I love how real Stevens keeps it. He's so blunt about the level of judo at the Olympics. The athletes at the top of judo are incredible. And there are few athletes (regardless of sport) at their level. Insane!
Had the chance to roll with Travis last year in BJJ. I've trained with many other pros and almost never felt so completely outmatched. Thankfully he was humble and gentle.
The turning around to tie your belt thing isn’t a power trip. Or at least it isn’t in Japan. It’s just etiquette. Nobody does it with their belt cause it happens all the time, but if your pant strings come undone you usually turn away from your partner.
I would absolutely love Travis to come to Scotland and give a master class. Be even better if it was at the annual Judo Scotland gathering, just had ngasse and Ono 2 weeks ago on the mat.
The wisdom in this podcast goes way deeper than sports. Travis is describing the path of self actualization and the mental mindset that can overcome any challenge or to achieve any goal in life.
Travis is fantastic I’ve been working on judo for Bjj. The way he talks about the athleticism of judo guys make me want take a deep dive into the sport.
Thank you. It a real challenge getting the guys to work on take down, but it’s all a work in progress. I’m going to work in new Hampshire in September about an hour from his gym, I’m really hoping to catch him there and train.
Sorry in advance to anyone who reads the whole thing, it's quite a rant and train of thought, but I had to get it out after this podcast episode giving a lot to think about. Judo in the Olympics this time was a blast. Had its issues but when the last match of the week of judo is Teddy Riner, a 130 kg giant with visible abs, throwing another 130 kg man like a child with his legs pointing to the roof, that's something else. It was truly a beautiful way to end it, so artistic, picturesque. It's also fascinating to think about the school judo concept. Here in Finland the judo federation published ads just this year promoting judo for kids in school, like just general fun activity to move. And Finland is a place where your "All Japan" type of weight categoriless event gathers 8 males and the winner is easily the only half-successful international competitor (well, Puumalainen won European championship, let's be fair) and you can win a gold medal in your weight category in a tournament just by showing up because there's no competition, and they struggle to have high level enough training partners even when they moved to international athlete training center, they travelled to every single competition basically in Europe that was just feasible. Like sure the US is a huge land and has huge population compared to judokas who are at teaching level, but for kids all you need to do is making it fun and teach basics. That makes a huge difference for their future and the teacher doesn't need to be an experienced black belt. Almost any PE teacher can take care of that and if they start training judo themself alongside that, it will make them a better judo instructor as well, PE teacher will surely learn faster. But I get the struggles when you want to make it a college sport. I still think the problem is attracting kids. And talking about judo in Finland, my judo club in my university is these days mostly filled with exchange students, maybe like 10 people in the beginner class. When I started there about 10 years ago, it was like 15-20 people almost all Finns, one Japanese guy and maybe some other exchange student. Clearly judo is big in Europe still like we know, but something happened to it in Finland. Perhaps the fact that there was multiple years of Finns not getting anywhere in judo, noww Puumalainen won European championship at least and Puumalainen and Saha both got to the Olympics (Saha unfortunately faced Vieru, rank 1 as his second match and barely lost at like 4 minutes into golden score despite controlling almost all of the match, being the active one). And let me say again something I've been saying for a while. All it takes is one cool movie like karate kid in the 80's. That will single-handedly take care of so much of getting the engine moving, generating some momentum that facilitates doing everything else. Did you people notice how much John Wick generated martial arts and bjj review videos? Even big channels that show experts reviewing movies had bjj guys review John Wick. A movie where the whole action scene move list was pretty much directly from Kodokan. How many judo people did you see review the movie or talk about it? Literally zero. It was such a huge missed opportunity. People love Keanu Reeves and how athletic he is, he does his own action sequences and stunts and he literally trains the real thing - he trained at combat gun shooting, he trained at a dojo. And judo community just sat there rolling their thumbs when they got the first class publicity opportunity to milk out. And it's not only that it was a great opportunity to say look at judo, but people love to watch experts reviewing and explaining movies and other stuff. It would've been the exact algorithm and trendy content as well. I saw some bjj guys talk about all the throws in the movie and it felt like they only half knew what they were talking about, like it was their hoods but they didn't go to that alley or know it really by experience, just knew that it exists in their alley. People see that movie and think it's some adjacent to bjj stuff, they don't even know it's pure judo. The writer/director/producer even ignored almost all striking and a lot of gun action, which is insanely uncommon in Hollywood, and focused on grappling throws, te-waza, koshi-waza, ashi-waza, sutemi-waza, the movie had it all. Even a couple of shime-waza and kansetsu-waza. Or I should say arm throws, hip throws, leg techniques, sacrficial techniques, strangles and joint locks. It really bothers me. And video games. Like ever since Street Fighter 2 that was a massive hit you could see sumi gaeshi or ippon seoi nage (although by karateka characters, but same techniques across martial arts). And to me it seems like the whole judo world is completely oblivious to how much other people spend time and enjoy the entertainment like movies and video games, while judo people just go running and lifting when they don't have a judo session and don't even know they exist and that judo exists there under the hood. And keep asking "how to make judo popular, how to get people to notice judo" well how about you step among those people and open the eyes to what they see around them, that's where you will see where judo can gain space. And taking advantage over the things where judo or judo adjacent things pop up in that space. Furthermore there's an example of how judo can even accidentally gain foothold and visibility: there's these weightlifters/weightlifting coaches who studied S&C and coach athletes in general, Sika Strength. They have been doing content for weightlifting for a good while now. They fell in love with bjj and since they have a lot of athletes as clients, they have started making content for grapplers on how to train physical attributes outside judo. Because martial arts and amateur grapplers have this power fantasy that it's all technique and loathe physical training that doesn't resemble exact things you do in the martial art. Something that's not as common with olympic sports where winning is important, except with people who view judo as self-defense and beautiful martial art with leg grabs and no shidos. Anyway, they also started loving judo because bjj is god damn pain to watch and because they have such respect to people doing S&C properly, and towards massively athletic and strong people. So when they mentioned judo in some bjj/grappling directed content, surprisingly there was a lot of audience that asked for more judo (a lot of judokas watching weightlifting and strength training tips) and many judokas in their clients as well. So they started making more judo relevant content and people loved something like Shohei Ono's training as an example of pretty much perfect S&C programming for a judoka or grappler in general. And Shohei Ono always nets clicks, but it really benefited them and their audience, judo did. Furthermore it's really difficult to get any reasonable physical training content on judo if you search on youtube, John Jayne did some vlogging on his strength programming and training for judo some years ago and that was pretty much the only good quality content without silly nonsense exercises that I could find on RUclips outside the Sika Strength guys.
These are some examples of where judo has huge room to gain space, that there exists a demand, but that people aren't taking advantage over. Now definitely some of that content is not the honeypot that will explode your bank account if you go there, the audience is still limited, but demonstrates how there's a lot that judo community is basically just completely ignoring and blind to. And where judo athleticism would be easily demonstrated in favourable context. And Shintaro Higashi has tried to keep judo content and community going on his RUclips, like it's hard to name another judo person who maintains the visibility as consistently and works as hard to come up with holistic content (technique and advanced judo video bits, instructional videos for sale, podcast every week talking about some aspect of judo, inside or outside dojo like doing business or teaching beginners, competing, branding his name). It's one thing to provide judokas something exciting to do that's not the ordinary stuff, but the first thing is to make people care about judo or to even acknowledge its existence, even non-judokas. Like people these days are huge on consuming knowledge and information, people watch experts explain and do stuff they will never do themself. Like knife sharpening or woodworking or whatever you come up with. I've read comments on youtube videos by Travis or Shintaro where someone says they watched for a good while and finally got the courage to go and try themself. And similar things on weightlifting now that some ex-professional weightlifters, olympic medalists and others, have established themself as content creators and teachers that provide access to a regular person to better health and training even if they can't hire a coach. People like Oleksiy Torokhtiy and Gabriel Sincraian, then there's of course Dmitry Klokov who has some kind of legendary aura to him and went to crossfit to bring more attention, he's just general cool guy in terms of people love watching whatever unusual feats of strength and athleticism he can do with weights. Also like look at Weightlifting House on youtube, literally the best weightlifting source for a spectator who's just interested in all things weightlifting. Maybe Judo Highlights is a channel that is great for spectators in similar fashion in judo space, but the title is still descriptive of the depth of the content, and Chadi is another that breaches the "on tatami" content to hobbyists or people who don't even do judo but are interested in hearing people talk about judo. The unfortunate part about Chadi is the admiration of historical judo as martial art and disgust at sports judo and the beliefs coming through in the content, speaking more to people who want to complain how judo is ruined. But he does great job at digging up judo's history and things way outside dojos and competitions where judo or judo adjacent things would show up (like old military training hand to hand footage) and trickling a bit of that magic dust on judo, the tradition of old senseis. But covid years were sort of golden in Travis' content for spectators, he had so many valuable videos to learn and improve, but his podcasts with old teammates and training partners and people who have opinions about judo at high level were great. Him being a guest at Lex Fridman, and Jimmy Pedro and Neil Adams guesting as well, were some of the peak ways to gain visibility to judo. Like someone who knows how to ask questions (someone like Fridman actually knowing and understanding the sport) and how to dress it up as exciting, interesting, magical, admirable making Travis, Jimmy and Neil talk more about who they are as a person, what have they done outside the competition result or what you can see today. Giving the audience a glimpse of these really interesting unique characters and how judo has changed their life in good and bad. Creating stories and narratives around these people that just did judo and won something. Audience loves that, getting a piece of surface you can actually grip on the sport and personalities. Competitive athletes have huge personalities and often times when they mellow out after their career, if they know how to bring the best sides of that personality accessible, they make really interesting characters to listen to. And regarding how much people know about judo: just yesterday saw a comment by some bjj practicioner who stated "judo has much less room for improvement than bjj so they need repetitions and conditioning. Bjj is all about technique and rolling." Which to me demonstrates how completely out of touch people are with judo and judo athletes. And I guess in martial arts in general. But there's also being out of touch about weightlifting. A ton of people don't lift seriously if they even lift. Mayn people barely even exercise. For example the guy who's the head of Weightlifting House took his own father to the Olympics and the only reason he grasped what was happening was because he had recently started lifting at the gym and his comment was "those plates are way heavier than you'd think" and there being three on both sides of the bar when a weightlifter lifts. Furthermore when Max Aita lifted 160 kg in olympic weightlifting for the first time and excitedly told his dad, his dad had the most emotionless response like "great" without having any concept of how massive that weight is and how much it meant to him. He had no concept of what 160 kg really means. Like until you start going to the gym and start doing barbell lifts and until you have trained for a while and seriously try to increase your lifts, you will have no concept of if 160 kg is a lot in terms of someone who's training to lift that. Sure it sounds a lot as a human and probably a lot more than you can lift. But you don't know how much you can lift and you don't know how much the biggest and strongest in the world lift and the number is so big it loses its meaning. And then snatching 160 kg is way different than deadlifting 160 kg. It's not until you watch everyone else stop or miss their lifts and the biggest guy ever manages a shaky 260 kg clean and jerk that you know it's a damn lot. Also talking about weightlifting, isn't it ironic that the best weightlifter in the history was a guy who became a weighlifter despite not liking it, because bodybuilding was banned in the Soviet Union? In a huge country who had a massive system of screening athletes and training them with a scientific system. In a way it parallels the idea of bjj guys being able to make it to LA in judo in the US where judo is a second class sport, not getting the prime material in the sport from all the other sports. And how despite most bjj players not being great athletes, the popularity and opportunity and competition in the sport is so big that the top people are actually naturally really good athletes. And drawing another parallel to weightlifting, it's also a second class sport in the US due to team sports being so much bigger and nobody putting effort into marketing weightlifting, crossfit took everyone just like bjj did to judo. Yet crossfitters are coming to weightlifting when they realise they like to lift instead of torturing themself with cardio, and lately there's been a turn when Hampton Morris won bronze and Olivia Reeves gold in Paris. Judo could very well have similar shift happen from bjj as weightlifting got. It just needs to speak to those people who are curious and think it'd be better suited. Like for starters bjj is advertised as good sport for older people. A lot of people say they like judo but decided to do bjj to not hurt themself. I rarely hear people talk about how they got injured in judo outside competitive athletes pushing it in training intensity or in competition. And who says you have to start with throws or do throws at all in judo. Furthermore it's terrifying to see how many casual bjj hobbyists have their joints like knees get messed up or one of the Sika Strength guys, someone who can squat 300 kg high bar, had his both shin bones in the leg fracture in bjj. I can't recall something like that happening in casual judo practice. There's another place where judo can improve in image, when a lot of dojos and instructors still hold those Japanese values of mutual benefit and respect, responsibility of yours and your practice partner's health, being conservative and responsible on techniques in practice. And some dojos maybe have a place in getting a bit of pedagogic wit to training, not just trying to break the first timer and show how it's a badass sport only for the toughest people and instead introduce them nicely to the sport and developing them up to the demands before exposing them to those stresses, making them resilient to injuries and physical activity before any smashing throws on the mat. Just giving them a sense of community, responsibility of self and others and self-efficacy. And values, striving to be a good person. Like in my university club everyone is helpful to others and we occasionally do some activities together outside judo as well. We hosted an olympic judo watch party in the lounge this summer.
Talking about newaza and winning medals, Keldiyorova known for her juji and newaza, mostly throwing to get to her newaza and scoring and winning that way, I think won all of her matches with ippon throws in Paris. I think that demonstrates what you have to have. Similarly Matthias Casse has phenomenal newaza and can also throw, is a fantastic player in general, but didn't get through elimination in Paris. Listening Travis talk about the basics makes me really happy that "despite" my class instructor being "just" a blue belt, he's really thoughtful about the programming and building fundamentals to something that is doing judo, like having coherent progression. Like this summer there was only a couple of us so he got to prototype teaching methods and build up an idea for a program for the fall's beginner class, into a more holistic thing instead of focusing in isolated details. We learned and practiced just a couple of throws in each class (that's more for the advanced class) and then started working on movement with partner, more specifically how to move your partner and create opportunities for throws from movement and combinations, how to combine different kind of techniques to work together and build your own system. And he's been planning on drills on gripping and how to teach building blocks for free movement so beginners can figure out what they are doing before they see how the opponent reacts to things and lock in to a plan for scoring. Like how to teach really fundamental things that sometimes are left to "when you do this for 10 years, you will start to understand it naturally, when you could be taught the basics of it in 3 months and actually feel like you know what you're doing". If you know what kind of movement and hand work patterns you can combine to make sense together, free practice like randori or just drilling in free movement becomes understandable and then it doesn't matter which throw you choose if you have kuzushi and just like turn throw pattern basics down, you can do just about any throw and feel like you understand judo a little bit. I think everyone knows the feeling when you have done judo in a beginner class for two weeks and then you do randori at the end and you're just confused about what you should be doing because nothing you were taught works and does anything. You don't even know how to grab the gi. And frankly it baffles me to understand how people think something like grip fighting, gripping and creating opportunities to throw is not mentally engaging and interesting. Like that's the most difficult and deep part of judo, way more interesting and mentally engaging than repeating a motor pattern of turning or lifting your leg. Like just a while ago Shintaro Higashi told about this Japanese judoka guest at his dojo who was an impossible gripper and when he interviewed the guy about those things, he discovered how the guy prefers the opponent grabbing his gi and also having a loose poor grip on the opponent over having a dominant position with very threatening grip, just because then the opponent is extremely defensive and won't let you go for it the moment they feel threatened, he likes to lure them in despite being in a winning position and then hit it. Like that's a different level of strategy, similar things as Travis has talked about what you need to think about at international level. Going through that thinking process and developing that strategy couldn't possibly be less mentally engaging. That's obviously a bit more advanced than the fundamentals you need to understand, but I think a lot of the fundamentals are these portals to deeper thinking like if you do it like this properly, you open the gateway to do this and that and progress to the next thing on the hierarchy - if you don't think about it right and don't execute it right, you don't have the opportunities or you gained no space. Practically you keep messing up the first steps in the ladder to your finisher and not getting the results where you could progress to the next step successfully and do your drilled technique. And I was that guy a year ago where I got so little consistent regular practice (when I returned to judo after a long long long break) that my basics had disappeared and my fitness wasn't up to standards (even though I had started lifting weights some years ago, judo is its own beast) that I was trying to soak up as much information online to get a grasp on what on Earth I was supposed to be doing with all the things that confused me. And I was watching a lot of tricks and tips and details by Travis on things and was constantly thinking about them, but the thing I needed to do was really just trying my absolute best to attend every practice session to build my fitness up and to drill the most very basic movements as much as possible. Because my body was not used to those positions and didn't feel strong and stable in them and it hurt the techniques and I was all the time one step too far in what I thought I needed to figure out when all I really needed was expose my body to it a lot. Especially when you're +30yo and have had passive periods and built up some mobility restrictions, it takes time to dissipate them away. So this summer was weeks of practicing mostly tandoku renshu morote seoi nage and uchi mata, and doing them step by step, only moving to the next step as the movement was good in the previous step. My body really needed that and we had time for it when there was just two to three of us, only occasional feel for partner and gi to remind the body how the movement goes. And now I'm comfortable to do morote seoi nage that looks almost like drop seoi nage because I can get all the way to deep squat holding arms straight up and feel strong, so I can also quickly turn and squat. And same with uchi mata, practicing that movement pattern before the leg lift helped so much. Now most of the throws feel quick to learn because I'm comfortable with the positions and just need to slightly adjust the movement patterns. Also like it took me months to do the warmup movement where you pull with your legs to shrimp to the side and move towards your legs, I could do the one where you pull towards your torso with your arms, but not the other way. I could deadlift almost 1,5x bodyweight but my hamstrings and other posterior chain didn't have the motorics to do that simple movement. It was something we laughed at with my instructor because it was comical how I literally couldn't understand how the thing happens and he tried to teach me, and it felt like trying to go through a brick wall. I even stopped doing it for a month, returned to lifting weights as well and then one practice session when there was only three of us so the instructor kept teaching the other student and I spent like 15 minutes trying to do it, then the next time again and it started to work. Now I can finally do it without effort, with power and full motion. And I couldn't explain why, other than the body learning how to use the muscles that existed. You can't do that in a big class and it's super boring if you don't have this kind of mind where you can just look at your goal and see that every rep (trying to get the technique just right, not just mindlessly repeating) is a step towards that goal and you enjoy the process itself. But a lot in the head needed to change for that, firstly I had to realise that I'm a complete beginner again and that I have to be in for a long run. That no short term results matter (talking about progress, not competing) and most of the things will be confusing because I don't know that much yet, figuring out that in fact I know almost nothing despite sucking information like a sponge from everywhere. That no matter how many instructionals I watch, I need to first and foremost listen to my own instructor who can not only teach me a full holistic system from the basics and the details don't matter, and who can guide and adjust and cue my faults, particularly that one where he can correct what I'm doing wrong. It's so important and easy to forget and tough to understand when you're yearning for better understanding and comfort in doing judo. It takes time is the most challenging thing to truly ingrain. And actually that tandoku renshu would've been very useful for the other advanced class as well during last semester, because everyone was attending so sporadically because of school and many returned to the mat after years of hiatus, so we were all over the place and had so many flaws in the basic execution that it was difficult to teach more advanced things than practicing a new throw. And I think this can be a problem for many smaller dojos as well, how widely the skills are spread and where many in the advanced class haven't truly graduated the basics class even though they graduated from the beginner class. Like it's one thing to know enough to be allowed to practice judo - graduate a beginner class, but when you get your yellow belt, it doesn't mean you know the basics and wouldn't need a lot of drilling very basic things before you even think about doing something more advanced or randori. I still see some people not being able to do forwards ukemi in a straight line for the life of them, they end up angled to the side, as an example of how small things can still be lacking.
Travis does have some talent but I don't know if it's a secret. He's a god damn hard worker. I'm also always surprised when athletes are asked about S&C tips. It's like asking bodybuilders how they train. You're not Ronnie Coleman and never will be, and another Olympian got huge doing the opposite. And both do and avoid some things because they got injured at some point, not because it's optimal. For that we have S&C coaches and sports scientists. You can see in many martial arts people having just the most spiritual nonsense about their training, a total make belief fads with no basis to what's effective. But Travis hit some key points, training at the gym to have sufficient strength levels, then applying that general strength to the sport. Not bringing silly sport like weird exercises to the strength training, that's where you do the most effective stuff in relation to what you need in the sport (push, pull, hinge, squat for example). For beginners it's good conditioning (the warmups and whatnot) who can't do gym on top of the sport because they don't have athletic background and tolerance, they grow from doing the sport. And then there's casual people who have job and family so they don't have time. But for someone who has time and wants to just increase performance, they go to the gym and lift the barbell to have most results for the time and effort spent. When you responded plyometrics to bodyweight, that's really not the case. The national organisations recommend athletes to have at least double bodyweight squat before they even start learning good plyometrics mechanics at first level (the lowest possible height) due to the stress being easily doubled in the plyometric environment compared to just lifting. And if you take your average amateur athlete, it's not given they have a double bodyweight anything, so their structures aren't adapted and conditioned to that level of stress and people end up injuring themself over time. For kids it's easy to jump around because 1. they're light as feather 2. they're made of rubber, they're really elastic and soft tissue that absorbs and adapts. A 80 kg/180 lbs adult will not have been jumping around in a long time and is much more stiff and hard tissue that doesn't absorb and adapt as well. And like the adults have lost all the mechanics of landing smoothly most of the time. Furthermore the plyometrics don't even benefit a lot of people that don't have those strength levels. But bodyweight exercises, just the regular stuff everybody does at home (pushup, pullup, squat) are a great place to start building up capacity. For proper strength training the best bet is to look up any weightlifting focused educational channel like Juggernaut Training Systems, Sika Strength, and just general strength stuff like Stronger By Science, Renaissance Periodization. The gym environment makes it easier to adjust for example for progressive overload (weight, reps) easier than bodyweight, but requires base level understanding of the lift technique (not that tough and if you're smart and start at very light weights to get your body used to the movement, even a halfway good technique serves well due to body adapting to it by strengthening tissues required for that technique so you won't be injuring yourself, as long as the technique is consistent). And you can anyway study the lift techniques more over time as you get better and start hitting stagnation, then you can get more into programming as well. The number one important point is to not start full program with full intensity, especially when you add it on top of the sport. Just a little bit sprinkled to your weekly schedule allows you to keep your sport performance up as you adjust to the new training stimulus and you can start adding it up. If you hit the full program full blast right away, you're gonna be sore for a week and it will ruin all your sport practice and you might even start to struggle with recovery with all training. Build up to it, remember that despite some level being optimal, you're not there when you start and every little bit you add more will be a positive effect, because you increased your training stimulus, it's not wasted if you add just a little bit and don't go all in just yet. It's infinitely easier and more efficient to start adding up volume and intensity little by little as you get used to it than going too hard too early and then trying to recover from it at all fronts for weeks and making no progress.
@@JEFFMAN90judo is jacket wrestling . Put on a jacket suddenly it’s a different game. No jacket , that’s wrestling. Judoka aren’t wrestlers surprise surprise. The same way wrestlers aren’t judoka. But bjj likes to pride itself for “having good judo and wrestling” when they really have garbage versions of both in gi and no gi .
One issue that needs to be settled is Judos belt system for adults 18 and up. It’s a visual wearable goal and often a key factor for an adult who is a hobbyist. Clarity of that progression gives a tangible goal they can achieve. You can achieve a black belt, but right now you can go to 5 different Judo clubs and see 5 different progressions to get there. This dilutes the validity and understanding of what these other belts mean especially if you visit another club and your belt doesn’t exist. Brazilian jiu jitsu has done a great job at uniformity with its progression with a general understanding of time and ability to achieve the first threshold (blue). This essentially universal progression builds community. You can see it with lower belts aspiring to have the skill of hire one’s, people with swag that have the colors of belt progression etc. When people see white, blue, purple, brown, black, they know they are looking at a BJJ progression. You will see people cry achieving a blue belt because it was a specific goal for them, no one’s crying over a judo yellow belt. To an Olympian or an elite athlete all of that is silly, but as Travis said most people will not be olympians and many are looking for communal validation. Judo is behind on not establishing this uniformity. They would do well with a four belt progression like BJJ, maybe different colors. Cut out the kids citrus colors … White, green, blue, brown, black something clear, but clearly Judo.
Are you anywhere near Edinburg? If so, Vlad Koulikov has an academy there! You'd be in REALLY good hands learning from him. His school is called Koulikov Grappling Academy
Bjj will change that. Bjj is evolving adding wrestling and judo, I have improved in judo bc of bjj and I’m learning old school judo and I’m taking people down left and right.
I'd be very interested in a blueprint of sorts especially for teaching children, ive been dragging my feet with participating and teaching children's classes while I'm still developing as just in the last two years (I've been grappling for 15) my thoughts on what's important to focus on fundamentally has drastically changed
As someone considering owning and running my own gym/dojo, I really don't want the headache that could happen when kids or a creep or something happens out of sight where clothes may be off. Especially when you have childrens classes or parent bring thier children but can't be mindful as they're focus is on training
@BJJ.Fanatics well I also think showering in gyms is largely a regional and age issue, my generation, especially down here I. Florida, it's not really a consideration. I heard some old coaches back in middle school complian about how the showers weren't in use or didn't function. I suppose some people who go to commercial gyms may be accustomed to it as well, but for most places that focus on a nightly class the wrap up the day, it doesn't seem to be an issue
@@austinfackender That's a good point! There are definitely some cultural differences regarding that in different regions and generations. I guess it matters more depending on your school's demographics.
I understand how hard it is to grow Judo in the state. I am from Korea, where Judo is way bigger. In Korea, if you are in the top 1% at the national level, there are teams that hire you and give you a salary. In the state, all the training and expenses are out of your pocket, not to mention that even if you win the medal at the Olympics, you can't really monetize it. I don't think there is a future in the state until there is some kind of national-level support, which will never happen. It is sad to see it as a former Judoka, but I don't see any silver lining.
Amazing interview. Very insightful. Empire building within BJJ, MMA and money changed the game. Like Travis said, you can’t monetise an Olympic medal. I live in Coventry, home of the voice of Judo: Neil Adam’s and he’s still working
Olympics is all behind paywalls while still given monopoly status over amateur sports (ted stevens act) while public has zero access and tax dollars and public debt massively subsidize each games. Enough already. Who among the Americans here watched ANY live olympic judo or boxing or wrestling this olympics? I mean even 1 minute? I say that as someone who sat in carioca 2 as a spectator for the rio olympic judo. The athletes who dedicated their whole lives are hostages to the IOC and get next to nothing out of it and the public gets screwed. The question probably isn't how do we save America's olympic judo hopes but how do we burn down the olympics completely and return all amateur sports to the people while letting legit business and investors focused on customers and products run pro sports. If USA judo is on life support, pull the plug. The AAU/USJF/USJA and grassroots made amateur judo what it was. Pro judo should be run and promoted like a business by people who are good at that. All the kooky propaganda that is not catering to regular decent folk is also part of the price to watch now. Jimmy pedro was trying to make a documentary about himself and ioc lawyers kept threatening when he tried to include any content about the olympics that he won his medal in. If all these sports just dumped the olympics and competed in something that went up against the olympics head to head instead, bankrupting the olympics, everyone would be better off.
Dude who would even watch pro judo? Get real. You are looking for a problem. My problem is not the olympics it's endless wars, big pharma, illegal immigration, the housing market, giving israel billions of dollars, etc. The Olympics is culturally significant... not once did I think a problem to be concerned with is the Olympics. Early in the days of wrestling there was a pro wrestling league but it got overshadowed by "pro wrestling" as in WWE. The general public is not very interested in real wrestling because to the naked eye it is just weird. Even in MMA which has seen great business success people steer away from wrestling heavy moments or fighters unless it involves a lot of striking. Lots of MMA fans today are not happy with the direction MMA is headed pretty much becoming a de facto pro wrestling league with many of the russian smothering wrestling styles.
@@purplevincent4454 1) there is IJF pro judo now. 2) that other stuff you have problems with is irrelevant in this forum. 3) catch was bigger than boxing early in the 20th century. ring magazine started as a grappling magazine. scripted pro wrastling was created by promoters after real grappling was more popular than baseball and any other sport, because the promoters wanted to control it. you are wrong about catch. could not be wronger. 4) we all grew up loving the olympics, same as disney and lots of other former cultural mainstays being strangled by these people with bad agendas, but you ignored my questions as to how many americans watched live judo, wrestling, or boxing this paris olympics. i suspect you ignored those questions because you watched zero in 2024, like everyone else. the olympics WAS significant. in the past, people knew who olympians were. that is not the case anymore. i was very specific about how there is zero return on investment for taxpayers, taxpayers all get scryewed, no public access, athletes exploited, massive corruption, radical propaganda, paywalls everywhere, aggressively monopolistic tactics from all the organizing bodies, NBC, etc. 5) the fact that you bring up MMA as an example of why grappling is not popular is really convoluted. gracies founded UFC and pride and there are bjj gyms in every town in america now, and competitions like naga, flo, grappling ind, ibjjf, adcc, one FC, metamoris, yada yada. the olympics is a sheet show that no real sport needs anymore. grass roots american judo is being harmed by usa judo and elite world judo is being harmed by the IJF.
@CoelhoSports if you remove the Olympics you are removing a long history of athletes and their record setting achievements. You highly overestimate people's care about grappling. I watched Mijaín López get his fifth gold medal in greco and no I didn't watch Judo at the olympics but that only adds to my point. Who would watch pro judo? The pro judo you've mentioned I've and alot of people (as in the general public outside of Judo fanatics) have never heard of. It's just delusion on your part to think there is a market for it. Prior to pro wrestling when the general public did have wrestling interest there were not many other sports to be interested in... good luck competing with all the other sports of today. I'm sorry to say but you really have a delusional view on this if you think Judo is gonna be better in the pro route, so many athletes will have to just abandon that path as there will be even less money than there is currently in more established sports like mma and Kickboxing. And i mentioned the other issues because those are more significant drains on taxpayers money not the olympics. But the sad thing is I'd rather other countries than in the west host the olympics next go around, it is ultimately up to the host country and their culture and France currently is very liberal so they had some... interesting choices for their opening ceremony.
@@CoelhoSportsand you mention BJJ it is a good example but even then. As you have said the gracies have done a lot of work to build their brand and associate their marketing with MMA so I see them as a sort of sibling sport to MMA. Currently in MMA you have Kayla Harrison representing judo but outside of that most people in MMA do not seem to even acknowledge judo. They speak more in regards to BJJ and wrestling and BJJ because of its ties to early UFC days. If the olympics were to be disbanded and everything shifted to pro judo I'm sure they would all end up quitting or dy*ing (youtube seems to often remove my comments so I'm censoring this) via starvation.
I just think Judo outlook is wrong in the USA. Judo should be sold as a compliment to wrestling. Freestyle and Greco are not really taught well in the USA, especially Greco. Judo is a natural compliment to both of those. When the off season lets out in March. All those athletes have nowhere to grapple in town, unless they high level high school teams. This is where judo should clutch. Lastly, if your a judo coach, you should walk into the high school wrestling coach and ask to host on Sundays, especially if your from a small town, and especially for the girls. None, and I mean none of the coaches know really anything about throwing and sweeping and countering the sway from the shoot. There are tons of kids that want to do this and want to go big. I've taught a little of my knowledge to high school wrestlers and they love it. Young kids like to go big. Matter of fact they would rather go big and loose because that is all they talk about. They talk about the throw's not the shots. It's now about transitioning that energy in the off season and give them a place to grapple and work on the balance and let them decide on what they love the most. I disagree with Travis, you need to help the high schools, and the kids will come to you.
Great point about bringing Judo to wrestling rooms! It would be amazing to see the greater grappling community of Judo, BJJ and Wrestling come together more! It would be great for everyone
@@BJJ.Fanatics Yes, my son won state with only two years of wrestling under his belt and 4 years of judo and 4 years of BJJ under his belt. Walked in his junior year after moving, won state his senior year for 126. The coach said all the time, I don’t worry about you in neutral. He told me that if we had a judo gym here he would have done it everyday leading up to Fargo.
What about first to 6 points you get thrown then you reset on feet and have the opportunity to come back and you must win by two points. But it would take a huge toll on the body.
The meta lesson from this podcast is: if a lot of people in the country don't really care about the sport, then it's going to be very hard to compete at the highest levels of the game. I bet it is the same for people who would like to pursue dreams of becoming a basketball or baseball athlete, in Japan, or Kazakhstan.
@@tl8211 I meant, trying to be a basketball pro coming from japan, or a baseball athlete coming from Kazakhstan. Maybe not the best examples, because you are right, there are realistic options to actually really pursue baseball in Japan or grappling at a high level in Kazakhstan.
I want to see no gi judo so bad! There no real event for it and i notice many BJJ guys dont take judo because they see wrestling far better than Judo. Even Judo and BJJ flows in chains better imo
Speaks about how certain ppl pick bad nutritionists and coaches Proceeds to say he doesn't drink water or eat vegetables...... Anyway, good interview, although ending got a bit less interesting
Amazing video. Seems kind of doomer-ish though. Everyone comments how BJJ just has a more uplifting culture than Judo. Yet almost no one seems focused on bringing that cultural aspect into Judo. BJJ dojos are full of smiling people. Judo ones are all stone-faced. No wonder one is growing with adults and the other is only for kids in school.
Judo needs to allow more time for Ne Waza , it is not as telegenic as is sounds like, with present rules in place judo is really boring to watch, during the Olympics the audience was pretty enthusiastic when judokas started some ground work. Ippon are spectacular but There are lots of failed attacks where judokas just lay belly down waiting for the refs to restart the match , if ground work would be facilitated judokas would not have the luxury to just lay down on the mat.
People don’t really care about slow-paced newaza fights. They only care about quick explosive submissions, which are allowed and even encouraged by the ruleset. And most judoka simply don’t want to engage on newaza, certainly not for a long while: it’s a heavy commitment of energy with unlikely results, it doesn’t matter how much you allow them to.
Why does judo need more of something that is extremely boring? If by more you mean like, 5 seconds more, then maybe. But watching gi bjj is SUPER BORING.
Sounds like the conspiracy theory about wrestlers supposedly dominating the Olympics in judo . Despite the fact that Japan and France that don’t emphasize wrestling consistently are beating the “wrestling” countries before and after rule changes . Usually Bjj guys spread this nonsense . Wrestling is great without a gi though
Judo isn't MMA. The elite judoka of the world (outside the US) aren't really gravitating towards MMA because they are either better off than you think or MMA just isn't the thing to do in that part of the world. Teddy Riner is an extreme example, but he is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and France isn't exactly a BJJ/wrestling/MMA hot bed. Why would he go into MMA? Things are different outside of the US....
@@JudoHighlights2015 yes that's true too, but I was referring more to the idea of elite judoka leaving Judo for "greener pastures" in MMA. High lvl Judoka in countries that care about the sport aren't begging for charity, so they can scrape together some funding, as most ppl in the anglosphere seem to think. Also I think there is some kind of ranking cut off for being eligible to compete in other combat sports. Like only for the Top 50 or Top 100. Don't quote me on that though.....
I love how real Stevens keeps it. He's so blunt about the level of judo at the Olympics. The athletes at the top of judo are incredible. And there are few athletes (regardless of sport) at their level. Insane!
100% 😎
Stevens is right about those who think they have authority on others when they are not entitled to do so .
100% Agreed!
Had the chance to roll with Travis last year in BJJ. I've trained with many other pros and almost never felt so completely outmatched. Thankfully he was humble and gentle.
That must have been an awesome experience!
The turning around to tie your belt thing isn’t a power trip. Or at least it isn’t in Japan. It’s just etiquette. Nobody does it with their belt cause it happens all the time, but if your pant strings come undone you usually turn away from your partner.
@@JudoHighlights2015your channel is great 👍
This is a masterclass on elite competition. Met him several times at CS Olympic training center…he is a cut above. Period.
Happy you enjoyed it Jose! 😀
@@BJJ.Fanatics I sure did! Thank you for hosting Travis!
I would absolutely love Travis to come to Scotland and give a master class.
Be even better if it was at the annual Judo Scotland gathering, just had ngasse and Ono 2 weeks ago on the mat.
The wisdom in this podcast goes way deeper than sports. Travis is describing the path of self actualization and the mental mindset that can overcome any challenge or to achieve any goal in life.
Very happy you enjoyed it my friend!
Travis is fantastic I’ve been working on judo for Bjj. The way he talks about the athleticism of judo guys make me want take a deep dive into the sport.
Adding the two arts together will make you a monster! Good for you for doing that!
Thank you. It a real challenge getting the guys to work on take down, but it’s all a work in progress.
I’m going to work in new Hampshire in September about an hour from his gym, I’m really hoping to catch him there and train.
BJJ guys won't make the LA olympics cause they'd fail the drug test
This is the real answer 😂
😂😂😂
Lmao
The juice is already imprinted in their DNA
😂😂😂😂
Sorry in advance to anyone who reads the whole thing, it's quite a rant and train of thought, but I had to get it out after this podcast episode giving a lot to think about.
Judo in the Olympics this time was a blast. Had its issues but when the last match of the week of judo is Teddy Riner, a 130 kg giant with visible abs, throwing another 130 kg man like a child with his legs pointing to the roof, that's something else. It was truly a beautiful way to end it, so artistic, picturesque.
It's also fascinating to think about the school judo concept. Here in Finland the judo federation published ads just this year promoting judo for kids in school, like just general fun activity to move. And Finland is a place where your "All Japan" type of weight categoriless event gathers 8 males and the winner is easily the only half-successful international competitor (well, Puumalainen won European championship, let's be fair) and you can win a gold medal in your weight category in a tournament just by showing up because there's no competition, and they struggle to have high level enough training partners even when they moved to international athlete training center, they travelled to every single competition basically in Europe that was just feasible. Like sure the US is a huge land and has huge population compared to judokas who are at teaching level, but for kids all you need to do is making it fun and teach basics. That makes a huge difference for their future and the teacher doesn't need to be an experienced black belt. Almost any PE teacher can take care of that and if they start training judo themself alongside that, it will make them a better judo instructor as well, PE teacher will surely learn faster. But I get the struggles when you want to make it a college sport. I still think the problem is attracting kids. And talking about judo in Finland, my judo club in my university is these days mostly filled with exchange students, maybe like 10 people in the beginner class. When I started there about 10 years ago, it was like 15-20 people almost all Finns, one Japanese guy and maybe some other exchange student. Clearly judo is big in Europe still like we know, but something happened to it in Finland. Perhaps the fact that there was multiple years of Finns not getting anywhere in judo, noww Puumalainen won European championship at least and Puumalainen and Saha both got to the Olympics (Saha unfortunately faced Vieru, rank 1 as his second match and barely lost at like 4 minutes into golden score despite controlling almost all of the match, being the active one).
And let me say again something I've been saying for a while. All it takes is one cool movie like karate kid in the 80's. That will single-handedly take care of so much of getting the engine moving, generating some momentum that facilitates doing everything else. Did you people notice how much John Wick generated martial arts and bjj review videos? Even big channels that show experts reviewing movies had bjj guys review John Wick. A movie where the whole action scene move list was pretty much directly from Kodokan. How many judo people did you see review the movie or talk about it? Literally zero. It was such a huge missed opportunity. People love Keanu Reeves and how athletic he is, he does his own action sequences and stunts and he literally trains the real thing - he trained at combat gun shooting, he trained at a dojo. And judo community just sat there rolling their thumbs when they got the first class publicity opportunity to milk out. And it's not only that it was a great opportunity to say look at judo, but people love to watch experts reviewing and explaining movies and other stuff. It would've been the exact algorithm and trendy content as well. I saw some bjj guys talk about all the throws in the movie and it felt like they only half knew what they were talking about, like it was their hoods but they didn't go to that alley or know it really by experience, just knew that it exists in their alley. People see that movie and think it's some adjacent to bjj stuff, they don't even know it's pure judo. The writer/director/producer even ignored almost all striking and a lot of gun action, which is insanely uncommon in Hollywood, and focused on grappling throws, te-waza, koshi-waza, ashi-waza, sutemi-waza, the movie had it all. Even a couple of shime-waza and kansetsu-waza. Or I should say arm throws, hip throws, leg techniques, sacrficial techniques, strangles and joint locks. It really bothers me.
And video games. Like ever since Street Fighter 2 that was a massive hit you could see sumi gaeshi or ippon seoi nage (although by karateka characters, but same techniques across martial arts). And to me it seems like the whole judo world is completely oblivious to how much other people spend time and enjoy the entertainment like movies and video games, while judo people just go running and lifting when they don't have a judo session and don't even know they exist and that judo exists there under the hood. And keep asking "how to make judo popular, how to get people to notice judo" well how about you step among those people and open the eyes to what they see around them, that's where you will see where judo can gain space. And taking advantage over the things where judo or judo adjacent things pop up in that space.
Furthermore there's an example of how judo can even accidentally gain foothold and visibility: there's these weightlifters/weightlifting coaches who studied S&C and coach athletes in general, Sika Strength. They have been doing content for weightlifting for a good while now. They fell in love with bjj and since they have a lot of athletes as clients, they have started making content for grapplers on how to train physical attributes outside judo. Because martial arts and amateur grapplers have this power fantasy that it's all technique and loathe physical training that doesn't resemble exact things you do in the martial art. Something that's not as common with olympic sports where winning is important, except with people who view judo as self-defense and beautiful martial art with leg grabs and no shidos. Anyway, they also started loving judo because bjj is god damn pain to watch and because they have such respect to people doing S&C properly, and towards massively athletic and strong people. So when they mentioned judo in some bjj/grappling directed content, surprisingly there was a lot of audience that asked for more judo (a lot of judokas watching weightlifting and strength training tips) and many judokas in their clients as well. So they started making more judo relevant content and people loved something like Shohei Ono's training as an example of pretty much perfect S&C programming for a judoka or grappler in general. And Shohei Ono always nets clicks, but it really benefited them and their audience, judo did. Furthermore it's really difficult to get any reasonable physical training content on judo if you search on youtube, John Jayne did some vlogging on his strength programming and training for judo some years ago and that was pretty much the only good quality content without silly nonsense exercises that I could find on RUclips outside the Sika Strength guys.
These are some examples of where judo has huge room to gain space, that there exists a demand, but that people aren't taking advantage over. Now definitely some of that content is not the honeypot that will explode your bank account if you go there, the audience is still limited, but demonstrates how there's a lot that judo community is basically just completely ignoring and blind to. And where judo athleticism would be easily demonstrated in favourable context. And Shintaro Higashi has tried to keep judo content and community going on his RUclips, like it's hard to name another judo person who maintains the visibility as consistently and works as hard to come up with holistic content (technique and advanced judo video bits, instructional videos for sale, podcast every week talking about some aspect of judo, inside or outside dojo like doing business or teaching beginners, competing, branding his name). It's one thing to provide judokas something exciting to do that's not the ordinary stuff, but the first thing is to make people care about judo or to even acknowledge its existence, even non-judokas. Like people these days are huge on consuming knowledge and information, people watch experts explain and do stuff they will never do themself. Like knife sharpening or woodworking or whatever you come up with. I've read comments on youtube videos by Travis or Shintaro where someone says they watched for a good while and finally got the courage to go and try themself. And similar things on weightlifting now that some ex-professional weightlifters, olympic medalists and others, have established themself as content creators and teachers that provide access to a regular person to better health and training even if they can't hire a coach. People like Oleksiy Torokhtiy and Gabriel Sincraian, then there's of course Dmitry Klokov who has some kind of legendary aura to him and went to crossfit to bring more attention, he's just general cool guy in terms of people love watching whatever unusual feats of strength and athleticism he can do with weights. Also like look at Weightlifting House on youtube, literally the best weightlifting source for a spectator who's just interested in all things weightlifting. Maybe Judo Highlights is a channel that is great for spectators in similar fashion in judo space, but the title is still descriptive of the depth of the content, and Chadi is another that breaches the "on tatami" content to hobbyists or people who don't even do judo but are interested in hearing people talk about judo. The unfortunate part about Chadi is the admiration of historical judo as martial art and disgust at sports judo and the beliefs coming through in the content, speaking more to people who want to complain how judo is ruined. But he does great job at digging up judo's history and things way outside dojos and competitions where judo or judo adjacent things would show up (like old military training hand to hand footage) and trickling a bit of that magic dust on judo, the tradition of old senseis.
But covid years were sort of golden in Travis' content for spectators, he had so many valuable videos to learn and improve, but his podcasts with old teammates and training partners and people who have opinions about judo at high level were great. Him being a guest at Lex Fridman, and Jimmy Pedro and Neil Adams guesting as well, were some of the peak ways to gain visibility to judo. Like someone who knows how to ask questions (someone like Fridman actually knowing and understanding the sport) and how to dress it up as exciting, interesting, magical, admirable making Travis, Jimmy and Neil talk more about who they are as a person, what have they done outside the competition result or what you can see today. Giving the audience a glimpse of these really interesting unique characters and how judo has changed their life in good and bad. Creating stories and narratives around these people that just did judo and won something. Audience loves that, getting a piece of surface you can actually grip on the sport and personalities. Competitive athletes have huge personalities and often times when they mellow out after their career, if they know how to bring the best sides of that personality accessible, they make really interesting characters to listen to.
And regarding how much people know about judo: just yesterday saw a comment by some bjj practicioner who stated "judo has much less room for improvement than bjj so they need repetitions and conditioning. Bjj is all about technique and rolling." Which to me demonstrates how completely out of touch people are with judo and judo athletes. And I guess in martial arts in general. But there's also being out of touch about weightlifting. A ton of people don't lift seriously if they even lift. Mayn people barely even exercise. For example the guy who's the head of Weightlifting House took his own father to the Olympics and the only reason he grasped what was happening was because he had recently started lifting at the gym and his comment was "those plates are way heavier than you'd think" and there being three on both sides of the bar when a weightlifter lifts. Furthermore when Max Aita lifted 160 kg in olympic weightlifting for the first time and excitedly told his dad, his dad had the most emotionless response like "great" without having any concept of how massive that weight is and how much it meant to him. He had no concept of what 160 kg really means. Like until you start going to the gym and start doing barbell lifts and until you have trained for a while and seriously try to increase your lifts, you will have no concept of if 160 kg is a lot in terms of someone who's training to lift that. Sure it sounds a lot as a human and probably a lot more than you can lift. But you don't know how much you can lift and you don't know how much the biggest and strongest in the world lift and the number is so big it loses its meaning. And then snatching 160 kg is way different than deadlifting 160 kg. It's not until you watch everyone else stop or miss their lifts and the biggest guy ever manages a shaky 260 kg clean and jerk that you know it's a damn lot.
Also talking about weightlifting, isn't it ironic that the best weightlifter in the history was a guy who became a weighlifter despite not liking it, because bodybuilding was banned in the Soviet Union? In a huge country who had a massive system of screening athletes and training them with a scientific system. In a way it parallels the idea of bjj guys being able to make it to LA in judo in the US where judo is a second class sport, not getting the prime material in the sport from all the other sports. And how despite most bjj players not being great athletes, the popularity and opportunity and competition in the sport is so big that the top people are actually naturally really good athletes. And drawing another parallel to weightlifting, it's also a second class sport in the US due to team sports being so much bigger and nobody putting effort into marketing weightlifting, crossfit took everyone just like bjj did to judo. Yet crossfitters are coming to weightlifting when they realise they like to lift instead of torturing themself with cardio, and lately there's been a turn when Hampton Morris won bronze and Olivia Reeves gold in Paris. Judo could very well have similar shift happen from bjj as weightlifting got. It just needs to speak to those people who are curious and think it'd be better suited. Like for starters bjj is advertised as good sport for older people. A lot of people say they like judo but decided to do bjj to not hurt themself. I rarely hear people talk about how they got injured in judo outside competitive athletes pushing it in training intensity or in competition. And who says you have to start with throws or do throws at all in judo. Furthermore it's terrifying to see how many casual bjj hobbyists have their joints like knees get messed up or one of the Sika Strength guys, someone who can squat 300 kg high bar, had his both shin bones in the leg fracture in bjj. I can't recall something like that happening in casual judo practice. There's another place where judo can improve in image, when a lot of dojos and instructors still hold those Japanese values of mutual benefit and respect, responsibility of yours and your practice partner's health, being conservative and responsible on techniques in practice. And some dojos maybe have a place in getting a bit of pedagogic wit to training, not just trying to break the first timer and show how it's a badass sport only for the toughest people and instead introduce them nicely to the sport and developing them up to the demands before exposing them to those stresses, making them resilient to injuries and physical activity before any smashing throws on the mat. Just giving them a sense of community, responsibility of self and others and self-efficacy. And values, striving to be a good person. Like in my university club everyone is helpful to others and we occasionally do some activities together outside judo as well. We hosted an olympic judo watch party in the lounge this summer.
Talking about newaza and winning medals, Keldiyorova known for her juji and newaza, mostly throwing to get to her newaza and scoring and winning that way, I think won all of her matches with ippon throws in Paris. I think that demonstrates what you have to have. Similarly Matthias Casse has phenomenal newaza and can also throw, is a fantastic player in general, but didn't get through elimination in Paris.
Listening Travis talk about the basics makes me really happy that "despite" my class instructor being "just" a blue belt, he's really thoughtful about the programming and building fundamentals to something that is doing judo, like having coherent progression. Like this summer there was only a couple of us so he got to prototype teaching methods and build up an idea for a program for the fall's beginner class, into a more holistic thing instead of focusing in isolated details. We learned and practiced just a couple of throws in each class (that's more for the advanced class) and then started working on movement with partner, more specifically how to move your partner and create opportunities for throws from movement and combinations, how to combine different kind of techniques to work together and build your own system. And he's been planning on drills on gripping and how to teach building blocks for free movement so beginners can figure out what they are doing before they see how the opponent reacts to things and lock in to a plan for scoring. Like how to teach really fundamental things that sometimes are left to "when you do this for 10 years, you will start to understand it naturally, when you could be taught the basics of it in 3 months and actually feel like you know what you're doing". If you know what kind of movement and hand work patterns you can combine to make sense together, free practice like randori or just drilling in free movement becomes understandable and then it doesn't matter which throw you choose if you have kuzushi and just like turn throw pattern basics down, you can do just about any throw and feel like you understand judo a little bit.
I think everyone knows the feeling when you have done judo in a beginner class for two weeks and then you do randori at the end and you're just confused about what you should be doing because nothing you were taught works and does anything. You don't even know how to grab the gi. And frankly it baffles me to understand how people think something like grip fighting, gripping and creating opportunities to throw is not mentally engaging and interesting. Like that's the most difficult and deep part of judo, way more interesting and mentally engaging than repeating a motor pattern of turning or lifting your leg. Like just a while ago Shintaro Higashi told about this Japanese judoka guest at his dojo who was an impossible gripper and when he interviewed the guy about those things, he discovered how the guy prefers the opponent grabbing his gi and also having a loose poor grip on the opponent over having a dominant position with very threatening grip, just because then the opponent is extremely defensive and won't let you go for it the moment they feel threatened, he likes to lure them in despite being in a winning position and then hit it. Like that's a different level of strategy, similar things as Travis has talked about what you need to think about at international level. Going through that thinking process and developing that strategy couldn't possibly be less mentally engaging. That's obviously a bit more advanced than the fundamentals you need to understand, but I think a lot of the fundamentals are these portals to deeper thinking like if you do it like this properly, you open the gateway to do this and that and progress to the next thing on the hierarchy - if you don't think about it right and don't execute it right, you don't have the opportunities or you gained no space. Practically you keep messing up the first steps in the ladder to your finisher and not getting the results where you could progress to the next step successfully and do your drilled technique.
And I was that guy a year ago where I got so little consistent regular practice (when I returned to judo after a long long long break) that my basics had disappeared and my fitness wasn't up to standards (even though I had started lifting weights some years ago, judo is its own beast) that I was trying to soak up as much information online to get a grasp on what on Earth I was supposed to be doing with all the things that confused me. And I was watching a lot of tricks and tips and details by Travis on things and was constantly thinking about them, but the thing I needed to do was really just trying my absolute best to attend every practice session to build my fitness up and to drill the most very basic movements as much as possible. Because my body was not used to those positions and didn't feel strong and stable in them and it hurt the techniques and I was all the time one step too far in what I thought I needed to figure out when all I really needed was expose my body to it a lot. Especially when you're +30yo and have had passive periods and built up some mobility restrictions, it takes time to dissipate them away. So this summer was weeks of practicing mostly tandoku renshu morote seoi nage and uchi mata, and doing them step by step, only moving to the next step as the movement was good in the previous step. My body really needed that and we had time for it when there was just two to three of us, only occasional feel for partner and gi to remind the body how the movement goes. And now I'm comfortable to do morote seoi nage that looks almost like drop seoi nage because I can get all the way to deep squat holding arms straight up and feel strong, so I can also quickly turn and squat. And same with uchi mata, practicing that movement pattern before the leg lift helped so much. Now most of the throws feel quick to learn because I'm comfortable with the positions and just need to slightly adjust the movement patterns. Also like it took me months to do the warmup movement where you pull with your legs to shrimp to the side and move towards your legs, I could do the one where you pull towards your torso with your arms, but not the other way. I could deadlift almost 1,5x bodyweight but my hamstrings and other posterior chain didn't have the motorics to do that simple movement. It was something we laughed at with my instructor because it was comical how I literally couldn't understand how the thing happens and he tried to teach me, and it felt like trying to go through a brick wall. I even stopped doing it for a month, returned to lifting weights as well and then one practice session when there was only three of us so the instructor kept teaching the other student and I spent like 15 minutes trying to do it, then the next time again and it started to work. Now I can finally do it without effort, with power and full motion. And I couldn't explain why, other than the body learning how to use the muscles that existed.
You can't do that in a big class and it's super boring if you don't have this kind of mind where you can just look at your goal and see that every rep (trying to get the technique just right, not just mindlessly repeating) is a step towards that goal and you enjoy the process itself. But a lot in the head needed to change for that, firstly I had to realise that I'm a complete beginner again and that I have to be in for a long run. That no short term results matter (talking about progress, not competing) and most of the things will be confusing because I don't know that much yet, figuring out that in fact I know almost nothing despite sucking information like a sponge from everywhere. That no matter how many instructionals I watch, I need to first and foremost listen to my own instructor who can not only teach me a full holistic system from the basics and the details don't matter, and who can guide and adjust and cue my faults, particularly that one where he can correct what I'm doing wrong. It's so important and easy to forget and tough to understand when you're yearning for better understanding and comfort in doing judo. It takes time is the most challenging thing to truly ingrain. And actually that tandoku renshu would've been very useful for the other advanced class as well during last semester, because everyone was attending so sporadically because of school and many returned to the mat after years of hiatus, so we were all over the place and had so many flaws in the basic execution that it was difficult to teach more advanced things than practicing a new throw. And I think this can be a problem for many smaller dojos as well, how widely the skills are spread and where many in the advanced class haven't truly graduated the basics class even though they graduated from the beginner class. Like it's one thing to know enough to be allowed to practice judo - graduate a beginner class, but when you get your yellow belt, it doesn't mean you know the basics and wouldn't need a lot of drilling very basic things before you even think about doing something more advanced or randori. I still see some people not being able to do forwards ukemi in a straight line for the life of them, they end up angled to the side, as an example of how small things can still be lacking.
Travis does have some talent but I don't know if it's a secret. He's a god damn hard worker. I'm also always surprised when athletes are asked about S&C tips. It's like asking bodybuilders how they train. You're not Ronnie Coleman and never will be, and another Olympian got huge doing the opposite. And both do and avoid some things because they got injured at some point, not because it's optimal. For that we have S&C coaches and sports scientists. You can see in many martial arts people having just the most spiritual nonsense about their training, a total make belief fads with no basis to what's effective. But Travis hit some key points, training at the gym to have sufficient strength levels, then applying that general strength to the sport. Not bringing silly sport like weird exercises to the strength training, that's where you do the most effective stuff in relation to what you need in the sport (push, pull, hinge, squat for example). For beginners it's good conditioning (the warmups and whatnot) who can't do gym on top of the sport because they don't have athletic background and tolerance, they grow from doing the sport. And then there's casual people who have job and family so they don't have time. But for someone who has time and wants to just increase performance, they go to the gym and lift the barbell to have most results for the time and effort spent.
When you responded plyometrics to bodyweight, that's really not the case. The national organisations recommend athletes to have at least double bodyweight squat before they even start learning good plyometrics mechanics at first level (the lowest possible height) due to the stress being easily doubled in the plyometric environment compared to just lifting. And if you take your average amateur athlete, it's not given they have a double bodyweight anything, so their structures aren't adapted and conditioned to that level of stress and people end up injuring themself over time. For kids it's easy to jump around because 1. they're light as feather 2. they're made of rubber, they're really elastic and soft tissue that absorbs and adapts. A 80 kg/180 lbs adult will not have been jumping around in a long time and is much more stiff and hard tissue that doesn't absorb and adapt as well. And like the adults have lost all the mechanics of landing smoothly most of the time. Furthermore the plyometrics don't even benefit a lot of people that don't have those strength levels. But bodyweight exercises, just the regular stuff everybody does at home (pushup, pullup, squat) are a great place to start building up capacity. For proper strength training the best bet is to look up any weightlifting focused educational channel like Juggernaut Training Systems, Sika Strength, and just general strength stuff like Stronger By Science, Renaissance Periodization. The gym environment makes it easier to adjust for example for progressive overload (weight, reps) easier than bodyweight, but requires base level understanding of the lift technique (not that tough and if you're smart and start at very light weights to get your body used to the movement, even a halfway good technique serves well due to body adapting to it by strengthening tissues required for that technique so you won't be injuring yourself, as long as the technique is consistent). And you can anyway study the lift techniques more over time as you get better and start hitting stagnation, then you can get more into programming as well. The number one important point is to not start full program with full intensity, especially when you add it on top of the sport. Just a little bit sprinkled to your weekly schedule allows you to keep your sport performance up as you adjust to the new training stimulus and you can start adding it up. If you hit the full program full blast right away, you're gonna be sore for a week and it will ruin all your sport practice and you might even start to struggle with recovery with all training. Build up to it, remember that despite some level being optimal, you're not there when you start and every little bit you add more will be a positive effect, because you increased your training stimulus, it's not wasted if you add just a little bit and don't go all in just yet. It's infinitely easier and more efficient to start adding up volume and intensity little by little as you get used to it than going too hard too early and then trying to recover from it at all fronts for weeks and making no progress.
Thank you for taking to time to share your thoughts!! Lots of great points my friend! Happy you enjoyed the episode 😁
This was awesome to listen to. Hopefully more people will take up judo and it can stay strong in America
Happy you enjoyed it! And yes, hopefully so! Judo is a beautiful and effective art!
This is such an amazing interview. Thank you!
Happy you enjoyed it! 😃
The 6 seconds and 10 seconds challenges really change my perspective
Travis is a great guy and one of the best coaches I've ever had.
Agreed! And if you got to learn from him, you're very lucky!
Glad he called out how low-level the wrestling in BJJ is.
The wrestling in Judo is no better tbh
@@JEFFMAN90judo is jacket wrestling . Put on a jacket suddenly it’s a different game. No jacket , that’s wrestling. Judoka aren’t wrestlers surprise surprise. The same way wrestlers aren’t judoka. But bjj likes to pride itself for “having good judo and wrestling” when they really have garbage versions of both in gi and no gi .
One issue that needs to be settled is Judos belt system for adults 18 and up. It’s a visual wearable goal and often a key factor for an adult who is a hobbyist. Clarity of that progression gives a tangible goal they can achieve. You can achieve a black belt, but right now you can go to 5 different Judo clubs and see 5 different progressions to get there. This dilutes the validity and understanding of what these other belts mean especially if you visit another club and your belt doesn’t exist.
Brazilian jiu jitsu has done a great job at uniformity with its progression with a general understanding of time and ability to achieve the first threshold (blue). This essentially universal progression builds community. You can see it with lower belts aspiring to have the skill of hire one’s, people with swag that have the colors of belt progression etc. When people see white, blue, purple, brown, black, they know they are looking at a BJJ progression. You will see people cry achieving a blue belt because it was a specific goal for them, no one’s crying over a judo yellow belt. To an Olympian or an elite athlete all of that is silly, but as Travis said most people will not be olympians and many are looking for communal validation. Judo is behind on not establishing this uniformity. They would do well with a four belt progression like BJJ, maybe different colors. Cut out the kids citrus colors … White, green, blue, brown, black something clear, but clearly Judo.
That's a great thought!
I live here deep in south Texas, and there are no Judo dojos in sight. Would love to train Judo as a martial art, not as a sport or for competition.
Are you anywhere near Edinburg? If so, Vlad Koulikov has an academy there! You'd be in REALLY good hands learning from him. His school is called Koulikov Grappling Academy
@@BJJ.Fanatics I'm actually in Brownsville, but I'll check them out. Thank you so much!
Bjj will change that. Bjj is evolving adding wrestling and judo, I have improved in judo bc of bjj and I’m learning old school judo and I’m taking people down left and right.
Agreed!!
That dude is a Dreams killer 😂 joke be a part thks for this excellent podcast. Travis was an excellent athlete and bjj fighter.
Very happy you enjoyed it my friend! 😁
I'd be very interested in a blueprint of sorts especially for teaching children, ive been dragging my feet with participating and teaching children's classes while I'm still developing as just in the last two years (I've been grappling for 15) my thoughts on what's important to focus on fundamentally has drastically changed
Austin, how have your views on the fundamentals changed? What do you feel is important for your students to focus on? :)
Man i would love for there to be timestamps for the different topics discussed
52:00 Agree. It is weird to me that BJJ/MMA gyms on average don't have showers or locker rooms. I can't think of another sport that needs it more.
As someone considering owning and running my own gym/dojo, I really don't want the headache that could happen when kids or a creep or something happens out of sight where clothes may be off. Especially when you have childrens classes or parent bring thier children but can't be mindful as they're focus is on training
Yea, gym funk is real. Travis had a really nasty staph infection that almost cost him his leg. Showers are really valuable to have on site.
@@austinfackender That is a reasonable concern. I'd talk to other gym owners to see what they've done to avoid issues.
@BJJ.Fanatics well I also think showering in gyms is largely a regional and age issue, my generation, especially down here I. Florida, it's not really a consideration. I heard some old coaches back in middle school complian about how the showers weren't in use or didn't function. I suppose some people who go to commercial gyms may be accustomed to it as well, but for most places that focus on a nightly class the wrap up the day, it doesn't seem to be an issue
@@austinfackender That's a good point! There are definitely some cultural differences regarding that in different regions and generations. I guess it matters more depending on your school's demographics.
I want one of those American Judo shirts but they are out of stock :(
Good Kumi Kata fundamentals are underutilized in BJJ. Also I would say the pinning skills.
Incredible interview. I met him in Buffalo in 2017.
Thank you!! Very happy you enjoyed it!
I understand how hard it is to grow Judo in the state. I am from Korea, where Judo is way bigger. In Korea, if you are in the top 1% at the national level, there are teams that hire you and give you a salary. In the state, all the training and expenses are out of your pocket, not to mention that even if you win the medal at the Olympics, you can't really monetize it. I don't think there is a future in the state until there is some kind of national-level support, which will never happen. It is sad to see it as a former Judoka, but I don't see any silver lining.
Great fighting instructional :The first instructional longer than Danaher’s 😂😂😂
At 38:00 they talk about newaza transition... Watch Flávio Canto transition and submission...
Flavio is one of the best ever!
Amazing interview. Very insightful. Empire building within BJJ, MMA and money changed the game. Like Travis said, you can’t monetise an Olympic medal. I live in Coventry, home of the voice of Judo: Neil Adam’s and he’s still working
He still works?! What does he do?
@@JudoHighlights2015 Judo!!!! Seminars, online coaching etc
Thank you very much! Happy you enjoyed it! 😁
well said
Olympics is all behind paywalls while still given monopoly status over amateur sports (ted stevens act) while public has zero access and tax dollars and public debt massively subsidize each games. Enough already. Who among the Americans here watched ANY live olympic judo or boxing or wrestling this olympics? I mean even 1 minute? I say that as someone who sat in carioca 2 as a spectator for the rio olympic judo. The athletes who dedicated their whole lives are hostages to the IOC and get next to nothing out of it and the public gets screwed.
The question probably isn't how do we save America's olympic judo hopes but how do we burn down the olympics completely and return all amateur sports to the people while letting legit business and investors focused on customers and products run pro sports. If USA judo is on life support, pull the plug. The AAU/USJF/USJA and grassroots made amateur judo what it was. Pro judo should be run and promoted like a business by people who are good at that.
All the kooky propaganda that is not catering to regular decent folk is also part of the price to watch now. Jimmy pedro was trying to make a documentary about himself and ioc lawyers kept threatening when he tried to include any content about the olympics that he won his medal in. If all these sports just dumped the olympics and competed in something that went up against the olympics head to head instead, bankrupting the olympics, everyone would be better off.
Very well put! Thank you!
Dude who would even watch pro judo? Get real. You are looking for a problem. My problem is not the olympics it's endless wars, big pharma, illegal immigration, the housing market, giving israel billions of dollars, etc. The Olympics is culturally significant... not once did I think a problem to be concerned with is the Olympics. Early in the days of wrestling there was a pro wrestling league but it got overshadowed by "pro wrestling" as in WWE. The general public is not very interested in real wrestling because to the naked eye it is just weird. Even in MMA which has seen great business success people steer away from wrestling heavy moments or fighters unless it involves a lot of striking. Lots of MMA fans today are not happy with the direction MMA is headed pretty much becoming a de facto pro wrestling league with many of the russian smothering wrestling styles.
@@purplevincent4454
1) there is IJF pro judo now.
2) that other stuff you have problems with is irrelevant in this forum.
3) catch was bigger than boxing early in the 20th century. ring magazine started as a grappling magazine. scripted pro wrastling was created by promoters after real grappling was more popular than baseball and any other sport, because the promoters wanted to control it. you are wrong about catch. could not be wronger.
4) we all grew up loving the olympics, same as disney and lots of other former cultural mainstays being strangled by these people with bad agendas, but you ignored my questions as to how many americans watched live judo, wrestling, or boxing this paris olympics. i suspect you ignored those questions because you watched zero in 2024, like everyone else. the olympics WAS significant. in the past, people knew who olympians were. that is not the case anymore. i was very specific about how there is zero return on investment for taxpayers, taxpayers all get scryewed, no public access, athletes exploited, massive corruption, radical propaganda, paywalls everywhere, aggressively monopolistic tactics from all the organizing bodies, NBC, etc.
5) the fact that you bring up MMA as an example of why grappling is not popular is really convoluted. gracies founded UFC and pride and there are bjj gyms in every town in america now, and competitions like naga, flo, grappling ind, ibjjf, adcc, one FC, metamoris, yada yada.
the olympics is a sheet show that no real sport needs anymore. grass roots american judo is being harmed by usa judo and elite world judo is being harmed by the IJF.
@CoelhoSports if you remove the Olympics you are removing a long history of athletes and their record setting achievements. You highly overestimate people's care about grappling. I watched Mijaín López get his fifth gold medal in greco and no I didn't watch Judo at the olympics but that only adds to my point. Who would watch pro judo? The pro judo you've mentioned I've and alot of people (as in the general public outside of Judo fanatics) have never heard of. It's just delusion on your part to think there is a market for it. Prior to pro wrestling when the general public did have wrestling interest there were not many other sports to be interested in... good luck competing with all the other sports of today. I'm sorry to say but you really have a delusional view on this if you think Judo is gonna be better in the pro route, so many athletes will have to just abandon that path as there will be even less money than there is currently in more established sports like mma and Kickboxing. And i mentioned the other issues because those are more significant drains on taxpayers money not the olympics. But the sad thing is I'd rather other countries than in the west host the olympics next go around, it is ultimately up to the host country and their culture and France currently is very liberal so they had some... interesting choices for their opening ceremony.
@@CoelhoSportsand you mention BJJ it is a good example but even then. As you have said the gracies have done a lot of work to build their brand and associate their marketing with MMA so I see them as a sort of sibling sport to MMA. Currently in MMA you have Kayla Harrison representing judo but outside of that most people in MMA do not seem to even acknowledge judo. They speak more in regards to BJJ and wrestling and BJJ because of its ties to early UFC days. If the olympics were to be disbanded and everything shifted to pro judo I'm sure they would all end up quitting or dy*ing (youtube seems to often remove my comments so I'm censoring this) via starvation.
Submission Grappling is combining everything into one homogenous gallery of techniques. This is a good thing in my opinion
100% Agreed!
Excellent interview!!
Thank you very much Jose! Happy you enjoyed it!
Was steroids mentioned in this episode?
the people's champ
I just think Judo outlook is wrong in the USA. Judo should be sold as a compliment to wrestling. Freestyle and Greco are not really taught well in the USA, especially Greco. Judo is a natural compliment to both of those. When the off season lets out in March. All those athletes have nowhere to grapple in town, unless they high level high school teams. This is where judo should clutch. Lastly, if your a judo coach, you should walk into the high school wrestling coach and ask to host on Sundays, especially if your from a small town, and especially for the girls. None, and I mean none of the coaches know really anything about throwing and sweeping and countering the sway from the shoot. There are tons of kids that want to do this and want to go big. I've taught a little of my knowledge to high school wrestlers and they love it. Young kids like to go big. Matter of fact they would rather go big and loose because that is all they talk about. They talk about the throw's not the shots. It's now about transitioning that energy in the off season and give them a place to grapple and work on the balance and let them decide on what they love the most. I disagree with Travis, you need to help the high schools, and the kids will come to you.
Great point about bringing Judo to wrestling rooms! It would be amazing to see the greater grappling community of Judo, BJJ and Wrestling come together more! It would be great for everyone
@@BJJ.Fanatics Yes, my son won state with only two years of wrestling under his belt and 4 years of judo and 4 years of BJJ under his belt. Walked in his junior year after moving, won state his senior year for 126. The coach said all the time, I don’t worry about you in neutral. He told me that if we had a judo gym here he would have done it everyday leading up to Fargo.
What about first to 6 points you get thrown then you reset on feet and have the opportunity to come back and you must win by two points.
But it would take a huge toll on the body.
That would be pretty entertaining though!
Can’t build a typical competition with 32 guys like that.
The meta lesson from this podcast is: if a lot of people in the country don't really care about the sport, then it's going to be very hard to compete at the highest levels of the game. I bet it is the same for people who would like to pursue dreams of becoming a basketball or baseball athlete, in Japan, or Kazakhstan.
Excellent assessment!
Japan has excellent baseball?
Also, Kosovo has good judo and they are a TINY country. You don’t need a ton of people caring about your sport.
@@tl8211 I meant, trying to be a basketball pro coming from japan, or a baseball athlete coming from Kazakhstan. Maybe not the best examples, because you are right, there are realistic options to actually really pursue baseball in Japan or grappling at a high level in Kazakhstan.
I want to see no gi judo so bad! There no real event for it and i notice many BJJ guys dont take judo because they see wrestling far better than Judo. Even Judo and BJJ flows in chains better imo
That really would be awesome!
I was just thinking combat judo then he said it. That would be great.
The real deal.
It’s so funny for some reason to know how this Olympian champion eats, like a 12 year old (I’m a big fan though, he earned it)
Speaks about how certain ppl pick bad nutritionists and coaches
Proceeds to say he doesn't drink water or eat vegetables......
Anyway, good interview, although ending got a bit less interesting
No idea how he can train with no water! 😂 Happy you enjoyed the interview!
Must suck to know a guy who smashes McD’s can best you in every grappling art out there.
@@thomasalexander3849 LOL, no doubt
Amazing video. Seems kind of doomer-ish though. Everyone comments how BJJ just has a more uplifting culture than Judo. Yet almost no one seems focused on bringing that cultural aspect into Judo. BJJ dojos are full of smiling people. Judo ones are all stone-faced. No wonder one is growing with adults and the other is only for kids in school.
Minute 1:10 needs to be played on repeat!
Well the top tier athletes are
All using “medicine” they’d never piss clean
Judo needs to allow more time for Ne Waza , it is not as telegenic as is sounds like, with present rules in place judo is really boring to watch, during the Olympics the audience was pretty enthusiastic when judokas started some ground work. Ippon are spectacular but There are lots of failed attacks where judokas just lay belly down waiting for the refs to restart the match , if ground work would be facilitated judokas would not have the luxury to just lay down on the mat.
It is ridiculous that judo has this huge arsenal not used in competition, such a waste.
People don’t really care about slow-paced newaza fights. They only care about quick explosive submissions, which are allowed and even encouraged by the ruleset. And most judoka simply don’t want to engage on newaza, certainly not for a long while: it’s a heavy commitment of energy with unlikely results, it doesn’t matter how much you allow them to.
Why does judo need more of something that is extremely boring? If by more you mean like, 5 seconds more, then maybe. But watching gi bjj is SUPER BORING.
Lies. Their been a ton of judo guys in the UFC and they always get beat up by wrestlers.
Can you name the 'tonnes' of Judo guys and the wrestlers who have beaten them?
Sounds like the conspiracy theory about wrestlers supposedly dominating the Olympics in judo . Despite the fact that Japan and France that don’t emphasize wrestling consistently are beating the “wrestling” countries before and after rule changes .
Usually Bjj guys spread this nonsense . Wrestling is great without a gi though
Judo isn't MMA. The elite judoka of the world (outside the US) aren't really gravitating towards MMA because they are either better off than you think or MMA just isn't the thing to do in that part of the world. Teddy Riner is an extreme example, but he is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and France isn't exactly a BJJ/wrestling/MMA hot bed. Why would he go into MMA? Things are different outside of the US....
@@milanojudothey’re also not allowed to compete outside of the IJF. So they have to sacrifice their judo careers
@@JudoHighlights2015 yes that's true too, but I was referring more to the idea of elite judoka leaving Judo for "greener pastures" in MMA. High lvl Judoka in countries that care about the sport aren't begging for charity, so they can scrape together some funding, as most ppl in the anglosphere seem to think. Also I think there is some kind of ranking cut off for being eligible to compete in other combat sports. Like only for the Top 50 or Top 100. Don't quote me on that though.....