Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness #223

Transcript

00:00:00 The following is a conversation with Travis Stevens,

00:00:03 2016 Olympic silver medalist in Judo

00:00:06 and one of the greatest American Judo ever.

00:00:09 But his story is inspiring,

00:00:11 not because of that Olympic medal,

00:00:13 but because of the decades of injury, hardship,

00:00:16 incredible battles against the best in the world,

00:00:18 wrapping up in close heartbreaking losses

00:00:20 at the 2008 and 2012 games,

00:00:23 all of which eventually led to that very silver medal

00:00:27 in 2016.

00:00:29 As we talk about in the podcast,

00:00:31 Travis is also someone who’s largely responsible

00:00:34 for me getting into Judo,

00:00:35 for which I will forever be grateful.

00:00:38 He also happens to be now my Judo coach and mentor.

00:00:42 I’ll release a video of Travis and I

00:00:44 doing some Judo in a few days.

00:00:46 To support this podcast,

00:00:48 please check out our sponsors in the description.

00:00:51 As a side note, let me say a few words

00:00:53 that I’ve written down about the Olympic games

00:00:57 and the International Olympics Committee.

00:00:59 I’m visiting family as the T shirt,

00:01:03 but I had to pull away to write and to say these words

00:01:06 because this very video was taken down by YouTube

00:01:10 as per the request of the IOC.

00:01:13 You know it’s serious when a Russian takes time away

00:01:16 from family, food and drink.

00:01:19 I’m heartbroken to see continued incompetence,

00:01:21 greed and corruption on the part of the IOC

00:01:24 in failing to do as the Olympic charter states,

00:01:27 to quote, ensure the fullest coverage

00:01:31 and the widest possible audience in the world

00:01:33 for the Olympic games, end quote.

00:01:37 I want to give you two facts.

00:01:38 First, they do not make most of the videos of the games

00:01:41 available for replay anywhere that is accessible,

00:01:45 searchable and discoverable,

00:01:47 whether funded by ads or by subscriptions.

00:01:50 For example, on YouTube or their own service,

00:01:53 it is not available anywhere.

00:01:56 Second, in the most absurd violation of the Olympic charter,

00:02:00 they’ve uploaded all of the videos of the 2012, 2016

00:02:05 and the 2020 slash 21 Olympics to YouTube.

00:02:09 And they set all of these videos to private.

00:02:14 This results in a situation like my four hour conversation

00:02:17 that you’re watching now with Travis Stevens

00:02:19 being taken down due to us including a few seconds

00:02:22 of a small video overlay of Travis’s epic match

00:02:26 against Ole Bischoff in 2012.

00:02:28 This is done automatically as per the request of the IOC.

00:02:32 I have the video due to having screen recorded it from 2012.

00:02:36 Here you have Travis Stevens, an Olympic silver medalist,

00:02:40 someone who spent his entire life overcoming injuries,

00:02:43 losses, hard weight cuts, periods of no financial

00:02:47 or psychological support culminating

00:02:49 in the biggest heartbreak of his career in this one match.

00:02:54 And this match is available nowhere online,

00:02:57 not for free, not for $1 million.

00:03:00 Our showing short clips of it results in the IOC

00:03:04 taking it down, not demonetizing it,

00:03:06 taking it down, blocking it.

00:03:09 The IOC silences this amazing story of Travis Stevens

00:03:13 of heartbreak that eventually led to triumph.

00:03:16 And there are thousands of stories like it,

00:03:18 stories that are supposed to inspire the world.

00:03:22 To me and to billions of others,

00:03:24 the Olympic games give a chance to celebrate

00:03:26 and to be inspired by the greatest stories

00:03:29 of human flourishing in the face of hardship

00:03:32 and incredibly long odds or dominance

00:03:34 in the pursuit of perfection

00:03:36 at levels previously thought to be impossible.

00:03:39 The Olympic games inspire kids like me to dream

00:03:43 and to work hard to achieve in our own lives

00:03:46 the same moments of magic and greatness,

00:03:49 small or big, that the Olympic games reveal.

00:03:53 I believe the members of the IOC are good people,

00:03:57 but people who forgot the dream,

00:03:59 the fire that was sparked and burned in their hearts

00:04:03 when they first saw the Olympics as kids.

00:04:06 They’ve allowed the gradual corruption

00:04:08 of their own human spirit

00:04:10 and thereby have robbed the world of this very fire,

00:04:13 the fire of the Olympic torch,

00:04:16 the fire that ought to burn in the eyes and hearts of kids

00:04:19 watching the Olympics today,

00:04:21 daring to dream, daring to be great.

00:04:24 Please, please do better.

00:04:27 The world needs you, the world needs the Olympic games.

00:04:32 This is the Lux Friedman podcast

00:04:35 and here’s my conversation with Travis Stevens.

00:04:40 Judo is a martial arts, a sport,

00:04:42 a set of techniques, ideas, and philosophies.

00:04:45 Can we start by maybe you giving a big picture overview

00:04:48 of what is Judo to somebody who’s like outside

00:04:52 the whole spectrum of grappling sports?

00:04:54 Yeah, Judo was originated in Japan

00:04:57 that was used as a police tactic for self defense

00:05:02 and subduing people.

00:05:05 It’s the art of being able to throw somebody to the ground

00:05:07 and hold and control the situation.

00:05:10 I think it’s pretty much evolved since then though.

00:05:14 You know, it’s as you include like the sport aspect of it,

00:05:17 it’s grown to be something more and more dynamic

00:05:22 and it’s kind of gotten away from that.

00:05:25 So the basics is people wear something called a gi,

00:05:28 which I think nicely mimics like outdoor clothing,

00:05:33 like a jacket and they start on the feet

00:05:37 and they get to grip each other

00:05:40 and the scoring works by the more badass the throw is,

00:05:45 the more points you get,

00:05:46 and if you throw the person big and hard on their back,

00:05:52 you win the match and it’s over and that’s called an Ippon.

00:05:55 Yeah, which is equivalent to a knockout.

00:05:58 So I guess there’s no knockdowns in Judo.

00:06:01 We don’t count those.

00:06:02 Yeah.

00:06:02 They gotta hit their back and they gotta hit it with force.

00:06:05 And so there’s a huge incentive for the big throws.

00:06:08 Yeah.

00:06:09 And there’s also the drama of somebody catching you off guard

00:06:15 with a surprise big throw and it’s over.

00:06:17 Yep, there’s two ways of losing really.

00:06:21 There’s the, I saw this coming, right?

00:06:25 Like you just, you see it, but you can’t stop it.

00:06:29 And those ones tend to be the ones you can live with.

00:06:32 The ones that are like really hard to live with

00:06:35 are the ones you never saw coming, right?

00:06:37 Cause that just shows that that person

00:06:39 has really outclassed you.

00:06:41 Right, so there’s like a set of, a small set of throws.

00:06:44 Maybe we can go through them that are like,

00:06:47 you saw it coming, but you couldn’t do anything about it.

00:06:49 And then there’s the set of throws

00:06:51 that are more like surprises.

00:06:53 So first of all, the counters,

00:06:55 or if you fake one thing and go the other way,

00:06:58 then that’s a surprise and it’s like, oh shit.

00:07:00 You off balance the person because they think

00:07:03 you’re going one way and then you go the other way.

00:07:05 And then there’s this, oh shit moment.

00:07:06 All of a sudden your back is just slammed on the ground.

00:07:10 One of the ones, I mean, you’re good at many throws,

00:07:12 but one of them is a, that I think reveals

00:07:15 the beauty of judo is the foot sweep.

00:07:19 There’s something about the off balance and the timing

00:07:21 that if you catch them right, all of a sudden,

00:07:24 it’s like I had the same feeling when I went skydiving,

00:07:26 like all of a sudden the ground is not under you anymore.

00:07:29 Yeah, and you just, you go weightlessness

00:07:31 for like a split second and you realize

00:07:33 you’ve lost like all control of your limbs.

00:07:35 Like it’s like zero gravity, right?

00:07:38 Like you just, you can’t turn, you can’t rotate,

00:07:40 you can’t do much of anything.

00:07:42 And then before you know it, you’ve hit the floor.

00:07:44 Yeah.

00:07:45 It’s a cool feeling when you get thrown

00:07:49 because you hope to do the same thing to another person.

00:07:51 It’s like, you just hit the ground hard

00:07:54 because it’s not, you didn’t see it coming.

00:07:56 It wasn’t a big throw that got loaded up.

00:07:58 It’s like all of a sudden the surprise.

00:08:01 And then like this, like feeling your back just slams

00:08:06 and there’s like the air is up.

00:08:07 Yeah, and the worst is when you get hit twice

00:08:09 with one throw, right?

00:08:11 Because sometimes like the guy throwing you

00:08:14 didn’t expect you to leave either.

00:08:15 So you hit and then that guy comes down

00:08:17 like a second and a half later and it’s like, boom, boom.

00:08:21 And then the wind is just gone from you.

00:08:22 Yeah.

00:08:24 Those are the worst.

00:08:25 And then there’s the disappointment.

00:08:26 Like then the intellectual, the cognitive part comes in

00:08:30 where you’re like, oh shit, I just lost.

00:08:32 Yep.

00:08:33 And you don’t have like a connection to why, right?

00:08:37 It’s almost like you’ve just,

00:08:38 like you didn’t literally get a concussion.

00:08:39 Like you understand and remember everything,

00:08:43 but you can’t figure out how this just happened, right?

00:08:46 Those are the tough ones to deal with.

00:08:49 Actually, have you had moments like that

00:08:51 where you don’t understand how it happened?

00:08:53 You have to watch footage to understand what happened?

00:08:55 Even when you watch it, you’re just like, I don’t get it.

00:08:58 Like, why wasn’t I in a position to stop this?

00:09:03 It makes zero sense.

00:09:06 Conceptually, when you watch it, you’re like,

00:09:08 I understand how to play defense.

00:09:10 I understand, it looks like I’m in a defensive position,

00:09:14 but at the end of the day, I still got thrown.

00:09:18 Yeah, you were talking about, what is it, a 2008 match.

00:09:22 You have a non traditional gripping style.

00:09:26 Yeah.

00:09:26 Is that accurate to say?

00:09:27 And then you were going against another right handed player

00:09:30 and then there was some kind of fake that he did

00:09:33 and then he caught you.

00:09:35 Yep.

00:09:36 Can you describe the throw he caught you with?

00:09:38 He caught me with a drop sale,

00:09:41 but he kind of like, we were engaged.

00:09:45 We were looking at each other

00:09:46 and we were kind of at like a stalemate, right?

00:09:50 He couldn’t really advance, I couldn’t really advance.

00:09:53 And he kind of just let his gaze like wander off

00:09:56 to the right, like he was looking at something.

00:09:58 And then I kind of like, what’s over there?

00:10:01 And then I got thrown and it’s like.

00:10:04 So first of all, for people who don’t know,

00:10:06 Seio’s Seinagi drop means when you drop to your knees

00:10:11 and Seinagi is one of the fundamental throws of Judo.

00:10:14 There’s just a handful, but does that actually ever work?

00:10:18 I always wondered that about like boxing or Judo.

00:10:22 Does the head movement of the person work?

00:10:25 Cause we’re still like kind of dogs at heart.

00:10:27 If you look somewhere with a dog,

00:10:29 the dog is going to look that direction as well.

00:10:31 Does that actually work ever?

00:10:33 It does, but on a greater sense,

00:10:37 what you try to do is not necessarily get

00:10:39 like a physical reaction of a look,

00:10:42 but a lull of security where like,

00:10:45 they’ve almost like relaxed for that split second

00:10:48 because you’ve lured them into like a sense of comfort.

00:10:52 And then that’s when you can strike.

00:10:55 So you have this, speaking of Seinagi,

00:10:57 you have this gigantic standing Seinagi.

00:11:02 And you have a specific grip.

00:11:05 One of our challenges is there’s a large number of people

00:11:08 that listen to the audio version of this.

00:11:10 So we’re gonna have to try to describe some of this stuff.

00:11:13 I’ll do my best to try to describe with words,

00:11:15 but you have, you grip with your left hand

00:11:19 on the lapel of the jacket or like that area.

00:11:23 And there’s kind of a lean into the person.

00:11:27 And I suppose, is there a feeling of a lull there

00:11:29 that you’re trying to get to where you’re just,

00:11:31 it feels like you’re both calmly dancing

00:11:33 before you turn your hips and go in for the throw?

00:11:36 I’m actually trying to create a sense of weightlessness

00:11:43 for my lead leg, which would be my right leg.

00:11:46 And a sense of resistance from my partner.

00:11:52 So aren’t you both kind of leaning into each other?

00:11:55 And it creates like an A frame.

00:11:58 But when the A frame is held together at the top half,

00:12:00 which would be my left hand and their right hand

00:12:02 posted on each other’s chest,

00:12:04 it means our legs are free to move

00:12:06 and our hips are free to move.

00:12:08 And they’re not gonna feel your leg move.

00:12:10 Because of the weightlessness.

00:12:12 And is there a feeling like, for them,

00:12:14 is there a feeling like nothing bad can happen here?

00:12:16 We’re all relaxed, everything’s fine?

00:12:18 Yeah.

00:12:19 And then they’re standing off at a funny angle

00:12:21 and before they know it, I’ve spun

00:12:23 and my back is on their chest and they can’t go anywhere.

00:12:25 Yeah.

00:12:26 Yeah.

00:12:27 How did you first develop that throw?

00:12:29 So for people, it’s called Ippon Seinagi,

00:12:32 which means your right hand goes under their armpit area.

00:12:36 And that’s like a vice that connects you to them.

00:12:41 And then they go on for the ride.

00:12:44 The interesting thing with the standing one

00:12:45 is as opposed to drop Seinagi version,

00:12:49 the drop Seinagi, you kind of drop under them.

00:12:54 And because there’s a vice,

00:12:55 they’re like pulled under and like over.

00:12:59 Yeah.

00:13:00 With the standing one, I suppose there’s some similar physics,

00:13:04 but you’re kind of loading them onto your hip.

00:13:07 And so they’re in the air while you’re standing still.

00:13:11 There’s a sense in which they’re like,

00:13:15 you’re lifting them above where they started.

00:13:19 Yes.

00:13:19 That’s how you get the really big air.

00:13:22 Yeah.

00:13:23 If obviously, if everything is right.

00:13:27 So how did you first develop that?

00:13:28 How did you first?

00:13:29 I first learned just learning like the very basics

00:13:32 of the throw, you know, foot placement,

00:13:35 all that kind of stuff.

00:13:36 And then, you know, like anything, the basics are nice,

00:13:41 but once you get good at the basics,

00:13:43 it’s very easy to stop,

00:13:44 but it gives you a good like fundamental platform

00:13:47 to learn off of and to expand off of.

00:13:51 And then I expanded when I first started watching Koga,

00:13:54 the new wind, right?

00:13:56 Cause he’s the one that first like introduced

00:13:59 that split hip style Seinagi that I do.

00:14:02 Once I learned that one,

00:14:06 I built about eight different variations of Seio

00:14:11 off that one start position.

00:14:13 That way I could, regardless of your defense,

00:14:15 I had an answer for a throw.

00:14:18 So why that one though?

00:14:19 Why, can you describe love to me, Travis Stevens?

00:14:22 Why’d you fall in love with that throw in particular?

00:14:26 It was really a sense of, you know,

00:14:30 one of my shortcomings as a kid, like,

00:14:32 I hate leg day in the gym.

00:14:35 I hate it with a passion.

00:14:37 I, if you asked me to do a squat, I’ll get it done,

00:14:41 but I will bitch and moan every step of the way.

00:14:44 I hate it.

00:14:44 I remember one time I was at the gym with my trainer

00:14:46 and he goes, okay, we’re going to do front squats.

00:14:48 And I want you to put 225 on the bar.

00:14:50 And I was like, I can’t do that.

00:14:52 And he was like, what do you mean you can’t do that?

00:14:54 And I go, I physically, I can’t do that.

00:14:58 And he was like, are you serious?

00:15:00 And I go, yeah.

00:15:01 So he’s, he didn’t believe me.

00:15:02 We put 225 on the bar and I bottomed out.

00:15:05 And then he was like, okay, let’s go down to 185.

00:15:06 And I was like, I can’t do that.

00:15:08 I just, that’s not happening.

00:15:10 You probably could, strength wise, you just refuse.

00:15:12 I just mentally, I cannot wrap my head around like,

00:15:15 this ain’t happening.

00:15:16 I’m not doing it.

00:15:17 So I ended up with like 95 pounds on the bar.

00:15:21 I got you at a front squat, no problem.

00:15:23 By the way, body weight squats are rough too, psychologically.

00:15:27 So yeah, I just, when it comes to my legs,

00:15:29 like I want no part of like leg pressing,

00:15:33 single leg squats, split squat,

00:15:35 any of that, I want no part of it.

00:15:36 So you think like the more traditional variants

00:15:39 of Sanagi require you to have that leg strength,

00:15:42 that mass.

00:15:43 Like when you watch Japanese Judo players,

00:15:45 like their thighs and their hips, they’re thick.

00:15:48 They got a lot of power there.

00:15:50 So you’re almost like always dropping a little bit

00:15:52 into a squat position.

00:15:54 For mine, never.

00:15:55 No, no, no, not you, sorry.

00:15:56 For the traditional ones.

00:15:58 Yeah.

00:15:58 And so the split hip,

00:16:00 the split hip actually allows me to keep my legs straight.

00:16:03 And the farther I split my legs,

00:16:05 the lower my center of gravity goes.

00:16:07 Now I don’t need my legs.

00:16:08 Yeah.

00:16:09 Perfect.

00:16:10 Love it.

00:16:11 Let’s do it.

00:16:12 So that’s the way you were thinking about it.

00:16:12 Okay.

00:16:14 But it’s, you know, the interesting thing about it

00:16:16 is because, you know, as I mentioned to you,

00:16:19 I’ve gotten to Judo after first watching you

00:16:22 in the Olympics and then watching Koga as well.

00:16:26 And so you start imitating the people you foresee

00:16:29 and then you take it to Judo coaches

00:16:31 and they’re like, no, no, no, no,

00:16:32 that’s the wrong way to do it.

00:16:34 And happens all the time.

00:16:36 It drives me nuts, drives me nuts.

00:16:38 I was in Poland one time teaching a camp

00:16:41 and I had two coaches anti coaching,

00:16:46 telling their kids not to do Seio the way I do it

00:16:49 because it never works.

00:16:50 Yeah.

00:16:51 It’s crazy.

00:16:51 How do you have the fortitude and the guts

00:16:55 to just go on with a throw that’s not traditional,

00:16:58 a variant that’s not traditional?

00:17:01 If you think about it, you know,

00:17:04 from a very basic like root of it,

00:17:08 there’s a philosophy and a mentality of Judo

00:17:11 of how the throws work, right?

00:17:13 There’s a mechanical structure there of like,

00:17:16 this makes sense.

00:17:18 If I follow that principle, I can do anything I want.

00:17:22 Nothing else matters.

00:17:23 As long as we follow those core principles.

00:17:25 So in the early days, even then,

00:17:28 you were able to think on your own.

00:17:29 Yeah, and I was able to develop a pattern

00:17:33 for my foot placement based on my opponent’s height.

00:17:36 Because the number one thing any Judo coach would tell you

00:17:39 is you need your center of gravity below yours.

00:17:42 Well, now I know exactly where to put my feet

00:17:45 because the shorter you are, the bigger the split

00:17:48 because the lower I need to get.

00:17:49 The taller you are, the less of a split I need.

00:17:52 Is there something you could say

00:17:53 about fundamental principles of Judo?

00:17:57 Is there, over all that time,

00:18:00 not over 20 years that you’ve been doing Judo,

00:18:04 it’s not approaching 30, is it?

00:18:06 Yeah, it’s getting there.

00:18:09 Okay, it’s getting there.

00:18:10 We’re a couple years away, but it’s getting there.

00:18:13 Is there some like principles that have emerged?

00:18:17 Like you said, you have to have your center of gravity

00:18:19 below theirs.

00:18:21 Is there other kind of, both on the gripping side,

00:18:24 the footwork side, leverage, anything you can speak to?

00:18:28 There’s some that have withstood like time,

00:18:31 like you have to be able to get below

00:18:35 their center of gravity

00:18:36 because you have to be able to rotate them

00:18:38 around their center of gravity.

00:18:40 And then the other one is,

00:18:43 that was always a principle when I was growing up

00:18:45 and I didn’t change until later on in my career was,

00:18:48 you have to be able to pull.

00:18:50 You need to be able to pull to get them off balance.

00:18:53 But when you think about that statement as a whole,

00:18:56 it ended with, they have to be off balance.

00:18:59 I don’t need to pull to get you off balance.

00:19:01 I just need you off balance.

00:19:04 And when you think about it that way,

00:19:05 it allows you to open up the doors to,

00:19:08 what do I need to do to get you off balance?

00:19:11 I could push, pull, I could flinch, I could fake,

00:19:14 and you could put yourself in your own off balance state.

00:19:17 When you think about people who wrestle,

00:19:22 if I fake shoot, it causes you to over lean forward,

00:19:25 which means you’re off balance.

00:19:27 There’s no pull, there’s no push, there’s no nothing.

00:19:29 I just get a reaction that leaves the opportunity

00:19:32 in the door open for an attack.

00:19:34 And that off balance could be very subtle?

00:19:36 Could be very subtle.

00:19:38 And the better you get and the more skills you get,

00:19:41 the less subtle it is.

00:19:44 So we should also mention that there is something called

00:19:46 forward throws, where you throw the person,

00:19:52 they’re gonna fly facing forward,

00:19:54 they’re gonna fly forward.

00:19:56 And then a backward throw, they’re gonna fly back.

00:20:00 Yep, and then there’s lateral,

00:20:02 they actually go sideways over, like a cartwheel almost.

00:20:05 Okay, so the forward throws,

00:20:07 there’s the one we’ve been talking about,

00:20:09 which is Seinagi, and there’s a bunch of different variants,

00:20:12 Ippon, Marote, Seinagi.

00:20:14 There’s drop and there’s standing versions of them.

00:20:16 And that all, I don’t know if there’s a way to summarize it,

00:20:20 but that’s like as clean as getting your center of gravity

00:20:25 under theirs as it gets.

00:20:27 And then the rest is just gripping variations.

00:20:30 I guess it’s all gripping variations

00:20:32 on all of these throws, but.

00:20:34 And then there is, in terms of forward throws,

00:20:38 there’s the other big one in competition is Uchimata,

00:20:43 which is, I don’t know, we can try to explain that one.

00:20:49 But it ends up being where one,

00:20:52 you’re standing on just one of your feet,

00:20:55 and the other one is up in the air.

00:20:57 And I don’t know if you would put in that same category,

00:20:59 Harai Goshi, like those kinds of throws

00:21:02 where you’re kind of a little bit single footed.

00:21:05 Yeah, so there’s two footed techniques

00:21:07 and then there’s single footed, yeah.

00:21:09 Oh, Goshi, where it’s like you’re doing a mix

00:21:13 between the Uchimata and the Seinagi.

00:21:16 Yeah.

00:21:17 It’s a hug.

00:21:18 You hug a person and then you turn your hips around

00:21:21 such that you’re now hugging facing the same direction.

00:21:24 When it comes to forward throw,

00:21:25 there’s, regardless of the name of the throw

00:21:29 or the gripping variation that you’re using,

00:21:32 the whole principle is how do I get this person

00:21:35 to do a forward roll in midair and land on their back?

00:21:40 The more of a forward roll I can get, the bigger the score.

00:21:43 If I get like a quarter of a turn

00:21:46 where like you land on your side

00:21:47 and you don’t go over your back, it’s a half score.

00:21:50 Yeah.

00:21:50 But they all require me to get you

00:21:53 to do that forward rolling action.

00:21:55 So just if we think of one person,

00:21:56 if they do this nice leap forward and they do a roll

00:22:00 and their back nicely rolls over the ground,

00:22:03 you’re trying to do the exact same thing

00:22:04 with you connected to them.

00:22:06 Well, and if it’s nice and it’s smooth,

00:22:08 it’s probably not a full score.

00:22:10 It needs to have like somewhat of a violent impact.

00:22:15 Right?

00:22:15 So if you think of a drop, say Nagi,

00:22:16 if I’m moving too slow and you still roll over your shoulders

00:22:21 and there’s no direct impact, it’s only a half score.

00:22:24 Right.

00:22:25 They want the force.

00:22:27 The force, the violence.

00:22:28 Yes.

00:22:29 It’s good.

00:22:30 Okay.

00:22:31 So then in terms of backward throws, the traditional ones,

00:22:36 there’s stuff where you trip them from outside their body,

00:22:41 like Osoto gari.

00:22:43 It’s a trip where you hook your leg onto their leg

00:22:46 and you trip them, but your hook goes outside of their legs.

00:22:51 And then there’s the trips from inside their body.

00:22:54 There’s a one foot is called kuchi gari

00:22:58 and then the other is ochi gari, it doesn’t matter.

00:23:00 The most important thing is outside and inside.

00:23:03 Inside and then there’s like,

00:23:07 I don’t even know how you throw them sideways

00:23:08 except foot sweeps.

00:23:09 And then there’s the foot sweeps

00:23:11 where you can sweep one of their legs from out of them

00:23:14 or both their legs at the same time.

00:23:17 And like we’re talking about this kind of is

00:23:20 when timed perfectly, it’s effortless for everybody involved

00:23:24 and the ending, like you said, is big, dramatic and violent.

00:23:30 Yeah.

00:23:31 Is there other kind of, oh yeah.

00:23:33 There’s a sacrifice techniques.

00:23:36 There’s a bunch of them.

00:23:38 And that ultimately the variations have to do with gripping,

00:23:41 but you’re basically you, the attacker fall onto your back,

00:23:46 sticking your legs somewhere onto their body,

00:23:49 which is like this fulcrum over which they fly

00:23:52 and do that same kind of roll that you mentioned.

00:23:54 You basically sacrifice your back to the mat

00:23:56 in order to throw them into that circular pattern.

00:24:00 So they hit their back.

00:24:01 Sometimes we use a foot,

00:24:02 sometimes we don’t.

00:24:04 And so we should probably say,

00:24:06 it’s okay for you to go onto your back

00:24:09 as long as you’re clearly demonstrating control

00:24:12 over the other person’s body.

00:24:14 Correct.

00:24:14 You can’t go to your back in the same direction

00:24:18 that your opponent is trying to put you to your back.

00:24:22 You have to go the other way

00:24:23 or you have to initiate you going to your own back.

00:24:27 Right.

00:24:29 Like clearly.

00:24:30 And then there’s all the counters

00:24:33 which almost kind of have a whole group of their own,

00:24:37 even though they have echoes of the same types of techniques,

00:24:41 it seems like they’re their own whole thing.

00:24:43 Yeah, but they follow the same principles.

00:24:45 It’s just most counters.

00:24:47 Like if you wanted to counter Ennuchi Mata, for example,

00:24:51 you’re trying to throw me in a somersault

00:24:54 over my right shoulder.

00:24:56 Therefore, I would counter you

00:24:58 by throwing you over your left shoulder.

00:25:01 It goes in the opposite shoulder direction,

00:25:03 but in the same somersault idea.

00:25:06 And there used to be, I already at this point,

00:25:09 forget the years, but it might be before the 2012 Olympics

00:25:13 where they banned, you used to be allowed to grab legs

00:25:17 in the same way you do in wrestling.

00:25:19 So you have basically all the techniques

00:25:21 you would have in wrestling available to you

00:25:24 if you would like.

00:25:26 Yeah.

00:25:26 It’s just that some of the techniques in wrestling

00:25:28 are not that effective

00:25:30 for getting your opponent to their back.

00:25:32 Wrestlers wanna take the other person down

00:25:34 in any way possible and have control.

00:25:36 Judo wants to take you down, like we said,

00:25:38 in a big fashion where your back slams on the ground.

00:25:41 Yeah, it has to be to the back.

00:25:42 A lot of wrestling takedowns happen

00:25:44 because they get behind them and then they parterre out.

00:25:49 Yeah, so, but Judo banned all touching of the legs,

00:25:54 which is a very dramatic change at the sport.

00:25:57 But after 2012.

00:25:58 After, it was after 2012?

00:25:59 It was.

00:26:00 In 2012, so 2008, I fought the games

00:26:03 and everything was free.

00:26:05 In 2012, we could only touch the legs

00:26:07 as a defensive action or in response to an attack.

00:26:13 So I could try to throw you with a normal throw

00:26:17 and then when you try to counter, I could grab your leg.

00:26:20 Right.

00:26:21 So there had to be a secondary technique.

00:26:24 And didn’t, like, didn’t they disqualify

00:26:27 on a first offense?

00:26:29 First offense was a direct disqualification,

00:26:31 which happened at the 2012 games to the 57 Brazilian

00:26:35 who won in 16.

00:26:37 She was DQed and I think the quarters.

00:26:40 And it was like, I wouldn’t say it was blatant

00:26:44 as much as I don’t think the act changed the outcome

00:26:48 of the match had they not disqualified her.

00:26:50 So that’s not that dramatic.

00:26:51 And by the way, you say 57, that refers to weight divisions

00:26:54 and that’s in kilograms and kilograms is the measure

00:26:58 of weight that the rest of the world uses

00:27:00 and the United States does not.

00:27:02 So, and there’s, we should say the divisions for guys,

00:27:08 I don’t know what the 70, I don’t know if the lower level,

00:27:11 60.

00:27:11 60, 66, 73, 81, 90, 100 and heavyweight,

00:27:17 which has no ceiling.

00:27:19 No ceiling, as we’ll talk about.

00:27:21 It’s an important distinction.

00:27:22 Yeah, it is an important distinction.

00:27:26 And you competed most of your career at 81 kilograms.

00:27:30 All of it.

00:27:31 All, you never did 73.

00:27:33 I never did 73.

00:27:34 Well, you had to cut big for 81 anyway,

00:27:36 especially towards the end of my career, yeah.

00:27:39 Okay.

00:27:41 I overly grew into the division.

00:27:43 What’s, I’m trying to remember, is it about 180 pounds?

00:27:47 178.6, I think.

00:27:49 And you have to weigh in with the gear.

00:27:52 No, nothing.

00:27:53 You’re not allowed to wear anything

00:27:54 except for your underwear, weigh in.

00:27:56 Confusing digits, that’s right, that’s right, that’s right.

00:27:58 That’s which is very nice.

00:28:02 Okay, so we, would you say we covered

00:28:04 most of the throws or no?

00:28:07 So there’s the forward and the backward,

00:28:10 there’s the sacrifice throws and the counters.

00:28:12 Yep.

00:28:13 And then there’s the leg grabs.

00:28:15 And we should say for the leg grabs that were effective,

00:28:17 it’s like the big pickups

00:28:20 where you just kind of pick them up

00:28:21 and try to figure out once they’re in the air

00:28:24 what the heck to do with their body

00:28:25 to get them to the ground.

00:28:26 You just kind of figure it out as you go.

00:28:28 I think the really nice one

00:28:30 that was to me heartbreaking as a fantasy go

00:28:33 is I guess what’s called a fireman’s carry,

00:28:37 which is, it does lead to judo like beautiful throws.

00:28:42 And the fact that that was gone is,

00:28:45 that one I missed a little bit,

00:28:47 but then a bunch of people I guess came up with the variance

00:28:50 where you don’t need to grab the leg.

00:28:52 It’s definitely not as effective as being able to grab it,

00:28:57 but I’m also on the side of the fence

00:28:59 having competed in all three.

00:29:02 It was definitely better for the sport

00:29:04 to remove it as a whole.

00:29:07 It’s probably good to cover sort of

00:29:08 the whole spectrum of rules of judo

00:29:10 is there’s groundwork.

00:29:12 So you do all this stuff on the feet

00:29:15 where you’re trying to murder each other

00:29:16 with a giant throw.

00:29:18 But then if the throw doesn’t succeed,

00:29:21 you go to the ground and you stay in the ground

00:29:23 for some amount of time, like short amount of time.

00:29:25 You have to move quickly, you have to be attacking.

00:29:27 And two of the ways you can win

00:29:30 is similar to people who do jiu jitsu

00:29:32 is you can submit them, chokes, arm breaks,

00:29:36 all that kind of stuff, no footlocks.

00:29:39 And you can also pin them,

00:29:43 which is get around their legs.

00:29:44 And this is very, no, this is not like wrestling.

00:29:47 You have to actually get around their legs

00:29:50 and pin them in what in jiu jitsu is called

00:29:53 side control mount, all kinds of ways

00:29:55 that doesn’t involve their legs.

00:29:57 And then you pin them for like whatever,

00:29:59 20 seconds, 25 seconds.

00:30:00 Yeah, 20 seconds now.

00:30:01 I think the distinction is their back

00:30:04 has to be facing the mat.

00:30:06 You have to be past their legs

00:30:08 and your chest has to be on the same plane as theirs.

00:30:12 So it doesn’t have to necessarily be on top,

00:30:14 but it has to be on the same plane.

00:30:16 And all of this is, I think different sports

00:30:20 have different versions of this,

00:30:21 but it’s like an approximation

00:30:23 of what dominance looks like.

00:30:25 So pin and wrestling is dominating your opponent.

00:30:29 Presumably if you were in a street fight,

00:30:31 that position allows you to then do a lot of damage.

00:30:34 Obviously submissions is dominance

00:30:35 cause you’re breaking their arm or choking them to unconscious.

00:30:40 And then obviously the throw,

00:30:42 which is not often talked about,

00:30:44 but like if you talk about a street fight situation,

00:30:47 a throw is like the best way to murder somebody.

00:30:52 Like this could end anyone’s life.

00:30:54 Yes.

00:30:55 It’s terrifying actually.

00:30:56 So, okay, so these are all elements of dominance.

00:31:00 So going back to set of principles,

00:31:03 you were mentioning getting your center of mass under theirs,

00:31:06 which I think applies for type of like the forward

00:31:10 say Nagi throws, is there other stuff?

00:31:14 Oh, so you mentioned off balance.

00:31:15 Yeah, there’s the off balance one

00:31:17 where you can either pull to get an off balance

00:31:21 or you can give way to the force,

00:31:24 which can also lead to an off balance.

00:31:27 You can amplify somebody’s force to,

00:31:30 so for example, if you push me,

00:31:34 you expect a certain reaction that you’re ready for.

00:31:39 But if you push me and I pull you,

00:31:42 now you didn’t expect that much force coming out of you.

00:31:44 Therefore you’re off balance.

00:31:47 The thing that’s distinctly recognizable about Judo

00:31:51 is like when done at the highest level,

00:31:54 like it seems effortless when the big throw happens.

00:31:59 Like that’s just, it doesn’t,

00:32:01 there is no other sport like it in the combat sports

00:32:04 where it’s like when the timing is right,

00:32:07 everything just is perfect.

00:32:09 I think you get that out of my mate

00:32:10 and boxing sometimes when this is a perfect strike,

00:32:15 just like, but it’s not just like a hard hit.

00:32:19 It’s like, it’s almost like with Conor McGregor and Aldo,

00:32:23 for example, when you just catch him just right.

00:32:25 Just right.

00:32:26 You didn’t look like you hit him that hard,

00:32:28 but you hit him just right.

00:32:29 And then you get to see this all the time in Judo.

00:32:33 It’s fascinating.

00:32:34 And so the beginning part of that

00:32:36 is because there’s a jacket,

00:32:38 there’s also this whole thing that you’re a master of,

00:32:40 which is like, which is gripping.

00:32:43 So is there something you could say about,

00:32:46 are there some fundamental principles of gripping

00:32:48 that you can speak to?

00:32:50 Like what the hell is gripping?

00:32:52 Gripping is having the ability to hold your opponent

00:32:56 in such a way where you have the ability to be offensive

00:32:59 and also the ability to be defensive at the same given time.

00:33:05 And it’s a distinction because I can hold you

00:33:08 in such a way where I might be able to feel offensive,

00:33:13 but if you can take a purely defensive grip

00:33:16 and then I can’t be offensive, we are no longer gripping.

00:33:19 We are holding each other.

00:33:21 Right.

00:33:22 Right.

00:33:23 And so like that would be the act of being able to grip

00:33:26 is to be in a situation where you have me and I have you,

00:33:30 and I can play both offense and defense at the same time

00:33:34 where you can only play defense.

00:33:36 So Donaher talks about like Jiu Jitsu that way,

00:33:40 and not that way,

00:33:41 but maybe you can see if there’s a distinction.

00:33:43 So you have a set of weapons.

00:33:45 The other person has a set of weapons.

00:33:47 You wanna sort of maximize the use of your weapons

00:33:50 and shut down the set of weapons that they have.

00:33:54 Do you see gripping the same way on the feet?

00:33:57 I do if we wanna include body positioning

00:34:00 with our gripping.

00:34:03 Because I can give you any grip you want

00:34:05 and you still can’t throw me.

00:34:06 Because I can put myself in a position

00:34:08 that nullifies your ability to use those grips

00:34:11 in a successful way.

00:34:13 And those, would you say the hips are critical to that

00:34:16 or is it everything?

00:34:17 Hips, shoulders, chin position, head position,

00:34:21 the angle of your foot.

00:34:22 Yeah, where you lean.

00:34:24 Wow, okay.

00:34:25 And so, and there’s a bunch of places you can grip.

00:34:28 Obviously, if people like kind of think of a jacket,

00:34:31 like there’s a bunch of places you can grip

00:34:33 that are interesting.

00:34:35 So you can grip on the collar,

00:34:37 you can grip on the sleeves,

00:34:38 you can grip like the elbow joint.

00:34:41 And then you could do those bad ass,

00:34:44 like Eastern European, Georgian, over the back.

00:34:48 Over the back, over the opposite sides of the heads.

00:34:50 The Koreans that grab on one side

00:34:52 around the head with their hands together.

00:34:54 There’s something really nice about just those,

00:34:58 I mean, especially George just keeps throwing that hand.

00:35:00 Just over the person and just,

00:35:02 you’re not actually gripping a belt or anything.

00:35:05 You’re gripping just the entirety of like,

00:35:08 as opposed to being all nice

00:35:09 and I’m gonna grab this part of the jacket,

00:35:11 this part of the jacket.

00:35:12 You’re just like taking the whole fucking jacket

00:35:15 and just launching somebody.

00:35:17 For those people that can’t picture judo,

00:35:21 think about it in like,

00:35:23 if you understood like what a boxing match looks like,

00:35:26 and you thought about that as like traditional gripping,

00:35:29 when you throw like a Russian grip over the back,

00:35:31 that’s more like a hockey fight.

00:35:33 Like I’m just grabbing you and we’re just gonna,

00:35:36 we’re gonna be throwing punches left and right.

00:35:38 Cause when we have that grip,

00:35:39 somebody has to get thrown.

00:35:41 There’s no, we don’t walk around with this grip.

00:35:44 It’s go time once somebody throws it.

00:35:47 To me, as a fan and sort of amateur practitioner,

00:35:53 there’s two styles of Olympic level judo.

00:35:55 One is where you’re trying not to get thrown.

00:35:59 And the other is where you’re trying to throw.

00:36:04 More specifically, when you’re trying not to get thrown,

00:36:06 there’s like the strategy that you’re using gripping

00:36:09 to nullify their offense and all those kinds of stuff here.

00:36:13 You’re being very clever and strategic and all that,

00:36:15 maybe using conditioning.

00:36:17 And then there’s people who just like step in the pocket

00:36:21 and they almost don’t care if they’re getting thrown

00:36:23 cause they have the confidence

00:36:24 that they’re gonna throw first.

00:36:27 And those, like there’s a clear distinction

00:36:29 between the people that do one or the other.

00:36:31 And I think both can be done extremely successfully

00:36:35 at the highest level.

00:36:36 It’s just like, obviously you admire the people

00:36:38 that step in the pocket.

00:36:40 And I think when you look at the people

00:36:42 who do judo the best,

00:36:45 like if we wanna talk about like the top 10%

00:36:49 of the people who would compete at the games,

00:36:52 they do both.

00:36:53 And they do both really well, but they favor one.

00:36:58 Because if you look at a player like

00:37:02 Lutepe Tilliani of Georgia, for example,

00:37:05 there’s a guy that stands in the pocket.

00:37:07 But we can find numerous occasions

00:37:09 where he’s hustled some people

00:37:11 for like a short period of time

00:37:13 to get out of scenarios, to elongate the match,

00:37:17 to make somebody tired.

00:37:19 So you want both sides of the coin,

00:37:21 but you better pick the one that 80% of your strategy

00:37:24 is gonna be built around.

00:37:27 Sorry for the romantic question,

00:37:28 but I talked to Dan Gable

00:37:30 and he always looked to the Russians

00:37:33 as the artists in wrestling.

00:37:37 And he always wanted to be an artist.

00:37:39 But I think he’s known for being that sort of guts,

00:37:44 aggression, mental toughness guy,

00:37:46 but he always was drawn to the artistry of wrestling.

00:37:49 It’s hard to know when you just watch you,

00:37:52 because it looks like you’re aggressive

00:37:54 and you got the guts and the mental toughness,

00:37:56 but there’s also obviously a mastery of technique.

00:37:58 Which would you lean towards in terms of

00:38:01 what accounts for your success

00:38:03 and just the way you approach judo?

00:38:05 Is it the guts, the aggression, the mental toughness,

00:38:09 or is it the mastery of technique, the artistry?

00:38:15 Mine would be my aggressiveness

00:38:17 if I’m gonna pick those two areas.

00:38:23 But I think there’s a third area in there

00:38:25 that I would put myself in where I’m more of a strategist.

00:38:29 I look at all of my opponents

00:38:31 and all I ever see is their faults.

00:38:34 And the way I do judo is built around their faults.

00:38:39 And it’s just, I put myself in scenarios

00:38:42 where I don’t even know how I’m gonna win.

00:38:45 But what I’ve done in those scenarios is

00:38:48 I’ve made it very difficult for you to win.

00:38:53 And then I figure out the rest as I go.

00:38:56 Like how do you study an opponent?

00:38:59 Are there bins you can put them in?

00:39:00 Like there’s a lefty and a righty or this kind of stuff.

00:39:04 How many bins are there in judo in your mind

00:39:06 that you put your opponents in?

00:39:09 Yeah, there’s probably about 20.

00:39:12 There’s like certain players who you could put

00:39:15 in a category of like, they’re only good

00:39:18 for the first two thirds of the match.

00:39:21 After that, they turn into a different player

00:39:23 where they’re either falling into a sense of panic

00:39:27 or uncertainty.

00:39:28 And you can, if you were to take a video clip

00:39:31 of let’s say Church’s Philly, right?

00:39:33 They got Georgia and I beat in the Olympic semi.

00:39:37 He’s somebody that would beat you

00:39:39 in the first three minutes.

00:39:40 And if you clipped out all of his matches

00:39:43 and you only watched the first three minutes

00:39:46 of every match, you would see one style.

00:39:49 If you found all the matches where he got taken

00:39:51 into the last minute and he wasn’t winning by a major score,

00:39:56 you would see a completely different fighter.

00:40:00 And so going into like my Olympic semi,

00:40:02 I put him into that category of like,

00:40:04 I wanna get to this guy, cause this guy is beautiful.

00:40:08 The trick is, how do you get there?

00:40:10 How do you get there?

00:40:11 And by the way, we’re talking about the 2016 Olympics

00:40:14 where you won the silver medal.

00:40:15 You were part of three different Olympics.

00:40:18 But the cardio aspect of it,

00:40:23 have you faced exhaustion often in your matches

00:40:26 where you have to go deep and go like past?

00:40:29 Yeah, but that’s not from the judo side of it.

00:40:32 That’s from like, I did a very bad job of making weight.

00:40:35 It’s always the weight cut.

00:40:36 Yeah, it’s always the weight cut.

00:40:39 And I think people really struggle with that.

00:40:43 They blame cardio and training and everything else.

00:40:46 But when it really comes down to it,

00:40:48 like we train for an hour and a half, two hours,

00:40:50 twice a day.

00:40:51 How are you tired after five minutes?

00:40:54 Right.

00:40:54 Right, it becomes into a mental struggle,

00:40:56 your anxiety, your stress, your lack of belief in yourself.

00:41:01 Or in my case, sometimes it’s poor nutrition.

00:41:04 Sometimes I had one too many McDonald’s meals.

00:41:06 It just, it happens.

00:41:08 Okay, so let’s talk about weight cutting real quick.

00:41:11 So I’ve seen weight cutting break

00:41:16 some of the toughest fighters, wrestlers, grapplers ever.

00:41:20 Like burnout break,

00:41:22 like where it makes you wanna quit the sport.

00:41:24 So this is what people don’t often talk about,

00:41:27 but mentally it’s one of the hardest things,

00:41:29 especially when you’re doing it kind of wrong.

00:41:32 Because it becomes a mental war.

00:41:35 So you competed, like you said,

00:41:37 your whole career at 81 kilograms.

00:41:40 You walked around at?

00:41:42 88, 89.

00:41:44 So about 15 pounds, sometimes 20 pounds over that.

00:41:49 Give or take.

00:41:51 And so what was your process like mentally and physically?

00:41:56 First of all, maybe you can comment on

00:41:58 when the weigh ins are relative to the matches.

00:42:00 And then what was your process like leading

00:42:02 like a week ahead, a day ahead,

00:42:05 an hour ahead, minutes ahead of the weigh in?

00:42:09 Man, everyone varies tremendously

00:42:13 because we’re not like most sports

00:42:16 because you’re dropped off in foreign countries

00:42:18 with who knows what, right?

00:42:20 Some places have saunas, some places have treadmills.

00:42:24 I went to a place one time in China

00:42:27 in the middle of winter where the roads were frozen with ice

00:42:31 and we had to use our hotel rooms

00:42:32 because you couldn’t sweat outside

00:42:35 because it was too cold.

00:42:38 And every one of my Olympics,

00:42:39 the weight cut was different just given my mass.

00:42:42 When I went to 2008,

00:42:45 I was probably like 82, 83 kilos walking around.

00:42:48 So weight cutting wasn’t a thing for me.

00:42:51 In London, we actually weighed in the morning of.

00:42:56 So weigh ins were at like 6 a.m.

00:42:59 And the Olympics were always beneficial to me

00:43:00 because they actually don’t start until like 10 or 11.

00:43:05 So you actually were able to recover.

00:43:07 Where on the circuit you would weigh in at 6 a.m.

00:43:10 and the competition started at 8 a.m.

00:43:12 It’s like, well, I was cutting weight at 5 a.m.

00:43:15 And most of it for people who are not familiar,

00:43:17 but maybe you can also correct me,

00:43:19 most of it, you’re really just getting the water

00:43:21 out of your system.

00:43:22 It was water cut.

00:43:23 At that point, yeah.

00:43:25 Like 24 hours before even, like.

00:43:27 So are you?

00:43:28 Like an hour before.

00:43:29 But yeah, but like leading up to it.

00:43:33 And have you eaten the day before?

00:43:36 Do you try to minimize the amount of food in your system?

00:43:38 My weight cutting process was a little bit different

00:43:41 than most people because I like to eat.

00:43:47 I’m not the type of person that believes

00:43:50 your athletic career is determined by your nutrition.

00:43:55 Right.

00:43:56 I don’t believe that.

00:43:57 I think some sports are built that way.

00:43:59 But when it comes to combat sports,

00:44:01 like, you know, your ability to knock somebody out

00:44:06 has nothing to do with whether you had a cheeseburger

00:44:08 or a salad.

00:44:09 My ability to throw you is not determined by that.

00:44:12 I may be able to perform better

00:44:13 because I’ve eaten a certain way,

00:44:16 but not enough to justify an entire diet change.

00:44:19 Your body is built and my body is built

00:44:22 to operate with certain things

00:44:24 that I’ve had in my system for years.

00:44:26 Yeah, I think I’m with you,

00:44:28 but I also believe that there’s a mental aspect.

00:44:32 So if you’re surrounded by people

00:44:33 that tell you diet matters,

00:44:35 then if your diet is off,

00:44:37 you’re gonna believe you’re going to be off

00:44:38 because the people around you tell you

00:44:40 your diet should be good.

00:44:41 So yeah, I think it’s like,

00:44:44 it’s the same, I’ve had an argument with Matthew Walker,

00:44:47 who’s a sleep scientist about sleep.

00:44:51 And it’s like, if you believe sleep is essential,

00:44:53 it’s essential to get eight hours of sleep

00:44:55 every single night perfectly,

00:44:57 then you’re going to be very stressed when you don’t get it.

00:45:00 And then I think it will negatively affect,

00:45:02 the stress will negatively affect your longevity

00:45:04 and all kinds of aspects of your life.

00:45:06 If you actually just learn to truly listen to your body,

00:45:09 become a scientist of your own body with sleep and food,

00:45:12 it might end up that it will be the eight hours a night

00:45:15 or whatever, but it might be something else

00:45:17 and probably diet error.

00:45:18 I remember when I was meeting

00:45:19 with the USOC nutritionist after London,

00:45:23 it was probably around 2014, I think.

00:45:28 And when we had our team meeting

00:45:31 at the beginning of the year and I was talking to him,

00:45:33 he was talking about the nutrition plans

00:45:35 that he could put us on.

00:45:37 And I was like, time out.

00:45:38 I’ve done the USOC thing, like I’ve done the couscous,

00:45:41 I’ve done the lemon in my water.

00:45:43 I go, I’m full of shit.

00:45:45 The couscous?

00:45:46 The couscous? Yeah.

00:45:47 Oh boy.

00:45:48 Like there was just,

00:45:49 cause there’s like a cookie cutter plan, right?

00:45:51 And I was like, look, here’s what I want you to do.

00:45:54 I go, I’ll listen to you,

00:45:56 but you’re going to walk into the 711

00:45:57 across the street from the USOC.

00:45:59 And if you can’t buy it in that 711, it’s not on my plan.

00:46:03 Right.

00:46:04 I go, because I go to places where

00:46:07 the only thing I can eat is Pringles and a Snickers bar.

00:46:10 I’ve done that.

00:46:11 Like I’ve flown to Azerbaijan,

00:46:13 stayed in a hotel where the restaurant is closed.

00:46:16 USA Judo hasn’t paid for the meal plan.

00:46:18 And the only thing that’s available

00:46:20 is the thing across the street.

00:46:22 So you were eating Pringles.

00:46:24 Before fighting a Grand Slam event,

00:46:25 while cutting 20 pounds.

00:46:27 And a Snickers bar.

00:46:28 Yeah.

00:46:29 I just, the visual of that, that’s some like,

00:46:31 that’s some Rocky shit.

00:46:33 Okay.

00:46:33 Give me a nutrition plan.

00:46:34 Go for it.

00:46:35 Cause I’m not paying my own way

00:46:37 to travel with 14 days of food.

00:46:41 Right.

00:46:42 I mean, that’s, that’s one of the magic of your whole career

00:46:45 and also Judo.

00:46:46 I mean, I’m sorry to say, of course,

00:46:48 you want athletes to be super rich

00:46:51 and super well funded from an athlete perspective

00:46:53 and the sport to be popular and managed

00:46:56 in an ultra competent way.

00:46:57 But as a fan.

00:46:58 That’s not reality.

00:46:59 But as a fan, it’s fun to watch somebody like you

00:47:02 who’s exceptionally driven,

00:47:04 has to suffer in all these different interesting ways.

00:47:07 But it’s only suffering if you expect the other side.

00:47:12 Right.

00:47:13 I don’t expect it.

00:47:14 I accept it for what it is,

00:47:16 which is why I write off nutrition for athletes.

00:47:18 Right.

00:47:19 Cause it can be done without it.

00:47:20 As long as, you know, to what you said before,

00:47:22 like you don’t believe you need it.

00:47:25 Some people believe they need it.

00:47:28 The mind, getting your mind right

00:47:30 is the most important thing.

00:47:31 You know what I believe I need?

00:47:32 What’s that?

00:47:33 A Snickers bar when I’m tired.

00:47:35 I want a little bit of sugar.

00:47:36 It makes me feel better.

00:47:38 What do you want me to do?

00:47:39 So you,

00:47:42 what are you going to do?

00:47:43 Yeah.

00:47:45 I just love the visual of you eating a Snickers bar

00:47:47 before a grand slam.

00:47:48 But that became part of my nutrition plan.

00:47:51 When the USOC guy wrote my nutrition plan,

00:47:54 I was eating a burrito bowl with brown rice,

00:47:58 white meat chicken, black beans, guacamole, cheese,

00:48:02 two chocolate chip cookies and a Diet Coke.

00:48:05 This is like Chipotle or?

00:48:07 It was Beloco, but same concept.

00:48:08 Same concept with two chocolate chip cookies.

00:48:12 Cause I needed the sugar.

00:48:13 I was,

00:48:15 I was 88 kilos when I stepped on the scale

00:48:19 at 6.3% body fat.

00:48:22 Now I got to make 81.

00:48:25 Six, what?

00:48:26 Really?

00:48:27 Yeah.

00:48:28 And the USOC was like,

00:48:30 Hey, you know, you can’t, you can’t fight 81 anymore.

00:48:34 You have to fight nineties.

00:48:35 And I go, I’m already into the quad.

00:48:38 I’m not changing.

00:48:39 I go, build me a plan where I can do this.

00:48:42 And now we have to have an acceptable weight cut.

00:48:45 Like it just, what do you want me to do?

00:48:47 I’m not the IJF.

00:48:48 I can’t just change the fact that it takes two years

00:48:51 to qualify.

00:48:52 I know where I’m at.

00:48:53 I know what I have to go through

00:48:54 and I accept the consequences.

00:48:57 It is what it is.

00:48:57 What do you want me to do?

00:48:59 All right, so what was the process?

00:49:00 I mean, can you, can you speak to,

00:49:02 so you, you wake up early in the morning,

00:49:05 the day of the weigh ins, a few hours before.

00:49:08 Technically my weight cut never started

00:49:11 until I got off a plane and to a hotel.

00:49:15 And how many hours?

00:49:17 Three days.

00:49:19 So it’s a three day cut.

00:49:20 It’s a three day cut.

00:49:21 Mentally you’re thinking of it that way.

00:49:23 Yep.

00:49:23 And then you’re still eating.

00:49:24 I eat every day.

00:49:26 And then like, what do you load up on water?

00:49:28 Maybe as you start and then the water stops.

00:49:32 It is what it is.

00:49:35 So you, I mean, it’s a slow,

00:49:38 you’re not actually like sweating all three days.

00:49:41 Yeah.

00:49:42 But then it’s like torture to sleep.

00:49:46 Part of the process.

00:49:49 Are you able to sleep?

00:49:50 Sometimes.

00:49:52 It depends.

00:49:54 So you’re dehydrated, further and further dehydrated

00:49:57 with six, 7% body fat, trying to lose 10 pounds.

00:50:01 I even developed a way to drink water out of a bottle

00:50:03 where I don’t drink anything,

00:50:04 but I feel like I have swishing it.

00:50:08 What’s the, no.

00:50:08 So like, I take like a bottle of water

00:50:10 and like, if we were to like, to draw a line on it,

00:50:13 I would tip it and I would go like this.

00:50:15 I would go.

00:50:23 And you would draw that line,

00:50:24 but like I’ve drank now water for 20 seconds or whatever

00:50:27 it is.

00:50:29 And I feel, I get the fix.

00:50:32 Brain told me I got there.

00:50:34 No problem.

00:50:35 That’s amazing, man.

00:50:36 You just, your mind’s a very powerful tool.

00:50:39 And the problem a lot of people have is

00:50:45 they don’t accept the reality of the situation.

00:50:49 They bitch about the reality of the situation.

00:50:51 I just.

00:50:52 First of all, you could always quit, right?

00:50:56 Yep.

00:50:57 So like, you’re not.

00:50:59 Never missed weight.

00:51:00 Never.

00:51:01 Never missed weight.

00:51:01 You can perform poorly.

00:51:04 You can’t miss weight.

00:51:04 Don’t miss weight.

00:51:05 Don’t miss weight.

00:51:07 Because you can always win

00:51:10 regardless of how bad the weight cut is.

00:51:12 You can never win if you miss weight.

00:51:15 But your brain is also really good.

00:51:19 Maybe not your brain,

00:51:20 but I know my brain,

00:51:23 I think most people’s brains are good at generating,

00:51:26 the more desperate things become,

00:51:27 the better at generating excuses.

00:51:30 So what were you doing with your mind

00:51:33 that resulted in you never missing weight?

00:51:37 The plan.

00:51:39 So like I said, like my weight cut would never start

00:51:43 until I got to the hotel

00:51:45 because I didn’t check my weight the morning of,

00:51:48 I didn’t check my weight when I got there.

00:51:50 I just, while I’m traveling,

00:51:52 I’m doing things at like a minimal level,

00:51:55 but I’m never not giving myself something I’m craving.

00:52:01 If I’m thirsty, I’m drinking a Diet Coke.

00:52:04 If I’m hungry, I’m buying a Snickers bar.

00:52:07 I’m buying a sandwich.

00:52:09 I am.

00:52:11 And I accept the consequences when I get there.

00:52:14 And then when I get there,

00:52:16 if I step on the scale and it says 88 kilos,

00:52:19 I instantaneously know exactly

00:52:21 what it’s gonna take to be 81.

00:52:22 And then you just follow like a robot,

00:52:24 follow a very specific process.

00:52:26 Yep.

00:52:27 And then, I mean,

00:52:28 cause there’s a lot of seconds in three days,

00:52:31 seconds and minutes and you just.

00:52:33 I just know exactly what it takes from my body.

00:52:36 I know exactly what a one hour gym workout

00:52:39 wearing a sauna suit is gonna take.

00:52:43 I know exactly what I’m gonna lose on day one.

00:52:45 And I know exactly what I’m gonna lose on day three,

00:52:47 because they’re not the same.

00:52:49 So I can instantly look at a hotel,

00:52:52 decide is there a bathroom, sauna, gym,

00:52:55 temperature of the gym, access to the gym and when it is,

00:52:59 access to the judo mats, my training partners,

00:53:03 the roads versus streetlights, the weather outside.

00:53:06 I can take a look at that environment and say,

00:53:08 this is my weight, this is weigh ins.

00:53:11 And instantaneously in my head,

00:53:12 there’s a plan to make weight.

00:53:14 And you have a sense of how much sweat adds up to 10 pounds.

00:53:18 How much sweat plus time.

00:53:20 Yeah.

00:53:21 And I make sure in my plan,

00:53:24 all of my meals and how much water I need in between

00:53:27 is allocated to still make weight.

00:53:29 Cause you have to eat or drink during that time.

00:53:31 Are you incorporating like mental exhaustion into this?

00:53:36 That doesn’t exist.

00:53:38 So it doesn’t?

00:53:38 No, it doesn’t.

00:53:39 Do you like meditate or something?

00:53:41 What did the thoughts come, especially three days.

00:53:43 We’re not talking about four hours of suffering.

00:53:45 I’ll tell you.

00:53:46 This has broken some of the toughest people in the world.

00:53:48 The hardest weight cut I ever had.

00:53:51 Hardest one.

00:53:53 I fought Pan Am games in 2015 in Edmonton, Canada

00:53:58 on a Wednesday and I won.

00:54:03 So I’ve made weight on Tuesday.

00:54:06 I fought on Wednesday where I had to weigh in

00:54:08 5% of my weight class, so 84 kilos.

00:54:12 On Wednesday I was 84 kilos.

00:54:14 I got on a plane on that Wednesday night

00:54:19 and landed Friday morning in Sochi.

00:54:24 Okay, so I’ve traveled now.

00:54:27 I got on the scale, all my bags got lost, everything.

00:54:32 So somehow I flew from there to here, no bags.

00:54:36 And I threw all of my stuff in my bag.

00:54:40 I wore sandals, one pair of pants and a T shirt

00:54:44 on the plane because I was like, I’m just tired.

00:54:47 I just fought.

00:54:48 I don’t even want to carry it.

00:54:49 I don’t care.

00:54:50 What are the odds that I get there and my bags are gone?

00:54:52 Yeah, very low.

00:54:54 Very low.

00:54:55 Sure enough, it’s gone.

00:54:57 I get all the way to Sochi.

00:54:58 I check into the hotel.

00:55:00 There’s one sauna.

00:55:02 Guess what?

00:55:03 You have to reserve it and you’re only allowed

00:55:06 to reserve it for an X period of time.

00:55:08 Guess in a small tangent, when you phoned out,

00:55:11 your bags are gone.

00:55:13 This is something I’ll often think about.

00:55:15 There’s like people that are helping you, right?

00:55:17 Like there’s a person at the airport who goes.

00:55:20 Yep, oops.

00:55:21 Just like that.

00:55:21 And then the person at the hotel who tells you

00:55:24 that you have to reserve the sauna and looks at you like

00:55:27 you’re, they don’t care that you’ve been suffering.

00:55:30 They don’t even understand why you need it.

00:55:33 Yeah, like why?

00:55:34 Oh, you know, oh, this, like this little kid reserved it

00:55:38 for five hours or something to block it off.

00:55:41 I’m sorry.

00:55:43 Is there a frustration that gets in there?

00:55:45 Are you?

00:55:45 You just accept reality.

00:55:46 Don’t even hinder on like the things you can’t change.

00:55:50 Because the second you get frustrated,

00:55:52 the second you think you can change it,

00:55:55 you’ll harp on it.

00:55:56 And that breaks most men.

00:55:58 Yeah.

00:55:59 That like little thing in the back of their mind thinking,

00:56:02 oh, like what if?

00:56:03 There’s no what if.

00:56:04 There’s only right here right now.

00:56:06 If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.

00:56:07 Let’s just quickly come up with a solution

00:56:10 to fix the problem.

00:56:11 By the way, as another small tangent,

00:56:13 all the greatest people I’ve interacted with

00:56:16 at the highest level think like that.

00:56:19 They don’t linger on the, it’s like the next thing.

00:56:22 Yeah.

00:56:23 Because like, if you want to do something great,

00:56:25 hard stuff is going to keep happening to you.

00:56:28 And if you’re going to let that affect you,

00:56:30 you’re not ever going to do the great thing.

00:56:32 It’s fascinating actually.

00:56:33 Like that’s the one skill you have to learn.

00:56:36 Elon Musk is great at this.

00:56:38 Constantly dealing with emergencies.

00:56:39 Okay.

00:56:40 Okay, this happened.

00:56:41 What’s the next step?

00:56:42 Yep.

00:56:43 Accept.

00:56:44 It’s not that big of a deal.

00:56:44 Every problem has a solution.

00:56:46 Yeah.

00:56:47 Yeah.

00:56:47 And if I can’t solve it, it’s not my problem.

00:56:50 You know what I mean?

00:56:51 Yeah, exactly.

00:56:52 So what, so how’d you figure it out?

00:56:54 In sandals?

00:56:55 Get this, I get to the hotel.

00:56:57 Yeah.

00:56:58 I check in.

00:56:58 I don’t even know about the sauna yet.

00:57:00 I go, I need to find a clothing store.

00:57:03 I’m in the middle of Russia.

00:57:05 I open up Google Maps and I’m like, sports store.

00:57:09 I find an Adidas sports store

00:57:11 in the middle of Sochi, Russia, right?

00:57:14 I spend like $500 on like average sweats.

00:57:18 No plastics, no nothing, and no running shoes

00:57:21 cause they don’t have any.

00:57:22 What’s the temperature outside?

00:57:24 Is it cold?

00:57:25 It was kind of like springish.

00:57:27 So it wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t hot.

00:57:29 Yeah.

00:57:30 So you still need a lot of layers preferably.

00:57:32 You would need a lot of layers just to cut

00:57:34 the amount of weight I’m about to tell you I have to cut

00:57:36 because after I bought that stuff that next morning,

00:57:40 and mind you, it’s a Friday, it’s a Friday morning.

00:57:42 I go to the venue where we have the mats open to train

00:57:47 and I step on the scale.

00:57:49 And then Sagan Batar of Mongolia goes,

00:57:52 oh, pretty good, you’re almost there.

00:57:54 And I go, no, I’m not.

00:57:59 I stepped on the scale at almost 94 kilos.

00:58:01 And I looked at him and I was like, I’m 81.

00:58:05 And he went, good luck.

00:58:09 You’re almost there.

00:58:11 Yeah.

00:58:13 For the next weight class above.

00:58:16 Is this on a Saturday or Sunday?

00:58:18 Friday morning.

00:58:19 No, no, no, sorry.

00:58:20 Friday morning, the competition is when?

00:58:22 Sunday.

00:58:23 Sunday.

00:58:24 I weigh in Sunday.

00:58:25 Okay.

00:58:27 I’m like, holy crap.

00:58:28 I throw on all my layers and there’s one other person

00:58:32 with me there, Kalita, who was my girlfriend at the time,

00:58:35 now my wife, we start doing judo.

00:58:38 Cause I’m like, this will be the easiest way to knock off

00:58:40 like three or four kilos.

00:58:42 Well, it’s cold.

00:58:44 I have no gi and I’m working out with a female.

00:58:48 I can’t get overly physical to really get my muscles

00:58:52 going to really break that sweat

00:58:54 because she has to compete in a day or two.

00:58:56 She’s not a training partner.

00:58:58 You can’t just use this person.

00:59:00 I stepped on the scale.

00:59:02 I was 91 kilos.

00:59:04 So I went, well, I was a nice den, but like,

00:59:06 yeah, I go, that’s not going to fly.

00:59:09 So sure enough, the clothes are now ruined.

00:59:13 They didn’t help me lose any extra weight.

00:59:15 So I go back to the hotel and I start reserving the sauna.

00:59:19 Do you know how hard it is to lose that much weight

00:59:21 in a sauna by yourself?

00:59:24 So it’s harder on many levels,

00:59:25 but one of them is just mental.

00:59:27 Yeah.

00:59:28 You’re sitting in heat.

00:59:29 Heat, and you’re not doing anything.

00:59:32 Like if there had been a bike or like the sauna

00:59:34 was big enough to use a jump rope

00:59:36 or you could do some sort of activity,

00:59:39 but you just sit and you stew and you’re there mentally.

00:59:44 At one point during the weight cut,

00:59:46 I actually had my mouth on the bottom part of the door

00:59:49 where there was a little gap and my legs up on the benches

00:59:53 and Kalita holding the door so that it didn’t open

00:59:56 so I couldn’t open it so that I could lean against

00:59:59 that thing and have fresh air.

01:00:01 Cause I was like, I was struggling.

01:00:04 And we’re talking about, I mean, how many hours is that?

01:00:07 Hours.

01:00:08 And then the thing is,

01:00:09 is because you have to reserve the sauna.

01:00:11 I can’t even take like a 30 minute break

01:00:13 because the sauna is not going to be mine in an hour,

01:00:16 which means you have to use the sauna and the heat

01:00:19 for that allotted time period.

01:00:21 And I hate saunas.

01:00:23 That is always my last resort.

01:00:25 I would use a bath.

01:00:26 I will train.

01:00:27 I will run.

01:00:28 I will jump rope.

01:00:29 Sauna is like, oh, let me do that for 10 minutes

01:00:32 after all of my gym workouts,

01:00:34 just to keep the sweat going while I stretch and cool down.

01:00:37 That’s never like the, hey,

01:00:39 I’m going to do five, 10 minute sessions

01:00:41 because I need to lose two kilos.

01:00:43 That is never the plan.

01:00:44 Yeah.

01:00:46 But I mean, so I’ve done plenty of sauna for weight cuts

01:00:50 to know I can’t even imagine what you went through.

01:00:54 Yeah.

01:00:54 And the seconds slow down.

01:00:56 That’s one way to achieve immortality is like

01:00:59 the time slows down to like a stop

01:01:02 and you’re left alone with your thoughts.

01:01:04 You can’t do anything.

01:01:05 Just like you said, you can’t.

01:01:06 There’s nothing worse than sitting in that kind of heat

01:01:09 for 10, 15 minutes.

01:01:11 Yeah.

01:01:11 And then you walk out and you’re not even sweating.

01:01:15 Yeah.

01:01:16 There’s nothing worse than that.

01:01:17 And if you like, and maybe if you weigh yourself,

01:01:19 which you probably shouldn’t be doing

01:01:20 because it’ll break you.

01:01:21 Yep.

01:01:22 You haven’t lost anything.

01:01:23 Yep.

01:01:25 And I was weighing myself every time

01:01:26 because I only get breaks

01:01:28 when I was hitting weight allotments.

01:01:31 And so if I could lose 0.3 in 10 minutes,

01:01:34 I’d give myself a break, but I had to hit certain numbers

01:01:37 because I only have the sauna for a certain amount of time.

01:01:40 And I remember one time I went downstairs

01:01:42 to get my key to the sauna

01:01:44 and the Japanese team had reserved it and took it from me

01:01:47 because the guy didn’t put my name on the list

01:01:49 when I called down to get the sauna.

01:01:51 So I lost an entire session that I had to get made up

01:01:54 towards the later part of the day

01:01:55 because I still have no running shoes.

01:01:57 And then sure enough, my bags show up 30 minutes

01:02:01 after weigh ins.

01:02:03 Great.

01:02:04 That’s like the universe just kind of giving you

01:02:07 a little wink there.

01:02:08 Yep.

01:02:10 I think like, because so few people do this weight cut

01:02:15 at this high of a level, people don’t often realize

01:02:18 because people get a sense of how hard it is

01:02:20 to run 200 miles in the desert.

01:02:22 Like they, cause they go outside here in Texas,

01:02:25 you can run five miles.

01:02:26 Oh, it’s hard.

01:02:27 But like the weight cut is really,

01:02:30 I, can you, so you just, like, how did you do it?

01:02:34 Just fucking not refusing to.

01:02:37 You have to make weight.

01:02:38 You have to make weight and you just, that’s.

01:02:41 I am astounded when I hear like UFC fighters like miss weight.

01:02:50 Right?

01:02:51 Like when Jaden Cox missed weight at the Olympic trials,

01:02:56 I was like, at least his was understandable

01:02:59 because he missed the actual weigh ins.

01:03:03 He didn’t, he wasn’t like not on weight.

01:03:05 But when UFC fighters like miss weight,

01:03:08 I’m like, how did that happen?

01:03:12 You clearly like gave up a long time ago.

01:03:16 There were times where I was like, well, I can’t do this.

01:03:19 There’ve been times where I’ve been in a sauna suit

01:03:23 wrestling with a training partner who’s probably 60 kilos

01:03:27 who fought earlier that day to lose point three.

01:03:31 Did lose point three.

01:03:32 Like, are you considering your mortality in this moment?

01:03:35 Like, aren’t you thinking you’re going to die?

01:03:39 Because like, it’s severe dehydration.

01:03:41 You could damage your body.

01:03:44 Are you thinking about any of this or is it just, man.

01:03:51 OK, yes.

01:03:52 But see, I’m on the other level too where like,

01:03:55 I’ve been in Belgium, right?

01:03:57 Belgium, there used to be a B level tournament.

01:03:59 And the tournament used to go on.

01:04:01 And because I was always on the heavier side,

01:04:03 like 81s fights on the second day, which is the heavyweight day,

01:04:08 weigh ins were always at like, let’s say,

01:04:10 2 p.m. the day before for that tournament.

01:04:12 Well, there was a sauna at the tournament.

01:04:15 I remember like being in the sauna and like, oh, I’m 80.9 kilos.

01:04:22 Weigh ins aren’t for three hours.

01:04:24 Fuck it, I’m going to have lunch.

01:04:29 Because I mentally understand that what I eat right now

01:04:33 is going to fuel me for tomorrow.

01:04:35 So I don’t want to skip it.

01:04:37 I have the time to put it into my system and still lose it.

01:04:41 It’s almost like a computer program.

01:04:43 You’re running through the process.

01:04:46 I get it, but like that all relies on your ability to be.

01:04:50 To get it back off.

01:04:51 Yeah, I mean, but also just like go through this process,

01:04:53 which is painful.

01:04:54 It’s like those monks who meditate while sitting in a fire

01:04:57 kind of thing or something, right?

01:05:00 Yeah, it’s really interesting.

01:05:02 Is there other people that are critical to this

01:05:05 or is this all internal to you?

01:05:07 Are there people that?

01:05:09 Everybody has their own way of doing it.

01:05:14 Some people don’t cut that much.

01:05:15 Some people can’t weight cut at all, right?

01:05:18 They would rather have been like 83 kilos fighting 90

01:05:22 than, you know, be 83 kilos fighting 81.

01:05:28 So why did you never move up to 90?

01:05:32 What’s your sense?

01:05:33 Is it from your deep understanding of your own judo

01:05:36 and like the judo opponents you would face at 90 and 81?

01:05:40 Cause 81 is probably the hardest,

01:05:42 if not the second hardest division in the history of judo

01:05:45 compared to 73 and 81.

01:05:49 You know, when I was a kid, like I always wanted to be

01:05:52 like the middleweight Olympic champion,

01:05:54 like the 81 kilo Olympic champion.

01:05:57 When I was in high school, I made a decision

01:06:00 when I was trying to make weight for 73,

01:06:01 I was like, I was cutting weight for 73

01:06:05 like I was cutting weight at the end of my career, right?

01:06:09 And I was like, I’m just gonna bag it.

01:06:11 I’m gonna accept the fact

01:06:12 that I may not make a junior world team,

01:06:14 I may not make this team, but I’ll grow into the division

01:06:18 so when I’m a senior player, like I’m ready to go

01:06:20 and I’ll naturally be stronger.

01:06:22 There’s an understanding of like a growth process

01:06:25 when you move up a weight class.

01:06:27 Most people can’t just, oh, I’m gonna fight 90s

01:06:31 and I’m gonna win because I wanted 81.

01:06:33 The style of judo is different, how you move is different,

01:06:37 how they do things is different.

01:06:38 There’s like a learning curve that goes into it.

01:06:41 And because the weight cut didn’t really happen

01:06:45 until I was getting ready for Rio,

01:06:47 I wasn’t about to have my last Olympic games

01:06:49 be at a different weight class

01:06:51 that I may or may not be able to grow into.

01:06:53 I mean, this is an awesome story of you kind of decided

01:06:57 that this will be your life’s work

01:06:59 in terms of judo competitor is like the 81 division.

01:07:03 I’m going to, I mean, I don’t know if you saw it that way,

01:07:05 but you’re talking about three Olympics

01:07:07 and it’s like this story of, I would say tragedy and triumph

01:07:13 of just wars and 81 kilograms with the usual cast

01:07:18 of characters of the top five in the world kind of thing.

01:07:21 So you just became a scholar of that,

01:07:24 let your body grow into it and then let your body outgrow it

01:07:28 and still suffer through it to keep it in the 81 kilograms.

01:07:31 You never competed at like at the highest levels at 90.

01:07:34 I entered one tournament at 90 kilos.

01:07:37 And that was because before Rio from the end of 2014,

01:07:46 all the way up until Rio’s, every time I fought,

01:07:49 I got hurt every time there was no time where I made weight

01:07:54 and got injured because my body weight was so high.

01:07:57 My body fat was so low that by the time I dehydrated enough

01:08:01 to get down there and you take the physicality of judo

01:08:04 and throw that into the mix, something broke every time.

01:08:08 It was like nature of the beast.

01:08:11 So the plan was before Rio,

01:08:17 we made an agreement with USA judo

01:08:19 that Travis, you’re gonna fight 90 kilos,

01:08:21 but you’re not gonna weigh in at 90 kilos.

01:08:23 Like, hey, there’s no like, you get to be 94 kilos

01:08:27 and cut to 90s, there’s like a,

01:08:29 you’re gonna step on the scale at 84 kilos,

01:08:31 like a little bit of a weight cut, but not a full one,

01:08:34 just so that you feel like you get into like the tournament.

01:08:38 Because when I, around 2012,

01:08:41 when I was talking with the USOC nutritionist,

01:08:44 I actually got my weight down so much

01:08:46 that I didn’t really need to cut weight.

01:08:48 The problem is, is I wasn’t cutting weight,

01:08:49 I didn’t feel like I was competing.

01:08:51 Got it.

01:08:52 Right, you have to go through like that mental process.

01:08:55 And I never really reworked that,

01:08:56 it was easier to just cut the weight and be ready to go.

01:09:00 But when I entered into the 90 kilo division,

01:09:02 I was rushed to the hospital the night after

01:09:05 because my body broke out in hives, like full body.

01:09:09 They said it was stress induced.

01:09:13 Fascinating.

01:09:14 So a month before the games, I was hospitalized and hungry

01:09:18 and filled with steroids to get the hives to drop.

01:09:21 And every couple days, my body, when I got back home,

01:09:25 I would end up in the hospital

01:09:27 because my whole body would break out again.

01:09:29 I wonder if it’s like deviating from the process

01:09:31 that you so like perfectly crafted already.

01:09:34 Or it was stress from my mind thinking,

01:09:36 like even though it’s not top of mind,

01:09:39 there’s probably a portion of me that like the Olympics

01:09:41 is coming around and it could be my last, that like my body

01:09:46 just reacted to something chemically.

01:09:48 So I was breaking out in hives.

01:09:50 I actually bought like a 600 euro Hugo boss suit

01:09:55 because when I was in the Netherlands training at the time,

01:09:59 I thought I had bed bugs

01:10:00 because I was getting bit everywhere.

01:10:02 Then I thought there was something in the detergent

01:10:04 at the local thing, so I threw away all my clothes.

01:10:07 Like I was paying for showers

01:10:09 because I was trying to get the detergent off my body

01:10:11 and buying new clothes at the airport.

01:10:14 Trying to figure it out.

01:10:16 Trying to figure it out and just go, yeah,

01:10:18 accepting the situation.

01:10:19 I mean, but the level of stress is exceptionally high here.

01:10:22 Can we talk about the other side?

01:10:24 People are gonna love this.

01:10:26 But you have a long history of persevering through injuries,

01:10:34 through insane amounts of injuries.

01:10:37 My ability to tolerate pain

01:10:39 is probably more than most people.

01:10:41 But see, injuries aren’t just pain, right?

01:10:44 It’s like, it’s also mental, like psychological.

01:10:49 Like again, like the weight cut,

01:10:51 it can make a lot of people quit.

01:10:53 Yep.

01:10:54 Can you tell your history of injuries?

01:10:57 What are the biggest injuries,

01:10:59 the toughest injuries in your career?

01:11:02 Starting from what, your early teens?

01:11:05 My early teens, I actually got out of sports

01:11:09 from 11 to, I wanna say like 15 years old, 16 years old,

01:11:15 because a kid shot a double leg through my kneecap

01:11:18 and I partially tore all the ligaments in my knee,

01:11:21 cartilage, meniscus, the whole nine yards.

01:11:23 And I had to learn how to walk again.

01:11:25 I spent two years in a leg brace, crutches,

01:11:29 hobbling around the school yard.

01:11:32 That one was a challenge to come back from.

01:11:36 I’ve broken most of my ribs.

01:11:39 I won nationals with nine broken ribs.

01:11:42 I was actually getting Novocaine shots into my chest

01:11:45 to avoid feeling the pain

01:11:47 and then wrapping them to try to

01:11:49 make sure I didn’t pop alone.

01:11:53 I’ve broken my collarbone.

01:11:55 I have five herniated disc in my neck.

01:11:58 I fractured my back twice.

01:12:00 I’ve broken my tailbone.

01:12:02 I tore my SI joints.

01:12:04 I’ve torn my right hamstring twice, my left one once.

01:12:12 Broken my ankles a few times.

01:12:13 I spun it once in a 360 that had dev surgery.

01:12:18 Fingers, toes, elbows, shoulders.

01:12:20 So all of these are, first of all,

01:12:23 you’re a tough dude, man.

01:12:28 So each of those have a story behind them.

01:12:33 So if you’re talking about the collarbone or the ankles

01:12:38 or the back, the neck,

01:12:41 is there interesting stories here

01:12:43 that are behind these injuries?

01:12:44 Hard training, hard competing, jiu jitsu, judo.

01:12:49 So ground stuff like sparring in the dojo

01:12:53 or like drilling or all that kind of stuff.

01:12:56 If you were to sort of break it down,

01:12:59 your understanding of the landscape

01:13:01 of injuries you went through.

01:13:03 I’ve never had one in jiu jitsu, ever.

01:13:07 I mean, I might’ve like torn a fingernail

01:13:09 or like gotten key burned,

01:13:12 but I’ve never been like seriously injured.

01:13:16 I know when Ponza straight ankle locked me at Copa Podio,

01:13:21 that hurt, but I wasn’t injured.

01:13:24 Like it felt sore, but if I had to run, I could run.

01:13:28 I can now understand probably exactly

01:13:31 what the injuries came from then.

01:13:33 You very quickly excelled at jiu jitsu.

01:13:36 You achieved another level in judo.

01:13:39 And I think that means the intensity

01:13:41 with which you approached judo.

01:13:44 To achieve that world class level

01:13:47 probably is the source of the injuries.

01:13:49 Yeah, because the mentality of how I approached judo

01:13:55 versus jiu jitsu.

01:13:57 Jiu jitsu to me is like a game that like we would play.

01:14:02 Like if you wanted to like grab a basketball

01:14:04 and like go play a game of one on one,

01:14:07 that’s like jiu jitsu to me.

01:14:09 Like I can’t take the sport in its entirety seriously.

01:14:13 Cause I feel like the community of jiu jitsu

01:14:15 doesn’t take it seriously.

01:14:17 So just for people who don’t know,

01:14:19 just to set some context,

01:14:21 you’re a black belt in jiu jitsu,

01:14:24 but more importantly,

01:14:25 you’ve beaten a lot of world class jiu jitsu people.

01:14:29 You’ve done very well at the highest levels of competition.

01:14:33 Yeah, I wouldn’t necessarily say I’ve beaten them

01:14:35 as much as I’ve trained with them.

01:14:39 And they understand whoever it is

01:14:43 that through training with me,

01:14:45 that like, I’m not just a judo guy.

01:14:48 Like I know how to do jiu jitsu, right?

01:14:52 And if any one of them were to come to me and like say,

01:14:56 hey, I wanna feel what it feels like to do judo with me.

01:15:05 They would quickly understand

01:15:07 that like the way I approach one

01:15:09 is very different than the way I approach the other.

01:15:12 Like we probably wouldn’t be friends

01:15:14 if they did judo with me versus if they did jiu jitsu with me.

01:15:17 I’m curious asking for a friend

01:15:19 because mostly because I’ll do a little judo with you today.

01:15:22 So you clearly, cause you’re a great instructor and teacher,

01:15:25 you have a mode where you can demonstrate a technique.

01:15:28 Do you know how to like spar where you’re going like 50%?

01:15:34 It’s hard to put like a percentage to it

01:15:37 because I’ve never in all of my jiu jitsu ever gone 100%.

01:15:42 In jiu jitsu?

01:15:43 Yeah.

01:15:44 Like I had a conversation with Salo one time

01:15:47 where we were talking about like jiu jitsu and training.

01:15:51 And I was like, well, if I got his arm, I would just break it.

01:15:55 And he was like, but what if he tapped?

01:15:59 I go, that’s not my responsibility.

01:16:03 If he taps and the ref doesn’t say anything,

01:16:04 you just break it.

01:16:05 You just keep going.

01:16:07 He goes, but the tap means it’s over.

01:16:08 And I said, no, the ref tells me when it’s over.

01:16:11 I go, I never give you the opportunity to tap.

01:16:14 Cause if you have the opportunity to tap,

01:16:16 that means you had the opportunity to think about

01:16:18 how to get out, make a decision that you can’t, then tap.

01:16:23 I clearly operated too slowly.

01:16:26 So there’s a, it’s either broken or I don’t have it.

01:16:29 You’re a terrifying person to go against in Judo.

01:16:33 Like on the ground, like everything you did, that’s amazing.

01:16:38 That’s really amazing.

01:16:39 That’s what made you a really fun person to watch.

01:16:42 Cause you really went to war with these people.

01:16:44 Yeah.

01:16:45 So you know what it’s like to go a hundred percent in Judo.

01:16:47 I do.

01:16:48 Cause I know what it’s like to train with somebody

01:16:52 under the mentality of,

01:16:54 I’m going to do everything I want to do.

01:16:56 You’re going to do nothing you want to do.

01:16:59 And you’re going to accept that.

01:17:01 Do you ever train in Judo where you let people get stuff?

01:17:05 Of course, all the time.

01:17:08 Now, or like.

01:17:09 Always.

01:17:10 Even when you’re sort of building up the four years,

01:17:12 building up to the Olympics,

01:17:14 like there’s smaller guys that are throwing you in the gym

01:17:17 and that kind of stuff.

01:17:18 No, I never said that.

01:17:19 Okay.

01:17:21 That never came out of my mouth.

01:17:24 I said, I let people do stuff.

01:17:25 I never said smaller people throw me.

01:17:27 Oh, you mean you let them get a grip,

01:17:29 but then you’ll position yourself on such a way

01:17:31 that it’s hopeless.

01:17:32 It’s like.

01:17:33 The number one skillset that Judo is going to teach you

01:17:37 is the ability to give people false hope.

01:17:43 Right?

01:17:44 Cause I can let.

01:17:45 I’m really looking forward to the video

01:17:46 we’re going to shoot later today.

01:17:47 Like I can let you take a grip.

01:17:50 I can let you think that there’s opportunity,

01:17:52 but what you don’t understand is

01:17:54 by the position and angle that I’m in,

01:17:57 it’s actually false hope.

01:17:59 Like, as long as you don’t know that it is,

01:18:02 then now I’m free to operate and do what I want.

01:18:04 See, I competed in Judo against black belts

01:18:08 where I would go in and it looks like

01:18:12 I could should be able to throw them.

01:18:13 And then you just hit a wall.

01:18:15 And then I also saw you destroy those black belts.

01:18:18 Yeah.

01:18:19 So there’s levels to this.

01:18:20 Yeah.

01:18:21 It’s the cliche thing of there’s black belts

01:18:23 and there’s black belts.

01:18:24 You’re unique in this.

01:18:26 There may be a couple other Jidoka in America,

01:18:29 but you’re really like unique.

01:18:30 I then get to see people that really

01:18:34 I felt like were 10X better than me.

01:18:37 It just feels like that sometimes.

01:18:39 I’ve learned that madness and it said it’d be truly

01:18:41 might only be just a little better,

01:18:44 but I saw you destroy them.

01:18:46 And it was like, holy shit.

01:18:49 There’s a thing in Judo, right?

01:18:51 Where, you know, imagine like you as like just an adult,

01:18:56 right?

01:18:59 And I hope people can like conceptualize this

01:19:01 when they hear this,

01:19:02 but imagine like you’re a full grown adult,

01:19:04 even male, female, it doesn’t matter,

01:19:07 but there’s a little kid in front of you,

01:19:08 like call him five or six years old and he’s acting out.

01:19:12 Like, do you think you have the physical capability

01:19:15 of with one hand grabbing that person or that kid

01:19:19 and making sure that they freeze?

01:19:21 Like they feel like they’re nervous

01:19:23 and like they can’t do anything.

01:19:26 When you fight a good Judo player, when they grab you,

01:19:30 that’s what it feels like as an adult.

01:19:32 And even I’ve felt that from like certain players in Japan,

01:19:36 like when they get a grip,

01:19:37 I’m like, I’ve now lost the function of this one.

01:19:41 That’s a really good way to put it.

01:19:43 I think I could potentially beat some of the people

01:19:46 I’ve went against, but certain groups they took,

01:19:50 it made me feel powerless.

01:19:53 I was like, I didn’t know this was possible.

01:19:56 That kind of power was possible.

01:19:57 And you don’t even know where it originates from.

01:20:00 Cause you’re like, how does one person’s hand do this

01:20:02 where I can’t use my whole arm?

01:20:04 Or like, I can’t pick up my right foot

01:20:06 because he’s holding onto my right sleeve.

01:20:09 It was kind of on a basic animalistic sense,

01:20:13 kind of terrifying.

01:20:15 It’s, I mean, you don’t want to,

01:20:18 part of this is like ego,

01:20:20 but you realize that there’s a food chain

01:20:22 and you’re not at the top of it.

01:20:26 That’s part of the humbling process,

01:20:28 I think of martial arts.

01:20:29 It’s like, I think everybody,

01:20:33 like a lot of people think they’re much higher

01:20:36 in the food chain than they are.

01:20:37 Than they really are.

01:20:38 And then when you realize,

01:20:39 this is why it’s a really healthy process for people

01:20:42 that are not even competing in the Olympics

01:20:45 to practice martial arts.

01:20:46 Cause you realize, okay,

01:20:47 that like putting yourself more accurately

01:20:49 in the food chain is really good way

01:20:53 to sort of place yourself in the rest of the world.

01:20:55 It humbles you to the reality, the harshness of the world.

01:20:58 Yep.

01:20:59 It’s kind of like when people look at like survival

01:21:01 in the wilderness, it’s like, oh, it’s not that hard.

01:21:04 No, you’d probably be dying in a couple of days.

01:21:07 Same thing with like judo and martial arts.

01:21:09 Like, yeah, it’s really not that hard,

01:21:13 but you don’t know what to do yet.

01:21:15 And so when you find out that first time

01:21:17 that you don’t know what to do,

01:21:18 it’s devastating to a lot of people,

01:21:21 but those that like stick through it and like start to learn,

01:21:24 it’s a very powerful, like feeling that now,

01:21:27 like you can take care of yourself.

01:21:31 And I think I want to talk to you a few times before

01:21:34 you talked about that.

01:21:35 There’s like, like the top three, the top five in the world.

01:21:38 I don’t know where you put them,

01:21:40 but they’re, they’re another like level above.

01:21:43 They’re a whole nother tier, yeah.

01:21:45 And the fact that you’re, I mean, it’s,

01:21:46 it’s so exciting to me probably

01:21:50 because I just felt all the levels here

01:21:54 and I’ve seen you and others at that height destroy those.

01:21:59 I’ve seen the exponential levels to this game.

01:22:03 It’s incredible that you’re, didn’t quit,

01:22:08 didn’t doubt yourself and just persevered

01:22:11 through three Olympics to get to that highest,

01:22:15 always fighting at that like very highest of levels,

01:22:18 but just like, you know, from the top 10 to the top five,

01:22:21 like really breaking in through that, I don’t know.

01:22:27 What would you say it took to get to that highest of levels?

01:22:30 Like if you, when you look back to all the weight cuts,

01:22:33 to just the insane amount of injuries, believe it or not,

01:22:36 I didn’t really think I was there until 2013.

01:22:42 I thought I was recognized as one of the best

01:22:45 because I was able to fight for Oppensburg,

01:22:47 which was the professional Bundesliga team for Germany,

01:22:50 which is one of the top clubs in all of Europe.

01:22:54 When they asked me to, I felt like Europe had like accepted

01:22:58 me as like, oh, I’m a top level judo player,

01:23:02 but I don’t necessarily think that when I signed on

01:23:05 to compete for them, that the division or the world

01:23:08 of judo saw me as a top level judo player, right?

01:23:11 There’s a mental shift that happens along that point.

01:23:16 And for me, my mental shift really came into play

01:23:22 in December of 2015 before Rio.

01:23:26 That was like, when I lost in Japan,

01:23:30 that’s when I realized like the world respects my abilities

01:23:34 and they compete against them.

01:23:37 They don’t compete against me as a person.

01:23:40 They compete against the idea or the persona

01:23:49 that I’ve been able to establish over the years

01:23:52 of competing in the division.

01:23:54 Wow, so you’re the, they probably have a nickname for you.

01:23:57 You’re the system of ideas and thought that they study.

01:24:02 But they’re studying me as a conceptual whole,

01:24:06 not me as the human.

01:24:07 Is your style relatively unique in the 81 kilogram division?

01:24:14 It was relatively unique for Kayla, I and Jimmy

01:24:18 up until 2016.

01:24:20 Now since 2016, you can see a lot of what we used to do

01:24:25 throughout most of Europe and even Asia.

01:24:27 Like you’re starting to see some of those techniques

01:24:29 that you didn’t see before starting to get implemented.

01:24:32 Because when I was gearing up for 2015,

01:24:38 I had such a slew of injuries that entire calendar year

01:24:42 that I never should have made it to Rio.

01:24:46 I should have called it quits at the end of 2015

01:24:49 because I suffered that major concussion in February.

01:24:54 I stepped on a mat in May for the first time.

01:24:57 I lost five straight tournaments.

01:24:59 I left the national team, went to Japan, won Pan Am games,

01:25:05 got a bacterial infection at the Worlds,

01:25:07 almost had my leg cut off, tore my SI joint later

01:25:10 on that year, and then took fifth in Japan.

01:25:14 And when you look at like the calendar year as a whole,

01:25:18 like the world should have treated me like I was washed up.

01:25:22 Like this guy hasn’t been training,

01:25:23 he hasn’t been doing anything, but I took fifth in Japan.

01:25:26 Now, how does a guy that hasn’t trained all year

01:25:30 take fifth at one of the hardest tournaments in the world

01:25:32 on two weeks of training?

01:25:35 Because they were fighting the guy I used to be,

01:25:40 not the guy I was at the tournament,

01:25:42 which means they were competing under the idea of like,

01:25:45 what is he really capable of?

01:25:48 Not what have I brought to the table today?

01:25:53 And that just gave you the confidence.

01:25:54 And that told me that like, well, if I can take fifth

01:25:57 and I’m this bad at judo right now,

01:26:00 wait until I’m healthy and I’m back in shape,

01:26:03 then they’re not gonna know what hit them.

01:26:04 One of the essential components of being the number one

01:26:07 in the world or up in that place is that confidence,

01:26:10 the self belief.

01:26:11 And the rest of the world believing it.

01:26:14 You can have all the confidence in the world,

01:26:16 but if the rest of the room doesn’t buy it, it’s nothing.

01:26:20 That’s funny.

01:26:21 It’s like, there’s certain people, right?

01:26:22 Oh, Tyson, Mike Tyson.

01:26:24 They all understand he could not train

01:26:27 and they’re still scared, right?

01:26:30 Like he doesn’t have to work out that hard anymore.

01:26:32 There’s several judo, you know this way better,

01:26:34 but from a spectator perspective,

01:26:36 like Ilias Iliadis is like that.

01:26:38 He’s one of them.

01:26:39 It’s like, he.

01:26:41 He’s portrayed over the years.

01:26:42 Why is everyone so scared of that guy?

01:26:45 It’s interesting.

01:26:46 Yep.

01:26:47 People were scared of you too.

01:26:49 People just gave a certain level of respect to my skillset

01:26:54 and whether I had a bad weight cut

01:26:56 or didn’t have a bad weight cut

01:26:58 or not trained for the last three months,

01:27:00 which never happened, I’m just saying,

01:27:02 they were gonna fight the persona.

01:27:06 And it’s an important distinction

01:27:07 when you’re looking at the top five

01:27:08 because everybody coming up,

01:27:12 they’re training against the persona, not who you are.

01:27:16 Even I did that at a younger age.

01:27:19 That’s why I would always go to people’s hometowns

01:27:22 because I don’t care about the persona.

01:27:25 I wanna know what you do day in and day out.

01:27:27 When I couldn’t beat a Russian,

01:27:29 I told Jimmy, send me to Russia.

01:27:30 I need to understand and see it with my own eyes

01:27:34 what they do, outperform,

01:27:36 so that I can believe that I can beat them.

01:27:39 Can I ask you on this, a small tangent.

01:27:43 Dagestan has produced some incredible wrestlers.

01:27:46 I don’t know what the story with judo is,

01:27:48 where the source of greatness in Russia is for judo,

01:27:53 but what do you make of Dagestan?

01:27:55 Why, what is it in the culture of there or Russia broadly

01:28:00 that produces greatness?

01:28:02 Specifically in the combat sports.

01:28:05 I don’t know, yeah, specifically in the combat sports,

01:28:07 sorry, but I don’t know if you wanna draw a distinction

01:28:09 between wrestling and judo.

01:28:10 I’m almost curious,

01:28:11 do you understand the differences there in the culture?

01:28:15 It’s still a combat sport to them.

01:28:17 They’re still in that same like realm

01:28:20 of they’re taking young kids and that’s what they do.

01:28:26 So Khabib speaks very highly of judo.

01:28:29 It’s funny, Khabib, Vladimir Putin.

01:28:33 People don’t get it,

01:28:34 but like judo is like one of the premier sports

01:28:37 in the world, but we just don’t understand it.

01:28:39 It’s not just popularity, so definitely popularity,

01:28:42 but also like this respect.

01:28:44 And there’s a certain thing,

01:28:48 which is why I really value judo internationally.

01:28:50 You don’t get this in the United States,

01:28:51 but internationally there’s an understanding,

01:28:55 like later in life,

01:28:56 when you’re a scientist meeting a businessman,

01:28:59 when you both have done judo,

01:29:01 there’s this like nod of respect.

01:29:04 It’s so interesting.

01:29:06 There’s very few sports like that.

01:29:07 Basketball doesn’t have any,

01:29:09 I don’t know almost any sport like that.

01:29:11 And it’s fascinating.

01:29:12 Wrestling has that in the US, but it’s the US only.

01:29:16 The rest of the world doesn’t do that.

01:29:18 There’s a few, like you could see that in like Iran

01:29:21 or something like that.

01:29:21 They’ll respect wrestling in that kind of way.

01:29:24 Yeah, it’s…

01:29:26 But judo on like a global scale

01:29:28 is probably that only one,

01:29:30 due to its like physicality and the hardships

01:29:34 that you have to go through to reach that upper level.

01:29:38 So why do you think Dagestan,

01:29:39 why do you think Khabib is as good as he is?

01:29:41 Is this just the raw genetics of the human

01:29:44 or is there something about the system?

01:29:46 The system.

01:29:48 It’s all has to do with the system.

01:29:50 So they grow up around fighting in all forms.

01:29:55 Yep.

01:29:57 They’re also, I mean, their technique is exceptionally good.

01:30:00 Because they grow up in it.

01:30:02 They grow up in it.

01:30:03 They don’t understand anything else.

01:30:08 So you don’t have to,

01:30:09 it’s almost like you with the weight cutting.

01:30:11 It’s not like a big dramatic thing for them to fight.

01:30:13 It’s like, this is just part of life.

01:30:16 Yes.

01:30:16 And when you’re, I don’t wanna say bred into it,

01:30:20 but when you’ve done it for,

01:30:24 I wanna say like 90% of your life

01:30:26 by the time like Khabib probably has,

01:30:29 right from the time he could crawl,

01:30:30 he’s probably even grappling in some fashion thereof, right?

01:30:37 When you, as grapplers,

01:30:38 like you can look at a wrestler and having never seen

01:30:42 this person before and go, you wrestled.

01:30:45 Yeah.

01:30:47 Why is that?

01:30:48 It’s because he’s probably wrestled since he was like six.

01:30:51 So the way he carries himself,

01:30:53 the way his body is built,

01:30:55 the way he grew into it was framed around wrestling, right?

01:31:00 So the people in that culture are framed

01:31:03 around fighting and grappling.

01:31:06 You’re right.

01:31:07 First of all, philosophically, psychologically,

01:31:10 but also just like the way you move your body.

01:31:12 Yes.

01:31:13 That means like when you’re young,

01:31:14 the people you admire move their body

01:31:16 in a certain kind of way.

01:31:17 And then genetically, it just, as they keep doing that,

01:31:22 they’re just gonna get better and better every generation.

01:31:25 Yeah.

01:31:26 It’s just gonna keep improving

01:31:27 because they just keep building into that system

01:31:30 of turning them out.

01:31:31 And part of it, there’s like cultural stuff where,

01:31:34 I mean, it’s such an interesting approach to wrestling.

01:31:36 I really wanna travel to Dagestan and just talk to them

01:31:39 because I happen to be able to speak Russian.

01:31:42 Because there’s less value

01:31:45 for this kind of materialistic success

01:31:49 that I think sometimes can get in the way of greatness,

01:31:53 it seems like.

01:31:54 It makes coaching more difficult.

01:31:56 It makes like following orders as an athlete more difficult.

01:31:59 I don’t know.

01:32:00 We struggle with that in USA judo.

01:32:02 Yeah.

01:32:03 Cause you want more money,

01:32:05 but then more money, if not applied correctly,

01:32:08 can corrupt the system.

01:32:09 Somehow it can split people up.

01:32:11 It’s just, it’s same thing with the prestige

01:32:13 around certain medals over others

01:32:15 because athletes start chasing fame instead of development.

01:32:22 Yeah.

01:32:23 Yeah, that’s, I mean, the Setia brothers

01:32:26 are famous for this, like ignoring fame,

01:32:29 ignoring all of this, like focus on the art itself.

01:32:31 Not even, so it’s not even the medals,

01:32:34 exactly like you’re saying,

01:32:35 just the purity of like when you’re in it

01:32:38 and let everybody else figure out their stupid medals

01:32:40 and money and all that.

01:32:41 Cause it comes.

01:32:42 It comes.

01:32:43 Exactly.

01:32:43 It’s a result.

01:32:44 Yeah, exactly.

01:32:45 Like it’s not that you don’t appreciate it,

01:32:46 but you know that it comes if you focus on the art.

01:32:50 There’s a distinction when you’re talking

01:32:53 about your athletic career or really any endeavor, right?

01:32:58 The problem with goal setting is nobody teaches the athletes

01:33:03 or the people how to transition

01:33:06 from the goal to reality, right?

01:33:08 So when you look at my career as a whole,

01:33:12 like when I was getting ready for 2008,

01:33:15 I actually forgot to train for it.

01:33:17 I was so happy at such a young age

01:33:19 that I became an Olympian that that in and of itself

01:33:22 was a goal that I thought had to be admired,

01:33:25 had to be celebrated that, you know,

01:33:28 the games are right around the corner.

01:33:30 I didn’t really come down off that high.

01:33:32 You’re the local optimum of just winning the trials.

01:33:37 Yeah.

01:33:37 That was.

01:33:38 It’s a big thing.

01:33:39 It’s a huge thing.

01:33:40 But then you’re just focusing on the accomplishment,

01:33:42 not the.

01:33:43 Correct.

01:33:43 But at some point, right, when I went into London,

01:33:48 I actually went into London going with,

01:33:51 I’m gonna prove I’m the best in the world

01:33:53 cause I believe I’m the best in the world.

01:33:55 And I believe it from like the bottom of my soul

01:33:58 that I’m winning this.

01:34:00 And then you’re almost like trying to tell the universe,

01:34:04 like I’m accomplishing this thing because it’s a goal.

01:34:07 But when I went into Rio,

01:34:10 I just accepted the fact that I was winning.

01:34:13 It’s not a goal.

01:34:14 Like this is happening.

01:34:16 You visualize it.

01:34:18 But I felt it.

01:34:19 You felt it.

01:34:20 Right?

01:34:21 Like this is no longer a goal anymore.

01:34:24 Like I anticipated, like this is happening.

01:34:27 I can see this coming down the path

01:34:29 because I’m anticipating that the games is happening

01:34:33 and I’m gonna win.

01:34:34 It’s not a goal.

01:34:35 It’s an anticipation.

01:34:36 And there’s a distinct distinction there

01:34:39 between the two.

01:34:41 Okay, so for people who are just watching the video of this,

01:34:44 there should be an overlay of Young Travis.

01:34:50 This is, you still had to make 81.

01:34:52 Is this still a tough cut here?

01:34:54 No, this one was relatively easy.

01:34:56 This is going all the way back to 2008.

01:34:59 So this is the summer before the games.

01:35:03 This probably happened in June, I would say.

01:35:08 So this is the Olympic trials.

01:35:11 So in the United States,

01:35:13 you have to, I mean, similar to like wrestling,

01:35:15 you have to win the trials to qualify

01:35:18 for that particular division

01:35:19 to represent the United States.

01:35:21 So this is, you said June before an August Olympics?

01:35:24 Yep.

01:35:25 So here, I just wanted to show this match

01:35:27 because what was, there’s another one.

01:35:31 I think you do a pin,

01:35:32 you do some nice ground work in the other one.

01:35:34 But in this one.

01:35:37 Fighting a teammate.

01:35:39 Fighting a teammate.

01:35:40 Former teammate.

01:35:41 Oh, there’s an old school double leg.

01:35:42 I forgot about that.

01:35:43 And it’s weird to see.

01:35:45 So there, the Travis’s opponent,

01:35:49 and Travis is setting up here

01:35:51 that Sayonagi posting his left arm and getting it done.

01:35:59 That’s a big, that’s a big throw.

01:36:01 You don’t have too many of those big throws on video.

01:36:06 Cause like you often on video,

01:36:07 you’re going against the best people in the world.

01:36:09 It’s tough to get like that much air.

01:36:12 And a lot of times the ones that we do see

01:36:15 and the part that a lot of people don’t experience

01:36:19 is a lot of those times

01:36:21 where I threw people with that throw,

01:36:23 it was in training camps.

01:36:25 So by the time I got to the competition with these guys,

01:36:29 they were playing a hundred percent defense

01:36:32 to never let me do that.

01:36:33 Yeah.

01:36:34 So you do this here.

01:36:36 Are you kind of pulling him down?

01:36:38 No, he’s, I’m trying to get him to come up.

01:36:41 But are you pulling him down to get to fake him out?

01:36:43 I’m not doing anything with my left hand.

01:36:46 So here the opponent is.

01:36:48 So what I’m doing right now is his head is like in my chest.

01:36:52 I’m pressing him to get his head to lift with my chest.

01:36:58 So I’m pressing his hand down so I can use my chest

01:37:00 to like pinch my scaps and roll his head up

01:37:04 so that he wants to pick it up.

01:37:06 And then he, I mean, doesn’t he know what’s coming here?

01:37:10 Oh no, he might not.

01:37:12 Oh no, he knew, he was a former teammate.

01:37:14 He knew exactly what I was trying to do.

01:37:16 And that was a really big step with your right foot.

01:37:20 It covers about four feet in distance.

01:37:26 And your left catches up in like perfect position.

01:37:32 Yeah, you back it up a little bit.

01:37:36 Keep going, keep going.

01:37:39 Right there, this is like an important distinction

01:37:41 between mine and everybody else’s

01:37:44 is because I split his hip,

01:37:48 I actually, once I’m able to split,

01:37:50 I no longer need his center of gravity below mine.

01:37:55 Right, and when you say split,

01:37:56 you mean you put your foot in between.

01:37:59 I do that split, that four foot split.

01:38:02 And then when I get my feet back together,

01:38:04 it doesn’t matter that I’m under his center of gravity

01:38:06 or not.

01:38:09 That’s why my chest is right around his sternum height

01:38:13 for me.

01:38:15 Yeah, so there, I mean, how does he get,

01:38:17 for people just listening to this,

01:38:19 Travis Steps does a big, huge step, gets.

01:38:23 Like my hip is probably right around his nipple

01:38:26 because he’s sprawled back so much.

01:38:28 Yeah, that’s right.

01:38:30 So like, so you’re, how does the physics of this work?

01:38:33 You’re violating the principle of your center of mass

01:38:36 being under, oh, I guess somehow it is.

01:38:38 I don’t know, but he has nowhere to go.

01:38:40 He’s screwed.

01:38:41 Yes, that’s the kicker is the way mine works is

01:38:47 in order for him to play an effective defense,

01:38:50 he needs to have his feet firmly planted on the ground

01:38:53 with friction.

01:38:55 Yeah.

01:38:56 Otherwise he can’t press into me to stop it.

01:38:59 So when I get him to sprawl back, when I split his legs,

01:39:02 he effectively loses that contact with the floor.

01:39:05 Even though his feet are on the floor,

01:39:07 they’re not in a position where he can drive from them.

01:39:10 Yeah.

01:39:11 So therefore when I flip, he flips.

01:39:12 So there’s a natural like flailing here.

01:39:17 So he’s not falling forward.

01:39:20 You’re falling forward.

01:39:21 Yeah.

01:39:22 He’s just attached to you.

01:39:23 So like you can keep him up there

01:39:25 and then like legs would be just flailing.

01:39:27 Yep, one of my golden rules when I’m training

01:39:30 and I get really tired, one of the like mantras

01:39:33 I would always tell myself is I’m gonna put my back

01:39:36 on your chest and then I’m gonna put my back on the floor.

01:39:39 Yeah.

01:39:40 It’s gonna be underneath me.

01:39:41 That’s a good principle to.

01:39:42 It’s very simple.

01:39:43 And it, regardless of like all the chaos

01:39:46 and how quickly things are happening,

01:39:48 it’s something I can just dumb everything down to

01:39:50 and focus on.

01:39:51 Regardless of the gripping situation, the footwork,

01:39:54 all of that, get my back to your chest

01:39:56 and then put my back on the floor.

01:39:58 So this step of getting your back to their chest,

01:40:02 like for people who are sort of more,

01:40:04 like for example, for people like me,

01:40:07 who are just like amateur Judo people,

01:40:09 like there’s all kinds of ways to prevent this turn

01:40:12 from happening, the gripping and just everything.

01:40:17 How difficult is it at the highest level

01:40:19 to get into this position?

01:40:21 I mean, you make it look effortless often,

01:40:23 but like to get to the position where you’re

01:40:25 from facing them to your back is to them.

01:40:29 Is that like strategy?

01:40:30 Is that timing?

01:40:32 Is that?

01:40:32 Timing.

01:40:34 It’s timing.

01:40:35 It’s like anything, like if I wanted to punch you

01:40:38 in the face, like how hard is it to really do that

01:40:41 if you know you can just play defense and block it?

01:40:44 The trick is to get them to play defense

01:40:46 to something that never happened.

01:40:50 And then you go through like another way.

01:40:52 And then you just go through what would technically

01:40:54 be your first plan if you planned on them playing defense.

01:40:58 So I set the stage from the very beginning for this to work.

01:41:03 So then this, you’re celebrating here,

01:41:07 it’s a huge sort of, once a big accomplishments,

01:41:11 big relief to qualify for the Olympics.

01:41:14 And then you go into the Olympics

01:41:16 and this is where I first saw Judo.

01:41:19 And I kind of thought of them as the same

01:41:21 as Judo and Jiu Jitsu.

01:41:24 And I was really impressed by your performance

01:41:26 in that Olympics.

01:41:28 The footage nowhere to be found these days,

01:41:30 but at that time I think you could still,

01:41:34 you could watch it live on NBC Olympics

01:41:36 or somewhere like that.

01:41:38 And I remember watching several of your matches.

01:41:41 One of them was the match against Ole Bischoff, the German.

01:41:45 And I remember being, it’d be nice

01:41:47 if you can talk to that match because I don’t remember it.

01:41:49 All I remember is being frustrated.

01:41:53 Yep.

01:41:54 By him not letting you play Judo.

01:41:58 Yeah.

01:41:59 So obviously you faced him again four years later

01:42:03 and there’s a lot of frustration there as well.

01:42:05 But I remember being extra frustrated in 2008.

01:42:09 What was that match like?

01:42:10 So he might’ve been number one in the world at the time

01:42:12 or up there?

01:42:13 He was up there for sure, especially going into 2008.

01:42:18 He was really high up there.

01:42:19 Yeah.

01:42:20 And did he win gold at that Olympics?

01:42:24 Yes.

01:42:25 Yeah.

01:42:26 Because he silvered in London.

01:42:27 It was the same Olympic final both in 2008 and London.

01:42:31 Yeah.

01:42:32 Okay, so you’re facing him there.

01:42:35 Were you intimidated?

01:42:36 What was the strategy?

01:42:37 Can you talk to that match?

01:42:39 Because it kind of sets the stage for the rematch in 2012.

01:42:43 Yeah, he was somebody that I had trained with in the past.

01:42:48 And for some reason, when it comes to him and I,

01:42:51 when we train together,

01:42:55 it’s more of a physical altercation

01:42:57 than a Judo training session.

01:42:59 It’s just the coaches have had to break us up a few times.

01:43:04 Or you guys get almost angry too?

01:43:06 A little bit.

01:43:07 It always goes farther than it should.

01:43:11 We’re friends.

01:43:12 We say hello to each other.

01:43:13 But for some reason, when we train together,

01:43:15 there’s something about him and me that just oil and water.

01:43:19 I don’t know what it is.

01:43:20 Could it be also the gripping?

01:43:21 Because he’s a great gripping strategist.

01:43:24 Does he frustrate you with certain kinds of grips

01:43:26 and then you get pissed off and then you frustrate him?

01:43:28 And then he gets pissed off

01:43:30 and then before you know it, somebody’s kicked somebody

01:43:32 or punched somebody in the mouth or done something.

01:43:34 Yeah, so one of the only evidences we have online

01:43:38 of you fighting him is your foot in his groin area

01:43:44 is the only thing we have from that Olympics.

01:43:46 From 2008.

01:43:47 From 2008, yeah.

01:43:48 And to answer everybody’s question, yes, it was deliberate.

01:43:52 Now you can say this.

01:43:53 Yeah.

01:43:54 But yeah, I remember there being a lot of frustration.

01:43:57 You’re actually going for a lot of stuff

01:43:59 like sacrifice throws.

01:44:00 I mean, maybe you’re not going

01:44:01 for the highest scoring epons,

01:44:03 but you’re just trying to shake things up,

01:44:05 if I remember correctly.

01:44:06 Yeah, because when he, I was so young then that,

01:44:09 and he was in his prime really at that time, right?

01:44:13 He must’ve been 24, 25, 26,

01:44:18 world medalist, European champion at the time.

01:44:22 And when he would grab me,

01:44:24 I had that sense of feeling stuck.

01:44:27 Like I was strong enough if I used all my strength

01:44:30 to not let him do anything,

01:44:32 but then you can’t be offensive

01:44:33 when you’re using all your strength

01:44:34 to hold onto the situation.

01:44:38 So I was getting really aggravated

01:44:39 because I couldn’t generate any offense

01:44:43 with every time I felt like I gained an advantage

01:44:45 in the gripping scenario,

01:44:47 he would take some obscure grip somewhere that was like,

01:44:50 well, now I’ve got to go address this thing,

01:44:52 give up what I gained and I have to go back.

01:44:54 And if I were to think about watching the match now,

01:44:59 it probably looked like a lot of flailing

01:45:01 because we’re just trying to generate enough

01:45:04 to not get a penalty,

01:45:05 but also not enough to where he could counter it.

01:45:10 Did you think you could beat him

01:45:11 like when you were walking into the match?

01:45:14 Until I gripped him for the first time,

01:45:16 like, cause I had trained with him before,

01:45:19 he felt stronger and more in shape

01:45:21 than I’ve ever felt him that day.

01:45:24 At that Olympics, which begs a whole nother question.

01:45:30 But I remember when he grabbed me for that first time,

01:45:37 I went, this is different.

01:45:40 And there was a sense of panic at the time

01:45:42 cause I was like, holy crap, where did this come from?

01:45:45 This is not the guy that I’ve trained with that I expected.

01:45:51 Cause it was a definite like level change

01:45:53 in like his ability, strength, speed, and stamina.

01:45:57 Like looking back at that, can you explain that?

01:46:00 Is it just you being more, less confident

01:46:04 because it was the Olympics?

01:46:05 It was, is there some kind of routine that he followed

01:46:08 to like really level up in intensity

01:46:10 for this particular event?

01:46:12 I’ve been told that he only gets to like his prime

01:46:17 for like really big events.

01:46:20 Like he doesn’t train like year round like I would train,

01:46:23 but when it comes to like the games,

01:46:25 he doesn’t do social media, he doesn’t work,

01:46:29 he lives, breathes, eats his training for the games,

01:46:33 which could institute that level.

01:46:36 What about you?

01:46:37 Is there a, like Dan Gable famously said,

01:46:40 like the one loss he had in college,

01:46:42 he was doing a lot of media and stuff.

01:46:44 Back then there was no social media.

01:46:46 That was a huge mistake for him.

01:46:48 Do you do social media, do you do like?

01:46:51 At that, at this point?

01:46:52 Well, at that time it was like AOL.

01:46:53 I don’t know, what’s 2008?

01:46:55 I didn’t even have a Facebook page, a MySpace,

01:46:58 nothing at this point.

01:46:59 I got my first Facebook page from the USOC in 2012.

01:47:04 When I went through the media thing,

01:47:05 the lady was like, you have to have it.

01:47:07 I go, I don’t want it.

01:47:08 I don’t like people.

01:47:09 I want to deal with the people.

01:47:11 What am I supposed to do?

01:47:13 You know, like the social part of the social media.

01:47:15 No.

01:47:16 Okay.

01:47:17 I have to bring this up because,

01:47:20 and then you went on to face Tiago Camilo.

01:47:22 You lost that match, but he went on to win bronze.

01:47:24 That’s also an interesting one, but we can skip ahead.

01:47:27 I just remember being really impressed

01:47:29 both by your groundwork.

01:47:31 That was a match I should have won.

01:47:33 Yeah.

01:47:34 I should have won that.

01:47:34 I was, if you don’t know judo,

01:47:38 you would visually watch that and be like, I’m winning.

01:47:40 But he was technically winning on the scoreboard.

01:47:43 So it is what it is.

01:47:44 But the point that he got that solidified his win,

01:47:49 yes, it was a point back in those days.

01:47:51 So I can’t say anything, but like my shoulder

01:47:55 nicked the ground.

01:47:56 So it’s like, I don’t know.

01:47:58 Yeah. A lot of the stories of your Olympic career

01:48:01 is like from a fan perspective,

01:48:04 it seems like you should have won

01:48:06 or you very close to could have won.

01:48:09 Yes.

01:48:09 And there was a lot of frustration in you

01:48:11 and your game being like shut down in certain ways.

01:48:14 But like the thing that immediately grabbed me in 2008

01:48:19 was how much, something about the way you approached judo,

01:48:22 how much you wanted to win.

01:48:24 Cause I was young then.

01:48:26 I was, when I was at this time of my career,

01:48:31 I was out to like win.

01:48:34 Like there was no like, I’m going to grab you,

01:48:36 I’m going to throw you.

01:48:37 And if not, you’re going to go through a battle.

01:48:40 Yeah.

01:48:41 You’re going to make sure you earned it.

01:48:42 It so happened that you competing in 2008,

01:48:47 I was, I became a fan of yours at that moment.

01:48:51 And since then, I kind of knew about judo.

01:48:55 My university had a judo club

01:48:57 and I kind of knew about jujitsu from mixed martial arts.

01:49:01 And obviously I wrestled for many years before

01:49:04 and I love wrestling,

01:49:06 but there’s something about you competing that made me,

01:49:09 well, there’s no other way to say it,

01:49:11 but it like changed the direction of my life.

01:49:12 Cause it forced me to say, you know what?

01:49:15 I’m going to start judo and jujitsu.

01:49:18 And first of all, for that, I’m really grateful,

01:49:20 but it’s fascinating to think,

01:49:22 because this kid who’s 22 years old,

01:49:24 I’m sure I’m not the only one that you’ve influenced,

01:49:27 like you’ve changed the direction of my life.

01:49:30 And there could be huge number of others like that.

01:49:33 I mean, that’s the power of you as an individual

01:49:36 at the, on the Olympic stage.

01:49:38 You ever think about the pressure of that?

01:49:40 Did you, did you think as a 22 year old,

01:49:42 there’s a bunch of people,

01:49:44 like I know I’m not the only one who changed.

01:49:46 I just happened to have like a microphone recently.

01:49:50 You know what I mean?

01:49:51 Like, is that, it’s fascinating to think about, right?

01:49:54 Like you, perhaps you didn’t think about this.

01:49:57 It’s just, it’s just a judo match,

01:49:59 but you like, you influenced hundreds of thousands of people

01:50:02 if not millions.

01:50:03 Is that interesting?

01:50:04 It’s, it’s not something that really hit me

01:50:09 until 2012 when I lost,

01:50:17 because that’s when like,

01:50:20 I would say like the world felt bad for me at that point.

01:50:25 And that’s when you knew that like people were watching

01:50:31 and people were inspired by the loss

01:50:34 because of how much went into that match.

01:50:36 Because, you know, the 99% of us who watched it

01:50:41 thought I won, except for the 1% of the people

01:50:44 who were considered judges at that day in the event.

01:50:48 So.

01:50:49 But I mean, that’s the, the win or lose,

01:50:52 that, that was a really inspiring match.

01:50:54 And that’s when it, that’s when it dinged that like,

01:50:58 because I don’t, I don’t watch something

01:51:00 and really get inspired by like the person and the act.

01:51:05 It’s like a, it’s an accumulative thing.

01:51:08 But for a lot of people, like when they watch

01:51:12 how much goes into it,

01:51:13 and then when I broke down on the match,

01:51:16 like the amount of suffering that happens

01:51:18 when you lose a match like that.

01:51:20 And then, you know, really coming back and winning in Rio,

01:51:26 there’s a trend of people who were inspired

01:51:29 that knew about London.

01:51:30 And then when they found out I won in Rio,

01:51:33 that’s when like people like in droves felt like

01:51:36 they could overcome their own personal obstacles

01:51:39 to still achieve something

01:51:41 because they’ve witnessed somebody who’s fallen

01:51:44 and gotten back up.

01:51:46 Yeah.

01:51:47 But it’s not something that you think about like on the day.

01:51:52 It’s when you look back and you go, oh, cause and effect.

01:51:55 I wonder if you can comment on that.

01:51:57 I’m trying to realize and live up to the fact

01:52:01 that there’s like young people that come up to me

01:52:05 and I’m starting to realize like certain words I say

01:52:09 will have a long lasting impact on them.

01:52:11 Yep.

01:52:12 Cause you say it as like, you don’t even,

01:52:14 it doesn’t just, the whim.

01:52:16 Some of them might come back 30 years later

01:52:19 and a word I said was the reason they quit a thing

01:52:22 and started the new thing that led them

01:52:24 to become their true self, like to find success,

01:52:27 all that kind of stuff like.

01:52:29 On the flip side though, some people based on the actions

01:52:32 that we do today, even with this cast

01:52:35 will alter the course of their lives forever.

01:52:40 I had a guy one time, was it after London?

01:52:44 It must’ve been after London.

01:52:46 He actually found me on Instagram,

01:52:50 wrote me what seemed to be like a dissertation on Instagram

01:52:53 about how much I disrespected him

01:52:58 14 years earlier because I didn’t step on a podium

01:53:03 to take a picture after winning a tournament

01:53:05 where he bronzed.

01:53:06 Yeah.

01:53:07 And I’m thinking to myself, like at the time,

01:53:11 like having dinner with my family

01:53:14 because I had to leave the next morning

01:53:15 was more important to me as a person,

01:53:18 not thinking about who you potentially will become

01:53:23 and the actions of whatever you do today,

01:53:29 if you do become quote unquote famous

01:53:32 or somebody in a spotlight,

01:53:34 that that could come back to bite you.

01:53:36 To me, I don’t know about you,

01:53:37 that’s super motivating,

01:53:40 like not to be a lesser version of myself ever.

01:53:46 Yeah.

01:53:47 Just be on top of your game, whatever that game is,

01:53:49 be on top of your game when you interacting with people

01:53:51 and when you’re just in your own private life.

01:53:53 I’m trying to make sure

01:53:54 that I’m the exactly same person privately

01:53:56 as I am publicly and like making sure I’m on point.

01:54:00 I see like just hanging out with Joe Rogan a lot.

01:54:03 I see how he’s, first of all, the exact same person.

01:54:06 And second, he like walks around

01:54:10 and there’s like a huge number of fans

01:54:11 and you’ll just take pictures and like, it’s very cool.

01:54:14 And it’s very cognizant of like certain words he says,

01:54:17 especially young people, like they’re going to take that.

01:54:20 And that’s going to be a memory for them

01:54:21 for a couple of years that might be influential

01:54:24 for the rest of their life.

01:54:25 So I don’t know, that’s a cool responsibility,

01:54:30 not to fuck it up.

01:54:31 But anyway, I bring all that up to just say, thank you.

01:54:38 So even if you like were frustrated

01:54:40 that you didn’t win a medal,

01:54:41 at least you influenced one silly Russian kid

01:54:46 to get into the martial arts.

01:54:48 And what happens when you get into martial arts,

01:54:50 it alters the direction of your life.

01:54:52 Mine for the better.

01:54:54 Okay, so let’s go to London 2012 Olympics.

01:55:00 One of the most dramatic judo battles of all time rematch.

01:55:08 So you’ve reached the semifinals once again

01:55:10 to face the German, Ole Bischoff.

01:55:14 Do you mind if we step through that match a little bit?

01:55:16 Yeah, by all means.

01:55:20 I’ve only ever watched the entire thing one time

01:55:23 just because, fucking.

01:55:29 So for context, for the listener,

01:55:33 Travis, first of all, you don’t like losing.

01:55:37 I think that’s fair to say.

01:55:38 You know, the hard part with this match

01:55:41 is because I went into this Olympics thinking,

01:55:45 I’m gonna fucking win the Olympics.

01:55:47 I’m the best in the world.

01:55:50 I never in my right mind thought,

01:55:55 oh, I’m gonna win a medal.

01:55:56 Like that never crossed my mind.

01:56:01 So it’s like, I would have rather him just fucking beat me.

01:56:08 Because then I lost.

01:56:11 So here the referees, as many people thought,

01:56:15 robbed you of a victory,

01:56:16 but it was also a really close battle.

01:56:18 Again, with many of the elements of frustration as 2008

01:56:22 in terms of strategically and gripping wise.

01:56:25 And it was just a fascinating battle that went to overtime.

01:56:28 So can you set the context?

01:56:30 So what did the bracket look like?

01:56:33 Who were the players here?

01:56:35 Who did you beat leading up to this match?

01:56:38 As you walk onto the mat, what happened the hours before?

01:56:43 As you’re standing there.

01:56:44 How bad is it when two people are standing like this?

01:56:48 And yeah.

01:56:50 That fucking guy, man.

01:56:52 But this bracket was really interesting

01:56:57 if you look at like the backstory of 81 kilos,

01:57:00 like leading up to the Olympics, right?

01:57:03 Because at this point in time,

01:57:05 I was inside the top 10 at all times,

01:57:09 eight, seven, five, four, sixes.

01:57:14 I fell out of there sometimes due to injuries,

01:57:16 but I always climbed back in.

01:57:18 There was another guy from Azerbaijan

01:57:23 that was the Olympic champion at 73 kilos in 2008.

01:57:28 And the entire division got rocked by match one

01:57:33 because his first match was with Antoine Valus Fortier

01:57:39 of Canada.

01:57:41 And everybody who saw the draw come out was like,

01:57:45 the Azerbaijanis gonna win it.

01:57:47 He’s the former Olympic champion.

01:57:49 He’s pretty much won most of the major events,

01:57:52 including at 90 kilos, because he just had smooth judo.

01:57:56 And match one rolls around, match two rolls around.

01:58:01 Antoine’s in the shoot and he’s looking around

01:58:05 and he’s like, the Azerbaijanis not here.

01:58:09 Well, where is he?

01:58:10 No joke, he runs into the venue a match before,

01:58:16 throws his gi on and runs onto the Olympic platform.

01:58:20 Loses to the Canadian

01:58:22 in like a three minute golden score battle.

01:58:26 So do you think he warmed up?

01:58:28 Didn’t, he ran.

01:58:29 He literally ran into the venue,

01:58:31 threw his gi on and ran out, did no judo.

01:58:35 And there you see Antoine losing in the quarters.

01:58:40 So how good was Antoine?

01:58:42 At this point in time, this is,

01:58:45 I believe his first international medal

01:58:48 was the Olympic games.

01:58:50 So I don’t think he’d ever meddled in Paris.

01:58:53 He went into this bracket unranked,

01:58:57 beating the ranked guy first round because he,

01:59:00 I don’t know if he missed the bus.

01:59:02 I don’t know if he was off his cycle and planned on losing

01:59:06 cause he didn’t want to test positive.

01:59:08 I don’t know.

01:59:09 There’s a lot of like questionable things out there

01:59:12 that could have potentially caused him to,

01:59:17 run onto the Olympic platform for match one.

01:59:21 But it catapulted Antoine into like a belief

01:59:26 that like, I beat the seated guy, I’m ready.

01:59:31 And that was like a turning point in the Canadian’s career

01:59:34 just as a whole, right?

01:59:37 That’s that everybody has a defining moment.

01:59:40 Like mine was when I beat Bischoff in Dusseldorf

01:59:45 at the grand prix for Germany after 2008, right?

01:59:49 I beat the Olympic champion in, on his home soil

01:59:53 to go win the entire tournament.

01:59:55 So we all have like those moments.

01:59:57 It’s just when it happens at the games,

02:00:00 it throws the bracket like into a tailspin.

02:00:02 Cause typically you’d know like who’s going to beat who,

02:00:05 where it’s going to happen.

02:00:07 And when you look at my quarter final against the Brazilian,

02:00:11 what most people don’t know is I was,

02:00:14 I was so thankful I had that match.

02:00:16 Most people would never in a million years be like,

02:00:19 I want to fight the world number one at the Olympic games.

02:00:22 That’s what I want to do.

02:00:23 I want to be the eighth seed fighting the world number one

02:00:25 cause I’m going to win.

02:00:27 I was pissed off at him.

02:00:29 I was so angry because we,

02:00:34 we were at the Pan Am’s I think the year before

02:00:37 and there was a team tournament and I wanted to fight him.

02:00:40 I had lost the quarters to a Cuban, I think.

02:00:46 In like the first gripping exchange,

02:00:47 he threw me with a drop sale out of nowhere.

02:00:50 I was pissed.

02:00:51 So I wanted my hands on the Brazilian and the team match.

02:00:55 Well, the Brazilian team is warming up.

02:00:57 So I walk up to him, no joke.

02:00:59 I walked up to him and I go, you’re fighting.

02:01:01 And he goes, not today.

02:01:03 And I went, are you fucking kidding me?

02:01:06 I warmed up.

02:01:06 I taped up that you’re the only fucking guy I want to fight

02:01:09 and you’re going to fucking sit in the stands

02:01:10 and read a goddamn book.

02:01:12 I was so angry.

02:01:13 I carried that anger cause I never fought him until this day.

02:01:17 I was fucking pissed.

02:01:18 I was ready to beat him.

02:01:19 That’s right, I forgot he was the world number one.

02:01:24 Cause I remember being really excited at that match.

02:01:27 How did you beat him?

02:01:28 I threw him with two hands on the same side, collar,

02:01:31 like drop sale.

02:01:32 I cross gripped, I yanked him behind me and I threw him.

02:01:35 Epon?

02:01:36 Wazari.

02:01:37 And then the match ended 30 seconds later.

02:01:41 I was pumped.

02:01:42 So fucking angry.

02:01:43 I thought, okay, if I’m remembering correctly,

02:01:46 I thought, okay, this guy might actually win gold.

02:01:51 That’s what made, for me as a spectator,

02:01:55 remembering now the next match that much more like painful.

02:02:00 And then the fans of judo that really followed the sport,

02:02:05 the stats, when you look at the games and my draws,

02:02:08 I had the worst possible draw

02:02:09 as you ever could have imagined.

02:02:11 At both London and Rio, I fought the world number one

02:02:15 to get to the final or into the semis or past the semis.

02:02:19 And everybody I fought in the draw

02:02:22 either beat me the last time we fought

02:02:24 or I had never fought before.

02:02:27 So I always held a loss going onto the mat

02:02:29 at the Olympic games.

02:02:30 How’d you feel about that, by the way?

02:02:31 Like what were your feelings

02:02:32 about facing the Brazilian first?

02:02:35 I was so excited.

02:02:36 Well, that was match three.

02:02:38 In London, I fought the Slovenian guy first round

02:02:41 who beat me.

02:02:44 Where’d he beat me?

02:02:45 Was it the Worlds?

02:02:46 Might’ve been the Worlds.

02:02:47 And then, Church’s Ville, I fought in the second round

02:02:50 who threw me for Wazari in Japan.

02:02:54 And then, Leandro, who I don’t think I ever fought,

02:02:58 who was world number one.

02:02:59 That avoided fighting me at the team tournament.

02:03:02 But I mean, every single Olympics you’ve fought

02:03:04 and you really stepped up.

02:03:06 It’s the only tournament I’ve ever prepped for.

02:03:09 Mentally and physically and just the whole thing?

02:03:11 Yeah.

02:03:11 We never trained through this tournament

02:03:14 like we did for the others.

02:03:15 Or I would go into it injured.

02:03:18 All right, well, let’s talk about,

02:03:19 you’re standing there next to the German.

02:03:24 He looked always smaller than you,

02:03:26 but you said like strong.

02:03:28 Yeah.

02:03:30 So what are you feeling now, Jimmy Pedro behind you?

02:03:33 I was fucking ready to take his head off.

02:03:35 Did you have an idea of what you’re gonna do?

02:03:38 Did you try to, do you’re thinking of winning by Ypon?

02:03:41 Were you thinking like going for big throws,

02:03:44 or take him in deep waters, outgrip him?

02:03:47 What were you thinking?

02:03:48 We were about to have a battle

02:03:50 and I wasn’t gonna throw him until he broke mentally.

02:03:55 Okay.

02:03:56 That was, there was no like,

02:03:59 oh, this is gonna be a clean throw.

02:04:00 That was never, that was never the thought process.

02:04:05 So here, you know there’s going to be a lot of gripping.

02:04:10 So we’re seeing a shit ton of gripping.

02:04:14 And right here, he throws it, bang, close fisted.

02:04:20 You got a lot of adrenaline.

02:04:21 You seem calm.

02:04:22 I’m pissed.

02:04:23 You’re pissed.

02:04:24 Like, you don’t look serious, you just look like.

02:04:26 I’m looking at the ref like,

02:04:27 cause he keeps telling me to get up.

02:04:28 I’m like, I have blood running down my face.

02:04:32 I go.

02:04:33 Okay.

02:04:34 Here, there’s blood.

02:04:36 See, and he’s like, oh yeah, go fix it.

02:04:37 And that’s on your eyebrow somewhere?

02:04:39 Yeah, he split it just underneath it.

02:04:42 So you split your eyebrow.

02:04:43 And so in judo, they don’t, they’re allergic to blood,

02:04:46 probably for a good reason.

02:04:47 But they, so now you have to try to figure out

02:04:51 how to tape that up.

02:04:53 Yep.

02:04:54 Which already sets up one of the most bad ass

02:04:58 looks in judo history.

02:05:00 First 15 seconds, busted my eye open.

02:05:04 Was that getting in the way of your eyesight at all or no?

02:05:06 No.

02:05:07 Damn, he looks good at gripping.

02:05:10 How difficult is it to get a grip on that guy?

02:05:12 Very.

02:05:14 Like I’m struggling just to get my hand in the collar

02:05:16 and he wasn’t even blocking it.

02:05:18 Is he being cagey?

02:05:19 Remember like, is he interested in offense?

02:05:22 Nope.

02:05:23 He’s a very cagey, you know, methodical player.

02:05:27 Like he, he never opens himself up.

02:05:30 Yeah.

02:05:31 There you go.

02:05:32 You grabbed the leg as part of a combination.

02:05:34 Yep.

02:05:35 And people have told me that he’s actually very good

02:05:38 at throwing people.

02:05:39 He just doesn’t.

02:05:41 So, but he just doesn’t show it at these.

02:05:43 Nope.

02:05:44 Cause he, he doesn’t care how he wins.

02:05:46 He cares that he wins.

02:05:48 Yeah.

02:05:49 Which makes him very difficult to beat.

02:05:51 Cause he knows when you’ve strategized to do that,

02:05:55 where you look at the rule set and you develop a plan

02:05:57 to get through the matches,

02:05:59 then you’ve really got to figure out a way

02:06:01 to get that person off that game plan.

02:06:04 You know, whether you get ahead by a penalty or something.

02:06:08 Right there.

02:06:10 Like, he wouldn’t give me the sleeve,

02:06:13 so I grabbed all of his fingers.

02:06:15 Oh, nice.

02:06:17 In which I open like, like this way or?

02:06:21 I grabbed them the other way and I started lifting them.

02:06:23 Ah, yeah.

02:06:24 Like I start, nice.

02:06:25 Oh, like perfect.

02:06:26 Reverse play and mercy.

02:06:27 Like this.

02:06:28 Yeah.

02:06:28 Oh, this is great.

02:06:30 Cause he wouldn’t give me the sleeve

02:06:31 and I needed an attack.

02:06:33 And then I’m like, okay, I can’t hold onto this forever

02:06:36 cause that judge is going to see it.

02:06:37 So let me just do a quick throw here

02:06:38 while I’m using the fingers in the mercy grip.

02:06:40 You’re holding on.

02:06:41 Yeah.

02:06:42 And then I just sit out.

02:06:43 Yeah.

02:06:46 And then he goes to get up and I go to get on top

02:06:49 and right here.

02:06:51 Nice.

02:06:52 That elbow.

02:06:53 You get him?

02:06:54 Oh, you got him.

02:06:55 Yeah, it looks like I elbow him.

02:06:57 Did you do it kind of?

02:06:58 No, I didn’t.

02:07:00 At the time, I never knew this happened

02:07:02 until after I watched this like three or four years later.

02:07:06 Didn’t even know, I didn’t even feel it.

02:07:08 Look at that.

02:07:09 So he’s legitimately angry here.

02:07:10 Yeah, he’s angry.

02:07:13 And of course you can’t, you can’t move.

02:07:15 Why would you move?

02:07:16 Look at this.

02:07:17 This moment right there is gold.

02:07:19 If you’re not watching this on video, you’re missing out.

02:07:21 You never get this in judo.

02:07:23 No, I don’t know if that’s ever happened.

02:07:25 That little face off.

02:07:26 Especially on a stage like this.

02:07:29 The reference.

02:07:30 And then he brings us in to like talk to us

02:07:32 and he’s like, hey, we’re good, right?

02:07:33 Like, you guys aren’t about to do

02:07:34 what I think you’re about to do.

02:07:38 And he’s like, hey, shake hands again.

02:07:39 Cause the first time we did it, that wasn’t good enough.

02:07:41 Well, you gotta do it again.

02:07:45 The heartbreaking part about this

02:07:47 and why the IJF switched it to an unlimited golden score.

02:07:51 Because we fought five minutes

02:07:54 through the entire normal part of the match.

02:07:57 And then we did the entire overtime period of three minutes.

02:08:01 Not one penalty was given.

02:08:04 No gripping infractions, no false attacks,

02:08:07 like no stallings.

02:08:08 That’s great.

02:08:08 Nobody was really backing up.

02:08:10 Yep.

02:08:11 I mean, he was, you know.

02:08:12 So what was Jimmy telling you here?

02:08:14 Or was he talking to you at all?

02:08:16 He’s not allowed to talk during medical things

02:08:19 and my nose is now broken.

02:08:21 But he’s also, oh, the nose is broken.

02:08:23 From what?

02:08:25 I caught an elbow from him.

02:08:28 Glad his face is clean.

02:08:29 That’s fun.

02:08:30 And right here, I was pissed.

02:08:32 I was so angry at the medic

02:08:34 because he’s fumbling around and I’m like,

02:08:36 my whole plan is to break the German mentally.

02:08:40 You gotta hurry up with the tape, man.

02:08:42 He’s supposed to be tired.

02:08:43 He’s not supposed to be resting.

02:08:46 Is Jimmy yelling here?

02:08:48 He can’t.

02:08:49 No, not here, not here, but during the match.

02:08:52 And you can see I just take it from him

02:08:53 and I’m like, give it to me.

02:08:54 I’m gonna do it myself.

02:08:55 Get out of here.

02:08:58 How scared is the medic?

02:09:00 He’s like, this guy’s gonna kill me.

02:09:01 He can’t even tear the tape.

02:09:03 Look how nervous he is.

02:09:06 We made fun of him for this so much throughout the years.

02:09:10 Still do to this day.

02:09:12 All right, here we go.

02:09:13 Oh, you look great getting geared up.

02:09:15 Can’t really see, don’t care.

02:09:17 Was there some outcome in your mind

02:09:19 that you could possibly beat him on the ground

02:09:21 with a submission or a pin?

02:09:22 You knew you were gonna have to throw him.

02:09:24 I knew I was gonna have to.

02:09:26 If I was gonna throw him or armbar him

02:09:29 or pin him, whatever the case may be,

02:09:31 it was gonna be his mental like, I’m just tired of this.

02:09:37 He’s too cagey of a player.

02:09:38 He’s too experienced.

02:09:41 He has to mentally make that choice to give that inch.

02:09:44 And then you just have to be ready to take it.

02:09:47 So I was just waiting for it.

02:09:50 And so now this is four minutes in, one minute left.

02:09:53 Yeah.

02:09:54 Oh, is that in your game plan two potentials

02:09:57 like sumi gaeshi, like the sacrifice throws to him?

02:10:01 Cause the whole point of that technique

02:10:03 and the sacrifice throws wasn’t

02:10:04 because I thought I was gonna throw him,

02:10:07 but it disrupts the pattern enough

02:10:10 to like get him to make a potential mistake.

02:10:14 Like see, he should have gotten Ashido there.

02:10:16 Hands in the face.

02:10:18 But again, that’s just part of judo.

02:10:20 Yeah.

02:10:21 He poked me in the elbow.

02:10:23 This is a rough match.

02:10:25 Does he act at all or no?

02:10:27 Like, was he acting frustrated or anything like that?

02:10:30 It was all like, he’s like acting for the ref.

02:10:33 You know what I mean?

02:10:34 Like, oh, that, all that kind of stuff.

02:10:35 You’re just going in hard, nonstop,

02:10:39 like angry, aggressive, feeling cardio here at all.

02:10:43 Like.

02:10:44 I don’t, I didn’t get tired during this.

02:10:46 And then just always pressing for.

02:10:48 Time runs out.

02:10:50 Now we’re into golden score.

02:10:51 12 minutes and 38 seconds later.

02:10:54 Yeah, you think about every judo exchange, right?

02:10:56 Every time we grip up, every time we attack,

02:10:59 sometimes it can take longer to get back to the line

02:11:01 than the entire exchange.

02:11:02 Yeah.

02:11:03 So the more aggression, the more exchanges you have,

02:11:06 the longer the time stretches.

02:11:09 Then here, the six seconds left in golden score,

02:11:13 your tape is now yellow and red

02:11:20 with sweat and blood, literally, and time is out.

02:11:23 Now, what are you thinking here?

02:11:24 Do you think you won the match?

02:11:26 I thought I won the match a minute ago.

02:11:30 I remember thinking to myself,

02:11:32 like if this goes to the flags, I won.

02:11:36 No doubt in my mind.

02:11:39 Because I felt like the whole time,

02:11:42 like I was going to him, right?

02:11:45 He was never coming at me.

02:11:47 Yeah, that’s the way it felt.

02:11:49 And like, that’s the way it felt body language wise,

02:11:52 just the intensity, how fast you’re moving towards him.

02:11:55 You’re constantly going for throws.

02:12:00 Now, if you want to rewind that,

02:12:02 we can talk about the whole,

02:12:03 because it’s a part of this clip.

02:12:05 So wait a minute, they all went blue.

02:12:08 They all did.

02:12:09 So in judo, there’s three referees,

02:12:12 two on the side, one in the center,

02:12:13 and they all vote on who won.

02:12:14 And now let’s pause it right there.

02:12:16 Now, the way this is supposed to work,

02:12:18 they raise their flags, they do like a one, two count,

02:12:21 and then on three, they all raise it together.

02:12:24 Now, as a little pretext to this entire match,

02:12:28 up until this point, not one match at the Olympic Games

02:12:32 has ever been a split decision.

02:12:34 Meaning out of three people,

02:12:37 not one of them voted against the other group members.

02:12:41 So they were all unified blue or all unified white.

02:12:44 Yeah.

02:12:45 Right?

02:12:46 Which is statistically difficult to imagine.

02:12:49 Yes.

02:12:50 It’s almost like they had a referee meeting and said,

02:12:53 it’s better for the Olympics.

02:12:55 To never have a split.

02:12:56 Yeah.

02:12:58 Okay.

02:13:00 So the question becomes,

02:13:02 if you would click that frame by frame, right?

02:13:08 So right now we have all the refs with their flags out

02:13:11 and then click that.

02:13:12 So the middle guy starts.

02:13:15 He is all the way up.

02:13:17 All the way up.

02:13:17 The other side judges haven’t moved.

02:13:20 We now have one side ref all the way up.

02:13:23 Then we have a third side ref all the way up.

02:13:28 Yeah.

02:13:29 So there’s a time point

02:13:31 when the middle guy has the flag all the way up.

02:13:33 If not 80, 90% of the way there.

02:13:35 Yeah.

02:13:36 Then the other one does.

02:13:37 And then the third one goes.

02:13:40 So now the question becomes who really,

02:13:44 like did the outside refs really have an opinion?

02:13:47 Or were they told to wait for the center one to start

02:13:54 and then lift whatever flag the center ref picked?

02:13:59 Yeah.

02:14:00 This is very unfortunate.

02:14:01 It’s very, honestly, it’s very possible

02:14:03 that they had this meeting.

02:14:05 This is the problem with the Olympics.

02:14:09 They sometimes, it’s also the problem in the Soviet Union

02:14:13 with communism.

02:14:14 They think the committee knows what’s good for the people

02:14:17 and so on.

02:14:18 So they decide universally

02:14:20 as opposed to letting the magic of the Olympics

02:14:24 be what it is.

02:14:25 But nevertheless, in this case,

02:14:28 the center ref decided blue.

02:14:31 Like what do you think?

02:14:33 Do you think it’s just a shitty call?

02:14:34 Or like?

02:14:36 He has the right to pick.

02:14:38 But the problem is the other two I don’t think did.

02:14:43 And so when you do this frame by frame again,

02:14:48 I can see from my own perspective two of the refs.

02:14:54 And I see them both blue.

02:14:55 So when you fast forward that a little bit

02:14:59 to get to all the flags, I see the two go blue.

02:15:03 And I go, I look over and I look at the other guy

02:15:06 and I’m like, really?

02:15:08 All three?

02:15:10 I fought for eight minutes and I can’t even get a vote.

02:15:13 I didn’t even get a penalty.

02:15:15 I can’t even get a vote.

02:15:17 And that’s when I broke.

02:15:21 I like, oh, I couldn’t believe it.

02:15:25 And I’m not gonna lie, he looked shocked.

02:15:32 And here you’re on your knees.

02:15:34 You’re crying.

02:15:35 Literally crying.

02:15:36 This is it.

02:15:37 Yeah.

02:15:38 But I think it’s the end.

02:15:39 That was such an amazing match.

02:15:40 It was such a war.

02:15:42 I mean, both people can’t believe what happened.

02:15:45 I know.

02:15:46 That’s the, and like, honestly,

02:15:48 I wish we had the rules that we do today,

02:15:50 as far as the unlimited golden score,

02:15:53 because I would have loved to have seen

02:15:56 what would have happened.

02:15:57 What was Jimmy saying here to you?

02:15:59 I mean, I guess there’s nothing to say.

02:16:03 Yeah.

02:16:04 He was kind of apologizing for the way

02:16:06 the scores went.

02:16:11 Cause he knows how badly you want it.

02:16:13 He saw the match.

02:16:14 And he felt I deserved to win it.

02:16:16 Based on like, you know, what happened.

02:16:19 But he probably with all his experience

02:16:21 knows that this is what the Olympics are about.

02:16:24 The refs sometimes.

02:16:26 I mean, that’s the magic of it, man.

02:16:27 Well, and at the same time we’re at,

02:16:31 we’re in the Olympic semi final

02:16:34 in a sport that’s dominated by certain continents.

02:16:37 And when you look at the three refs on the mat,

02:16:40 they’re all European.

02:16:42 Yeah.

02:16:43 You’re telling me there couldn’t have been one Pan Am,

02:16:45 one African, one Oceana, you know, different.

02:16:49 Like, why’d they all have to be European?

02:16:51 But to be fair, it’s back to your sauna story.

02:16:55 Correct.

02:16:56 You’ve dealt with this stuff before.

02:16:57 And you’ve won over this stuff before.

02:17:00 And that’s why, like, I was broken for life.

02:17:02 And you thought you won here, that was.

02:17:05 And when I hindered on that for a year and a half,

02:17:09 like I couldn’t even stand, I was done.

02:17:13 But I’m pretty sure there’s a slow motion replay

02:17:15 on this when I watched it.

02:17:16 Hey, he’s all excited, that fucking guy.

02:17:19 And he’s all happy.

02:17:20 It’s a relief.

02:17:21 Hey, hey, hi guys.

02:17:23 I did it.

02:17:26 Yeah, so here’s like.

02:17:26 Look at those teeth.

02:17:27 My teeth are red.

02:17:29 Slow motion replay of the flag being raised,

02:17:32 the heart being broken, Travis just bending over.

02:17:35 Right here, watch.

02:17:35 Watch his reaction.

02:17:36 Like, he, like, you could see his mouth, like,

02:17:39 open in awe, like, really?

02:17:42 And he’s looking at two refs just like I am.

02:17:44 He didn’t celebrate until he looked at the third one

02:17:46 and said, oh, all three.

02:17:49 So you think he knew he lost?

02:17:50 I think in his head, like,

02:17:53 I don’t think he really believed he was winning.

02:17:55 He did enough to win, yeah.

02:17:57 Yeah.

02:17:58 Because when his mouth dropped, like,

02:18:02 oh yeah, hey, all three.

02:18:03 Like, that’s not really the reaction you would give.

02:18:07 Yeah, I mean, that was,

02:18:10 that’s one of the greatest matches I’ve ever seen.

02:18:12 I mean, obviously it’s painful for you,

02:18:14 but that pain, first of all, sets the stage for 2016.

02:18:19 But even without that,

02:18:21 I think it was just a beautiful story at the Olympics.

02:18:25 You’ve still did incredible job at that Olympics.

02:18:28 You stood toe to toe.

02:18:30 I think in hindsight, having lost that match

02:18:36 did more for me and more for the sport.

02:18:39 Yeah, absolutely.

02:18:40 As a whole, me losing that match.

02:18:42 Yeah.

02:18:43 I mean, stories aren’t about winning.

02:18:46 Stories are about the fighting.

02:18:47 So, and that made one hell of a story.

02:18:50 But it also has to do with, you know,

02:18:55 you know, treachery is probably not the right word to use.

02:18:59 It’s probably the wrong word entirely to use.

02:19:02 But because of the conflict in the match

02:19:06 and because of how the refs handled the match there

02:19:09 at the end, it created controversy

02:19:12 that was spoken about for months on world media, right?

02:19:18 I remember articles being written about the Olympics

02:19:21 and, you know, the refing and how it was corrupt

02:19:24 and that match was one of them.

02:19:26 There was another one in fencing

02:19:28 where like something happened with the timer

02:19:30 where one of the fencers, I guess what happens in fencing,

02:19:35 the timer resets up a second if it’s down.

02:19:39 So the fencer got one second played out,

02:19:42 I think like 27 or 28 times and then one on like 30.

02:19:48 So like there was like clock fixing for fencing.

02:19:51 There was this match that I think just got publicity,

02:19:54 good or bad.

02:19:55 Publicity is publicity for judo.

02:19:58 And then you came back to, I mean,

02:20:01 this is the hard thing after this heartbreak

02:20:03 to step up and continue fighting, right?

02:20:06 I really, really struggled.

02:20:09 Like unbelievably struggled from 2012 to like 2014.

02:20:14 I almost quit numerous times.

02:20:16 I was so angry.

02:20:17 I mean, at one point I got so mad at the IGF

02:20:21 feeling like they were fucking me every step of the way.

02:20:24 I threw a water bottle at a referee after a match.

02:20:28 I cussed out a referee one time on a mat.

02:20:30 I got suspended from the sport

02:20:32 because I was just so angry at that point in time.

02:20:36 And IGF is the International Judo Federation

02:20:39 and are they the people that supply the referees

02:20:41 basically like the certification?

02:20:42 They kind of run the sport on a global scale.

02:20:45 So you sent a few emails 2014, 15, basically quitting.

02:20:54 One of them said I’m mentally and physically broken.

02:20:57 Another said, well, the subject line, I’m done.

02:21:00 The weight cuts didn’t break you.

02:21:02 No.

02:21:05 So if this broke you,

02:21:06 you were really going through a hard time.

02:21:09 I was like, you know what?

02:21:10 We’re just gonna like dumb it down a little bit

02:21:13 and get some wins under our belt.

02:21:14 I’m gonna go to a world cup,

02:21:16 which is like three stages down or four stages down

02:21:20 from like the Olympic games.

02:21:22 Like this should be like a cake walk.

02:21:24 Like making the final of a world cup

02:21:26 should be a walk in the park.

02:21:28 I show up.

02:21:30 I barely beat a 16 year old kid, barely.

02:21:35 Then I got smoked in the second round.

02:21:37 I got thrown three times.

02:21:40 I was like, I’m fucking done.

02:21:42 They changed all the fucking rules.

02:21:44 They fucked me out of the Olympics.

02:21:46 Like, what am I supposed to do?

02:21:49 And it was at that moment when I wrote the email

02:21:52 where I remember sitting at a bar,

02:21:55 I don’t drink by the way,

02:21:56 but I was sitting at a bar at the hotel sending this email

02:22:01 and I got a response back from Jimmy and he goes,

02:22:04 well, just stay for the training camp,

02:22:07 go to Germany and then whatever happens,

02:22:09 don’t worry about it.

02:22:10 We’ll talk when you get home.

02:22:12 I was like, fuck that, fuck these people, fuck the rules.

02:22:16 I don’t fucking care anymore.

02:22:17 I’m just gonna do judo the way I wanna do judo.

02:22:19 If I fucking get shit out, fuck them.

02:22:22 That was my response.

02:22:24 Can you become an Olympic champion?

02:22:26 Can you become an Olympic medalist?

02:22:28 With that kind of thinking, you think or no?

02:22:30 Was that, that’s counterproductive?

02:22:32 Yeah.

02:22:33 Okay, just checking because maybe that’s also liberating.

02:22:37 The expectation was no longer

02:22:39 that Travis is gonna win this tournament.

02:22:41 The expectation was Travis is gonna come home

02:22:43 and be fucking pissed off

02:22:44 and we’re gonna have to figure out

02:22:45 how to manage a pissed off person that’s trying to quit

02:22:49 that shouldn’t be quitting.

02:22:50 And did people still believe

02:22:52 that you can be a medalist again?

02:22:54 Yeah.

02:22:55 Like who believed that?

02:22:56 Jimmy believed it, the team managers believed it,

02:22:58 some of my teammates still believed it,

02:23:01 my training partners still did,

02:23:03 but they’re not the ones that are cutting the weight,

02:23:06 flying around, feeling like all of your Judo

02:23:11 is now null and void, right?

02:23:12 Because at this point, they took away leg grabs entirely.

02:23:17 You couldn’t break a grip with two hands, right?

02:23:20 The meta of Judo has changed again, right?

02:23:23 So I got fucked out of it.

02:23:26 They took away how I did Judo again

02:23:28 and now it’s just got more difficult.

02:23:30 So when I’m sitting in the hotel and I’m sending this email,

02:23:34 I remember being at the training camp,

02:23:37 I was like, I don’t even fucking care what the rules are,

02:23:40 I’m just gonna fucking throw people,

02:23:41 I don’t even care if I’m cheating,

02:23:43 doesn’t matter to me, I’ll just play stupid, right?

02:23:46 So I just started going back and doing Judo

02:23:48 without the leg grabs,

02:23:50 but with all the same gripping that I was doing beforehand.

02:23:54 And then when I got to Germany,

02:23:56 I was like, I don’t fucking care.

02:23:58 I was like, if I gotta cheat to win,

02:24:00 then I gotta fucking cheat to win.

02:24:03 If I get sheeted out, then I get sheeted out

02:24:06 and I won Germany.

02:24:09 Which event in Germany?

02:24:10 The German Grand Prix, which was a week

02:24:14 after losing the World Cup.

02:24:16 Because I was trying to do Judo around the new rule set.

02:24:20 I wasn’t just trying to do Judo, right?

02:24:23 Because when you get to the highest level,

02:24:25 your game tends to morph around

02:24:28 what can you can or cannot get away with.

02:24:33 I was more focused on trying to figure out

02:24:35 what I can and can’t get away with

02:24:37 and I stopped actively doing Judo.

02:24:40 Once I said, fuck whatever the rule changes are,

02:24:42 I’m just gonna keep doing Judo

02:24:43 the way I know how to do Judo

02:24:45 and if I get a penalty, then so be it.

02:24:48 And so that win, that started the road back.

02:24:51 The road back, yeah.

02:24:54 Cause now it’s like, I don’t care if you penalize me or not

02:24:57 because I’m gonna throw that guy anyways.

02:25:00 I’m gonna beat him anyways.

02:25:02 And if I get a Shido for doing something wrong,

02:25:05 then I’ll just stop doing that one thing

02:25:07 and just keep doing all the other things

02:25:09 that they told me I probably shouldn’t be doing

02:25:10 but they’re not calling me on it

02:25:11 so I’m just gonna keep doing it.

02:25:15 Well, you found yourself at the 2016 Olympics.

02:25:21 Was that ever a doubt, by the way,

02:25:23 after this, after 2014 in Germany?

02:25:27 I had a lot of doubt after the concussion in 2015.

02:25:31 I remember when I first came back

02:25:34 after four months of nothingness

02:25:37 that even trying to train,

02:25:41 the room would start to tilt the world on me.

02:25:44 And then when I finally got over that

02:25:46 and I could start doing things again,

02:25:47 I stepped on the mat for the Pan Ams

02:25:50 and I was like, drowning’s not the right word

02:25:54 but everything was being done in such a slow motion.

02:25:57 I had sandbags everywhere that I just couldn’t keep up.

02:26:02 Like mental fog.

02:26:04 Yeah, I remember fighting the Brazilian

02:26:08 in the semifinal of Pan Ams.

02:26:10 I was halfway through this match

02:26:12 and I’m just like, eyes roll up,

02:26:14 I’m like, I’m just gonna fucking wing it.

02:26:16 And I just fucking winged it

02:26:17 and I got countered and thrown free pwn

02:26:18 and I was like, I don’t even know what to do.

02:26:21 And I couldn’t even think clearly.

02:26:24 And that’s when I was like, I may not come back.

02:26:27 Yeah.

02:26:28 You don’t have control over how to come back from this.

02:26:30 It’s like, it’s just your mind

02:26:31 and it’s not operating correctly.

02:26:33 It’s not like I can like,

02:26:35 oh, my right hand’s not working because it’s fractured.

02:26:37 Let me figure out a way I can not use that.

02:26:39 Like when your mind’s not working,

02:26:40 like it’s the one thing you need.

02:26:44 Like you gotta have it.

02:26:45 So I can work through anything else.

02:26:47 I needed that though.

02:26:49 And so how did you come back from that time?

02:26:51 That’s when I wrote another email and I was like,

02:26:53 I’m fucking off team USA.

02:26:55 I’m not fucking, I’m all done with USA judo.

02:26:57 I’m done with the tour.

02:26:58 I was like, I quit.

02:27:00 Well, I’m gonna go do my own thing.

02:27:01 They were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

02:27:03 Can’t quit now.

02:27:04 Olympics is in like a year.

02:27:05 Like let’s talk about this again

02:27:07 cause it’s the second time I’ve tried to quit

02:27:08 in like two years.

02:27:10 Right?

02:27:12 So then we sit down in Jimmy’s office and he’s like,

02:27:14 whoa, whoa, whoa, you can’t quit.

02:27:16 You’re gonna kick yourself if you don’t go to Rio.

02:27:19 I’m telling you right now, don’t do that to yourself.

02:27:22 Let’s figure out a way of like doing this.

02:27:23 And I was like, because when we trained before,

02:27:27 we did it as a unit, right?

02:27:29 We all went to the same tournaments.

02:27:30 We all went to the same training camps.

02:27:31 And I’m like, you guys are treating me

02:27:33 like I’m the same player I used to be.

02:27:36 I go, I don’t, I’m not operating

02:27:38 at the level you think I’m operating at.

02:27:40 I go, I can’t do that.

02:27:41 And he goes, well, what do you wanna do?

02:27:43 And I go, I’ll tell you what Jimmy,

02:27:45 you know I’m being serious because my answer

02:27:47 is something you’d never would have expected.

02:27:49 I go, why don’t you just send me to Japan for three weeks?

02:27:52 And he was like, really?

02:27:54 I hated Japan.

02:27:55 I refused to go there up until this point.

02:27:59 But I was like, I have to get to a point

02:28:01 where I can get so tired and get through it

02:28:05 that like my Judo will come back

02:28:07 and my body will learn again.

02:28:10 And when you say Japan, you mean the Kodokan,

02:28:12 like what’s Tokai, is that the highest level of Judo?

02:28:16 It’s one of the top colleges in the world, yeah.

02:28:18 And that’s so you can go with the best people in the world.

02:28:21 You can go to war with them.

02:28:22 Top level, like strong players.

02:28:24 Yeah, there’s a lot of very strong players.

02:28:27 There’s a lot of middle class players

02:28:29 and there’s a lot of volume of rounds.

02:28:32 So you value all of it, the middle class too, like the.

02:28:35 Because when you’re tired, like you can’t just train

02:28:37 in areas where you’re battling for every inch.

02:28:41 At some point you have to be successful, right?

02:28:46 So you still under duress and under strain

02:28:48 and through exhaustion,

02:28:51 you still have to have the ability to score.

02:28:53 Well, if you’re training with the best people

02:28:55 in the world all the time,

02:28:56 you’re not always gonna be able to score.

02:28:58 So you still need those B level players

02:29:00 in order to really develop again.

02:29:03 What is it like, if you can comment briefly

02:29:06 on the training in Japan,

02:29:08 what’s it like to go into a different place?

02:29:11 You probably don’t speak the language that well.

02:29:14 Like, is there an isolation aspect to it?

02:29:17 Is it like purely about judo now?

02:29:19 I really want it to be isolated.

02:29:22 No training partners, no coaches.

02:29:24 I want it to get back to my roots

02:29:26 and just learn how to fight again.

02:29:30 I don’t wanna figure out how to beat the German.

02:29:32 I don’t wanna figure out how I can develop a new entry

02:29:37 into my sale against, you know, whoever it may be.

02:29:41 It’s not.

02:29:42 You just wanna fight hard.

02:29:42 You just wanna fight.

02:29:44 Let me get back to fighting.

02:29:45 Let me get back to like the root of who I am.

02:29:48 What were those sessions like?

02:29:49 What were we talking about?

02:29:51 Five minute rounds?

02:29:51 Like what, how many?

02:29:53 Six minute rounds, 30 minute breaks,

02:29:55 14 rounds a session.

02:29:58 Sorry, what’s the 30 minute break?

02:30:00 30 second break.

02:30:01 30 second break.

02:30:02 30 second break.

02:30:04 Sorry, what?

02:30:05 14?

02:30:06 14 rounds.

02:30:07 14 rounds.

02:30:08 Every day?

02:30:09 Every day.

02:30:10 Like five days a week

02:30:13 and then 11 or 12 rounds on Saturday.

02:30:17 Plus weightlifting, plus running.

02:30:19 Plus weightlifting, plus running.

02:30:21 So those are hard rounds.

02:30:23 What’s it feel like to go through that?

02:30:25 So you have a bunch of just a sea of black belts, Japan.

02:30:31 I’m sure they’re hunting you a little bit.

02:30:33 Depending on who you are.

02:30:35 I was hunted a little bit.

02:30:36 Like I didn’t really struggle because of who I am.

02:30:39 Them as college athletes,

02:30:41 they wanna show to their coaches

02:30:44 and their higher players,

02:30:46 like, oh look, I can throw the world number whoever.

02:30:50 But if you’re just a guy who shows up,

02:30:52 like them beating you doesn’t provide any value

02:30:55 or raise their status.

02:30:57 No, but you’re status raising.

02:30:59 Yes.

02:31:00 So I was actually like in a situation

02:31:04 where nobody was watching me

02:31:06 and I was free to just battle at my own will.

02:31:09 Okay.

02:31:10 Which is what it was about for me.

02:31:12 And you just push yourself.

02:31:14 Because I knew how to do that.

02:31:15 I know how to push myself.

02:31:17 Are you, when you’re doing these 14 rounds,

02:31:19 is every single one a standalone thing for you?

02:31:23 Yep.

02:31:24 So you’re not trying to pace yourself?

02:31:25 No.

02:31:26 Each one is to as much exhaustion as I can get.

02:31:29 But then there must be ones where like it’s like round nine

02:31:33 where you got nothing left.

02:31:35 Better figure out how to score.

02:31:36 That’s all you gotta do.

02:31:38 You gotta survive and you gotta score.

02:31:41 What’s your memories of that, of those three weeks?

02:31:44 What’s like, what stands out to you?

02:31:46 It seems like,

02:31:48 cause that’s the place where you found the silver medal.

02:31:51 Yep.

02:31:53 Because it’s the place most people don’t want to be.

02:31:57 Everybody’s comfortable.

02:31:59 I would rather,

02:32:01 I would rather find out who I am and what I’m made of

02:32:03 and find those, those end points.

02:32:06 And if I can’t find them,

02:32:08 then that means everybody else has given up before me.

02:32:14 Were there a few people that just kinda,

02:32:16 you returned to battle over and over in those times

02:32:19 and then it was just.

02:32:21 Yep.

02:32:24 No social media.

02:32:25 Nope.

02:32:26 None of that, it’s just like two men.

02:32:28 You lock yourself in your room,

02:32:30 you come back, you’ve thought about it

02:32:32 and you come back with a game plan for that day.

02:32:35 Against some players here or there

02:32:37 and I would, I would develop a hit list.

02:32:40 Like I would be like,

02:32:41 oh, that motherfucker grabbed me at like 13

02:32:44 and I watched him sit fucking four rounds

02:32:46 and then come try to kick the shit out of me.

02:32:48 I’m gonna fucking grab that guy early

02:32:49 and I’m gonna beat the shit out of him.

02:32:51 And you just develop that list.

02:32:53 There’s probably some epic battles in that room, right?

02:32:55 Yeah.

02:32:57 What’s it look like?

02:32:58 Like how crowded is it?

02:33:00 Very.

02:33:01 And so you’re just like, yeah.

02:33:02 Just sea of people.

02:33:04 Sea of people.

02:33:05 And you’re trying to,

02:33:05 are you doing groundwork at all?

02:33:06 Just throws.

02:33:07 Just throws.

02:33:08 Just throws.

02:33:09 No transitions, no nothing.

02:33:10 But if I get pissed off and like you keep dropping

02:33:12 or like not letting me do what I wanna do,

02:33:14 I’ll rip a choke right across your face.

02:33:16 Just to let you know that like,

02:33:18 and if I wanted to.

02:33:18 You have a really nice style of just like

02:33:22 respectfully bullying the shit out of people.

02:33:26 Cause some people call me a bully

02:33:28 and I have to remind them that like

02:33:31 a bully enjoys like beating up the weak.

02:33:34 Right.

02:33:35 I wanna beat the person that fights back.

02:33:38 Right, exactly.

02:33:38 It’s not fun for me if you don’t fight back.

02:33:40 Right.

02:33:41 Some of the greatest people I’ve seen like do this,

02:33:44 they basically,

02:33:46 you have this in the Iowa wrestling rooms,

02:33:48 they’ll push each other into the wall.

02:33:49 Like they get, there’s like anger,

02:33:51 but it’s ultimately underneath it all.

02:33:53 It’s like a deep respect.

02:33:55 I was training with Colton Brown one time

02:33:57 and I went to San Jose State

02:33:58 cause I was in California for something.

02:34:01 And he kept like,

02:34:02 he kept circling to the edge.

02:34:04 They had like a cupboard that had like,

02:34:06 when you opened it,

02:34:07 it had like all the tape and like medical supplies.

02:34:09 I was like, we’ll fucking put you right through that.

02:34:11 And he kind of giggled.

02:34:13 And then he went by that edge

02:34:14 and I fucking ran him right through it.

02:34:15 Yeah.

02:34:16 See, to me, that’s an ultimate sign of respect

02:34:19 that both you and Colton will remember well.

02:34:21 And we’re still friends.

02:34:22 We still talk.

02:34:23 It’s just, I told him I was gonna do it.

02:34:24 He knew I meant it too.

02:34:25 Yeah.

02:34:26 He did it anyways.

02:34:27 That just tested me.

02:34:31 Yeah.

02:34:32 Listen, that’s,

02:34:33 and that same attitude was,

02:34:35 that was in Japan just day after day after day after day.

02:34:39 14 rounds.

02:34:40 That’s rough.

02:34:42 And you didn’t sit out rounds?

02:34:44 And I did it all with a broken hand.

02:34:47 How?

02:34:50 How did you do it with a broken hand?

02:34:52 You show up every day.

02:34:53 You show up.

02:34:54 Okay.

02:34:55 Which one, left or right?

02:34:56 My right.

02:34:57 Okay.

02:34:58 So that’s okay.

02:34:59 So you can then focus on gripping with your left.

02:35:01 It’s always a way.

02:35:02 It’s always a way.

02:35:04 But that means you can’t,

02:35:04 I guess you don’t have to grip with your right sometimes.

02:35:07 I would palm it with my thumb just like hanging out

02:35:10 like this, just like this.

02:35:11 So you can do something.

02:35:12 So you can do like a Goshi,

02:35:14 cause you have a,

02:35:16 cause I,

02:35:16 what were your main throws?

02:35:17 It was Seinagi.

02:35:19 Koshiguruma.

02:35:20 Okay.

02:35:21 Sumi.

02:35:22 Uchimata.

02:35:22 Uchimata.

02:35:23 But you have this big like a Goshi type of thing.

02:35:27 Like a.

02:35:28 Yeah, but not from like around the waist.

02:35:30 It’s from over the shoulder.

02:35:32 Over the shoulder.

02:35:32 And I can do it with just the one hand.

02:35:35 Oh, sorry, which one hand?

02:35:36 The right one.

02:35:38 I don’t need the sleeve hand.

02:35:39 You don’t need the sleeve hand,

02:35:40 but you couldn’t do it with the broken hand.

02:35:42 I could.

02:35:44 Cause I can just put my hand in the gi

02:35:45 so it can’t come off.

02:35:48 And then you just,

02:35:50 cause what happened was three days

02:35:52 before I was leaving for Japan,

02:35:53 a guy, my hand was rested like this on a mat

02:35:57 and the guy, boom, took my whole thumb off

02:35:59 and tore all the tendons in the palm.

02:36:02 So when I went to the doctor, he was like,

02:36:05 you know, do we have to put a cast on it?

02:36:06 And I go, I’m leaving in three days.

02:36:08 You’re not putting a cast on it.

02:36:10 And I go, this is what I want you to do.

02:36:11 Just like this, I said,

02:36:12 I want you to build a cast that holds it,

02:36:16 that Velcros around so that when I’m not training,

02:36:19 I can wear it.

02:36:21 But then when I’m training,

02:36:22 I’ll take it off and then I’ll put the tape on it.

02:36:25 And then whatever happens, happens.

02:36:26 Whatever happens, happens.

02:36:31 All right, so that’s Epic.

02:36:33 And that led you to the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

02:36:37 Well, that led me to winning Pan Am Gold

02:36:39 when I got back from Japan

02:36:41 and then almost getting my leg cut off in 2015.

02:36:45 That was like, I don’t know, maybe a month or two later.

02:36:49 I was hospitalized for seven days.

02:36:51 The leg being cut off for what?

02:36:53 I had three different types of bacterial infections

02:36:56 in my right leg, a whole leg swelled.

02:36:59 And it was in my blood, skin and in my bone,

02:37:04 in my right leg.

02:37:08 So I got stuck at MGH in a hospital for seven days

02:37:11 until they figured out what the bacteria source was.

02:37:15 Where was the source of the infection?

02:37:17 Is it in the knee?

02:37:19 In the knee?

02:37:19 Yeah.

02:37:20 Okay, so obviously there’s a danger of like,

02:37:23 that’s life threatening.

02:37:24 Yep, so when I went into the emergency room,

02:37:26 when I got back from the Worlds,

02:37:28 the lady was like, hey, you need to call,

02:37:30 you’re gonna call because you may lose your leg tonight.

02:37:34 And then they put me in the hospital.

02:37:36 What do you think of this whole time?

02:37:38 Are you still thinking about Olympics?

02:37:40 They put me into the room like four hours later,

02:37:43 the doctor came in.

02:37:46 I was at MGH in Boston and he was like,

02:37:50 you have a serious infection in your leg.

02:37:53 I go, he’s like, we have to keep you hospitalized

02:37:56 until we can figure out what it is.

02:37:57 And I was like, buddy,

02:37:59 I have the Olympic games in less than a year.

02:38:01 I go, I don’t give a fuck what it is.

02:38:03 I go, just fucking take it out

02:38:05 and let me get on with my day.

02:38:06 He goes, we can’t do that.

02:38:08 Like, I don’t understand.

02:38:10 I go, you told me it’s infected,

02:38:12 just cut away that part of the tissue,

02:38:14 drain it, do whatever you gotta do

02:38:16 and then send me on my way.

02:38:17 He’s like, it doesn’t work like that.

02:38:18 He said, until we figure out what it is,

02:38:20 we can’t figure out how to stop it from growing

02:38:22 or how far it spread.

02:38:24 So it took them seven days to figure out what it was.

02:38:27 Then once they figured out what it was,

02:38:29 I went in for surgery to remove it.

02:38:32 Then I spent, I think it was eight weeks

02:38:35 in home care with a PICC line.

02:38:39 And then I came back from that.

02:38:41 On the first week and a half of judo,

02:38:43 I tore my SI joint trying to throw a guy.

02:38:46 And then I came back from that about a month later

02:38:49 and then fifth at the Connell Cup.

02:38:52 And then the games six months later.

02:38:54 How quickly do doctors understand who they’re dealing with?

02:38:57 Like, is that difficult for you to explain

02:38:59 who Travis Stevens is when you go to visit a doctor?

02:39:02 I don’t think they understand, you know,

02:39:07 their role is to get me to do my job

02:39:10 to the best of their ability as a doctor.

02:39:13 Meaning, it’s gonna be less than what they want.

02:39:16 And they struggle conceptually with like,

02:39:23 but the textbook tells me this.

02:39:26 And I go, but I’m not a textbook, right?

02:39:28 Like when you go to physical therapy,

02:39:30 the first thing they do is they pull out that binder

02:39:32 that says day one, we do this exercise.

02:39:35 I go, but I have my own goals.

02:39:38 Your job is to help me meet my goal.

02:39:41 Let’s work a plan to do that

02:39:43 or I gotta go find somebody else.

02:39:44 Did the doctors in general,

02:39:47 people outside of your close knit group step up?

02:39:50 If they didn’t, I found somebody else.

02:39:52 And typically I could find a person

02:39:55 who knew the right person.

02:39:58 I always wonder with people like,

02:40:00 cause I’m constantly surrounded by,

02:40:02 one of the biggest problems in my life has been,

02:40:04 there’s a lot of people in my life who love me very much,

02:40:07 but who want me to the equivalent of that situation.

02:40:12 You know, definitely don’t go to the Olympics

02:40:14 and definitely like,

02:40:16 it seems like the world is full of people

02:40:18 that want you to be average and happy, which is great,

02:40:22 which is fine.

02:40:23 I mean, perhaps that’s the way it should be.

02:40:25 Like, you know, my parents, people close to you,

02:40:27 that’s what love, how love manifests itself often in people.

02:40:31 But then like, I think the ultimate manifestation of love

02:40:35 is understanding who this person is.

02:40:37 Here’s a madman who’s driven towards a particular thing.

02:40:40 And the best thing for you to do is not to say,

02:40:43 like rest is to say, work harder.

02:40:49 Like fuck your infection.

02:40:52 You should be training.

02:40:55 Have you ever met anybody as crazy as you

02:40:57 that can help you?

02:40:58 Most of us who get to this point get there

02:41:02 because we’re all a little unstable.

02:41:05 Even my wife, Galita, right?

02:41:07 Like when she was getting ready for 2016,

02:41:11 or when she was getting ready for 2020,

02:41:13 because she moved to Boston to be a coach,

02:41:16 she had a neck problem, right?

02:41:22 And at some point in time, it’s like,

02:41:26 what’s really important?

02:41:29 Day to day life or judo?

02:41:31 And believe it or not, the doctor in Canada was like,

02:41:36 I am never under any circumstances

02:41:39 doing an MRI of your neck again.

02:41:42 That’s what she told her.

02:41:44 She goes, if you have me do an MRI,

02:41:46 you’re not doing judo again.

02:41:47 So just know if you hurt your neck and it requires an MRI,

02:41:52 you’re done with judo forever.

02:41:53 So decide if you wanna do judo or not.

02:41:56 That was a conversation we actually had to have.

02:41:58 That’s a cool thing for a doctor to say.

02:42:01 I mean, it depends how bad ass they sound when they say it.

02:42:05 So that’s a tough conversation.

02:42:06 Judo one, what’s this with your wife?

02:42:09 What’s that relationship like?

02:42:11 So you’re both a little crazy.

02:42:13 A little bit.

02:42:14 In a good sense, or from my perspective, in a good sense.

02:42:18 Yeah, it’s just, we understand that when you set a goal

02:42:24 to do something, you’re not signing on for the good.

02:42:28 Yeah.

02:42:29 You’re signing on for the bad.

02:42:31 And I don’t think a lot of people understand that.

02:42:34 That’s like a Valentine’s Day card from Travis Stevens.

02:42:38 You have to accept everything negative

02:42:40 that could possibly happen.

02:42:42 And until you do, you’re never gonna make it.

02:42:44 Because you’ll always sell yourself short.

02:42:46 Yeah.

02:42:47 You’ll never go far enough.

02:42:49 And if you sign up for the whole thing,

02:42:50 then the negative is just like, oh, great.

02:42:53 I expected that.

02:42:54 If you’re experiencing the negative,

02:42:56 they’re also experiencing the negative.

02:42:58 And if you overcome it,

02:42:59 maybe they’ll get knocked out for it.

02:43:00 Yep.

02:43:01 Maybe they won’t deal with it.

02:43:02 Maybe they won’t train through it.

02:43:05 Right, when I had my five herniated disc

02:43:06 and I was in a neck brace,

02:43:07 I was still in the gym at seven a.m.

02:43:09 Yeah.

02:43:10 Doing whatever it is I could do

02:43:12 because my job is to be at the gym.

02:43:15 David Goggins, I don’t know if you know the guy,

02:43:17 he’s gone, he’s damaged lots of parts of his body,

02:43:20 like you, trying to achieve things.

02:43:23 So, unlike you, his achievements are like,

02:43:28 your achievements come with the medal.

02:43:30 He’s just running in the darkness in the middle of nowhere

02:43:33 by himself.

02:43:34 It’s like, I mean, it’s the same probably as with you

02:43:36 if you’re able to be introspective about it,

02:43:39 is he’s just battling his own inner demons

02:43:41 and working through those

02:43:44 and is breaking his body doing so.

02:43:47 Are you cognizant of the trade off of the fact

02:43:51 that you’re damaging your body

02:43:55 to get to these levels of achievements,

02:43:57 of this level of excellence, of this level of greatness?

02:44:00 I mean, I guess that depends

02:44:02 on what you consider damage really

02:44:04 because I don’t really see that I have damaged my body.

02:44:08 If anything, I think I’ve strengthened it.

02:44:10 My body can go through more than yours can.

02:44:12 Yeah.

02:44:13 Who’s is weaker?

02:44:13 Yeah.

02:44:16 Right?

02:44:17 It’s just like the Thai boxers, right?

02:44:19 Yeah.

02:44:20 In order to strengthen their shins,

02:44:21 they gotta break it a few times.

02:44:22 Yeah.

02:44:23 It’s just nature of the beast.

02:44:24 You just had to break a bunch of stuff

02:44:26 to find where the weak points are

02:44:28 and then made them stronger.

02:44:29 Yep.

02:44:30 Or strengthen the areas around it

02:44:31 to strengthen it by the sheer relation to it.

02:44:36 But the problem is you may not be able to do judo

02:44:41 for until you’re 70.

02:44:44 Why not?

02:44:45 I may not be able to do judo to the level I used to.

02:44:47 Yeah.

02:44:48 Don’t get me wrong, but I can still do judo.

02:44:50 You can still do judo.

02:44:51 And I think a lot of people struggle with,

02:44:53 they wanna keep doing it

02:44:55 like they used to be able to do it.

02:44:57 I don’t try to do judo like I used to,

02:44:59 like you’re seeing here.

02:45:00 I’m not that guy anymore.

02:45:02 I accept that.

02:45:03 I don’t even try to be that guy anymore.

02:45:06 I’m a completely different player today than I am

02:45:09 when I was winning Olympic medals.

02:45:15 And so I guess when you’re looking at my journey

02:45:18 and the trade off is I never sacrificed anything.

02:45:22 The people around me sacrificed for me.

02:45:27 And I never had a downturn after the Olympics

02:45:30 because I never identified as an Olympian.

02:45:35 You know, a lot of Olympians suffer from depression

02:45:38 afterwards.

02:45:39 Because they identify as it.

02:45:40 Now they don’t have who they are.

02:45:42 Where was your personal moment of greatness?

02:45:46 Like, or do you not experience life that way?

02:45:49 Where you were truly proud to be yourself?

02:45:52 Like.

02:45:52 Every day I wake up.

02:45:56 You wake up and you’re not proud of who you are,

02:45:57 then you’ve really gotta seek out some help.

02:46:01 So that’s, first of all, okay, I’ll do that

02:46:03 because I definitely am not proud of who I am.

02:46:07 I just wonder if you didn’t identify with the Olympics,

02:46:11 was there times, maybe in the training room,

02:46:14 maybe in Japan, where you just kinda felt like,

02:46:19 I get more of an emotional, I guess, trigger, right?

02:46:24 Where like, I feel proud of what I’ve done

02:46:27 when I’ve set to a task and I’ve done it.

02:46:33 So almost any task.

02:46:35 And the more challenging the task, the more reward.

02:46:40 You fought a lot of amazing battles in 2016 Olympics.

02:46:44 So you got, you beat the, let’s see,

02:46:47 the world number four in the quarterfinals.

02:46:51 It’s like a replay.

02:46:52 Every single Olympics, you’re,

02:46:54 all the people.

02:46:55 I got terrible draws.

02:46:57 Terrible draws.

02:46:58 And then you’re facing,

02:46:59 this is where I was like watching this,

02:47:00 I’m like, yeah, he’s screwed.

02:47:02 You faced the world number one, the Georgian, in the.

02:47:05 By the way, for people who don’t know,

02:47:07 he beat me five times to my beating him once,

02:47:11 and the one time I beat him was in London.

02:47:13 And all other times he beat me, he beat me biathlon.

02:47:16 And not by like a little throw,

02:47:19 like he threw me on my head.

02:47:22 At one point we were in Georgia.

02:47:25 I’m fighting him in the final.

02:47:27 I go to my teammate and I go, guess what?

02:47:29 Make sure you watch this fight.

02:47:30 Somebody’s getting thrown free pwn.

02:47:32 This match ain’t, this ain’t match going to distance.

02:47:34 And about a minute in,

02:47:36 I tried to take his head off with a big Koshiguruma,

02:47:38 which is like a head and arm.

02:47:41 He caught me and then threw me on my head

02:47:42 and ended the match.

02:47:44 So first of all, we’re watching the video of you,

02:47:48 again, standing next to the guy

02:47:50 leading up to your semifinal match.

02:47:52 So here, if you win this, you’re guaranteed a medal.

02:47:56 But the chances of you winning, from my fan perspective,

02:47:59 I was like, God damn it.

02:48:01 You and the rest of the world, except for me.

02:48:03 Except for you.

02:48:04 What are you saying?

02:48:05 You’re talking to yourself here.

02:48:07 What are you saying?

02:48:08 My name is Travis Stevens.

02:48:09 I’m an Olympic champion.

02:48:10 I will not be denied.

02:48:14 The George is probably like,

02:48:15 what the hell is this guy saying?

02:48:17 What is he talking to himself?

02:48:20 So he was probably ultra confident.

02:48:22 Yeah, had to be.

02:48:24 The difference is,

02:48:26 is I understood the last five times he beat me.

02:48:29 I was purposely trying to throw him, not beat him.

02:48:33 I wanted to find out if I could.

02:48:35 Turns out I can’t.

02:48:38 But I don’t need to throw him to beat him.

02:48:40 I need to know how to not lose.

02:48:44 But you were still going for stuff here.

02:48:47 But all of my attacks drag him to the ground.

02:48:51 They’re never standing on my feet.

02:48:55 Which is a complete, which is a distinction

02:48:56 that we talked about at the very beginning, right?

02:48:59 You have throws where you’re standing

02:49:00 and throws where you’re dropping.

02:49:01 Every time I try to throw him standing,

02:49:04 he throws me free pony.

02:49:05 He picks me up and he throws me on my head, literally.

02:49:08 So what I did is I just needed to get to that last

02:49:10 one minute mark, which is what he does mentally

02:49:13 in his own Judo, where he changes into a panic

02:49:16 and just tries to do things that are uncharacteristic.

02:49:21 So you knew he’s gonna start panicking here

02:49:23 as the match draws to a close

02:49:26 and you both have a Shido, a penalty.

02:49:29 Did we pass the point where I went for broke

02:49:31 and I broke my rule?

02:49:33 Which one?

02:49:34 I went for a crazy foot sweep, like Ippon switch thing.

02:49:42 I can’t even remember what it’s called

02:49:43 because it’s not used that often.

02:49:45 And he actually landed on top of me

02:49:47 and some people wanted it to be called Ippon.

02:49:50 But he had actually let go of the gi

02:49:53 and was looking for the mat.

02:49:54 So he didn’t have any control.

02:49:55 So they didn’t award him a point.

02:49:59 Yeah, and here we go.

02:49:59 Now we’re getting down into the,

02:50:00 see like he’s getting frustrated.

02:50:02 Great.

02:50:03 I love it. Perfect.

02:50:05 Second penalty, no big deal.

02:50:07 We just got to get to the one minute mark.

02:50:09 That’s all we got to do.

02:50:13 So there’s no panic here for you.

02:50:15 Nope, I’m right where I need to be and look it.

02:50:19 Now, if you go back into this match,

02:50:23 I would love for somebody to go back

02:50:25 and see how many times he did a drop right Ippon Seinagi.

02:50:31 Probably never.

02:50:32 Yeah.

02:50:33 Why is he doing it now?

02:50:35 Cause he panics and he changes his Judo

02:50:38 at that one minute mark.

02:50:40 Look how much I kept that grip.

02:50:43 Yeah, you kept, you have that grip this whole time.

02:50:46 You have your left hand.

02:50:48 Walking him down.

02:50:48 Walking him down.

02:50:51 He, you keep the grip as he’s throwing.

02:50:54 Yeah.

02:50:55 Which, were you thinking choke as he drops or no?

02:50:58 It’s just kind of natural instinct.

02:51:00 Yeah, because we drilled it.

02:51:02 I spent two years drilling this transition.

02:51:04 And then very, so for people that don’t do Judo, Jujitsu,

02:51:08 it’s like really nice.

02:51:09 You keep, everything is nicely controlled

02:51:12 to where you’re keeping that Gi under his chin.

02:51:15 Like it’s really tight control.

02:51:16 Like it’s very, like you’re, I guess it’s drilling,

02:51:19 but you’re cognizant of the position of your wrist

02:51:21 the whole time.

02:51:22 And you can tell based on like just years of doing it,

02:51:25 whether it’s under or it’s not.

02:51:27 You can just feel the difference.

02:51:29 And it’s probably, even if you wanted to stop that,

02:51:32 it’s very difficult because your whole time, it’s like.

02:51:34 Once it’s under, it’s almost impossible to stop.

02:51:38 For people who practice Jujitsu, don’t practice Judo,

02:51:41 one of the very annoying things about Judo

02:51:44 is in order to do Gi chokes,

02:51:47 they have to be under the chin.

02:51:48 Yes.

02:51:50 Even though the kind of intense chokes you do

02:51:52 work just fine over the chin, but.

02:51:55 And the kicker here and why we practice this choke

02:51:59 was because when you go back and watch

02:52:01 all of the other matches, he always does this tripod

02:52:04 when I try to do arm locks,

02:52:06 which is typically what I would do.

02:52:08 And when I do that, he ends up sliding out

02:52:10 and I end up falling off.

02:52:12 So you step up here with the choke,

02:52:14 he does a tripod where he sticks his button to the air

02:52:18 and you, dude, what’s the name of this choke?

02:52:23 Bone arrow.

02:52:24 No, but, okay, but I mean, when you do from like,

02:52:27 from that position, is there a way,

02:52:30 this entry into the bone arrow, I guess,

02:52:32 because you’re doing.

02:52:33 We refer to Judo as a British strangle,

02:52:36 when they’re in that turtle position

02:52:38 and you do that rolling motion.

02:52:39 Cool.

02:52:41 And here, when you go into that,

02:52:43 you can fall off of him, like you said,

02:52:45 if you’re going for an arm bar,

02:52:47 but here, literally, because you have it under the chin

02:52:50 really well, there’s just a nice control.

02:52:53 And I’ve already planned on it being on his chin.

02:52:56 That’s why I’ve hooked the arm, right?

02:52:58 It’s already starting to go straight.

02:53:00 Probably this choke in the early stages,

02:53:03 like a few frames before, feels like it,

02:53:08 like you’re safe, it’s fine.

02:53:11 Like the head will slip out or something like that.

02:53:13 Yeah, and that’s why my left knee is up by his shoulder,

02:53:17 to keep that pressure down so that he can’t posture it up.

02:53:24 When did you know you have this?

02:53:25 Oh, it works right here.

02:53:29 I actually panicked right about here.

02:53:36 Was maybe his head could come out?

02:53:39 My hand, I tore the muscle in my palm

02:53:42 because I was pulling so hard that I’m like,

02:53:45 he may not tap.

02:53:47 Yeah.

02:53:48 Like, is my hand just going to give out beforehand?

02:53:52 And there he is.

02:53:52 And we’re right on this edge, right?

02:53:55 So like, if we roll a little bit outside

02:53:57 and I still don’t have it, like that ref could stop it.

02:54:00 And then I felt him tapping and.

02:54:03 Oh, that, he’s heartbroken.

02:54:08 I felt.

02:54:09 Surprised.

02:54:10 There it is.

02:54:13 The relief.

02:54:13 Olympic final.

02:54:17 And he knew, he knew he lost an Olympic medal right there

02:54:22 because he already knew

02:54:23 that the Japanese guy was going to be his bronze,

02:54:26 that he never beats.

02:54:29 See the, but also he probably in his head

02:54:35 was confident that he would be in the final.

02:54:37 Correct.

02:54:38 And so like this, he almost is surprised.

02:54:41 Yeah.

02:54:42 It’s not supposed to happen this way.

02:54:45 And it’s the second time it’s happened.

02:54:47 And that’s how you became an Olympic medalist.

02:54:54 Man, that must be a great feeling.

02:54:57 That must be a great feeling right here.

02:55:00 Just like all the years of injuries, all of it.

02:55:07 As fans that watch this too, it’s like, holy shit.

02:55:11 He actually did it.

02:55:11 And it’s a packed stadium too.

02:55:13 Not one empty seat.

02:55:15 Oh man.

02:55:18 So maybe what were you thinking here?

02:55:22 I’ll just focus on the next match.

02:55:24 Yeah.

02:55:25 It took me maybe like a minute or so to like decompress

02:55:32 and then like get back to like my normal state

02:55:35 for the final.

02:55:39 So the final is against the,

02:55:42 the Russian here.

02:55:45 What can you say about your mindset?

02:55:49 You’re saying the exact same thing.

02:55:50 Same thing.

02:55:51 Travel Stevens, Olympic champion.

02:55:54 I will not be denied because I had felt like in London

02:55:58 and throughout the years, I felt like I kept getting robbed.

02:56:02 So I made sure in my mantra to add that little bit

02:56:04 at the end to reassure myself that like,

02:56:07 they are not gonna control the outcome of today.

02:56:10 I’m gonna control the outcome.

02:56:12 What did you know about the Russian?

02:56:14 Everything.

02:56:17 And I honestly, I thought I had won the Olympics right now.

02:56:20 And I still do think that today.

02:56:22 Just like mentally when you think about it,

02:56:26 that I’ve won like, yeah, he threw me,

02:56:33 but it was like a one in a million chance

02:56:35 that that worked for him.

02:56:37 Like, come on.

02:56:38 So it’s not like you feel lucky to be in the final.

02:56:42 It’s like, you deserve to be champion.

02:56:44 Again, remember, I’m anticipating the goal.

02:56:47 Like I’m past that.

02:56:50 There’s a confidence in the way you’re moving

02:56:52 and the way you’re.

02:56:52 Yeah, like I have his sleeve.

02:56:54 He’s not breaking it.

02:56:55 Like still walking him down, still going forward.

02:56:57 Like I knew exactly how I was gonna beat him.

02:57:04 And I developed a plan because when I was getting ready

02:57:06 for Rio, we brought in a lot of the top Japanese players

02:57:10 that weren’t invited to the camp for the national team

02:57:13 to Boston.

02:57:14 So I had four people, three of them were

02:57:16 on the national team.

02:57:17 One of them had won the universities in Japan,

02:57:20 all at 81 kilos.

02:57:23 I only got thrown once during camp for a month.

02:57:25 Wow.

02:57:26 Like I was ready.

02:57:31 I just, I fucking slipped.

02:57:33 Where does it happen?

02:57:36 Right when he threw me.

02:57:37 So if you let this play out really quick,

02:57:40 there’s a point right here where I’m gonna come around

02:57:42 his back and I’m kinda gonna just yoko sutemi,

02:57:46 which means like a lateral drop.

02:57:48 And I’m just gonna bring him down to the floor,

02:57:50 which isn’t a throw right here.

02:57:52 It’s more of like a takedown, right?

02:57:54 I’m trying to get him to the ground

02:57:55 cause I wanna burn him.

02:57:57 He doesn’t do any waza.

02:57:58 So I’m just gonna keep burning him.

02:58:00 And you can see that like I get really close here.

02:58:05 He just went a little too far to his side

02:58:08 during this exchange.

02:58:10 And like he’s running.

02:58:12 I’m like, ah, he.

02:58:17 He’s very wiry for an 81 kg player.

02:58:20 Yeah.

02:58:20 There’s not much like muscle on him.

02:58:23 But he uses his length and his leverage very well.

02:58:26 And you can see like I’m really burning the clock here.

02:58:28 Like I’m owning these exchanges

02:58:30 more than I’m owning the tachi waza ones,

02:58:32 the ones in our feet.

02:58:33 So you weren’t trying to necessarily like submit him here

02:58:36 or like really hard or like pin him.

02:58:40 You were trying to break him a bit.

02:58:43 I’m doing both.

02:58:44 I’m being overly physical.

02:58:48 And to a lot of the BJJ people who are watching this,

02:58:51 like they’re like, oh, well I would have done this.

02:58:54 I would have done that.

02:58:55 You’ve got to think like if that referee

02:58:58 who’s reffing the judo side of it

02:59:00 looks at it for a couple of seconds and is like,

02:59:03 he’s not really moving.

02:59:05 They’ll stop it.

02:59:06 Yeah.

02:59:07 So you’re like, you understand judo.

02:59:09 Yeah.

02:59:10 What’s called ne waza groundwork.

02:59:12 Like what you, cause you’re really showing it to the ref.

02:59:14 Yes.

02:59:15 You have to show movement and progression.

02:59:19 That hurt the forehead.

02:59:20 Like see, I threw that hand in there kind of hard,

02:59:23 ripping it across his face just because.

02:59:29 I got to tell you there’s a calm.

02:59:31 Well, no, he does look a little broken,

02:59:35 but the Russians have like this calmness.

02:59:39 They’re pretty good at.

02:59:40 Well, don’t forget they’ve competed like this for long time.

02:59:44 Yeah.

02:59:45 It’s all he knows.

02:59:47 And this is where I lose it.

02:59:48 See how my knee hit the ground.

02:59:50 My knee wasn’t supposed to touch the ground.

02:59:53 I was supposed to sit to my hip to bring him down.

02:59:55 Something happened where my knee touched

02:59:58 and it didn’t happen in the first one.

03:00:00 It just happened there.

03:00:02 So like that, we never should have been in that predicament.

03:00:05 Yeah.

03:00:07 And that’s one of the things where

03:00:10 when you’re looking at sports

03:00:12 for anybody who’s trying to improve,

03:00:17 you have to, when you’re trying to improve,

03:00:19 you’ve really got to ignore the ends of the spectrums.

03:00:24 The oopsies and the they got lucky.

03:00:28 And you only focus on the middle.

03:00:29 Like the technique I was doing was perfectly sound.

03:00:34 It just happened that the one oopsie happened on the stage

03:00:36 it shouldn’t have happened on.

03:00:38 And there’s no amount of drilling

03:00:43 that will ever like prevent that from happening.

03:00:47 And that’s just the.

03:00:49 That’s sports.

03:00:50 That’s sports, especially the Olympics,

03:00:52 especially Judo when it’s like one.

03:00:54 You got one mistake.

03:00:54 Oopsie can just be your.

03:00:56 That’s it.

03:00:57 That’s it.

03:00:58 You know, it really requires

03:01:00 and you have to wrap your head around the idea of like,

03:01:02 if you want the ability to beat these people

03:01:04 and throw these people,

03:01:05 like you got to be willing to get thrown yourself.

03:01:08 Yeah.

03:01:10 Like this isn’t boxing.

03:01:11 There’s no like, I’m going to stand in a place

03:01:13 where he can’t hit me and I can hit him.

03:01:16 Because we have the gi and because they can grab it,

03:01:18 they have just as much ability to throw you as you them.

03:01:22 So how’d you feel here?

03:01:24 How long was the duration of you feeling upset

03:01:26 that you didn’t get the gold versus.

03:01:28 Never felt it.

03:01:29 Never felt it.

03:01:30 Just.

03:01:32 Because he didn’t beat me.

03:01:34 Right.

03:01:34 Right, it’s an important distinction

03:01:35 because when I’m training and when I’m competing,

03:01:40 like I understand that I take risks

03:01:43 and I accept those consequences.

03:01:44 That’s why I take them.

03:01:46 That’s a consequence.

03:01:48 That’s not him being the better judo player

03:01:51 that dominated a match and I didn’t have an answer

03:01:54 and then he threw me.

03:01:56 Then I would be a little upset.

03:01:58 Like when you’re tired and somebody’s coming at you

03:02:00 and like, you can’t do anything about it,

03:02:02 that’s a shitty feeling.

03:02:04 Yeah.

03:02:04 You know?

03:02:05 And that wasn’t this.

03:02:06 And that wasn’t this.

03:02:08 Like I accept losing when it’s my fault.

03:02:14 Well, that was a hell of a story, man.

03:02:16 So from 2008, 2012, just the sheer number of injuries,

03:02:22 the weight cuts, all of that, the wanting to quit,

03:02:26 the doubts, I’m sure you did not get,

03:02:30 like the fans probably started disappearing

03:02:33 somewhere between the second and the third Olympics.

03:02:35 Like the support from.

03:02:37 It did.

03:02:38 Judo within the United States and just everybody, you know.

03:02:42 The USOC tried to cut all my funding in 2015 and said,

03:02:47 nah, you’re too old.

03:02:48 Yeah.

03:02:49 So through all of that, to win the medal,

03:02:52 I mean, that’s what the Olympics is about.

03:02:55 Is there some, like when you look back,

03:02:57 does that seem like another person?

03:02:59 Is this like another lifetime ago?

03:03:01 Or like, that’s a hell of an accomplishment.

03:03:03 How do you feel about the whole thing?

03:03:06 It’s an interesting kind of predicament

03:03:11 because there’s like those cookie cutter answers

03:03:13 about how proud you are and how grateful you are,

03:03:15 but at the end of the day, it’s not who you are.

03:03:20 So that skillset and that mentality that,

03:03:24 you know, it took to accomplish that, that’s who you are.

03:03:29 And so this was just a stepping stone in who I am.

03:03:34 So it’s in the past to me.

03:03:37 Like there’s no shrine in my house

03:03:39 that has like an Olympic medal in it.

03:03:41 I can’t even remember the last time I looked at it.

03:03:44 So you’re saying like the, all the stories,

03:03:47 the skills along the way,

03:03:49 that’s like you right now sitting here is the shrine.

03:03:53 Yeah.

03:03:53 The who you become along the journey

03:03:56 is really what the prize is, right?

03:03:59 Like when you think about any of them,

03:04:02 most of the people that, you know,

03:04:05 go through that depression after the games,

03:04:08 it’s because that is their shrine.

03:04:10 Like that is who they’ve identified as.

03:04:13 That is who they’ve told the world, the community,

03:04:16 their friends, their family, that’s how they’ve identified.

03:04:20 I’ve identified as the person who perseveres,

03:04:23 overcomes and accepts challenges.

03:04:28 So like I, all those things are just like, you know,

03:04:32 putting a suitcase off to the side

03:04:33 and I’m onto the next great chapter thing

03:04:36 that I’m trying to do.

03:04:38 And it’s both sad and cool that very few people

03:04:43 in the world get to experience what it’s like to be you.

03:04:47 I mean, this level of having gone through that journey.

03:04:52 Everyone has the opportunity to.

03:04:56 Yeah, yeah.

03:04:58 I mean, I’ve done a few difficult things in my life,

03:05:03 but I gotta tell you, weight cuts and sauna.

03:05:07 And I would tell people right now who are listening,

03:05:09 like, don’t go through that.

03:05:12 And I think a lot of wrestlers, a lot of young judo players,

03:05:16 a lot of young, like just combat sports people

03:05:19 where weight classes are a thing,

03:05:23 they almost take a sense of pride.

03:05:25 Like when I hear them talking about like,

03:05:27 oh, how much weight do you have to cut?

03:05:29 If you have to cut a pound more,

03:05:30 it’s like you’ve accomplished more, like you’re tougher.

03:05:33 Yeah.

03:05:33 Like you’re not.

03:05:35 Like there’s no trophies for that.

03:05:38 You, whatever the reason, had a job to do

03:05:41 and you got it done and that is truly inspiring,

03:05:44 no matter how hard.

03:05:46 That there’s a big deep lesson to learn from that.

03:05:49 Then you start getting to the specifics

03:05:51 of whether you should weight cut or not.

03:05:53 But if we don’t, then most of the great things we have

03:05:57 in this world, we wouldn’t have.

03:05:58 The reason we have many of the great things

03:06:00 is because people did that weight cut.

03:06:02 The equivalent of the weight cut

03:06:04 for whatever the discipline, man.

03:06:06 There’s a difference between having to do it

03:06:10 because you have to and you get through it,

03:06:12 then setting yourself up to do that

03:06:15 because you think it’s the cool thing

03:06:18 or the thing you’re supposed to be doing

03:06:20 in order to be successful.

03:06:22 There are plenty of like two time Olympic medalist.

03:06:25 I probably could have been a two time Olympic medalist

03:06:28 had I not cut that much weight.

03:06:30 I probably would have multiple world medals

03:06:32 had I not cut that much weight

03:06:33 because my body wouldn’t have been that broken.

03:06:36 There’s always the other side of it.

03:06:38 So just when you’re looking at it,

03:06:40 like I just hear it in like young kids,

03:06:43 even some of my own, like when you hear them talk

03:06:45 about like where their weight’s at,

03:06:47 they almost take a sense of pride

03:06:49 on how much they have to lose

03:06:51 because they hear stories like this.

03:06:53 And it’s like, that’s not the takeaway.

03:06:56 I did it because I had to.

03:06:59 I was put in a situation where like,

03:07:01 I may not have gone to this game

03:07:03 had I moved up to 90 kilos

03:07:04 because I wouldn’t have had time to grow into the division.

03:07:07 And then you get the job done.

03:07:09 And then you get the job done.

03:07:10 You’re right, there’s a very important difference.

03:07:14 And that’s also with sleep.

03:07:16 That’s what people talk to me about.

03:07:18 There should not be any glorification of not sleeping.

03:07:21 There should not be a glorification of cutting weight.

03:07:24 But if that’s on the way to your,

03:07:28 whatever is that fire inside you

03:07:31 that you know needs to get done, like the job at hand,

03:07:35 if you need to sacrifice in some of those ways,

03:07:37 you get the job done.

03:07:39 Yeah, and the weight cut is an interesting one

03:07:42 because it’s different.

03:07:43 I mean, you could speak to this.

03:07:46 There’s different sports

03:07:47 in which the weight is more important than others.

03:07:50 And there’s different levels to this game.

03:07:52 I think at the level you operated in,

03:07:54 that was probably essential.

03:07:57 Like there’s huge games changed completely

03:07:59 from 81 kg to 90 kg.

03:08:01 It’s a huge weight jump.

03:08:02 It’s, first of all, it’s weight, but then the strategy,

03:08:05 it’s like so much changes the height

03:08:07 and all those kinds of things.

03:08:08 The physical, like people don’t understand it,

03:08:11 but the physical size of a 90 kilo judo player

03:08:14 versus the physical size of an 81 kilo judo player,

03:08:17 it’s like putting a human in a human.

03:08:19 Like there’s enough space.

03:08:20 That’s not like, you could stand next to your friend

03:08:23 who’s 180 pounds and you could be 160

03:08:25 and you guys could look identical.

03:08:27 Yeah.

03:08:28 It is different when both the 90 kilo,

03:08:30 100 kilo and 81 kilo both have 6% body fat

03:08:33 and they’re cutting into the class.

03:08:35 And it always feels like there’s more variety at 90 kilo

03:08:38 because some of them are lanky and tall.

03:08:40 Yeah, some are short and stocky.

03:08:42 It’s like 81 is more uniform, which I,

03:08:45 but then the flip side of that is the,

03:08:48 this is what I like in jiu jitsu, again,

03:08:50 amateur competing against bigger guys.

03:08:53 Like I love that more.

03:08:54 I like cutting weight just so I’m slim.

03:08:56 Like that’s when I feel the best

03:08:57 with the same thing that you mentioned.

03:08:59 But like, I love going against 200, 220 that.

03:09:03 Because in jiu jitsu,

03:09:04 the weight doesn’t get amplified in the sport.

03:09:08 Like the weight is just the weight, right?

03:09:10 If you can leg press 220 and you can bench 220,

03:09:15 then yeah, you can train with a guy who’s 220.

03:09:19 That’s easy.

03:09:20 They’re not gonna hurt you.

03:09:22 And I mean, there is a truth that,

03:09:25 lightweights and middleweights in jiu jitsu

03:09:27 and the same is true for judo.

03:09:29 It’s just like a lot more of them.

03:09:31 That means if you wanna be,

03:09:34 you’re just competing at a higher level.

03:09:37 So like, there’s much more variety of games.

03:09:40 The level is much higher.

03:09:41 So you’re taking on a bigger challenge,

03:09:43 even if you’re like, have a weight advantage.

03:09:47 So those are all decisions you have to kind of make.

03:09:49 And certainly in jiu jitsu,

03:09:51 people that are weight cutting are silly.

03:09:52 I mean, that’s the natural beginner thing to do

03:09:55 is to feel the way the nervousness

03:09:58 about competition expresses itself

03:10:01 is through the desire to be as light as possible,

03:10:04 which is the totally wrong desire to have.

03:10:07 Right, like when you look at me now,

03:10:11 I’m probably like 230, right?

03:10:16 But I probably have the strength

03:10:18 of a 70 kilo judo player, right?

03:10:21 The weight doesn’t really do much.

03:10:24 Yeah, I mean, you have the same thing with wrestling.

03:10:27 The skinny guys, the skinny you

03:10:30 that we’re looking at there,

03:10:31 just the amount of power in that person is fascinating.

03:10:34 Because it doesn’t look like,

03:10:35 you have some muscle, but it doesn’t look,

03:10:38 but I’ve felt the power of some of those people.

03:10:40 Yeah, it’s scary.

03:10:42 Yeah, it’s different.

03:10:44 That’s the best way I can describe it is like scary.

03:10:46 It’s like, oh shit, again, it’s the food chain.

03:10:49 You’re not at the top of the food chain.

03:10:52 That’s the natural feeling

03:10:54 when you go with some judo people.

03:10:56 What’s your sense about this recent Olympics?

03:10:58 What stands out to you as,

03:11:02 so like Teddy Rene who was on a big run for a long time,

03:11:05 many consider him to be one of the greatest judo players

03:11:08 of all time, two time Olympic gold medalist

03:11:12 and two time Olympic bronze medalist of four Olympics.

03:11:17 Not counting like team stuff,

03:11:19 just doing individual and then like 10 time world champ.

03:11:24 Yeah, I’m not sure how they’re gonna catalog

03:11:26 that team event.

03:11:27 Like are they all technically Olympic champions

03:11:29 or is France an Olympic champion?

03:11:32 No, they’re all technically Olympic champions,

03:11:33 but I’m gonna ignore that.

03:11:35 Is that how they’re gonna classify it now?

03:11:37 According, oh, sorry, according to Wikipedia,

03:11:40 like according to the internet.

03:11:41 I don’t know, according to IGF or whatever.

03:11:43 Because some of those players never won a match.

03:11:47 They just filled a spot.

03:11:49 Oh, that’s even a starker example.

03:11:52 Oh, that’s sad.

03:11:53 You know, they lost in the individual

03:11:55 and then they also lost in the team.

03:11:57 And so.

03:11:59 Well, it’s interesting because in the case of Teddy,

03:12:04 he was important to the win against Japan in this Olympics.

03:12:08 So like in the team event.

03:12:11 So like, I feel like you should put that in the equation

03:12:14 to say who won gold, right?

03:12:16 It does feel like he won gold in the team

03:12:20 because he carried the team.

03:12:21 Well, you have like Nomura at 60 kilos from Japan,

03:12:25 three time Olympic gold medalist, no team event.

03:12:29 Yeah.

03:12:31 Are you gonna weigh Teddy’s team event?

03:12:33 No, no, we’re not arguing this, of course.

03:12:35 No, I’m just wondering how like the IGF,

03:12:37 like when you look at a player stat,

03:12:40 is it gonna be like team gold medal for the Olympics

03:12:44 versus like their own personal gold medal?

03:12:47 Yeah, I think in sports, we have to be brutally honest.

03:12:51 And I think, hopefully this doesn’t piss off people.

03:12:55 I hope it does.

03:12:56 But judo is an individual sport.

03:12:59 It’s honestly just that one athlete,

03:13:01 maybe the athlete and coach, right?

03:13:04 If you look at the big, big picture,

03:13:06 but there’s no team in judo.

03:13:08 That’s the beauty of combat sports.

03:13:10 That’s the honesty of it.

03:13:12 That’s the brutality of losing to another human being

03:13:16 in a combat sport.

03:13:17 That’s why it’s so damn embarrassing when you get slammed

03:13:20 is because it’s like, there’s no team

03:13:23 to like carry some of that responsibility.

03:13:26 It’s all on you and you suck.

03:13:28 That’s why you lost.

03:13:30 There’s that weight.

03:13:31 And that’s why it’s like magical.

03:13:32 It’s not like soccer.

03:13:34 It’s not like basketball.

03:13:37 Yeah, I couldn’t play team sports

03:13:38 because if one of my teammates

03:13:40 wasn’t doing their job correctly,

03:13:42 I would go play their position.

03:13:44 I’m gonna do it better than you.

03:13:45 Yeah, but that, you know,

03:13:46 some of the greatest leaders of teams also do that.

03:13:48 Michael Jordan is like that, right?

03:13:50 I mean, it’s like with your actions,

03:13:54 you raised the level for everybody.

03:13:57 Like excellence is expected

03:13:59 and therefore everybody needs to step up.

03:14:00 So some of the greatest, I would say,

03:14:04 team leaders are individualists at heart.

03:14:07 But it’s okay.

03:14:08 So Teddy, I think 10 time world champion,

03:14:10 non team, regular.

03:14:13 It’s a big number,

03:14:14 but I think he has some like open weight categories in there.

03:14:16 Open weight, right, right.

03:14:17 I mean, you can count those, right?

03:14:19 I mean, that’s interesting.

03:14:21 It’s the same division twice.

03:14:22 It’s the same division twice.

03:14:23 That’s right.

03:14:24 One day after another.

03:14:25 Yeah, that’s right.

03:14:26 I don’t know if I wanna count that, yeah.

03:14:28 Well, I mean, that’s one of the reasons

03:14:30 people don’t usually put heavyweights in judo

03:14:35 as like the greatest of all time,

03:14:37 because the level of competition is lower.

03:14:40 Yes.

03:14:41 But anyway, he did lose in this match

03:14:44 to a young Russian, Tamerlan Bashev.

03:14:51 Match also not on the internet.

03:14:53 Thank you Olympics.

03:14:55 I am definitely going to go on some rants on the internet.

03:14:58 I love it.

03:14:59 As a fan of Olympics,

03:15:01 I feel like this definitely needs to change moving forward.

03:15:05 Like every single major Olympic event,

03:15:07 I also like random sports like weightlifting,

03:15:10 even though I don’t do Olympic weightlifting.

03:15:11 It’s fun just to watch.

03:15:12 Fun to watch such high level of excellence.

03:15:16 And the fact that we can’t just fricking watch the full,

03:15:20 like each nicely categorized event is really heartbreaking

03:15:23 in judo, in Olympic weightlifting,

03:15:26 in track and gymnastics, all of that.

03:15:28 Anyway, so Teddy lost.

03:15:32 I mean, does that stand out to you?

03:15:33 If you were to like recap the things

03:15:35 that you remember from this Olympics.

03:15:37 I picked him losing already.

03:15:39 Like in my predictions.

03:15:41 Lose which, where?

03:15:42 That match or just in general somewhere?

03:15:44 In the final.

03:15:45 In the final, you thought.

03:15:46 Yeah, final or was it semi?

03:15:48 When I looked at his draw

03:15:49 because he decided not to compete throughout the quad

03:15:52 and do like the bare minimum to go,

03:15:56 because of his age,

03:15:57 I didn’t think he would have enough energy

03:16:01 to battle his way through the draw that he had.

03:16:04 And sure enough, he didn’t.

03:16:06 He felt earlier than I thought,

03:16:07 but he’s not the young athletic person he used to be.

03:16:13 And when they changed the rules to judo,

03:16:16 they allowed people to take people

03:16:18 into really, really deep waters,

03:16:21 which you saw at this Olympics,

03:16:22 which did it ruin the sport or did it not?

03:16:27 Like, I’m not sure,

03:16:30 but it was definitely difficult to watch.

03:16:32 Would you put him at the greatest of all time

03:16:35 or asked another way,

03:16:36 like who do you think is the greatest judo player

03:16:38 of all time?

03:16:39 He’s definitely not the greatest judo player,

03:16:42 but he’s definitely the best competitor.

03:16:45 What’s the difference in judo player and competitor?

03:16:48 There’s an ability to like do the act of judo

03:16:52 of like throwing, pinning, arm locking

03:16:55 versus can you win a judo match?

03:16:58 Right, like when you look at somebody like Nomura

03:17:02 who like threw everyone he fought,

03:17:05 threw three Olympics, multiple world championships,

03:17:09 multiple things, like that’s a pure judo player.

03:17:12 In the essence of judo,

03:17:14 he can throw, pin or arm lock

03:17:16 just about anybody he steps on the mat with during his time.

03:17:21 Teddy tended to, when you look at his judo,

03:17:25 because of his size,

03:17:27 again, it’s just because he’s in the heavyweight category,

03:17:30 he was so much bigger, so much stronger,

03:17:34 people just couldn’t handle it.

03:17:35 And you would see really good judo players just break.

03:17:39 Like they could hang in there for a little bit,

03:17:41 but eventually his size, like you can’t control that weight.

03:17:45 Weight moves weight.

03:17:46 And when you have to use all your strength

03:17:48 to keep him upright and off of you,

03:17:51 your muscles just give out

03:17:52 because you don’t have somebody of that stature

03:17:55 and that skill to train with, to train those muscles.

03:17:59 So you’re thinking more like those 73, 81, 90 kg people

03:18:04 that just stand in the pocket and just give everything.

03:18:08 Like what comes to my mind is like a Koga.

03:18:11 Koga.

03:18:11 You know, a Nomura who’s a 60 kilo guy,

03:18:14 but again, like his dynamics

03:18:16 and how long he was dominant for, like it just.

03:18:20 Do you put value to like epic throws,

03:18:24 like singular moments of greatness?

03:18:28 If it’s against a noteworthy player

03:18:31 in a noteworthy position.

03:18:34 There are a lot of highlights of people

03:18:36 that are good judo players,

03:18:38 but their highlights are of, you know,

03:18:41 scrubs on the IJF circuit.

03:18:43 Right.

03:18:44 It’s like, great, the Japanese guy threw the guy

03:18:47 from, you know, Senegal free poem.

03:18:51 Great.

03:18:52 We kind of expected that.

03:18:53 You took the world number one

03:18:54 against the 330th person in the world.

03:18:57 What’d you think was gonna happen?

03:18:59 Like when I see those highlights like thrown around

03:19:01 like social media, I’m like, that’s not a highlight.

03:19:05 They might as well have just been at the dojo

03:19:07 like practice and throws.

03:19:09 If you look at the like top 10 list for judo,

03:19:12 Kano always comes up, you know, as.

03:19:15 But he’s not somebody that I don’t think

03:19:18 his results are there,

03:19:19 but you don’t really know how he got there.

03:19:23 So it’s hard for me to like, I can’t see his judo.

03:19:27 So I’m not sure.

03:19:28 Kano, by the way, is the founder of judo

03:19:29 for people who don’t,

03:19:30 who are considered to be the founder of judo.

03:19:32 Yeah.

03:19:33 The sport evolves.

03:19:35 The players that are like,

03:19:36 if you took champions from the past

03:19:37 and you fought them against the players of today,

03:19:40 they’re, it’s not happening.

03:19:43 And that goes with anything, right?

03:19:44 So every time you think of like,

03:19:46 who’s the best of all time,

03:19:48 it’s probably somebody within a generation

03:19:50 or two of today.

03:19:51 Yeah.

03:19:52 If I’m gonna pick my top three, let’s say,

03:19:55 top three, and I would go generationally speaking,

03:19:59 I would pick Ono for today,

03:20:02 probably Iliadis for like my timeframe,

03:20:06 like the, from a developmental standpoint.

03:20:09 And then I’d probably go Koga.

03:20:11 And then before Koga, I’d probably go Nomura.

03:20:14 As like the person of that generation

03:20:17 that people like,

03:20:20 as a whole in judo respected.

03:20:23 Yeah.

03:20:24 Well, in the case of,

03:20:25 I wonder if people feared Koga.

03:20:27 Yeah.

03:20:28 Yeah?

03:20:29 Like you’re, that little guy’s gonna get under you.

03:20:32 And you’re gonna go for a ride.

03:20:33 You know, he was 78 kilos

03:20:35 when he took second at the All Japan’s,

03:20:37 which is an open weight class.

03:20:38 Yeah.

03:20:39 You know, like he,

03:20:41 he could throw down with anybody any weight class.

03:20:44 He still went.

03:20:45 He was one of the early people

03:20:46 that planted the seed of judo,

03:20:49 love of judo in you.

03:20:50 It’s like that.

03:20:51 Yeah.

03:20:51 And when I looked at him,

03:20:52 like that was how like I wanted my judo to be portrayed.

03:20:57 That style.

03:20:58 Yeah.

03:20:59 And then Iliadis, Iliadis, you just like,

03:21:02 I mean, you have a similar attitude as him.

03:21:04 So you just like the way he carries it.

03:21:05 That’s why we get along.

03:21:09 You guys hang out.

03:21:10 I mean, I’d love to see that conversation.

03:21:12 I remember when we were talking about like his coaching,

03:21:15 I was like, why didn’t you take this team?

03:21:17 Or like, why’d you pick this team?

03:21:19 And he’s like, I can’t work with those people.

03:21:21 Like those people are weak for children.

03:21:23 Like they don’t know how to train hard.

03:21:25 I love that guy.

03:21:27 What about Ono?

03:21:28 Cause he was competing in this Olympics.

03:21:30 He got gold in this Olympics, right?

03:21:33 Yeah.

03:21:34 Yeah.

03:21:34 He lost in the team tournament though.

03:21:36 I think he just didn’t care.

03:21:37 Yeah.

03:21:38 He just really wanted to throw that guy.

03:21:39 He like throws everybody.

03:21:41 Yeah.

03:21:41 So he’s, he represents the thing you’re mentioning.

03:21:44 I signed up to the judo fanatics, best of Ono.

03:21:49 Is there something that stands out to you about him

03:21:51 that’s especially you find beautiful,

03:21:53 like, or powerful about his technique?

03:21:57 His adaptability to the situations

03:22:00 and understanding of like what needs to happen

03:22:05 in order to throw these people.

03:22:07 I specifically watched a match with his

03:22:10 and I was going to do a breakdown video on it because.

03:22:13 Is there a match, do you remember what it is?

03:22:15 It’s him versus Garvey of Hungary.

03:22:21 Is he good at gripping?

03:22:21 So we’re watching the match against Hungary.

03:22:25 So at the one minute, so right here, coming up.

03:22:28 I’ve heard he’s freakishly strong.

03:22:29 I’ve never had the ability to train with him.

03:22:32 So I’m not.

03:22:33 Obviously he looks super skinny.

03:22:36 But when you see him without his gi jacket on,

03:22:39 like he’s a jacked dude,

03:22:41 which is uncharacteristic of a Japanese player

03:22:44 from back in the day, in a way changed all that.

03:22:47 He was like, we’re going to get physical

03:22:49 to compete with the Europeans.

03:22:50 That’s another one of the greats, right?

03:22:52 Yeah.

03:22:53 He doesn’t get mentioned enough.

03:23:01 And he’s a righty here, yeah, okay.

03:23:04 And this is where he started setting it up.

03:23:06 It’s like, you can see he was standing

03:23:07 in like a left handed stance and then he changes.

03:23:11 So he grips almost like a double sleeve,

03:23:16 not a double sleeve.

03:23:17 He holds the tricep.

03:23:18 The tricep.

03:23:19 And the front sleeve standing like a lefty.

03:23:23 And no body grip.

03:23:24 Just tricep and sleeve.

03:23:27 And that was like the biggest whip

03:23:30 and twist of a nutrimata I’ve ever seen.

03:23:32 Yeah, he doesn’t actually lift him off the floor.

03:23:35 And if you look at it in like slow motion almost,

03:23:42 yeah, let’s, yeah, there we go.

03:23:45 The Hungarian player was like 100% defense

03:23:48 and he still did this, right?

03:23:51 So right here, like press pause.

03:23:54 This is like an identifier if you’re trying

03:23:59 to like learn judo and figure out how to set it up.

03:24:02 Because knowing how to get to the point right before

03:24:05 you pull the trigger is probably the most important.

03:24:08 So when we watch this play out,

03:24:10 what Ono’s gonna do is he’s gonna pivot

03:24:12 off his right leg right here.

03:24:14 He’s gonna back step with his left

03:24:16 and it’s gonna pull Ungarvi’s front leg

03:24:19 all the way forward into what we would call

03:24:20 like a neutral square stance.

03:24:23 So he plants hard.

03:24:25 And look at Ono.

03:24:26 Oh, there’s an interesting pull with the,

03:24:27 oh no, it’s not a tricep.

03:24:28 He almost like, it starts with the tricep

03:24:30 and he like collects the gear or something like that.

03:24:32 But it’s still above the elbow

03:24:34 because you can see the bend, right?

03:24:36 And right here, see how he never put,

03:24:38 back it up a little bit.

03:24:41 This is kind of like one of those things,

03:24:43 yeah, pause it right there.

03:24:45 So when he puts his right foot down,

03:24:47 he’s pulling so hard with his back

03:24:50 that when Ono goes to put his left foot down,

03:24:53 it never touches the mat.

03:24:55 But by putting his left foot back,

03:24:57 it actually pulls Ungarvi’s foot forward.

03:24:59 And so he’s able to speed up his throw

03:25:02 by just continuing that motion back,

03:25:04 which what was supposed to have been a step

03:25:07 turned out to just, in the middle of the action,

03:25:11 he makes a split second decision

03:25:13 before putting the foot down to just continue.

03:25:15 Cause he recognizes that feel in his hands.

03:25:18 And so it’s like, it never, it’s a swing.

03:25:20 Like he never touches the ground with his left foot.

03:25:22 It never started as like a big swing to a back step.

03:25:26 He changed his mind partway through.

03:25:28 So it’s right there, he wants to take a step.

03:25:30 And then he goes, nope, he’s bringing that foot forward.

03:25:32 I’m just going to go for it.

03:25:34 Wait, is he full?

03:25:36 Full air.

03:25:37 Look at that.

03:25:38 Boom, boom.

03:25:39 And look at, if you go a few more steps forward right there,

03:25:43 his hip is the same height as Ungarvi shoulder.

03:25:48 Because he’s leaning so far into the throw

03:25:51 with his body weight.

03:25:53 And he’s allowing that tricep grip to rotate.

03:25:56 That’s going to draw Ungarvi forward.

03:25:58 And now when you pause it right here,

03:26:01 you think about the sheer physics

03:26:03 to like get your body into this position.

03:26:07 Jimmy and I were so like,

03:26:09 when we saw this for the first time,

03:26:10 we tried to just stand like that and we couldn’t do it.

03:26:13 His left foot is pointing straight ahead.

03:26:17 His chest is perpendicular to that foot

03:26:19 or parallel with it, right?

03:26:21 And his head is by his foot.

03:26:22 Yeah.

03:26:23 Is that only possible in the midst of a throw?

03:26:25 Do you think he works on making like?

03:26:27 I think he’s done this particular throw,

03:26:30 not this style of it, but Uchi Mata so much

03:26:33 that his body has adapted to be able to do this.

03:26:37 So when people are trying to learn

03:26:38 and like break down videos,

03:26:41 they don’t understand like the power he has

03:26:45 and what we call end range motion.

03:26:48 Yeah, look at that.

03:26:49 So like look at the full range of motion he takes, right?

03:26:52 Yeah.

03:26:53 His left foot swings all the way around

03:26:56 and the torso starts like at three oclock

03:27:00 and it goes all the way around

03:27:02 like almost back to the three oclock.

03:27:04 Yeah.

03:27:05 Like, like what?

03:27:08 And he never lifts his leg above his hip.

03:27:12 And the crazy part is he never fell over during any of it.

03:27:16 Yeah, look at that.

03:27:17 Stayed on his feet.

03:27:19 What’s he doing?

03:27:19 Is that a matter of pride or just?

03:27:24 I think that’s just habit.

03:27:26 The way the forces work, like he can just stay up.

03:27:31 That’s one of the most beautiful throws I’ve ever seen.

03:27:35 There’s so much wrong with it, but it worked.

03:27:39 It worked.

03:27:40 Because when you think about,

03:27:41 remember what we talked about the very beginning,

03:27:42 like he’s got to get his center of gravity under his.

03:27:45 Well, here’s one of the top players in the world

03:27:47 throwing another top player in the world

03:27:48 with his hip at that guy’s shoulder height

03:27:51 and it’s still working, it’s.

03:27:55 Okay, so he, this generation, he could be the great.

03:27:58 Yeah.

03:27:59 And like he switched a lot of those details

03:28:02 of the throw in the middle.

03:28:03 In the middle.

03:28:04 And that only is, that means he’s probably what,

03:28:07 like a hundred thousand times that throw has happened.

03:28:09 Yeah.

03:28:11 I saw you were into chess recently.

03:28:12 So you’re like me, a bit of a beginner in chess.

03:28:16 You’re part of launching the website Effective Chess.

03:28:20 So I got to ask, maybe it’s a personal question,

03:28:23 but do you have advice to yourself

03:28:25 and to other beginners in exploring chess

03:28:28 of how to one, have fun and two, to start getting good?

03:28:31 It’s nice to see like Olympic caliber athlete

03:28:35 take on a difficult task with a beginner’s mind.

03:28:40 So like, what’s that process like?

03:28:42 I’m a huge fan of just learning new things in general.

03:28:48 Right, like when I left Judo,

03:28:50 like I took a job as marketing for Fuji Sports

03:28:55 and I was getting frustrated with designers.

03:28:58 So I learned Photoshop.

03:29:00 I also got angry with the photographer.

03:29:02 So now I take all the photos too,

03:29:05 just because I don’t mind learning.

03:29:07 I’ve spent my entire Judo career learning all the time,

03:29:11 like adding new techniques,

03:29:13 finding new ways, practicing, developing.

03:29:16 And so when it comes to chess,

03:29:18 I treat it just like I do anything else.

03:29:20 I just stick to one plan

03:29:23 and I learn all the ins and outs of that one plan.

03:29:26 And then I develop another plan, right?

03:29:29 Like I might practice like a London opening, for example,

03:29:33 and just, I don’t even care if I win or lose.

03:29:35 I just wanna figure out how I’m gonna lose

03:29:38 and then figure out how I’m gonna win.

03:29:40 And once I know that position is now done,

03:29:43 then I start with another position.

03:29:46 And then once I figured out how I’m gonna lose

03:29:48 and how I’m gonna win,

03:29:49 the next thing I do is I don’t go to a third.

03:29:52 I figure out the bridge between the two.

03:29:55 Like at what point during my openings

03:29:57 can I transition back into this opening?

03:29:59 Right, so like you have like some basic openings

03:30:03 and you wanna see how they go wrong,

03:30:04 how they go right, all the different ways.

03:30:06 And then that starts to solidify a higher level concept

03:30:09 of that particular opening

03:30:10 and you start to stitch together the concepts.

03:30:12 The concepts together,

03:30:13 cause being able to go from one to another

03:30:15 and then back and forth is part of the reasons

03:30:19 why like I was successful at judo

03:30:21 is just because everything I do,

03:30:25 at some point it touches that spider web

03:30:27 of like being able to get from one area to another.

03:30:30 We refer to it as like a toolbox, right?

03:30:32 You need more tools in your toolbox.

03:30:34 But if you’re always grabbing the wrong tool

03:30:36 for that job, then you’re just not gonna have success.

03:30:40 I actually forgot to ask,

03:30:41 you mentioned a few greatest chess players of all time

03:30:44 and I noticed you didn’t mention Vladimir Putin.

03:30:47 I gotta ask you about his judo.

03:30:50 Do you by chance know much about his judo?

03:30:53 What do you think about a president of a major nation

03:30:58 being a judo black belt?

03:30:59 And I think from what I’ve seen, pretty good at it.

03:31:03 I think it shows, you know, if he actually got it,

03:31:09 like let’s go with that premise of like he earned it.

03:31:13 Right?

03:31:14 That just shows like a level of like physical persistence

03:31:19 and mental fortitude to be able to like,

03:31:24 you know, take those beatings

03:31:26 and just keep showing up until you’ve overcome

03:31:29 and can now give those beatings.

03:31:31 As you know, in Japan and Russia, you get it by just like,

03:31:34 when you’re young, it’s easier to get a black belt

03:31:36 when you’re like, just go through a bunch of beatings

03:31:39 for like 10 years in your teenage years.

03:31:42 But there’s also from it springs like a camaraderie.

03:31:47 Like there’s a definitely a brotherhood and sisterhood

03:31:51 in terms of judo to where you’re connected forever

03:31:55 because of that.

03:31:57 For many people, it’s their childhood connection.

03:31:59 You sort of leave judo, you know,

03:32:01 in your twenties and your thirties, but that’s always there.

03:32:04 And the same is true with wrestling.

03:32:05 So it’s interesting to see him pay respect to that,

03:32:10 like by going with the Russian national judo team.

03:32:15 And I think he did, obviously they have to get thrown,

03:32:18 right?

03:32:19 But just, you can tell,

03:32:20 and you probably could tell even better,

03:32:22 but you can tell when a person moves in a way

03:32:24 where you’re like, okay, you’ve had like 10 years

03:32:28 of beatings and you can tell the way they pull,

03:32:31 the way they move.

03:32:32 But I also like, in contrast to the US national team,

03:32:36 or I don’t even think there’s a national team for US, right?

03:32:40 It’s the Pedro Judo center, right?

03:32:44 That there is some, it’s really cool

03:32:47 when there’s a camaraderie like that

03:32:49 amongst the highest level Olympic caliber athletes in Russia.

03:32:52 I suppose Japan might have similar kind of thing.

03:32:54 And then you can have the system of people together

03:33:00 and then you can have a strong coaching staff,

03:33:03 not just like a coach, but a coaching staff.

03:33:05 And then you can have the nation backing that staff.

03:33:07 I mean, and then the result is like,

03:33:09 you have some incredible level of judo emerge.

03:33:14 Is there something you could say,

03:33:15 we didn’t talk much about Jimmy.

03:33:17 I mean, he was a critical part of your just,

03:33:20 like of your perseverance through all the,

03:33:25 all that you had to go through.

03:33:27 What did you learn from Jimmy?

03:33:29 What are some impacts that he had on your life,

03:33:32 both on the mat and off the mat?

03:33:37 If we had to like put it down to like a very simple thing,

03:33:41 he taught me how to win, right?

03:33:45 It wasn’t necessarily like the technical side of judo.

03:33:49 Like we went over gripping, we went over this,

03:33:51 we adapted that.

03:33:53 But the real strength to Jimmy was like,

03:33:56 he knows how to win.

03:33:58 And most people think,

03:34:00 well, if I get really good at this technique,

03:34:03 I’ll be able to throw people with it, not win.

03:34:05 That is not how the world of sports works, right?

03:34:09 Like I remember in one of my YouTube videos,

03:34:13 I was doing a breakdown of a match from the Cuba Grand Prix

03:34:17 where I was fighting a Mongolian guy.

03:34:19 He’s kicking the shit at me, I’m not gonna lie.

03:34:22 Four minutes in, like he just throwing me like left

03:34:26 and right, he was so fast.

03:34:28 I felt like I just couldn’t get to him.

03:34:31 In the last 30 seconds, he changed.

03:34:34 He started protecting his lead instead of continuing

03:34:38 the fight the way the entire match was going in his favor.

03:34:41 He made a mental shift and when he made that mental shift,

03:34:44 I beat him.

03:34:46 Because he didn’t know how to win the fight.

03:34:50 He can win exchanges, but he can’t win the fight.

03:34:54 So the last thing you wanna do is have to win

03:34:57 every exchange in a match.

03:34:59 You wanna know how to kick it into sixth gear.

03:35:03 Like when to step off the gas,

03:35:06 when to focus on gripping,

03:35:08 when to attack, how often to attack,

03:35:10 all those things like.

03:35:12 And you’ve had those conversations with Jimmy like,

03:35:14 this is not like how to stop trying to win every exchange,

03:35:17 that kind of thing.

03:35:18 And instead.

03:35:19 Because I was a brawler before.

03:35:21 I was like, if I threw you once, I’m throwing you again.

03:35:23 And sometimes you get caught.

03:35:25 Why would I do that?

03:35:27 I’m already winning.

03:35:28 What about like the mental side of the game,

03:35:30 the preparation, all those things?

03:35:32 One of the biggest things Jimmy brought to the forefront

03:35:35 when it came to like the mental side

03:35:37 was the visualization, right?

03:35:41 And when I started visualizing myself winning,

03:35:44 I started seeing more success.

03:35:46 But once I started seeing more success,

03:35:49 with the visualization also came self doubt.

03:35:52 Because as I’m starting to picture myself like,

03:35:59 I would picture myself before fighting Church’s village,

03:36:02 I’m gonna throw him with Koshiguruma and I can see it.

03:36:05 And if I stand in the shoot for too long,

03:36:08 you start to like, but what if he counters?

03:36:11 Then you go, well, if he counters with this,

03:36:14 I’m gonna counter with that.

03:36:15 But you already let that doubt in.

03:36:18 And then you start playing this like five step scenario,

03:36:20 but you still come out on top.

03:36:22 But all that doubt has like seeped into your mind, right?

03:36:26 And a lot of people don’t understand

03:36:29 that that’s a bad thing.

03:36:31 You’re still winning in your mind,

03:36:33 but you’re also doubting yourself in your mind.

03:36:35 Yeah, once you let that doubt seep in,

03:36:38 it’s destructive.

03:36:40 Yeah, and so I remember I was at the World Championships.

03:36:44 I can’t remember what year it was, but I was ready.

03:36:47 Like I was healthy, I was ready to go.

03:36:50 And we all thought like,

03:36:52 this is the year Travis wins the Worlds.

03:36:55 I go out there in the first round,

03:36:57 I’m in the shoot for like 45 minutes.

03:37:01 Like the match went into golden score,

03:37:03 then the next match went into golden score,

03:37:05 then the fucking next match went into golden score.

03:37:07 Then the referee came and told me,

03:37:09 you can’t wear your gi.

03:37:10 Then Big Jim goes, why can’t he wear his gi?

03:37:12 Any gi that has his name on it,

03:37:14 we’re not gonna let him wear.

03:37:15 He has to wear a different gi.

03:37:17 So then I go, fuck you, I’m leaving.

03:37:18 And I walked out there and I fought.

03:37:20 I lost in golden score because I did a kochi

03:37:22 and they called it a false attack.

03:37:23 And I went, great, I’m out of the fucking Worlds.

03:37:27 But when I was in the shoot,

03:37:29 I struggled because I started allowing the like

03:37:33 Hungarian guy that I was gonna face to do things to me

03:37:37 that I would have to play defense to and then counter.

03:37:40 It’s like, great, but now I’m doubting my own ability.

03:37:44 So I went to a sports psychologist

03:37:46 and the big game changer for me was,

03:37:49 I focused more on the emotional, physical response

03:37:54 that happens in matches rather than the actual quote unquote

03:37:59 like Instagram picture that would have happened.

03:38:02 So when I was getting ready for 2016,

03:38:05 you think about like,

03:38:08 how do you feel like standing in the shoot?

03:38:10 Like, what does your body feel like?

03:38:11 Is your heart racing?

03:38:12 How’s your breath?

03:38:13 Is your mouth dry?

03:38:15 And then you think about like, okay,

03:38:16 the ref just started the match.

03:38:17 What happens?

03:38:18 Like, how, what’s the atmosphere like?

03:38:20 How do you emotionally respond to these things?

03:38:23 More so than me trying to beat a specific judo player,

03:38:28 right?

03:38:28 Like, oh, the ref just gave you a penalty at a minute 30.

03:38:31 Like, how do you feel?

03:38:32 And then you start thinking about the physical responses.

03:38:35 And when you do that really well,

03:38:37 you can actually get the pins and needles

03:38:39 and your body will start to sweat

03:38:41 and your heart will start to race as if you’re in it.

03:38:44 Cause it’s not about the technique.

03:38:47 It’s more about the physical.

03:38:49 Like, what does it feel like to have your fingers ripped

03:38:51 out of a gi in the first exchange?

03:38:54 Now my hands can feel that.

03:38:56 That’s fascinating.

03:38:57 And then on a cellular level,

03:38:59 like I fought the Olympic games so many times

03:39:02 to the point where like, it is no longer a goal.

03:39:05 It’s an anticipation.

03:39:06 Right.

03:39:07 So down to the experience of the grip break,

03:39:09 that just the sweat, the, the heart beating, the, yeah.

03:39:13 What does it feel to have your head smashed into a mat

03:39:15 and driven across the mat with a mat burn?

03:39:17 Yeah.

03:39:18 And then getting back up.

03:39:19 Yeah.

03:39:20 And getting back up.

03:39:21 Yeah.

03:39:22 Like with a bit of a burn, all that kind of stuff.

03:39:24 The actual sensation on the skin.

03:39:25 The actual sensation of what it takes to fight a judo match.

03:39:28 It’s not a strategy, like,

03:39:30 but the actual sensations, the full experience.

03:39:32 That’s fascinating.

03:39:34 Cause then your body’s going to fight hundreds of matches

03:39:36 without the physical damage.

03:39:38 And you could probably get really far with that.

03:39:41 And not also in just judo, but basically anything.

03:39:45 You can simulate.

03:39:46 Yeah.

03:39:47 If you learn how to simulate well.

03:39:50 You’ve lived a very, a hell of a life.

03:39:55 Is there a device you can give to young people?

03:39:58 Sort of a high school, college,

03:40:02 thinking about their career, thinking about life,

03:40:05 how to live one they’re proud of?

03:40:10 I think the number one thing I can tell people is,

03:40:16 and how I’ve lived my life is,

03:40:18 you’ve really got to like,

03:40:20 forget everybody in your life right now.

03:40:21 Your mother, your father, your grandparents,

03:40:24 your girlfriend, your boyfriend, whoever it is,

03:40:26 and really decide like, what is going to make you happy?

03:40:32 At some point in my career,

03:40:34 the act of pushing my body to the limit

03:40:38 made me happier than winning a grand slam medal.

03:40:44 Pushing my body to the limit

03:40:45 didn’t make me happier than winning an Olympic medal.

03:40:51 There’s a balance there.

03:40:52 And I think a lot of people struggle with living their life

03:40:56 where they’re happy and they make other people happy

03:41:00 or take in their feelings into the considerations

03:41:04 of what they need to do in their life.

03:41:07 And I think if they can cut those strings sooner,

03:41:12 it’ll allow you to get over it quicker

03:41:13 and get to a happier place sooner.

03:41:16 And then as long as you’re focusing

03:41:17 on what’s making you happy,

03:41:20 the things you do that make you happy

03:41:22 will attract other people who do those things

03:41:25 that will in turn build stronger, better relationships.

03:41:29 And then you will also realize the best form of yourself

03:41:34 and inspire many others.

03:41:36 You’ve inspired me to, for whatever the hell I’ve done,

03:41:42 at least to do a slightly better job

03:41:44 than I otherwise would have by doing martial arts,

03:41:47 by taking that journey,

03:41:49 and I think becoming a better person because of it.

03:41:51 So Travis, I have been, I continue to be

03:41:55 one of your biggest fans.

03:41:56 I love your whole career in the way you pursued happiness.

03:42:01 I love what you and Jimmy have done.

03:42:03 I love the sport of judo as represented by you.

03:42:06 So I deeply appreciate what you’ve done, man.

03:42:08 And I’m honored that you would spend your time with me today.

03:42:11 Thanks for talking, man.

03:42:13 Thank you.

03:42:15 Thanks for listening to this conversation

03:42:16 with Travis Stevens.

03:42:18 To support this podcast,

03:42:19 please check out our sponsors in the description.

03:42:22 And now let me leave you with some words

03:42:24 from Napoleon Bonaparte.

03:42:27 Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake.

03:42:30 Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.