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

The following is a conversation with Neil Adams, a legend in the sport of judo. He is a world champion, two-time Olympic silver medalist, five-time European champion, and often referred to as the voice of judo, commentating all the major events, world championships and Olympic games, highlighting the drama, the triumph, the artistry of the sport of judo, making fans like me feel the biggest wins, the biggest losses, the surprise turns of fortune, the dominance of champions coming to an end, and new champions made. Always speaking from the heart. But it's a deeply worthwhile one, because the experience of the minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year of life, surrounded by people you like, who inspire you, who help you notice the beauty of life, but also challenge you, such that through the struggle you become a better version of yourself, the best version of yourself, hopefully. All of that. It's one of the most beautiful ways to live life. So, if you're hiring or looking for a job, ZipRecruiter is great for that. See why four out of five employees who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Go to ZipRecruiter.com slash Lex to try for free. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash Lex, the smartest way to hire. This episode is brought to you by the bringer of naps, called Eight Sleep. And it's part three cover. I've talked to a lot of Olympic athletes, CEOs. I think it's kind of fascinating to discuss with them, because they've already accomplished, in many cases, they've already accomplished the really grand, big things, the Olympic gold medals, or running, starting, scaling, running, and winning at the game of business. And then when they look back, the big lesson in terms of health, they often go, is it the value of sleep? Now, it's hard to know whether that lesson is supposed to be learned. You're supposed to fail, and then you learn it, meaning you spend your 20s or your 30s or some stretch of time sacrificing sleep. And it's not actually a sacrifice. It's a gift to the gods of excellence. So, it's not like it's not supposed to be that way. It's not a mistake. It's not a failure. But when they do look back, in a kind of offhand way, they'll say, I learned the value of sleep, that I'm just a better thinker, better performer, more efficient, wiser, all those kinds of things when I get a full night's sleep. But anyway, the moments you get with your bed, use them wisely. So, I love 8sleep. It allows you to cool the bed down, warm blanket, it's heaven. Check it out and get started. It's a special savings when you go to 8sleep.com. This episode is also brought to you by Masterclass, where you can watch over 180 classes from the best people in the world in their respective disciplines. I watched many of them, loved many of them. Let me bring up Martin Scorsese. He has a Masterclass on filmmaking. He made a lot of incredible, incredible films. Good fellas. I know. You're not supposed to give an Oscar for that kind of thing, but why not? Give the man an Oscar. Raging Bull, Casino, Taxi Driver. Genius. And then Shutter Island, The Irishman, the new one with the Killers of the Flower Moon. I mean, just genius. Genius. By the way, I got a chance to recently meet and shake hands with Leo DiCaprio. And I went out to nature with him. It's just the. Depth of curiosity he has about the world. About ideas, about the natural world, about the visual world. That beginner's mind forever still there, burning bright. It's good to see. Anyway, Martin Scorsese really breaks down simply the way he thinks about filmmaking. And that really is the only way to learn. That's the only way to learn. The only way to learn about geniuses like him is to hear from them. To see the genius in the words and the spaces between the words. Get unlimited access to every Masterclass and get an additional 15% off an annual membership at masterclass.com slash lexpod. That's masterclass.com slash lexpod. This episode is also brought to you by Element. It's an electrolyte drink that has sodium, potassium, magnesium that I think is fine for you. It's a drink that I think is fine for you. It's a drink that I think is foundational to the way I approach diet and life. When I eat once a day, which is what I mostly do these days, or if I fast for even longer than 24 hours, getting the electrolytes right is a big part of that. And what is it about fasting that brings clarity to the mind? I mean, some of it is physiological, I'm sure. But some of it is just that, feeling of longing, this physical longing for satiation. Just feeling a little bit incomplete and sitting in that feeling. But it's not the completeness that's needed for a good life, for a clarity of thinking. It's the longing for completeness. So, I'm a big fan of fasting, but you gotta do it in a healthy way. Element will help you out. Get a sample pack for free with any purchase. Try it at drinkelement.com. This episode was also brought to you by NetSuite, an all-in-one cloud business management system. It's like the machine within the machine that finds the common language for the different parts of a business to communicate. I'm still slightly haunted by a thing I read a long time ago. Jeff Bezos said that every business eventually dies and that you want to prolong the life of a business as long as possible. But I don't know why that broke my heart so much. Like it always does. The finiteness of good things. I would like to believe that businesses, groups of people, people themselves, when they're good, they last forever. When they do good by the world. But that's not how it works, does it? Anyway, I think about the finiteness of great businesses. And I guess, as Jeff Bezos said, by the way, amazing human being, but as Jeff said, the whole job of a leader, of a manager, of a business is to keep that first day thinking, keep innovating, reinvigorating, being ready to pivot, to make hard decisions, all of that, every single day. It never ends. And yeah, use good tools for that, for the job of running a business, like NetSuite. Over 37,000 companies have upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle. Take advantage of NetSuite's flexible financing plan at netsuite.com slash lex. That's netsuite.com slash lex. This is the Lex Friedman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Neil Adams. You are a five-time European champion, world champion, two-time Olympic silver medalist. Let's first go to the 1980 Olympics. Where was your mind? What was your preparation like? What was your strategy leading into that Olympics? That was my first Olympic Games. So my preparation was a little bit different to how it was the 84 and the 88 Olympic Games. And I'd kind of done part of the preparation as well for 76 Olympic Games. I wasn't quite old enough for those, but I was first reserve. So in 1980, I'd had four years build up and I was hungry and I was one of these young athletes and I see them so often. often now that was developing and, you know, full of, I won't say I was full of myself, but I was, I was certainly confident of my ability and I wanted to conquer the world. And I'd had a couple of really tight matches with the current Olympic world champion. So I knew that there was a possibility that I could get there for the 80 Olympics. So building up to the 80 Olympics was, was quite interesting because I was kind of coming through the weights and I was halfway in between the 71 kilos weight category and the, um, the higher weight category of 78 kilograms. And, um, I'd got third place at the 79 world championships, the weight below for the whole year at the higher weight category, didn't win a loser contest. So I'd beaten everybody in the world. And, uh, and then I had to make, I made a decision as to whether to drop to the weight below because I was seeded in the weight below. It was a different seeding then. And, um, so I decided to drop into the weight below because I was seeded in the top four. And, um, as it happens, I think it was probably the worst decision I made. Well, because simply because, I mean, it was the only contest that I lost was the final of the Olympic games in that year. So you're a young kid. What? 19, 20 at that time, full of confidence, vigor. So the decision to cut weight, how hard was it for you to cut weight to the 71 kg division? I've got to say that it was the hardest because as I was going up, I was, you know, it was 73, then it was 74 kilos, 75. So I was moving through the weight category. It wasn't like I was stuck in the middle and then I dropped the odd time to compete. It was literally going up in weight, um, by a kilo every, every month. And then by the time I came to a month or two before the Olympics, it was really hard. Fought the European championships at the higher weight category and won that. And so everybody that was in the, uh, on the Olympic rostrum, um, at the, um, European, uh, at the Olympic games was on my rostrum at the, uh, European championships. Mm-hmm. So, um, was it a mistake? Yeah, because I didn't have my diets, my nutrition was appalling. And when I, you know, it wasn't as kind of readily available as it is now for the nutrition. And I would say that if, um, anything lost me that final, other than the fact that I was fighting, somebody was terrific. You know, he was a, an excellent, brilliant athlete, but, um, definitely didn't help that my nutrition was, was not very good. Okay. So you lost to Ezio Gama. There's probably a lot of, that we could say about that particular match. Maybe let's zoom in. What were your strengths and weaknesses judo wise in that Olympics? You said you haven't really lost the match. You won the European championship leading into it, but if you had weak spots, okay, you already said diet, but specifically on the mat in terms of judo. I think that's none of the fights lasted time going into the final, you know, so I, I won fairly quickly and, uh, every match by Ipon, you know, way before time. Do you remember how, do you know how you won the match? I won them by throw a couple of throws, uh, for Ipon and then, uh, arm lock, uh, for Ipon semifinal was, uh, an arm lock against the East German, uh, Kruger. And, uh, yeah, I just, I was flying through, you know, what were the throws? Do you remember? Taiyatoshi, Uchimata, uh, my favorite kind of, um, uh, Toku was, uh, my favorite throws and, uh, and then, uh, Jujikatami as well to, uh, you know, which, uh, was a Jujikatami roll against an East German who I'd beaten before, but always had a really tough match, but, uh, managed to beat him well. So you had a beautiful exhibition of, uh, Japanese type judo in the first two matches. You threw people and then you also did the Nwazi on bar to person. Great. So you're going into the final. What are the weaknesses going into the final against the Italian? Like I say, taking nothing away from him as a great athlete and a brilliant judo man and, um, and left. Which wasn't good for me. That was definite. No, because I hated fighting lefties still do, but I'll tell you why in a minute. I just did great. It's one of those. And, but I think as I went through the contest, uh, we, we had an eight hour break from the semifinal to the final. They took us back to the Olympic village. Then we had to come back in and then we had to start a warmup again, you know, so I kind of lost my momentum. I had to start again and I never, I didn't, I just didn't, I, I had a job to get going. I got halfway through, started to rescue a dying match. And, um, you know, I was kind of one step, half a step behind all the way through. So never really got into it. So why do you hate fighting lefties and lefties are, we should say overrepresented in terms of, uh, the high ranks of judo. I don't know why that is. Well, you know, the thing is about a lefty is a lefty will have more opportunity to fight right is, you know, right-handers because I mean, 70, 70% of the population of right-handers, 30% left. So they get to fight more right-handers. And, um, it's just a fact, you know, that happens. So, uh, the thing that they hate is fighting left against left. They don't like, they would, they don't like it left against left. Whereas a right-hander will go right against right, you know, but, but the opposite is awkward. Um, for me, because just simply, I like to go onto the sleeve and then I like to dominate the grips, but the actual angle of the, uh, of the opponent wasn't what I wanted, you know? So I had to work hard, really hard against it. What happened in that match? Um, it was a split decision in the end. And so to lose an Olympic final on a split decision is, is pretty, um, you know, it's something that's still on my mind. And, you know, I think that, it's a strange one because I can still wake up that one. And, and four years later at the Olympics, cause I was silver medalist at the, the Olympics, uh, four years later as well. And, uh, yeah, it still haunts me. Do you sometimes wake up and think like, man, I should have eaten better or like, or maybe like a specific grip that you're like, I shouldn't have taken that grip. I do, you know, I mean, the diet side of it is, it's difficult to, you know, to, to really admit that. Isn't it? That you, uh, you went to an Olympic games and the one thing that you really sucked at, right. Was one of the most important things now, um, at, at world level sport, you know, where you've got the nutrition, you know, we've got it. You would think that most people have got it sorted, but there's still people making mistakes. There's still people that haven't got it totally sorted. And then there's people like Travis Stevens, who I think doesn't care. He'll just have atrocious nutrition. And he's like, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. He just makes it work. I think the way he spoke about it is you can't always control nutrition. So it was best to get good at having crappy nutrition. It's a good way of looking at it. I never, yeah. Maybe that's what I did. Exactly. Do you remember what you were eating? Are we talking about like candy or? Yeah, well, I got a sweet tooth, you know, but I wasn't, it wasn't really, I mean, I didn't have a lot of money at that particular time either, you know, so, uh, the diet wasn't steak and, and, uh, you know, good nutritional salads and things like that. You know, I, I did what I thought was best without, you know, proper advice. And the crazy thing is, is that I had such good advice as well. You know, when it came to kind of fitness training and things like that, we're quite ahead of our time and, you know, we've really had it nailed, uh, as far as the air conditioning was concerned. The judo training as well was, uh, was a way in advance because I was a good trainer and I trained more than most. I would, uh, I can honestly say that it probably, uh, got me away with, uh, you know, a lot. Where was your mind? So mental preparation going into that Olympics, you said you were confident, but is there some preparation aspect behind that confidence? I think in the early days, I didn't think I was going to lose. I never thought it was possible to lose. And I think that I went into every contest expecting to win. So when it didn't quite go my way, I didn't lose that many contests. You know, so the only ones I lost were in the final of the world championships or in the final of the Olympic games. So I didn't lose that many. I never lost a European title. You know, I had seven, uh, golds at European championships, you know, five, uh, seniors, two juniors under twenties. And I never, I never lost the final, you know, so it was, and then I only lost two on a split decision, you know, so it was, I didn't lose that many, but, and, and my attitude was that I wasn't going to lose and I couldn't lose, you know, so I was always surprised, uh, when I did, when I, you know, something happened. And, uh, Neil Adams, a life in judo written in 1986, you wrote ever since I can remember, I have wanted to win. It wasn't the ordinary feeling that children have when they take part in their first primary school sack race on a grass track, or even the keen determination of a young swimmer prepared to train early in the cold winter mornings in order to make it into the county side. With me, the desire to win was, and still is as much a part of me as my arms and legs In other words, it wasn't something I learned as I grew older, but rather it was deeply rooted in me. Perhaps this competitive instinct is the greatest difference between my public image and the view from the inside. So people see the kindness, the warmth you have, the charisma, the excitement, but there's this big drive to win inside you. So what's behind that? Can you just speak to that drive to win and how that contributed to your… You know, when I look back now… That's a lot of years ago, we should say. It is a lot of years ago. Is that true or were you just being poetic? It's not far off. No, you know, it's not. When I think about it now, because I'd like to think that I'm a different person now. And, you know, since I've kind of calmed down, I see athletes now and I see them, you know, and they're kind of arrogant. They walk and it's a strut, you know, and it's a kind of a confidence, isn't it? You know, and as we're older and as I've become older, I've calmed down. But, you know, it doesn't matter what I'm doing. It's still that will to win, you know, and I'm much better at masking it now if I don't, but it still bothers me as much. You're talking about like, I don't know, even just like stupid, silly things like, I don't know, a game of pool or something like this. Yeah. Just anything. Yeah. I'm still trying to win, you know, like my son loves to, he loves to play me at bowls because I'm useless, you know, and I just can't throw a straight ball. So he loves playing me at that, you know, but it bugs me that I'm not better, you know, and there are certain things that I do. It really bugs me when I'm not good at it. And I guess it's one of the reasons that, you know, long after I'd finished competition, judo. People still want to train with you, you know, and even at a, like kind of an older age, even now, if I do in a seminar or, you know, they'd still, you know, do you still do, do you want to still go? And can I feel it? And, you know, one of the things that's in me is that I just, all the way up to 40 years of age. So from 30, when I finished competition up to 40, I could still train with the best and I could still go with anybody. And then when 40 hit, kind of things started to fall off a little bit, you know, and I used to get, you know, either my hips or my legs and my knees. And I realized that I had to pick my practices and that rankled as well. And I had to then just calm it down a little bit. Otherwise I was going to be injured and I was going to be, you know, it's not a good thing when you get an older and you've still got the same competitive mind, but things change. So still there, you get on the mat. Probably even now, right? You get on the mat with a world champion, you know, you still, the current world champion, there's still a little part of you. Oh, yeah, yeah. Could I still toss this guy? Do you know, and. Kids these days are soft. I do. Well, you know what? Some of these athletes, I mean, like I give you a prime example, right? Is Ilias Ilias. Yeah. All right. I mean, he is a monster, right? Yeah. And you just, of course you couldn't, you know, because just at 60 something, you couldn't. But you like to think. Well, you could. Yeah. You know. You could. You never know. You got to find out. You know what you would do? What you can do is you can cause them problems, but, and they feel it immediately, but you'd last a minute, you know. So you've trained with Ilias Ilias. I've gotten a chance to train with him as well. He's a really nice guy. Really great guy. He trained with me. We were training together. Every hotel that we used to go into, we'd end up in the gym together and we'd train. And this one time he was in there and he just wanted somebody to grab and grip hold of. And so we ended up doing this kind of grappling in the middle of, you know, like the people doing weight training and much, you know, different things, watching these two madmen doing, uh, I'm glad we weren't on a mat at that particular time, but good fun. What do you think about that guy? He, like you, achieved a lot of success when he was young. 17. You imagine that? 17, 18 years of age. And, uh, he's able to compete with the men and there's not many men can do that, you know, and it doesn't happen very often. It happens later with the men and often they're not physically as developed as they, you know, so from me, for example, I fought Nevzorov, uh, who was world and Olympic champion. He was the current world Olympic champion. They sent me to the European championship senior at 17. And so that doesn't happen very often. And I fought, I pulled Nevzorov. So I fought Nevzorov and I had him really worried, you know, because I, he expected without a doubt to come out, throw this kid, you know, and junior. And he was like thick and shredded. Like he was shredded. He's like, there's a picture of him in his judogi and his judogi is just cut and it's, you know, and he, and he looks the business and there's me in this baggy, like, uh, yeah, skinny kid inside this baggy thing. But I, you know, I, and the thing was is that the more he tried and the harder he tried and the more he panicked, the further it went away from him. And, uh, so, you know, of course he got, he got the decision at the end and deservedly, but I worried him, you know? And so, and, uh, and so for me, that was a massive step forward because year later I was, you know, starting to fill out and, uh, two years later I was competing for the Olympic title. So I don't know if I remember, but at least Iliadis is interesting because even at 17, I feel like he was doing big throws, like, uh, literally lifting them with the hips. Just ripped them out of the ground, you know? And I was saying to, uh, to Nikki, you know, my wife and we, uh, she said, what would you do now that was different than the way you did then, you know? And I said, I never had any pickups, you know, I didn't, that's not, that's not what we did, you know? But you have a look at the, um, the young, uh, Ukrainians or the, uh, the, uh, you know, the young Russians or the young, um, Eastern Bloc. The Mongolians and they're ripping people out the ground. I mean, it's, it's just different style of judo and it's, it, it just looks different, but now they're starting to do a traditional style judo as well. So can you speak to that with the different styles of judo? So for you, you mentioned Uchimata, Teritoshi, these, these, uh, how would you describe them? They're like these effortless, less lifting off the ground and power and like strength and explore and more timing and position, movement, momentum, all this kind of stuff. That's more traditionally associated with Japanese judo because like for Japanese judo, the traditional judo, like you're supposed to throw people in a big way without much effort. And of course we, uh, 1990, we saw the introduction of, uh, all these, um, Eastern Bloc, uh, countries, you know, the, um, there were so many more, I mean, it was Soviet Union when I was competing. And then of course, in 1990, everything changed and then there were so many more of them out of different countries where, you know, that, that their wrestling styles were, were introduced into judo, you know, put a jacket on them and let's get into judo. So judo kind of changed shape. It, it changed shape from this up right standing, you know, the, and, and having to know the technicalities of how to get a, a body that's weighing 40, you know, um, uh, 14 stone or, you know, whatever it is up into the air and, uh, using the momentum. And the balance and the direction and, and, and the skill to do that and knowing how to do it, you know, and how to use movement. And then you get, you know, the wrestlers and, and, and the, the, the leg picks and the double legs, single leg, double legs. And, uh, you know, and it kind of, by 1995, you know, judo was, was bent over. And so it was the IOC that went to IJF, International Judo Federation, and they said, you got to change this or we're just going to have one. One wrestling style. It looks like wrestling with judo, uh, with, uh, judo jackets on. So you either change it or we're going to take one of you out. By the way, we should sort of clarify when we say people are bent over. That's usually how you see freestyle wrestling. Wrestlers are more bent over to defend the legs and so on. And traditional judo, people are more standing up because that's the position for which you can do the big throws and all that kind of stuff. But, uh, I think the other case to make for, uh, banning leg grabs is, you know, a lot of people are using it for stalling and not for beautiful. Big throws and all that kind of stuff. So it's not just not to make it different from wrestling. It's, it's also like you want to maximize the amount of epic throws and, uh, dynamic judo and exciting stuff to watch, right? Win by judo, not, not by wrestling. And I think that, you know, the ones that were shouting about it were the wrestlers, right? Because they, they, they like to compete with both. They like, they want to do both. They want to do, you know, their wrestling matches and then come into judo. So basically, I mean, what, what we've said is they learn to do judo and there's nothing stopping you then from doing both. Right. But not from the other way around. All right. So rules always dictate development. They'll always dictate which direction it goes. So if you introduce a rule that states that you cannot dive at the legs and just pick up, um, then you'll have to do it standing up. And also it increases the possibility. Of defense with the hips, because actually, um, good defense, um, judo wise standing up is with the hips as opposed to sticking your arms out and then sticking your backsides out there just to defend all right so if you attack me and i i i move my body in the wrong place so i'm in the right wrong place at the right time so you don't hit the right target and then also i use my hips you know so uh again it's it's a form of uh judo that um was being lost so now we got it back well so let's go there let's let's speak about judo as if we're talking to a group of five-year-olds so what what is judo what are some defining characteristics of judo as a sport as a way as a martial arts a way of life all that kind of stuff i think you know when you say it is a way of life i mean the um i think the the great advantage that we have in judo my young grandson so i got two two little boys that are three and a half years of age love going to our dojo they love it you know so dojo was the first word that they used it was one of the first so when they come to see us you know so to see my wife and i you know it's like dojo it's not grandma granddad you know it's a dojo so dojo they take their shoes off going into the dojo you know so they have respect for where they're at you know and uh i think it has that kind of feeling that like i tried to build my dojo with a feeling of reverence it's kind of almost peaceful you know so if i'm not religious i'm not a religious person but i like going to old churches because when i go into an old church doesn't matter you know what the religion within the church but there's a there's a reverence in there reverence is a good word it feels like a really special place no matter which dojo you go to it's just you bow and there's a calmness before the storm of battle and there's a calmness before the storm of battle and there's a calmness before the storm of whatever it is and respect you know look at the respect you know we were just talking about it just before we came on on air we were just saying that we very very seldom do we have a situation where there is animosity other than them fighting you know so i'm i'm not saying that they don't fight each other because sometimes it does turn into a brawl and at the end two people bow off and show their respect you know and and one of the things that you know like so a champion i see people winning events and they're good judoka they're excellent they win world championships might even win the olympic games but a great champion for me is is somebody who treats uh who who does the right thing when they lose you know so when you see them lose that's when you see the true them you know and actually that was one of the biggest things that i had to remember and i think that's one of the biggest things that i had to remember and i think that's really cope with you know so when i lost that olympic games in moscow and also the one in in um los angeles the hardest thing is when the microphone's in there and and you've got to be respectful and nice and and the hardest thing is to smile but actually some of the great champions you know they'll they'll go that's just one match you know i remember uh we've got um we've got one great champion agbeg nanu she's a five-time world champion olympic champion she's gonna she's favorite as well to to get this olympic gold medal french what a great champion she is you know because um she lost one of the matches i mean she'd come back and um uh she'd uh given birth come back after giving birth and everybody was going well was she you know but then she and then she lost one of the matches on the way through and she said well don't be don't be upset you know it's just one match it's just one contest you know next time i'm going to put it right and she did put it right and now she's back up there and she she won the world title back so you know these are great champions for me yeah i mean that's the right way to see it but it's also tragic to lose the olympic games you know twice yes it is tragic and i do i do have sleepless nights i mean that's the magic of the olympic games and you know that's the magic of the olympic games and you know anything can happen and your 1980 olympics were very different from the 1984 but if we just link on the on the 80 and just your we were talking about how much you wanted to win do you love winning or hate losing more i hate losing more but i love winning when i won the world title a year later and um i had no doubt when i went in that day that i was going to be world champion no doubt so you won the uh 81 world championship at the higher weight at the higher the 78 yes kg um actually can we go there what what was going through your mind you ended up armbarring a japanese fighter i talked to jimmy pedro a friend of yours somebody who said you were a mentor to him for many years and he told me a bunch of different questions to ask you but he said that was a lot of fun and he said that was a lot of fun and he said that was a lot of fun a really special time that was a really special like dominant run you had um and especially finishing with an arbor i guess a japanese player so take me through that what do you remember from that i think that it was so my weight was better i didn't have to lose weight that was one thing so the nutritional side wasn't as important but probably you know it still wasn't as good as it was yeah although it was getting better and i was trying to eat the right things at the right time um but i still trained really well and i was so confident there going into that world championships that i could win it i had no doubt in my mind that i was going to win but you know obviously a corner of your mind you're thinking um just don't make mistakes but you know this is the once i see contests change direction when i'm commentating so i can see somebody who's in there just going forward just trying to win all right so that and that's a difference to somebody who's trying not to lose and it's two different ways there you know so sometimes when you uh so when i was world champion uh then i had a period of time where every time i stepped out there i was really afraid of losing and um and i think that that's what happens later on in your competitive career you know the great champions manage to come through that teddy renair is one of those you know he just he puts it out there and he keeps beating them you know so they can't take it away from him you know it's it's it's fantastic so stepping on the mat every single encounter you're trying to win you're looking for the grips and the with the intention to throw throw big even when you're ahead on points all that kind of stuff that's a really good point is that if you go ahead in a match you're going to win and you're going to win and you look at the clock it depends when you go ahead so sometimes you can go ahead in the first minute and you've still got three minutes to go so i see the ones then that go into i don't want to lose because they go into defensive mode and then sometimes they can lose it on penalties or something can go wrong and the other one comes on strong and then they can sneak the contest and so um it's it's really difficult but what when i was coaching i was trying to always encourage that positive attitude for the full four minutes five minutes then i've competed a lot in judo and jiu-jitsu i've always hated that part of myself when i'm up on points by a lot you look at the clock and it's what you do when you look at the clock minute and a half you're really tired and you kind of quit you just defend yeah and i hated that part about myself it's like that saying don't do it yeah well as opposed to just go out in uh for in judo that's a for a big throw just keep going for the throw and so it's go for the submission like throw caution like win in the real way versus on on points i hated that part of myself i mean mostly underneath that is cowardice induced by exhaustion exhaustion is the one isn't it yeah but it is isn't it it's a mindset as well you know so actually trying to get your mind positive all the way through you know so i i mean if you listen when i commentated now is i say i hope that they don't change the mindset and that they keep on and they are going forward all the time you know and actually they're then more difficult to catch we had one just a couple of weeks ago and he lost in the final second of the contest lost the final he was the only one to score he got penalized all the way up two seconds to go and stepped out of the area and uh you know but he went like that thinking the bell was just going and he was and the bell went one second after he actually stepped out so he got penalized lost the match and lost all of the points for qualification so it was it was you know that's uh paying high price that's paying high price yeah i mean that's there's a thin thin line between uh triumph and tragedy and in uh those competitions but especially at the olympic games so let's just stick on 81 like to win that world championship like uh and also getting an armbar as a japanese player uh jimmy told me your arms were exhausted yeah i mean you just i the thing is is sometimes you know when you're going when it's competitive as well you know um ours is a different intensity to like do you just where you can take time a little bit ours is bang it's transitioning from standing down you've got 10 15 seconds to go in there you go in 100 a bit like running uh you know full out for 10 seconds like and then you've got to decide then especially if they're defending it whether you let it go because when you get up your forearms are blown you know and you've got lactic acid in there and you've still got to grip up because remember ours is about gripping as well on the jacket so if you can't grip up then you can't gain the advantage then they can throw you you know so you have to decide so i had a massive attack on him and you we changed directions four or five times and and then i wasn't going to let him go but i still you know when i was turning him there i had to decide am i going to go all out for this and and just or you know like there has been occasions when i've kind of released it to just you know if i've got a minute to go and just lock out yeah so so what you're saying on the feet there was a change of direction all different kinds of attempts and then you went to the ground and that's so what was that do you remember that decision that decision of like okay am i going to finish this yeah i knew it i just as soon as i climbed his back and and then i thought he's not going he's not gonna i'm not gonna let him up you know so i was just changing a little voice in your head something in my head was going don't don't you know just stick on him and and then it's always about pressure on the arm and and i just you know and of course he was like that you know we're defending you know he was almost total bridge trying to get out of it did it start in turtle and then like did you started in turtle because i i did an attack came back out of the attack and then he went on to his front and then i was on his back and then i started the whole opening he just went for it just i was it was an automatic transition so i mean the transitions are what we teach you know because the ones that are quicker down with the transitions are the ones that catch it that's our nawaza you know our groundwork is the transition from starting to the end of the attack and then i was on his back and then i was down to ground it's very you know we don't have a situation where you can kind of work your way in you are in or you're you're not in you're standing you know so you've got to make sure that you're in and so i had i was just on his back like a leech and i never let him go so you see i mean yeah so that's where the arm bars that's where the attacks on the ground which is called nawaza happens in the transition at that level at that high world class level yeah i mean he was no muggy though i think he just got third third place in the all japan championships which is all weight categories so he was he wasn't a mug you know he was he was strong and i'd fought him once before and and i knew he was a lefty as well which was uh really awkward for me did it feel good better for me than him it did it felt it felt amazing you know because um it was almost like all these things disappointments and everything had kind of come to uh this one point uh where i was at last kind of champion of the world you know it's everything i said as a kid that i had no idea how difficult it was going to be you know so as a kid as a 14 year old kid i remember saying i'm going to be world champion i'm going to be the best in the world i had no idea how difficult that was going to be well there's wisdom to that right like uh there's power and stupidity of youth i like that right yeah it is just like i'm going to be a world champion i'm going to win this without knowing how hard it is and then uh once you go after it it's uh you're trapped you're gonna have to do the work yeah well i mean you still look with parents as well you know parents you know our little johnny is he's you know he's amazing and he's this that and the other and they have no idea what's you know out there i remember the very first time i stepped out 1974 uh into the european uh cadets uh and i remember um that we were fighting i'd only ever fought in great britain i was the top you know i'd i was i'm beaten in in the juniors kids and went out there and um there were these um different fighters out there that were treating me with total disdain and i remember thinking how dare they you know you know and i realized when i came back from that event there's other people out there there's just a whole you know and there are different levels of you know the majority of people are just not informed as to what's out there and the different levels that there are out there do you remember like a certain opponent that for the first time you felt like holy shit yeah there's pop like somebody just gripped you up and you're like this is there's another level to this game edzio was uh edzio was one of them and um i fought him you know and i beat him in the european championships i beat him in you know two times and then lost him in the olympic games two months after i'd beaten him in the european championship yeah yeah so it wasn't that that made it even more difficult right nemesis there yeah wow so that made it more difficult and um so he edzio was one and uh getting hold of uh i remember um uh getting hold of nishida of uh japan and he had me going up and down and uh i just i thought wow this guy is amazing you know and uh i'd never fought first time i ever fought japanese in a major tournament you know and um i felt the danger i always talk about the danger when we go out to japan to train uh i could go probably uh months without getting thrown in training here in europe and and i go to japan and you know everybody's throwing you you know and that's difficult to accept and the reason that kind of danger and that kind of um um a feeling of danger is something that puts a real edge on you know and uh the danger is that you know you're not going to be able to so that was first time when i got a hold of nishida i thought oh my god you know this guy you know it didn't matter which way he was turning like that he stretched out and and i thought this i i want to do this you know and then i ended up fighting him again in japan so that feeling of danger is really interesting it's like i've uh i've you know did randori with a lot of world-class people from different parts of the world uh including elisa leotis and like there's sort of a lot of people who are like i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know certain part like eastern european judo you're you feel like you're screwed the whole way through like uh the gripping you really feel it in the gripping it's the gripping that does it but in with japanese like really good japanese style judoka you don't it's like it's a terrifying calmness but at least at least the experiences i've had you don't really feel it in the gripping you just feel like anywhere you step you're getting thrown it's a different it's a different thing isn't it it's a different thing so i mean mine was kind of a mixture i liked it to be a mixture because um there was um the gripping is definitely the key point so if you get a high level guys that are gripping up and i always used to put this to the referees um when we were doing referee seminars when we first started them and i'd say uh how many because like they would referee to their understanding of the match so they were penalizing for certain grips that were you know and actually so as an ex-athlete uh high level i would say have you ever gripped up with high level all right because if you haven't you need to do it because then you will understand why they do certain things with the grips because these guys are like you know when somebody grips you and you think you know you're gonna go when iliadis puts his arm over your back all right and you know you're gonna go up and over you know you're gonna go over you know that's it it's a cool feeling it's like whatever for me i understand but it's like i mean because it's not uh it feels way more powerful than it should yeah it's weird i don't know you want to attribute it to strength and all that kind of stuff i mean people say you have like immense upper body strength but it's probably something else it's like technique it's some kind of weird mix of everything just like something hardened through lots of battles and randori and that kind of stuff yeah but it's cool that humans are able to generate that kind of power it's cool when i was um 84 olympics but i'm just gonna go there now just quickly but um there was um we had a freestyle wrestler he's american actually but he had the english um uh nationality so he competed for um no loban his name is and he competed for great britain he got third place at the olympics in 84 but he was training uh we were training at budokai and he was training he came to do some judo and put jacket on and of course he was training with some of the lower levels and he was really handling himself well and then um he said i need to feel you know he when we did randori you know so i he did some randori with me and uh and i immediately thought i gotta catch it i gotta stop single leg and double leg because he he was really quick right so strong as well 90 something kilos he was like you know he's a big guy so i was caught a sleeve immediately caught and controlled him and and then he couldn't start right so he said i needed to feel the difference so then i thought i better reciprocate this so i said well you know so we did the randori and i threw him a couple of times he said i'm really glad we did that so then i said i need to feel the difference as well so we take the jackets off so we took the jackets off and he was a nightmare this guy was a nightmare and like a monster you know he was like single-legging me and you know it was just totally different you know so it was uh like the jacket makes a massive difference huge difference to uh something you know and and the people think it's just a jacket that we're wearing but it isn't it's it's our only um tool actually yeah and it's control i mean it's a way of establishing control over another body yeah and it's a whole art form and a science and i don't even know if you understand it really you understand it sort of subconsciously through time yeah because i get there's so much involved because pulling on one part of the jacket pulls other parts of the jacket and yeah like the physics of that is probably insane to understand it's absolutely insane and then you know they they changed the rules for a little while and they changed the rules so that you couldn't hold uh you know that certain uh grips were not allowed you only allowed certain amount of time and there were a lot of penalties for him you know and then you know they had some of the ex-fighters into the uh referee commission and so we were pushing for just let them grip you know because that's that's that's our game you know that's what makes us different you know again if if grip up with somebody like so they were on about uh teddy renee yeah teddy renee comes out takes the sleeve yeah big arm over the top and and then you know he throws people right so they were saying yeah but stop you can't stop him doing it this guy is six foot nine yeah he's built like garth you know he's like and he's he's and not only that he's skillful as well you know and uh and and he's got that mentality of a winner he has got that mentality of a winner there he just wins important matches and he goes over the top of the group do they where's that land now in terms of rules over the top because those are some of the most epic awesome types of grips yeah uh just like over the top just big grab yeah well as long as they're throw from it so they can as long as you move them and then catch them kind of action reaction really you know as long as you catch them on the move then you can do it so as long as you're not using it to stall or that kind of stuff yeah you can't block out yeah so i mean if i so like for example if i've got dominant grip on you and i just block out and i'm just i just stop you attacking me so then what i get you three penalties get you off and you haven't done an attack so you've got to stop that you can't have that yeah yeah definitely you were the favorite to win the 1984 olympics but you got silver i watched that match several times you're probably having have it playing in your head so there's a a nice change of direction by your opponent german frank winneke yeah it was a fake right uchimata and then to a left drops sayonari uh how did that loss feel devastating is is not you know it's not enough really um because you know the strange thing was is coming into that olympics i was tired really tired so my mental state wasn't the best wasn't certainly the same as it was coming into the previous um and i i remember thinking i just need to get this over with and then i'm gonna have a break and just have a rest you know and and that's totally the wrong attitude you know it's just not not good for for going into an olympic games and uh so i i was uh coming in there with a different mindset and i remember every match that i had i was winning well but i was winning with a struggle you know it was it was really not i'd fought novak and i was pretty uh of france who was one of the strongest physically i was in the quarterfinals i beat brett baron uh by an ipon i i armlocked him um i won my first match by ipon as well and then michelle novak i was fighting of france and i was lucky to to to win it i was up i would scored on him but i was like starting to defend and just everything that i talked to you about you know and then just about held on and and then i won and you know so him and i were talking afterwards like some of the things that i was talking about i was like some years afterwards and he said i was close wasn't i i was yeah but not close enough i didn't mean it yeah but i had to say it right of course of course so i and no he was right you know and it was one of those so it's through to the semi-final i fought lesak uh in the semi-final of uh and uh i'd fought him in the semi-final of the worlds as well uh i'd never gone time with him you know i'd never i'd always beaten him fairly easily and with by ipon and um that went time so i was you know i was just just glad to get it done and i was in the final then against frank vinegar uh of germany and i'd beaten vinegar before but he was just a young german coming through and when i started the final i was uh i thought right i've just i and i started uh all my techniques just that little bit off nothing was coordinated just it was just i can't really explain why it was just a little bit off i i see it so often now with um a lot of the uh guys that are going for second third olympic games and uh i see their their technique just not quite there and they're struggling and and i know when they're you know i know what they're going through and i kind of empathize with them well you were it felt like you were dominating that fight i dominated it yeah i was winning yeah i was and actually if it had gone another minute and a half it would have been all over and i would have been olympic champion and it would have been done he wouldn't have batted an eyelid right because he he would have fought me really really well and he would have you know we talked about it afterwards and he said he was just my good day for me you know and he knows he was very respectful this guy is very respectful he was the surprised almost i mean not almost he was very surprised and celebrating like a surprise jumping up and down like you know he just and you know you can look at that can't you go well it wasn't hip-hop but you know but i got it back i don't know but i just i think that um actually taking the pressure off because that was another thing as well pressure of being favorite you know and i see that with a lot of them and uh you know the great champions the ones that keep coming through capellic there's a guy you know he can look very ordinary and then comes the big tournament and he'll win it the tragedy of the olympic games i mean you were the favorite and just like that like split moment you lost it split moment devastating and um lived it probably ever not every day but you know nikki my wife will tell you that uh woken up and sweats and uh and you know um i and i think they contributed as well because i had a period of my my life after where i was drinking too much and you know and and i think kind of uh kind of led into though that that kind of dark period of my life you know and um i never ever ever you know did it go through my mind anything else but it definitely affected me and i was on a downward kind of spiral in a lot of different ways and um would still even you know we we have an amazing marriage and we have an amazing family and everything's great but i still wake up sometimes and i'll say i've just dreamt you know that and it's the same reoccurring dream where i'm trying to get somewhere and i'm trying to put it right you know and i i've got this chance of uh putting this olympic final right you know in in in this dream i've got a chance of doing it but i can't get there and the traffic's stopping me or something stops me and i and you know and then i wake up and i'm sweating and it's it and you think well after all this time that's not possible but it is and it happens yeah i mean in the match itself there's that feeling from for me just watching it like you're you're going for throws you're you're almost getting there with the throws and it's almost like he's going for a kind of crappy uchimata and then you're just like you're stopping you're blocking it and all of a sudden i mean that's the beauty of the olympics he finds it in himself to switch yeah that like against a favorite against sort of the great british doka just finds the perfect drop sayanagi well you know his his um team doctor and coach he came up to me afterwards and said i'm just really sorry and that's all they said is i'm just really sorry they were sorry because you know obviously the obvious sadness about that you know and and um of course everybody takes their you know i went actually tuna was it three weeks later the german open you know i went actually two and a half was it three weeks later the german open and you know and and of course everybody takes their you know i went actually tuna was it three weeks later the german open so he he had to compete in the german open and and of course everybody takes their you know i went actually tuna was it three weeks later the german open three weeks later so i went over to fight him three weeks later so i went over to fight him three weeks later so i went over to fight him and uh and beat him in the final of the german open and uh and beat him in the final of the german open and it didn't do anything for me Cause it was a much tighter match. He was a lot closer. He had a lot more confidence coming in. So he fought me a lot differently. And then it was me pulling it back and just managing to win in the final. And I thought, well, that might appease, it appeased nothing. Didn't do anything. When you give your whole life to judo, just, and your love of winning, that's crazy. How much the Olympic games mean? It means so much. And I think, you know, but I, I've got to, and I've got to say this, and this is honestly, you know, if it meant that if I'd have won that Olympic games and it had to change my life into a different direction, which I probably would have not competed in the 88 Olympic games then. All right. So if it had changed my life and then I didn't have, I didn't meet my wife and I, you know, didn't have my family that I've got now, there's no, you know, I would, I wouldn't swap that, what I've got now for anything. Well, part of the demons that you've gotten to know, because of those losses is part of probably the central reason that made you the man you are a legend of the sport. You could have been not that because an Olympic gold is just an Olympic gold. Yeah. And it is, isn't it? You know, and I think that there's a lot of Olympic champions and world champions that win and then are forgotten. And I said to Nikki, I said, my wife, I said, I don't want to be forgotten and I want to be remembered. So I'm going to do anything, anything I do, if I'm going to do commentary or whatever it is, a coaching, I want to do coaching to a high level and I want to commentate at a high level. I remember the first commentary I ever did. It was terrible. And, and I just thought I've got to do better than this. And I, I thought I just, I need to do it well and I've got to do it professionally. So in the book, a game of, of throws, you have a chapter titled lessons and losing. So what are some of the lessons here? What are the, some of the deeper lessons you've pulled out of losing? I think great champions are made up of the people that handle it in the right way. And you could say, well, I don't like losing. And I, you know, and you could throw your dummy out the pram and you can be a bad loser in front of everybody. And actually people pick up on that. Very, very quickly. You know what it's like in broadcasting, right? Somebody has a bad word to say about somebody. And yeah. Yeah. And it, but, but actually the ones that endear themselves to you are the ones that handle it in the right way, the correct way. It doesn't mean that you've got to like it. I didn't like it. And I thought that I handled it certainly in later years in the right way. And I like to see athletes do it in the right way, you know? And I, I think that's, it's a make or break situation. It's not all the contests they win. It's the one that they lose and then how they pick themselves up and handle themselves after. So I think that that is a big one for me. And also, I mean, I, I went through, you know, obviously a later divorce and that was difficult on my son, really difficult on Ashley. And then I was, and I think that some of that was the fact that I was, you know, kind of, I wasn't drinking all the time, but I, I was drinking in excess at the wrong times, you know? And I think that that's what a lot of people do sometimes is that they use it for the wrong reasons, you know? And I, I used to hear it. I still, I hear it now all the time, you know, and it's that, you know, I need to knock the edge off and I need, need to just forget. And I need to, you know, and you need to be in a fuzzy place for a while. And I had a lot of time in, in fuzzy place and I needed to get rid of that, you know, and I needed to clear my head. Where was that place? Some of the lower points in your life that you've reached mentally? I think, you know, definitely, you know, the fact that my marriage, first marriage didn't work, you know, and that was a, you know, it's a mix of things that, you know, between us and, and then, you know, so that's not where I wanted to be at the time. And the effects that it had on my son, and it took a long time for him then to come around and to, to trust me again, you know, and, and to have belief. He always had belief in me, but to trust me again. And then I think that that was low. And I think that, you know, when I look back is that a lot of my bad decisions were when I was in that fuzzy kind of haze and that it got, it got progressively worse that got progressively worse to the degree where it was, you know, trying to hide it and trying to hide how much, and I was kind of a functioning kind of drunk. You know, I think you could probably say that and I, you know, I was functioning, I was still able to, I was still training most days crazily enough, you know, I was training to kind of mask it and cover it. And that was probably my savior that, I was still, you know, cause I remember I said to my wife, I said to Nikki, I'm probably the fittest if, if I'm, you know, a drunk that I'm a fittest drunk in the world. She said, yeah, you probably are actually, you know, I was in great condition for a drunk. So the, the, the fuzzy haze, where was your mind? Did you have periods of depression? I had periods of depression. I can honestly say that my depression wasn't that bad. Although I did, you know, when it's like anything that gives you an up, you know, it gives you a, an even bigger down, doesn't it, you know? And, and so I hated that feeling and also hated myself for letting it happen because I, I have got this really, it's a bizarre I don't know whether you can call it a power, but I, I have the ability to be able to say stuff and I, I, I can just, and that's what I do. That's what I did in the end. In the end there was an incident when I was working for Belgium Judo and there was an incident. It was Christmas. It was the, I tell you exactly the day it was 20th of December and me and a Belgian coach, we got absolutely hammered, but we were at the wrong place and he got noticed. And, and so I remember they, they pulled me up in front of this board and, and I looked down at these guys and half of them were people I didn't want to be in that situation with, you know, they're, they're not people that I respected and they're not people that I trusted. So, uh, I said, um, if you're going to sack me, sack me, but I'd kind of, I'll promise you now that I will just have this. This is it. I'll stop. I'm just going to stop. I've decided on the way back in the car, I, uh, rang, uh, Nikki up, my wife. And I said, whatever you hear now, whatever I, I'm just going to stop. So, uh, that was it stopped. You just saw the moment that said, stop, stop. So that fuzzy place, what advice could you give to people about how to overcome that, that dark place, the depression, whether it has to do with drinking or not? I think, um, if it's to do with drinking, um, all I can say is, is that the, um, two days or a week into not drinking, you'll feel different. You know, the, it'll make a physical difference and, uh, you'll like that physical difference. And then from a mental perspective as well, because I think that, um, you know, you're, it, you have a massive downer, you know? Um, and I, I think that that must be because of drugs as well, because I had a situation with, my brother, you know, he was like, um, you know, um, he was professional wrestling and the drugs was an element there. And, you know, so I'd never touched a drug or even seen one in my life, but, um, you know, I'd let the alcohol side go too far and then decided never to do that. So then I guess I had people ringing me up, you know, saying, you know, how, how can we stop, you know? So when they say, can I have a word? Can I discuss, something with you? And I know then what they want to discuss with me, you know? And, and the thing is, is that I would say, you know, you, if you stop, then feel the effects of, of, of, of it. And it will make a difference to your everyday life. And that, that will make a massive difference. And, um, I think about anybody who kind of, you know, is down all the time is to find the, the cause of what's pushing you down. You know what I mean? And, and, and try and, um, try and attack that. Uh, I mean, you know, because it's never, somebody once said to me, they said, whatever you got, you know, we, we've got something special. I mean, we, we, uh, have a great life and I've had a great competition record, you know, it could have been better, but it was great. But I, I've had, um, success, uh, with my business and we're still out there and we have a great life. We travel all the world. world. And, you know, there's people out there that would live in your house. at the drop of a hat wherever you are they drive your car you know no matter what car it is some people haven't got a car you know and whatever food you're having and you're moaning about food right that somebody out there that would take that and gladly eat that all right so there's always somebody worse off than you and i think that we tend to sometimes you know look at the things that we haven't got rather than things we have got yeah it's a skill probably just to be grateful for the things you have exactly as you said in this sometimes the little things like food and yeah cars and all that kind of stuff just to have gratitude for and family all this kind of stuff but it's still i you know having talked to a bunch of olympic athletes there is a you know when you give so much of your life to winning and then you lose sometimes even when you win but when you lose at the very top it's a tough tough like tough thing to go through the most difficult thing i think for anybody is when they have to decide when to stop yeah yeah you know and that all of a sudden and i i see the ones that are going second olympic games and then third olympic uh and and the ones that are there and they're holding on and they're in their 30s now different to when they were 19 years of age you know 30 years of age and they're holding on and they're in their 30s now something is different to 19 and then what are you going to do afterwards you know and then how do you become just a normal person you're never going to be a normal person as such but i think you've got to do normal things you know and then you've got i remember the first time that when i finished competition i had good sponsors this was you know 40 years ago but i had uh two really good sponsorships um vitamin company and also judogi company and i had a company that was a car and you know i had money i just and and i was going all over the world i was successful and then i stopped and they took everything back they took my car they did and they did it within two weeks as well they stopped my funding they you know and the vitamin company said thank you very much it's been a great you know we've done well by you bye bye this was after your last olympics 88 olympics yeah just you know when that finished and then that was the end of it that was it you know and then it's right okay first time i had to go in there and buy a track suit and a pair of training shoes yeah wow yeah those are different with sitting there in the evening by yourself so you go from seven days a week or six days a week going into the gym and you know you're working out the dojo and and then you then you don't have to do it you know that's why you get a lot of when they finish competition they finish that 30 to 40 it's still i mean ilias is still doing it now he's still in there and he's still you know and because he can right okay and and and it's natural and i did exactly the same and then like i say you just get to an age and you just think well i'm just gonna kind of take a step back which is why like there's certain athletes like uh ryokotani never stops it just dominates for uh 14 years probably one of the winningest athletes in judo yeah seven-time world champ two-time olympic champ medaled at five olympics so it's always impressive never stopped never stopped so that's an option if you're like the greatest ever be interesting wouldn't it just to see what they're doing now you know i mean because at some stage you have to get a normal you do have to stop you do have to stop you know at some stage you have to decide what you're going to do you know and we you know it's either into coaching the judo is is either to coaching or if you're not in coaching then it's into um uh something to do with the media and you know i was lucky that i it was just by accident really with the commentary somebody said um would you do a voiceover so i did this voiceover and that was uh back in 1982 i did that so you've been commentating since 1982 i did some voiceovers i wouldn't call it commentating but i did some voiceovers and and then i did some uh we did with some uh different european championships world championship um kind of events and i did the voiceovers for it and the way that it was done uh that uh it was more narration and so it kind of turned into then somebody asked me to do an event and when you listen to the intonation of the voice and stuff like that it wasn't like it is now but uh i guess that's just something that developed as a you know because then it was coming from the heart and i you know started to get excited and uh just do my thing and it was just me really it's just my style well i've listened to your commentary from a while back i don't know if it's the 80s but it's still there i think it's timing as well isn't it it's like um you know you get your timing a bit better and know when to go in when to come out when to say something when not you know and i think that in the early days i tended to think i tended to want to talk all the time and you don't have to do that also knowing when to shut up that's the key isn't it yeah part of the drama is in the silence building up to the to the setup and the throw and all that kind of stuff but also you're very good at while uh radiating passion being very precise and specific about the details of the throw and the setup and why something worked and didn't so yeah i think i think there's two kinds of commentating you can commentate what you see and then you can commentate what you see and then you commentate what people can't see you know and and so if you've got somebody that is not really understanding of what's happening in the inner part of the game so it might be a technical thing or it might be the tactical part of the play here that's going on and if you can introduce that as well then you've got an advantage quick pause i need a breath and break okay good stuff so we we've got an advantage quick pause i need a breath and break okay good stuff so we dot com which is i guess an igf website and igf is the organization behind a lot of the big judo events in the world and i just signed up you should sign up too it's great absolutely sign up cheaper the price cheaper the price yeah and uh you can watch basically any match from uh the the grand slams and going back through history i guess yeah i've got to say like i mean everybody it's still people saying to me oh you you know we need more judo on television they've got judo on television they've got judo on television every other week that they can access all of the top people in all the top events and it costs a hundred dollars a year you know it's it's to access everything and they can play all the videos i mean we've just accessed this here uh the paris tournament and we're gonna have a look at teddy renair but um you know it's it's so it it's cheap at the price so we're now in paris grand slam 2024 teddy renair final by the way super cool like you click on the draw and you can just look at any of the matches you go to the bottom of the finals you can go yeah to any one any one of them that's so cool that's really well done really well done interface anyway let me first ask the ridiculous big question who do you think is the greatest of all time steady renair in the writing he's the greatest judo winner of all time of that there's no doubt you know i mean he is and i think if you asked him um whether he was the greatest judo man in the world of all time he would say no i'm not you know and he's he's not the greatest judo man there are people with um you know more beautiful judo in some ways although he's got great technique but he he is the ultimate winner 10 time world champ yeah two-time gold medalist in the olympics i guess two-time bronze medalist he's probably going is he's going to paris yeah he's going after it again so he's right here i mean he's right there you know this is just a couple of months ago and then last week this uh last week he he was out again and he won again you think he gets gold medal this time there's people getting closer to him right because he's obviously you know his age wise and the amount of time that he's been there he's obviously somebody that is starting not quite at his best as he was when he was younger like i say he still puts it on the line he lays it on the line every single time and then not only does he lay it on the line but he beats them all you know and last week he just beat uh saito who's a young up-and-coming japanese fighter and uh he beat him in the final it was close and he did well there are certain people the smaller ones actually not the taller ones because like you know we're saying about the big arm over the top that he likes and the dominant grip that he likes and he's got a lot of people that are not the same as him and he's got a lot of there are people that can give him a hard time now if at the olympic games he has two or three of those on the trot it might work against him you know and it's by no means an absolute certainty that he's going to win the olympic gold medal but he's got to be one of the favorites top favorite you know no matter what happens now teddy renair is is the greatest winner that you know and if you asked the great yamashita he would say the same you know if there's nobody that's you know and he's got to be one of the top three and he's got to be one of the top three in the world and he's got to be one of the top three in the world and he's got to be one of the top three in the world and got to know him quite well and he was one of the greatest of all times you know for me he was one of the greatest judo men and um i'm talking about from a technical point of view from a spectacular judo point of view uh understanding the uh fundamental principles of of how techniques work uh sometimes having you know different techniques that work for you know so if one doesn't work and and one particular direction doesn't work you can change the direction completely in case people don't know yamashita is this legendary judoka heavyweight teddy reyner heavyweight that's plus 100 kg so he he would have caused him all sorts of problems oh yeah that would that's a cool who do you think wins yamashita yes i i think you imagine that but i you know wait whoa whoa whoa whoa you think yamashita beats teddy reyner i think so strong words you think so think so yamashita is on the shorter side right yeah and he he finds it more difficult with shorter people you know and uh so it was um it would have been a very interesting uh confrontation and i think if you asked yamashita um he would probably say you know that teddy reyner he's very gracious he's really gracious it would be really good it would have been an unbelievable match-up and i've got to say this that that you know teddy reyner is the greatest winner of all time competition-wise so it's interesting um both of them maybe you can correct me but have this osoto gari which is kind of a trip that i never understood yeah like it's a it's a very tricky thing to do right it's very easy to do maybe as a white belt you roll in you can understand but like to do it at the high high high level you see any of the top guys now um especially if they're second time out you know so like they might catch somebody by surprise they come out they go bang oh and you go that was amazing right but if they fought again 10 minutes later you go you're not going to catch me with that right you've got a different situation here and and so it's slightly different but the best fighters adapt like that and they're able to see a situation feel the situation and they attack once and then go again and attack second third time and in the third time they make it work yeah both yamasha and teddy reyner with the sort of gary they'll just like hit it over and over in the match yeah sometimes it'll hit first time and it won't go and then you make a readjustment of the way in it's a little bit like i mean if you take um a really easy way of understanding it is if we're shooting at a target and all of a sudden you start moving that target you know it's different hitting a moving target but it's also different hitting a moving target that's trying to hit you as well and that's our game right so we're not only trying to throw a moving target we're trying to throw a moving target that's trying to throw us so it makes it even more difficult yeah there's a there's a few folks who you know what's coming it's like over and over and over it's the same attack uh anyway with this uchimata it's like it's different it's different and there's not many people like that where it's like this the same attack i mean there's other attacks also but they'll just go after the same thing over and over and over when i watch great athletes most of them can throw over both flanks not always going left and right you know although our sport always i mean the caters are always demonstrated left and right so you like if you demonstrate if you do something on one one side you know then can you demonstrate it on the other side right okay so can you do it equally no but you do it differently right on the other side so you know when i'm teaching i i i don't teach left and right i teach so if i was teaching you to do a technique first thing i'd do is say i need you to take a sleeve and a lapel all right so i'd let you decide what was left and right okay because often what happens is we impart on people whether they're going to be left or right when we start teaching you know you get a lot of teachers do that all right and they'll say immediately what do you write with left or right hand and it's no indicator actually as to how we do judo because i'm left-handed and i do more predominantly right-handed because i lead off my strongest hand and actually most people do you know so actually left and right is a bit of a trap sometimes you know when we're teaching better to get you know because we can go so my point was is that a lot of people can go both flanks so they'll do something over this side and something over this side but anyway it was one-sided he was one-sided but he could he could switch it so he had a um uh c and aggie as well on the other side so he could switch it if he had to yeah and uh by the way your opponent in 84 was he righty or lefty he was a righty so the that drop left yeah where did that come from well i mean again it was you know he could have probably in other contests he'd hit me with it several times and i just stopped it you know and uh just at the wrong place at the right time for him right place in the wrong time for me right that's life you know yeah all right let's let's watch them tight over there this is final of uh paris tournament and uh this is against the uh korean the korean had had a great day actually again shorter again shorter so he does find that difficult have a look at teddy renair teddy renair will try and catch the sleeve uh he's after the sleeve and then the right arm over the top that's the key point for teddy renair and of course what he um what he has done if he can't always catch the big uh osada gary over um his right hand side he's been doing uh something to the opposite side and uh the korean just went for a drop sale and uh teddy renair block with the hips and he's like i say he has difficulty always against somebody um smaller dropping with the c and aggies has uh teddy renair ever been thrown for a pawn um but he was thrown last week uh for a nice uh uh technique and uh he's being caught more and more so he's getting close yeah and um to say of in the final of the world championships they had a strange situation there where to say of um was a was a technique down and then uh pulled off a counter and they didn't count it but then they over overruled it unfortunately i was a commentator at the time and i i went for a score for the uh for tasaev and uh anyway they overruled it and then they awarded a second gold medal to tasaev what can you say about uh tamil and beshayev who also gave him trouble yeah beshayev and tasaev are the two that could possibly go to the olympics so that was a close one there from uh renee that was closest that he'd actually been oh wow so that was a close one there from uh renee that was closest that he'd actually been oh wow so that was step outside the yellow area they'll get step outside the yellow area they'll get step outside the yellow area they'll get penalized as well penalized as well penalized as well that uh that's dedication for absolutely i that uh that's dedication for absolutely i that uh that's dedication for absolutely i mean it was really close wasn't it they're mean it was really close wasn't it they're mean it was really close wasn't it they're nice little kochi gary there from uh the nice little kochi gary there from uh the nice little kochi gary there from uh the korean and if they touch below the belt korean and if they touch below the belt korean and if they touch below the belt line with the arms so if they they're line with the arms so if they they're line with the arms so if they they're not allowed to grab the legs not allowed to grab the legs not allowed to grab the legs they've stopped grabbing the legs they've stopped grabbing the legs they've stopped grabbing the legs wow the korean's really going korean's wow the korean's really going korean's wow the korean's really going korean's having a real good uh go at it i guess having a real good uh go at it i guess having a real good uh go at it i guess every single person in that division is every single person in that division is every single person in that division is probably training for teddy renee right probably training for teddy renee right probably training for teddy renee right you think that teddy renee has been there you think that teddy renee has been there a long time you know and he's got a long time you know and he's got a long time you know and he's got another guy here in the final of the another guy here in the final of the another guy here in the final of the paris tournament he's got uh 18 000 paris tournament he's got uh 18 000 paris tournament he's got uh 18 000 people watching him they're all on teddy people watching him they're all on teddy people watching him they're all on teddy rene's side they want him to win and the rene's side they want him to win and the rene's side they want him to win and the korean's out there on his own with his korean's out there on his own with his korean's out there on his own with his coach but also the pressure that on teddy coach but also the pressure that on teddy coach but also the pressure that on teddy renair renair renair amazing pressure you know we we amazing pressure you know we we amazing pressure you know we we interviewed him after this interviewed him after this interviewed him after this and uh he said i've got pressure you and uh he said i've got pressure you and uh he said i've got pressure you know people know people know people go well is he going to do it at the go well is he going to do it at the go well is he going to do it at the olympic games can i do it in paris he olympic games can i do it in paris he olympic games can i do it in paris he wanted to go to paris i mean really i wanted to go to paris i mean really i wanted to go to paris i mean really i mean the last olympic games should have mean the last olympic games should have been it shouldn't it this year last been it shouldn't it this year last been it shouldn't it this year last should have been the uh final one but should have been the uh final one but should have been the uh final one but he's gone no i've got to do another four he's gone no i've got to do another four he's gone no i've got to do another four years years years two penalties are on the board already two penalties are on the board already two penalties are on the board already for the korean that korean is really for the korean that korean is really for the korean that korean is really having a great go he's got a little a having a great go he's got a little a having a great go he's got a little a bit of a lift on him he's going after bit of a lift on him he's going after it he's really going after it you know it he's really going after it you know it he's really going after it you know it's a it's an amazing uh effort there it's a it's an amazing uh effort there it's a it's an amazing uh effort there from the korean from the korean from the korean and uh he's getting some last minute uh and uh he's getting some last minute uh and uh he's getting some last minute uh information i don't know if you've ever information i don't know if you've ever information i don't know if you've ever seen his coach stood next to him like seen his coach stood next to him like seen his coach stood next to him like that but uh it's amazing he's six foot that but uh it's amazing he's six foot that but uh it's amazing he's six foot six and he's he's about uh four foot six and he's he's about uh four foot six and he's he's about uh four foot six six six he's a he's a real We're full of passion. I love it. He's like screaming. So golden score. How does golden score work? Can you say? So the golden score. So if it goes without any point on the board from a throw or a hold down or armlock strangle, then it goes into golden score. So two Shidos on the board apiece. One more mistake now and it's going to be all over. Oh, wow. And that's it. Teddy Renner just manages to turn it on the Korean. And that went really against the run of play, didn't it? Yeah. Because the Korean did better, you know. But, you know, Teddy Renner is a winner. Yeah. And he says, right, okay, let's have more cheering. Finds a way to score. And I have to say, you know, that even when he loses, you know, he's always graceful. Yeah. He doesn't like it, but he's graceful. Yeah, there was so much love there, celebration. It was great. It's great to see. It's great that he's doing it again. Going after it, chasing the gold medal again. Well, he's chasing the gold medal. It's going to be in Paris, which is going to be even, you know, more fantastic. You know, he's already the greatest. You said, you know, what has he got to do to be the greatest? He's already the greatest competitor Judo's ever known. And that was even, you know, with the great Tani, you know. So Tani was amazing as well. Are you part of the commentating team for Paris? I'm part of the commentating team, but it won't be for, IJF because it's independent broadcast. Have you ever had an athlete sort of come up to you and ask like, why did you say that? Or like disagree with your commentary? Do you know, I've got to say that 99%, 99.9% of everybody is so grateful that I've commentated their fights all the way through. They know if they've messed up. So if I say something and I'm never disparaging, really disparaging, you know, but what I will say is, you know, it was a great throw by the other guy or it was a great match. And if they made a mistake, so if they walk out, they know that, um, I will say something that will, um, you know, mean something. So nobody really moans about it. I try and talk the truth if I can. So, uh, who else would you consider as, as some of the greats? So I, I personally just, cause I love the standing Sanagi Koga. So there's like, you know, the number of times you won the world championships and the Olympic games, but there's also like how you won and how you won into fights and what you did, you know, it's not necessarily about getting gold medals. It's about how you fought and how you represent the sport. And there's certain athletes like anyway, and Iliadis that are going after the big throws. I only have to, they don't want to win by upon, you know, and I think that that is the difference. Is there the ones that come out there and it's a bit like. You know, when, when Tyson stepped out there, you, you knew what you were going to get, you know? And, and if they went toe to toe, if, if, if you, if Tyson had somebody going toe to toe, somebody was going to get knocked out and, you know, we got the same in judo when people go head to head and it's an open match. And I often talk about an open match. I say, um, they're, they're, it's an open match. They're both trying to score. Somebody is going to get scored on. Somebody is going to go, you know, and that's, that makes it exciting when they come out and they close. Up, you know, then that's not an exciting match. Is there a case for, uh, for Ono? Shohei Ono, three-time world champ, two-time gold medalist. I think that, you know, judo wise, he's gotta be one of the greatest because he had such versatility. Um, he had, uh, he could go right and he could go left. He could pick up, he could go to the ground as well. He won a lot of his earlier matches on the ground. Um, I think his, uh, empathy. Uh, you know, and how he, uh, presents himself sometimes he falls down. And, uh, I think that hopefully that should come with, uh, tutoring and, you know, of how to, how to be a great champion after, you know, it's not just about what you do on the mat, but what you do off the mat as well. So it's just to you, a great champion is the whole package of how, how you present yourself when you lose, how you represent yourself just off the mat. I think it's how you present yourself afterwards, how you are with people, how much you can help. People, I mean, people, kids, uh, and, um, you know, they look up to these great champions because they want to be like them. Uh, so the worst thing is when you get somebody that's a bit of an ass and they're, and they're not presenting themselves in the right way. So I like to see somebody presenting themselves in the right way. And I think that it's something that can be taught. It's something that normally comes with a little bit of experience, a little bit of age, you know, and I like to think that I'm a little bit different now than I was when I was 19. Not that it was bad. You know, I just think I was just, uh, you know, I see it often now, you know, just full of, full of beans, your, your beautiful work in progress. Uh, what about Nomura that I hear in Nomura? That's three time gold medalist, never lost an Olympic fight. So there's, there's nobody, right? Yeah. No, nobody ever done that. So that's gotta be, it has to stand. He took two years off in between every Olympic games and came back, did the right amount of events to qualify for. Not only did he having to qualify, he had to qualify through Japan. Now Japan, remember I've got the greatest depth. So they got people coming through all the time, you know, and they, and then he had to win the Japanese trials. I mean, we had a four time world champion from Japan. Uh, this is when world championships was every other year and this is shows of a show. So Fuji, um, and he was the greatest middleweight of all time, uh, and never got to, to participate in the Olympics because he lost the Japanese trials. Twice into Olympic, uh, you know, uh, possibilities. So, um, you know, he had to qualify for Japan and then go to the Olympic games and then do it there, you know, so sometimes some of the best people in Japan can't get outside of Japan, look at the situation they had with, um, Abbe and then they had, um, Mariama. Mariama was, uh, you know, and Abbe were both the best by far in the under 66 kilos category. This is for the last Olympic games. And, um, they sent one to the world championships, one to the Olympic games and they both won gold medals, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's why the, uh, the all Japan championships is like legendary. There's these battles, uh, with Dimash and all of them. Well, Abbe and, um, and Mariama, they, they had, uh, uh, trials in the Kodokan. Uh, it was 26 minutes. I think it was 26 minutes. It went, they were battling it out for 26 minutes. That's great. If we can just go to, you've trained in Japan. What are those Rondori's like? What, what's that training like? Um, I touched on the danger, that danger of being thrown when you get hold of somebody or somebody gets hold of you. And I often reflect, I often talk about it when I'm commentating, you know, cause I can see immediately, you know, it's easy, isn't it? You know, we're in the commentary chair or if you're in the coach's chair and you don't really understand totally, absolutely what's going on when you're being, somebody is being outgrit and when they're in danger of being thrown. I mean, you know, if you're in danger of being thrown, the first thing you do is stick your backside out and defend by, you know, by not being in the position they, they want you to be in. All right. And so that's danger, you know, you feel the danger. And so in Japan, that was the place I used to go to train because I felt the danger. And so my defenses would be heightened. And so somebody that was, I went to two years, one, one Olympic cycle. I went two years, two months without having a score. On me in any competition. And then I went to one competition in the European championships, which I won. And I was struggling all the way through it and got scored on three times in my pool of, you're like my first pool of fights. And I was devastated. I, and, and I actually nearly lost the whole competition because I was more mortified about being scored on three times when I hadn't been scored on for two and a half years, I had this thing in my head about two and a half years. I've like, you know, and, and then all of a sudden, right, I'm not unbeatable. And then you just, you, and you go, and I, I was almost lost it, completely lost it. Just so fortunate. Couple of things went my way and just came out and I scraped and scratched my way to the final and, and won the final. Well, all right. But that was my best match, but, uh, I almost lost it. Well, what do you do with the fact that if you go to Japan and you're getting. You're saying danger, like you're probably getting thrown, getting thrown Japan. What does that do to your ego? Well, again, it's my, you know, that, that was a winning ego that had to adapt. Uh, I remember we went to the case Joe, which police dojo one time. And, um, they wanted to see the, uh, they created this, uh, the groundwork competition because they wanted to see my, me do the juji, like how I went in and how I, yeah, how the. arm bar, right? They wanted to see how it did it from underneath or over the top. And you just they created this event so yeah they started it so and then winner stays on competition was happening at the case joe so i did about seven i think i was seven in and then my coach came in and said no it's finished that's it now it's finished you know suddenly we realized what was going on and i was going no no no no don't stop it like that you know and um and it was one of those uh moments where you know the the boot was on my foot you could say you know rather than the other side the other way because i had been to japan uh in situation i remember as a 16 year old i i got such a i i got such a a drumming um from uh one of the japanese guys older students and he had a gold tooth and um so he was gold tooth to me you know and he was my nightmare and um i i remember kept coming out to fight him because he kept throwing me and and i was crying and i was upset and i was like and then that was another occasion where i got dragged away and i said no and so i wanted to go back and fight him and i went back to the same dojo every year to fight him he was on my mind morning noon night he was on my mind tooth was on your gold tooth was on my mind you know and uh you ever get him two years later all right i was two years to me from 16 to 18 was totally different 18 years of age i was pretty competitive with him and uh it was like you know i was standing up with him 19 he was in the groundwork competition and that's when the switch happened switch happened you know because i just well because i remember getting the arm lock and and it didn't put it on immediately and i was like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i needed it to last it had to last sure so i i spread the the whole thing lasted as long as i could possibly get it and it was a long memory yeah as i was looking down at him and now and now he has nightmares about you now i wonder what nickname he has for you i don't know i'm hoping that he remembers me as you know he probably doesn't say it just back an eyelid doesn't say a thing about it well i mean can you just speak to that training with those folks you know you said crying just the frustration of being thrown yeah i mean what what how do you it's such a beautiful part of the process of becoming great yeah i think i think it is just something that you're you know that doesn't happen at this level you know we were talking about levels and then at this level it never happened and then i went out in my first european cadet and and all of a sudden i wasn't the this top guy i was in the mix and then i had to work myself to the top of that mix and then to the top of the next one you know because i went to the european senior championships and you know again you're not the top and you know you work your way to the top of that and and i think it is a frustration you know but i think it's that kind of hatred of losing and and also um being out of control i think that the first time first senior european championships i fought i fought nevzorov but he was only one of my contests then i had to fight a frenchman for third place but he totally outgripped me and um and i remember i was more upset though i won the contest i was more upset that he totally out he did outgrip me and and i was more upset and then i fought him a year later and outgripped him all right so it was um it was one of those you know it was a learning process all the way through yeah that like frustration is like whatever that does to your your soul the building up afterwards is what actually makes you better it's fascinating and you think there's in japan just killers there they're like just the world doesn't know about they just just yeah it's world champions in the dojo you know there's people that never make it out yeah you know i remember we were training like so and everybody that's um that goes to japan all my uh friends my that have been world olympic champions right they all know what i'm talking about they know exactly who i'm what i'm saying is that when we go to the dojos there we all get thrown by people that never come out to be world champions you know they're just in the mix or they're going through three years of university and then they go we we had a guy yeah we had a guy that came in he came he was business guy he came in his suitcase and his briefcase like that he's got a tie up like that and he's so he decides he's going to come in and he he gets changed and he's he's in his uh lunch hour he's in his lunch hour right so gotta be quick yeah so he comes in and he goes through he's working his way through the whole of the british team we're all lined up right yeah we're all lined up we're all lined up we're all just working his way through the whole of the british team and i knew it's my turn next so i get hold of him and i throw him immediately and then it was what we were talking about when it happens in the first few minutes a few seconds of the the the practice so then i had four minutes of him coming at me and i'm going up into the air and i'm twisting off and i'm like that and then like everybody's laughing at the side of the map or the whole british team he's gone through the old british team and then he he's gone through the whole british team and then he's gone through the 10 minutes later he's just tying his tie up like that you know and back to work like that you know imagine him sitting behind his desk and his computer yeah yeah yeah i'm glad he didn't get out um hopefully he listens to this hopefully anybody else i didn't mention as part of the greats that just kind of jumped um kashu zaki uh sensei is is the uh the my favorite of all favorites he is uh what i would call a judo uh genius i don't know if you can get him up here can we get him up yeah so go into 1981 world championships and uh and i'll talk you through the great kashu zaki he was one year uh in great britain and he was uh he was a guy that was so much a genius all right so you want the final of the under 66 65 kilograms there the one at the top this is him he is uh two weight categories below my weight category that i won the world championships same year i won it so this is it's not i'm not sure if this is going to show his uh final of this is a highlight oh no watch this this is this this he did in the final in the final of the world but he was just listening he did uh an incredible sacrifice throw yeah and then he was on top for the uh for the new was a and renowned for his groundwork and uh he he was on top of against a really strong romanian guy all right so his transition was just phenomenal yeah let me let me go back and look at that what just happened so he's just showing you so he does this uh coachy thing uh just to create space and it's his follow-through into into groundwork that is best of all and then uh the romanian really strong like i say he'd gone all the way through to the final of the world championships winning most by upon i think the romanian and uh he's defending really really well here and you can see that how persistent he he knows exactly what he wants he's just got to get his leg out now watch he'll tie the arm up and then he'll pull the top leg towards him and then he'll push the bottom one off always working with both feet always working always working uh readjust the balance still one leg trapped final of the world championships good referee because he's refereeing uh something here that's happening you know that's going to decide as to whether so he doesn't call it to stand it up at all watch him pull the top one now and he'll push the bottom one there's a calmness on his face calm great to see calm pushes the bottom leg leg out job done all finished this is him again watch this this is another uh technique that he does and then just uh again sacrifice directly in directly into the new waza transition is everything isn't it in judo yeah you know well in anything really but judo is especially pays off yeah i mean because we haven't got that long i mean we had more time here they've just brought more time back so we've got more time to transition in and uh to get the situation that we want and and to get the attacking situation that we want because you know i remember i was um teaching uh in america to some jujitsu guys and they were saying i would never give you our back and i said with judo rules certain situations it happens that you know when we try and do throws where we're facing away from our opponent you know so like for example c and aggies if they fail then the back is there you know and that's how we get the back and it's different situation you know then going on your back in the guard situation totally different well there are travis stevens i don't know how familiar with his judo but he's a really interesting example because he competed at the highest level in jiu-jitsu as well and his idea he's a big senagi guy and he basically threw all that away he in the jiu-jitsu in the jiu-jitsu like he took the sport from scratch for what it is so his he almost never did a standing senagi senagi's at all in jiu-jitsu no because it would leave his back all the time you know if if it failed yeah but he wouldn't have the same kind of grip on the the judogi or or the karate the jiu-jitsu gi yeah a little bit different and so you have to kind of consider the sport the art of it and also the competitors the styles and the the culture of the sport if you want to win you , if winning is the most important thing then yeah like all right well let's you know but you you learn the game don't you and and that's what he did he learned the game you know and i think that is credit to him you know and that's why i'm saying about wrestling you know the wrestlers i mean we you've good to learn the judo and for what it is and the mechanics and the and how it works and then learn the wrestling i mean i do the commentary as well for the freestyle and i will be at the olympics for the freestyle and the greco-roman so uh and i love the freestyle absolutely love it but freestyle is freestyle judo's judo i like to see people doing judo yeah but there's a uh there's a rhyme to the whole combat thing they're all i mean the the body mechanics it's all like fascinating echoes of each other in interesting ways the details are different but they're still uh two humans clashing yeah we've got some amazing uh crossovers yeah we've got some amazing uh crossovers yeah we've got some amazing uh crossovers with uh people like the the um mongolians have come in the georgians i mean the georgians do massive pickups and different uh techniques and you know if you ask the fighters whether you know grabbing the legs you know a lot of them would say some of the wrestling styles you know the the um georgians and the and the mongolians might say yeah i'd like to be able to take the legs but you know a lot of them you get um uh iliadis for example he just adapted so he thought i'll take my arm over the top and i'll just rip him out the floor that way yeah you know what i mean they're still doing the big lifts they're still doing the big gripping but they uh they just don't grab below the legs yeah it's weird they figured it out and they figured it out like that yeah you would think it'd take a long time no it was like a month yeah no exactly uh the highest level which is crazy uh so you mentioned jiu-jitsu a little bit what what's used an interesting difference between jiu-jitsu and judo that you've observed because you're uh one of the greatest ever on the on the ground in judo and so you know jiu-jitsu is primarily focused on similar type of stuff on the ground so what you use an interesting difference there they're a different approach different time scale to to them and they have a different way in so um like where ours comes from a standing position directly in we've got a time scale on it so we we have to like the catch what i always i always talk about the catch because in judo terms if you don't get the catch immediately then the referee won't see the the continuation from plan a b c d you know if something builds so we have to build it and we we have to build it quickly and i think in jujitsu terms you have more time to build yeah there's a there's a kind of patience like oh if this doesn't work out i could try a different thing yeah just would you know there's like an urgency like there's an urgency every thing and there's a ref watching skeptically so you better show that you're making progress you've got to show the progression and that's why you know i always had a plan a b c you see there with uh you know that was 1981 there the great kashima zaki was had um had a progression you know everything was he knew exactly where he had to be it was feel you know that wasn't by accident it was it was trained and i think that that transition there and taking uh control of somebody's mistake so somebody might have made a mistake or not not hit properly or your defense has caused them to make a mistake and then you take advantage of it and that that is the difference so one of the side effects of that i don't know what the chicken or the egg but uh judo people on the ground are much more aggressive so probably because of the urgency but just like there's an uh intention behind the the progress you're making i think jujitsu uh is more relaxed there's more uh a culture of just finding places to relax and think of different control and positions and take your time and as a result it's much much less exhausting so you can go for much longer it feels like judo is exhausting it's that 10 second blast isn't it you know it's it's it's like doing sprints all the time you know and that that is really hard and that's a special kind of condition you need and you need to be able to catch it and know when to go and when not to go and i think also i i was going to ask you you think it make a difference i mean certain uh jujitsu you can't just throw yourself on your back you know into the guard you you have to throw into the situation you know to me so you have got i mean i know roger gracia he he he decided that he was going to learn judo he he saw the importance of being able to throw for the transition in and uh so he came to the budokai and he was learning off ray stevens and he was and you know they were they were doing really a lot yeah well he's a fascinating study because he does the most basic stuff and he does it like well like we did like what another level of well it's like yamasha everyone knows what's coming with roger gracie but he just does it anyway i guess the best people in the world it's crazy he's like everybody in jujitsu at white belt learns the techniques he's using and he just does it amazing isn't it yeah but he has about a thousand ways in yeah yeah i mean in the the thousand ways there's in the details so it kind of might even look the same to people but there's i mean he finds a way to choke people so he's on top of them mounted yeah in a sort of judo pin position and you know everyone knows what's coming next against the best people in the world and you should be able to defend it but nobody can it's crazy i think there's the power element as well you know that you don't realize how you know when i directed in a particular way then you have that kind of element of of absolute power you can only feel like like when roger's doing a technique i think that you would only feel it if he did it on you you know then then you can feel it it's not something that happens you know like so tricks is one thing but actually being able to do something really well from a power point of view you know it's like like you say he's he's only does those few things but he does them really really really well yeah i don't know what that is about actually judo pins is a very interesting case study as well because people are able to feel so heavy one of the things judoka are able to do is pin extremely well yeah like and it makes you realize that it's not about the weight it's about some kind of technique that makes people feel like they weigh a thousand pounds it's about it's about weight distribution yeah and change of balance you know what a lot of people don't realize that there's huge changes of balance in on the ground massive you know you know what it's like i mean you you know you're a jiu-jitsu man and and you know the detail of the techniques is what really interests me you know i mean i'm always looking small ideas you know i'm always looking at the jiu-jitsu and um i just it fascinates me you know i would have done jiu-jitsu for sure but i wouldn't have forgotten uh the uh the judo way in to the techniques you know what i mean i think that you've got to differentiate the two but i would have i would have loved the jiu-jitsu i would have absolutely loved it you know but it wasn't as prominent then you know the i where the new was it came from it came from a mistake me getting beaten in a particular contest and i went i'm not going to be beaten again on the ground that's uh that's how it happened yeah well yeah the story of your life is like a loss creates uh the phoenix rises well it just it was 1978 and it was it was you know it wasn't a mistake it was a particular movement and uh i was fighting weight up from what my normal weight but i'm i stayed in the same position for one second too long got caught and choked sangaku yeah triangle triangle triangle wow and i i uh i said i literally just the same as i said to you when i said i'm not going to drink anymore i came off and i said i'm never going to get caught on the ground yeah again it was on the ground and i never lost in in my whole competitive career again oh wow but yeah i i I shouldn't mention that there's nothing like a pin from a judo person. And I don't actually know if people in jiu-jitsu have made sense of that, like loaded that in. But it's not part of the game, is it? The pin, it's submission. Yeah, but control is part of the game. Right. And nobody controls a human body the way judo people do on the ground. They have understood the science of control. And I think that control is extremely useful in jiu-jitsu as well. It's just that people don't, because there's so many other domains of exploration. That's interesting. I mean, especially when you apply jiu-jitsu to the fighting setting, so mixed martial arts, that control, that side control, that pin control is really, really, really important. But then you add punching to the thing and it becomes much more important. That puts a whole different thing on it, doesn't it? I mean, there's an alternate history. You would have been part of the early UFCs if time was a little different, you know, maybe a few years later. Because your style of judo and jiu-jitsu and the transitions and the aggression and all of that would have worked really well in the early UFCs. I'm sure I was being set up at one stage by one of the Graces. And that was when he was winning all the matches. Yeah. But he came in with. A couple of the cousins to one of my seminars. Nice. Yeah. And he was one of the first ones, wasn't he? That's how I love to see the kind of UFC, because it was different martial arts, different skills. And, you know, I mean, he'd get close and he'd just choke them out or arm lock them or, you know, armbar them. And that was brilliant. You know, that was, for me, that was a revelation. That was how I saw it. Yeah. It's a fascinating science experiment, which aspects of different martial arts work well and not when they clash together. And it did turn out that neiwaza worked well. It was the key, wasn't it? Yeah, it was a big missing link in our conception of fighting. It's the neutralizer of size and a lot of other components. And it just blew people's mind. Like, okay, it's not just about size. It's not just about big guys swinging. It's not just about the hands. It's a lot of other components. And the groundwork is really, really important. And, of course, there's a few judoka that succeeded in the UFC since then, which is always interesting how they adapt. You know, when you take off the gi, how can you still throw people? How can you still do control? How can you still take advantage of the transition on the ground? Ronda Rousey is a good example of somebody that took advantage of that. Yeah. I think one of the biggest things for the judoka is, we've never, you know, there's no strikes. And I think that's the biggest shock, if you wish. You know, when you get punched in the face and you're not used to that. You know, that's not what we're used to. Some people are able to get punched in the face better than others. Yeah, for sure. Then again, there's Ronda Rousey who doesn't need to get punched in the face. She just gets in close, throws a person, armbar right there. Yeah. And Kayla. You know, Kayla's pretty much as well. Kayla Harrison. That's another incredible person. She could have probably been just winning Olympic gold medal after Olympic gold medal, but chose to. Whatever, you know, she decides. I mean, Ronda as well. You know, whatever they decided to do, they're great athletes. They hate losing. I don't know anybody that hates losing more than those two. Yeah. They don't like it. And Kayla Harrison, like, I don't know anybody that works as hard as her. That's a crazy, crazy, crazy work ethic. Well, let me. Let me ask you about training. Again, Jimmy Pedro said he learned a lot from you. He learned how to do a tai toshin, the armbar, jiu-jitsu, katami. But he also learned from you training methodology. So what's he talking about? He told me about this. What's your approach to training throughout your career and as it developed? I always wanted to train harder than anybody else. I still train now every day if I don't train. I do something. I do an hour of my physical work and I still go on the mat a little bit. You know, I'm 65 now. And so I'm not doing really heavy stuff on the mat, but I still like to train. And when I was 21, 20, up to 30, I was one of the best trainers. But, you know, Jimmy Pedro was one of the best trainers as well. He was one of the. He's one of your dream athletes. You know, when Jimmy Pedro steps through your door and he was just a kid, you know, he was just young when he stepped through my door. And I had a lot of full-time trainers. So I had up to 20 really good athletes that were training hard. And I only wanted hard trainers. Give me 10 that trained hard rather than your one prima donna that, you know, you're skillful, the one that, you know, could do it. I just, I wanted 10, you know, or 20 really hard trainers because you can do so much with them. You can make champions. You can make them world champions. You know, if you've got somebody that was a special talent and they wanted to work hard, then you had a special athlete. When you say hard trainers, what do you mean? Are these people that just like every single day are able to just grind it out, do a randoi, do the training, do the boring things, just keep coming back? Yeah, when the going gets tough, you know, and I think that was him. He had a special mentality. And, you know, and the thing is, you see, when you've got him in your dojo, all right, even when you're tired, when somebody's tired and when, you know, what an example to the others. So he'd pull the other ones in as well, you know. So I had somebody that when everybody was tired and everybody was sick of it and everybody just wanted to, you know, and he'd still be there, you know, so they had to do it. So that was, for me, a win-win, you know. So I had all the Americans, actually, and I had Bobby Berland and I had Michael Swain, and I had Ed Liddy, and I had them all coming to visit me at different times. Jimmy was there. You know, they wanted to be the best. In the end, we had such a great club atmosphere. They wanted to come for the hard work. And they knew that if they came, they were going to be dragged out and we were going to do physical training, and it was physical training like they hadn't done before. But it wasn't just physical training. It was the judo. And the skill side of it as well. And so I always had a great empathy with the U.S. team, Olympic team. So a lot of your Olympic medalists have been through with me, you know, and so I'm proud of that because we had, you know, some great times. And they're still great mates now. And so in New York, in a couple of weeks' time, I'm going to have everybody. He's going to be there. They're all coming in. All old friends. All old friends. And new friends. So what? What's a tough week look like at your peak? Physical training, Randori? Is there days off? Are you training like twice a day? Twice a day. So we do the preparation training. We do the running. We do the weight training. We do the skills in the morning as well. The skills is, for me, one of the biggest advantages that any full-time trainers can have. Because what happens is, is that with most clubs, you're trying to fit everything into that hour and a half or two hours, you know, you fit your skills and you fit your physical training and your sparring and your, you know, everything's in there, all grouped in. So the biggest advantages of having a full-time group is that you can split your skills and your skills lay your foundation. So the biggest advantage is being able to work specifically on things without having to worry about getting to. Do your free, you know, your Randori or your, your sparring, or then you've got to go back for, you just do the skills. Well, when you talk about skills, like what is, say your specialty is a Tai Toshi. What are we talking about? Uchikomi doing a bunch of fists, working with bands. Are you doing throws? Are you actually just having conversations about like specific, like tiny details of throws? Like what, what does skills mean? All those things about doing your repetition practice, making sure the repetition's correct. You know, there's good repetition. So when we say good repetition, does it, Uchikomi, when you're just fitting the throw versus doing the throw, where do you land on the value? And getting it moving, you know? So one of the biggest, most important things is getting it moving. If we do something static, again, it's that static target. You need to get it moving. So you need to do a repetition and also you need to do a correct repetition because if you're doing a hundred, the repetitions that are not correct and repetitions under pressure, too much pressure. It's pressure without somebody overseeing those skills to make sure that the, that you correct the skills. Cause if you're doing a skill, if you're doing it 99 times incorrectly, all right, then a repetition doesn't make perfect repetition makes permanent. So you're going to make it as perfect as you possibly can. So actually that skills group there is the most important thing. And what I used to do is oversee it. So I'd oversee it to make sure that it was correct. it was done properly. You're watching the footwork, you're watching the gripping, and just constantly adjusting the people. I'll give you an example. Jimmy Pedro. Jimmy was one of the hardest when he was 19 years of age, right? So he was always asking me to practice, always. So he's always on me all the time. So I'd do groundwork with him. And could I put him on his back? No. I was all on him, and he'll tell you, you know, but he just wouldn't go. He was just, he was going to be great, without a doubt, all right? So I wanted everybody on with him, everybody. So everybody went on with him, you know, and so they only improved their game, and it improved him. And then, you know, small technical things that have stayed with him that we were doing with the Jiu-Jitsu Katami that was passed on to Kayla and then gone on, you know, to Ronda. And it's all small things that I can see sometimes that, you know, it's passed on. What about the Tai Toshi? He said he learned a lot from you from that throw. Yeah, and he does it differently. And so I should mention that it's one of the trickier throws. I mean, I still don't understand Tai Toshi. It is a tricky throw. I don't understand. So for people who don't know, boy, how would you even explain it? It doesn't make any sense. It's when you just look solo, the movement you make is quite simple. But how you get a person to be off balance, how you. Yeah. Actually get them to be thrown. And when you do throw it successfully, it looks like a whipping motion that's effortless. It makes no sense. It makes no sense. Other than it's every technique starts with the hands. So it's what we call Kazushi. And, you know, you're pulling somebody off balance, getting them moving, pulling them off balance. Tai Toshi means body drop. So it's basically two legs across your partner's body. I've got my back to you. All right. And I've already pulled you off balance with my hands. And then I'm going to just flex my legs up just as you're coming onto my back. And then you're going to go over. You know, if I coordinate it all right. If it doesn't get coordinated right, then you're going to come right on my back and try to rip my arm off. You know, so, yeah, I've got to get it right. What was, if you can convert it to words, some secret ingredients that allowed you to pull it off at the highest levels, the Tai Toshi? The hands. The hands start every technique. So getting the repetition right, first of all. So you need to get the repetition right. You need a good partner. So actually training your partner to react in the right way is just as important as learning the throw. So actually what happens is, you know, we could get a lesson of beginners. We teach the throw and then go right off you go. And 90% of them will get it wrong because their partner's not reacting in the right way. So half of it is to get the person to react as they should. So if I was doing it with you, you and I, first thing I teach you to do is to react the way I want you to react. And then I'd react the way that you want me to react. All right. So then we'd have success with it rather than you leaning back in the wrong way or resisting or frightened you going over. So, you know, so actually that's why nine times out of 10 people get the technique wrong. It's actually fascinating to me because in the United States where I came up, judo, I mean, the level of judo is not comparable to the level of judo in the rest of the world. Of course, the Pedro Center is an exception to that. Certain athletes, yeah. Certain athletes, like when I trained recently with Jimmy Pedro, it's like even like the 16-year-old kids are just all deadly. So it's terrifying. But, you know, I remember the rush. The national team came through Philadelphia. And one of the things that really impressed me is just how much easier judo was, training judo with them. They moved correctly. As like Uke said, as the people getting thrown, every aspect of their body movement was correct in terms of it felt right to be throwing them, to be training with them. Everything about the gripping, about the position of their hips, about the shoulder, everything. It was fun. It was easy. And like. And I always felt like I was learning. So I think all of that is loaded in, I guess, into proper training. So you're developing through the throws. You're developing the right technique. You've got to develop, yeah. You have to develop between, you know, I always had training partners that I trained with up to each Olympic Games. And we worked together. We did the skills together. And then we, you know, we worked together in order to make techniques work. And we got it moving as quickly as we could. And one of the worst things. One of the worst things that I see is, and I see a lot of YouTube stuff with coaches. Here we go. Oh, don't even start me on that. Don't even start me on that. But, you know. You're laughing because you know what I'm talking about, right? I'm actually laughing because I'm enjoying you talking trash. But you're talking about technique. Yeah, just. Well, you know, the coaches and their clipboards. Clipboard guys, you know, with the clipboards and the stopwatches. And, you know, they've got these kids running up and down the mat. And then doing uchikomi of something that's technically incorrect, you know, 10 times. And then running up and doing another 10 at the other side, you know. And actually mixing everything together. And it's just a mess. Yeah, technique is important. Just a technical mess. That said, some of it is conditioning type stuff that you were doing. So what is like the hardest type of physical conditioning? What was the hardest type of physical conditioning you were doing? Probably ran too much, you know, when I was a kid. If I could go back now, I wouldn't run as much. And I ran hard and I ran strong. And I remember doing the London Marathon one time. And I said, I'm never going to do it again. I said, never. But I ran, you know, and I was trying to. The problem was when I did the London Marathon is I was trying to beat three hours. It's that desire to win again. It's totally insane, you know. It was insane. Yeah. And I ran out through half marathon in what I thought was a good time. Anyway, I got to 16, 17 miles and totally blew. So you went out too fast. Yeah, I went out too fast. And then you just. I died. wanted to keep going. Absolutely. Just. I died. I got in. I crossed the line. I remember seeing this bridge over there, right? And the bridge, it was the finishing line over the bridge. And I had to get there. It was the longest bridge I've ever, ever walked over. I walk, run. So I got over the bridge and I took one step over the line like that. And there was a guy over there and he was trying to rush everybody through, you know. And he was going, come on, come on, come on. There was people behind me. Get your hands off me. I said, get your hands off me now. Like that, because we're going to fall out, you know. And I couldn't move. I couldn't move. I was white. It was amazing that you made it to the finish line. I did. I got, I got over there and, you know, yeah, Donald Duck passing me was, was a, was a tell. Oh, there's a person dressed as Donald Duck? Donald Duck, yeah. Yeah. But the thing was, I still crossed over 3.38. I crossed over 3.38, but I lost 38 minutes in the last four miles. So that bridge, longest bridge ever. You see, you regret the run. So anyway, I would do the running a little bit differently, but we ran, we ran hard. We did the weight training. We did good. We did good weight training. It was all conditioned. So, I mean, it was never the same training all the time. So it was always, we have certain phases building up. It was scientifically done. It wasn't just out there, run, weight training, judo, same judo all the time. It was always pretty scientific. Good variety. It was a good variety and it had build up and it had a speed phase and it had a power phase and it had a, you know, like a base condition. What about the Rhandori? Was there a. a method to the madness there? How much Rhandori did you do? A lot. So the most important thing for me, I mean, I see now that there's a lot of people out there that are not getting enough Rhandori. They're not Rhandori-ing enough and there's a lot of sports science people and they're, they're running and they're weight training and they're, they're doing it all to death and there's not enough judo. And the only ones, you know, like you have a look at some of the, um, the Eastern block countries that, uh, uh, getting together, they're having these mass camps and the Japanese, they have, you know, just massive people that they can do. They're, they're doing probably 50, 60 Rhandoris a week. Wait, what? 50 or 60 a week. Wow. The average person is getting together. I mean, when I was doing Rhandoris, uh, when I went to Japan, it was just purely for 60 Rhandoris a week. How much is each one? How long is it? So they were five minutes then they're four minutes now, but. That's a lot, especially given the level of the competition there. Well, you can do it in Japan because it's fairly light. They throw you, they throw you, you throw them. There's like a level of like, you're moving at like a close to a hundred percent, but the actual power and the force is not quite. Different in Korea. Korea was harder. It was more physical. So you couldn't do 50 Rhandoris in, in Korea. You'd die. Yeah. So you'd die. do 30, but you need, you need the randori and uh so i chased the randerers so i chased them into training camps i traced them all over my country so i i was getting 40 to 50 a week in my club and then i would go to training camps and had more and i honestly don't think that they do enough now a lot of countries somebody who doesn't know randori is live training so yes sparring was there a few people you remember that were just like really tough to go against you mentioned gold tooth is there others like it it's pretty uh horrific yeah he was oh you got him pretty all right i got him in the end and um yeah is there like i suppose i suppose i should say not just tough but just good training partners that you're great training partners i remember when initiative and initiative was i mentioned him earlier said he was one of the best i mean he was just such great technician so i i would go there to his dojo and he'd ask me to practice and he'd always he'd finish the practice and you you know that he would always say another one we'll do another one right so you'd go yeah because you had to make out that you weren't that bothered that you had to do another one so you do another one back to back and then he goes sometimes let's do another one so he'd end up doing 15 minutes with the same guy who could possibly throw you at any time you know and and that was hard you know so but i remember those particular um uh guys and there were plenty of those what do you do with the exhaustion that you're feeling in those like how how deep did you go in terms of like deep and i i think that that was the great thing about having certain like european training camps were more physical so i remember you know that we would have uh european training camps where you'd fight germans and then the dutch and then the french and then you know the russian or the you'd have all sorts different styles and people there to fight and uh that that was something then you you'd have to dig in at a different place come out of there well where do you go mentally when you you know how many times have you gone there or like you're really in deep waters exhaustion wise in in competition actually competition it's happened you know so sometimes you go past where your forearms are absolutely blown i remember the final of um czech uh tournament that we had and uh fought a frenchman uh in the final and my forearms were so blown i couldn't shake his hand you know and then i remember they were solid absolutely solid and they had lactic acid in them and uh and i remember i stood on the rostrum this uh and and they were giving me things and i couldn't grip them properly so i was saying put it under my arm and i was like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die armpit or you know chin like trying to hold this i couldn't hold anything you know and so there there are times when i really had to go really deep i remember fighting two east germans uh the same day one of the competitions and uh the number one and the number two east germans and um that was another day where i had to really dig deep that's the the fascinating thing about some of these tournaments is if you get if you go full distance and several matches in a row the way you're seeing in the finals are two people that have like fought a lot that day yeah and we have golden score now you know so we we see a lot of guys you know that going into golden score and they've done one contest of four minutes and then they go another four minutes and then you know we've had some go into a third four minutes that is all back to back it might be in the first round it might be in the final you know and we've got some now that are coming out and you can see the stats and the the ones that winning golden score so we got uh japanese hashimoto he's the japanese representative now uh instead of ono because ono's finished so hashimoto's coming out he was in a tournament last week and he went to look up yeah just have a look at him so hashimoto's in white here all right and uh there's a great example there well i'm glad we got onto that you know so i mean he has got great technique hashimoto effortless there's the title all right so you can see exactly what we're talking about that great um timing and again uh you know sometimes he backs them up to the edge and then he'll wait for them to come back in towards they don't want to step out to get a penalty i guess that's a cross grip title should they see that wrong yeah cross grip different grips oh great examples there just just what we were talking about making it look so easy wow so he's going to be their representative uh at 73 kilograms look at him back him up again and again just uh catching him as as he pushes back to push push push and then yeah action reaction at his best there yeah and uh slight change of uh direction he sometimes goes down onto his knee there which is siatoshi it turns from taiatoshi which is springing up to siatoshi that's going down oh the the title of the video is uh his taiatoshi is a work of art yeah this is uh him at his best showing him uh doing what he does best but he had to go three times into golden score last week and dig deep and lost one of them i think but you're still going at it you're talking about all those training sessions i uh nikki your wonderful wife told me that you were looking you were going all over like from target to target looking for workout clothes because your luggage got lost because you had to get a workout in yeah just i you know what i just i i realize that if i'm a miserable git right then she'll get me to know she'll get me in into the gym you know so and the thing is is that i'm better if i get in there for an hour and i just do something at least 30 35 to 40 minutes cardio and then i do some weights and uh more high repetitions it's not so much heavy weights now but more functional i mean you travel all over the world for for for the commentary of these competitions so you're is it is it sometimes a challenge to figure out how well you know we're during covid uh then they closed all the gyms but we were still going out we were some one of the first ones out the judo were some of the first out the competitions were behind closed doors so we were in the hotel the gym was closed so we couldn't use the gyms uh so we had to look for other ways that we could work out so most of the hotels that we were in were high-rise hotels so we were in the steps we were doing the steps right the way up you know so we were in the steps we were doing the steps right the way up you know so we were in the steps we were doing the steps right the way up you know so we were in the steps so i started it and uh and so i started off with me going up and then one or two of the others and the referees started to go up with me and so in the end we'd have this trail of people going up the steps and down and every place we went to we had the steps so um yeah that was an interesting situation so we were sick of steps in the end uh what advice would you give to um beginners people starting out in judo how to um how to develop their game how to find the beauty in in the sport and the art of judo if you put 10 people in a room and said right get on with it yeah you'd have mayhem right and i think that wherever whatever sport you're doing you need good instruction good teaching and a good club atmosphere you know so somewhere that's not uh so intense that uh winning your game is the the the only thing and i think that if you look at 90 of the people that practice martial arts are doing it for pleasure so they want to get pleasure so you you need a club that's got a bit of a mixture you know they've got a a direction to go into competition if they want and uh and then the rest it's for fun and to enjoy it but with really good instruction because with really good instruction and a good foundation and a good base you get more enjoyment because you're more you're more comfortable with it and you're more comfortable with it and you're more you know you you you have more success and let's be honest you know the more success we have with something the more we like it yeah and great technique is a way to really discover the beauty of the art and so great teaching is really important there great teaching is so important what about what what does it take to get from the early days when you started judo to to world-class level i think that with most i mean you do hear don't you you know if somebody's been doing judo for eight years and then they're in and i think it happened one of the french chameo she went to the olympic games in 2012 and she'd been doing judo for eight years but then she started to lose you know so she had a relative success early on and the olympics was one of them she got a silver medal but then she went off the boil and then she came back and now she's been there for she's still competing and she's been there for well over 13 years at the very top so i think that you know any foundation it's like anything if if you lay a really solid foundation generally it lasts longer yeah well that that foundation again is that technique or is there um what does it take to build that foundation i think technique you get away with murder you know you know you you with technique you can get away with you know having bad condition you know but i mean you get found out in the end but um you can you know you can go out and you can win certain things by doing really nice technique but i think if you've got the mixture if you've got the whole package then you can you know go the whole way so for people who somehow don't know you've commentated some of the greatest judo matches ever you've done grand prixs you've done all these events olympic squad championship everything so what what uh just looking at the history of judo what like stands out to you what events stand out to you what are some good memories that popped your head i think you know some of the paris tournaments are amazing because the crowd they're there you know they're on the mat they're they're all judoka they all they're well educated to the sport every time somebody twitches you know they're they're very biased towards their own which is kind of you expect but you know sometimes i haven't been able to hear myself speak and that's very unusual you know you've got the headphones on and you you're blocked out you know like sometimes tell you renee been walking out there and the crowd are going crazy and the and they're on their feet you know when somebody twitches and you know and and then you get this they're the crowd silences we had one of those last week you know everybody's cheering their man and then bang their man goes over you know silence silence nothing like that and of course we were we were commentating we were going that was a bit of a crowd silencer you know but um yeah that happens yeah that is a surprising thing that uh at least it was to me that paris and france is really big on judo massive you know and and there's always surprises you know the the it's um like paris is great in japan for the olympic games the biggest surprise was oh no getting beaten in the team event now oh no is the greatest judo man pound for pound probably one of the best and he won the olympic title and then they went into the team event against france and oh no lost to a not he's not run of the mill german but the german you know it wasn't certainly olympic title isk and uh beat oh no yeah well the team the team stuff is fascinating yeah it's fascinating it changes the dynamics of the whole thing yeah and it's i mean it's funny you say paris it it really makes it really big deal that this olympics is being held in paris and they'll be the team to beat french team because they have the best balance of the weight categories they have the best balance with their people that are world and olympic champions uh and qualified men and women so three three men three women they have the best balance out of anybody and an educated audience educated audience home grounds it's gonna be awesome it's gonna be super fun it will be super fun you're nervous yeah all right you get nervous i get nervous i get nervous wow i get really nervous right now but you're on given especially because it's the olympics and you don't want to um you want to celebrate people properly right and it's like it's everything for them yeah and a lot of people especially like the finals matches yeah you know it'll be watched you know millions of times the highest of stakes all of this played over and over yeah and i find that you know with mine i'm now a little bit more careful you know we're like so i'll celebrate a massive throw and then be have a empathy to the one that's been thrown you know because it's not the best feeling in the world especially in olympic finals yeah can you imagine that yeah must be terrible must be terrible yeah just reflecting so i know i have a bit of empathy there and i just i try and say the right things because they always do come up to me and say you commentated my fights yeah you're the voice of the biggest triumphs and the biggest tragedies for these athletes for the world that watches and admires these athletes no pressure you're the voice don't screw it up yeah don't screw it up your voice is in my head when i watch these you know it's it's it's fascinating it's fascinating but you're you're a master of it it's um it's a huge honor uh that you would talk with me um thank you for everything you've done for the sport of judo for the olympics for just sports in general just celebrating greatness in all of its forms thank you for talking today keep going i can't wait to listen to you in paris thank you for having me and uh it's just been an honor to to be here with you thanks for listening to this conversation with neil adams to support this podcast please check out our sponsors in the description and now let me leave you with some words from miyamoto masashi there's nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better stronger richer quicker or smarter everything is within everything exists seek nothing outside of yourself thank you for listening and hope to see you next time