Pod Insights Lex Fridman Podcast #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness About this episode Travis Stevens is the 2016 Olympic Judo silver medalist and BJJ black belt. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Travis’s Website: https://www.travisstevensgrappling.com/
Travis’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/judosilencer
Travis’s Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TravisStevensgrappling
Travis’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/judosilencer
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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
(10:08) – What is Judo?
(17:55) – Travis’s signature throw
(23:20) – Fundamentals
(25:12) – Throws
(38:04) – Gripping
(46:37) – Weight cutting
(1:15:50) – Injuries
(1:19:50) – Jiu-Jitsu
(1:23:33) – Lex on his judo competition experience
(1:26:58) – Levels of mastery
(1:40:09) – Matches
(1:54:10) – Travis inspired Lex to practice judo
(2:00:24) – London 2012 Olympic games
(2:42:01) – 2016 Olympic games
(3:16:24) – Mixed team competition
(3:23:50) – The value of epic throws
(3:27:17) – Shohei Ono
(3:33:39) – Chess
(3:38:42) – The coach
(3:45:18) – Advice for young people
Transcript 39,186 words · 2 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Lex Fridman? The following is a conversation with Travis Stevens, 2016 Olympic silver medalist in judo and one of the greatest American judoka ever. But his story is inspiring, not because of that Olympic medal, but because of the decades of injury hardship, incredible battles against the best in the world, wrapping up in close heartbreaking losses at the 2008 and 2012 Games, all of which eventually led to that very silver medal in 2016. As we talk about in the podcast, Travis is also someone who is largely responsible for me getting into judo, for which I will forever be grateful. He also happens to be now my judo coach and mentor.
0:42 Lex Fridman? I'll release a video of Travis and I doing some judo in a few days. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. As a side note, let me say a few words that I've written down about the Olympic Games and the International Olympics Committee. "Visiting family" has the T-shirt, but I had to pull away to write and to say these words because this very video was taken down by YouTube as per the request of the IOC. You know it's serious when a Russian takes time away from family, food, and drink. I am heartbroken to see continued incompetence, greed, and corruption on the part of the IOC in failing to do, as the Olympic Charter states,
1:27 Lex Fridman? "to ensure the fullest coverage and the widest possible audience in the world for the Olympic Games." I want to give you two facts. First, they do not make most of the videos of the Games available for replay anywhere that is accessible, searchable, and discoverable, whether funded by ads or by subscriptions. For example, on YouTube or their own service. It is not available anywhere. Second, in the most absurd violation of the Olympic Charter, they've uploaded all of the videos of the 2012, 2016, and the 2020/21 Olympics to YouTube. And they set all of these videos to private.
2:14 Lex Fridman? This results in a situation like my four-hour conversation that you're watching now, with Travis Stevens being taken down due to us including a few seconds of a small video overlay of Travis's epic match against Ole Bishov in 2012. This is done automatically as per the request of the IOC. I have the video due to having screen-recorded it from 2012. Here you have Travis Stevens, an Olympic silver medalist, someone who spent his entire life overcoming injuries, losses, hard weight cuts, periods of no financial or psychological support, culminating in the biggest heartbreak of his career in this one match.
2:54 Lex Fridman? And this match is available nowhere online, not for free, not for $1 million. Our showing short clips of it results in the IOC taking it down, not demonetizing it, taking it down, blocking it. The IOC silences this amazing story of Travis Stevens, of heartbreak, that eventually led to triumph. And there are thousands of stories like it, stories that are supposed to inspire the world. To me and to billions of others, the Olympic Games give a chance to celebrate and to be inspired by the greatest stories of human flourishing in the face of hardship and incredibly long odds, or dominance in the pursuit of perfection at levels previously thought to be impossible.
3:39 Lex Fridman? The Olympic Games inspire kids like me to dream and to work hard to achieve in our own lives the same moments of magic and greatness, small or big, that the Olympic Games reveal. I believe the members of the IOC are good people, but people who forgot the dream, the fire that was sparked and burned in their hearts when they first saw the Olympics as kids. They've allowed the gradual corruption of their own human spirit, and thereby have robbed the world of this very fire, the fire of the Olympic torch, the fire that ought to burn in the eyes and hearts of kids watching the Olympics today, daring to dream, daring to be great.
4:24 Lex Fridman? Please, please do better. The world needs you, the world needs the Olympic Games.
4:33 Lex Fridman? As usual, I'll do a few minutes of as now, no ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting, so hopefully you don't skip. But if you do, please still check out the sponsor links in the description. It is, in fact, the best way to support this podcast. I use their stuff. I enjoy it. Maybe you will too. This show is brought to you by Just Works, which is an HR, human resources platform that makes it simple to onboard and manage remote employees. They help with employment and tax regulations and requirements. Give access to national health insurance plans, help setting up sick leave policies, do a bunch of stuff like time tracking that syncs with payroll.
5:14 Lex Fridman? Plus, very importantly, give you access to 24/7 expert support. I'm currently going through a process of building teams of amazing humans. And it turns out that that process involves a lot of things that are challenging on the sort of administrative side of things. And so, especially as the scale grows, you should definitely use the right tools for the job in managing said humans, AKA human resources. And Just Works is definitely a platform you should consider if that is a problem you're facing, especially if the teams of employees you're managing are remote. With Just Works, you can manage your remote team and run your business with confidence
5:57 Lex Fridman? by going to justworks.com. That's justworks.com. This episode is also brought to you by Indeed, which is a hiring website. I've used them as part of many hiring efforts I've done for the teams I've led in the past and currently. They have tools like Indeed Instant Match that gives you quality candidates whose resumes on Indeed fit your job description immediately. That's the first step. You want to get a great pool of candidates as quickly as possible, given the requirements that you have. Indeed is really good at this. Like I've said many times before, a good team of people can make the difference between creating something amazing and creating something crappy. And so, and also just living a fulfilling life.
6:41 Lex Fridman? So much of our lives is spent working. And it makes sense to surround yourself with amazing people. And so, this hiring process is so, so, so important. You should definitely use the best tools for the job. Right now, you can get $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at indeed.com/lex. Get it at indeed.com/lex. Offer is valid through September 30th. Terms and conditions apply. Join 3 million businesses that use Indeed by going to indeed.com/lex. This show is also brought to you by a longtime sponsor, a great one called MasterClass.
7:22 Lex Fridman? $180 a year gets you an all-access pass to watch courses from the best people in the world in their respective disciplines. The list is frankly ridiculous. Chris Hadfield, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Will Wright, Carlos Santana, Gary Kasparo, Daniel Negreanu, Neil Gaiman, Martin Scorsese, Tony Hogg, Jane Goodall, and it just keeps going like that. I've recently took a course on portrait photography, or started taking the course. I still need to finish it. It's incredible. I'm trying to learn a little bit more about photography, so I can build up an intuition of how to do storytelling in the visual medium. I'm clueless about a lot of things in this world, and it seems like I should be a tiny bit less clueless,
8:05 Lex Fridman? since I'm creating a bunch of videos and photographs together now with a few amazing folks. Just like anything else, it's a skill, and learning more about a particular skill, if there's something like that on MasterClass, that is the best place to go, because you have the world's best teaching it. I highly recommend you check it out. Get unlimited access to every MasterClass and get 15% off an annual membership if you go to masterclass.com/lex. That's masterclass.com/lex for 15% off the annual membership. Masterclass.com/lex. This episode is also brought to you by a longtime favorite sponsor, Eight Sleep,
8:47 Lex Fridman? and its PodPro mattress. It controls temperature with an app. It's backed with sensors and can cool down to as low as 55 degrees on each side of the bed separately. I actually have never pushed it to 55 degrees. You know, I wonder what that would feel like, but in general, I just love the feeling of a cold bed in a hot Texas summer with a warm blanket. Cold bed, a little bit of air conditioning, warm blanket. I mean, it's just heaven. Both for naps and a full night's sleep is just amazing. I love it.
9:19 Lex Fridman? I think there's a lot of science behind why controlling temperature is great for sleep, but the actual anecdotal experience of it is amazing. They have a PodPro cover, so you can just add that to your mattress without having to buy theirs, but their mattress is pretty good. Go to 8sleep.com/lex, get special savings. That's 8sleep.com/lex. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast, and here's my conversation with Travis Stevens.
10:08 Lex Fridman? Judo is a martial art, a sport, a set of techniques, ideas and philosophies. Can we start by maybe you giving a big picture overview of what is judo? To somebody who's like outside of the whole spectrum of grappling sports?
10:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, judo was originated in Japan. That was used as a police tactic for self-defense and, you know, subduing people. It's the art of being able to throw somebody to the ground and hold and control the situation. I think it's pretty much evolved since then, though. You know, it's, as you include like the sport aspect of it, it's, it's grown to be something more and more dynamic, and it's kind of gotten away from that.
10:53 Lex Fridman? So the basics is people wear something called a gi,
10:56 Speaker 01 Yep.
10:57 Lex Fridman? which I think nicely mimics like outdoor clothing.
11:00 Speaker 01 Yep.
11:01 Lex Fridman? Like a jacket. And they start on the feet. And there's, they get to grip each other and the scoring works by the more badass the throw is, the more points you get. And if you throw the person big and hard on their back, you win the match and it's over. And that's called an epon.
11:23 Speaker 01 Yep, which is equivalent to a knockout.
11:26 Lex Fridman? So I guess there's no knock downs in judo?
11:29 Speaker 01 We don't count those.
11:30 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
11:30 Speaker 01 They gotta hit their back and they gotta hit it with force.
11:33 Lex Fridman? Right. And so there's a huge incentive for the big throws.
11:36 Speaker 01 Yep.
11:37 Lex Fridman? And, and there's also the drama of.
11:42 Lex Fridman? Somebody catching you off guard with a surprise big throw and it's over.
11:45 Speaker 01 Yep, there's, there's two ways of losing, really. There's the, I saw this coming. Right? Like you just, you see it, but you can't stop it. And those ones tend to be the ones you can live with. The ones that are like really hard to live with are the ones you never saw coming. Right? Cause that just shows that that person has really outclassed you.
12:09 Lex Fridman? Right. So there's like a set of, a small set of throws, maybe we can go through them. That are like, you saw it coming, but you couldn't do anything about it. And then there's the set of throws that are more like surprises. So first of all, the counters. Or if you fake one thing and go the other way, then that's a surprise. And it's like, oh shit. You off balance the person, uh, because they think you go one way and then you go the other way. And then there's this oh shit moment. All of a sudden.
12:35 Speaker 01 Yep.
12:35 Lex Fridman? Your, your back is just slammed on the ground. One of the one, I mean, you're good of many throws, but one of them is a, uh, that I think reveals the beauty of judo is the foot sweep.
12:46 Speaker 01 Yep.
12:47 Lex Fridman? There's something about the off balance and the timing that if you catch him right, all of a sudden. It's like, I had the same feeling when I went skydiving, like all of a sudden the ground is not under you anymore.
12:57 Speaker 01 Yeah. And you just, you go weightlessness for like a split second and you realize you've lost like all control of your limbs, like. It's like zero gravity, right? Like you just, you can't turn, you can't rotate, you can't do much of anything. And then before you know it, you've hit the floor.
13:12 Lex Fridman? Yeah. It's a cool feeling when you get thrown, um, because you hope to do the, the same thing to another person. It's like you're, you just hit the ground hard. Because it's not, you didn't see it coming. It wasn't a big throw that got loaded up. It's like all of a sudden the surprise and then like this like feeling your back just slams. And there's like the air is up.
13:35 Speaker 01 Yeah. And the worst is when you get hit twice with one throw, right? Because sometimes like the guy throwing you didn't expect you to leave either. So you hit. And then that guy comes down like a second and a half later and it's like boom, boom. And then the wind is just gone from you.
13:50 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
13:52 Speaker 01 Those are the worst.
13:53 Lex Fridman? And then there's the disappointment, like then the, the intellectual, the cognitive part comes in where you're like, oh shit, I just lost.
14:00 Speaker 01 Yep. And you don't have like a connection to why. Right? It's almost like you've just like you didn't literally get a concussion like you and you understand and remember everything, but you can't figure out how this just happened. Right? Those are the, those are the tough ones to deal with.
14:17 Lex Fridman? Actually, have you had moments like that?
14:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
14:19 Lex Fridman? Where you don't understand how it happened. You have to watch footage to understand what happened.
14:23 Speaker 01 Even when you watch it, you're just like, I don't get it. Like, why wasn't I in a position to stop this? It makes zero sense.
14:34 Speaker 01 Conceptually, when you watch it, you're like, I understand how to play defense. I understand. It looks like I'm in a defensive position, but at the end of the day, I still got thrown.
14:46 Lex Fridman? Yeah, you were talking about, what is it, a 2008 match? You have a non-traditional gripping style?
14:54 Speaker 01 Yep.
14:54 Lex Fridman? Accurate to say, but and then you were going against another right-handed player? And then there's some kind of fake that he did. And then he, he caught you.
15:03 Speaker 01 Yep.
15:04 Lex Fridman? Can you, can you describe the throw he caught you with?
15:06 Speaker 01 He caught me with a drop sale. But he, he kind of like, we were engaged. We were looking at each other and we were kind of at like a stalemate. Right? He couldn't really advance. I couldn't really advance. And he kind of just let his gaze like wander off to the right, like he was looking at something. And then I kind of like, what's over there? And then I got thrown.
15:31 Speaker 01 And it's like.
15:32 Lex Fridman? So first of all, uh, for people don't know, uh, Seo's Seonagi drop means when you drop to your knees and Seonagi is one of the fundamental throws of Judo. There's just, just a handful. But does that actually ever work? I always wondered that about like boxing or Judo. Does the head movement of the person work? Cause we're still like kind of dogs at heart. If you look somewhere with a dog, the dog is going to look that direction as well. Does that actually work ever?
16:01 Speaker 01 It does. Um, but on a greater sense, what you try to do is not necessarily get like a physical reaction of a look, but a lull of security where like they've almost like relaxed for that split second because you've lured them into like a sense of comfort. And then that's when you can strike.
16:23 Lex Fridman? So you have this, speaking of Seinagi, you have this gigantic standing Seinagi.
16:29 Speaker 01 Yep.
16:30 Lex Fridman? And you have a specific grip. One of our challenges is, there's a large number of people that listen to the audio version of this. So we're gonna have to try to describe some of this stuff. I'll do my best to try to describe with words. But you have, you grip with your left hand on the lapel of the jacket, or like that area.
16:51 Speaker 01 Yep.
16:51 Lex Fridman? And there's kind of a lean into the person. And I suppose, is there a feeling of a lull there that you're trying to get to where you're just, it feels like you're both calmly dancing before you turn your hips and go in for the throw?
17:04 Speaker 01 I'm actually trying to create a, a sense of weightlessness for my lead leg, which would be my right leg, and a sense of resistance from my partner.
17:20 Lex Fridman? So you, aren't you both kind of leaning?
17:23 Speaker 01 Into each other and it creates like an A-frame.
17:26 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
17:26 Speaker 01 But when the A-frame is held together at the top half, which would be my left hand and their right hand posted on each other's chest, it means our legs are free to move and our hips are free to move.
17:35 Lex Fridman? Right. And they're not gonna feel your leg move?
17:38 Speaker 01 Because of the weightlessness.
17:40 Lex Fridman? And is there a feeling like, for them, is there a feeling like, nothing bad can happen here? We're all relaxed, everything's fine?
17:46 Speaker 01 Yeah. And then they're standing off at a funny angle and before they know it, I've spun and my back is on their chest and they can't go anywhere.
17:53 Lex Fridman? Yeah. Yeah. How did you first develop that throw? So for people, it's called ipon Seinagi, which means your right hand goes under their like armpit area.
18:04 Speaker 01 Yep.
18:04 Lex Fridman? And that, that's like a vise that connects you to them.
18:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:09 Lex Fridman? And then they get, go on for the ride.
18:11 Speaker 01 Yep.
18:12 Lex Fridman? The interesting thing with the standing one is, as opposed to drop Seinagi version, the drop Seinagi, you kind of. Drop under them and because there's a vise, they're like pulled, pulled under and like over.
18:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:28 Lex Fridman? Uh, with the standing one, I suppose there's some similar physics, but you're kind of loading him onto your hip. And so they're in the air while you're standing still. There's, there's a, there's a sense in which they're like, you're lifting them above where they started.
18:47 Speaker 01 Yes.
18:47 Lex Fridman? That's how you get the really big air.
18:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:50 Lex Fridman? If, uh, obviously if, um, if everything is right. So how did you first develop that? How did you first?
18:58 Speaker 01 I first learned just learning like the very basics of the throw, you know, foot placement, all that kind of stuff. And then, you know, like anything, the basics are nice. But once you get good at the basics, it's, it's very easy to stop. But it gives you a good like fundamental platform to learn off of and to expand off of. And then I expanded when I first started watching Koga, the new wind, right? Cause he's the one that first like introduced that split hip style sayanagi that I do. Once I learned that one, I built about eight different variations of Seo off that one start position.
19:41 Speaker 01 That way I could, regardless of your defense, I had an answer for a throw.
19:46 Lex Fridman? So why that one though? Why, can you, uh, can you describe love to me, Travis Tins? Why'd you fall in love with that throw in particular?
19:53 Speaker 01 Um, it, it was really a sense of, you know, one of my shortcomings as a kid, like I hate leg day in the gym. I hate it with a passion. I, if you ask me to do a squat, I'll, I'll get it done. But I will bitch and moan every step of the way.
20:11 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
20:12 Speaker 01 I hate it. I remember one time I was at the gym with my trainer and he goes, okay, we're going to do front squats. And I want you to put two 25 on the bar. And I was like, I can't do that. And he was like, what do you mean? You can't do that. And I go, I physically, I can't do that. And he was like, Are you serious? And I go, yeah. So he didn't believe me. We put 225 on the bar and I bottomed out. And then he was like, okay, let's go down to 185. And I was like, I can't do that. I just, it's not happening.
20:38 Lex Fridman? You probably could, strength wise, you just refused.
20:40 Speaker 01 I just mentally, I cannot wrap my head around like, this ain't happening. I'm not doing it. So I ended up with like.
20:46 Lex Fridman? You're a man of principle.
20:47 Speaker 01 95 pounds on the bar, I got you at a front squat, no problem.
20:51 Lex Fridman? By the way, bodyweight squats are rough too psychologically, so.
20:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, I just, when it comes to my legs, like, I want no part of like, leg pressing, single leg squats, split squat, any of that, I want no part of it.
21:05 Lex Fridman? So you think like the more traditional variants of Sanagi require you to?
21:08 Speaker 01 Have that leg strength.
21:10 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
21:10 Speaker 01 That mass. Like when you watch Japanese judo players, like their thighs and their hips, they're thick. They got a lot of power there.
21:18 Lex Fridman? So you're almost like always dropping a little bit into a squat position.
21:22 Speaker 01 For mine, never.
21:23 Lex Fridman? No, no, no, not you, sorry. The traditional ones.
21:26 Speaker 01 Yeah. And so the split hip, the split hip actually allows me to keep my legs straight.
21:31 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
21:32 Speaker 01 And the farther I split my legs, the lower my center of gravity goes. Now I don't need my legs.
21:36 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
21:37 Speaker 01 Perfect. Love it. Let's do it.
21:39 Lex Fridman? So that's the way you were thinking about it? Okay.
21:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
21:42 Lex Fridman? But it's, you know, the interesting thing about it is because, you know, as I mentioned to you, I've gotten to judo after first watching you in the Olympics and then watching Koga as well. And so you start imitating the people you first see. And then you take it to judo coaches and they're like, no, no, no, that's the wrong way to do it. And.
22:03 Speaker 01 Happens all the time. It drives me nuts. Drives me nuts. I was in Poland one time, teaching a camp. And I had two coaches, anti-coaching, telling their kids not to do sayo the way I do it because it never works.
22:18 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
22:19 Speaker 01 It's crazy.
22:20 Lex Fridman? How do you have the fortitude and the guts to just go on with a throw that's not traditional? A variant that's not traditional?
22:29 Speaker 01 If you think about it, you know, from a very basic like root of it, there's a philosophy and a mentality of judo of how the throws work. Right? There's a mechanical structure there of like, this makes sense. If I follow that principle, I can do anything I want.
22:50 Speaker 01 Nothing else matters as long as we follow those core principles.
22:53 Lex Fridman? So in the early days, even even then you were able to think on your own?
22:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, and I was able to develop a pattern for my foot placement based on my opponent's height. Because the number one thing any judo coach would tell you is you need your center of gravity below theirs. Well, now I now I know exactly where to put my feet because the shorter you are, the bigger the split because the lower I need to get, the taller you are, the less of a split I need.
23:20 Lex Fridman? Is there something you could say about fundamental principles of judo? Is there over all that time? Not 20 over 20 years that you've been doing judo.
23:32 Lex Fridman? It's not approaching 30, is it?
23:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's yeah.
23:36 Lex Fridman? It's going there.
23:37 Speaker 01 It's getting there. Okay.
23:38 Lex Fridman? It's getting there. We're a couple of years away, but it's getting there.
23:41 Lex Fridman? Is there some like principles that have emerged? Like you said, you have to have your center of gravity below theirs.
23:48 Speaker 01 Yep.
23:49 Lex Fridman? Is there other kind of both on the gripping side, the footwork side? Leverage, anything you can speak to?
23:56 Speaker 01 There's some that have withstood like time, like you have to be able to get below their center of gravity because you have to be able to rotate them around their center of gravity. And then the other one is that was always a principle when I was growing up and I didn't change until later on in my career was you have to be able to pull. You need to be able to pull to get them off balance. But when you think about that statement as a whole, it ended with they have to be off balance. I don't need to pull to get you off balance. I just need you off balance. And when you think about it that way, it allows you to open up the doors to what do I need to do to get you off balance?
24:39 Speaker 01 I could push, pull, I could flinch, I could fake, and you could put yourself in your own off balance state. Right, when you think about people who wrestle, right, if I fake shoot, it causes you to overlean forward, which means you're off balance. There's no pull, there's no push, there's no nothing. I just get a reaction that leaves the opportunity and the door open for an attack.
25:02 Lex Fridman? And that off balance could be very subtle?
25:04 Speaker 01 Could be very subtle. And the better you get and the more skilled you get, the less subtle it is.
25:12 Lex Fridman? So we should also mention that there is something called forward throws, where you throw the person, you know, they they're gonna fly facing forward, they're gonna fly forward. And then backward throw, they're gonna fly back.
25:28 Speaker 01 Yep. And then there's lateral, you know, they actually go sideways over, like a cartwheel almost.
25:33 Lex Fridman? Okay, so the forward throws, there's the one we've been talking about, which is Seinagi. And there's a bunch of different variants, Ipon, Marote, Seinagi. There's drop and there's standing versions of them. And that all, I don't know if there's a way to summarize it, but that's like as clean as a getting your center of gravity under theirs as it gets. And then the rest is just gripping variations.
25:58 Speaker 01 Yep.
25:58 Lex Fridman? I guess it's all gripping variations on all of these throws, but. And then there's, in terms of forward throws, there's the other big one in competition is Uchimata, which is, I don't know, we can try to explain that one. But it ends up being where one, you're standing on just one of your feet and the other one is up in the air. And I don't know if you put in that same category, Haragoshi, like those kinds of throws where you're kind of a little bit single-footed.
26:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, so there's two-footed techniques and then there's single-footed.
26:37 Lex Fridman? Ogoshi, where it's like you're doing a mix between the Uchimata and the Seinagi.
26:44 Speaker 01 Yep.
26:44 Lex Fridman? It's a hug, you hug a person and then you turn your hips around such that you're now hugging facing the same direction.
26:52 Speaker 01 When it comes to forward throw, there's regardless of the name of the throw or the gripping variation that you're using, the whole principle is how do I get this person to do a forward roll in midair and land on their back? The more of a forward roll I can get, the bigger the score. If I get like a quarter of a turn where like you land on your side and you don't go over your back, it's a half score.
27:18 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
27:18 Speaker 01 But they all require me to get you to do that forward rolling action.
27:23 Lex Fridman? So just if we think of one person, if they do this nice leap forward and they do a roll and their back nicely rolls over the ground, you're trying to do the exact same thing with you connected to them.
27:34 Speaker 01 Well, and if it's nice and it's smooth, it's probably not a full score. It needs to have like somewhat of a violent impact.
27:43 Speaker 01 Right? So if you think of a drop senagi, if I, if I'm moving too slow and you still roll over your shoulders and there's no direct impact, it's only a half score.
27:52 Lex Fridman? Right.
27:53 Speaker 01 They want the force.
27:55 Lex Fridman? The force, the violence.
27:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:57 Lex Fridman? Good. Okay. So then in terms of backward throws, the traditional ones, there's stuff where you trip them from outside their body, like osotogari. It's a trip where you hook your leg onto their leg and you trip them, but your hook goes outside of their legs. And then there's the trips from inside their body. There's a, one foot is called kuchigari and then the other is ochigari, doesn't matter. The most important thing is outside and inside. And then there's like, I don't even know how you throw them sideways except foot sweeps. And then there's the foot sweeps where you can sweep one of their legs from out of them
28:42 Lex Fridman? or both their legs at the same time. And like we're talking about this kind of is when timed perfectly, it's effortless for everybody involved. And the, the ending, like you said, is big, dramatic and violent.
28:58 Speaker 01 Yep.
28:59 Lex Fridman? Is there other kind of, oh, oh, yeah, there's sacrifice techniques.
29:03 Speaker 01 Yep.
29:04 Lex Fridman? There's a bunch of them and that ultimately the variations have to do with gripping. But you're basically you, the attacker fall onto your back, sticking your legs somewhere on, onto, onto their body, which is like this fulcrum over which they fly and do that same kind of role that you mentioned.
29:22 Speaker 01 You basically sacrifice your back to the mat in order to throw them into that circular pattern. So they hit their back.
29:29 Lex Fridman? Right.
29:29 Speaker 01 Sometimes we use a foot, sometimes we don't.
29:32 Lex Fridman? And so we should probably say it's okay for you to go onto your back as long as you're clearly demonstrating control over the other person's body.
29:42 Speaker 01 Correct. You can't go to your back in the same direction that your opponent is trying to put you to your back.
29:49 Lex Fridman? Right.
29:50 Speaker 01 You have to go the other way or you have to initiate you going to your own back.
29:56 Lex Fridman? Right. Like clearly, and then, and then there's all the counters, which almost kind of have a whole group of their own. Even though they have echoes of the same types of techniques, it seems like they're their own whole thing.
30:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, but they follow the same principles. It's just most counters, like if you wanted to counter Anu Chi Mada, for example, you're trying to throw me in a somersault over my right shoulder. Therefore I would counter you by throwing you over your left shoulder. It goes in the opposite shoulder direction, but in the same somersault idea.
30:35 Lex Fridman? And there used to be, I already at this point, forget the years, but it might be 20, before the 2012 Olympics, where they banned, you, you used to be allowed to grab legs in the same way you do in wrestling. So you have basically all the techniques you would have in wrestling. Available to you if you would like.
30:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:54 Lex Fridman? It's just that some of the techniques in wrestling are not that effective for getting your opponent to their back.
31:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
31:00 Lex Fridman? Wrestlers want to take the other person down in any way possible and have control. Judo wants to take you down, like we said, in a big fashion where your back slams on the ground.
31:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, has to be to the back. A lot of wrestling takedowns happen because they get behind them.
31:14 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
31:14 Speaker 01 And then they they part air out.
31:17 Lex Fridman? Yeah, so but Judo banned all touching of the legs, which is a very dramatic change in the sport.
31:25 Speaker 01 Right after 2012.
31:26 Lex Fridman? After it was after 20?
31:28 Speaker 01 In 2012, so 2008, I fought the Games and everything was free. In 2012, we could only touch the legs as a defensive action or in response to an attack. So I could try to throw you with a normal throw and then when you try to counter, I could grab your leg.
31:48 Lex Fridman? Right, so there.
31:50 Speaker 01 Had to be a secondary technique.
31:52 Lex Fridman? And didn't like, didn't they disqualify on a first offense?
31:57 Speaker 01 First offense was a direct disqualification, which happened at the 2012 Games to the 57 Brazilian who won in 16.
32:05 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
32:05 Speaker 01 She was DQ'd in, I think, the quarters.
32:07 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
32:08 Speaker 01 And it was like, I wouldn't say it was blatant as much as I don't think the act changed the outcome of the match had they not disqualified her.
32:18 Lex Fridman? So that's not that dramatic. And by the way, you say 57, that refers to weight divisions and that's in kilograms. And kilograms is the measure of weight that the rest of the world uses and the United States does not. So and there's, we should say the divisions for for guys. I don't know what the 70, I don't know, the lower level 60.
32:39 Speaker 01 60, 66, 73, 81, 90, 100, and heavyweight, which has no ceiling.
32:47 Lex Fridman? No ceiling.
32:49 Speaker 01 It's an important distinction.
32:50 Lex Fridman? Yeah, it is an important distinction.
32:54 Lex Fridman? And you competed most of your career at 81 kilograms.
32:58 Speaker 01 All of it.
33:00 Lex Fridman? All, you never did 73?
33:01 Speaker 01 I never did 73.
33:02 Lex Fridman? But you had to cut big for 81 anyway.
33:04 Speaker 01 Towards the end of my career, yeah.
33:07 Lex Fridman? Okay.
33:09 Speaker 01 I overly grew into the division.
33:11 Lex Fridman? What's, uh, I'm trying to remember, is it about 180 pounds?
33:15 Speaker 01 178.6, I think.
33:17 Lex Fridman? And you have to weigh in with the gi?
33:20 Speaker 01 No, nothing. You're not allowed to wear anything except for your underwear, weigh in.
33:24 Lex Fridman? Confusing jiu-jitsu, that's right, that's right, that's right. Which is very nice.
33:30 Lex Fridman? Okay, so we, would you say we covered most of the throws or no? So there's the forward and the backward, there's the sacrifice throws and the counters.
33:40 Speaker 01 Yep.
33:41 Lex Fridman? And then there's the leg grabs, and we should say for the leg grabs that were effective, it's like, um, the big pickups where you just kind of pick them up and try to figure out once they're in the air, what the heck to do with their body to get them to the ground.
33:54 Speaker 01 You just kind of figure it out as you go.
33:56 Lex Fridman? I think the really nice one that was to me heartbreaking as a fan to see go is, I guess what's called a fireman's carry, which is, um, you know, it does lead to judo-like beautiful throws. And the fact that that was gone is, that one I missed a little bit, but then a bunch of people, I guess, came up with the variants where you don't need to grab the leg.
34:20 Speaker 01 It's definitely not as effective as being able to grab it, but I'm also on the side of the fence, having competed in all three. It was definitely better for the sport to remove it as a whole.
34:35 Lex Fridman? It's probably good to cover sort of the whole spectrum of rules of judo. Is there's groundwork, so there's, uh, you do all the stuff on the feet where you're trying to murder each other with a giant throw, but then, you know, if the throw doesn't succeed, you go to the ground and you stay on the ground for some amount of time, like short amount of time, you have to move quickly, you have to be attacking. And two of the ways you can win is similar to people who do jiu-jitsu is you can submit them, uh, chokes, arm breaks, all that kind of stuff, no foot locks. And, uh, and you can also pin them.
35:11 Speaker 01 Yep.
35:11 Lex Fridman? Which is get around their legs, and this is very... No, it's not like wrestling. You have to actually get around their legs and pin them in what in Jiu Jitsu is called side control them out, all kinds of ways that doesn't involve their legs.
35:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
35:25 Lex Fridman? And then you pin them for like, whatever, 20 seconds, 25 seconds.
35:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, 20 seconds now. I think the distinction is their back has to be facing the mat. You have to be past their legs and your chest has to be on the same plane as theirs.
35:39 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
35:40 Speaker 01 So it doesn't have to necessarily be on top, but it has to be on the same plane.
35:43 Lex Fridman? Yeah. And all of this is, I think, different sports of different versions of this, but it's like an approximation of what dominance looks like.
35:53 Speaker 01 Yeah.
35:53 Lex Fridman? So pin in wrestling is dominating your opponent. Presumably if you were in a street fight, that position allows you to then do a lot of damage. Obviously submissions is dominance because you're breaking their arm or choking them to unconscious. And then obviously the throw, which is not often talked about, but like if you talk about a street fight situation, a throw is like the best way to murder somebody. Like this could end anyone's life.
36:22 Speaker 01 Yes.
36:23 Lex Fridman? It's terrifying, actually. So, okay, so these are elements of dominance. So going back to set of principles, you were mentioning getting your center of mass under theirs, which I think applies for type of like the forward Senagi throws. Is there, is there other stuff? Oh, so you mentioned off balance?
36:44 Speaker 01 Yep, there's the off balance one where you can either pull to get an off balance or you can give way to the force, which can also lead to an off balance. You can amplify somebody's force to, so for example, if you push me, you expect a certain reaction that you're ready for. But if you push me and I pull you, now you didn't expect that much force coming out of you. Therefore, you're off balance.
37:15 Lex Fridman? The thing that's distinctly recognizable about Judo is like when done at the highest level.
37:23 Lex Fridman? Like it's it seems effortless when the big throw happens.
37:27 Speaker 01 Yep.
37:28 Lex Fridman? Like that's just it doesn't there is no other sport like it in the in the combat sports where it's like when the timing is right, everything just is perfect. I think you you get that MMA and um boxing sometimes when this is
37:41 Speaker 01 The knockout, yeah.
37:43 Lex Fridman? Perfect strike, just like what they but it's not just like a hard hit. It's like it's almost like the with Conor McGregor and Aldo, for example, when you just catch him just right.
37:53 Speaker 01 Just right.
37:54 Lex Fridman? And that
37:55 Speaker 01 You didn't look like you hit him that hard, but he hit him just right.
37:57 Lex Fridman? Yeah, and like you get to see this all the time in Judo. It's fascinating. And so the beginning part of that is because there's a jacket, there's also this whole thing that you're master of, which is like, which is gripping.
38:10 Speaker 01 Yep.
38:11 Lex Fridman? So is there something you could say about are there some fundamental principles of gripping that you can speak to? Like, what the hell is gripping?
38:20 Speaker 01 Gripping is having the ability to hold your opponent in such a way where you have the ability to be offensive and also the ability to be defensive at the same given time.
38:33 Speaker 01 And it's a distinction because I can hold you in such a way where I might be able to feel offensive, but if you can take a purely defensive grip and then I can't be offensive, we are no longer gripping. We are holding each other.
38:49 Lex Fridman? Right.
38:50 Speaker 01 Right? So like, that would be the act of being able to grip is to be in a situation where you have me and I have you and I can play both offense and defense at the same time, where you can only play defense.
39:05 Lex Fridman? So Donahue talks about like jiu-jitsu that way, and not that way, but maybe you can see if there's a distinction. So you have a set of weapons, the other person has a set of weapons, you wanna sort of maximize the use of your weapons and shut down the set of
39:20 Speaker 01 Weapons that they have, yeah.
39:21 Lex Fridman? That they have. You see gripping the same way on the on the feet?
39:25 Speaker 01 I do if we want to include body positioning with our gripping.
39:30 Lex Fridman? Right, okay.
39:31 Speaker 01 Because I can give you any grip you want and you still can't throw me. Cause I can put myself in a position that nullifies your ability to use those grips in a successful way.
39:41 Lex Fridman? And those, um, would you say the hips are critical to that or is it everything?
39:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, hips, shoulders, chin position, head position. You know, the angle of your foot.
39:50 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
39:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, where you lean.
39:52 Lex Fridman? Wow, okay. And so, uh, and there's a bunch of places you can grip. Obviously, if people like kind of think of a jacket, like there's a bunch of places you can grip that are interesting. So you can grip on the collar, you can grip on the sleeves, you can grip like the elbow joint. And then you could do, uh, those badass like Eastern European Georgian.
40:15 Speaker 01 Grips over the back, over the opposite sides of the heads.
40:18 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
40:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, the Koreans that grab on one side around the head with their hands together.
40:22 Lex Fridman? Yeah, there's something really nice about just those like, I mean, especially George.
40:27 Speaker 01 Just throwing that hand, yeah.
40:28 Lex Fridman? Just over the person and just it's, you're not actually gripping a belt or anything. You're gripping just the entirety of like, as opposed to being all nice and I'm gonna grab this part of the jacket, this part of the jacket, you're just like taking the whole fucking jacket.
40:43 Speaker 01 It.
40:43 Lex Fridman? And just launching somebody.
40:45 Speaker 01 For those people that can't picture judo, think about it in like, if you understood like what a boxing match looks like and you thought about that as like traditional gripping, when you throw like a Russian grip over the back, that's more like a hockey fight, like I'm just grabbing you and we're just gonna, we're gonna be throwing punches left and right. Cause when we have that grip, somebody has to get thrown.
41:09 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
41:09 Speaker 01 There's no, there's no, we don't walk around with this grip. It's, it's go time once somebody throws it.
41:16 Lex Fridman? To me, as a, as a fan and sort of amateur practitioner. There's two styles of Olympic level judo. One is where you're trying not to get thrown. And the other is where you're trying to throw. More specifically, when you're trying not to get thrown, there's like the strategy that you're using gripping to nullify their offense and all those kinds of stuff. You're being very clever and strategic and all that. You know, maybe using conditioning. And then there is people who just like step in the pocket. And they don't, almost don't care if they're getting thrown because they have the confidence that they're going to throw first.
41:54 Speaker 01 Yep.
41:55 Lex Fridman? And those, like, there's a clear distinction between the people that do one or the other. And I think both can be done extremely successfully at the highest level. It's just like, obviously, you admire the people that step in the pocket and...
42:08 Speaker 01 And I think when you look at the people who do judo the best, like, if we want to talk about like, the top 10% of the people who would compete at the Games, they do both. And they do both really well, but they favor one. Because if you look at a player like Luteb Atiliyani of Georgia, for example, there's a guy that stands in the pocket. But we can find numerous occasions where he's hustled some people for like a short period of time to get out of scenarios, to elongate the match, to make somebody tired. So you want both sides of the coin, but you better pick the one that, you know,
42:51 Speaker 01 80% of your strategy is going to be built around.
42:55 Lex Fridman? Sorry for the romantic question, but I talked to Dan Gable, and he always looked to the Russians as the artists in wrestling. And he always wanted to be an artist. But I think he's known for being that sort of guts, aggression, mental toughness guy, but he always was drawn to the artistry of wrestling. It's hard to know when you just watch you because it looks like you're aggressive and you got the guts and the mental toughness. But there's also obviously a mastery of technique. Which would you lean towards in terms of what accounts for your success and just the way you approach judo? Is it the guts, the aggression, the mental toughness?
43:38 Lex Fridman? Or is it the mastery of technique? The artistry?
43:43 Speaker 01 Mine would be my aggressiveness if I'm going to pick those two areas.
43:51 Speaker 01 But I think there's a third area in there that I would put myself in where I'm more of a strategist. I look at all of my opponents and all I ever see is their faults. And the way I do judo is built around their faults.
44:07 Speaker 01 And it's just, I put myself in scenarios where I don't even know how I'm gonna win. But what I've done in those scenarios is I've made it very difficult for you to win.
44:21 Speaker 01 And then I figure out the rest as I go.
44:24 Lex Fridman? Like, how do you study an opponent? Are there bins you can put them in, like there's a lefty and a righty or?
44:30 Speaker 01 Yep.
44:31 Lex Fridman? This kind of stuff, how many bins are there in judo in your mind that you put your opponents in?
44:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, there's probably about 20. There's like certain players who you could put in a category of like, they're only good for the first, you know, two thirds of the match. After that, they turn into a different player where they're either falling into a sense of panic or uncertainty and you can, if you were to take a video clip of, let's say, Churches Philly, right? They got George and I beat in the Olympic semi. He's somebody that would beat you in the first three minutes. And if you clipped out all of his matches and you only watched the first three minutes of every match, you would see one style. If you found all the matches where he got taken into the last minute
45:21 Speaker 01 and he wasn't winning by a major score, you would see a completely different fighter. And so going into like my Olympic semi, I put him into that category of like, I want to get to this guy because this guy is beatable. The trick is, how do you get there?
45:38 Lex Fridman? How do you get there? And by the way, we're talking about the 2016 Olympics where you won the silver medal. You were part of three different Olympics, but the cardio aspect of it. Have you faced exhaustion often in your matches where you have to go deep and go like past?
45:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, but that's not from the judo side of it. That's from like, I did a very bad job of making weight.
46:03 Lex Fridman? It's always the weight cut?
46:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's always the weight cut. And I think people really struggle. With that, they blame cardio and training and everything else. But when it really comes down to it, like we train for an hour and a half, two hours, twice a day. How are you tired after five minutes?
46:22 Lex Fridman? Right.
46:22 Speaker 01 Right? It becomes into a mental struggle, your anxiety, your stress, your lack of belief in yourself. Or in my case, sometimes it's poor nutrition. Sometimes I had one, two mini McDonald's meals. It just, it happens.
46:36 Lex Fridman? Okay, so let's talk about weight cutting real quick. So I've, I've seen weight cutting break some of the toughest fighters, wrestlers, grapplers ever. Like burnout break, like where they makes you want to quit the sport.
46:52 Speaker 01 Yep.
46:53 Lex Fridman? So, you know, this is what people don't often talk about, but mentally is one of the hardest things, especially when you're doing it kind of wrong. Because it becomes a mental war.
47:04 Lex Fridman? So you competed, like you said, your whole career at eighty one kilograms. You walked around at eighty eight, eighty nine. So about fifteen pounds, sometimes twenty pounds over that.
47:17 Speaker 01 Give or, give or take.
47:19 Lex Fridman? And so what, uh, what was your process like mentally and physically? First of all, maybe you can comment on when the weigh-ins are relative to the matches. And then what was your process like leading like a week ahead, a day ahead, an hour ahead, minutes ahead of the, of the weigh-in?
47:37 Speaker 01 Man, everyone varies tremendously because we're not like most sports. Because you're dropped off in foreign countries with who knows what, right? Some places have saunas, some places have treadmills. I went to a place one time in China in the middle of winter where the roads were frozen with ice. And we had to use our hotel rooms because it was, you couldn't sweat outside because it was too cold.
48:05 Lex Fridman? Right.
48:06 Speaker 01 And every one of my Olympics, the weight cut was different, just given my mass. When I went to two thousand eight, I was probably like eighty two, eighty three kilos walking around. So weight cutting wasn't a thing for me. In London, we actually weighed in the morning of. So weigh-ins were at like six AM. And the Olympics were always beneficial to me because they actually don't start until like ten or eleven. So you actually were able to recover where on the circuit you would weigh in at six AM and the competition started at eight AM. It's like, well, I was cutting weight at five AM.
48:43 Lex Fridman? And most of it, for people who are not familiar, but maybe you can also correct me. Most of it, you're really just getting the water out of your system is was water.
48:51 Speaker 01 At that point, yeah.
48:52 Lex Fridman? At that, like 24 hours before even like, so are you?
48:56 Speaker 01 Like an hour before.
48:57 Lex Fridman? But yeah, but like leading up to it. And have you eaten the day before? Do you try to minimize the amount of food in your system?
49:06 Speaker 01 My weight cutting process was a little bit different than than most people because I like to eat. I'm not, I'm not the type of person that believes your athletic career is determined by your nutrition.
49:23 Lex Fridman? Right.
49:23 Speaker 01 I don't, I don't believe that. I think some sports are built that way. But when it comes to combat sports, like, you know, your ability to knock somebody out has nothing to do with whether you had a cheeseburger or a salad. My ability to throw you is not determined by that. I may be able to perform better because I've eaten a certain way, but not enough to justify an entire diet change. Your body is built and my body is built to operate with certain things that I've had in my system for years.
49:54 Lex Fridman? Yeah, I think I'm with you, but I also believe that there's a mental aspect. So if you're surrounded by people that tell you diet matters, then if your diet is off, you're going to believe you're going to be off because the people around you tell you your diet should be good. So yeah, I think it's like, it's the same. I've had an argument with Matthew Walker, who's, who's a sleep scientist about sleep. And it's like, if you believe sleep is essential, it's essential to get eight hours of sleep every single night perfectly, then you're going to be very stressed when you don't get it. And then I think you will negatively affect, the stress will negatively affect your longevity and all kinds of aspects of your life.
50:34 Lex Fridman? If you actually just learn to truly listen to your body, become a scientist of your own body with sleep and food, it might end up that it will be the eight hours a night or whatever, but it might be something else and probably diet error.
50:46 Speaker 01 I remember when I was meeting with the USOC nutritionist after London, it was probably around.
50:54 Speaker 01 2014, I think. And when we had our team meeting at the beginning of the year and I was talking to him, he was talking about the nutrition plans that he could put us on. And I was like, timeout. I've done the USOC thing, like I've done the couscous, I've done the lemon in my water. I go, I'm full of shit.
51:13 Lex Fridman? The couscous?
51:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:15 Lex Fridman? Oh, boy.
51:16 Speaker 01 Like, there was just, because there's like a cookie cutter plan, right?
51:19 Lex Fridman? Right, right.
51:19 Speaker 01 And I was like, look, here's what I want you to do. I go, I'll listen to you. But you're gonna walk into the 7-Eleven across the street from the USOC. And if you can't buy it in that 7-Eleven, it's not on my plan.
51:31 Lex Fridman? Right.
51:32 Speaker 01 I go, because I go to places where the only thing I can eat is Pringles and a Snickers bar. I've done that. Like, I've flown to Azerbaijan, stayed in a hotel where the restaurant is closed. USA Judo hasn't paid for the meal plan. And the only thing that's available is the thing across the street.
51:50 Lex Fridman? So you were eating Pringles?
51:52 Speaker 01 Before fighting a Grand Slam event while cutting 20 pounds.
51:54 Lex Fridman? And a Snickers bar.
51:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:57 Lex Fridman? Just the visual of that, that's some like, that's some Rocky shit.
52:01 Speaker 01 Okay. Build me a nutrition plan, go for it. Because I'm not paying my own way to travel with 14 days of food.
52:09 Lex Fridman? Right. I mean, that's, that's one of the magic of your whole career and also Judo. I mean, I'm sorry to say, of course, you want athletes to be super rich and super well-funded from an athlete perspective and the sport to be popular and managed in an ultra competent way, but as a fan-
52:27 Speaker 01 That's not reality.
52:27 Lex Fridman? But as a fan, it's fun to watch somebody like you, who's exceptionally driven, have to suffer in all these different, interesting ways.
52:35 Speaker 01 But it's, it's only suffering if you expect the other side. I don't expect it. I accept it for what it is, which is why I write off nutrition for athletes.
52:46 Lex Fridman? Right.
52:47 Speaker 01 Because it can be done without it, as long as, you know, to what you said before, like, you don't believe you need it.
52:53 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
52:53 Speaker 01 Some people believe they need it.
52:56 Lex Fridman? The mind, getting your mind right is the most important thing.
52:59 Speaker 01 You know what I believe I need?
53:00 Lex Fridman? What's that?
53:00 Speaker 01 A Snickers bar when I'm tired. I want a little bit of sugar, makes me feel better.
53:06 Speaker 01 What do you want me to do?
53:07 Lex Fridman? So you-
53:09 Lex Fridman? What are you gonna do? Yeah, so I just love the visual of you eating a stinkin' burger before transplant.
53:16 Speaker 01 But that became part of my nutrition plan. When the USOC guy wrote my nutrition plan, I was eating a burrito bowl with brown rice, white meat chicken, black beans, guacamole, cheese, two chocolate chip cookies, and a diet coke.
53:33 Lex Fridman? This is like Chipotle?
53:35 Speaker 01 It was Beloko, but same concept.
53:37 Lex Fridman? Same, same concept with two chocolate chip cookies.
53:40 Speaker 01 Cause I needed the sugar. I was, I was eighty-eight kilos when I stepped on the scale at six point three percent body fat. Now I gotta make eighty-one.
53:53 Lex Fridman? Six, what? Really?
53:55 Speaker 01 Yeah. And the USOC was like, hey, you know, you can't, you can't fight eighty-one anymore. You have to fight nineties. And I go, I'm already into the quad. I'm not changing. I go, build me a plan where I can do this. And now we have to have an acceptable weight cut. Like it's just, what do you want me to do? I'm not the I J F. I can't just change the fact that it takes two years to qualify. I know where I'm at. I know what I have to go through and I accept the consequences. It is what it is. What do you want?
54:27 Lex Fridman? All right. So what was the process? I mean, can you, can you speak to, so you, you wake up early in the morning, the, the day of the weigh-ins, a few hours before?
54:36 Speaker 01 Technically, my weight cut never started until I got off a plane and to a hotel.
54:43 Lex Fridman? And how many hours?
54:45 Speaker 01 Three days.
54:47 Lex Fridman? So it's a three-day cut?
54:48 Speaker 01 It's a three-day cut.
54:49 Lex Fridman? Mentally, you're thinking of it that way?
54:51 Speaker 01 Yep.
54:51 Lex Fridman? And then you're still eating?
54:53 Speaker 01 I eat every day.
54:54 Lex Fridman? And then like, what, do you load up on water maybe as you start and then?
54:57 Speaker 01 Nope.
54:58 Lex Fridman? Or the, the water stops?
55:00 Speaker 01 It is what it is.
55:03 Lex Fridman? So you, I mean, it's a slow, you're not actually like sweating all three days, are you? But then it's like torture to sleep.
55:14 Speaker 01 Part of the process.
55:17 Lex Fridman? Are you able to sleep?
55:18 Speaker 01 Sometimes. It depends.
55:22 Lex Fridman? So you're dehydrated further and further dehydrated with six, seven percent body fat, trying to lose 10 pounds?
55:29 Speaker 01 I even developed a way to drink water out of a bottle where I don't drink anything, but I feel like I have.
55:34 Lex Fridman? Uh, swooshing it, what's the?
55:36 Speaker 01 No, so like I take like a bottle of water and like if we were to like to draw a line on it, I would tip it and I would go like this, I would go.
55:51 Speaker 01 And you would draw that line, but like I've drank now water for 20 seconds or whatever it is.
55:57 Speaker 01 And I feel I, I get the fix.
55:59 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
56:00 Speaker 01 Brain told me I got there. No problem.
56:03 Lex Fridman? That's amazing, man.
56:05 Speaker 01 You just, your mind's a very powerful tool and the, the problem a lot of people have is
56:14 Speaker 01 they don't accept the reality of the situation. They bitch about the reality of the situation. I just.
56:21 Lex Fridman? First of all, you could always quit. Right?
56:24 Speaker 01 Yep.
56:25 Lex Fridman? So like you're not.
56:27 Speaker 01 Never missed weight. Never.
56:28 Lex Fridman? Never missed weight.
56:29 Speaker 01 You can, you can perform poorly. You can't miss weight.
56:33 Lex Fridman? Don't miss weight.
56:33 Speaker 01 Don't miss weight. Because you, you can always win regardless of how bad the weight cut is. You can never win if you miss weight.
56:43 Lex Fridman? But your, your brain is also really good. Maybe not your brain. But I know my brain, I think most people's brains are good at generating, the more desperate things become, the better it's, it's generating excuses. So what were you doing with your mind? That resulted in you never missing weight?
57:05 Speaker 01 The plan. So like I said, like my weight cut would never start until I got to the hotel. Because I didn't check my weight the morning of, I didn't check my weight when I got there. I just, while I'm traveling, I'm doing things at like a minimal level, but I'm never not giving myself something I'm craving.
57:29 Speaker 01 If I'm thirsty, I'm drinking a Diet Coke. If I'm hungry, I'm buying a Snickers bar. I'm buying a sandwich. I am. And I accept the consequences when I get there. And then when I get there, if I step on the scale and it says eighty eight kilos, I instantaneously know exactly what it's going to take to be eighty one.
57:50 Lex Fridman? And then you just follow like a robot, follow a very specific process?
57:54 Speaker 01 Yep.
57:56 Lex Fridman? And then, I mean, because there's a lot of seconds in three days, seconds and minutes and you just.
58:01 Speaker 01 I just know exactly what it takes from my body. I know exactly what a one hour gym workout, wearing a sauna suit, is going to take. I know exactly what I'm going to lose on day one. And I know exactly what I'm going to lose on day three, because they're not the same. So I can instantly look at a hotel, decide, is there a bathroom, sauna, gym, temperature of the gym, access to the gym and when it is, access to the judo mats, my training partners, the roads versus streetlights, the weather outside. I can take a look at that environment and say, this is my weight. This is weigh-ins. And instantaneously in my head, there's a plan to make weight.
58:42 Lex Fridman? And you have a sense of how much sweat adds up to, to ten pounds, how much sweat plus time?
58:48 Speaker 01 Yep. And I make sure in my plan, all of my meals and how much water I need in between is allocated to still make weight because you have to eat or drink during that time.
58:59 Lex Fridman? Are you incorporating like mental exhaustion into this?
59:04 Speaker 01 That doesn't exist.
59:06 Lex Fridman? So it doesn't?
59:06 Speaker 01 Oh, it doesn't.
59:07 Lex Fridman? Do you like meditate or something? What did the thoughts come, especially three days? We're not talking about four hours of suffering.
59:13 Speaker 01 I'll tell you.
59:14 Lex Fridman? This has broken some of the toughest people in the world.
59:17 Speaker 01 The hardest weight cut I ever had.
59:19 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
59:19 Speaker 01 Hardest one. Um, I fought Pan Am Games in twenty fifteen in Edmonton, Canada on a Wednesday. And I won. So I've, I've made weight on Tuesday. I fought on Wednesday where I had to weigh in five percent of my weight class, so eighty four kilos. On Wednesday, I was eighty four kilos. I got on a plane on that Wednesday night and landed Friday morning in Sochi. Okay, so I've traveled now. I got on the scale, all my bags got lost. Everything. So somehow I flew from there to here.
1:00:04 Speaker 01 No bags and I threw all of my stuff in my bag. I wore sandals, one pair of pants and a T-shirt on the plane. Cause I was like, I'm just tired. I just fought like, I don't even wanna carry it. I don't care. What are the odds that I get there and my bags are gone?
1:00:20 Lex Fridman? Yeah, very low.
1:00:22 Speaker 01 Very low. Sure enough, it's gone. I get all the way to Sochi. I check into the hotel. There's one sauna. Guess what? You have to reserve it. And you're only allowed to reserve it for an X period of time.
1:00:36 Lex Fridman? Get us a small tangent. When you phoned out, your bags are gone. This is something I'll often think about. There's like people that are helping you, right? Like there's a person in the airport who goes.
1:00:48 Speaker 01 Yep, oops, just like that.
1:00:49 Lex Fridman? And then the person at the hotel who tells you that you have to reserve the sauna and looks at you like you're.
1:00:56 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:00:57 Lex Fridman? They don't care that you've been suffering. They don't.
1:00:59 Speaker 01 They don't even understand why you need it.
1:01:01 Lex Fridman? Yeah, like why? Oh, you know, oh, this like, like this little kid reserved it for five hours or something to block it off. Or say, I'm sorry. Is there a frustration that gets in there? Are you?
1:01:13 Speaker 01 You just accept reality. Don't, don't even hinder on like the things you can't change. Cause the second you get frustrated, the second you think you can change it, you'll hope on it and that breaks most men.
1:01:26 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:01:27 Speaker 01 That like little thing in the back of their mind thinking. All like, what if? There's no what if, like there's only right here, right now. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Let's just quickly come up with a solution to fix the problem.
1:01:39 Lex Fridman? By the way, as another small tangent, all the greatest people I've interacted with at the highest level. Think like that. They don't linger on the.
1:01:48 Speaker 01 No.
1:01:49 Lex Fridman? It's like the next thing.
1:01:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:01:50 Lex Fridman? Because like if you wanna do something great, hard stuff is gonna keep happening to you. And if you're gonna let that affect you, you're not ever gonna do the great thing.
1:02:00 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:02:00 Lex Fridman? It's fascinating, actually. Like that's the one skill you have to learn. Elon Musk is great at this, constantly dealing with emergencies. Okay. Okay, this happened. What's the next step?
1:02:10 Speaker 01 Yep. Next up. It's not that big of a deal. Every problem has a solution.
1:02:14 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:02:15 Speaker 01 Yeah. And if I can't solve it, it's not my problem. You want me to do? Yeah, exactly. So what, uh, so how'd you figure it out? In sandals? Get this, I get to the hotel. Yeah. I check in. I don't even know about the sauna yet. I go, I need to find a clothing store. I'm in the middle of Russia. I open up Google Maps and I'm like, sports store. I find an Adidas sports store in the middle of Sochi, Russia, right? Uh huh. I spend like five hundred dollars on like average sweats, no plastics, no nothing, and no running shoes because they don't have any. What's the temperature outside? Is it cold? It was kinda like springish, so it wasn't cold, but it wasn't hot. Yeah, so you still need a lot of layers, preferably?
1:03:00 Speaker 01 You would need a lot of layers just to cut the amount of weight I'm about to tell you I have to cut. Because after I bought that stuff that next morning, and mind you, it's a Friday, it's a Friday morning. I go to the venue where we have the mats open to train and I step on the scale. And then Sagan Batar, Mongolia, goes, "Oh, pretty good. You're almost there." And I go- Oh, no. No. Oh, no. I'm not. I stepped on the scale at almost ninety-four kilos. And I looked at him and I was like, "I'm eighty-one." And he went, "Good luck."
1:03:37 Speaker 01 You're almost there? Yeah. For the next weight class above. Uh, this is on a Saturday or- Friday morning. No, no, no, sorry. Friday morning, the, the competition is on- Sunday. Sunday. I weigh in Sunday. Okay. And I'm like, "Holy crap." I throw on all my layers and there's one other person with me there, Kalida, who's my girlfriend at the time, now my wife. We start doing judo because I'm like, "This will be the easiest way to knock off like three or four kilos." Well, it's cold, I have no gi, and I'm working out with a female. I can't get like overly physical to like really get my muscles going to really break that sweat because
1:04:23 Speaker 01 she has to compete in a day or two. She's not a training partner. You can't just use this person. I stepped on the scale. I was ninety-one kilos. So I mean, well, that was a nice den, but like
1:04:34 Lex Fridman? Workout.
1:04:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, I go, that's, that's not gonna fly. So sure enough, the clothes are now ruined. They didn't help me lose any extra weight. So I go back to the hotel and I start reserving the sauna. Do you know how hard it is to lose that much weight in a sauna by yourself?
1:04:51 Lex Fridman? The, so it's hard on many levels, but one of them is just mental.
1:04:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:04:56 Lex Fridman? You're sitting in heat.
1:04:57 Speaker 01 Heat and you're not doing anything. Like if there had been a bike or like the sauna was big enough to use a jump rope or you could do some sort of activity. But you just sit and you stew and you're there mentally. At one point during the weight cut, I actually had my mouth on the bottom part of the door where there was a little gap and my legs up on the benches and Kalida holding the door. So that it didn't open, so I couldn't open it. So that I could lean against that thing and have fresh air. Cause I was like, I was struggling.
1:05:32 Lex Fridman? And we're talking about, I mean, how many hours is that?
1:05:35 Speaker 01 Hours. And then the thing is, is because you have to reserve the sauna. I can't even take like a 30 minute break because the sauna is not going to be mine in an hour.
1:05:43 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:05:44 Speaker 01 Which means you have to use the sauna in the heat for that a lot of time period. And I hate saunas.
1:05:50 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:05:51 Speaker 01 That is always my last resort. I would use a bath, I will train, I will run, I will jump rope. Sauna is like, oh, let me do that for 10 minutes after all of my gym workouts, just to keep the sweat going while I stretch and cool down. That's never like the, hey, I'm gonna do five, 10 minute sessions because I need to lose two kilos. That is never the plan.
1:06:12 Lex Fridman? Yeah. But I mean, um, so I've done plenty of sauna for weight cuts to know, I can't even imagine what you went through.
1:06:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:06:22 Lex Fridman? The seconds slow down. That's one way to achieve immortality is like, the time slows down to like a stop. And you're left alone with your thoughts, you can't do anything, just like you said, you can't.
1:06:34 Speaker 01 There's nothing worse than sitting in that kind of heat for 10, 15 minutes.
1:06:39 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:06:39 Speaker 01 And then you walk out and you're not even sweating.
1:06:43 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:06:43 Speaker 01 There's nothing worse than that.
1:06:45 Lex Fridman? And if you like, and maybe if you weigh yourself, which you probably shouldn't be doing, cause it'll break you.
1:06:49 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:06:50 Lex Fridman? You haven't lost anything.
1:06:51 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:06:53 Speaker 01 And I was weighing myself every time because I only get breaks when I was hitting weight allotments. So if I could lose point three in 10 minutes, I'd give myself a break, but I had to hit certain numbers. Cause I only have the sauna for a certain amount of time. And I remember one time I went downstairs to get my key to the sauna and the Japanese team had reserved it and took it from me. Because the guy didn't put my name on the list when I called down to get the sauna. So I lost an entire session that I had to get made up towards the later part of the day. Cause I still had no running shoes. And then sure enough, my bags show up 30 minutes after weigh-ins. Great.
1:07:32 Lex Fridman? That's like, uh, the universe is kind of giving you a little wink there.
1:07:36 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:07:38 Lex Fridman? I think like, cause so few people do this weight cut at this high of a level. People don't often realize, because people get a sense of how hard it is to run 200 miles in a desert. Like they, they, cause they go outside here in Texas, you can run five miles. Oh, it's hard. But like the weight cut is really, I, I, can you, so you just, uh, like, how did you do it? Just fucking not refusing to.
1:08:05 Speaker 01 You have to make weight.
1:08:07 Lex Fridman? You have to make weight and you just, that's.
1:08:10 Speaker 01 I am astounded when I hear like,
1:08:15 Speaker 01 UFC fighters like miss weight.
1:08:19 Speaker 01 Right? Like when Jaden Cox missed weight at the Olympic trials, I was like, at least his was understandable because he missed the actual weigh-ins. He didn't, he wasn't like not on weight. But when UFC fighters like miss weight, I'm like, how did that happen? You clearly like gave up a long time ago. There were times where I was like, well, I can't do this. There have been times where I've been in a, in a sauna suit, wrestling with a training partner who's probably 60 kilos, who fought earlier that day to lose point three.
1:08:59 Lex Fridman? To lose point three. Like, are you considering your mortality in this moment? Like, aren't you thinking you're gonna die? Cause like it's severe dehydration. You could damage your body. Uh, do you, are you thinking about any of this or is it just?
1:09:17 Lex Fridman? Ah, man. Okay, yes.
1:09:20 Speaker 01 But see, I'm on the other level too, where like, I've been in Belgium, right? Belgium, there used to be a B-level tournament. And the tournament used to go on. And because I was always on the heavier side, like 81's fights on the second day, which is the heavyweight day. Um, weigh-ins were always at like, let's say 2pm the day before for that tournament. Well, there was a sauna at the tournament. I remember like being in the sauna and like, oh, I'm 80.9 kilos.
1:09:50 Speaker 01 Weigh-ins aren't for three hours. Fuck it, I'm gonna have lunch.
1:09:57 Speaker 01 Cause I, I mentally understand that what I eat right now is gonna fuel me for tomorrow. So I don't wanna skip it. I have the time to put it into my system and still lose it.
1:10:08 Lex Fridman? Right. It's almost like a computer program. You're running through the process. You have a, I get it, but like that all relies on your ability to be, um...
1:10:18 Speaker 01 To get it back off.
1:10:19 Lex Fridman? Yeah, I mean, but also just like go through this process, which is painful. It's like those monks who meditate while sitting in a fire kinda thing, or something, right? Like, it, that, uh, yeah, it's, uh, it's really interesting. Is there other people that are critical to this, or is this all internal to you? Are there people that, you know...
1:10:37 Speaker 01 Everybody has their own way of doing it. Um, some people don't cut that much. Some people can't wait, cut it all, right? They would rather have been like 83 kilos fighting 90 than, you know, be 83 kilos fighting 81.
1:10:57 Lex Fridman? So why did you never move up to 90?
1:11:00 Lex Fridman? What's your sense? Is it from your deep understanding of your own judo and like the judo opponents you would face at 90? And 81, cause 81 is probably the hardest, if not the second hardest division in the history of judo compared to 73 and... Eighty one.
1:11:17 Speaker 01 You know, when I was a kid, like, I always wanted to be like the middleweight Olympic champion, like the eighty one kilo Olympic champion. When I was in high school, I made a decision when I was trying to make weight for seventy three. I was like, dude, this is, I was cutting weight for seventy three like I was cutting weight at the end of my career. Right? And I was like, I'm just gonna bag it. I'm gonna accept the fact that I may not make a junior world team. I may not make this team, but I'll grow into the division. So when I'm a senior player, like, I'm ready to go and I'll naturally be stronger. There's an understanding of like a growth process when you move up a weight class. Most people can't just, oh, I'm gonna fight nineties and I'm gonna win because I won in eighty one.
1:12:01 Speaker 01 The style of judo is different. How you move is different. How they do things is different. There's like a learning curve that goes into it.
1:12:10 Speaker 01 And because the weight cut didn't really happen until I was getting ready for Rio, I wasn't about to have my last Olympic Games be at a different weight class that I may or may not be able to grow into.
1:12:21 Lex Fridman? I mean, this is an awesome story of you kind of decided that this will be your life's work in terms of judo competitor is like the eighty one division. I'm going to, I mean, I don't know if you saw it that way, but you're talking about three Olympics. And it's like this story of, I would say tragedy and triumph of just wars and eighty one kilograms with, with the usual cast of characters of the, you know, top five in the world kind of thing. So you just became a scholar of that, let your body grow into it and then let your body outgrow it and still suffer through it to keep it in the eighty one kilograms. You never competed at like at the highest levels at ninety.
1:13:02 Speaker 01 I entered one tournament at ninety kilos. Um, and that was because before Rio, from twenty, from the end of twenty fourteen, all the way up until Rio's, every time I fought, I got hurt. Every time. There was no time where I made weight and got injured because my body weight was so high, my body fat was so low that by the time I dehydrated enough to get down there, and you take the physicality of judo and throw that into the mix, something broke every time. It was like nature of the beast. So the plan was before Rio.
1:13:45 Speaker 01 We made an agreement with USA Judo that Travis, you're gonna fight 90 kilos. But you're not gonna weigh in at 90 kilos. Like, hey, there's no like, you get to be 94 kilos and cut to 90s. There's like a, you're gonna step on the scale at 84 kilos. Like a little bit of a weight cut. But not a full one, just so that you feel like you get into like the tournament. Because when I, around 2012, when I was talking with the USOC nutritionist, I actually got my weight down so much that I didn't really need to cut weight. The problem is, is I wasn't cutting weight. I didn't feel like I was competing.
1:14:19 Lex Fridman? Got it.
1:14:20 Speaker 01 Right? There's, you have to go through like that mental process. And I never really reworked that. It was easier to just cut the weight and be ready to go.
1:14:29 Speaker 01 But when I entered into the 90 kilo division, I was rushed to the hospital the night after because my body broke out in hives. Like full body.
1:14:37 Lex Fridman? What?
1:14:37 Speaker 01 They had to, they said it was stress induced.
1:14:41 Lex Fridman? Fascinating.
1:14:42 Speaker 01 So a month before the games, I was hospitalized and hungry. And filled with steroids to get the hives to drop. And every couple days, my body, when I got back home, I would end up in the hospital because my whole body would break out again.
1:14:57 Lex Fridman? I wonder if it's like deviating from the process that you so like, perfectly crafted already.
1:15:02 Speaker 01 Or it was stress from my mind thinking, like even though it's not top of mind, there's probably a portion of me that like, the Olympics is coming around and it could be my last.
1:15:13 Speaker 01 That like my body just reacted to something chemically, so I was breaking out in hives. I actually bought like a 600 euro Hugo Boss suit because when I was in the Netherlands training at the time, I thought I had bedbugs because I was getting bit everywhere. Then I thought there was something in the detergent at the local thing, so I threw away all my clothes. Like I was paying for showers because I was trying to get the detergent off my body and buying new clothes at the airport. Trying to figure it out.
1:15:44 Lex Fridman? Trying to figure it out and just go, yeah, accepting the situation. I mean, but the level of stress is exceptionally high here. Can we talk about the other side? People are gonna love this. But you're, you have a long history of persevering through injuries. Through insane amounts of injuries.
1:16:05 Speaker 01 My ability to tolerate pain is probably more than most people.
1:16:10 Lex Fridman? But see, injuries aren't just pain, right? It's like, um, it's also mental, like psychological. Like, again, like the weight cut, it can make a lot of people quit.
1:16:21 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:16:22 Lex Fridman? Can you tell your history of injuries? What are the biggest injuries, the toughest injuries in your career? Starting from, what, your early teens?
1:16:33 Speaker 01 My early teens, um, I actually got out of sports from 11 to, I would say like 15 years old, 16 years old, because a kid shot a double leg through my kneecap and I partially tore all the ligaments in my knee, cartilage, meniscus, the whole nine yards. And I had to learn how to walk again. I spent two years in a leg brace, crutches, you know, hobbling around the schoolyard. That one was a challenge to come back from.
1:17:04 Speaker 01 I've broken most of my ribs. I won Nationals with nine broken ribs. I was actually getting Novocain shots into my chest to avoid feeling the pain and then wrapping them to try to make sure I didn't pop a lung.
1:17:21 Speaker 01 I've broken my collarbone. Um, I have five herniated discs in my neck. I fractured my back twice. I've broken my tailbone. I tore my SI joint. I've torn my right hamstring twice, my left one once.
1:17:40 Speaker 01 Broken my ankles a few times. I spun it once in a 360 that had def surgery.
1:17:46 Speaker 01 Fingers, toes, elbows, shoulders.
1:17:48 Lex Fridman? So all of these are, first of all, you're, um, you're a tough, you're a tough dude, man.
1:17:58 Lex Fridman? So each of those have a story behind them. So if you're talking about the collarbone or the ankles or, or the back, the neck, is there interesting stories here that are behind these injuries? Hard training, hard competing, jiu-jitsu, judo, so ground stuff like sparring in the dojo or like drilling or all that kind of stuff? If you were to sort of break it down, your understanding of the landscape of injuries you went through?
1:18:31 Speaker 01 I've never had one in jiu-jitsu. Ever. I mean, I might have like torn a fingernail or like, you know, gotten gear burned, but I've never been like seriously injured. I know when Ponza straight ankle locked me at Copo Podio, that hurt, but I wasn't injured like it felt sore. But like if I had to run like I could run.
1:18:56 Lex Fridman? I can now understand probably exactly where the injuries came from then. You're very quickly excelled at jiu jitsu. You have achieved another level in judo. And I think that means the intensity with which you approached judo. To achieve that world-class level probably is the source of the injuries.
1:19:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, because the mentality of how I approached judo versus jiu jitsu. Jiu jitsu to me is like a game that like we would play. Like if you wanted to like grab a basketball and like go play a game of one-on-one, that's like jiu jitsu to me like I can't take the sport in its entirety seriously. Cause I feel like the community of jiu jitsu doesn't take it seriously.
1:19:45 Lex Fridman? So just for people who don't know, just to set some context, you're you're a black belt in jiu jitsu, but more importantly, you've beaten a lot of world-class jiu jitsu people. You've done very well at the highest levels of competition.
1:20:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily say I've beaten them as much as I've trained with them. And they understand whoever it is that through training with me that like I'm not just a judo guy. Like I know how to do jiu jitsu. Right? And if any one of them were to come to me and like say, hey, you know,
1:20:27 Speaker 01 I want to feel what it feels like to do judo with me.
1:20:33 Speaker 01 They would quickly understand that like the way I approach one is very different than the way I approach the other. Like, we probably wouldn't be friends if they did judo with me versus if they did jujitsu with me.
1:20:45 Lex Fridman? I'm curious, asking for a friend, because mostly because I'll do a little judo with you today. So you clearly, because you're a great instructor and teacher, you have a mode where you can demonstrate a technique. Do you know how to like spar where you're going like 50%?
1:21:03 Speaker 01 It's hard to put like a percentage to it because I've never in all of my jujitsu ever gone 100%.
1:21:10 Lex Fridman? In jujitsu?
1:21:11 Speaker 01 Yeah. Like, I had a conversation with Salo one time where we were talking about like jujitsu and training and I was like, "Well, if I got his arm, I would just break it." And he was like, "But what if he tapped?" I go, "That's not my responsibility."
1:21:31 Speaker 01 "If he taps and the ref doesn't say anything, you just break it. You just keep going." He goes, "But the tap means it's over." And I said, "No, the ref tells me when it's over." I go, "I never give you the opportunity to tap because if you have the opportunity to tap, that means you had the opportunity to think about how to get out, make a decision that you can't, then tap. I clearly operated too slowly." So there's a, it's either broken or I don't have it.
1:21:57 Lex Fridman? You're a terrifying person to go against in judo. Like, on the ground, like, everything you did, that's amazing. That's really amazing. That's what made you a really fun person to watch, because you really went to war with these people.
1:22:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:22:13 Lex Fridman? So you know what it's like to go 100% in judo?
1:22:15 Speaker 01 I do, because I know what it's like to train with somebody under the mentality of, "I'm gonna do everything I want to do, you're gonna do nothing you want to do, and you're gonna accept that."
1:22:29 Lex Fridman? Do you ever train in judo where you let people get stuff?
1:22:33 Speaker 01 Of course, all the time.
1:22:36 Lex Fridman? No, or like?
1:22:37 Speaker 01 Always.
1:22:38 Lex Fridman? Even when you're sort of building up the four years, building up to the Olympics? Like, there's smaller guys that are throwing you in the gym and that kind of stuff?
1:22:46 Speaker 01 No, I never said that.
1:22:47 Lex Fridman? Okay.
1:22:49 Speaker 01 That never came out of my mouth. I said I let people do stuff. I never said smaller people throw me.
1:22:55 Lex Fridman? Oh, you mean you let them get a grip, but then you'll position yourself in such a way that it's hopeless? It's like?
1:23:01 Speaker 01 The number one skill set that judo is gonna teach you is the ability to give people false hope.
1:23:12 Speaker 01 Right? Because I can let-
1:23:12 Lex Fridman? I'm really looking forward to the video we're gonna shoot later today.
1:23:15 Speaker 01 Like, I can let you take a grip.
1:23:18 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:23:18 Speaker 01 I can let you think that there's opportunity, but what you don't understand is by the position and angle that I'm in,
1:23:25 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:23:25 Speaker 01 it's actually false hope.
1:23:26 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:23:27 Speaker 01 Like, as long as you don't know that it is, then now I'm free to operate and do what I want.
1:23:32 Lex Fridman? See, I competed in judo against black belts where I would go in and it looks like I should be able to throw them, and then you just hit a wall. And then I also saw you destroy those black belts.
1:23:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:23:47 Lex Fridman? So there's levels to this.
1:23:48 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:23:48 Lex Fridman? It's the cliche thing of there's black belts and there's black belts. You're unique in this. There may be a couple other judoka in America, but you're really like unique. I then get to see people that really, I felt like, were 10x better than me. It just feels like that sometimes. I've learned that madness and said it be truly might only be just a little better, but I saw you destroy them. And it was like, holy shit.
1:24:17 Speaker 01 There's a thing in judo, right, where, you know, imagine like you as like just an adult, right?
1:24:27 Speaker 01 And I hope people can like conceptualize this when they hear this, but imagine like you're a full grown adult, even male, female, it doesn't matter, but there's a little kid in front of you, like call him five or six years old, and he's acting out. Like, do you think you have the physical capability of with one hand grabbing that person? Or that kid and making sure that they freeze? Like, they feel like they're nervous and like they can't do anything?
1:24:54 Speaker 01 When you fight a good judo player, when they grab you, that's what it feels like as an adult.
1:25:00 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:25:01 Speaker 01 When people, even I've felt that from like certain players in Japan, like when they get a grip, I'm like, I've now lost the function of this one.
1:25:09 Lex Fridman? Yeah, that's a really good way to put it. I think I could potentially beat some of the people I've went against, but certain grips they took, it made me feel powerless.
1:25:21 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:25:21 Lex Fridman? I was like, I didn't know this was possible. That kind of power was possible.
1:25:25 Speaker 01 And you don't even know where it originates from.
1:25:28 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:25:28 Speaker 01 Cause you're like, how does one person's hand do this where I can't use my whole arm?
1:25:32 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:25:32 Speaker 01 Or like, I can't pick up my right foot because he's holding on to my right sleeve.
1:25:36 Lex Fridman? Yeah, it was kinda, um, on a basic animalistic sense, kind of terrifying. It's, uh, I mean, you don't wanna, um, part of this is like ego, but you realize that there's a food chain and you're not at the top of it.
1:25:54 Lex Fridman? That's part of the humbling process, I think, of martial arts. It's like, I think everybody,
1:26:01 Lex Fridman? like a lot of people, think they're much higher in the food chain than they are.
1:26:05 Speaker 01 Than they really are.
1:26:06 Lex Fridman? And then when you realize, this is why it's a really healthy process for people, they're not even competing in the Olympics, to practice martial arts. Cause you realize, okay, that like, putting yourself more accurately in the food chain is really good way to sort of place yourself in the rest of the world. It humbles you to the reality, the harshness of the world.
1:26:26 Speaker 01 Yep. It's kinda like when people look at like survival in the wilderness. It's like, oh, it's not that hard.
1:26:33 Speaker 01 No, you'd probably die in a couple of days. Same thing with like judo and martial arts. Like, yeah, it's really not that hard, but you don't know what to do yet. And so when you find out that first time that you don't know what to do, it's devastating to a lot of people. But those that like stick through it and like start to learn, it's a very powerful, like feeling that now like you can take care of yourself.
1:26:59 Lex Fridman? And I think when I talked to you a few times before, you talked about that there's like the top three, the top five in the world. I don't know where you put them, but they're they're another like level above.
1:27:11 Speaker 01 Or a whole nother tier, yeah.
1:27:13 Lex Fridman? And the fact that you're, I mean, it's it's so exciting to me. Probably because I just felt all the levels here. And I I've seen you and others at that height destroy those. I've I've seen the exponential levels to this game. It's incredible that you're didn't quit, didn't doubt yourself, and just persevered through three Olympics to get to that highest, always fighting at that like very highest of levels. But just like, you know, from the top 10 to the top five, like really breaking in through that. I don't know. What would you say it took to get to that highest of levels?
1:27:58 Lex Fridman? Like if you, when you look back, all the weight cuts, just the insane amount of injuries.
1:28:04 Speaker 01 Believe it or not, I didn't really think I was there until 2013, I thought I was recognized as one of the best because I was able to fight for Augsburg, which was the professional Bundesliga team for Germany, which is one of the top clubs in all of Europe. When they asked me to, I felt like Europe had like accepted me as like, oh, I'm a top level judo player. But I don't necessarily think that when I signed on to compete for them, that the division or the world of judo saw me as a top level judo player. Right, there's there's a a mental shift that happens along that point.
1:28:46 Speaker 01 And for me, my mental shift really came into play in December of 2015 before Rio. That was like, when I lost in Japan, that's when I realized like the world respects my abilities and they compete against them.
1:29:07 Speaker 01 They don't compete against me as a person. They compete against the idea or the persona that I've been able to establish over the years of competing in the division.
1:29:22 Lex Fridman? Wow, so you're the, they probably have a nickname for you. You're the system of ideas and thought that they study.
1:29:30 Speaker 01 But they're studying me as a conceptual whole, not me as the human.
1:29:38 Lex Fridman? Is your style relatively unique in the 81 kilogram division?
1:29:42 Speaker 01 It was relatively unique for Kayla, I and Jimmy up until 2016. Now, since 2016, you can see a lot of what we used to do throughout most of Europe and even Asia. Like, you're starting to see some of those techniques that you didn't see before, starting to get implemented.
1:30:02 Speaker 01 Cause when I was, when I was gearing up for 2015, I had such a slew of injuries that entire calendar year that I never should have made it to Rio. I should have called it quits at the end of 2015. Because I suffered that major concussion in February. I stepped on a mat in May for the first time. I lost five straight tournaments. I left the national team, went to Japan, won Pan Am Games, got a bacterial infection at the Worlds, almost had my leg cut off, tore my SI joint later on that year, and then took fifth in Japan. And when you look at like the calendar year as a whole,
1:30:46 Speaker 01 like, the world should have treated me like I was washed up. Like, this guy hasn't been training, he hasn't been doing anything, but I took fifth in Japan. Now, how does a guy that hasn't trained all year take fifth at one of the hardest tournaments in the world on two weeks of training?
1:31:03 Speaker 01 Because they were fighting the guy I used to be.
1:31:08 Speaker 01 Not the guy I was at the tournament, which means they were competing under the idea of like, what is he really capable of? Not what have I brought to the table today?
1:31:21 Lex Fridman? And that just gave you the confidence.
1:31:22 Speaker 01 And that told me that like, well, if I can take fifth and I'm this bad at judo right now, wait until I'm healthy and I'm back in shape, then they're not going to know what hit them.
1:31:32 Lex Fridman? One of the essential components of being the number one in the world or up in that place is that confidence, the self-belief.
1:31:39 Speaker 01 And the rest of the world believing it. You can have all the confidence in the world, but if the rest of the room doesn't buy it, it's nothing.
1:31:48 Lex Fridman? That's funny. It's like there's certain people, right? With Tyson, uh, Mike Tyson.
1:31:53 Speaker 01 They all understand he could not train and they're still scared.
1:31:57 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:31:57 Speaker 01 Right? Like he doesn't have to work out that hard anymore.
1:32:00 Lex Fridman? There's several judo, you know, this way better, but from a spectator perspective, like Ilias Iliadis is like that.
1:32:06 Speaker 01 He's one of them.
1:32:07 Lex Fridman? It's like he.
1:32:09 Speaker 01 He's portrayed over the years like.
1:32:11 Lex Fridman? Why is everyone so scared of that guy? It's interesting.
1:32:14 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:32:15 Lex Fridman? Uh, people were scared of you too.
1:32:18 Speaker 01 People just gave a certain level of respect to my skillset. And whether I had a bad weight cut or didn't have a bad weight cut or not trained for the last three months, which never happened, I'm just saying, they were going to fight the persona.
1:32:34 Speaker 01 And it's an important distinction when you're looking at the top five because everybody coming up, they're training against the persona, not who you are. Even I did that at a younger age. That's why I would always go to people's hometowns. Cause like, I don't, I don't care about the persona. I want to know what you do day in and day out.
1:32:56 Speaker 01 When I couldn't beat a Russian, I told Jimmy, send me to Russia. I need to, I need to understand and see it with my own eyes. What they do, outperform so that I can believe that I can beat them.
1:33:07 Lex Fridman? Can I ask you on this, a small tangent? So, uh, Dagestan has produced some incredible wrestlers.
1:33:14 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:33:14 Lex Fridman? I don't know what the story with judo is, where the source of, source of greatness in Russia is for judo. But what do you make of Dagestan? Why, why, what is it in the culture of there or Russia broadly that produces greatness?
1:33:30 Speaker 01 Specifically in the combat sports.
1:33:33 Lex Fridman? I don't know. Yeah, specifically in the combat sports. Sorry, but I don't know if you want to draw a distinction between wrestling and judo. I'm almost curious. Do you understand the differences there in the culture?
1:33:43 Speaker 01 Still a combat sport to them. They're still in that same like realm of they're taking young kids. And that that's what they do.
1:33:54 Lex Fridman? So Khabib speaks very highly of judo.
1:33:57 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:33:57 Lex Fridman? Like, it's funny, Khabib, Vladimir Putin.
1:34:01 Speaker 01 People don't get it, but like judo is like one of the premier sports in the world. We just don't understand it.
1:34:07 Lex Fridman? It's not just popularity. So definitely popularity, but also like this respect. And there's a certain thing. Which is why I really value judo internationally. You don't get this in the United States, but internationally. There's an understanding. Like later in life, when you're a scientist, meeting a businessman. When you both have done judo, there's this like nod of respect.
1:34:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:34:32 Lex Fridman? It's so interesting. There's very few sports like that, you know, basketball doesn't have any, I don't know almost any sport like that. And it's fascinating.
1:34:40 Speaker 01 Wrestling has that in the US. It is the US only. The rest of the world doesn't do that.
1:34:46 Lex Fridman? There's a few, like you could see that in like Iran or something like that with they'll respect wrestling in that kind of way. Yeah, it's um.
1:34:54 Speaker 01 But judo on like a global scale is probably that only one. Due to its like physicality and the hardships that you have to go through to reach that upper level.
1:35:06 Lex Fridman? So why do you think Dagestan, why do you think Khabib is as good as he is? Is there, is this just the raw genetics of the human? Or is there something about the system?
1:35:14 Speaker 01 The system. It all has to do with the system.
1:35:19 Lex Fridman? So they um, they grow up around fighting in all forms.
1:35:23 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:35:25 Lex Fridman? They're also, I mean, their technique is exceptionally good.
1:35:28 Speaker 01 Because they they grow up in it.
1:35:30 Lex Fridman? They grow up.
1:35:31 Speaker 01 They don't, they don't understand.
1:35:35 Speaker 01 Anything else?
1:35:36 Lex Fridman? So you don't have to, it's almost like you with the weight cutting. It's not like a big dramatic thing for them to fight. It's like, this is just part of life.
1:35:44 Speaker 01 Yes, and when you're, I don't want to say bred into it, but when you've done it for, you know, I want to say like 90% of your life by the time like Khabib probably has, right from the time he could crawl, he's probably been grappling in some fashion thereof, right?
1:36:04 Speaker 01 You know, when you, as grapplers, like you can look at a wrestler and having never seen this person before and go, you wrestled.
1:36:14 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:36:15 Speaker 01 Why is that? It's because he's probably wrestled since he was like six, so the way he carries himself, the way his body is built, the way he grew into it, was framed around wrestling. Right? So the people in that culture are framed around fighting and grappling.
1:36:34 Lex Fridman? You're right, it's like, first of all philosophically, psychologically, but also just like the way you move your body.
1:36:40 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:36:40 Lex Fridman? That means like when you're young, the people you admire move their body in a certain kind of way.
1:36:46 Speaker 01 And then genetically, it, it just as they keep doing that, they're just going to get better and better every generation.
1:36:53 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:36:54 Speaker 01 It's just going to keep improving because they just keep building into that system of turning them out.
1:36:59 Lex Fridman? And part of it, there's like cultural stuff where, I mean, it's such an interesting approach to wrestling. I, I really want to travel to Dagestan and just talk to them because I happen to be able to speak Russian. Because, because there's less value for this kind of materialistic success that I think sometimes can get in the way of greatness, it seems like. It, it makes coaching more difficult, it makes like following orders as an athlete more difficult.
1:37:27 Speaker 01 We struggle with that in USA Judo.
1:37:30 Lex Fridman? Yeah. Because you want more money, but then more money, if not applied correctly, can corrupt the system somehow, it can split people up, it just, it's same thing with the prestige around certain medals over others because athletes start chasing fame instead of development.
1:37:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:37:51 Lex Fridman? Yeah, that's, I mean, uh, the Satya Brothers are famous for this, like ignoring, ignoring fame, ignoring all of this, like focus on the art itself, not even, not, so it's not even the medals, exactly like you're saying, just the purity of like when you're in it.
1:38:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:38:06 Lex Fridman? And let everybody else figure out their stupid medals and money and all that.
1:38:09 Speaker 01 Cause it comes.
1:38:10 Lex Fridman? It comes, right?
1:38:10 Speaker 01 Exactly. It's a result.
1:38:12 Lex Fridman? Yeah, exactly. Like, it's not that you don't appreciate it, but you know that it comes if you focus on the art.
1:38:18 Speaker 01 There's a distinction when you're talking about your athletic career or really any endeavor, right? The problem with goal setting is nobody teaches the athletes or the people how to transition from the goal to reality, right? So when you look at my career as a whole, like when I was getting ready for 2008, I actually forgot to train for it. I was so happy at such a young age that I became an Olympian, that that in and of itself was a goal that I thought had to be admired, had to be celebrated, that, you know, the games are right around the corner. I didn't really come down off that high.
1:39:00 Lex Fridman? You're, you're the local optimist of, of, uh, just winning the trials.
1:39:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:39:05 Lex Fridman? That was.
1:39:06 Speaker 01 It's a big thing.
1:39:07 Lex Fridman? It's a huge thing, but then you're just focusing on the accomplishment, not the.
1:39:11 Speaker 01 Correct, but at some point, right, when I, when I went into London, I actually went into London going with, I'm gonna prove I'm the best in the world, cause I believe I'm the best in the world. And I believe it from like the bottom of my soul that I'm winning this. And then you're almost like trying to tell the universe, like I'm accomplishing this thing because it's a goal. But when I went into Rio, I just accepted the fact that I was winning. It's not a goal, like, this is happening.
1:39:44 Lex Fridman? You visualize it?
1:39:46 Speaker 01 But I felt it.
1:39:47 Lex Fridman? You felt it.
1:39:48 Speaker 01 Right, like, this is no longer a goal anymore. Like, I anticipated, like, this is happening, I, I can see this coming down the path, because I'm anticipating that the games is happening and I'm gonna win. It's not a goal, it's anticipation, and there's a distinct distinction there between the two.
1:40:09 Lex Fridman? Okay, so for people who are just watching the video of this, there should be an overlay of young Travis. This is, you still had to make 81. Is this still a tough cut here?
1:40:22 Speaker 01 No, this one was relatively easy. This is going all the way back to 2008. So this is the summer before the Games. This probably happened in June, I would say.
1:40:36 Lex Fridman? So this is the Olympic trials. So in the United States, you have to, I mean, similar to wrestling, you have to win trials to qualify for that particular division to represent the United States. So this is, you said, June before an August Olympics?
1:40:52 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:40:53 Lex Fridman? So here, I just wanted to show this match because there's another one. I think you do a pin, you do some nice groundwork in the other one. But in this one...
1:41:05 Speaker 01 Fighting a teammate.
1:41:07 Lex Fridman? Fighting a teammate.
1:41:08 Speaker 01 Former teammate. Oh, there's an old school double leg. I forgot about that. It's weird to see.
1:41:14 Lex Fridman? So there, Travis's opponent, Travis is setting up here that Sayanagi
1:41:22 Lex Fridman? posting his left arm and getting it done. That's a big, that's a big throw. You don't have too many of those big throws on video. Because often on video, you're going against the best people in the world. It's tough to get that much air.
1:41:40 Speaker 01 And a lot of times, the ones that we do see, and you know, the part that a lot of people don't experience is a lot of those times where I threw people with that throw, it was in training camps. So by the time I got to the competition with these guys, they were playing 100% defense to never let me do that.
1:42:01 Lex Fridman? Yeah. So you do this here. Are you kind of pulling him down?
1:42:06 Speaker 01 No, I'm trying to get him to...
1:42:08 Lex Fridman? To come up?
1:42:09 Speaker 01 To come up.
1:42:09 Lex Fridman? But are you pulling him down to get to fake him up?
1:42:11 Speaker 01 I'm not doing anything with my left hand.
1:42:14 Lex Fridman? Uh, so here the, the opponent is.
1:42:16 Speaker 01 So what I'm doing right now is his head is like in my chest. I'm pressing him to get his head to lift with my chest. So I'm pressing his hand down so I can use my chest to like pinch my scaps and roll his head up. So that he wants to pick it up.
1:42:34 Lex Fridman? And, and then he, I mean, doesn't he know what's coming here? Oh no, he might not.
1:42:40 Speaker 01 Oh no, he knew, he was a former teammate. He knew exactly what I was trying to do.
1:42:44 Lex Fridman? And that was a really big step with your right foot.
1:42:48 Speaker 01 It covers uh, about four feet.
1:42:51 Lex Fridman? So you step.
1:42:54 Lex Fridman? And your left.
1:42:58 Lex Fridman? Catches up in like perfect positioning.
1:43:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, you back it up a little bit.
1:43:04 Speaker 01 Keep going, keep going. Right there. That, this is like an important distinction between mine and everybody else's is. Because I split his hip. I actually, once I'm able to split, I no longer need his center of gravity below mine.
1:43:23 Lex Fridman? Right. And when you say split, you mean you put your foot in between.
1:43:27 Speaker 01 I do that split, that four foot split.
1:43:29 Lex Fridman? Yes.
1:43:30 Speaker 01 And then when I get my feet back together, it doesn't matter that I'm under his center of gravity or not.
1:43:35 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:43:37 Speaker 01 That's why my chest is right around his like sternum height for me.
1:43:43 Lex Fridman? Yeah. So, so there, I mean, how does he get, uh, for people just listening to this Travis steps is like, does a big, huge step gets.
1:43:51 Speaker 01 Like my hip is probably right around his nipple. Cause he's, he sprawled back so much.
1:43:56 Lex Fridman? Yeah, that's right. So like, so you're, how does the physics of this work? You're violating the principle of your center of mass being under, oh, I guess somehow it is. I don't know, but he has nowhere to go. He's screwed.
1:44:09 Speaker 01 Yes. That's the kicker is the way mine, mine works is in order for him to play an effective defense. He needs to have his feet firmly planted on the ground with friction.
1:44:23 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:44:24 Speaker 01 Otherwise, he can't press into me to stop it. So when I get him to sprawl back, when I split his legs, he effectively loses that contact with the floor. Even though his feet are on the floor, they're not in a position where he can drive from them.
1:44:38 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:44:38 Speaker 01 Therefore, when I flip, he flips.
1:44:40 Lex Fridman? So there's a, so there's a natural like flailing here. So he's not falling forward. You're falling forward.
1:44:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:44:49 Lex Fridman? He's just attached to you. So like you can keep him up there and then like legs would be just flailing.
1:44:55 Speaker 01 Yep. One of my, one of my golden rules when I'm training and I get really tired, one of the like mantras I would always tell myself is, I'm gonna put my back on your chest and then I'm gonna put my back on the floor.
1:45:07 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:45:08 Speaker 01 Cause then you'll be underneath me.
1:45:09 Lex Fridman? It's a good principle to.
1:45:11 Speaker 01 Very simple and it regardless of like all the chaos and how quickly things are happening, it's something I can just dumb everything down to and focus on. Regardless of the gripping situation, the footwork, all of that, get my back to your chest and then put my back on the floor.
1:45:26 Lex Fridman? So this step of getting your back to their chest, um, like for, for people who are sort of more like, for example, for people like me, who are just like amateur judo people, like there's all kinds of ways to prevent this turn from happening, the gripping and just everything.
1:45:45 Lex Fridman? How difficult is it at the highest level to get into this position? I mean, you make it look effortless often, but like to get to a position where you're from facing them to your back to them. Is that like strategy? Is that timing? Is that?
1:46:00 Speaker 01 Timing. It's timing. It's like anything, like if I wanted to punch you in the face, like how hard is it to really do that? If you know you can just play defense and block it.
1:46:11 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:46:12 Speaker 01 The trick is to get them to play defense to something that never happened.
1:46:18 Lex Fridman? And then you go through like another way.
1:46:20 Speaker 01 And then you just go through what would technically be your first plan if you planned on them playing defense. So I set the stage from the very beginning for this to work.
1:46:31 Lex Fridman? So then this you're you're celebrating here, it's a huge sort of, well, once a big accomplishment, big relief to qualify for the Olympics. And then you go into the Olympics and this is where I first saw Judo and I kind of thought of him as the same as Judo and Jiu Jitsu. And I was really impressed by your performance in that Olympics. The footage nowhere to be found these days, but at that time, I think you could still, you could watch it live on NBC Olympics or somewhere like that. And I remember watching several of your matches. One of them was the match against Ole Bishov, the German. And I remember being, it'd be nice if you can talk through that match because I don't
1:47:16 Lex Fridman? remember it. All I remember is being frustrated.
1:47:21 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:47:22 Lex Fridman? By him not letting you play Judo.
1:47:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:47:27 Lex Fridman? So obviously you faced him again four years later and there's a lot of frustration there as well, but I remember being extra frustrated in 2008. What was that match like? So he might have been number one in the world at the time or up there?
1:47:41 Speaker 01 He was up there for sure, especially going into 2008.
1:47:46 Lex Fridman? He was really high up there.
1:47:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:47:48 Lex Fridman? And did he win gold at that Olympics?
1:47:53 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:47:53 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:47:54 Speaker 01 Because he silvered in London. It was the same Olympic final, both in 2008 and London.
1:47:59 Lex Fridman? Yeah. Okay, so you're facing him there. Were you intimidated? What was the strategy? Can you talk through that match? Because it kind of sets the stage for the rematch in 2012.
1:48:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, he was somebody that I had trained with in the past. And for some reason, when it comes to him and I, when we trained together.
1:48:23 Speaker 01 It's more of a physical altercation than a judo training session. You know, like, it's just like, the coaches have had to break us up a few times.
1:48:32 Lex Fridman? Or you guys get almost like angry too?
1:48:34 Speaker 01 A little bit. It always goes, you know, farther than it should for, we're friends, like, we say hello to each other. But for some reason, when we train together, there's something about like him and me that just oil and water, I don't know what it is.
1:48:48 Lex Fridman? Could it be also the gripping? Because he's a great gripping strategist.
1:48:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:48:52 Lex Fridman? Does he frustrate you with certain kinds of grips and then you get pissed off and then you frustrate him?
1:48:56 Speaker 01 And then he gets pissed off and then before you know it, somebody's kicked somebody or punched somebody in the mouth or done something.
1:49:02 Lex Fridman? Yeah, so one of the only evidences we have online of you fighting him is you, your foot in his groin area is the only thing we have from that Olympics.
1:49:14 Speaker 01 From 2008.
1:49:15 Lex Fridman? From 2008, yeah.
1:49:16 Speaker 01 And to answer everybody's question, yes, it was deliberate.
1:49:20 Lex Fridman? Now you can say this.
1:49:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:49:22 Lex Fridman? Uh, but yeah, I remember there being a lot of frustration. Uh, you go, you're actually going for a lot of stuff like sacrifice throws. I mean, maybe you're not going for the highest scoring epon, but you're just trying to shake things up. If I remember correctly.
1:49:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, because when he, I was so young then that, and he was, you know, in his prime really at that time, right? He was, must have been 24, 25, 26, you know, world medalist, European champion at the time. And when he would grab me, I would, I had that sense of feeling stuck. Like, I was strong enough if I used all my strength to not let him do anything, but then you can't be offensive when you're using all your strength to hold on to the situation. So I was getting really aggravated because I couldn't, I couldn't generate any offense with, every time I felt like I gained an advantage in the gripping scenario, he would take some obscure grip somewhere that was like,
1:50:18 Speaker 01 well, now I've got to go address this thing, give up what I gained, then I have to go back and. If I were to think about watching the match now, it probably looked like a lot of flailing because we're just trying to generate enough to not get a penalty, but also not enough to where he could counter it.
1:50:38 Lex Fridman? Did you think you could beat him, like when you were walking into the match?
1:50:42 Speaker 01 Until I gripped him for the first time, like, because I had trained with him before, he felt stronger and more in shape than I've ever felt him that day.
1:50:52 Lex Fridman? At that Olympics.
1:50:53 Speaker 01 At that Olympics.
1:50:56 Speaker 01 Which begs a whole nother question, but.
1:51:01 Speaker 01 I remember, I remember when I, when he grabbed me for that first time, I went, this is different. And I, there was a sense of panic at the time because I was like, holy crap, where did this come from? This is not the guy that I've trained with, that I expected.
1:51:19 Speaker 01 Because it was a definite like level change in like his ability, strength, speed and stamina.
1:51:25 Lex Fridman? Like, looking back at that, can you explain that? Is it just you being more, less confident because it was the Olympics? It was, is there some kind of routine that he followed to like really level up in intensity for this particular event?
1:51:40 Speaker 01 I've been told that he only gets to like his prime for like really big events.
1:51:47 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:51:48 Speaker 01 Like, he doesn't train like year round like I would train. But when it comes to like the games, he doesn't do social media, he doesn't work, he lives, breathes, eats. His training for the games, which could, you know, institute that level.
1:52:04 Lex Fridman? What about you? Is there, like Dan Gable famously said, like the one loss he had in college, he was doing a lot of media and stuff. Back, back then, there was no social media. But that was a huge mistake for him. Do you do social media? Do you do like?
1:52:19 Speaker 01 At that, at this point?
1:52:20 Lex Fridman? Well, at that time, it was like AOL. I don't know, what's 2008?
1:52:23 Speaker 01 I didn't even have a Facebook page, MySpace, nothing at this point. I got my first Facebook page from the USOC in 2012.
1:52:31 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:52:32 Speaker 01 When I went through the media thing, the lady was like, you have to have it. I go, I don't want it. I don't like people. I want to deal with the people. What am I supposed to do?
1:52:41 Lex Fridman? You know, like the social part of the social media.
1:52:43 Speaker 01 No.
1:52:45 Lex Fridman? Okay, I have to bring this up because and then you went on to face Tiago Camilo. You lost that match, but you went on to win bronze. That's also an interesting one, but we can skip ahead. I just remember being really impressed both by your groundwork.
1:52:59 Speaker 01 That was a match I should have won.
1:53:01 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:53:01 Speaker 01 I should have won that. I was, if you don't know judo, you would visually watch that and be like, I'm winning. But he was technically winning on the scoreboard, so it is what it is. But the point that he got that solidified his win.
1:53:17 Speaker 01 Yes, it was a point back in those days, so I can't say anything, but like, my shoulder nicked the ground. So it's like, I don't know.
1:53:26 Lex Fridman? Yeah, a lot of the stories of your Olympic career is like, from a fan perspective, it seems like you should have won, or you very close to could have won.
1:53:37 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:53:37 Lex Fridman? And there was a lot of frustration in you and your game being like shut down in certain ways and, but like, the thing that immediately grabbed me in 2008 was how much, something about the way you approached judo, how much you wanted to win.
1:53:52 Speaker 01 Because I was young then. I was, when I was at this, at this time in my career, I was out to like, win. Like, there was no like, I'm gonna grab you, I'm gonna throw you, and if not, you're gonna go through a battle.
1:54:08 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:54:08 Speaker 01 You're gonna make sure you earned it.
1:54:10 Lex Fridman? It so happened that you competing in 2008, I was, I became a fan of yours at that moment, and since then, I, I kind of knew about judo. My university had a judo club, and I kind of knew about jiu-jitsu from martial arts. And obviously, I wrestled for many years before, and I love wrestling. But there's something about you competing that made me, well, there's no other way to say, but it like changed the direction of my life, because it forced me to say, you know what, I'm gonna start judo and jiu-jitsu. And first of all, for that, I'm really grateful. But it's fascinating to think, because this kid who's 22 years old, I'm sure I'm not the only one,
1:54:54 Lex Fridman? that you've influenced, like, you've changed the direction of my life, and there could be huge number of others like that. I mean, that's the power of you as an individual at the, on the Olympic stage. You ever think about the pressure of that? Did you, did you think as a 22 year old, there's a bunch of people? Like, I know I'm not the only one who changed. I just happened to have like a microphone recently. You know what I mean? Like, is that? It's fascinating to think about, right? Like, you, perhaps you didn't think about this. It's just, it's just a judo match. But you're like, you influenced hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions. Is that interesting?
1:55:32 Speaker 01 It's, it's not something that really hit me until, um,
1:55:42 Speaker 01 2012, when I lost.
1:55:45 Speaker 01 Because that's when like,
1:55:48 Speaker 01 I would say like, the world felt bad for me at that point. And that's when you knew that like,
1:55:57 Speaker 01 people were watching and people were inspired by the loss because of how much went into that match.
1:56:04 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:56:05 Speaker 01 Because, you know, the 99% of us who watched it thought I won, except for the 1% of the people who were considered judges at that day in the event. So.
1:56:17 Lex Fridman? But, I mean, that's the winner lose, that, that was a really inspiring match.
1:56:22 Speaker 01 And that's when it, that's when it dinged that like,
1:56:26 Speaker 01 because I don't, I don't watch something and really get inspired by like the person and the act. It's like, it's an accumulative thing. But for a lot of people, like, when they watch how much goes into it, and then when I broke down on the match, like the amount of suffering that happens when you lose a match like that, and then, you know, really coming back and winning in Rio, there's a trend of people who were inspired that knew about London. And then when they found out I won in Rio, that's when like people like in droves felt like they could overcome their own personal obstacles
1:57:07 Speaker 01 to still achieve something because they've witnessed somebody who's fallen and gotten back up.
1:57:14 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:57:15 Speaker 01 But it's not something that you think about like on the day. It's when you look back and you go, oh, cause and effect.
1:57:24 Lex Fridman? I wonder if you can comment on that. I'm trying to realize and live up to the fact that there's like young people that come up to me and I'm starting to realize like certain words I say will have a long lasting impact on them.
1:57:39 Speaker 01 Yep. Cause you say it as like, you don't even, it doesn't just.
1:57:43 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:57:44 Speaker 01 The whim.
1:57:44 Lex Fridman? Some of them might come back 30 years later and a word I said was the reason they quit a thing and started the new thing that led them to become their true self, like to find success, all that kind of stuff like.
1:57:57 Speaker 01 On the flip side though, some people based on the actions that we do today, even with this cast, will alter the course of their lives forever. I had a guy one time.
1:58:11 Speaker 01 Was it after London? God, it must've been after London. He actually found me on Instagram, wrote me what seemed to be like a dissertation on Instagram about how much he, I disrespected him 14 years earlier because I didn't step on a podium to take a picture after winning a tournament where he bronzed.
1:58:34 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
1:58:35 Speaker 01 And I'm thinking to myself like, at the time, like having dinner with my family because I had to leave the next morning was more important to me as a person. Not thinking about who you potentially will become and the actions of whatever you do today, if you do become quote unquote famous or somebody in a spotlight, that that could come back to bite you.
1:59:04 Lex Fridman? To me, I don't know about you, that that's, that's super motivating, like not to be. A lesser version of myself ever.
1:59:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:59:15 Lex Fridman? Just be on top of your game, whatever that game is, be on top of your game when you're interacting with people and when you're just in your own private life. I'm trying to make sure that I'm the exactly same person privately as I am publicly. And like making sure I'm on point. I see like just hanging out with Joe Rogan a lot. I see how he's first of all, the exact same person. And second, he like walks around and there's like a huge number of fans and he'll just take pictures and like it's very cool and he's very cognizant of like certain words he says, especially young people like they're going to take that and that's going to be a memory for them for a couple of years.
1:59:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:59:51 Lex Fridman? That might be influential for the rest of their life. So I don't know. That's a cool responsibility.
1:59:58 Lex Fridman? Not to fuck it up. But, but anyway, I bring all that up to just say, thank you.
2:00:06 Lex Fridman? So even if you like were frustrated that you didn't win a medal, at least, at least you influenced one silly Russian kid to get into the martial arts. And what happens when you get into martial arts, it alters the direction of your life.
2:00:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:00:20 Lex Fridman? Mine for, for, for the better. Okay. So let's go to London, 2012 Olympics. One of the most dramatic judo battles of all time rematch.
2:00:35 Speaker 01 Yep.
2:00:36 Lex Fridman? So you've reached the semifinals once again to face the German, Ole Bishov.
2:00:42 Lex Fridman? Do you mind if we step through that match a little bit?
2:00:46 Speaker 01 By all means. I've only ever watched the entire thing one time, just because.
2:00:54 Speaker 01 Fucking.
2:00:57 Lex Fridman? So for context, for the listener,
2:01:02 Lex Fridman? Travis, first of all, you don't like losing. I think that's fair to say.
2:01:06 Speaker 01 You know, the, the hard part with this match is because I went into this Olympics thinking, I'm gonna fucking win the Olympics. I'm the best in the world.
2:01:18 Speaker 01 I never in my right mind thought,
2:01:23 Speaker 01 oh, I'm gonna win a medal. Like that never, that never crossed my mind. So it's like.
2:01:32 Speaker 01 I would have rather him just fucking beat me.
2:01:36 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:01:36 Speaker 01 Because then I lost.
2:01:39 Lex Fridman? So here, the referees, as many people thought, robbed you of a victory. But it was also a really close battle, again with many of the elements of frustration as 2008, in terms of strategically and gripping wise. And it was just a fascinating battle that went to overtime. Uh, so can you set the context? So what did the bracket look like? Who were the players here? Um, who did you beat leading up to this match? Like, as you walk onto the mat, what happened the hours before? As you're standing there. By the way, how bad is it when just two people are standing like this? And, yeah.
2:02:18 Speaker 01 That fucking guy, man. But this, this bracket, um, was really interesting if you look at like the backstory of 81 kilos, like, leading up to the Olympics, right? Because at this point in time, you know, I was inside the top 10 at all times, you know? Eight, seven, five, four, you know, sixes. I fell out of there sometimes due to injuries, but I always climbed back in. Um, there was another guy, um, from Azerbaijan that was the Olympic champion at 73 kilos in 2008. And the entire division got rocked by match one.
2:03:02 Speaker 01 Because his first match was with Antoine Valles Fortier of Canada. And everybody who saw the draw come out was like, the Azerbaijani's gonna win it. He's the former Olympic champion. He's pretty much won most of the major events, including at 90 kilos, because he just had smooth judo. And, you know, match one rolls around, match two rolls around. Antoine's in the chute and he's looking around and he's like, the Azerbaijani's not here. Well, where is he? No joke, he runs into the venue a match before, throws his gi on and runs onto the Olympic platform.
2:03:48 Speaker 01 Loses to the Canadian in like a three-minute gold and silver battle.
2:03:54 Speaker 01 So do you think he warmed up? Didn't. He ran. He literally ran into the venue, threw his gi on and ran out. Did no judo. And there you see Antoine losing in the quarters. So how good was Antoine? At this point in time, this is, I believe, his first international medal with the Olympic Games. So I don't think he'd ever medaled in Paris. He went into this bracket unranked, beating the ranked guy first round because he, I don't know if he missed the bus. I don't know if he was off his cycle and planned on losing because he didn't want to test positive.
2:04:36 Speaker 01 I don't know. There's a lot of like questionable things out there that could have potentially caused him to, you know, run on to the Olympic platform for match one. But, you know, it catapulted Antoine into like a belief that like,
2:04:57 Speaker 01 I beat the seeded guy, I'm, I'm ready. And that was like a turning point in the Canadian's career just as a whole.
2:05:05 Speaker 01 Right? That's that. Everybody has a defining moment. Like mine was when I beat Bischof in Dusseldorf at the Grand Prix for Germany after 2008. Right? I beat the Olympic champion in, on his home soil to go win the entire tournament. So we all have like those moments. It's just when it happens at the Games, it throws the bracket like into a tailspin because typically you'd know like who's going to beat who, where it's going to happen. And when you look at my quarterfinal against the Brazilian, what most people don't know is I was, I was so thankful I had that match. Most people would never in a million years be like, I want to fight the world number one at the Olympic Games.
2:05:50 Speaker 01 That's what I want to do. I want to be the eighth seed fighting the world number one because I'm going to win. I was pissed off at him. I was so angry cuz we we were at the Pan Ams, I think, the year before. And there was a team tournament and I wanted to fight him. I had lost the quarters to a Cuban, I think, in like the first gripping exchange. He threw me with a drop sail out of nowhere. I was pissed. So I wanted my hands on the Brazilian in the team match. Well, the Brazilian team's warming up. So I walk up to him, no joke. I walked up to him and I go, "You're fighting?" And he goes, "Not today."
2:06:31 Speaker 01 And I went, "Are you fucking kidding me?" I warmed up. I taped up. You're the only fucking guy I wanna fight? And you're gonna fucking sit in the stands and read a goddamn book? I was so angry. I carried that anger cuz I never fought him until this day. I was fucking pissed. I was ready to beat him.
2:06:47 Lex Fridman? That's right. I remember, I forgot he was the world number one.
2:06:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:06:52 Lex Fridman? How did, um, cuz I remember like being really excited at that match. How did you beat him?
2:06:56 Speaker 01 I threw him with two hands on the same side collar.
2:06:59 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:06:59 Speaker 01 Like drop sail. I cross gripped. I yanked him behind me and I threw him.
2:07:03 Lex Fridman? Epun?
2:07:04 Speaker 01 Wasari. And then the match ended thirty seconds later.
2:07:08 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:07:09 Speaker 01 I was pumped.
2:07:10 Lex Fridman? I was, I thought, I think, okay, if I'm remembering correctly, I thought, okay, this guy might actually win gold.
2:07:17 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
2:07:19 Lex Fridman? That's, that's what made, for me as a spectator, remembering now the next match that much more like painful.
2:07:28 Speaker 01 And then the fans of judo that really followed the sport, the stats, when you look at the games and my draws, I had the worst possible draw as you ever could have imagined.
2:07:39 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:07:39 Speaker 01 At both London and Rio, I fought the world number one to get to the final or into the semis or past the semis. And everybody I fought in the draw either beat me the last time we fought, or I had never fought before. So I always held a loss going on to the mat at the Olympic Games.
2:07:58 Lex Fridman? How'd you feel about that, by the way? Like, what were your feelings about facing the Brazilian first?
2:08:03 Speaker 01 I was so excited. This, well, that was match three. In London, I fought the Slovenian guy first round who beat me. Um, where did he beat me? Was it the Worlds? Might have been the Worlds. And then Churches Vili, I fought in the second round, who threw me for Wazari in Japan. And then Leandro, who I don't think I ever fought, who was world number one. That avoided fighting me at the team tournament.
2:08:30 Lex Fridman? But, I mean, every single Olympics, you've fought, and you really stepped up.
2:08:34 Speaker 01 It's the only tournament I've ever prepped for.
2:08:37 Lex Fridman? Mentally and physically and just the whole thing?
2:08:39 Speaker 01 Yeah. We never trained through this tournament, like we did for the others. Or I would go into it injured.
2:08:46 Lex Fridman? All right, well, let's talk about, you're standing there next to that, uh, to the German. He looks, he looked always smaller than you, but you said, like, strong.
2:08:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:08:57 Lex Fridman? Uh, so what are you feeling now, Jimmy Pedro behind you?
2:09:01 Speaker 01 I was fucking ready to take his head off.
2:09:05 Lex Fridman? Did you have an idea of what you're gonna do? Did you try, you're thinking of winning by epon? Were you thinking, like, going for big throws? Take, or take him in deep waters? I'll grip him, or what, what were you thinking?
2:09:16 Speaker 01 We were about to have a battle and I wasn't gonna throw him until he broke mentally.
2:09:23 Lex Fridman? Okay.
2:09:24 Speaker 01 That was, there was no, like, oh, this is gonna be a clean throw. That was never, that was never the thought process.
2:09:33 Lex Fridman? So, so here, you know there's going to be a lot of gripping. So we're seeing a shit ton of gripping.
2:09:42 Speaker 01 And right here, he throws it, bang. Close-fisted.
2:09:48 Lex Fridman? You got a lot of adrenaline. You seem calm.
2:09:50 Speaker 01 I'm pissed.
2:09:51 Lex Fridman? You're pissed.
2:09:52 Speaker 01 Like.
2:09:52 Lex Fridman? You don't look pissed. You just look like.
2:09:54 Speaker 01 I'm well, I'm looking at the ref like, cause he keeps telling me to get up. I'm like, I have blood running down my face.
2:10:00 Speaker 01 I go.
2:10:02 Lex Fridman? Here, there's blood.
2:10:04 Speaker 01 See? And he's like, oh yeah, go fix it.
2:10:05 Lex Fridman? And that's on your eyebrow somewhere?
2:10:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, he split it just underneath it.
2:10:10 Lex Fridman? So you split your eyebrow and so in Judo, they don't, they're allergic to blood. Probably for a good reason, but they, so now you have to try to figure out how to, uh, tape that up.
2:10:21 Speaker 01 Yep.
2:10:22 Lex Fridman? Which already sets up one of the most badass
2:10:26 Lex Fridman? looks in Judo history.
2:10:28 Speaker 01 First 15 seconds.
2:10:29 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:10:30 Speaker 01 Busted my eye open.
2:10:32 Lex Fridman? Was that getting in the way of your eyesight at all or no?
2:10:34 Speaker 01 No.
2:10:37 Lex Fridman? Damn, he looks good at gripping. How difficult is it to get a grip on that guy?
2:10:41 Speaker 01 Very. See, I'm struggling just to get my hand in the collar and he wasn't even blocking it.
2:10:46 Lex Fridman? Is he being cagey? You, you remember like, is he interested in offense?
2:10:50 Speaker 01 Nope. He's a very cagey, you know, methodical player. Like he, he never opens himself up.
2:10:58 Lex Fridman? Yeah. There you go. You grabbed the leg as part of a combination.
2:11:02 Speaker 01 Yep.
2:11:04 Lex Fridman? And people have told me that he's actually very good at throwing people. He just doesn't. So, but he just doesn't show it at these.
2:11:11 Speaker 01 Nope. Cause he, he doesn't care how he wins. He cares that he wins.
2:11:16 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:11:17 Speaker 01 Which makes him very difficult to beat. Cause he knows when you've strategized to do that, where you look at the rule set and you develop a plan to, to get through the matches, then you've really got to figure out a way to get that person off that game plan. You know, whether you get ahead by a penalty or something.
2:11:36 Speaker 01 Right there. Like,
2:11:40 Speaker 01 he wouldn't give me the sleeve, so I grabbed all of his fingers.
2:11:43 Lex Fridman? Oh, nice. In which I was open, like, to, like this way or?
2:11:49 Speaker 01 I grabbed them the other way and I started lifting them.
2:11:51 Lex Fridman? Ah, yeah.
2:11:52 Speaker 01 Like I start, I'm like.
2:11:53 Lex Fridman? Oh, like.
2:11:53 Speaker 01 Reverse playing mercy.
2:11:54 Lex Fridman? Like this.
2:11:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:11:57 Lex Fridman? Oh, this is great.
2:11:58 Speaker 01 Cause he wouldn't give me the sleeve and I needed an attack. So then I'm like, okay, I can't hold on to this forever. Cause that judge is gonna see it. So let me just do a quick throw here while I'm using the fingers in the first.
2:12:08 Lex Fridman? Holding on.
2:12:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:12:09 Lex Fridman? Uh, he, and he.
2:12:10 Speaker 01 And then I just.
2:12:11 Lex Fridman? It out.
2:12:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:12:14 Speaker 01 And then, he goes to get up and I go to get on top and right here.
2:12:19 Lex Fridman? Nice.
2:12:20 Speaker 01 That elbow.
2:12:21 Lex Fridman? You get him? Oh, you got him.
2:12:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, it looks like I elbow him.
2:12:25 Lex Fridman? Did you do it kind of?
2:12:26 Speaker 01 No, I didn't even, I, at the time, I never knew this happened.
2:12:30 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:12:30 Speaker 01 Until after I watched this like three or four years later. Didn't even know, I didn't even feel it.
2:12:36 Lex Fridman? Look at that. So he's legitimately angry here.
2:12:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, he's angry.
2:12:41 Speaker 01 And of course, you can't, you can't move. Why would you move?
2:12:44 Lex Fridman? Look at this, this moment right there is gold. If you're not watching this on video, you're missing out. You do, you never get this in judo.
2:12:51 Speaker 01 No. I don't know if that's ever happened.
2:12:53 Lex Fridman? That little face off?
2:12:54 Speaker 01 Especially on a stage like this.
2:12:57 Lex Fridman? The ref is?
2:12:58 Speaker 01 And then he brings us in to like talk to us and he's like, hey, we're good, right? Like you guys aren't about to do what I think you're about to do.
2:13:05 Lex Fridman? Ah, you put up your hand.
2:13:06 Speaker 01 And he's like, hey, shake hands again. Cause the first time we did it, that wasn't good enough. Well, you gotta do it again.
2:13:13 Speaker 01 The heartbreaking part about this and why the I J F switched it to an unlimited golden score. Because we fought five minutes, um, through the entire normal part of the match. And then we did the entire overtime period of three minutes. Not one penalty was given. No gripping infractions, no false attacks, like no stallings.
2:13:36 Lex Fridman? That's great. There was, nobody was really backing up.
2:13:38 Speaker 01 Yep.
2:13:38 Lex Fridman? I mean, it was, you know, so what was Jimmy telling you here? Or was he, was he talking to you at all?
2:13:44 Speaker 01 He's not allowed to talk during medical things and my nose is now broken.
2:13:50 Lex Fridman? But he's also, oh, the nose is broken from what?
2:13:52 Speaker 01 Um, I caught an elbow from him.
2:13:56 Speaker 01 Glad his face is clean. That's fun. And right here, like I was pissed. I was so angry at the medic.
2:14:02 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:14:02 Speaker 01 Because he's fumbling around and I'm like, my whole plan is to break the German mentally.
2:14:07 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:14:08 Speaker 01 You gotta hurry up with the tape, man. Like, he's supposed to be tired. Like, he's not supposed to be resting.
2:14:14 Lex Fridman? Is Jimmy yelling here?
2:14:16 Speaker 01 He can't.
2:14:17 Lex Fridman? No, not here, not here, but during the match.
2:14:19 Speaker 01 Yeah. And you can see, I just take it from him and I'm like, give it to me. I'm gonna do it myself. Get out of here.
2:14:26 Lex Fridman? How scared is the medic? It's like this guy's gonna kill me.
2:14:29 Speaker 01 He can't even tear the tape.
2:14:31 Lex Fridman? Look how nervous he is.
2:14:34 Speaker 01 We made fun of him for this.
2:14:36 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:14:36 Speaker 01 So much.
2:14:36 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:14:37 Speaker 01 Throughout the years. Still do to this day. Alright, here we go.
2:14:41 Lex Fridman? Oh, you look great.
2:14:42 Speaker 01 Getting geared up. Can't really see, don't care.
2:14:45 Lex Fridman? Was there some outcome in your mind that you could possibly beat him on the ground with a submission or a pin? You knew you were gonna have to throw him?
2:14:52 Speaker 01 I knew I was gonna have to. If I was gonna throw him or arm bar him or pin him, whatever the case may be. It was gonna be his mental like. I'm just tired of this.
2:15:04 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:15:05 Speaker 01 Right? He's too cagey of a player. He's too experienced. You know, he has to mentally make that choice to give that inch. And then you just have to be ready to take it. So I was just waiting for it.
2:15:18 Lex Fridman? And so now this is four minutes in, one minute left.
2:15:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:15:22 Lex Fridman? Oh. Um, is that in your game plan too? Potential like assuming aish, like the sacrifice throws to him?
2:15:29 Speaker 01 Cause the whole point of that, that technique and the sacrifice throws wasn't because I thought I was gonna throw him. But it disrupts the pattern enough to like. Get him to make a potential mistake.
2:15:41 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:15:42 Speaker 01 Like, see, he should have gotten a shito there. Hands in the face. But again, that's just part of judo.
2:15:48 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:15:49 Speaker 01 He poked me in the eyeball.
2:15:51 Lex Fridman? This is a rough match. It, does he act at all or no? Like, was he acting frustrated or anything like that? It was all. Like, he's like acting for the ref, you know what I mean?
2:16:01 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:16:02 Lex Fridman? Like, oh, that, all that kind of stuff. You're just going in.
2:16:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:16:05 Lex Fridman? Hard, non-stop.
2:16:06 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:16:07 Lex Fridman? Like angry, aggressive.
2:16:10 Lex Fridman? Feeling cardio here at all like?
2:16:12 Speaker 01 I don't, I didn't get tired during this.
2:16:15 Lex Fridman? And then?
2:16:15 Speaker 01 Just always pressing forward.
2:16:16 Lex Fridman? Time runs out.
2:16:18 Speaker 01 Now we're into golden score. 12 minutes and 38 seconds later. Yeah, you think about every judo exchange, right? Every time we grip up, every time we attack, sometimes it can take longer to get back to the line than the entire exchange.
2:16:30 Lex Fridman? Yeah. So the more aggression, the more exchanges you have, the longer the time stretches. Then here, the six seconds left in golden score. Your tape is, uh, is now yellow and red.
2:16:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:16:48 Lex Fridman? With sweat and blood, literally, and time is out. Now, what are you thinking here? Do you think you won the match?
2:16:54 Speaker 01 I, I thought I won the match a minute ago.
2:16:59 Speaker 01 I remember thinking to myself, like, if this goes to the flags, I won. No doubt in my mind.
2:17:07 Speaker 01 Because I felt like the whole time, like, I was going to him.
2:17:12 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:17:13 Speaker 01 Right? He was never coming at me.
2:17:16 Lex Fridman? Yeah, that's the way it felt. I like, like, that's the way it felt. Body language wise, just the intensity, how fast you're moving towards him, you're constantly going for throws.
2:17:28 Speaker 01 Now, if you want to rewind that, we can talk about the whole, because it's a part of this clip.
2:17:33 Lex Fridman? So wait, wait a minute. Uh, they all went blue.
2:17:36 Speaker 01 They all did.
2:17:37 Lex Fridman? So in judo, there's three referees, two on the side, one in the center, and they all vote on one.
2:17:42 Speaker 01 And now let's pause it right there. Now, the way this is supposed to work, they raise their flags, they do like a one-two count, and then on three, they all raise it together.
2:17:52 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:17:52 Speaker 01 Now, as a little pretext to this entire match, up until this point, not one match at the Olympic Games has ever been a split decision. Meaning, out of three people, not one of them voted against the other group members. So they were all unified blue or all unified white.
2:18:12 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:18:13 Speaker 01 Right?
2:18:13 Lex Fridman? Which is, um, statistically difficult to imagine.
2:18:17 Speaker 01 Yes.
2:18:18 Lex Fridman? It's almost like they had a referee meeting and said, um, it's better for the Olympics.
2:18:23 Speaker 01 To never have a split.
2:18:25 Lex Fridman? Yeah. Okay.
2:18:28 Speaker 01 So the question becomes, if you had clicked that frame by frame.
2:18:34 Speaker 01 Right? So, right now, we have all the refs with their flags out. And then click that.
2:18:41 Lex Fridman? So, the middle.
2:18:42 Speaker 01 Middle guy is, he is all the way up.
2:18:45 Lex Fridman? All the way up.
2:18:45 Speaker 01 The other side judges haven't moved. We now have one side ref all the way up. Then we have a third side ref all the way up.
2:18:56 Lex Fridman? Yeah, so there's a time point when the middle guy has the flag all the way up.
2:19:01 Speaker 01 If not eighty, ninety percent of the way there.
2:19:03 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:19:04 Speaker 01 Then the other one does, and then the third one goes. So now, the question becomes, who really? Like, did the outside refs really have an opinion?
2:19:17 Speaker 01 Or were they told to wait for the center one to start? And then lift whatever flag the center ref picked?
2:19:27 Lex Fridman? Yeah, this is very unfortunate. It's very, honestly, it's very possible that they had this meeting.
2:19:34 Lex Fridman? This is the problem with the Olympics. They sometimes, it's also the problem in the Soviet Union with communism. You think the committee knows what's good for the people and so on. So, they decide universally as opposed to letting the magic of the Olympics be what it is. But nevertheless, in this case, the center ref decided blue. Like, what do you think? Do you think it's just a shitty call? Or like?
2:20:04 Speaker 01 He has the right to pick. But the problem is, is the other two, I don't think did.
2:20:11 Lex Fridman? Yeah, so.
2:20:13 Speaker 01 And so, when you do this frame by frame again, right? Like, I can see from my own perspective, two of the refs. And I see them both blue. Right? So, when you fast forward that a little bit to get to like all the flags. I see the two go blue. And I go, I look over and I look at the other guy and I'm like, really?
2:20:36 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:20:37 Speaker 01 All three? I fought for eight minutes and I can't even get a vote? I didn't even get a penalty. I can't even get a vote? And that's when I broke.
2:20:49 Speaker 01 I like, oh, I couldn't believe it.
2:20:54 Speaker 01 And I'm not gonna lie, he looked shocked.
2:21:00 Lex Fridman? And here you're on your knees. You're crying.
2:21:03 Speaker 01 Literally crying.
2:21:04 Lex Fridman? This is it.
2:21:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:21:06 Lex Fridman? Man, that was such an amazing match. That was such a war. I mean, both people can't believe what happened.
2:21:13 Speaker 01 I know. That's the, and like, honestly, I wish we had the rules that we do today as far as the unlimited golden score because I would have loved to have seen what would have happened.
2:21:25 Lex Fridman? What was Jimmy saying here to you? I mean, I guess there's nothing to say.
2:21:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, he, he was kind of apologizing for the way the,
2:21:38 Speaker 01 the scores went.
2:21:39 Lex Fridman? Cause he knows how badly you want it. He saw the match.
2:21:42 Speaker 01 And he felt I deserved to win it.
2:21:44 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:21:44 Speaker 01 Based on like, you know, what happened.
2:21:47 Lex Fridman? But he probably with all his experience knows that this is what the Olympics are about. The refs sometimes.
2:21:53 Speaker 01 Yep.
2:21:54 Lex Fridman? I mean, that's the magic of it, man.
2:21:55 Speaker 01 Well, and at the same time, we're at, we're in the Olympic semifinal in a sport that's dominated by certain continents. And when you look at the three refs on the mat, they're all European.
2:22:10 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:22:11 Speaker 01 You're telling me there couldn't have been one Pan Am, one African, one Oceana, you know, different? Like, why'd they all have to be European?
2:22:19 Lex Fridman? But to be fair, it's back to your sauna story.
2:22:23 Speaker 01 Correct.
2:22:24 Lex Fridman? You've dealt with this stuff before.
2:22:25 Speaker 01 And.
2:22:26 Lex Fridman? And you've won over this stuff before.
2:22:28 Speaker 01 And that's why, like, I was broken.
2:22:30 Lex Fridman? And you thought you won here. That was.
2:22:33 Speaker 01 And when I hindered on that for a year and a half, like, I couldn't even stand. I was done.
2:22:41 Speaker 01 But I'm pretty sure there's a slow motion replay on this when I watched it. He's all excited, that fucking guy. And he's all happy.
2:22:48 Lex Fridman? It's relief, right?
2:22:49 Speaker 01 Hey, hey, hi, guys. I did it.
2:22:54 Lex Fridman? Yeah, so here's like
2:22:55 Speaker 01 Look at his teeth, my teeth are red.
2:22:57 Lex Fridman? Slow motion replay of the flag being raised, the heart being broken, Travis just bending over.
2:23:03 Speaker 01 Right here, watch, watch his reaction. Like, he like, you could see his mouth like, open in awe, like,
2:23:08 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:23:09 Speaker 01 Really?
2:23:09 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:23:10 Speaker 01 And he's looking at two refs just like I am. He didn't celebrate until he looked at the third one and said, oh, all three.
2:23:17 Lex Fridman? So you think he knew he lost?
2:23:19 Speaker 01 I think in his head, like, I don't think he really believed he was winning.
2:23:23 Lex Fridman? He did enough to win, yeah.
2:23:25 Speaker 01 Yeah. Because when his mouth draw like,
2:23:30 Speaker 01 oh yeah, hey, all three, like, that's not really the reaction you would give.
2:23:35 Lex Fridman? Yeah, I mean, that was, um, that's one of the greatest matches I've ever seen. I mean, obviously it's painful for you, but that pain, first of all, sets the stage for, uh, 2016. But even without that, I think it was just a beautiful story at the Olympics. You've still did incredible job at that Olympics. You stood toe to toe.
2:23:58 Speaker 01 I think in, in hindsight, having lost that match did more for me and more for the sport.
2:24:07 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:24:08 Speaker 01 As, as a whole, me losing that match.
2:24:10 Lex Fridman? Yeah. I mean, stories aren't about winning. Stories are about the fighting. So, and that made one hell of a story.
2:24:18 Speaker 01 But it, it also has to do with, you know, treachery is probably not the right word to use. It's probably the wrong word entirely to use, but
2:24:32 Speaker 01 because of the conflict in the match and because of how the refs handled the match there at the end, it created controversy that was spoken about for months on world media. Right? I remember articles being written about the Olympics and, you know, the reffing and how it was corrupt and that match was one of them. There was another one in fencing where like something happened with the timer, where one of the fencers. I guess what happens in fencing, the timer resets up a second if it's down. So the fencer got one second played out, I think like 27 or 28 times. And then one on like 30.
2:25:16 Speaker 01 So like there was like clock fixing for fencing. There was this match that I think just got publicity, good or bad. Publicity is publicity for judo.
2:25:26 Lex Fridman? And then you came back to, I mean, this is the hard thing after this heartbreak to step up and continue fighting, right?
2:25:34 Speaker 01 I really, really struggled, like unbelievably struggled from 2012 to like 2014. I almost quit numerous times. I was so angry. I mean, at one point I got so mad at the IGF, feeling like they were fucking me every step of the way. I threw a water bottle at a referee after a match. I cussed out a referee one time on a mat. I got suspended from the sport because I was just so angry at that point in time.
2:26:04 Lex Fridman? And IGF is the International Judo Federation and they're, are they the people that supply the referees? Basically like the certification.
2:26:11 Speaker 01 Run the sport on a global scale.
2:26:15 Lex Fridman? So you, you sent a few emails, 2014, 15, basically quitting. One of them said, I'm mentally and physically broken. Another said, well, the subject line, I'm done.
2:26:28 Speaker 01 Yep.
2:26:29 Lex Fridman? The weight cuts didn't break you.
2:26:30 Speaker 01 No.
2:26:33 Lex Fridman? So if this broke you, you were really going through a hard time.
2:26:37 Speaker 01 I was like, you know what? We're just gonna like dumb it down a little bit and get some winds under our belt. I'm gonna go to a World Cup, which is like three stages down or four stages down from like the Olympic Games. Like this should be like a cakewalk, like making the final of a World Cup should be a walk in the park. I show up, I barely beat a 16 year old kid. Barely. Then I got smoked in the second round. I got thrown three times. I was like, I'm fucking done. They changed all the fucking rules. They fucked me out of the Olympics. Like, what am I supposed to do?
2:27:17 Speaker 01 And it was at that moment when I wrote the email where I remember sitting at a bar. I don't drink, by the way, but I was sitting at a bar at the hotel, sending this email. And I got a response back from Jimmy and he goes, well, just, just stay for the training camp. Go to Germany and then whatever happens, don't worry about it. We'll talk when you get home. I was like, fuck that, fuck these people, fuck the rules. I don't fucking care anymore. I'm just gonna do judo the way I wanna do judo. If I fucking get sheedowed out, fuck them. That was my response.
2:27:52 Lex Fridman? Can you become an Olympic champion? Can you become an Olympic medalist? Would that kind of thing, can you think or not? Was that, that's counterproductive?
2:28:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:28:00 Lex Fridman? Okay. Just checking because maybe that's also liberating.
2:28:05 Speaker 01 The expectation was no longer that Travis is gonna win this tournament. The expectation was Travis is gonna come home and be fucking pissed off. We're gonna have to figure out how to manage a pissed off person that's trying to quit that shouldn't be quitting. And
2:28:19 Lex Fridman? Do people still believe that you can be a medalist again?
2:28:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:28:22 Lex Fridman? Like who believed that?
2:28:24 Speaker 01 Jimmy believed it, the team managers believed it, some of my teammates still believed it. Uh, my training partner still did, but they're not the ones that are cutting the weight, flying around, feeling like, you know, all of your judo is now null and void, right? Because at this point, they took away leg grabs entirely. You couldn't break a grip with two hands, right? The meta of judo has changed again. Right? So I got fucked out of it. They took away how I did judo again, and now it just got more difficult. So when I'm sitting in the hotel and I'm sending this email, I remember being at the training camp like,
2:29:06 Speaker 01 I was like, I don't even fucking care what the rules are. I'm just gonna fucking throw people. I don't even care if I'm cheating. Doesn't matter to me. I'll just play stupid.
2:29:12 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:29:13 Speaker 01 Right? So I just started going back and doing judo without the leg grabs, but with all the same gripping that I was doing beforehand. And then when I got to Germany, I was like, I don't fucking care. I was like, if I gotta cheat to win, then I gotta fucking cheat to win. If I get sheedowed out, like, then I get sheedowed out. And I won Germany.
2:29:37 Lex Fridman? Uh, which event to Germany?
2:29:39 Speaker 01 The German Grand Prix, which was
2:29:40 Lex Fridman? The German Grand Prix, yeah, yeah.
2:29:41 Speaker 01 A week after losing the World Cup. Because I was trying to do Judo around the new rule set. I wasn't just trying to do Judo. Right? Because when you get to the highest level, your game tends to morph around,
2:29:58 Speaker 01 you know, what can you can or cannot get away with? I was more focused on trying to figure out what I can and can't get away with. And I stopped actively doing Judo. Once I said, fuck whatever the rule changes are. I'm just gonna keep doing Judo the way I know how to do Judo. And if I get a penalty, then so be it.
2:30:16 Lex Fridman? And so that that win that started the road back?
2:30:19 Speaker 01 The road back, yeah.
2:30:22 Speaker 01 Because now it's like, I don't care if you penalize me or not, because I'm gonna throw that guy anyways. I'm gonna beat him anyways. And if I get a shito for doing something wrong, then I'll just stop doing that one thing and just keep doing all the other things that they told me I probably shouldn't be doing. But they're not calling me on it, so I'm just gonna keep doing it.
2:30:43 Lex Fridman? Well, you uh, you found yourself at the 2016 Olympics. Was that ever a doubt, by the way, after this, after 2014 in Germany?
2:30:55 Speaker 01 I had a lot of doubt after the concussion in 2015. I remember when I first came back after four months of nothingness that like, even trying to like train, the room would start to like tilt a whirl on me. And then when I finally got over that and I could start doing things again, I stepped on the mat for the Pan Ams and I was like, drowning is not the right word, but like, everything was being done in such a slow motion, like I had sandbags everywhere, that like I just couldn't keep up. Like mental fog. Yeah, like I remember fighting the Brazilian for in the semifinal of Pan Ams. I was halfway through this match, I'm just like.
2:31:41 Speaker 01 Eyes roll up, I'm like, I'm just gonna fucking wing it. And I just fucking winged it and I got countered and thrown free point and I was like. I don't even know what to do. And I couldn't even think clearly. And that's when I was like, I may not come back. Yeah, you don't have control over how to come back from this. It's like, it's just your mind and it's not not operating. There. It's not like I can like, oh, my right hand's not working because it's fractured. Let me figure out a way I cannot use that. Like when your mind's not working, like. It's the one thing you need. Like you gotta have it. I can work through anything else. I needed that though. And so how did you come back from that time?
2:32:19 Speaker 01 That's when I wrote another email and I was like, I'm fucking off Team USA. I'm not fucking, I'm all done with USA Judo. I'm done with the tour. I was like, I quit. But I'm gonna go do my own thing. And they were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Can't quit now. The Olympics is in like a year. Like, let's talk about this again, because it's the second time I've tried to quit in like two years, right?
2:32:40 Speaker 01 So then we sit down in Jimmy's office and he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't quit. You're gonna kick yourself if you don't go to Rio. I'm telling you right now, don't do that to yourself. Let's figure out a way of like doing this. And I was like. Because when we trained before, we did it at a unit. Right? We all went to the same tournaments. We all went to the same training camps. And I'm like. You guys are treating me like I'm the same player I used to be. I go, I don't. I'm not operating at the level you think I'm operating at. I go, I can't do that. And he goes, well, what do you want to do? And I go, I'll tell you what, Jimmy. You know I'm being serious because my answer is something you'd never would have expected. I go, why don't you just send me to Japan for three weeks? And he was like.
2:33:21 Speaker 01 Really? I hated Japan. I refused to go there up until this point. But I was like, I have to get to a point where I can get so tired. And get through it. That like my Judo will come back and my body will learn again.
2:33:38 Lex Fridman? And when you say Japan, you mean the Koto Kana, like what's?
2:33:41 Speaker 01 Tokai.
2:33:42 Lex Fridman? Tokai, is that the highest level of judo?
2:33:44 Speaker 01 It's one of the top colleges in the world, yeah.
2:33:46 Lex Fridman? And that's so you can go with the best people in the world, you can go to war with them, top level, like, strong players?
2:33:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, there's a lot of very strong players, there's a lot of middle-class players, and there's a lot of volume of rounds.
2:34:00 Lex Fridman? So you value all of it, the middle-class too?
2:34:02 Speaker 01 Because when you're tired, like, you can't just train in areas where you're battling for every inch. At some point, you have to be successful. Right? So you're still under duress and under strain and through exhaustion, you still have to have the ability to score.
2:34:21 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:34:21 Speaker 01 Well, if you're training with the best people in the world all the time, you're not always gonna be able to score. So you still need those B-level players in order to really develop again.
2:34:31 Lex Fridman? What is it like, if you can comment briefly on training in Japan, what's it like to go into a different place? You probably don't speak the language that well. Like, is there an isolation aspect to it? Is it like purely about judo now?
2:34:47 Speaker 01 I really want it to be isolated, no training partners, no coaches. I wanted to get back to my roots and just learn how to fight again.
2:34:58 Speaker 01 I don't wanna figure out how to beat the German, I don't wanna figure out
2:35:03 Speaker 01 how I can develop a new entry into my seio against, you know, whoever it may be, it's not...
2:35:10 Lex Fridman? You just wanna fight hard?
2:35:11 Speaker 01 Just wanna fight. Let me get back to fighting, let me get back to like, the root of who I am.
2:35:16 Lex Fridman? What were those sessions like? What were we talking about, five-minute rounds?
2:35:20 Speaker 01 Six-minute rounds, thirty-minute breaks, fourteen rounds a session.
2:35:26 Lex Fridman? Sorry, what's the thirty-minute break?
2:35:28 Speaker 01 Thirty-second break.
2:35:29 Lex Fridman? Thirty-second break?
2:35:30 Speaker 01 Thirty-second break.
2:35:32 Lex Fridman? Sorry, what, fourteen?
2:35:34 Speaker 01 Fourteen rounds.
2:35:35 Lex Fridman? Fourteen rounds?
2:35:36 Speaker 01 Every day.
2:35:37 Lex Fridman? Every day?
2:35:39 Speaker 01 Five, five days a week and then 11 or 12 rounds on Saturday. Plus weightlifting, plus running.
2:35:47 Lex Fridman? Plus weightlifting, plus running. So that, those are hard rounds.
2:35:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:35:51 Lex Fridman? What, what's it feel like to go through that? So you have a bunch of, uh, just a sea of black belts.
2:35:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:35:57 Lex Fridman? Japan. Um, I'm sure they're hunting you a little bit.
2:36:01 Speaker 01 Depending on who you are. I was hunted a little bit. Like I didn't really struggle because of who I am. Them as college athletes, they want to show to their coaches and their, you know, higher players like, oh, look, I can throw the world number whoever. But if you're just a guy who shows up, like, them beating you doesn't provide any value or raise their status.
2:36:25 Lex Fridman? No, but you're, you're status raising.
2:36:27 Speaker 01 Yes. So I was actually like, in a situation where nobody was watching me and I was free to just battle at my own will.
2:36:37 Lex Fridman? Okay.
2:36:38 Speaker 01 Which is what it was about for me.
2:36:40 Lex Fridman? And you just push yourself.
2:36:42 Speaker 01 Cause I knew how to do that. I know how to push myself.
2:36:45 Lex Fridman? Are you, uh, when you're doing these 14 rounds, is every single one a standalone thing for you?
2:36:51 Speaker 01 Yep.
2:36:52 Lex Fridman? So you're not trying to pace yourself?
2:36:53 Speaker 01 Nope. Each one is to as much exhaustion as I can get.
2:36:57 Lex Fridman? But then there must be ones where like it's like round nine where you're, you've got nothing left.
2:37:03 Speaker 01 Better figure out how to score. That's all you gotta do. You gotta survive and you gotta score.
2:37:09 Lex Fridman? What's your memories of that, of those three weeks? What's like, what stands out to you? It seems like, um, cause that's the place where you found the silver medal.
2:37:19 Speaker 01 Yep.
2:37:21 Speaker 01 Because it's the place most people don't want to be.
2:37:25 Speaker 01 Everybody's comfortable. I would rather, I would rather find out who I am and what I'm made of and find those, those endpoints. And if I can't find them, then that means everybody else has given up before me.
2:37:42 Lex Fridman? Were there a few people that just kinda you return to battle over and over in those times? And then it was just?
2:37:49 Speaker 01 Yep.
2:37:52 Lex Fridman? No social media?
2:37:53 Speaker 01 Nope.
2:37:54 Lex Fridman? None of that? It's just like two?
2:37:56 Speaker 01 You lock yourself in your room, you come back, you've thought about it, and you come back with a game plan for that day. Against some players here or there, and I would, I would develop a hit list. Like, I would be like, "Oh, that, that motherfucker grabbed me at like 13, and I watched him sit fucking four rounds and then come try to kick the shit out of me. I'm gonna fucking grab that guy early and I'm gonna beat the shit out of him." And you just develop that list.
2:38:21 Lex Fridman? There's probably some epic battles in that room, right?
2:38:23 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:38:25 Lex Fridman? Uh, what's it look like? Like, how crowded is it?
2:38:28 Speaker 01 Very.
2:38:29 Lex Fridman? And so you're just like?
2:38:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's a sea of people.
2:38:32 Lex Fridman? Sea of people, and you're trying to, are you doing groundwork at all? Just throws?
2:38:35 Speaker 01 Just throws.
2:38:36 Lex Fridman? Just throws.
2:38:36 Speaker 01 No transitions, no nothing, but if I get pissed off and like you keep dropping or like not letting me do what I wanna do, I'll rip a choke right across your face.
2:38:43 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:38:44 Speaker 01 Just to let you know that like, again, if I wanted to.
2:38:47 Lex Fridman? You have a really nice style of just like, respectfully bullying the shit out of people.
2:38:54 Speaker 01 Cause some people call me a bully, and I have to remind them that like, a bully enjoys like beating up the weak.
2:39:02 Lex Fridman? Right.
2:39:03 Speaker 01 I wanna beat the person that fights back.
2:39:06 Lex Fridman? Right, exactly.
2:39:06 Speaker 01 It's not fun for me if you don't fight back.
2:39:09 Lex Fridman? Right. Some of the greatest people I've, I've seen like do this, they, they basically, uh, you have this in the Iowa wrestling rooms, they'll push each other into the wall. Like, they get, there's like anger, but it's ultimately underneath it all, it's like a deep respect.
2:39:23 Speaker 01 I was training with Colton Brown one time, and I went to San Jose State cause I was in California for something. And he kept like, he kept circling to the edge. They had like a cupboard that had like, when you opened it, it had like all the tape and like medical supplies, I was like, "We'll fucking put you right through that." And he kinda like, he kinda giggled, and then he went by that edge and I fucking ran him right through it.
2:39:43 Lex Fridman? Yeah, see, to me, that's an ultimate sign of respect that both you and Colton will remember well.
2:39:49 Speaker 01 And we're still friends, we still talk, it's just, I told him I was gonna do it, he knew I meant it too. He did it anyways. He was just testing me.
2:39:58 Lex Fridman? Uh, yeah. Listen, that's, and that same attitude was, that's, that was in Japan, just day after day after day after day.
2:40:07 Speaker 01 Yep.
2:40:07 Lex Fridman? Fourteen rounds, that's, that's rough. And you didn't sit out rounds?
2:40:12 Speaker 01 And I did it all with a broken hand.
2:40:16 Lex Fridman? How?
2:40:18 Lex Fridman? How, how did you do it with a broken hand?
2:40:20 Speaker 01 You show up every day.
2:40:21 Lex Fridman? You show up. Okay.
2:40:23 Speaker 01 I actually did.
2:40:23 Lex Fridman? One left or right?
2:40:24 Speaker 01 My right.
2:40:25 Lex Fridman? Okay, so that's okay. So you can then focus on gripping with your left.
2:40:29 Speaker 01 It's always a way.
2:40:30 Lex Fridman? There's always a way. But that means you can't, I guess you don't have to grip your right sometimes.
2:40:35 Speaker 01 I would palm it with my thumb, just like hanging out like this.
2:40:39 Lex Fridman? Just like this. So you can do something. So you can do like a goshi, cause you have a, um.
2:40:44 Speaker 01 Cause I.
2:40:44 Lex Fridman? What were your main throws? It was Seinagi?
2:40:47 Speaker 01 Kosiguruma.
2:40:48 Lex Fridman? Okay.
2:40:49 Speaker 01 Sumi, Uchimata.
2:40:51 Lex Fridman? Uchimata. But you have this big, uh, um, like a goshi type of thing, like a.
2:40:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, but not from like around the waist. It's from over the shoulder.
2:41:00 Lex Fridman? Over the shoulder.
2:41:00 Speaker 01 And I can do it with just the one hand.
2:41:03 Lex Fridman? Oh, sorry, which one hand?
2:41:05 Speaker 01 The right one. I don't need the sleeve hand.
2:41:07 Lex Fridman? You don't need the sleeve hand, but you couldn't do it with the broken hand?
2:41:10 Speaker 01 I could. Cause I can just put my hand in the gi so it can't come off. And then you just. Cause what happened was, three days before I was leaving for Japan, a guy, my hand was rested like this on a mat. And the guy, boom, took my whole thumb off and tore all the tendons in the palm.
2:41:29 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:41:30 Speaker 01 So when I went to the doctor, he was like, you know, we have to put a cast on it. And I go, I'm leaving in three days. He goes, you're not putting a cast on it. And I go, this is what I want you to do. Just like this. I said, I want you to build a cast that holds it. That Velcros around, so that when I'm not training, I can wear it.
2:41:48 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:41:49 Speaker 01 But then when I'm training, I'll take it off and then I'll put the tape on it. And then whatever happens, happens.
2:41:57 Speaker 01 Whatever happens, happens. All right. So that's epic. And that led you to the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Well, that led me to winning Pan Am gold when I got back from Japan. And then almost getting my leg cut off in 2015. That was like, I don't know, maybe a month or two later. I was hospitalized for seven days. The leg being cut off for what? I had three different types of bacterial infections in my right leg. My whole leg swelled. And it was in my blood, skin, and in my bone. In my right leg.
2:42:37 Speaker 01 So I got stuck at MGH in a hospital for seven days until they figured out what the bacteria source was. Where was the source of the infection? In my knee. In the knee? Yeah. Okay. So obviously, there's a danger of like, that's life threatening. Yep. So when I went into the emergency room, when I got back from the worlds, the lady was like, hey, you need to call who you're gonna call, cuz you may lose your leg tonight.
2:43:02 Speaker 01 And then they put me in the hospital. What are you thinking this whole time? Are you still thinking about Olympics? They put me into the room like, four hours later, the doctor came in.
2:43:14 Speaker 01 I was at MGH in Boston. And he was like, you have a serious infection in your leg. I go, he's like, we have to keep you hospitalized until we can figure out what it is. And I was like, buddy, I have the Olympic Games in less than a year. I go, I don't give a fuck what it is. I go, just fucking take it out and let me get on with my day. He goes, we can't do that. Like, I don't understand. I go, you told me it's infected. Just cut away that part of the tissue, drain it, do whatever you gotta do, and then send me on my way. He's like, it doesn't work like that. He said, until we figure out what it is, we can't figure out how to stop it from growing, or how far it spread. So it took them seven days to figure out what it was. Then once they figured out what it was, I went in for surgery to remove it.
2:44:00 Speaker 01 Then I spent, I think it was eight weeks in in home care with a pick line. And then I came back from that. And the first week and a half of judo, I tore my SI joint trying to throw a guy. And then I came back from that about a month later and then fifth at the Connell Cup. And then the games six months later.
2:44:22 Lex Fridman? How quickly do doctors understand who they're dealing with? Like, is that is that difficult for you to explain who Travis Stevens is when you go to visit a doctor?
2:44:30 Speaker 01 I don't think they understand, you know, their role is to get me to do my job to the best of their ability as a doctor.
2:44:41 Lex Fridman? Right.
2:44:41 Speaker 01 Meaning it's going to be less than what they want. And they and they struggle conceptually with like, but the textbook tells me this. And I go, but I'm not a textbook. Right? Like when you go to physical therapy, the first thing they do is they pull out that binder that says, day one, we do this exercise. I go, but I have my own goals. Your job is to help me meet my goal. Let's let's work a plan to do that, or I gotta go find somebody else.
2:45:13 Lex Fridman? Did the doctors in general, people outside of your close knit group step up?
2:45:18 Speaker 01 If they didn't, I found somebody else. And typically I could find a person who knew the right person.
2:45:26 Lex Fridman? I always wonder with people like, because I'm I'm constantly surrounded by the one of the biggest problems in my life has been, there's a lot of people in my life who love me very much. But who want me to the equivalent of that situation. You know, definitely don't go to the Olympics and definitely like, like, it seems like the world is full of people that want you to be average and happy. Which is great, which is fine. I mean, perhaps that's the way it should be. Like, you know, my parents, people close to you, that's what love, how love manifests itself often in people. But then like, I think the ultimate manifestation of love is understanding who this person is. Here's a madman who's driven towards a particular thing.
2:46:08 Lex Fridman? And the best thing for you to do is not to say, like, rest, is to say, work harder.
2:46:17 Lex Fridman? Like, fuck your infection.
2:46:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:46:20 Lex Fridman? You should be training.
2:46:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:46:23 Lex Fridman? Have you ever met anybody as crazy as you that can help you?
2:46:26 Speaker 01 Most of us who get to this point, get there because we're all a little unstable.
2:46:33 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:46:34 Speaker 01 Even my wife, Kalita, right? Like, when she was getting ready for 2016, or when she was getting ready for 2020, because she moved to Boston to be a coach, she had a neck problem, right? And at that, at some point in time, it's like, what's really important? Day-to-day life or judo? And believe it or not, the doctor in Canada was like, "I am never, under any circumstances, doing an MRI of your neck again." That's what she told her. She goes, "If you have me do an MRI, you're not doing judo again. So just know, if you hurt your neck and it requires an MRI,
2:47:20 Speaker 01 you're done with judo forever."
2:47:21 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:47:22 Speaker 01 So decide if you want to do judo or not. That was a conversation we actually had to have.
2:47:27 Lex Fridman? That's a cool thing for a doctor to say. I mean, it depends how badass they sound when they say it. So that's a tough conversation. Judo won. What's this with your wife? What's that relationship like? So you're both a little crazy.
2:47:41 Speaker 01 A little bit.
2:47:42 Lex Fridman? In a, in a good sense? Or from my perspective, in a good sense?
2:47:46 Speaker 01 Yeah. It's just, we've, we understand that when it, when you set a goal to do something, you're not signing on for the good.
2:47:56 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:47:57 Speaker 01 You're signing on for the bad. And I don't think a lot of people understand that.
2:48:02 Lex Fridman? That's like a Valentine's Day card from Travis Stevens.
2:48:06 Speaker 01 You have to like, accept everything negative that could possibly happen. And until you do, you're never gonna make it. Because you'll always sell yourself short.
2:48:14 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:48:14 Speaker 01 You'll never go far enough.
2:48:17 Lex Fridman? And if you sign up for the whole thing, then the negative is just like, oh, great.
2:48:21 Speaker 01 I expected that.
2:48:22 Lex Fridman? If you're experiencing the negative, they're also experiencing the negative. And if you overcome it, maybe they'll get knocked out.
2:48:28 Speaker 01 Yep. Maybe they won't deal with it. Maybe they won't train through it. Right? When I had my five herniated disc and I was in a neck brace, I was still in the gym at 7 a.m. Doing whatever it is I could do because my job is to be at the gym.
2:48:43 Lex Fridman? David Goggins, I don't know if you know the guy, he's, he's gone, he's damaged lots of parts of his body like you. Trying to achieve things. So, you know, unlike you, his achievements are like, your achievements come with the medal. He's just running in the darkness in the middle of nowhere by himself. It's like, I mean, it's the same probably as with you. If you're able to be introspective about it, is he's just battling his own inner demons and working through those. And is breaking up, breaking his body doing so. Are you cognizant of the trade off of the fact that, you know, you're damaging your body? To get to these levels of achievements of this level of excellence of this level of greatness?
2:49:28 Speaker 01 I mean, I guess that depends on what you consider damage really, because I don't really see that I have damaged my body. If anything, I think I've strengthened it. My body can go through more than yours can.
2:49:40 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:49:40 Speaker 01 Who's is weaker?
2:49:41 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:49:44 Speaker 01 Right? It's just like, it's just like the Thai boxers, right?
2:49:47 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:49:48 Speaker 01 In order to strengthen their shins, they gotta break it a few times.
2:49:50 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:49:51 Speaker 01 It's just nature of the beast.
2:49:52 Lex Fridman? You just had to break a bunch of stuff to find where the weak points are and then made them stronger.
2:49:57 Speaker 01 Yep. Or strengthen the areas around it to strengthen it by, you know, the sheer relation to it.
2:50:04 Lex Fridman? But the problem is like, you may not be able to do judo. Like for until you're 70.
2:50:12 Speaker 01 Why not? I may not be able to do judo to the level I used to.
2:50:16 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:50:16 Speaker 01 Don't get me wrong, but I can still do judo.
2:50:18 Lex Fridman? You can still do.
2:50:19 Speaker 01 And I think a lot of people struggle with, they want to keep doing it like they used to be able to do it. I don't try to do judo like I used to, like you're seeing here.
2:50:27 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:50:28 Speaker 01 I, I'm not that guy anymore. I accept that. I don't even try to be that guy anymore. I'm a completely different player today than I am when I was winning Olympic medals.
2:50:43 Speaker 01 And so I guess when you're looking at like my journey and the trade off is I never sacrificed anything. The people around me sacrificed for me. And I never had a downturn after the Olympics because I never identified as an Olympian.
2:51:03 Lex Fridman? You know, a lot of Olympians suffer from depression afterwards.
2:51:06 Speaker 01 Because they identify as it. Now they don't have who they are.
2:51:10 Lex Fridman? Where was your personal moment of greatness? Like, or do you not experience life that way? Where you were truly proud to be yourself, like?
2:51:20 Speaker 01 Every day I wake up.
2:51:24 Speaker 01 You wake up and you're not proud of who you are, then you've really got to seek out some like help.
2:51:29 Lex Fridman? So that's first of all, okay, I'll do that because I definitely am not proud of who I am. I just wonder if you didn't identify with the Olympics, was there times, maybe in the training room, maybe in Japan, like where you're, you just kind of felt like?
2:51:47 Speaker 01 I get more of an emotional, I guess, trigger, right? Where like I feel proud of what I've done when I've set to a task and I've done it.
2:52:01 Lex Fridman? So almost any task?
2:52:03 Speaker 01 And the more challenging the task, the more reward.
2:52:08 Lex Fridman? You've fought a lot of amazing battles in 2016 Olympics. So you got, you beat the, let's see, the world number four in the quarterfinals. It's like a replay, every single Olympics, you're,
2:52:23 Lex Fridman? all the people.
2:52:23 Speaker 01 I got terrible draws, terrible draws.
2:52:26 Lex Fridman? And then you're facing, this is where I was like watching this. I'm like, yeah, he's screwed. You faced the world number one, the Georgian.
2:52:32 Speaker 01 And by the way, for people who don't know, he beat me five times to my beating him once. And the one time I beat him was in London. And all other times he beat me, he beat me by a point. And not by like a little throw, like he threw me on my head. At one point, we were in Georgia. I'm fighting him in the final. I go to my teammate and I go, guess what? Make sure you watch this fight. Somebody's getting thrown free pony. This match ain't, this ain't match going to distance. And about a minute in, I tried to take his head off with a big Koshi Gomu, which was like a head and arm. He caught me and then threw me on my head and ended the match.
2:53:14 Lex Fridman? So first of all, we're watching the video of you again, standing next to the, to the guy, leading up to your semi-final match. So here, if you, if you win this, you're guaranteed a medal.
2:53:23 Speaker 01 Yep.
2:53:24 Lex Fridman? But the chances of you winning from my fan perspective, I was like, God damn it.
2:53:29 Speaker 01 You and the rest of the world, except for me.
2:53:31 Lex Fridman? Except for you. What, what, what are you saying? You're talking to yourself here. What are you saying?
2:53:36 Speaker 01 My name is Travis Stevens. I'm an Olympic champion. I will not be denied.
2:53:42 Lex Fridman? The George is probably like, what the hell is this guy saying? What is he talking to himself? So he was probably ultra confident.
2:53:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, had to be. The difference is, is I understood the last five times he beat me. I was purposely trying to throw him, not beat him. I wanted to find out if I could. Turns out I can't.
2:54:06 Speaker 01 But I don't need to throw him to beat him. I need to know how to not lose.
2:54:12 Lex Fridman? But you were still going for stuff here.
2:54:15 Speaker 01 But all of my attacks drag him to the ground.
2:54:18 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:54:19 Speaker 01 They're never standing on my feet.
2:54:23 Speaker 01 Which is a complete, which is a distinction that we talked about at the very beginning, right? You have throws where you're standing and throws where you're dropping. Every time I try to throw him standing, he throws me free pony. He picks me up and he throws me on my head, literally. So what I did is I just needed to get to that last one minute mark, which is what he does mentally in his own judo, where he changes into a panic. And just tries to like, do things that are uncharacteristic.
2:54:49 Lex Fridman? So you knew he's gonna start panicking here as you get, as the match draws so close and you both have a Shido.
2:54:56 Speaker 01 And actually, we, did we pass the point where I went for broke and I broke my rule?
2:55:01 Lex Fridman? Which one?
2:55:02 Speaker 01 I went for a crazy foot sweep, um, like Ipon switch thing. I can't even remember what it's called because it's not used that often. And he actually landed on top of me and some people wanted it to be called Ipon. But he had actually let go of the gi and was looking for the mat. So he didn't have any control. So they didn't award him a point.
2:55:27 Speaker 01 Yeah. And here we go. Now we're getting down into the, yeah, he's getting frustrated. Great.
2:55:30 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:55:31 Speaker 01 I love it.
2:55:33 Speaker 01 Perfect. Second penalty. No big deal. We just got to get to the one minute mark. That's all we gotta do.
2:55:41 Lex Fridman? So there's no panic here for you. You're
2:55:43 Speaker 01 No, I'm right where I need to be and look at.
2:55:47 Speaker 01 Now, if you go back into this match.
2:55:50 Lex Fridman? Uh, bye.
2:55:51 Speaker 01 I would love for somebody to go back and see how many times he did a drop, right? Ipon Seinagi.
2:55:59 Speaker 01 Probably never.
2:56:00 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:56:00 Speaker 01 So why is he doing it now? Cause he panics and he changes his judo at that one minute mark.
2:56:08 Lex Fridman? So
2:56:09 Speaker 01 Look how, look how much I kept that grip.
2:56:11 Lex Fridman? Yeah. You kept, you have that grip this whole time. You have your left hand.
2:56:16 Speaker 01 Walking him down.
2:56:17 Lex Fridman? Walking him down.
2:56:19 Lex Fridman? That he, he, you keep the grip as he's throwing.
2:56:22 Speaker 01 Yep.
2:56:23 Lex Fridman? Which, do, were you thinking choke as he drops or no? It's just kind of natural instinct.
2:56:28 Speaker 01 Yeah. Because we drilled it. I spent two years drilling this transition.
2:56:32 Lex Fridman? And then very, so for people that don't do judo, jiu jitsu, it's like really nice. You keep, everything is nicely controlled to where you're keeping that gi under his chin. Like it's really tight control. Like it's very, like you're cogn, I guess it's drilling, but you're cognizant of the position that you risk the whole time.
2:56:49 Speaker 01 And you can tell based on like just years of doing it, whether it's under or it's not.
2:56:55 Lex Fridman? Right.
2:56:55 Speaker 01 You can just feel the difference.
2:56:57 Lex Fridman? And it's probably, even if you wanted to stop that, it's very difficult because your whole time, it's like.
2:57:02 Speaker 01 Once it's under, it's almost impossible to stop.
2:57:06 Lex Fridman? For people who practice jiu-jitsu, don't practice judo, one of the very annoying things about judo is in order to do gi chokes, they have to be under the chin.
2:57:16 Speaker 01 Yes.
2:57:17 Lex Fridman? Uh, even though the kind of intense chokes you do work just fine over the chin, but.
2:57:23 Speaker 01 And the kicker here and why we practice this choke was because when you go back and watch all of the other matches, he always does this tripod when I try to do arm locks.
2:57:34 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:57:34 Speaker 01 Which is typically what I would do.
2:57:35 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:57:36 Speaker 01 And when I do that, he ends up sliding out and I end up falling off.
2:57:39 Lex Fridman? Right. So you step up here with the choke, he does a tripod where he sticks his button to the air and you, uh,
2:57:49 Lex Fridman? dude, what's the name of this choke?
2:57:51 Speaker 01 Bow and arrow.
2:57:52 Lex Fridman? No, but okay. But I mean, when you do from like, from that posit, is there a way, this entry into the bow and arrow, I guess, because you're doing.
2:58:01 Speaker 01 We, we refer to it in judo as a British strangle.
2:58:03 Lex Fridman? British.
2:58:04 Speaker 01 When they, when they're in that turtle position and you do that rolling motion.
2:58:07 Lex Fridman? Cool. And here, when you go into that, you can fall off of him, like you said, if you go in for an arm bar. But here, literally, because you have it under the chin really well, there's just a nice control.
2:58:21 Speaker 01 And I've already planned on it being on his chin. That's why I've hooked the arm.
2:58:26 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:58:26 Speaker 01 Right? It's already starting to go straight.
2:58:28 Lex Fridman? Probably this choke in the early stages, like a few frames before, feels like it, uh, like you're safe. It's fine. Like, like the head will slip out or something like that.
2:58:41 Speaker 01 Uh, yeah. And that's why my left knee is up by his shoulder to keep that pressure down so that he can't posture it up.
2:58:52 Lex Fridman? When did you know you have this?
2:58:54 Speaker 01 Oh, it was right here.
2:58:57 Speaker 01 I, I actually panicked, um, right about here.
2:59:04 Lex Fridman? Was maybe his head could come out?
2:59:07 Speaker 01 My hand, I tore the muscle in my palm because I was pulling so hard that I'm like, he may not tap.
2:59:15 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:59:16 Speaker 01 Like is he, is my hand just gonna give out beforehand?
2:59:20 Lex Fridman? And there he is.
2:59:20 Speaker 01 And we're right on this edge, right?
2:59:22 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:59:23 Speaker 01 So like if we roll a little bit outside and I still don't have it, like that ref could stop it.
2:59:27 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
2:59:28 Speaker 01 And then I felt him tapping and.
2:59:31 Lex Fridman? Oh, the, that, he is, um, he's heartbroken.
2:59:36 Speaker 01 I felt.
2:59:36 Lex Fridman? Surprised. There it is.
2:59:41 Lex Fridman? The relief.
2:59:41 Speaker 01 Olympic, Olympic final.
2:59:45 Speaker 01 And he knew, he knew he lost an Olympic medal right there. Because he already knew that the Japanese guy was gonna be his bronze, that he never beats.
2:59:57 Lex Fridman? See the,
3:00:01 Lex Fridman? but also he probably in his head was confident that he would be in the final.
3:00:05 Speaker 01 Correct.
3:00:06 Lex Fridman? And so like this, he almost is surprised.
3:00:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:00:10 Lex Fridman? It's not supposed to happen this way.
3:00:13 Speaker 01 And it's the second time it's happened.
3:00:19 Lex Fridman? And that's how you became an Olympic medalist. Man, that must be a great feeling. That must be a great feeling right here. Just like all the years of injuries, all of it.
3:00:35 Lex Fridman? As, as fans that watch this too, it's like, holy shit, he actually did it.
3:00:39 Speaker 01 It's a packed stadium too, not one empty seat.
3:00:44 Lex Fridman? Oh, man. So, uh, I mean, what were you thinking here? You just focused on the next match?
3:00:52 Speaker 01 Yeah. It took me maybe like a minute or so to like decompress and then like get back to like my normal state for the final.
3:01:07 Lex Fridman? So the the final is against the uh the Russian here. What can you say about your mindset? What you're saying the exact same thing?
3:01:18 Speaker 01 Same thing.
3:01:19 Lex Fridman? Travis Stevens, Olympic champion.
3:01:22 Speaker 01 I will not be denied. Because I had felt like in London and throughout the years, I felt like I kept getting robbed. So I made sure in my mantra to add that little bit at the end to reassure myself that like they are not going to control the outcome of today. I'm going to control the outcome.
3:01:40 Lex Fridman? What did you know about the Russian?
3:01:42 Speaker 01 Everything. Um, and I I honestly, I thought I had won the Olympics right now. And I still do think that today, just like mentally, when you think about it, that
3:01:56 Speaker 01 I've won like, yeah, he threw me.
3:02:01 Speaker 01 But it was like a one in a million chance that that worked for him. Like, come on.
3:02:06 Lex Fridman? So the so it's not like you feel lucky to be in the final. It's like you you deserve to be.
3:02:13 Speaker 01 Remember, I'm I'm anticipating the goal. Like, I'm I'm past that.
3:02:18 Lex Fridman? I mean, there's a confidence in the way you're moving and the way you're.
3:02:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, like I have his sleeve. He's not breaking it, like still walking him down, still going forward like um, I knew exactly how I was going to beat him.
3:02:32 Speaker 01 And I developed a plan because when I was getting ready for Rio, we brought in a lot of the top Japanese players that weren't invited to the camp for the national team to Boston. So I had four people, three of them were on the national team. One of them had won the universities in Japan, all at eighty one kilos. I only got thrown once during camp for a month.
3:02:53 Lex Fridman? Wow.
3:02:54 Speaker 01 Like, I was, I was ready.
3:02:59 Speaker 01 I just, I fucking slipped.
3:03:03 Lex Fridman? Where does it happen?
3:03:04 Speaker 01 Right when he threw me. So if you let this play out really quick, there's a point right here where I'm gonna come around his back and I'm kinda gonna just Yoko Sutemi, which means like a lateral drop and I'm just gonna bring him down to the floor, which isn't a throw right here.
3:03:19 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:03:20 Speaker 01 It's more of like a, a takedown, right? I'm trying to get him to the ground because I wanna burn him. He doesn't do ne waza.
3:03:26 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:03:27 Speaker 01 So I'm just gonna keep burning him and you can see that like, I get really close here. He just went a little too far to his side during this exchange. And like he's running. I'm like, ah, he...
3:03:45 Lex Fridman? He's very wiry for an 81kg player.
3:03:48 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:03:48 Lex Fridman? There's not much like muscle on him.
3:03:51 Speaker 01 But he uses his length and his leverage very well. And you can see like I'm really burning the clock here like, I'm owning these exchanges more than I'm owning the tachiwaza ones, the ones in her feet.
3:04:01 Lex Fridman? So you weren't trying to necessarily like submit him here or, or like really hard or like,
3:04:08 Lex Fridman? pin him, you were trying to break him a bit?
3:04:11 Speaker 01 I'm doing both. Um, I'm being overly physical.
3:04:16 Speaker 01 And to a lot of the BJJ people who are watching this, like, they're like, oh, well, I would have done this, I would have done that. You've gotta think like, if that referee who's reffing the judo side of it looks at it for a couple of seconds and is like, ah, he's not really moving.
3:04:32 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:04:33 Speaker 01 They'll stop it.
3:04:34 Lex Fridman? Yeah. So you're, uh, like, you understand judo?
3:04:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:04:38 Lex Fridman? What's called ne waza groundwork, like what you, because you're really showing it to the ref.
3:04:42 Speaker 01 Yes. You have to show movement and progression.
3:04:47 Speaker 01 That hurt the forehead. Like, see, I threw that hand in there kinda hard.
3:04:50 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:04:51 Speaker 01 Ripping it across his face just because.
3:04:56 Lex Fridman? I gotta, I gotta tell you, there's a calm, well, no, he does look a little, a little broken. But the Russians have like this calmness. They're pretty good at.
3:05:08 Speaker 01 Well, don't forget, they've competed like this for a long time. Yeah, it's all he knows.
3:05:15 Speaker 01 And this is where I lose it. See how my knee hit the ground?
3:05:18 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:05:18 Speaker 01 My knee wasn't supposed to touch the ground.
3:05:20 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:05:21 Speaker 01 I was supposed to sit to my hip to bring him down. Something happened where my knee touched.
3:05:25 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:05:26 Speaker 01 And it didn't happen in the first one, it just happened there. It's like that, we never should have been in that predicament.
3:05:33 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:05:35 Speaker 01 And that's, that's one of the things where, when you're looking at, you know, sports for anybody who's trying to improve.
3:05:45 Speaker 01 You have to, when you're, when you're trying to improve, you've really got to ignore the ends of the spectrums, right? The, the oopsies and the they got lucky.
3:05:55 Lex Fridman? Mm-hmm.
3:05:56 Speaker 01 And you only focus on the middle, like, the technique I was doing was perfectly sound.
3:06:01 Lex Fridman? Right.
3:06:01 Speaker 01 The, it just happened that the one oopsie happened on the stage it shouldn't have happened on. And there's no,
3:06:09 Speaker 01 there's no amount of drilling that will ever, like, prevent that from happening.
3:06:15 Lex Fridman? And that's just the, the...
3:06:17 Speaker 01 That's sports.
3:06:18 Lex Fridman? That's sports, especially Olympics, especially Judo, when it's like one,
3:06:22 Speaker 01 You get one mistake.
3:06:22 Lex Fridman? oopsie can just be your...
3:06:24 Speaker 01 That's it.
3:06:25 Lex Fridman? That's it.
3:06:26 Speaker 01 You know, it really requires, and you have to wrap your head around the idea of like, if you want the ability to beat these people and throw these people, like, you gotta be willing to get thrown yourself.
3:06:36 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:06:38 Speaker 01 Like, this isn't boxing, there's no like, I'm gonna stand in a place where he can't hit me and I can hit him. Because we have the gi and because they can grab it, they have just as much ability to throw you as you them.
3:06:50 Lex Fridman? So how'd you feel here? How long was the duration of you feeling upset that you didn't get the gold versus like?
3:06:56 Speaker 01 Never felt it.
3:06:57 Lex Fridman? Never felt it? Just?
3:07:00 Speaker 01 Because he didn't beat me.
3:07:02 Lex Fridman? Right.
3:07:02 Speaker 01 Right? It's an important distinction because when I'm training and when I'm competing, like I understand that I take risks and I accept those consequences. That's why I take them. That's a consequence. That's not him being the better judo player that dominated a match and I didn't have an answer and then he threw me. Then I would be a little upset. Like when you're tired and somebody's coming at you and like you can't do anything about it, that's a shitty feeling.
3:07:32 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:07:32 Speaker 01 You know?
3:07:33 Lex Fridman? And that wasn't this.
3:07:34 Speaker 01 And that wasn't this. Like I accept losing when it's, when it's my fault.
3:07:42 Lex Fridman? Well, that was a hell of a story, man. So from 2008, 2012, just the sheer number of injuries, the weight cuts, all of that, the wanting to quit, the doubts. Uh, I'm sure you did not get, like the fans probably started disappearing somewhere between the second and the third Olympics, like the support from
3:08:05 Speaker 01 It did.
3:08:06 Lex Fridman? judo within the United States and just everybody, you know?
3:08:10 Speaker 01 The USOC tried to cut all my funding in 2015 and say, no, you're too old.
3:08:16 Lex Fridman? Yeah. So through all of that to win the medal, I mean, that's what the Olympics is about. Is, is there some, like when you look back, does that seem like another person? Is this like another lifetime ago? Or like that's a hell of an accomplishment. How do you feel about the whole thing?
3:08:35 Speaker 01 It's a, it's an interesting kind of predicament because there's like those cookie cutter answers about how proud you are and how grateful you are, but. At the end of the day, it's not who you are. So that that skill set and that mentality that, you know, it took to accomplish that, that's who you are. And so, this was just a stepping stone in in who I am. So it's in the past to me. Like, there's no shrine in my house that has like an Olympic medal in it. I can't remember the last time I looked at it.
3:09:12 Lex Fridman? So you're saying like the the, all the stories, the skills along the way. That's like you right now, sitting here is the shrine.
3:09:21 Speaker 01 Yeah. The who you become along the journey is really what the prize is. Right? Like, when you think about,
3:09:30 Speaker 01 any of them, most of the people that, you know, go through that depression after the games, it's because that is their shrine. Like, that is who they've identified as. That is who they've told the world, the community, their friends, their family. That's how they've identified. I've identified as a person who perseveres, overcomes, and accepts challenges.
3:09:56 Speaker 01 So like I, all those things are just like, you know, putting a suitcase off to the side and I'm on to the next great chapter thing that I'm trying to do.
3:10:06 Lex Fridman? And it's it's both sad and cool that um, very few people in the world get to to experience what it's like to be you. I mean, this level of of having gone through that.
3:10:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:10:18 Lex Fridman? Journey.
3:10:20 Speaker 01 Everyone has the opportunity to.
3:10:24 Lex Fridman? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've done a few
3:10:30 Lex Fridman? difficult things in my life, but I gotta tell you, weight cuts and sauna.
3:10:35 Speaker 01 And I would tell people right now who are listening, like, don't go through that. And I think a lot of wrestlers, a lot of young judo players, a lot of long, young, like, just combat sports people where weight classes are a thing.
3:10:51 Speaker 01 They almost take a sense of pride, like when I hear them talking about like, oh, how much weight do you have to cut? If you have to cut a pound more, it's like you've accomplished more, like you're tougher. Like, you're not. Like, there's no, there's no trophies for that.
3:11:06 Lex Fridman? You, whatever the reason, had a job to do and you got it done, and that, that is truly inspiring, no matter how hard. That, there's a big, deep lesson to learn from that.
3:11:18 Lex Fridman? Then you start getting to the specifics of whether you should weight cut or not, but if we don't, then most of the great things we have in this world, we wouldn't have. The reason we have many other great things is because people did that weight cut. The equivalent of the weight cut for whatever the discipline, man.
3:11:34 Speaker 01 There's a difference between having to do it because you have to and you get through it. Then setting yourself up to do that because you think it's the cool thing or the thing you're supposed to be doing in order to be successful. There are plenty of like, two-time Olympic medalists. I probably could have been a two-time Olympic medalist had I not cut that much weight. I probably would have multiple world medals had I not cut that much weight because my body wouldn't have been that broken. There's always the other side of it, so just when you're looking at it, like, I just hear it in like, young kids, even some of my own, like, when you hear them talk about, like, where their weight's at, they almost take a sense of pride on how much they have
3:12:18 Speaker 01 to lose because they hear stories like this. And it's like, that's not the takeaway. I did it because I had to. I was put in a situation where like, I may not have gone to this game had I moved up to 90 kilos because I wouldn't have had time to grow into the division.
3:12:35 Lex Fridman? And then you get the job done.
3:12:37 Speaker 01 And then you get the job done.
3:12:38 Lex Fridman? You're right, there's a, it's just a very important difference, and that's also with sleep. That's what people talk to me about. There should not be any glorification of not sleeping.
3:12:49 Speaker 01 Yes.
3:12:49 Lex Fridman? There should not be a glorification of cutting weight, but if that's on the way to your, whatever is that fire inside you that you know needs to get done, like the job at hand, if you need to sacrifice in some of those ways, you get the job done.
3:13:07 Speaker 01 Yes.
3:13:07 Lex Fridman? Yeah, and the, the weight cut is an interesting one. Because it's different, I mean, you could speak to this. There's different sports in which the weight is more important than others. And there's different levels to this game. I think at the level you operated in, that was probably essential.
3:13:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:13:25 Lex Fridman? Like, there's huge games changed completely from 81 kg to 90 kg.
3:13:29 Speaker 01 It's a huge weight jump.
3:13:31 Lex Fridman? It's, it's, first of all, it's weight, but then the strategy, it's like so much changes, the height and all those kinds of things.
3:13:36 Speaker 01 The physical, like, people don't understand it, but the physical size of a 90 kilo judo player versus the physical size of an 81 kilo judo player. It's like putting a human in a human, like, there's enough space. It's not like, you know, you could stand next to your friend who's 180 pounds and you could be 160 and you guys could look identical.
3:13:55 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:13:55 Speaker 01 It is different when both the 90 kilo, 100 kilo and 81 kilo both have 6% body fat. And they're cutting into the class.
3:14:03 Lex Fridman? It always feels like there's more variety at 90 kilo because some of them are lanky and tall.
3:14:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, some are short and stocky.
3:14:10 Lex Fridman? Stocky. It's like 81 is more uniform, which I, but then the, you know, the flip side of that is the, this is why I like in jiu jitsu, again, amateur. Competing against bigger guys, like, I love that more. I like, I like cutting weight just so I'm slim. Like, that's when I feel the best, with the same thing that you mentioned. But like, I love going against 200, 220, that.
3:14:31 Speaker 01 Because in jiu jitsu, the, the weight doesn't get amplified in the sport. Like, the weight is just the weight. Right? If you can, if you can leg press 220 and you can bench 220, then. Yeah, you can train with a guy who's 220, that's, that's easy. They're not gonna hurt you.
3:14:50 Lex Fridman? And, I mean, there's, there is a truth that, you know, lightweights and middleweights in jiu jitsu, and the same is true for judo. It's just like a lot more of them. That means if you want to be. Is you're just competing at a higher level. So like, there's much more variety of games. The level is much higher, so you're taking on a bigger challenge, even if you're like, have a weight advantage. So those are all decisions you have to kind of make. And certainly in Jiu Jitsu, people that are weight cutting are silly. I mean, that's, that's the natural beginner thing to do is to feel. The way the nervousness about competition expresses itself is through the desire to be as light as possible, which is the totally wrong desire to have.
3:15:35 Speaker 01 Right, like when you, when you look at me now, I'm probably like 230, right? But I probably have the strength of a 70 kilo judo player.
3:15:49 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:15:49 Speaker 01 Right, the weight doesn't really do much.
3:15:52 Lex Fridman? Yeah. I mean, you have the same thing with wrestling. Those skinny, the skinny guys, the skinny you that we're looking at there, just the amount of power in that person.
3:16:01 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:16:02 Lex Fridman? It's fascinating. Because it doesn't look like you have some muscle, but it doesn't look. But I've felt the power of some of those people.
3:16:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:16:09 Lex Fridman? It's scary.
3:16:10 Speaker 01 Yeah. It's different.
3:16:12 Lex Fridman? That's the best way I can describe it is like scary. It's like, oh shit, again, it's the food chain. You're not at the top of the food chain.
3:16:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:16:20 Lex Fridman? That's the, that's the natural feeling when you go with some judo people. What's your sense about this recent Olympics? What stands out to you as, so like Teddy Renek, who was on a big run for a long time, many consider to be one of the greatest judo players of all time. Two-time Olympic gold medalist and
3:16:41 Speaker 01 And bronze medalist.
3:16:42 Lex Fridman? Two-time Olympic bronze medalist, so four Olympics.
3:16:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:16:46 Lex Fridman? Not counting like team stuff, just doing individual. And then like
3:16:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure how they're going to catalog that team event. Like, are they all technically Olympic champions? Or is France an Olympic champion?
3:17:00 Lex Fridman? No, they're all technically Olympic champions, but I'm going to ignore that.
3:17:03 Speaker 01 Is that how they're gonna classify it now?
3:17:05 Lex Fridman? According, oh, sorry, according to Wikipedia, like according to the internet. I don't know, according to IGF or whatever.
3:17:12 Speaker 01 Because you know, some of those players never, you know, won a match. They just filled a spot.
3:17:17 Lex Fridman? Oh, that's even a starker example. Oh, that's sad.
3:17:21 Speaker 01 You know, they lost in the individual and then they also lost in the team. And so.
3:17:27 Lex Fridman? Well, it's interesting because in the case of Teddy, he was, you know, important to the win against Japan in this Olympics. So like in the team event. So like if you, I feel like you should put that in the equation and say, who won gold? Right? It does feel like he won gold in the team because he carried the team.
3:17:49 Speaker 01 Well, you have like Nomura at 60 kilos from Japan, three time Olympic gold medalist. No team event.
3:17:57 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:17:59 Speaker 01 Are you, are you gonna weigh Teddy's team event?
3:18:01 Lex Fridman? No, no, we're not, we're not arguing this, of course.
3:18:03 Speaker 01 No, I'm just wondering how like the IGF, like when you look at a player's stat.
3:18:07 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:18:08 Speaker 01 Is it gonna be like team gold medal for the Olympics versus like their own personal gold medal?
3:18:15 Lex Fridman? Yeah, I think in sports, we have to be brutally honest. And I think, hopefully this doesn't piss off people.
3:18:23 Speaker 01 I hope it does.
3:18:24 Lex Fridman? But judo is an individual sport. It's honestly just that one athlete, maybe the athlete and coach. Right? If you look at the big, big picture, but there's no, there's no team in judo. That's the beauty of combat sports. That's the honesty of it. That's the, the brutality of losing to another human being in a combat sport. That's why it's so damn embarrassing when you get slammed is because it's like you, there's no team to,
3:18:53 Lex Fridman? to like carry some of that responsibility. It's all on you and you suck. That's what you lost. There's that weight and that's why it's like magical. It's not, it's not like soccer. It's not, it's not like basketball.
3:19:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, I couldn't play team sports because if one of my teammates wasn't doing their job correctly, I would go play their position back, I'm gonna do it better than you.
3:19:13 Lex Fridman? Yeah, but that, you know, some of the greatest leaders of teams also do that. Michael Jordan is like that, right? I mean, it's like. With your actions, you raise the the level for everybody. Like excellence is expected and therefore everybody needs to step up. So some of some of the greatest, I would say, team leaders are individualist at heart. But so, okay, so Teddy, I think 10 time world champion, non-team regular.
3:19:40 Speaker 01 Uh, it's a big number, but I think he has some like open weight categories in there.
3:19:44 Lex Fridman? Open weight, right, right. I mean, you can count those, right? I mean, that's interesting.
3:19:48 Speaker 01 It's the same division twice.
3:19:50 Lex Fridman? It's the same division twice.
3:19:52 Speaker 01 That's right.
3:19:52 Lex Fridman? One day after another.
3:19:53 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's right.
3:19:54 Lex Fridman? I don't know if I want to count that.
3:19:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:19:56 Lex Fridman? Well, I mean, that's one of the reasons people don't usually put heavyweights in judo as like the greatest of all time. Because the level of competition is lower.
3:20:08 Speaker 01 Yes.
3:20:09 Lex Fridman? Uh, but anyway, he did lose in this match to um, to a young Russian.
3:20:15 Speaker 01 Yep.
3:20:16 Lex Fridman? Uh, Tamirlin Boshayev. Match also not on the internet. Thank you, Olympics. I am definitely going to go on some rants on the internet.
3:20:26 Speaker 01 I love it.
3:20:27 Lex Fridman? As a fan of um, Olympics, I feel like this definitely needs to change moving forward. The like every single major Olympic event, I'm also like, I also like random sports like weightlifting, even though I don't do Olympic weightlifting.
3:20:39 Speaker 01 It's fun just to watch.
3:20:40 Lex Fridman? Fun to watch, such high level of excellence. And the fact that we can't just freaking watch the full, like each nicely categorized event is really heartbreaking. In judo, in Olympic weightlifting, in track, in gymnastics, all of that. Anyway, uh, so Teddy lost. I mean, that, does that stand out to you? If you were to like recap the things that you remember from this Olympics.
3:21:05 Speaker 01 I picked him losing already, like in my predictions.
3:21:09 Lex Fridman? Lose, which, where? That match or just in general somewhere?
3:21:12 Speaker 01 In the final.
3:21:13 Lex Fridman? In the final, you thought?
3:21:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:21:15 Lex Fridman? Final or was it semi? When I looked at his draw, because he decided not to compete throughout the quad and do like the bare minimum to go.
3:21:24 Speaker 01 Because of his age, I didn't think he would have enough energy to battle his way through
3:21:31 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:21:31 Speaker 01 the draw that he had. And sure enough, he didn't. He felt earlier than I thought, but he just, he's not the young athletic person he used to be. And when they changed the rules to judo, they allowed people to take people into really, really deep waters, which you saw at this Olympics, which, you know, it, did it ruin the sport or did it not? Like, I'm not sure, but it was definitely difficult to watch.
3:22:01 Lex Fridman? Would you put him at the greatest of all time? Or ask another way, like, who do you think is the greatest judo player of all time?
3:22:07 Speaker 01 He's definitely not the greatest judo player, but he's definitely the best competitor.
3:22:13 Lex Fridman? What's the difference between judo player and competitor?
3:22:16 Speaker 01 There's an ability to like, do the act of judo of like throwing, pinning, arm locking versus can you win a judo match?
3:22:28 Speaker 01 Right? Like when you look at somebody like Nomura, who like threw everyone he fought, through three Olympics, multiple world championships, multiple things, like, that's a pure judo player. In the essence of judo, he can throw, pin or arm lock just about anybody he steps on the mat with during his time.
3:22:49 Speaker 01 Teddy tended to, when you look at his judo, because of his size, again, it's just because he's in the heavyweight category, he was so much bigger, so much stronger, people just couldn't handle it. And you would see really good judo players just break.
3:23:07 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:23:07 Speaker 01 Like, they could hang in there for a little bit, but eventually his size, like, you can't control that weight. Weight moves weight. And when you have to use all your strength to keep him upright and off of you, your muscles just give out because you don't have somebody of that stature and that skill, like, to train with, to train those muscles.
3:23:27 Lex Fridman? So what you're thinking more like those 73, 81, 90 kg people that just stand in the pocket and just give
3:23:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:23:35 Lex Fridman? everything.
3:23:36 Speaker 01 Like, what comes to my mind is like a Koga.
3:23:39 Lex Fridman? Koga.
3:23:39 Speaker 01 You know, and Nomura, who's a 60 kilo guy, but again, like his dynamics and how long he was dominant for, like, it just.
3:23:50 Speaker 01 Do you put value to like epic throws, like singular moments of greatness? If it's against a noteworthy player in a noteworthy position. There are a lot of highlights of people that are good judo players, but their highlights are of, you know, scrubs on the I J F circuit. Right. It's like, great, the Japanese guy threw the guy from, you know, Senegal free pone. Great, we kind of expected that. You took the world number one against the 330th person in the world. What'd you think was gonna happen? Like, when I see those highlights like thrown around like social media, I'm like,
3:24:32 Speaker 01 that's not a highlight. They might as well have just been at the dojo like practicing throws. If you look at the like top 10 list for judo, Kano always comes up, you know, as um. But he's not somebody that I don't think his results are there, but you don't really know how he got there. So it's, it's hard for me to like, I can't see his judo. Yeah. So I'm not sure. Kano, by the way, is the founder of judo for people who don't, or consider to be the founder of judo. Yeah. The sport evolves. Yeah. The players that are like, if you took champions from the past and you fought them against the players of today, there's, it's not happening. And that goes with anything, right? Yeah.
3:25:12 Speaker 01 So every time you think of like, who's the best of all time, it's probably somebody within a generation or two of today. Yeah. If I'm gonna pick my, my top three, let's say, top three, and I would go, generationally speaking, I would pick Ono for today. Probably Iliadis for like my timeframe, like the,
3:25:36 Speaker 01 from a developmental standpoint, and then I'd probably go Koga. And then before Koga, I'd probably go Nomura. Nomura. As like the person of that generation that people like.
3:25:48 Speaker 01 As a whole in judo respected.
3:25:51 Lex Fridman? Yeah, well, in the case of, I wonder if people feared Koga.
3:25:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:25:56 Lex Fridman? Yeah. You're that that little guy's gonna get under you and you're gonna go for a ride.
3:26:01 Speaker 01 You know, he was seventy eight kilos when he took second at the All Japan's, which is an open weight class.
3:26:06 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:26:07 Speaker 01 You know, like he he could throw down with anybody, any weight class and still win.
3:26:13 Lex Fridman? He was one of the early people that planted the seed of judo, love of judo in you.
3:26:18 Speaker 01 Yeah. And when I looked at him, like, that was how like I wanted my judo to be portrayed, that style.
3:26:26 Lex Fridman? Yeah. And then I know he's a lot as you just like, I mean, you have a similar attitude as him. So you just like the way he carried.
3:26:33 Speaker 01 That's why we get along.
3:26:37 Lex Fridman? You guys hang out and I'd love to see that conversation.
3:26:40 Speaker 01 I remember when we were talking about like his coaching, I was like, why didn't you take this team or like, why'd you pick this team? And he's like, I can't work with those people like those people are weak, they're children, like they don't know how to train hard.
3:26:53 Lex Fridman? I love that guy. What about Ono? Because he was competing in this Olympics, he got he got gold in some Olympics, right?
3:27:01 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:27:01 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:27:02 Speaker 01 He lost in the team tournament, though. I think he just didn't care.
3:27:05 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:27:05 Speaker 01 He just really wanted to throw that guy.
3:27:07 Lex Fridman? He like throws everybody. So he's he represents the thing you're mentioning. I signed up to the judo fanatics best of Ono. Is there something that stands out to you about him that's especially you find beautiful like or powerful about his technique?
3:27:25 Speaker 01 His adaptability to the situations and understanding of like what needs to happen in order to throw these people. I specifically watched a match with his and I was gonna do a breakdown video on it because.
3:27:41 Lex Fridman? Is there a match? Do you remember what it is?
3:27:43 Speaker 01 It's him versus Garvey of Hungary.
3:27:49 Lex Fridman? Is he good at gripping? So we're watching the match against Hungary.
3:27:53 Lex Fridman? So at the one minute comes of right here coming up.
3:27:56 Speaker 01 I've heard he's freakishly strong. I've never had the ability to to train with him, so I'm not.
3:28:01 Lex Fridman? Obviously, he looks super skinny.
3:28:04 Speaker 01 But when you see him without his gi jacket on, like he's a jacked dude. Which is uncharacteristic of a Japanese player from back in the day. In a way changed all that. He was like, we're gonna get physical to compete with the Europeans.
3:28:18 Lex Fridman? That's another one of the greats, right?
3:28:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:28:20 Lex Fridman? He doesn't get mentioned enough.
3:28:29 Lex Fridman? And he's a righty here? Yeah, okay.
3:28:32 Speaker 01 And this is where he starts setting it up. It's like you can see he was standing in like a left-handed stance and then he changes.
3:28:39 Lex Fridman? So he grips almost like a double, uh, double sleeve, not a double sleeve.
3:28:45 Speaker 01 He holds the tricep.
3:28:46 Lex Fridman? The tricep.
3:28:47 Speaker 01 And the, the front sleeve standing like a lefty.
3:28:51 Lex Fridman? No body grip, just tricep and sleeve. And it was like the, the biggest whip and twist of a, of a Nuchimata.
3:29:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, he doesn't actually lift him off the floor.
3:29:03 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:29:03 Speaker 01 And if you look at it in like, slow motion almost.
3:29:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, let's, yeah, there we go.
3:29:13 Speaker 01 The Hungarian player was like 100% defense and he still did this. Right? So, right here, like, press pause. This, this is like, an identifier if you're trying to like learn, you don't figure out how to set it up. Because knowing how to get to the point, right before you pull the trigger is probably the most important. So when we watch this play out, what Ono's gonna do is he's gonna pivot off his right leg right here. He's gonna back step with his left and it's gonna pull Ungarvi's front leg all the way forward into what we would call like a neutral square stance. So he plants hard.
3:29:53 Lex Fridman? There's an interesting pull with the, oh no, it's not tricep. He almost like, it starts with the tricep and he like collects the gear, something like that.
3:30:00 Speaker 01 But it's still above the elbow, cause you can see the bend, right? And right here, see how he never put, back it up a little bit?
3:30:09 Speaker 01 That this is kind of like one of those things. Yeah, pause it right there. So when he puts his right foot down, he's pulling so hard with his back. That when Ono goes to put his left foot down, it never touches the mat. But by putting his left foot back, it actually pulls Ungarby's foot forward. And so he's able to speed up his throw by just continuing that motion back.
3:30:32 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:30:32 Speaker 01 Which what was supposed to have been a step turned out to just in the middle of the action, he makes a split second decision before putting the foot down to just continue.
3:30:43 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:30:44 Speaker 01 Cause he recognizes that feel in his hands.
3:30:46 Lex Fridman? Yeah. And so it's like, it never, it's a swing, like he never touches the.
3:30:50 Speaker 01 But it never, it never started as like a big swing to a back step.
3:30:53 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:30:54 Speaker 01 He changed his mind partway through.
3:30:56 Lex Fridman? So it's supposed to be a back step, right?
3:30:58 Speaker 01 Yeah. And then he goes, nope, he's bringing that foot forward. I'm just gonna go for it.
3:31:01 Lex Fridman? And wait, is he full like?
3:31:04 Speaker 01 Full air.
3:31:05 Lex Fridman? Look at that. Boom, boom.
3:31:07 Speaker 01 And look at, if you go a few more steps forward, right there, his hip is the same height as Ungarby's shoulder.
3:31:15 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:31:16 Speaker 01 Because he's leaning so far into the throw with his body weight. And he's allowing that tricep grip to rotate. That's gonna draw Ungarby forward. And now when you pause it right here, you think about the sheer physics to like, get your body into this position. Jimmy and I were so like, when we saw this for the first time, we tried to just stand like that and we couldn't do it. His left foot is pointing straight ahead. His chest is perpendicular to that foot or parallel with it, right? And his head is by his foot.
3:31:50 Lex Fridman? Yeah. Is that only possible in the midst of a throw? Do you think he works on making like?
3:31:55 Speaker 01 I think he's done this particular throw, not this style of it, but Uchimata so much.
3:32:01 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:32:01 Speaker 01 That his body has adapted to be able to do this. So when people are trying to learn and like break down videos.
3:32:08 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:32:09 Speaker 01 They don't understand like the power he has and what we call end range motion.
3:32:16 Lex Fridman? Yeah, look at that. So like, look at the full range of motion he takes, right?
3:32:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:32:20 Lex Fridman? That left foot swings all the way around and the torso starts like at three o'clock and it goes all the way around, like almost back to the three o'clock.
3:32:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:32:33 Lex Fridman? Like, like that, what?
3:32:36 Speaker 01 And he never lifts his leg above his hip.
3:32:40 Speaker 01 And the crazy part is, he never fell over during any of it.
3:32:44 Lex Fridman? Yeah, look at that.
3:32:45 Speaker 01 Stayed on his feet.
3:32:47 Lex Fridman? What's he doing?
3:32:49 Lex Fridman? Is that, is that a matter of pride or just?
3:32:52 Speaker 01 I think that's just
3:32:53 Lex Fridman? Habit?
3:32:54 Speaker 01 The way the forces work, like he can just stay up.
3:32:59 Speaker 01 I
3:33:00 Lex Fridman? That's one of the most beautiful throws I've ever seen.
3:33:03 Speaker 01 There's so much wrong with it, but it worked.
3:33:07 Lex Fridman? It worked.
3:33:08 Speaker 01 Because when you think about, remember what we talked about the very beginning, like he's got to get his center of gravity under his.
3:33:13 Lex Fridman? Wow.
3:33:13 Speaker 01 Well, here's one of the top players in the world throwing another top player in the world with his hip at that guy's shoulder height and it's still working. It's.
3:33:23 Lex Fridman? Okay, so he, this generation, he could be the great.
3:33:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:33:27 Lex Fridman? And like he switched a lot of those details of the throw in the middle.
3:33:32 Speaker 01 In the middle.
3:33:32 Lex Fridman? And that, that only is, that means he's probably what, like a hundred thousand times that throw has happened?
3:33:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:33:39 Lex Fridman? I saw you were into chess recently. So you're like me, a bit of a beginner in chess. Uh, you're part of launching the website Effective Chess. So I gotta ask, maybe it's a personal question, but uh, do you have advice to yourself and to other beginners in exploring chess? Of how to one, have fun and two, to start getting good. It's nice to see like Olympic caliber athlete take on a difficult.
3:34:06 Lex Fridman? Task with the beginner's mind. So like, what's that process like?
3:34:10 Speaker 01 I'm a huge fan of just learning new things in general. Right? Like, when I left judo, like, I took a job as, you know, marketing for Fuji Sports. And I was getting frustrated with designers, so I learned Photoshop. I also got angry with a photographer, so now I take all the photos too. Just because I don't mind learning, you know, I've spent my entire judo career learning all the time, like adding new techniques, finding new ways, practicing, developing. And so when it comes to chess, I treat it just like I do anything else. I just stick to one plan. And I learn all the ins and outs of that one plan.
3:34:54 Speaker 01 And then I develop another plan, right? Like, I'll might practice like a London opening, for example, and just, I don't even care if I win or lose. I just want to figure out how I'm gonna lose. And then figure out how I'm gonna win. And once I know, that position is now done. Then I start with another position. And then, once I've figured out how I'm gonna lose and how I'm gonna win. The next thing I do is I don't go to a third. I figure out the bridge between the two. Like, at what point during my openings can I transition back into this opening?
3:35:27 Lex Fridman? Right. So, like, you have, like, some basic openings, and you want to see how they go wrong, how they go right, all the different ways. And then that starts to solidify a higher level concept of that particular opening, and you start to stitch together the concepts.
3:35:40 Speaker 01 The concepts together, because being able to go from one to another and then back and forth is part of the reasons why, like, I was successful at judo is just because everything I do, at some point, it touches that spider web of, like, being able to get from one area to another. We refer to it as like a toolbox, right? You need more tools in your toolbox. But if you're always grabbing the wrong tool for the right, for that job, then you're just not gonna have success.
3:36:08 Lex Fridman? I actually forgot to ask, you mentioned a few greatest chess players of all time, and I noticed you didn't mention Vladimir Putin. So I gotta ask you about his judo. Do you by chance know much about his judo? What do you think about, you know, a president of a major nation being a judo black belt? And I think from what I've seen, pretty good at it.
3:36:32 Speaker 01 I think it shows, you know, if he, if he actually got it, like, let's, let's go with that premise of like, he earned it.
3:36:41 Speaker 01 Right? That just shows like a level of like, physical persistence and mental fortitude to be able to like, you know, take those beatings and just keep showing up until you've overcome.
3:36:56 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:36:57 Speaker 01 And can now give those beatings.
3:36:59 Lex Fridman? As you know, in Japan and Russia, you get it by just like, when you're young, it's easier to get a black belt when you're like, just go through a bunch of beatings for like, 10 years in your, in your teenage years. But there's also from it, springs like a camaraderie.
3:37:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:37:16 Lex Fridman? There's definitely a brotherhood and, and sisterhood in terms of judo, to where you're, you're connected forever because of that.
3:37:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:37:25 Lex Fridman? For many people, it's their childhood connection, you sort of leave judo, you know, in your twenties and your thirties, but that's always there and the same is true with wrestling. So it's, it's interesting to see him pay respect to that, like by going with the, with the Russian national judo team. And I think you did, obviously, they, they have to get thrown, right? But just, you can tell, and you probably can tell even better, but you can tell when a person moves in a way where you're like, okay, you've had like 10 years of beatings and you, you can tell.
3:37:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:37:58 Lex Fridman? The way they pull, the way they move.
3:38:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:38:00 Lex Fridman? But I also like, in contrast to the US national team, or the, I don't even think there's a national team for US, right? It's, it's the Pedro Judo Center, right?
3:38:12 Lex Fridman? That there is some, it's really cool when there's a camaraderie like that amongst the highest level Olympic caliber athletes in Russia. I suppose Japan might have similar kind of thing. And, and then you have, then you can have the system of people together and then you can have a strong coaching staff, not just like a coach, but a coaching staff, and then you can have the nation backing that staff. I mean.
3:38:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:38:36 Lex Fridman? And then the result is like, you have some incredible level of judo emerge.
3:38:42 Lex Fridman? Is there something you could say, we didn't, we didn't talk much about Jimmy. I mean, he was a critical part of your just. Like of your perseverance through all the all that you had to go through. What did you learn from Jimmy? What are some impacts that he had in your life? Both on the mat and off the mat?
3:39:04 Speaker 01 You know, if we had to like, put it down to like a very simple thing. He taught me how to win.
3:39:12 Speaker 01 Right? It wasn't necessarily like the technical side of judo, like we went over gripping, we went over this, we adapted that. But the real strength to Jimmy was like, he knows how to win. And most people think, well, if I get really good at this technique, I'll be able to throw people with it and I'll win. That is not how the world of sports works. Right? Like, I remember in one of my YouTube videos, I was doing a breakdown of a match from the Cuba Grand Prix where I was fighting a Mongolian guy. He's kicking the shit out of me, not gonna lie. Four minutes in, like, he was just throwing me like left and right. He was so fast.
3:39:56 Speaker 01 I felt like I just couldn't get to him. In the last 30 seconds, he changed. He started protecting his lead instead of continuing the fight the way the entire match was going in his favor. He made a mental shift and when he made that mental shift, I beat him.
3:40:13 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:40:14 Speaker 01 Cause he didn't know how to win the fight. He can win exchanges, but he can't win the fight. So the last thing you want to do is have to win every exchange in a match. You want to know how to kick it into sixth gear. Like when to step off the gas, when to focus on gripping, when to attack, how often to attack, all those things like.
3:40:40 Lex Fridman? And you've had those conversations with Jimmy like this is not like how to stop trying to win every exchange, that kind of thing?
3:40:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:40:47 Lex Fridman? And instead.
3:40:47 Speaker 01 Cause I was a brawler before. I was like, if I threw you once, I'm throwing you again.
3:40:51 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:40:51 Speaker 01 And sometimes you get caught.
3:40:53 Lex Fridman? Yeah.
3:40:53 Speaker 01 Why would I do that? I'm already winning.
3:40:57 Speaker 01 What about like the mental side of the game, the preparation, all those things? One of the biggest things Jimmy brought to the forefront when it came to like the mental side was the visualization, right? And when I started visualizing myself winning, I started seeing more success. But once I started seeing more success, with the visualization also came self doubt. Because as I'm starting to
3:41:25 Speaker 01 picture myself like, I would picture myself before fighting Church's Valley, I'm gonna throw him with Koshi Guma and I can see it. And if I stand in the chute for too long, you start to like, but what if he counters? Then you go, well, if he counters with this, I'm gonna counter with that, but you already let that doubt in. And then you start playing this like five step scenario, but you still come out on top. But all that doubt has like seeped into your mind, right? And a lot of people don't understand that that's a bad thing. You're still winning in your mind, but you're also doubting yourself in your mind. Yeah, once you let the like that doubt seep in, it's destructive. Yeah.
3:42:09 Speaker 01 And so I remember I was at the world championships. I can't remember what year it was, but I was ready, like I was healthy. I was ready to go and we all thought like, this is the year Travis wins the worlds. I go out there in the first round. I'm in the chute for like 45 minutes. Like the match went into golden score. Then the next match went into golden score. Then the fucking next match went into golden score. Then the referee came and told me, you can't wear your gi. Then Big Jim goes, why can't he wear his gi? Any gi that has his name on it, we're not gonna let him wear. He has to wear a different gi. So then I go, fuck you, I'm leaving. And I walked out there and I fought. I lost in golden score because I did a Koshi and they called it a false attack. And I went. Great, I'm out of the fucking worlds.
3:42:55 Speaker 01 But when I was in the shoot, I struggled because I started allowing the like Hungarian guy that I was gonna face to do things to me that I would have to play defense to and then counter. It's like, great, but now I'm doubting my own ability. So I went to a sports psychologist and the big game changer for me was I focused more on the emotional, physical response that happens in matches rather than the actual, you know, quote unquote, like Instagram picture that would have happened. Yeah. So when I was getting ready for 2016, you think about, like, how do you feel like standing in the shoot? Like, what does your body feel like? Is your heart racing?
3:43:40 Speaker 01 How's your breath? Is your mouth dry? And then you think about like, okay, the ref just started the match. What happens? Like, how, what's the atmosphere like? How do you emotionally respond to these things? More so than me trying to beat a specific judo player. Right? Like, oh, the ref just gave you a penalty at a minute thirty. Like, how do you feel? And then you start thinking about the physical responses. And when you do that really well, you can actually get the pins and needles and your body will start to sweat and your heart will start to race as if you're in it. Cause it's not about the technique. It's more about the physical, like, what does it feel like to have your fingers ripped out of a gi in the first exchange? Now my hands can feel that. That's fascinating.
3:44:25 Speaker 01 And then on a cellular level, like, I fought the Olympic Games so many times. To the point where like, it is no longer a goal, it's an anticipation. Right. So down to the experience of the grip break, that just the sweat, the, the heart beating, the, yeah. What does it feel to have your head smashed into a mat and driven across the mat with a mat burn? Yeah. And then getting back up. Yeah. And getting back up. Yeah. Like with a bit of a burn, all that kind of, so it's the actual sensations in this game. The actual sensation of what it takes to fight a judo match. It's not a strategy, like, but the actual sensations, the whole experience, that's fascinating. Cause then your body's gonna fight hundreds of matches without the physical damage.
3:45:06 Speaker 01 And you could probably get really far with that and not also in just judo, but basically anything. You can simulate. Yeah. If you learn how to simulate well.
3:45:18 Lex Fridman? You've lived a very, a hell of a life. Is there a advice you can give to young people? Sort of high school, college, you know, thinking about their career, thinking about life, how to live one they're proud of?
3:45:38 Speaker 01 I think the, the number one thing I can tell people is, and how I've lived my life is, you've really gotta like, forget everybody in your life right now, your mother, your father, your grandparents, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, whoever it is, and really decide like, what is gonna make you happy? Right? At some point in my career, the act of pushing my body to the limit made me happier than winning a Grand Slam medal. Pushing my body to the limit didn't make me happier than winning an Olympic medal. Right? There was a, there's a balance there.
3:46:20 Speaker 01 And I think a lot of people struggle with living their life where they're happy and they make other people happy or take in their, their feelings into the considerations of what they need to do in their life. And I think if they can cut those strings sooner, it'll allow you to get over it quicker and get to a happier place sooner. And then as long as you're focusing on what's making you happy, the things you do that make you happy will attract other people who do those things that will in turn build stronger, better relationships.
3:46:56 Lex Fridman? And then you will also realize the, the best form of yourself and inspire many others.
3:47:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:47:05 Lex Fridman? Like, you've inspired me to, for whatever the hell I've done, at least to do a slightly better job than I otherwise would have by doing martial arts, by taking that journey. And I think becoming a better person because of it. So Travis, I have been, I continue to be one of your biggest fans. I love your whole career and the way you pursued happiness. I love what you and Jimmy have done. I love the support of Judo as represented by you. So I deeply appreciate what you've done, man.
3:47:36 Speaker 01 Thank you.
3:47:37 Lex Fridman? And I'm honored that you would spend your time with me today. Thanks for talking, man.
3:47:41 Speaker 01 Thank you.
3:47:43 Lex Fridman? Thanks for listening to this conversation with Travis Stevens. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from Napoleon Bonaparte. Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.
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