went like that thinking

• 39:21Speaker 02

  the bell was just going and the bell went one second after he actually stepped out. So he got penalized, lost the match and lost all of the points for qualification. So it was, you know, that's paying high price. That's paying high price.

• 39:40Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I mean, there's a thin line between triumph and tragedy in those competitions, but especially at the Olympic Games. So let's just stick on eighty-one world championship. What did it feel like to win that world championship? Like, and also getting an armbar as a Japanese player. Jimmy told me your arms were exhausted.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you just, I, the thing is, is sometimes, you know, when you're going, when it's competitive as well, you know, ours is a different intensity to like, do you just, where you can take time a little bit. Ours is bang, it's transitioning from standing down, you've got ten, fifteen seconds to go in there, you go in a hundred percent. It's a bit like running, you know, full out for ten seconds, like, and then you've got to decide then, especially if they're defending it, whether you let it go. Because when you get up and your forearms are blown, you know, and you've got lactic acid in there and you've still got to grip up. Because remember, ours is about gripping as well on the jacket.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  So if you can't grip up, then you can't gain the advantage, then they can throw you, you know. So you have to decide. So I had a massive attack on him and we changed directions four or five times and then I wasn't going to let him go. But I still, you know, when I was turning him there, I had to decide, am I going to go all out for this and just, or, you know, like, there has been occasions when I've kind of released it to just, you know, if I've got a minute to go and just block out, yeah.

• 41:17Lex Fridman?

  So, so what you're saying on the feet, there was a change of direction, all different kinds of attempts, and then you went to the ground?

• 41:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:23Lex Fridman?

  So what was that? Do you remember that decision of like, okay, am I gonna finish this?

• 41:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I knew it. I just, as soon as I climbed his back and, and then I thought, he's not going, he's not gonna, I'm not gonna let him up, you know? So I was just changing.

• 41:36Lex Fridman?

  Low voice in your head.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  Something in my head was going, don't, don't, you know, just stick on him. And, and then it's always about pressure on the arm and, and I just, you know, and of course, he was like that, you know, defending, you know, he was almost total bridge, trying to get out of it.

• 41:53Lex Fridman?

  Did it start in turtle and then like, did you flip him?

• 41:56Speaker 02

  Started in turtle because I, I did an attack, came back out of the attack and then he went on to his front. And then I was on his back and then I started the whole.

• 42:07Lex Fridman?

  Saw an opening and you just went for it?

• 42:08Speaker 02

  Yes, I was, it was an automatic transition. So, I mean, the transitions are what we teach, you know, because the ones that are quicker down with the transitions are the ones that catch it. That's our neowaza, you know, our groundwork is the transition from standing down to ground. It's very, you know, we don't have a situation where you can kind of work your way in, you are in or you're, you're not in, you're standing, you know? So you've got to make sure that you're in. And so I had, I was just on his back like a leech and I never let him go.

• 42:38Lex Fridman?

  So you, I mean, yeah, so that's where the arm bars, that's where the attacks on the ground, which is called neowaza, happens in the transition.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:46Lex Fridman?

  At that level, at that high world-class level.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, he was no mug either. I, I think he just got third, third place in the All Japan Championships, which is all weight categories. So he was, he wasn't a mug, you know, he was, he was strong and I'd fought him once before and, and I knew he was a hefty as well, which was really awkward for me.

• 43:08Lex Fridman?

  Did it feel good?

• 43:09Speaker 02

  Better for me than him.

• 43:10Lex Fridman?

  Did it?

• 43:11Speaker 02

  It did, it felt, it felt amazing, you know, because it was almost like all these things, disappointments and everything had kind of come to this one point where I was at last kind of champion of the world. It's everything I said as a kid, that I had no idea how difficult it was gonna be, you know? So as a kid, as a 14-year-old kid, I remember saying, I'm gonna be world champion, I'm gonna be the best in the world. I had no idea how difficult that was gonna be.

• 43:39Lex Fridman?

  Well, there's wisdom to that, right? Like, uh, there's power in stupidity of youth.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  I like that.

• 43:45Lex Fridman?

  Right? Like, just like, I'm gonna be a world champion, I'm gonna win this without knowing how hard it is. And then, uh, once you go after it, it's, uh, you're trapped. You're gonna have to do the work.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I mean, you stayed a lot with parents as well, don't you? You know, parents, you know, our little Johnny is, is, you know, he's amazing and he's this, that and the other. And they have no idea what's, you know, out there. I remember the very first time I stepped out, nineteen seventy-four, uh, into the European cadets. Uh, and I remember, um, that we were fighting. I'd only ever fought in Great Britain. I was the top, you know, I, I, I was unbeaten in, in the juniors, kids. And went out there and, um, there were these, um, different fighters out there that were treating me with total disdain. And I remember thinking, how dare they, you know, that just, you know?

• 44:39Speaker 02

  And I realized when I came back from that event, there's other people out there. There's just a whole, you know, and there are different levels of, you know, the, the majority of people are just not informed as to what's out there and the different levels that there are out there.

• 44:53Lex Fridman?

  Do you remember like a, a certain opponent that for the first time you felt like, holy shit?

• 45:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:00Lex Fridman?

  There's pop, like somebody's just gripped you up and you're like, this is, there's another level to this game.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  Ezio was, uh, Ezio was one of them and, um, I fought him, uh, you know, and I beat him in the European Championships. I beat him in, you know, two, two times and then lost to him in the Olympic Games, two months after I'd beaten him in the European Championships. Yeah, yeah. So it wasn't, that, that, that made it even more difficult, right?

• 45:25Lex Fridman?

  Nemesis there.

• 45:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. So that made it more difficult. And, um, so he, Ezio was one. And, uh, getting hold of, uh, I remember, um, uh, getting hold of Nishida of, uh, Japan. And, uh, he had me going up and down and, uh, I just, I thought, wow, this guy is amazing, you know? And, uh, I'd never fought, first time I ever fought Japanese in a major tournament, you know? And, um, I felt the danger, I always talk about the danger when we go out to Japan to train. I could go probably months without getting thrown in training here in Europe and and I go to Japan and you know, everybody's throwing you, you know, and that's difficult

• 46:10Speaker 02

  to accept. And the reason that kind of danger and that kind of um, a feeling of danger is something that puts a real edge on, you know, and so that was first time when I got hold of Nishida, I thought, oh my God, you know, this guy, you know, it didn't matter which way he was turning like that, he stretched out and, and I thought this, I, I wanna do this, you know, and then I ended up fighting him again in Japan.

• 46:38Lex Fridman?

  So that feeling of danger is really interesting. It's like I've, uh, I've, you know, did Rendori with a lot of world-class people from different parts of the world, including Ilisiliadis. And like there's certain part, like Eastern European judo, you're, you feel like you're screwed the whole way through. Like, uh, the gripping, you really feel it in the gripping.

• 47:01Speaker 02

  It's the gripping that does it.

• 47:02Lex Fridman?

  But in with Japanese, like really good Japanese style judoka, you don't, it's like, it's a terrifying calmness, or at least, at least the experiences I've had, you don't really feel it in the gripping. You just feel like anywhere you step, you're getting thrown. It's a different.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  It's a different thing, isn't it?

• 47:20Lex Fridman?

  It's a different thing.

• 47:21Speaker 02

  So, I mean, mine was kind of a mixture. I liked it to be a mixture because there was, um, the gripping is definitely the key point. So if you get a high level guys that are gripping up, and I always used to put this to the referees, um, when we were doing referee seminars, when we first started them, and I'd say, how many, because like they would referee to their understanding of the match. So they were penalizing for certain grips that were, you know, and, and actually, so... As an ex athlete, uh, high level, I would say, have you ever gripped up with high level? All right. Because if you haven't, you need to do it. Because then you will understand why they do certain things with the grips.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  Because these guys are like, you know, when somebody grips you and you think, you know, you're gonna go. When Iliadis puts his arm over your back, all right, and you, you know, you're gonna go up and over. You know, you're gonna go over, you know, that's it.

• 48:19Lex Fridman?

  It's a cool feeling. It's like, whatever.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  Not for me.

• 48:22Lex Fridman?

  I understand. But it's like, I mean, because it's not, uh, it feels way more powerful than it should.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:31Lex Fridman?

  It's weird. I don't know. You want to attribute it to strength and all that kind of stuff. And people say you have like immense upper body strength, but it's probably something else. It's like technique, it's some kind of weird.

• 48:42Speaker 02

  It's a mix of everything.

• 48:43Lex Fridman?

  Just like something hardened through lots of battles and randori and that kind of stuff.

• 48:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:49Lex Fridman?

  But it's cool that humans are able to generate that kind of power. It's cool.

• 48:53Speaker 02

  When I was, um, eighty four Olympics, but I'm just gonna go there now just quickly. But, um, there was, um, uh, we had a freestyle wrestler. Uh, he's American, actually, but he had the English, um, uh, nationality. So he competed for, um, Noel Loban, his name is, and he competed for Great Britain. He got third place at the Olympics in eighty four. But he was training, uh, we were training at Budokai and he was training. He came to do some judo and put jacket on. And of course he was training with some of the lower levels and he was really handling himself well. And then, um, he said, I need to feel, you know, he, when we did randori, you know, so I, he did some randori with me.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  And, uh, and I immediately thought, I gotta catch it. I gotta stop single leg and double leg because he, he was really quick, right? So strong as well, ninety something kilos. He was like, you know, he's a big guy. So I caught his sleeve, immediately caught and controlled him and, and then he couldn't start, right? So he said, I needed to feel the difference. So then I thought.

• 50:04Speaker 02

  I better reciprocate this. So I said, well, you know, so we did the Randoory and I throw him a couple of times. He said, I'm really glad we did that. So then I said, I need to feel the difference as well. So we take the jackets off. So we took the jackets off and he was a nightmare. This guy was a nightmare and like a monster, you know, and he was like single legging me and, and you know, it was just totally different, you know. So it was like the jacket makes a massive difference, huge difference to something, you know, and, and people think it's just a jacket that we're wearing, but it isn't. It's, it's our only tool, actually.

• 50:43Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. And it's control. I mean, it's a way of establishing control over another body. And it's a whole art form and a science. And I don't even know if you understand it really. You understand it sort of subconsciously through time. Yeah. Cause like it, there's so much involved because pulling on one part of the jacket pulls other parts of the jacket. And yeah, like the physics of that is probably insane to understand.

• 51:06Speaker 02

  It's absolutely insane. And then, you know, they, they changed the rules for a little while and they changed the rules so that you couldn't hold, uh, you know, that certain grips were not allowed. You only allowed certain amount of time and there were a lot of penalties for him. You know, and then, you know, they had some of the ex fighters into the referee commission. And so we were pushing for just let them grip, you know, because that's, that's, that's our game. You know, that's what makes us different. You know, again, if, if grip up with somebody like, so they were on about Teddy Renee. Teddy Renee comes out, takes the sleeve.

• 51:43Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 51:43Speaker 02

  Big arm over the top and, and then, you know, he throws people, right? So they were saying, yeah, but stop, you can't stop him doing it. This guy is six foot nine.

• 51:53Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 51:53Speaker 02

  And he is built like Garth, you know, he's like, and he's, he's, and not only that, he's skillful as well, you know, and, and, and he's got that mentality of a winner. He has got that mentality of a winner there. He just wins important matches.

• 52:07Lex Fridman?

  And he goes over the top of the grip. Do they, where's that land now in terms of rules over the top? Cause those are some of the most epic, awesome types of grips.

• 52:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:16Lex Fridman?

  Uh, just like over the top, just big grab.

• 52:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, as long as they throw from it. So they can take any grip. As long as you move them and then catch them kind of action reaction, really, you know, as long as you catch them on the move, then you can do it.

• 52:31Lex Fridman?

  So as long as you're not using it to stall or that kind of stuff?

• 52:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can't block out.

• 52:35Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 52:36Speaker 02

  So I mean, if I so like, for example, if I've got dominant grip on you and I just block out and I'm just stop, I just stop you attacking me. So then what? I get you three penalties, get you off and you haven't done an attack. So you've got to stop that. You can't have that.

• 52:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, definitely. You were the favorite to win the 1984 Olympics, but you got silver. I watched that match several times. You probably having have it playing in your head. So there is a nice change of direction by your opponent, German Frank Wunneke.

• 53:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:11Lex Fridman?

  It was a fake right Uchimata and then to a left drop Seonagi.

• 53:18Lex Fridman?

  Uh, how did that loss feel?

• 53:22Speaker 02

  Devastating is is not, you know, is not enough really. Um, because, you know, the strange thing was is coming into that Olympics, I was tired, really tired. So my mental state wasn't the best, wasn't certainly the same as it was coming into the previous. Um, and I, I remember thinking, I just need to get this over with and then I'm going to have a break and just have a rest, you know, and, and that's totally the wrong attitude. It's just not, not good for, for going into an Olympic Games. And so I, I was coming

• 54:01Speaker 02

  in there with a different mindset. And I remember every match that I had, I was winning well, but I was winning with a struggle, you know, it was, it was really not, I'd fought Novak and I was pretty of France, who was one of the strongest physically. Uh, that was in the quarterfinals. I beat Brett Baron by an Ipon. I, I arm locked him. Um, I. Won my first match by upon as well. And then Michel Novak, I was fighting of France. And I was lucky to to to win it. I was up, I would scored on him.

• 54:40Speaker 02

  But I was like, starting to defend and just everything that I talked to you about, you know, and then just about held on and and then I won and, you know, so him and I were talking afterwards, like some years afterwards. And he said, I was close, wasn't I? I was, yeah, but not close enough.

• 54:59Speaker 02

  I didn't mean it.

• 55:00Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 55:01Speaker 02

  But I had to say it, right?

• 55:03Lex Fridman?

  Of course, of course.

• 55:04Speaker 02

  So I, and no, he was right, you know, and it was one of those. So I was through to the semifinal. I fought Lassac in the semifinal of, and I'd fought him in the semifinal of the Worlds as well. I'd never gone time with him, you know, I'd never, I'd always beaten him fairly easily and with by upon. And that went time. So I was, you know, I was just, just glad to get it done. And I was in the final then against Frank Vineker of Germany. And I'd beaten Vineker before, but he was just a young German coming through. And when I started the final, I was, I thought, right, I've just, I, and I started

• 55:50Speaker 02

  all my techniques, just that little bit off. Nothing was coordinated. Just, it was just, I can't really explain why it was just a little bit off. I, I see it so often now with a lot of the guys that are going for second, third Olympic Games. And I see their, their technique just not quite there and they're struggling and and I know when they're, you know, I know what they're going through and I kind of empathize with them.

• 56:14Lex Fridman?

  Well, you were, it felt like you were dominating that final.

• 56:16Speaker 02

  I dominated it. Yeah, I was winning. Yeah, I was, I, I, and, and actually, if it had gone another minute and a half, it would have been all over and I would have been Olympic champion. And it would have been done. He wouldn't have battered an eyelid, right? Because he, he would have fought me really, really well. And he would have, you know, we talked about it afterwards and he said, he was, it was just my good day for me, you know, and he knows he was very respectful. This guy is very respectful.

• 56:39Lex Fridman?

  He was the surprised almost, I mean, not almost, he was very surprised and celebrating like a surprise.

• 56:45Speaker 02

  Jumping up and down like, you know, he just, and. You can look at that, can't you? Go, well, it wasn't it on, but you know, would I got it back? I don't know. But I just, I think that actually taking the pressure off, because that was another thing as well. Pressure of being favorite, you know, and I see that with a lot of them. And, you know, the great champions, the ones that keep coming through, Capellic. There's a guy, you know, he can look very ordinary and then comes the big tournament and he'll win it.

• 57:18Lex Fridman?

  The tragedy of the Olympic Games. I mean, you were the favorite and just like that, like split moment, you lost it.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Split moment, devastated and lived it probably not every day, but you know, Nikki, my wife will tell you that. Woken up in sweats and, you know, and I, and I think they contributed as well because I had a period of my, my life after. Where I was drinking too much and, you know, and, and I think kind of when I look back, kind of led into. Those that, that kind of dark period of my life, you know, and I never, ever, ever, you know, did it go through my mind. Anything else, but it definitely affected me and I was on a downward kind of spiral in a lot of different ways.

• 58:09Speaker 02

  And would still even, you know, we, we have an amazing marriage and we have an amazing family and. Everything's great, but I still wake up sometimes and I'll say, I've just dreamt, you know, that. And it's the same reoccurring dream where I'm trying to get somewhere and I'm trying to put it right, you know, and I, I've got. This chance of putting this Olympic final right, you know, in, in, in this dream, I've got a chance of doing. But I can't get there and the traffic's stopping me or something stops me and I, you know, and then I wake up and I'm sweating and it's. And you think, well, after all this time, that's not possible, but it is and it happens.

• 58:48Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I mean, in the match itself, there's that feeling for me just watching it like you're you're going for throws, you're you're almost getting there with the throws and it's almost like he's going for a kind of crappy Uchimata and then you're just like you're stopping, you're blocking it and all of a sudden, I mean, that's the beauty of the Olympics. He finds it in himself to switch.

• 59:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:11Lex Fridman?

  In that like against a favorite, against sort of the great British judoka, just finds the perfect drop Sanagi.

• 59:20Speaker 02

  Well, you know, his his team doctor and coach, he came up to me afterwards and said, I'm just really sorry. And that's all they said is I'm just really sorry. They were sorry because, you know, obviously the obvious sadness about that, you know, and and of course, everybody takes their, you know, I went actually two and a, was it three weeks later, the German Open. So he he had to compete in the German Open three weeks later. So I went over to fight him and and beat him in the final of the German Open. And it didn't do anything for me because it was a much tighter match. He was a lot closer. He had

• 1:00:03Speaker 02

  a lot more confidence coming in. So he fought me a lot differently. And then it was me pulling it back and just managing to win in the final. And I thought, well, that might appease it appeased nothing, didn't do anything.

• 1:00:17Lex Fridman?

  When you give your whole life to judo, just and your love of winning, that's crazy how much the Olympic Games mean.

• 1:00:24Speaker 02

  It it means so much. And I think, you know, but I I've got to and I've got to say this, and this is honestly, you know, if it meant that if I'd have won that Olympic Games and it had to change my life into a different direction, which I probably would have not competed in the 88 Olympic Games then. All right. So if it had changed my life and then I didn't have, I didn't meet my wife and I, you know, didn't have my family that I've got now, there's no, you know, I would, I wouldn't swap that, what I've got now for anything.

• 1:00:55Lex Fridman?

  Well, part of the demons that you've gotten to know because of those losses is part of probably the central reason that made you the man you are. A legend of the sport, you could have been not that. Cause an Olympic gold is just an Olympic gold.

• 1:01:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it is, isn't it? You know, and I think that there's a lot of Olympic champions and world champions that win and then are forgotten. And I said to Nikki, I said, my wife, I said, I don't want to be forgotten and I want to be remembered. So I'm going to do anything, anything I do, if I'm going to do commentary or whatever it is, or coaching, I want to do coaching to a high level and I want to commentate at a high level. I remember the first commentary I ever did, it was terrible and, and I just thought I've got to do better than this. And I, I thought I just, I need to do it well and I've got to do it professionally.

• 1:01:55Lex Fridman?

  So in the book, A Game of Throws, you have a chapter titled Lessons in Losing. So what are some of the lessons here? What are the, some of the deeper lessons you've pulled out of losing?

• 1:02:08Speaker 02

  I think great champions are made up of the people that handle it in the right way. And you could say, well, I, I don't like losing and I, you know, and you could throw your dummy out the pram and you can be a bad loser in front of everybody. And actually people pick up on that very, very quickly. You know what it's like in broadcasting, right? Somebody has a, a bad word to say about somebody and, yep. And you, it, but, but actually the ones that endear themselves to you are the ones that handle it in the right way, the correct way. Doesn't mean that you've got to like it. I didn't like it and I thought that I handled it certainly in later years in the right way.

• 1:02:52Speaker 02

  Uh, and I like to see athletes do it in the right way, you know? And I, I think that's, it's a make or break situation. It's not, not all the contests they win, it's the one that they lose and then how they pick themselves up and handle themselves after. So I think that, that is a big one for me and also. I mean, I I went through, you know, obviously a later divorce. And that was difficult on my son, really difficult on Ashley. And then I was, and I think that some of that was the fact that I was, you know, kind of, I wasn't drinking all the time, but I was drinking in excess at the wrong times. You know, and I think that that's what a lot of people do sometimes is that

• 1:03:34Speaker 02

  they use it for the wrong reasons, you know, and I I used to hear it, I still I hear it now all the time. You know, and is that, you know, I I need to knock the edge off and I need need to just forget. And I need to, you know, and you need to be in a fuzzy place for a while. And I had a lot of time in a in fuzzy place. And I needed to get rid of that, you know, and I needed to clear my head.

• 1:03:58Lex Fridman?

  Where was that place? The some of the lower points in your life that you've reached mentally?

• 1:04:07Speaker 02

  I think, you know, definitely, you know, the fact that um, my marriage, first marriage didn't work, you know, and that was a, you know, it's a mix of things that, you know, between us. And and then, you know, so that's not where I wanted to be at the time. And the effects that it had on my son. And it took a long time for him then to come around and to to trust me again. You know, and and to have belief, he always had belief in me, but to trust me again. And then I think that that that was low and and I think that, you know, when I look back

• 1:04:50Speaker 02

  is that a lot of my bad decisions were when I was in that fuzzy kind of haze. And that it got progressively worse, that got progressively worse. Uh, to the degree where it was, you know, trying to hide it and trying to hide how much. Uh, and I was kind of a functioning. Kind of drunk, you know, I think you could probably say that. And I, you know, I was functioning, I was still able to, I was still training most days. Crazily enough, you know, I was training to kind of mask it and cover it. And that was probably my savior that I was still, you know, because I remember I said to my wife, I said to Nikki,

• 1:05:32Speaker 02

  I'm probably the fittest, if I'm, you know, a drunk, then I'm a fittest drunk in the world. She said, yeah, you probably are actually, you know, I was in great condition for a drunk.

• 1:05:42Lex Fridman?

  So the fuzzy haze, where was your mind? Did you have periods of depression?

• 1:05:50Speaker 02

  I had periods of depression. I can honestly say that my depression wasn't that bad, although I did, you know, when it's like anything that gives you an up, you know, it gives you an even bigger down, doesn't it, you know? And so I hated that feeling and also hated myself for letting it happen. Because I have got this really, it's a bizarre.

• 1:06:18Speaker 02

  I don't know whether you can call it a power, but I have the ability to be able to say, stop. And I can just, and that's what I did in the end. In the end, there was an incident when I was working for Belgian judo. And there was an incident, it was Christmas, it was the, I tell you exactly the day, it was 20th of December. And me and a Belgian coach, we got absolutely hammered. But we were at the wrong place and he got noticed. And so I remember they pulled me up in front of this board. And I looked down at these guys and half of them were people I didn't want to be

• 1:07:02Speaker 02

  in that situation with, you know, they're not people that I respected and they're not people that I trusted.

• 1:07:10Speaker 02

  So I said, um, if you're gonna sack me, sack me, but I can, I'll promise you now that I will just, this, this is it, I'll stop. I'm just gonna stop. I've decided. On the way back in the car, I rang Nikki up, my wife, and I said, whatever you hear now, whatever, I'm just gonna stop. So that was it? Stopped.

• 1:07:36Lex Fridman?

  You just saw the moment and said, stop?

• 1:07:40Speaker 02

  Stop.

• 1:07:41Lex Fridman?

  So that fuzzy place, what advice could you give to people while how to overcome that, that dark place, the depression, whether it has to do with drinking or not?

• 1:07:52Speaker 02

  I think, um, if it's to do with drinking, all I can say is, is that the, um, two days or a week into not drinking, you'll feel different, you know, it'll make a physical difference and you'll like that physical difference. And then from a mental perspective as well, because I think that, um, you know, you, you have a massive downer, you know, um, and I, I think that that must be because of drugs as well, because I had a situation with my brother, you know, he was like, um, you know, um, he was professional wrestling and the drugs was an element there and, you know, so I'd never touched a drug

• 1:08:37Speaker 02

  or even seen one in my life. But, um, you know, I'd let the alcohol side go too far and then decided never to do that. So then I guess I had people ringing me up, you know, saying, you know, how, how can we stop, you know? So when they say, can I have a word? Can I discuss something with you? And I know then what they want to discuss with me, you know? And, and the thing is, is that I would say, you know, if you stop, then feel the effects of, of, of, of it and it will make a difference to your everyday life and that, that will make a massive difference. And I think about anybody who kind of, you

• 1:09:17Speaker 02

  know, is down all the time is to find the, the cause of what's pushing you down, you know what I mean? And, and, and try and, um, try and attack that. I mean, because it's never, somebody once said to me, they said,

• 1:09:34Speaker 02

  Whatever you got, you know, we we've got something special. I mean, we we have a great life and I've had a great competition record, you know, it could have been better, but it was great. But I I've had success with my business and we're still out there and we have a great life. We travel all the world and, you know, there's people out there that would live in your house at the drop of a hat, wherever you are, they'd drive your car, you know, no matter what car it is. Some people haven't got a car, you know, and whatever food you're having and you're moaning about food, right, that that somebody out there that would take that and gladly eat that. All right. So there's always somebody

• 1:10:17Speaker 02

  worse off than you. And I think that we tend to sometimes, you know, look at the things that we haven't got rather than the things we have got.

• 1:10:25Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's a skill probably just to be grateful for the things you have, exactly as you said, in this, sometimes the little things like food and

• 1:10:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:35Lex Fridman?

  Cars and all that kind of stuff, just to have gratitude for and family, all this kind of stuff. But it's still, I, you know, having talked to a bunch of Olympic athletes,

• 1:10:47Lex Fridman?

  there is a, you know, when you give so much of your life to winning and then you lose, sometimes even when you win, but when you lose at the very top, it's a tough, tough, like tough thing to go through.

• 1:11:03Speaker 02

  The most difficult thing, I think, for anybody is when they have to decide when to stop.

• 1:11:08Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:10Speaker 02

  You know, and that all of a sudden, and I I see the ones that are going to second Olympic Games and then third Olympic and and the ones that are there and they're holding on and they're in their 30s now, different to when they were 19 years of age, you know, 30 something is different to 19 and then.

• 1:11:31Speaker 02

  What are you gonna do afterwards, you know, and then how do you become just a normal person? You're never gonna be a normal person as such, but I think you've got to do normal things, you know? And then you've got, I remember the first time that when I finished competition, I had good sponsors. This was, you know, forty years ago, but I had two really good sponsorships. Vitamin company and also Judo G Company. And I had a car and, you know, I had money, I just, and I was going all over the world. I was successful and then I stopped. And they took everything back. They took my car and they did it within two weeks as well. They stopped my funding, they, you know, and the vitamin company said, thank you very much.

• 1:12:16Speaker 02

  It's been a great, you know, we've done well by you. Bye bye.

• 1:12:21Lex Fridman?

  This was after your last Olympics.

• 1:12:23Speaker 02

  Eighty-eight Olympics, you know, when that finished and then that was it, you know, and then it's right, okay. First time I had to go in there and buy a tracksuit and a pair of training shoes. Wow.

• 1:12:35Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, those are different, sitting there in the evening by yourself.

• 1:12:39Speaker 02

  So you go from seven days a week or six days a week going into the gym and, you know, you're working out the dojo and and then you, then you don't have to do it, you know, and that's why you get a lot of, when they finish competition, they finish that thirty to forty, it's still, I mean, Ilias is still doing it now. He's still in there and he's still, you know, and because he can, right? Okay, and, and, and it's natural and I did exactly the same. And then, like I say, you just get to an age and you just think, I'm just gonna kind of take a step back.

• 1:13:13Lex Fridman?

  Which is why, like, there's certain athletes like Ryoko Tani, never stops. It just dominates for fourteen years. Probably one of the winningest athletes in Judo.

• 1:13:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:26Lex Fridman?

  Seven-time world champ, two-time Olympic champ, medaled at five Olympics. So it's always impressive.

• 1:13:32Speaker 02

  Never stopped.

• 1:13:33Lex Fridman?

  Never stopped. So that's an option, if you're like the greatest ever.

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  Be interesting, wouldn't it, just to see what they're doing now, you know, because at some stage you have to get a normal job.

• 1:13:43Lex Fridman?

  You do have to stop.

• 1:13:44Speaker 02

  You do have to stop, you know, at some stage you have to decide what you're gonna do, you know, and we, you know, it's either into coaching, the Judo is either to coaching or if you're not in coaching, then it's into. Uh, uh, something to do with the media. And, you know, I was lucky that I, it was just by accident, really, with the commentary. Somebody said, um, would you do a voiceover? So I did this voiceover and that was back in nineteen eighty two. I did that.

• 1:14:15Lex Fridman?

  So you've been commentating since nineteen eighty two?

• 1:14:18Speaker 02

  I did some voiceovers. I wouldn't call it commentating. Uh, but I did some voiceovers and, and then I did some, uh, we did, we had some, uh, different European championships, world championship, um, kind of events. And I did the voiceovers for it. And the way that it was done, uh, that, uh, it was more narration. And so it kind of turned into then somebody asked me to do an event. And when you listen to the intonation of the voice and stuff like that, it wasn't like it is now. But, uh, I guess that's just something that developed as a, you know, because then it was coming from the heart. And I, you know, started to get excited and, uh, just do my thing. And it was just me, really, it's just my style.

• 1:15:00Lex Fridman?

  Well, I listened to your commentary from a while back. I don't know if it's the eighties, but it's still there.

• 1:15:06Speaker 02

  I think it's timing as well, isn't it? It's like, um, you know, you get your timing a bit better and know when to go in, when to come out, when to say something, when not, you know? And I, I think that in the early days, I tended to think, uh, I tended to want to talk all the time. And you don't have to do that.

• 1:15:25Lex Fridman?

  Also knowing when to shut up.

• 1:15:27Speaker 02

  That's the key, isn't it?

• 1:15:28Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, part of the dramas and the silence, building up to the, to the, to the setup and the throw and all that kind of stuff. But also you're very good at, while, uh, radiating passion, being very precise and specific about the details of the throw and the setup and why something worked and didn't, so.

• 1:15:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, I think there's two kinds of commentating. You can commentate what you see and then you commentate what people can't see, you know? And, and so if you've got somebody that is not really understanding of what's happening in the inner part of the game. So it might be a technical thing or it might be the tactical part of the play here that's going on. And if you can introduce that as well, then you've got an advantage.

• 1:16:16Lex Fridman?

  Quick pause. I need a bathroom break.

• 1:16:18Speaker 02

  Okay. Good stuff.

• 1:16:20Lex Fridman?

  So we just took a little break and went to judotv.com, which is, I guess, an IGF website. IGF is the organization behind a lot of the big judo events in the world. And I just signed up. You should sign up too. It's great.

• 1:16:35Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Sign up. Cheaper than the price. Cheaper than the price.

• 1:16:39Lex Fridman?

  Yep. And you can watch basically any match from the Grand Slams and go back through history, I guess.

• 1:16:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've got to say, like, I mean, everybody, it's still people saying to me, oh, you know, we need more judo on television. They've got judo on television every other week that they can access. All of the top people in all the top events, and it costs a hundred dollars a year. You know, it's to access everything and they can play all the videos. I mean, we've just accessed this here, the Paris tournament, and we're gonna have a look at Teddy Renaire. But, you know, it's so, it's cheap at the price.

• 1:17:17Lex Fridman?

  So we're now in Paris Grand Slam 2024, Teddy Renaire final. By the way, it's super cool. Like, you click on the draw, and you can just look at any of the matches. You can go to the bottom of the finals, you can go.

• 1:17:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, to any one.

• 1:17:32Lex Fridman?

  Any one of them. That's so cool. That's really well done. Really well done interface. Anyway, let me at first ask the ridiculous big question. Who do you think is the greatest of all time? Is Teddy Renaire in the writing?

• 1:17:43Speaker 02

  He's the greatest judo winner of all time. Of that, there's no doubt. You know, I mean, he is the, and I think if you asked him whether he was the greatest judo man in the world of all time, he would say, no, I'm not. You know, and he's not the greatest judo man. There are people with, you know, more beautiful judo in some ways, although he's got great technique, but he is the ultimate winner.

• 1:18:13Lex Fridman?

  Ten-time world champ.

• 1:18:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:15Lex Fridman?

  Two-time gold medalist in the Olympics. I guess two-time bronze medalist. He's probably going, he's going to Paris?

• 1:18:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:24Lex Fridman?

  He's going after it again. So he's right here. I mean.

• 1:18:26Speaker 02

  He's right there. You know, this was just a couple of months ago. And then last week, this, last week, he was out again and he won again.

• 1:18:33Lex Fridman?

  You think he gets gold medal this time?

• 1:18:35Speaker 02

  There's people getting closer to him, right? Because he's obviously, you know, his age-wise and the amount of time that he's been there, he's obviously. Somebody that is starting not quite at his best as he was when he was younger. But he, like I say, he still puts it on the line. He lays it on the line every single time. And then not only does he lay it on the line, but he beats them all, you know, and last week he just beat Saito, who's a young up and coming Japanese fighter and uh he beat him in the final. It was close and he did well. There are certain people, the smaller ones actually, not the taller ones.

• 1:19:16Speaker 02

  Cause like, you know, we're saying about the big arm over the top that he likes and the dominant grip that he likes. There are people that can give him a hard time. Now, if at the Olympic Games he has two or three of those on the trot, it might work against him, you know, and it's by no means an absolute certainty that he's going to win the Olympic gold medal. But he's got to be one of the favorites, top favorite. You know, no matter what happens now, Teddy Renair is is the greatest winner that, you know, and if you asked the great Yamashita, he would say the same, you know, there's nobody that's, you know, and Yamashita was unbeaten in international competition and I I trained with Yamashita a lot uh over a two-year period and got to know him quite well.

• 1:20:01Speaker 02

  And he was one of the greatest of all times, you know, for me was one of the greatest judo men. And I'm talking about from a technical point of view, from a spectacular judo point of view, uh understanding the fundamental principles of of how techniques work. Uh sometimes having, you know, different techniques that work for you, you know, so if one doesn't work and and one particular direction doesn't work, you can change the direction completely.

• 1:20:30Lex Fridman?

  In case people don't know, Yamashita is this legendary judoka heavyweight. Teddy Renair heavyweight, that's plus 100 kg, so he.

• 1:20:39Speaker 02

  He would have caused him all sorts of problems.

• 1:20:41Lex Fridman?

  Oh yeah, that would, that's a cool. Who do you think wins Yamashita?

• 1:20:44Speaker 02

  Yes, I I think Yamashita, but but I, you know.

• 1:20:47Lex Fridman?

  Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You think Yamashita would be steady or in air?

• 1:20:50Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 1:20:52Lex Fridman?

  Strong words. You think so. You think so. Yamashita is on the shorter side, right?

• 1:20:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he finds it more difficult with shorter people, you know, and so it was, it would have been a very interesting confrontation. And I think if you asked Yamashita,

• 1:21:12Speaker 02

  he would probably say, you know, that Telly Renner, he's very gracious. He's really gracious. It would be really good. It would have been an unbelievable matchup. And I've got to say this, that, you know, Telly Renner is the greatest winner of all time.

• 1:21:29Lex Fridman?

  Competition wise. So it's interesting. Both of them, maybe you can correct me, but have this Osotogari, which is kind of a trip that I never understood.

• 1:21:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:41Lex Fridman?

  Like, it's a very tricky thing to do, right? It's very easy to do, maybe as a white belt, you roll in, you can understand, but like to do it at the high, high, high level.

• 1:21:53Speaker 02

  You see any of the top guys now, especially if they're second time out, you know, so like they might catch somebody by surprise. They come out, they go bang, oh, and you go, that was amazing, right? But if they fought again, 10 minutes later, you go, you're not going to catch me with that, right? You've got a different situation here and so it's slightly different. But the best fighters adapt like that. And they're able to see a situation, feel the situation, and they attack once and then go again and attack second, third time. And in the third time, they make it work.

• 1:22:32Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, both Yamashita and Telly Renner with Osotogari, they'll just like hit it over and over in the match.

• 1:22:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, sometimes they'll hit first time and it won't go. And then you make a readjustment of the way in. It's a little bit like, I mean, if you take a really easy way of understanding it is if we're shooting at a target and all of a sudden you start moving that target, you know, it's different hitting a moving target. But it's also different hitting a moving target that's trying to hit you as well. And that's our game, right? So we're not only trying to throw a moving target, we're trying to throw a moving target that's trying to throw us. So that makes it even more difficult.

• 1:23:11Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there's a few folks who... You know what's coming. It's like over and over and over. It's the same attack. Anyway, with this Uchimata, it's like, it's different. It's different. There's not many people like that where it's like this. The same attack. I mean, there's other attacks also, but they'll just go after the same thing over and over and over.

• 1:23:31Speaker 02

  When I watch great athletes, most of them can throw over both flanks. Not always going left and right, you know, though our sport always, I mean, the cat is always demonstrated left and right. So like if you demonstrate, if you do something on one, one side, you know, then can you demonstrate it on the other side? Right? Okay. So can you do it equally? No. But you do it differently, right? On the other side. So, you know, when I'm teaching, I, I, I don't teach left and right. I teach. So if I was teaching you to do a technique, first thing I'd do is say, I need you to take the sleeve and lapel. All right. So I'd let you decide what was left and right.

• 1:24:15Speaker 02

  Okay. Cause often what happens is we impart on people whether they're going to be left or right when we start teaching. You know, you get a lot of teachers do that. All right. And they'll say immediately, are you, what do you write with left or right hand? And it's no indicator actually as to how we do Judo because I'm left-handed and I do more predominantly right-handed because I lead off my strongest hand. And actually, most people do, you know, so actually left and right is a bit of a trap sometimes, you know, when we're teaching. Better to get, you know, because we can go. So my point was, is that a lot of people can go both flanks. So they'll do something over this side and something over this side.

• 1:24:58Lex Fridman?

  But anyway, it was one-sided.

• 1:25:01Speaker 02

  He was one-sided, but he could, he could switch it. So he had a, um, a C and Aggy as well on the other side. So he could switch it if he had to. Yeah.

• 1:25:10Lex Fridman?

  And by the way, your opponent in eighty-four, was he righty or lefty?

• 1:25:16Speaker 02

  He was a righty.

• 1:25:17Lex Fridman?

  So that drop left.

• 1:25:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:19Lex Fridman?

  Say, oh, where did that come from?

• 1:25:21Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, again, it was, you know, he could have probably in other contests, he'd hit me with it several times and I just stopped it, you know, and just at the wrong place at the right time for him. Right place in the wrong time for me, right?

• 1:25:36Lex Fridman?

  That's life, you know?

• 1:25:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:38Lex Fridman?

  All right. Let's, let's watch from Teddy Renee.

• 1:25:43Speaker 02

  This is final of Paris tournament. And this is against the Korean. The Korean had had a great day, actually.

• 1:25:55Lex Fridman?

  Again, shorter.

• 1:25:57Speaker 02

  Again, shorter. So he does find that difficult. Have a look at Teddy Renaud. Teddy Renaud will try and catch the sleeve. And he's after the sleeve and then the right arm over the top. That's the key point for Teddy Renaud.

• 1:26:12Speaker 02

  And of course, what he, what he has done, if he can't always catch the big Osotagary over his right hand side, he's been doing something

• 1:26:25Speaker 02

  to the opposite side.

• 1:26:26Lex Fridman?

  And the Korean just went for a drop sail.

• 1:26:31Lex Fridman?

  And Teddy Renaud blocked with the hips. And he's

• 1:26:38Speaker 02

  Like I say, he has difficulty always against somebody smaller, dropping with the C and Aggies.

• 1:26:44Lex Fridman?

  Has Teddy Renaud ever been thrown for a pawn?

• 1:26:48Speaker 02

  I've never seen him thrown for a pawn, but he was thrown last week for a nice technique. And he's being caught more and more.

• 1:26:55Lex Fridman?

  So it's getting close.

• 1:26:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, and Tesev, in the final of the world championships, they had a strange situation there where Tesev was a, was a technique down and then pulled off a counter. And they didn't count it. But then they over, overruled it. Unfortunately, I was commentating at the time and I, I went for a score for the, for Tesev. And anyway, they overruled it and then they awarded a second gold medal to Tesev.

• 1:27:28Lex Fridman?

  What can you say about Tamerlan Beshayev, who also gave him trouble?

• 1:27:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, Beshayev and Tesev are the two that could possibly go to the Olympics. So that was a close one there from Renaud. That was closest that he'd actually been there.

• 1:27:43Lex Fridman?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:27:44Speaker 02

  So didn't have the sleeve and he relies on the sleeve greatly. Big support there in the French in the crowd.

• 1:27:52Lex Fridman?

  And also, maybe can you explain the penalties for stalling?

• 1:27:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, so if they don't attack, if they've got a grip and they've got sleeve lapel or they've got two hands on, if they're too passive and they don't attack, if they've got dominant sleeve grip, they don't attack, that was quite close as well from the Koreans. So the Korean here, you can see is having a real go, you know? The penalties will come if they don't attack at the right time. Step outside the yellow area, they'll get penalized as well. That.

• 1:28:24Lex Fridman?

  That's dedication for.

• 1:28:25Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I mean, it was really close, wasn't it? A nice little coachy Gary there from the Korean. And if they touch below the belt line with the arms, so if they, they're not allowed to grab the legs, they've stopped grabbing the legs.

• 1:28:42Lex Fridman?

  Wow, the Koreans really going.

• 1:28:43Speaker 02

  Koreans having a real good go at it.

• 1:28:46Lex Fridman?

  I guess every single person in that division is probably training for Teddy Rene, right?

• 1:28:50Speaker 02

  You think Teddy Rene has been there a long time, you know? He's got another guy here in the final of the Paris tournament. He's got eighteen thousand people watching him. They're all on Teddy Rene's side. They want him to win and the Koreans out there on his own with his coach.

• 1:29:05Lex Fridman?

  But also the pressure that on Teddy Rene.

• 1:29:08Speaker 02

  Amazing pressure, you know? We interviewed him after this and he said, I've got pressure, you know? People go, well, is he gonna do it at the Olympic Games? Can I do it in Paris? He wanted to go to Paris. I mean, really, I mean, the last Olympic Games should have been it, shouldn't it? The last should have been the final one, but he's gone, no, I've got to do another four years. Two penalties are on the board already for the Korean. That Korean is really having a great go.

• 1:29:35Lex Fridman?

  He's got a bit of a lift on him. He's going after it.

• 1:29:40Speaker 02

  He's really going after it, you know? It's an amazing effort there from the Korean and he's getting some.

• 1:29:47Speaker 02

  Last minute information. I don't know if you've ever seen his coach stood next to him like that, but it's amazing. He's six foot six and he's, he's about four foot six.

• 1:29:59Speaker 02

  He's a, he's a real.

• 1:30:00Lex Fridman?

  Full of passion. I love it. He's like screaming.

• 1:30:02Speaker 02

  So golden score.

• 1:30:04Lex Fridman?

  How does golden score work? Can you say?

• 1:30:06Speaker 02

  So the golden score. So if it goes without any point on the board from a throw or a hold down or arm lock strangle, then it goes into golden score. So two she does on the board a piece. One more mistake now and it's going to be all over.

• 1:30:21Lex Fridman?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:30:22Speaker 02

  And that's it. Yeah. Teddy Renee just manages to turn it on the Korean and that went really against the run of play, didn't it?

• 1:30:32Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:33Speaker 02

  The Korean did better, you know, but you know, Teddy Renee is a winner.

• 1:30:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:37Speaker 02

  And he says, right, okay, let's have more, more cheering.

• 1:30:41Lex Fridman?

  Finds a way to, to score in the.

• 1:30:45Speaker 02

  And I have to say, you know, that even when he loses, you know, he, he's always graceful.

• 1:30:48Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:49Speaker 02

  He doesn't like it, but he's graceful.

• 1:30:51Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there was so much love there. Celebration is great. It's great to see. It's great that he's doing it again, going after it, chasing the gold medal again.

• 1:30:59Speaker 02

  Well, he's chasing the gold medal. It's going to be in Paris, which is going to be even, you know, more fantastic, you know, he's already the greatest. You said, you know, what has he got to do to, to be the greatest? He's already the greatest competitor judos ever known. And that was even, you know, with, with the great Tally, you know, so Tally was amazing as well.

• 1:31:22Lex Fridman?

  Are you part of the commentating team for Paris?

• 1:31:24Speaker 02

  I'm part of the commentating team, but it won't be for I J F because it's independent broadcast.

• 1:31:29Lex Fridman?

  Have you ever had an athlete sort of come up to you and, and ask like, why, why'd you say that? Or like disagree with your commentary?

• 1:31:38Speaker 02

  Do you know, I've got to say that 99%, 99.9% of everybody is so grateful that I've commentated their fights all the way through.

• 1:31:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:48Speaker 02

  They know if they've messed up. So if I say something and I'm never disparaging, really disparaging, you know, but what I will say is, you know, it was a great throw by the other guy or. That was a great match. And if they made a mistake, so if they walk out, they know that I will say something that will, you know, mean something. So then nobody really moans about it. I try and talk the truth if I can.

• 1:32:15Lex Fridman?

  So who else would you consider as some of the greats? So I personally just, because I love the standing Sanagi, Koga. So there's like, you know, the number of times he won the world championships and the Olympic Games. But there's also like how you won and how you wanted to fight and what you did, you know, it's not necessarily about getting gold medals. It's about how you fought and how you represent the sport. And there's certain athletes like Noa and Iliadus that are going after the big throws.

• 1:32:47Speaker 02

  Only after they just want to win by a pound, you know, and I think that that is the difference is they're the ones that come out there and it's a bit like, you know, when Tyson stepped out there, you knew what you were going to get, you know, and if they went toe to toe. If Tyson had somebody going toe to toe, somebody was going to get knocked out. And, you know, we got the same in judo when people go head to head and it's an open match. And I often talk about an open match. I say it's an open match. They're both trying to score. Somebody is going to get scored on. Somebody's going to go, you know, and that's, that makes it exciting. And it's when, when they come out and they close up, you know, then that's not an exciting match.

• 1:33:28Lex Fridman?

  Is there a case for, for Ono, Shohei Ono, three time world champ, two time gold medalist?

• 1:33:35Speaker 02

  I think that, you know, judo wise, he's got to be one of the greatest because he had such versatility. He had, he could go right and he could go left. He could pick up. He could go to the ground as well. He won a lot of his earlier matches on the ground. I think his.

• 1:33:55Speaker 02

  Empathy, you know, and how he presents himself, sometimes he falls down. And I think that hopefully that should come with tutoring and, you know, how to, how to be a great champion after, you know, it's not just about what you do on the map, but what you do off the map as well.

• 1:34:13Lex Fridman?

  Just to you, a great champion is the whole package of

• 1:34:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:34:17Lex Fridman?

  How, how you present yourself when you lose, how you represent yourself just.

• 1:34:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's how you present yourself afterwards, how you are with people, how much you can help people. I mean, people, kids, and, um, you know, they look up to these great champions because they want to be like them. Uh, so the worst thing is when you get somebody that's a bit of an ass and they're, and they're not presenting themselves in the right way. So I like to see somebody presenting themselves in the right way. And I think that it's something that can be taught, it's something that normally comes with a little bit of experience, a little bit of age, you know, and I like to think that I'm a little bit different now than I was when I was 19.

• 1:34:58Speaker 02

  Not that I was bad, you know, I just think I was just, you know, I see it often now, you know, just full of, full of beans.

• 1:35:07Lex Fridman?

  You're, you're a beautiful work in progress. Uh, what about Nomura? That I hear in Nomura, that's three time gold medalist.

• 1:35:16Speaker 02

  Never lost an Olympic fight. So there's, there's nobody.

• 1:35:20Lex Fridman?

  Right?

• 1:35:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, nobody ever done that, you know what I mean? So that, that's gotta be, it has to stand, he took two years off in between every Olympic Games. And came back, did the right amount of events to qualify for, not only did he having to qualify, he had to qualify through Japan. Now Japan, remember, have got the greatest depth. So they got people coming through all the time, you know, and they, and then he had to win the Japanese trials. I mean, we had a four time world champion from Japan. Uh, this is when world championships was every other year, and this is Shozo, uh, Shozo Fuji. Um, and he was the greatest middleweight of all time.

• 1:36:01Speaker 02

  And never got to to participate in the Olympics because he lost the Japanese trials twice in two Olympic, you know, possibilities. So, you know, he had to qualify for Japan and then go to the Olympic Games and then do it there. You know, so sometimes some of the best people in Japan can't get outside of Japan. Look at the situation they had with Abe and then they had Mariama. Mariama was, you know, and Abe were both the best by far in the under sixty six kilos category. This is for the last Olympic Games and they sent one to the World Championships, one to the Olympic Games, and they both won gold medals, you know.

• 1:36:46Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's why the the All Japan Championships is like legendary. There's these battles, yeah, with Imashin and all of them.

• 1:36:56Speaker 02

  Well, Abe and and Mariama, they they had a trials in the Koda Kan. It was twenty twenty six minutes. I think it was twenty six minutes it went. They were battling it out for twenty six minutes.

• 1:37:11Lex Fridman?

  That's great. If we can just go to you've trained in Japan. What are those rondories like? What what's that training like?

• 1:37:20Speaker 02

  Um, I touched on the danger, that that danger of being thrown when you get hold of somebody or somebody gets hold of you. And I often reflect, I often talk about it when I'm commentating, you know, because I can see immediately, you know, it's easy, isn't it? You know, we're in the commentary chair or if you're in the coach's chair and you don't really understand totally, absolutely what's going on when you're being, somebody's being out grit. And when they're in danger of being thrown, I mean, you know, if you're in danger of being thrown, the first thing you do is stick your backside out and defend by, you know, by not being in the position they they want you to be in. All right. And so that's danger, you know, you feel the danger.

• 1:38:03Speaker 02

  And so in Japan, that was the place I used to go to train because I felt the danger. And so my defenses would be heightened. And so somebody that was, I went two, two years, one, one Olympic cycle. I went two years, two months without having a score on me in any competition.

• 1:38:29Speaker 02

  And then I went to one competition in the European Championships, which I won. And I was struggling all the way through it. And got scored on three times in my pool of, you know, like my first pool of fights. And I was devastated. I, I, and, and actually nearly lost the whole competition because I was more mortified about being scored on three times when I hadn't been scored on for two and a half years. I had this thing in my head about two and a half years, I've, you know, and, and, and then all of a sudden, right? I'm not unbeatable. And then you just, you, and you go, and I, I was almost lost it, completely lost it. Just so fortunate. Couple of things went my way and just came out.

• 1:39:14Speaker 02

  And I scraped and scratched my way to the final and, and won the final well. All right. But that was my best match, but I almost lost it.

• 1:39:23Lex Fridman?

  Well, what do you do with the fact that if you go to Japan and you're getting, you're saying danger, like you're probably getting

• 1:39:28Speaker 02

  Getting thrown.

• 1:39:29Lex Fridman?

  Getting thrown to Japan. What's that do to your ego?

• 1:39:32Speaker 02

  Well, again, it's my, you know, that, that was a winning ego that had to adapt. Uh, I remember we went to the Case Joe, which police dojo one time. And, um, they wanted to see the, uh, they created this, uh, the groundwork competition. Because they wanted to see my, me do the juju, uh, like how I, I went in and how I, yeah, how the, the arm bar, right? They wanted to see how I did it from underneath or over the top. And you just, they created this event.

• 1:40:02Lex Fridman?

  Studied the creature.

• 1:40:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, they started it. So, uh, and then winner stays on competition was happening at the Case Joe. So I did about seven, I think, uh, seven in. And then my coach came in and said, no, it's finished. That's it now. It's finished. You know, suddenly we realized what was going on. And I was going, no. No, no, no, don't stop it like that, you know. And, um, and it was one of those, uh, uh, moments where, you know, the, the boot was on my foot, you could say, you know, rather than the other side, the other way. Cause I had been to Japan, uh, in situation. I remember as, as a 16 year old, I, I got such, uh, I, I got such a, a drumming,

• 1:40:46Speaker 02

  um, from, uh, one of the Japanese guys, older students. And he had a gold tooth and, um, uh, so he was gold tooth to me, you know, and he was my nightmare. And, um, I, I remember kept coming out to fight him because he kept throwing me and, and I was crying and I was upset and I was like, and then that was another occasion where I, I got dragged away and I did no, and so I wanted to go back and fight him. And I went back to the same dojo every year to fight him. He was on my mind, morning, noon, night, he was on my mind.

• 1:41:23Lex Fridman?

  Gold tooth was on your mind.

• 1:41:24Speaker 02

  Gold tooth was on my mind, you know, and, uh,

• 1:41:26Lex Fridman?

  Did you ever get him?

• 1:41:27Speaker 02

  Two years later, I, I was, two, two years to me from 16 to 18 was totally different. 18 years of age, I was pretty competitive with him and, uh, it was like, you know, I was standing up with him. 19, he was in the groundwork competition.

• 1:41:46Lex Fridman?

  And that's when the switch happened.

• 1:41:48Speaker 02

  Switch happened, you know, because I'd shut. Well, because I remember getting the arm lock and, and he didn't put it on immediately. I needed it to last. It had to last.

• 1:42:00Lex Fridman?

  Sure.

• 1:42:00Speaker 02

  So I, I spread, uh, the, the whole thing lasted as long as I could possibly get it. And it was a lo- a long memory.

• 1:42:08Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:08Speaker 02

  As I was looking down at him.

• 1:42:10Lex Fridman?

  And now, and now he has nightmares about you.

• 1:42:13Speaker 02

  Now he has.

• 1:42:14Lex Fridman?

  I wonder what nickname he has for you.

• 1:42:15Speaker 02

  I don't know. I, I'm hoping that he remembers me as, as,

• 1:42:19Lex Fridman?

  He has a photo of you.

• 1:42:20Speaker 02

  You know, he probably doesn't say, he just bats an eyelid, doesn't say a thing about it.

• 1:42:26Lex Fridman?

  Well, I mean, can you just speak to that training with those folks? You know, you said crying, just the frustration of being thrown.

• 1:42:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:42:37Lex Fridman?

  I mean, what, what, how do you, it's such a beautiful part of the process of becoming great.

• 1:42:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, I think it is just something that you're, you know, that doesn't happen at this level. You know, we were talking about levels and then at this level it never happened. And then I went out in my first European cadet and, and all of a sudden I wasn't the, this top guy. I was in the mix and then I had to work myself to the top of that mix and then to the top of the next one. You know, because I went to the European senior championships and, you know, again, you're not the top and, you know, you've worked your way to the top of that. And, and I think it is a frustration, you know, but I think it's that kind of hatred of losing and, and also

• 1:43:25Speaker 02

  um, being out of control. I think that the first time, first senior European championships, I fought, I fought Nevzorov. But he was only one of my contests and then I had to fight a Frenchman for third place. But he totally outgripped me and, and I remember I was more upset, though I won the contest. I was more upset that he totally out, he did outgrip me and, and I was more upset. And then I fought him a year later and outgripped him. All right. So it was, it was one of those, you know, it was a learning process all the way through.

• 1:44:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that like frustration is like, whatever that does to your, your soul. The building up afterwards is what actually makes you better. It's fascinating and you think there's in Japan, just killers there, they're like, just the world doesn't know about, they just.

• 1:44:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's world champions in the dojo. You know, there's people that never make it out.

• 1:44:26Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:26Speaker 02

  You know, I remember we were training like so, and everybody that's, that goes to Japan. All my friends that have been world Olympic champions, they all know what I'm talking about. They know exactly who I'm. What I'm saying is that when we go to the dojos there, we all get thrown by people that never come out to be world champions, you know, they're just in the mix. Or they're going through three years of university and then they go. We had a guy.

• 1:44:55Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:56Speaker 02

  We had a guy that came in. He came, he was business guy. He came in with his suitcase and his briefcase like that. He's got a tie up like that. And he's kind. So he decides he's going to come in and he gets changed. And he's in his lunch hour. He's in his lunch hour, right? So it's got to be quick.

• 1:45:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:17Speaker 02

  So he comes in and he goes through. He's working his way through the whole of the British team. We're all lined up, right? So he's just working his way through the whole of the British team. And I knew it's my turn next. So I get hold of him and I throw him immediately. And then it was what we were talking about when it happens in the first few minutes, a few seconds of the practice. So then I had four minutes of him coming at me and I'm going up into the air and I'm twisting off and I'm like that. And then like everybody's laughing at the side of the mat or the whole British team. He's gone through the whole British team and then he, 10 minutes later, he's tying his tie up like that, you know.

• 1:45:58Speaker 02

  And back to work like that, you know, imagine him sitting behind his desk and his computer.

• 1:46:04Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:06Speaker 02

  I'm glad he didn't get out.

• 1:46:10Lex Fridman?

  Hopefully he listens to this.

• 1:46:12Speaker 02

  Hopefully.

• 1:46:14Lex Fridman?

  Anybody else I didn't mention as part of the greats that just kind of jumped.

• 1:46:18Speaker 02

  Keshav Zaki Sensei is the, my favorite of all favorites. He is what I would call a judo genius. I don't know if you can get him up here. Can we get him up?

• 1:46:31Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:32Speaker 02

  So go into 1981 world championships.

• 1:46:37Speaker 02

  And I'll talk you through the great Keshavazaki. He was one year in Great Britain. And he was, he was a guy that was so much a genius. Alright, so you want the final of the under sixty, sixty-five kilograms. There, the one at the top. This is him. He is two weight categories below my weight category that I won the world championships. Same year I won it.

• 1:47:06Speaker 02

  So this is, it's not, I'm not sure if this is going to show his final of.

• 1:47:11Lex Fridman?

  This is a highlight.

• 1:47:12Speaker 02

  Oh no, so watch this. This, this, this he did in the final, in the final of the world.

• 1:47:17Lex Fridman?

  For people just listening, he did an incredible sacrifice throw.

• 1:47:21Speaker 02

  Yep. And then he was on top for the, for the Neuzi and renowned for his groundwork. And he, he was on top of, against a really strong Romanian guy. Alright, so his transition was just phenomenal.

• 1:47:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, let me, let me go back and look at that, what just happened.

• 1:47:40Speaker 02

  So he's just showing you, so he does this coachee thing, just to create space.

• 1:47:48Speaker 02

  And it's his follow through into, into groundwork that is best of all. And then the Romanian really strong, like I say, he gone all the way through to the final of the world championships, winning most by ippon, I think, the Romanian. And he's defending really, really well here. And you can see that how persistent he, he knows exactly what he wants. He's just got to get his leg out. Now watch, he'll tie the arm up and then he'll pull the top leg towards him. And then he'll push the bottom one off.

• 1:48:22Lex Fridman?

  Always working.

• 1:48:22Speaker 02

  With both feet, always working, always working, readjust the balance, still one leg trapped. Final of the world championships, good referee, because he's refereeing something here that's happening, you know, that's going to decide as to whether, so he doesn't call it to stand it up at all. Watch him pull the top one now, and he'll push the bottom one.

• 1:48:45Lex Fridman?

  There's a calmness on his face, which is great to see.

• 1:48:48Speaker 02

  Calm, pushes the bottom leg, leg out, job done, all finished. This is him again. Watch this. This is another technique that he does. And then just again, sacrifice directly in, directly into the Neuzi.

• 1:49:06Lex Fridman?

  Transition is everything, isn't it?

• 1:49:08Speaker 02

  In judo.

• 1:49:09Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:10Speaker 02

  You know, it's.

• 1:49:10Lex Fridman?

  Well, anything really, but judo especially pays off.

• 1:49:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, because we haven't got that long. I mean, we had more time here. They've just brought more time back, so we've got more time to transition in and to get the situation that we want and and to get the attacking situation that we want because, you know, I remember I was teaching in America to some Jiu Jitsu guys and they were saying, oh, we'd never give you our back. And I said, with judo rules, certain situations, it happens that, you know, when we try and do throws where we're facing away from our opponent, you know, so like, for example, Seon Agis, if they fail, then the back is there, you know, and that's how we get the back.

• 1:49:59Speaker 02

  And it's a different situation, you know, than going on your back in the guard situation. Totally different.

• 1:50:04Lex Fridman?

  Well, there are Travis Stevens. I don't know how familiar with his judo, but he's a really interesting example because he competed at the highest level in Jiu Jitsu as well. And his idea, he's a big Seon Agi guy, and he basically threw all that away.

• 1:50:21Speaker 02

  In the Jiu Jitsu?

• 1:50:22Lex Fridman?

  In the Jiu Jitsu. Like, he took the sport from scratch for what it is. So his, he almost never did a standing Seon Agi, Seon Agis at all in Jiu Jitsu.

• 1:50:33Speaker 02

  No, because it would leave his back all the time, you know, if it failed.

• 1:50:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:38Speaker 02

  But he wouldn't have the same kind of grip on the judogi or the karate, the Jiu Jitsu gi.

• 1:50:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:45Speaker 02

  A little bit different.

• 1:50:46Lex Fridman?

  And so you have to kind of consider the sport, the art of it, and also the competitors, the styles, and the culture of the sport, if you want to win. If winning is the most important thing, then you're like, all right, well, let's.

• 1:50:57Speaker 02

  No, but you learn the game, don't you? And that's what he did. He learned the game, you know, and I think that has credit to him, you know, and that's why I was saying about wrestling, you know, the wrestlers, I mean, we, you're good to learn the judo and for what it is and the mechanics and how it works, and then learn the wrestling. I mean, I do the commentary as well for the freestyle, and I will be at the Olympics for the freestyle and the Greco Roman. So, and I love the freestyle, absolutely love it. But freestyle is freestyle, judo is judo. I like to see people doing judo.

• 1:51:31Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but there's a.

• 1:51:34Lex Fridman?

  Uh, there's a rhyme to the whole combat thing. They're all, I mean, the, the body mechanics, it's all like fascinating echoes of each other in interesting ways. The, the details are different, but they're still uh, two humans clashing.

• 1:51:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, we've got some amazing uh, crossovers with uh, people like the, the um, Mongolians have come in with Georgians. I mean, the Georgians do massive pickups and different uh, uh, techniques. And you know, if you ask the fighters whether, you know, grabbing the legs, you know, a lot of them would say, um, some of the wrestling styles, you know, the, the um, Georgians and the, and the Mongolians might say, yeah, I'd like to be able to take the legs. But you know, a lot of them just adapted. You get um, uh, Iliadis, for example, he just adapted. So he thought, well, I'll take my arm over the top and I'll just rip them out the floor that way. You know what I mean?

• 1:52:31Lex Fridman?

  They're still doing the, the big lifts. They're still doing the, the big gripping, but they uh, they just don't grab below the legs. It's weird. They figured it out.

• 1:52:41Speaker 02

  And they figured it out like that?

• 1:52:42Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you would think it'd take a long time. No, it was like a month.

• 1:52:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, exactly.

• 1:52:48Lex Fridman?

  Uh, the highest level, which is crazy. Uh, so you mentioned jiu-jitsu a little bit. What's, what's your interesting difference between jiu-jitsu and judo that you've observed? Because you're uh, one of the greatest ever uh, on the, on the ground in judo.

• 1:53:06Lex Fridman?

  And so, you know, jiu-jitsu is primarily focused on similar type of stuff on the ground. What do you use an interesting difference there?

• 1:53:15Speaker 02

  They're a different approach, different time scale to, to them, and they have a different way in. So um, like where ours comes from a standing position directly in, we've got a time scale on it. So we, we have to like the catch, what I always, I always talk about the catch, because in judo terms, if you don't get the catch immediately, then the referee won't see the, the transition in and also the uh, continuation from plan A, B, C, D, you know, if something builds. So we have to build it. And we we have to build it quickly. And I think in jujitsu terms, you have more time to build.

• 1:53:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there's a there's a kind of patience, like, oh, if this doesn't work out, I could try a different thing.

• 1:54:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:54:03Lex Fridman?

  Would you know there's like an urgency like.

• 1:54:05Speaker 02

  There's an urgency.

• 1:54:06Lex Fridman?

  Every and there's a ref watching skeptically. So you better show that you're making progress.

• 1:54:13Speaker 02

  You've got to show the progression. And that's why, you know, I always had a plan A, B, C. You see there with, you know, that was nineteen eighty one there, the great Kashi Wazaki was had had a progression. You know, everything was, he knew exactly where he had to be. It was feel, you know, that wasn't by accident. It was it was trained. And I think that that transition there and taking control of somebody's mistakes. So somebody might have made a mistake or not hit properly, or your defense has caused them to make a mistake. And then you take advantage of it. And that that is the difference.

• 1:54:51Lex Fridman?

  So one of the side effects of that, I don't know with the chicken or the egg, but Judo, people on the ground are much more aggressive. So probably because of the urgency, but just like there's an intention behind the the progress you're making. I think jujitsu is more relaxed. There's more a culture of just finding places to relax and think of different control positions and take your time. And as a result, it's much, much less exhausting. So you can go for much longer. It feels like Judo is exhausting.

• 1:55:28Speaker 02

  It's that ten second blast, isn't it? You know, it's it's like doing sprints all the time. You know, and that that is really hard. And that's a special kind of condition you need. And you need to be able to catch it and know when to go and when not to go. And I think also, I I was going to ask you, you think it make a difference? I mean, certain jujitsu. You can't just throw yourself on your back, you know, into the guard. You you have to throw into the situation, you know. So you have got, I mean, I know Roger Gracie, he he. He decided that he was going to learn judo. He he saw the importance of being able to throw for the transition in. And so he came to the Buddha Kai and he was learning off Ray Stevens.

• 1:56:13Speaker 02

  And, you know, they were they were doing really a lot.

• 1:56:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, well, he's a fascinating study because he does the most basic stuff. And he does it like.

• 1:56:21Speaker 02

  Does it well.

• 1:56:21Lex Fridman?

  Like we did, like another level of well, it's like Yamashita. Everyone knows what's coming with Roger Gracie. But he just does it anyway. Against the best people in the world, it's crazy. He's like, everybody in Jiu Jitsu, White Boat learns the techniques he's using. And he just does it.

• 1:56:40Speaker 02

  Amazing, isn't it? Yeah. But he has about a thousand ways in.

• 1:56:43Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, and the thousand ways are in the details. So it kind of might even look the same to people, but there's. I mean, he finds a way to choke people. So he's on top of them mounted.

• 1:56:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:55Lex Fridman?

  In a sort of judo pin position. And, you know, everyone knows what's coming next against the best people in the world. And you should be able to defend it, but nobody can. It's crazy.

• 1:57:07Speaker 02

  I think there's the power element as well, you know, that you don't realize how, you know, when somebody's directed in a particular way. Then you have that kind of element of of absolute power. You can only feel like like when Roger's doing a technique. I think that you would only feel it if he did it on you, you know, then then you can feel it. It it's not something that happens, you know, like so tricks is one thing. But actually being able to do something really well. From a power point of view, you know, it's like, like you say, he's he's only does those few things, but he does them really, really, really well.

• 1:57:46Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I don't know what that is about. Actually, Judo pins is a very interesting case study as well because people are able to feel so heavy.

• 1:57:55Lex Fridman?

  One of the things judoka are able to do is pin extremely well.

• 1:57:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:57:59Lex Fridman?

  And it makes you realize that it's not about the weight. It's about some kind of technique that makes people feel like they weigh a thousand pounds.

• 1:58:09Speaker 02

  It's about, it's about weight distribution.

• 1:58:11Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:11Speaker 02

  And change of balance. You know, a lot of people don't realize that there's huge changes of balance in, on the ground. Massive, you know, you know what it's like. I mean, you know, you're a jujitsu man and, and, you know, the detail of the techniques is what really interests me. You know, I mean, I'm always looking small ideas, you know, I'm always looking at the jujitsu. And I just, it fascinates me, you know, I would have done jujitsu for sure, but I wouldn't have forgotten the, the judo way in to the techniques. You know what I mean? I think that you've got to differentiate the two, but I would have, I would have loved the jujitsu.

• 1:58:52Speaker 02

  I would have absolutely loved it, you know, but it wasn't as prominent then, you know, the, where the no was it came from.

• 1:59:01Speaker 02

  It came from a mistake, me getting beaten in a particular contest. And I went, I'm not gonna be beaten again on the ground. That's how it happened.

• 1:59:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, well, yeah, the story of your life is like a loss creates, uh, the phoenix rises.

• 1:59:16Speaker 02

  Well, it just, it was 1978 and it was, it was, you know, it wasn't a mistake. It was a particular movement and I was fighting weight up from my normal weight. But I'm, I stayed in the same position for one second too long, got caught and.

• 1:59:36Lex Fridman?

  Choked?

• 1:59:37Speaker 02

  Sangaku, yeah, triangle, triangle, triangle.

• 1:59:40Lex Fridman?

  Wow.

• 1:59:40Speaker 02

  And I, I said, I literally, just the same as I said to you when I said, I'm not gonna drink anymore. I came off and I said, I'm never gonna get caught on the ground.

• 1:59:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, never gonna lose on the ground.

• 1:59:53Speaker 02

  And I never lost in, in my whole competitive career again.

• 1:59:57Lex Fridman?

  Ah, wow. But yeah, I, I, I shouldn't mention that there's nothing like a pin from a, from a judo person. And I don't actually know if people in jujitsu. Made sense of that, like loaded that in.

• 2:00:11Speaker 02

  But it's not part of, it's not part of the game, is it? You know, it depends, it's submission.

• 2:00:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but you know, a control is part of the game.

• 2:00:21Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:00:21Lex Fridman?

  And nobody controls a human body the way judo people do on the ground. Like, they have understood the science of control. And I think that's, control is extremely useful in jiu jitsu as well. It's just that people don't, because there's so many other domains of exploration. But the

• 2:00:39Speaker 02

  That's interesting.

• 2:00:40Lex Fridman?

  I mean, just, especially when you apply jiu jitsu to the fighting setting, so mixed martial arts. That control, that side control, that pin control is really, really, really important. So, but then you add punching to the thing and it becomes

• 2:00:56Speaker 02

  That puts a whole different thing on it, doesn't it?

• 2:00:58Lex Fridman?

  I mean, there's an alternate history where you would have been part of the early UFC's. If time was a little different, you know, uh, maybe a few years later. Because your, your, your style of judo and jiu jitsu and the, and the transitions and the aggression and the, all of that would have worked really well in the early UFC's.

• 2:01:19Speaker 02

  I'm sure I was being set up at one stage by one of the graces. Um, and that was when, um, when he was winning all the matches.

• 2:01:28Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:28Speaker 02

  But he came, him with, with a couple of the cousins to one of my seminars.

• 2:01:33Lex Fridman?

  Nice.

• 2:01:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, uh, he was one of the first ones, wasn't he? That, uh, that, that's how I love to see the kind of UFC because it was different martial arts, different skills and, you know, I mean, he, he'd get close and he'd just choke them out or arm lock them or, you know, arm bar them. And that was, uh, that was brilliant, you know? That was, for me, that was a revelation. That was how I saw it.

• 2:01:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:59Speaker 02

  And

• 2:02:00Lex Fridman?

  It's a fascinating science experiment, which aspects of different martial arts work well and not when they clash together. And it, it did turn out that ne waza worked well.

• 2:02:10Speaker 02

  Was the key, yeah. It was the key, wasn't it?

• 2:02:12Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it was a, it was a big missing link in our conception of fighting. It's the neutralizer of size.

• 2:02:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:02:19Lex Fridman?

  And a lot of other components. And it just blew people's mind, like, okay. It's not just about size. It's not just about big, big guys swinging, uh, hands. It's, it's a lot of other components and, and the groundwork is really, really important. And of course, there's a few judoka that succeeded in the UFC since then, which is always interesting how they adapt without, you know, when you take off the gi, how can you still throw people? How can you still do control? How can you still take advantage of the transition on the ground? Ronda Rousey is a good example of somebody that took advantage of that.

• 2:02:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think one of the biggest things for the judoka is we've never, you know, there's no strikes. And I think that's the biggest shock, if you wish. You know, that when you get one.

• 2:03:12Lex Fridman?

  Punch in the face.

• 2:03:12Speaker 02

  We get punched in the face and, and you're not used to that. You know, that's, that's not what we're used to.

• 2:03:18Lex Fridman?

  Some people are able to get punched in the face better than others. Yeah, for sure. Then again, there's Ronda Rousey who doesn't need to get punched in the face. She just gets in close, throws a person arm bar right there.

• 2:03:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. And Kayla, you know, Kayla.

• 2:03:31Lex Fridman?

  Kayla, Kayla Harrison, that's another incredible person. She could have probably been just winning Olympic gold medal after Olympic gold medal, but chose to.

• 2:03:40Speaker 02

  Whatever, you know, she decides. I mean, Ronda as well, you know, whatever they decided to do, they're, they're great athletes. They hate losing. I don't know anybody that hates losing more than those two.

• 2:03:51Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:51Speaker 02

  They don't like it.

• 2:03:53Lex Fridman?

  And Kayla Harrison, like, I don't know anybody that works as hard as her. That's a crazy, crazy, crazy work ethic. Well, let me ask you about training. Again, Jimmy Pedro said he learned a lot from you. He learned how to do a Tai Chi Ocean, the arm bar jiu jitsu. But he also learned from you training methodology. So what's he talking about? He told me about this. What, what, what's your approach to training throughout your career and as it developed?

• 2:04:23Speaker 02

  I always wanted to train harder than anybody else. I still train now every day. If I don't train, do something, I do, do an hour of my physical work and I still go on the mat a little bit, you know, I'm 65 now. And so I'm not doing really heavy stuff on the mat. But I still like to train. And when I was twenty one, twenty up to thirty, I was one of the best trainers. But you know, Jimmy Pedro was one of the best trainers as well. He was one of the, he's one of your dream athletes. You know, when Jimmy Pedro stepped through your door, and he was just a kid, you know, he was like, he was just young when he stepped through my door. And I had a lot of full time trainers. So I had up to twenty really

• 2:05:08Speaker 02

  good athletes that were training hard. And I only wanted hard trainers. Give me ten that trained hard, rather than your one prima donna that, you know, you're skillful, you know, the one that, that, you know, could do it. I just, I wanted ten, you know, or twenty really hard trainers, because you can do so much with them. You can make champions, you can make them world champions. You know, if you've got somebody that was a special talent, and they wanted to work hard, then you had a special athlete.

• 2:05:40Lex Fridman?

  Well, we say hard trainers. What do you mean? Are these people that just like, every single day are able to just grind it out, do a round door, do the training, do the boring things, just keep coming back?

• 2:05:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, when it gets tough, you know, and I think that that was him. He had a special mentality. And, you know, and the thing is, you see, when you got him in your dojo, all right, even when you're tired, when somebody's tired, and when, you know, what an example to the others. So he'd pull the other ones in as well, you know, so I, so I, I had somebody that, when everybody was tired, and everybody was sick of it, and everybody just wanted to, you know, and he'd still be there, you know, so they had to do it. So that was for me, a win win, you know, so he, I had all the Americans, actually, I had Bobby Burland, and I had Michael Swain, and I had Ed Liddy, and I had them all coming to visit me at

• 2:06:34Speaker 02

  different times. Jimmy was there, you know, they, they wanted to be the best. In the end, we had such a great club atmosphere, they wanted to come for, for, for the hard work. And they knew that if they came, they were going to be dragged out, and we were going to do physical training, and it's physical training like they hadn't done before. But it wasn't just the physical training, it was the judo and, and the, and the skill side of it as well. And so I always had a great empathy with the US. Team, Olympic team. So a lot of your Olympic medalists have been through with me, you know, and so I'm proud of that because we had, you know, some great times and they're

• 2:07:17Speaker 02

  still great mates now. And so in New York, a couple of weeks' time, I'm gonna have, everybody is gonna be there. They're all coming in.

• 2:07:25Lex Fridman?

  All old friends.

• 2:07:27Speaker 02

  All old friends.

• 2:07:27Lex Fridman?

  And new friends. So what's a tough week look like at your peak? Physical training, randori, is there days off? Are you training like twice a day?

• 2:07:40Speaker 02

  Twice a day. So we do the preparation training, we do the running, we do the weight training, we do the skills in the morning as well. The skills is, for me, one of the biggest advantages that any full-time trainers can have. Because what happens is, is that with most clubs, you're trying to fit everything into that hour and a half or two hours. You know, you fit your skills, you fit your, your physical training and your, your sparring and your, you know, everything's in there, all grouped in. So the biggest advantage is of having a full-time group is that you can split your skills and your skills lay your

• 2:08:20Speaker 02

  foundation. So the biggest advantage is being able to work specifically on things without having to worry about getting to do your free, you know, your randori or your, your sparring or then you've got to go out for, you just do the skills.

• 2:08:37Lex Fridman?

  Well, when you talk about skills, like what is, say your specialty is a taitoshu, what, are we talking about uchikomi doing a bunch of fists, working with bands? Are you doing throws? Are you actually just having conversations about like specific, like tiny details of throws? Like what does skills mean?

• 2:08:54Speaker 02

  All those things about doing your repetition practice, making sure the repetition's correct. You know, there's good repetition.

• 2:09:00Lex Fridman?

  So when we say good repetition, does it, uchikomi, when you're just fitting the throw versus doing the throw, where do you land on the value?

• 2:09:07Speaker 02

  And getting it moving, you know. So one of the biggest, most important things is getting it moving. If we do something static, again, it's that static target, you need to get it moving. So you need to do a repetition and also you need to do a correct repetition. Because if you're doing a hundred repetitions that are not correct.

• 2:09:26Speaker 02

  And repetitions under pressure, too much pressure, without somebody overseeing those skills to make sure that you correct the skills. Because if you're doing a skill, if you're doing it ninety-nine times incorrectly, all right, then repetition doesn't make perfect, repetition makes permanent. So you've got to make it as perfect as you possibly can. So actually, that skills group there is the most important thing. And what I used to do is oversee it. So I'd oversee it to make sure that it was done properly.

• 2:09:59Lex Fridman?

  So you're watching the footwork, you're watching the gripping, and then just constantly adjusting people.

• 2:10:06Speaker 02

  I'll give you an example. Jimmy Pedro, Jimmy was one of the hardest when he was nineteen years of age, right? So I was always asking me to practice, always. So he's always on me all the time. So I'd do groundwork with him. And could I put him on his back? No, I was all on him and he'll tell you, you know, but he was just, wouldn't go, he was just, he was going to be great, without a doubt, all right? So I wanted everybody on with him, everybody. So everybody went on with him, you know, and so they only improved their game. And it improved him. And then with, you know, small technical things that have stayed with him that we were doing with the judgy katami that was passed on to Kayla and then gone on, you know, to Rhonda.

• 2:10:50Speaker 02

  And it's all small things that I can see sometimes that, you know, it's passed on.

• 2:10:57Lex Fridman?

  What about the taitoshu? He said he learned a lot from you from that.

• 2:11:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he does it differently.

• 2:11:01Lex Fridman?

  And so I should mention that's one of the trickier throw. I mean, I don't, I still don't understand.

• 2:11:08Speaker 02

  It is a tricky throw.

• 2:11:09Lex Fridman?

  I don't understand. So for people who don't know, it, boy, how would you even explain it? It doesn't make any sense. It's a. When you just look solo, the movement you make is very, is quite simple. But how you get person to be off balance, how you

• 2:11:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:11:28Lex Fridman?

  Uh, actually get them to be thrown. And when you do throw it successfully, it looks like a whipping motion that's effortless. It makes no sense.

• 2:11:37Speaker 02

  It makes no sense, other than it's every technique starts with the hands. So it's what we call kizushi and you know, you're pulling somebody off balance, getting them moving, pulling them off balance. Uh, taitoshi means body drop. So it's basically uh, two legs across your partner's body. Well, I've got my back to you. All right. And I've already pulled you off balance with my hands. And then I'm going to just flex my legs up just as you're coming onto my back. And uh, and then you're going to go over, you know, if I coordinated all right. If it uh, if it doesn't get coordinated right, then you're going to come right on my back and try to rip my arm off, you know, so um, yeah, I gotta get it right.

• 2:12:17Lex Fridman?

  What was the, if you can convert it to words,

• 2:12:21Lex Fridman?

  some secret ingredients that allows you to pull it off at the highest levels, the taitoshi?

• 2:12:27Speaker 02

  The hands start every technique. Uh, so getting the repetition right, first of all. So you need, uh, to get the repetition right, you need a good partner. So actually, training your partner to react in the right way is just as important as learning the throw. So actually what happens is, you know, I, we could get a lesson of beginners. We teach the throw and then go, right, off you go. And 90% of them will get it wrong because their partner's not reacting in the right way. So half of it is to get the person to react as they should. So if I was doing it with you, you and I, um, first thing I'd teach you to do is to react

• 2:13:09Speaker 02

  the way I want you to react. And then I'd react the way that you want me to react. All right. So then we'd have success with it, rather than you leaning back in the wrong way or resisting or frightened you going over. So you know, so actually that's why nine times out of 10, people get the technique wrong.

• 2:13:28Lex Fridman?

  It's actually fascinating to me because in the United States where I came up. Judo, I mean, the level of judo is not comparable to the level of judo in the rest of the world. Of course, the Pedro Center is an exception to that.

• 2:13:42Speaker 02

  Certain athletes, yeah.

• 2:13:43Lex Fridman?

  Certain athletes, like, I mean, when I trained recently with Jimmy Pedro, it's like, even like, the 16-year-old kids are just all deadly. So, it's terrifying. But, you know, I remember the Russian national team came through Philadelphia. And one of the things that really impressed me is just how much easier judo was, training judo with them. They moved correctly. As like, as the people getting thrown, every aspect of their body movement was correct. In terms of, it felt right to be throwing them, to be training with them, everything about the gripping, about the position of their hips, about the shoulder, everything. It was, it was fun. It was easy. And like, and I always felt like

• 2:14:28Lex Fridman?

  I was learning. So I think all of that is loaded in, I guess, into proper training. So you're developing, through the throws, you're developing the right technique.

• 2:14:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, you have to develop, um, between, you know, I always had training partners that I trained with up to each Olympic Games. And we, um, we worked together for the, we did the skills together. And then we, um, you know, we, we worked together in order, in order to make techniques work. And we got it moving as quickly as we could. And one of the worst things that I see is, and I see a lot of YouTube stuff with, um, coaches.

• 2:15:03Lex Fridman?

  Here we go.

• 2:15:04Speaker 02

  Ah, don't even start me on that. Don't even start me on that. But, um, you know, you're laughing because you know what I'm talking about, right?

• 2:15:14Lex Fridman?

  I'm actually laughing because I'm enjoying you talking trash. But, uh, but you're talking about technique.

• 2:15:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, just, well, you know, the, you know, the coaches and their clipboard guys, you know, with the clipboards and the stopwatches. And, you know, they got these kids running up and down the mat and, and then doing uchikomi of, of something that's technically incorrect, um, you know, 10 times, and then running up and doing another 10 at the other side, you know, and actually mixing everything together. And it's just a mess.

• 2:15:48Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, technique is important.

• 2:15:49Speaker 02

  Just technical mess.

• 2:15:51Lex Fridman?

  That said, some of it is conditioning type stuff that you were doing. So what is like the hardest type of physical conditioning you're doing?

• 2:15:58Speaker 02

  Probably ran too much, you know, when I was a kid. If I could go back now, I wouldn't run as much. And I ran hard and I ran strong. And I remember doing London Marathon one time and I said, I'm never going to do it again. I said, never. But I ran, you know, and I was trying to, the problem was when I did the London Marathon is I was trying to beat three hours.

• 2:16:23Lex Fridman?

  That desire to win again.

• 2:16:24Speaker 02

  It's totally insane, you know, it was insane. And I went out through half marathon in what I thought was a good time. Anyway, I got to sixteen, seventeen miles and totally blue.

• 2:16:36Lex Fridman?

  So you went out too fast?

• 2:16:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I went out too fast.

• 2:16:38Lex Fridman?

  And then you just keep going?

• 2:16:40Speaker 02

  I died, absolutely.

• 2:16:41Lex Fridman?

  Just?

• 2:16:42Speaker 02

  I died. I got in, I crossed the line. I remember seeing this bridge over there, right? And the bridge, it was the finishing line over the bridge. And I had to get, it was the longest bridge I've ever, ever walked over. And like walk, run. So I got over the bridge and I took one step over the line like that. And there was a guy over there and he was trying to rush everybody through, you know, and he was going, come on, come on, come on. There was people behind me. Get your hands off me. I said, get your hands off me now. Like that, because we're going to fall out, you know. And I couldn't move. I couldn't move. I was white.

• 2:17:24Lex Fridman?

  It's amazing that you made it to the finish line though.

• 2:17:27Speaker 02

  I did. I got, I got over there. And, you know, yeah, Donald Duck passing me was a tell.

• 2:17:34Lex Fridman?

  Oh, there's a person dressed as Donald Duck?

• 2:17:36Speaker 02

  Donald Duck, yeah. But the thing was, I still crossed over three thirty-eight. I crossed over three thirty-eight, but I lost thirty-eight minutes in the last four miles.

• 2:17:47Lex Fridman?

  To that bridge. Longest bridge ever. So you regret the run?

• 2:17:50Speaker 02

  So anyway, I would do the running a little bit differently, but we ran, we ran hard. We did the weight training. We did good weight training. It was all conditioned. So, I mean, it was never the same training all the time. So it was always, um, we'd have certain phases building up. It was scientifically done. It wasn't just out there, run weight training, judo, same judo all the time. It was always pretty scientific.

• 2:18:16Lex Fridman?

  Good variety.

• 2:18:17Speaker 02

  It was a good variety and it had build up and it had a speed phase and it had a power phase and it had a, you know, a, like a base condition.

• 2:18:24Lex Fridman?

  What about the randori? Was there a, a, a method to the madness there? How much randori did you do?

• 2:18:31Speaker 02

  A lot. So the most important thing for me, um, I mean, I see now that there's a lot of people out there that are not getting enough randori. They're not randoring enough. And there's a lot of sports science people and they're, they're running and they're weight training and they're, they're doing it all to death. And there's not enough judo. And the only ones, you know, like you have a look at some of the, um, the Eastern Bloc countries that are, are getting together. They're having these mass camps and the Japanese, they have, you know, just massive people that they can do there. They're doing probably fifty, sixty randaris a week.

• 2:19:10Lex Fridman?

  Wait, what?

• 2:19:11Speaker 02

  Fifty or sixty a week.

• 2:19:13Lex Fridman?

  Wow.

• 2:19:14Speaker 02

  The average person is getting together. I mean, when I was doing randaris, uh, when I went to Japan, it was just purely for sixty randaris a week.

• 2:19:25Lex Fridman?

  How much is each one? How long is it?

• 2:19:26Speaker 02

  So they were five minutes then. They're four minutes now, but.

• 2:19:30Lex Fridman?

  That's a lot, especially given the level of the, of the competition there.

• 2:19:33Speaker 02

  Well, you can do it in Japan because it's fairly light. They throw you, they throw you, you throw them.

• 2:19:38Lex Fridman?

  There's like a level of, like you're moving at like a close to a hundred percent, but the actual power and the force is not quite.

• 2:19:46Speaker 02

  Different in Korea. Korea was harder. It was more physical. So you couldn't do fifty randaris in, in Korea. You'd, you'd die. Yeah. So you'd do thirty.

• 2:19:57Lex Fridman?

  Wow.

• 2:19:58Speaker 02

  But you need, you need the randori. And, uh, so I chased the randaris. So I chased them into training camps. I traced them all over my country. So I, I was getting forty to fifty a week in my club. And then I would go to training camps and add more.

• 2:20:17Speaker 02

  And I honestly don't think that they do enough now. A lot of countries.

• 2:20:21Lex Fridman?

  Somebody who doesn't know Randori is live training, so.

• 2:20:24Speaker 02

  Yes, sparring.

• 2:20:25Lex Fridman?

  Was there a few people you remember that were just like really tough to go against? You mentioned Gold Tooth. Is there others?

• 2:20:32Speaker 02

  Gold Tooth was pretty horrific.

• 2:20:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:37Lex Fridman?

  Oh, you got him in the end.

• 2:20:38Speaker 02

  Pretty all right. I got him in the end. And yeah.

• 2:20:41Lex Fridman?

  Is there like, I suppose, I suppose I should say not just tough, but just good training partners that you like?

• 2:20:47Speaker 02

  Great training partners. I remember Nishida and Nishida was, I mentioned him earlier. Said he was one of the best. I mean, he was just such a great technician. So I, I would go there to his dojo and he'd ask me to practice. And he'd always, he'd finish the practice and you, you know that he would always say another one, we'll do another one, right? So you'd go, yeah, because you had to make out that you weren't that bothered that you had to do another one. So you do another one back to back and then he goes sometimes, let's do another one. So he'd end up doing 15 minutes with the same guy who could possibly throw you at any time, you know? And, and that was hard, you know, so, but I remember those particular guys. And there were plenty of those.

• 2:21:32Lex Fridman?

  What do you do with the exhaustion that you're feeling in those? Like, how, how deep did you go in terms of like?

• 2:21:38Speaker 02

  You have to dig deep. And I, I think that that was the great thing about having certain, like European training camps were more physical. So I remember, you know, that we would have European training camps where you'd fight Germans and then the Dutch and then the French. And then, you know, the Russian or the, you'd have all sorts, different styles and people there to fight. And that, that was something then you, you'd have to dig in at a different place, come out of there.

• 2:22:09Lex Fridman?

  Well, where do you go mentally when you, you know, how many times have you gone there? Or like you're really in deep waters exhaustion wise in, in competition, actually?

• 2:22:19Speaker 02

  Competition, it's happened, you know, so sometimes you go past where your forearms are absolutely blown. I remember the final of Czech. Tournament that we had and fought a Frenchman in the final. And my forearms were so blown, I couldn't shake his hand. You know, and then I remember they were they were solid, absolutely solid. And they had lactic acid in them and and I remember I stood on the rostrum this and and they were giving me things and I couldn't grip them properly. So I was saying, put it under my armpit or, you know, chin like that. Trying to hold this, I couldn't hold anything, you know.

• 2:23:03Speaker 02

  So there are times when I really had to go really deep. I remember fighting two East Germans the same day, one of the competitions. And the number one and the number two East Germans. And that was another day where I had to really dig deep.

• 2:23:19Lex Fridman?

  That's the fascinating thing about some of these tournaments is if you get, if you go full distance and several matches in a row, the way you're seeing in the finals are two people that have like fought a lot that day.

• 2:23:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, and we have golden score now, you know, so we we see a lot of guys, you know, that going into golden score and they've done one contest of four minutes. And then they go another four minutes and then, you know, we've had some go into a third four minutes. This is all back to back. It might be in the first round, it might be in the final, you know. And we've got some now that are coming out and you can see the stats and the the ones that win in golden score. So we got Japanese Hashimoto, he's the Japanese representative now instead of Ono because Ono's finished. So Hashimoto's coming out, he was in a tournament last week.

• 2:24:09Lex Fridman?

  Is there anyone to look up?

• 2:24:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, just have a look at him. So Hashimoto's in white here, all right, and there's a great example there. Well, I'm glad we got onto that, you know, so I mean, he has got great technique.

• 2:24:21Lex Fridman?

  Effortless.

• 2:24:23Speaker 02

  Hashimoto.

• 2:24:24Lex Fridman?

  Effortless.

• 2:24:24Speaker 02

  There's the Tai Toshi, all right, so you can see exactly what we're talking about, that great timing.

• 2:24:32Speaker 02

  And again, you know, sometimes he backs them up to the edge and then he'll wait for them to come back in towards they don't want to step out to get a penalty.

• 2:24:41Lex Fridman?

  I guess that's a cross grip title, should I see that wrong?

• 2:24:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, cross grip, different grips. Oh, great examples there. Just, just what we were talking about.

• 2:24:49Lex Fridman?

  Making it look so easy. Wow.

• 2:24:52Speaker 02

  So he's going to be their representative at seventy three kilograms, looking to back him up again. And again, just catching him as, as he pushes back.

• 2:25:01Lex Fridman?

  To push, push, push and then?

• 2:25:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, action, reaction at his best there.

• 2:25:05Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:06Speaker 02

  And a slight change of direction, he sometimes goes down onto his knee there, which is siatoshi. It turns from taitoshi, which is springing up, to siatoshi that's going down.

• 2:25:18Lex Fridman?

  Oh, the, the title of the video is, his taitoshi is a work of art.

• 2:25:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is him at his best, showing him doing what he does best. But he had to go three times into Golden Score last week and dig deep and lost one of them, I think.

• 2:25:35Lex Fridman?

  But you're still going at it. You're talking about all those training sessions. I, Nikki, your wonderful wife, told me that you were looking, you were going all over, like from target to target, looking for workout clothes. Cause your luggage got lost. Cause you had to get a workout in.

• 2:25:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, just, I, you know what? I just, I, I realize that if I'm a miserable git, right? Then she'll get me, she'll get me into the gym, you know, so and, and the thing is, is that I'm better if I get in there for an hour and I just do something. At least thirty, thirty five to forty minutes cardio and then I do some weights and more high repetitions. It's not so much heavy weights now, but more functional.

• 2:26:14Lex Fridman?

  I mean, you travel all over the world for, for, for, for the commentary of these competitions. So you're, is it, is it sometimes a challenge to figure out how?

• 2:26:22Speaker 02

  Well, you know, during COVID, then they closed all the gyms. But we were still going out. We were some, one of the first ones out. The, the judo were some of the first out. The competitions were behind closed doors. So we were in the hotel. The gym was closed, so we couldn't use the gyms. Uh, so we had to look for other ways that we could work out. So, uh, most of the, uh, hotels that we were in were high-rise hotels. So we were in the steps, we were doing the steps all right the way up, you know? So I started it and, uh, and so I started off with me going up and then one or two of the others and the referees started to go up with me.

• 2:27:04Speaker 02

  And so in the end, we'd have this trail of people going up the steps and down. And every place we went to, we had the steps. So, um, yeah, that was an interesting situation. So we were sick of steps in the end.

• 2:27:18Lex Fridman?

  Uh, what advice would you give to, um, beginners, people starting out in Judo? How to, um, how to develop their game? How to find the beauty in, in the sport and the art of Judo?

• 2:27:34Speaker 02

  If you put 10 people in a room and said, right, get on with it.

• 2:27:39Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:40Speaker 02

  You'd have mayhem, right? And I think that wherever, whatever sport you're doing, you need good instruction, good teaching and a good club atmosphere, you know, some, somewhere that's not, uh, so intense that, uh, winning is the, the, the only thing. And I think that if you look at 90% of the people that practice martial arts are doing it for pleasure. So they want to get pleasure. So you, you need a club that's got a bit of a mixture, you know? They've got a, a, a direction to go into competition if they want. And, uh, and then the rest is for fun and to enjoy it, but with really good instruction. Because with really good instruction and a good foundation and a good base,

• 2:28:23Speaker 02

  you get more enjoyment because you're more, you know, you, you, you have more success. And let's be honest, you know, the more success we have with something, the more we like it.

• 2:28:33Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, and great technique is a way to really discover the beauty of the art. And so great teaching is really important there.

• 2:28:40Speaker 02

  Great teaching is so important.

• 2:28:42Lex Fridman?

  What about, what, what does it take to get from the early days when you start judo to, to world-class level?

• 2:28:52Speaker 02

  I think that with most, I mean, you do hear, don't you? You know, if somebody's been doing judo for eight years and then they're in, and I think it happened, um, one of the French Chameau, she went to the Olympic Games in 2012 and she'd been doing judo for eight years. But then she started to lose, you know, so she had a relative success early on. And the Olympics was one of them. She got a silver medal. But then she went off the boil and then she came back and now she's been there for, she's still competing. And she's been there for well over 13 years at the very top. So I think that, you know, any foundation, it's like anything, if, if you lay a really solid foundation,

• 2:29:36Speaker 02

  it generally lasts longer.

• 2:29:38Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, well, that, that foundation again, is that technique or is there, um, what, what does it take to build that foundation?

• 2:29:45Speaker 02

  I think technique, you get away with murder, you know, you know, you, you, you, with technique, you can get away with, you know, having bad condition, you know, but I mean, you get found out in the end. But, um, you can, you know, you can go out and you can win certain things by doing really nice technique. But I think if you've got the mixture, if you've got the whole package, then you can, you know, go the whole way.

• 2:30:08Lex Fridman?

  So for people who somehow don't know, you've commentated some of the greatest judo matches ever. You've done Grand Prix's, you've done all of these events, Olympics, championship, everything. So what, what, uh, just looking at the history of judo, what like stands out to you? What events stand out to you? What are some good memories that popped to your head?

• 2:30:30Speaker 02

  I think, you know, some of the Paris tournaments are amazing because the crowd. They're there, you know, they're on the mat, they're they're all judoka, they all they're well educated to the sport. Every time somebody twitches, you know, they're they're very biased towards their own, which is kind of you expect. But, you know, sometimes I haven't been able to hear myself speak. And that's very unusual. You know, you've got headphones on and you you're blocked out, you know, like, sometimes, Telly René has been walking out there, and the crowd are going crazy, and the and they're on their feet, you know, when somebody twitches and, you know, and and then you get the the crowd silences. We had one of those last week. You know, everybody's cheering their man, and then bang, their man goes over.

• 2:31:13Lex Fridman?

  And there's silence.

• 2:31:14Speaker 02

  Silence, nothing like that. And of course, we were we were commentating, we were going, that was a bit of a crowd silencer, you know. But, um, yeah, that happens.

• 2:31:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that that is a surprising thing that, uh, at least it was to me, that Paris and France is really big on judo.

• 2:31:30Speaker 02

  Massive. You know, and and there's always surprises, you know, the the it it's, um, like, Paris is great. In Japan for the Olympic Games, the biggest surprise was Ono getting beaten in the team event. Now, Ono's the greatest judo man, pound for pound, probably one of the best. And he won the Olympic title. And then they went into the team event against France. And Ono lost to a not he's not run of the mill German, but the German, you know, he wasn't certainly Olympic title isk. And, uh, beat Ono.

• 2:32:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, well, the team the the team stuff is fascinating, right?

• 2:32:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, fascinating, yeah.

• 2:32:10Lex Fridman?

  It changes the dynamics of the whole thing.

• 2:32:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:32:12Lex Fridman?

  And it's, I mean, it's funny you say Paris, it it really makes it really big deal that this Olympics is being held in Paris.

• 2:32:21Speaker 02

  And they'll they'll be the team to beat, French team. Because they have the best balance of the weight categories. They have the best balance with their people that are world and Olympic champions, uh, and qualified, men and women. So three, three men, three women, they have the best balance out of anybody.

• 2:32:39Lex Fridman?

  And educated audience.

• 2:32:41Speaker 02

  Educated audience, home grounds.

• 2:32:44Lex Fridman?

  It's gonna be awesome.

• 2:32:45Speaker 02

  It's gonna be mad.

• 2:32:46Lex Fridman?

  It's gonna be super fun.

• 2:32:46Speaker 02

  It will be super fun.

• 2:32:47Lex Fridman?

  You nervous?

• 2:32:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:32:49Lex Fridman?

  All right.

• 2:32:50Speaker 02

  Do you get nervous?

• 2:32:51Lex Fridman?

  I get nervous.

• 2:32:52Speaker 02

  I do as well. I get really nervous.

• 2:32:53Lex Fridman?

  Nervous right now. But you're given, especially because it's the Olympics and you don't want to, um, you want to celebrate people properly, right? And it's like, it's everything for them.

• 2:33:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:07Lex Fridman?

  And a lot of people, especially like the finals matches.

• 2:33:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:11Lex Fridman?

  You know, it'll be watched, you know, millions of times, the highest of stakes, all of this.

• 2:33:17Speaker 02

  Played over and over.

• 2:33:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:19Speaker 02

  And I find that, you know, with mine, I'm now a little bit more careful, you know, where like, so I'll celebrate a massive throw and then be have empathy to the one that's been thrown, you know, because it's not the best feeling in the world. Especially in Olympic finals.

• 2:33:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:35Speaker 02

  Can you imagine that?

• 2:33:36Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:37Speaker 02

  Must be terrible.

• 2:33:38Lex Fridman?

  Must be terrible. Yeah.

• 2:33:41Speaker 02

  Just reflecting. So, no, I have a bit of empathy there and I just, I try and say the right things because they always do come up to me and say, you commentated my fights.

• 2:33:53Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you're the voice of the biggest triumphs and the biggest tragedies for these athletes, for the world that watches and admires these athletes.

• 2:34:01Speaker 02

  No pressure.

• 2:34:02Lex Fridman?

  You're the voice. Don't screw it up, yeah?

• 2:34:04Speaker 02

  Don't screw it up.

• 2:34:05Lex Fridman?

  Your voice is in my head when I watch these, you know, it's fascinating. It's fascinating. But you're, you're a master of it. It's a, it's a huge honor that you would talk with me. Thank you for everything you've done for the sport of judo, for the Olympics, for just sports in general, just celebrating greatness in all of its forms. Thank you for talking today. Keep going. I can't wait to listen to you in Paris.

• 2:34:33Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me and it's just been an honor to, to be here with you.

• 2:34:39Lex Fridman?

  Thanks for listening to this conversation with Neil Adams. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Miyamoto Masashi. There's nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.

• 2:35:05Lex Fridman?

  Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

• 2:35:16Lex Fridman?

  Subtitles by the Amara.org community