Jimmy Pedro: Judo | Take It Uneasy Podcast
00:00:00.000 | - Let's throw a curveball at you first.
00:00:02.040 | Let's try a quick hypothetical question.
00:00:04.800 | If I told you right now that I have with me,
00:00:06.600 | I brought, I told you I'm Russian,
00:00:08.640 | I brought with me back in the car two guys,
00:00:11.900 | they're waiting outside, both are 73 kg players.
00:00:15.240 | They happen to be in the top 10 of the world.
00:00:17.920 | One is Russian, the other is Japanese,
00:00:20.000 | and I'll give you one million dollars
00:00:21.240 | if you beat one of them in judo, in a judo match.
00:00:24.440 | Which one do you fight?
00:00:25.600 | - Oh, tough question.
00:00:29.560 | - A Russian or a Japanese, which one would you face?
00:00:32.160 | - I think I'd take my shot against the Russian.
00:00:35.520 | - Oh wow.
00:00:36.360 | (laughs)
00:00:37.600 | - So the reason is, they're so much more technical.
00:00:40.740 | The Russians obviously have great judo, explosive power.
00:00:44.780 | Don't get me wrong, I mean, it's a tough decision
00:00:47.960 | either way, but when I look back at my statistics
00:00:50.840 | and which style of player I beat more often,
00:00:54.600 | I had more success against Russians
00:00:56.180 | than I did against Japanese.
00:00:57.840 | - All right, that's the voice of Jimmy Pedro.
00:01:02.120 | I'm here at the Pedro Judo Center,
00:01:04.480 | talking with Jimmy, a legendary judo competitor and coach.
00:01:07.960 | He represented the United States at four Olympics,
00:01:11.040 | '92, '96, 2000, 2004, winning bronze at two of them.
00:01:16.040 | He medaled in three world championships, winning gold in '99.
00:01:20.800 | He has coached many, if most, elite level American judoka,
00:01:26.560 | including Kayla Harrison, Ronda, Ronda Rousey,
00:01:30.000 | Travis Stevens, Rick Hawn, Alex Otiano,
00:01:32.760 | Taraji Williams, Roddy Ferguson, the Roddy Ferguson.
00:01:37.120 | They work together, as many people know, and many others.
00:01:41.240 | Four of those people have been on this podcast.
00:01:43.600 | - Nice.
00:01:46.280 | - Your first judo coach was your dad,
00:01:50.780 | still your judo coach.
00:01:52.680 | - Always will be.
00:01:53.640 | - Always will be.
00:01:54.960 | Can you talk about your relationship with your dad
00:01:56.800 | when you first started judo?
00:01:58.480 | Did he put a lot of pressure on you to win?
00:02:01.160 | - So my dad, for those of you that have ever had
00:02:04.080 | the privilege of meeting him, he's unforgettable.
00:02:08.400 | When I was a kid, judo was mandatory.
00:02:13.400 | There was no such thing as I don't wanna go to judo today.
00:02:16.060 | It was you're going to judo tonight, and it was every night.
00:02:19.880 | We only had practice when I was a little boy,
00:02:21.500 | three days a week, but I was at the dojo
00:02:24.720 | five, six days a week running around the mats
00:02:26.800 | and watching classes and things like that.
00:02:28.520 | But my dad was very hard on me as a youngster,
00:02:32.040 | pushed me to compete, pushed me to train.
00:02:34.800 | He gave me exercise routines to do.
00:02:37.200 | When I wasn't doing judo, I had to do conditioning
00:02:39.660 | off the mat, that he'd run me through circuit training
00:02:42.640 | and stuff like that.
00:02:43.460 | So yeah, my dad was a very demanding father,
00:02:45.740 | but his mentality was that he knew judo
00:02:50.000 | would be good for me, not just to become a great athlete,
00:02:53.240 | but for the life lessons that I would learn
00:02:55.620 | through the sport of judo and what it would do
00:02:57.320 | to help me become a better person.
00:03:00.400 | - Yeah, build your character.
00:03:01.560 | - Yeah, many parents want their kids to eat vegetables
00:03:04.920 | because it's good for them and eat healthy
00:03:06.640 | 'cause it's what they want.
00:03:07.520 | My father wanted me to do judo
00:03:09.360 | 'cause of what it could do for me.
00:03:10.640 | - And so, I mean, that is a story of a lot of greats
00:03:13.960 | in sport and wrestling and judo.
00:03:17.000 | So the question for me is, you're a father now,
00:03:19.840 | you're a coach now, do you and did your dad struggle
00:03:24.680 | with that balance between letting your kid
00:03:27.520 | do whatever they want and dragging them,
00:03:31.120 | kicking and screaming to training?
00:03:32.820 | - Well, I'm a different father than my dad was,
00:03:36.600 | but I also have, my kids have to live in different shoes
00:03:39.640 | than I had to live in.
00:03:41.240 | So my father wasn't an Olympic champion.
00:03:43.400 | He wasn't a national hero.
00:03:45.720 | And he fell short of making the Olympics himself.
00:03:50.560 | So I was almost doing it with him and for him.
00:03:54.160 | Whereas my kids feel like they're doing it for me.
00:03:56.760 | Every tournament they go to, they have a ton of pressure
00:04:00.920 | 'cause the whole world is watching them
00:04:02.460 | because they're Jimmy Pedro's son.
00:04:04.180 | And there's a lot of parents that can be obnoxious.
00:04:07.520 | And when their kid beats my kid,
00:04:09.200 | it's the biggest deal in the world.
00:04:11.080 | So my kids have to deal with all that pressure
00:04:13.000 | that no kid should have to deal with.
00:04:15.860 | So I'm a different father.
00:04:17.220 | I give my children the choice of what sports to play.
00:04:20.660 | Of course, as young individuals, they all did judo.
00:04:24.460 | They all competed up until they were teenagers.
00:04:26.820 | But at that point, I let them decide what sports
00:04:29.380 | they wanna play, what they wanna do.
00:04:30.540 | Right now, I have a son who's ranked number one
00:04:33.480 | in the nation in the sport of wrestling
00:04:35.780 | as a sophomore in high school.
00:04:37.540 | He chose wrestling as a sport.
00:04:39.980 | I have a daughter that went on to play hockey and softball.
00:04:42.900 | And now she's a freshman in college at Bentley University.
00:04:46.300 | But I think that the judo training that they did get
00:04:49.260 | when they were young helped mold them as individuals
00:04:51.940 | and as good people.
00:04:52.980 | And so I wanted them to do it for that same reason.
00:04:55.780 | - So you think it's possible?
00:04:57.580 | Well, certainly it's possible.
00:04:58.580 | But do you think that's the path to success
00:05:01.220 | is it doesn't have to require excessive pressure
00:05:05.060 | from the coaches and the parenting in the early years?
00:05:07.500 | - Everybody's different.
00:05:09.060 | I think everybody is different in response
00:05:11.260 | to that pressure differently.
00:05:12.800 | Had I been given a choice, I could tell you right now,
00:05:17.340 | I probably wouldn't ever have made any Olympic teams
00:05:19.820 | or I wouldn't have excelled in the sport of judo at all
00:05:22.860 | 'cause it's not something I would have pursued.
00:05:25.060 | My dad didn't give me the choice.
00:05:26.320 | And it wasn't until I was about 15 years old
00:05:29.300 | where I started to become a man
00:05:31.140 | and I started to really wanna do the sport of judo
00:05:33.520 | for myself.
00:05:35.100 | Up until that point, I was too immature
00:05:37.020 | and didn't understand the dynamic of what was going on.
00:05:39.860 | And I felt all that pressure from my father
00:05:42.900 | and I despised going to training sometimes
00:05:45.920 | or it was difficult.
00:05:48.600 | But as 15, 16, I was like,
00:05:50.180 | hey, I'm pretty damn good at this thing.
00:05:52.340 | I like winning and I like being around other athletes
00:05:55.660 | and I get to see the, at 15, 16, you start to travel,
00:05:59.580 | you start to go away from home,
00:06:01.300 | you go into camps in Oklahoma or Florida,
00:06:04.660 | you're going on trips overseas
00:06:06.260 | and it starts to become fun as a teenager, right?
00:06:08.900 | You get to see the world.
00:06:09.740 | So that's when I started doing it for me
00:06:12.020 | and that's when it really became enjoyable.
00:06:14.180 | - And so in those years, late teens,
00:06:17.060 | how did your relationship evolve with your dad?
00:06:20.980 | - Then it really became, I was motivated.
00:06:23.380 | I was always a self-motivated kid anyway,
00:06:25.460 | but really when I was 15 to 16, I turned the corner
00:06:29.100 | and I decided that I was given 100% all the time
00:06:33.780 | and my dad truly became not just a father,
00:06:37.620 | but I saw him as a great coach,
00:06:40.300 | somebody that had a wealth of knowledge
00:06:43.140 | that knew how to train athletes,
00:06:44.980 | that knew how to get the most out of his athletes
00:06:47.300 | and that actually exposed me to the world.
00:06:49.540 | I think the biggest credit I can give to my father
00:06:51.780 | as a coach is that he sent me away
00:06:54.960 | to learn from other people.
00:06:56.900 | The biggest mistake most coaches make
00:06:59.440 | is that they keep their students to themselves
00:07:03.020 | and they hold them back from reaching their potential
00:07:05.480 | because they're afraid that that student's
00:07:07.460 | gonna go on and learn something special from somebody else
00:07:10.220 | and no longer give their original coach credit.
00:07:12.820 | - And especially as a father, that must be a scary thing
00:07:14.940 | to sort of give up your son to somebody else.
00:07:17.780 | - Right, but my dad had said, he said,
00:07:19.500 | "Sana, technically I've taken you as far as I can take you
00:07:22.980 | "and since I never made the Olympic team,
00:07:25.660 | "I wanna surround you with greatness.
00:07:27.660 | "I want you to go see that these other athletes
00:07:30.820 | "are just people too and that they're not these heroes
00:07:34.880 | "that you put on big pedestals,
00:07:36.200 | "but they're everyday ordinary people that make mistakes,
00:07:38.620 | "that fall down, that get back up.
00:07:40.580 | "And I want you to be around them because champions,
00:07:44.080 | "be around champions to be a champion.
00:07:45.740 | "See how they act, see how they behave,
00:07:47.180 | "see how they think and also learn from them."
00:07:49.580 | And my dad sent me to all the best coaches in America
00:07:51.960 | at the time, which were Erwin Cohen,
00:07:53.500 | who recently passed away,
00:07:55.340 | and Patrick Burris, who was on two Olympic teams.
00:07:57.640 | And I went to Neil Adams in England and I learned from Neil
00:08:01.180 | and he sent me to Japan and sent me to Germany
00:08:03.980 | and Gunther Neureiter and I learned
00:08:06.680 | from some good coaches in Japan.
00:08:08.280 | And I picked up something everywhere I went.
00:08:11.160 | My dad said, "Hey, I'm gonna send you away.
00:08:13.780 | "Don't just train, I want you to learn.
00:08:15.800 | "I want you to bring back a new technique
00:08:17.820 | "from everywhere you go and show me what it is."
00:08:20.520 | And I can tell you that as I gathered all that,
00:08:23.720 | all those new techniques and all that new knowledge,
00:08:26.060 | to this day I can tell you who I learned
00:08:28.000 | all of the different techniques that I did in my career
00:08:30.000 | from, which is amazing.
00:08:32.520 | So that's the biggest mistake I think that most coaches make
00:08:35.500 | is they don't allow their students to flourish
00:08:38.340 | and to be exposed to the rest of the world.
00:08:41.540 | And I give my dad a lot of credit
00:08:44.540 | for having the foresight to do that for me.
00:08:47.080 | - Is now on a slightly darker side,
00:08:50.700 | was there, as a competitor,
00:08:53.300 | was there ever a time you considered quitting judo?
00:08:55.900 | - Absolutely, every champion wants to quit.
00:08:58.160 | I can tell you numerous times.
00:09:01.280 | When I was only 16 years old,
00:09:04.660 | I went to the US Open in judo.
00:09:07.140 | At the time it was one of the hardest tournaments
00:09:09.180 | in the world because the whole world
00:09:11.100 | loved coming to America to compete.
00:09:12.660 | So we had Japanese and we had Russians
00:09:14.660 | and we had French and we had Brazilians.
00:09:16.340 | And as a young boy it was a super hard tournament to compete
00:09:19.660 | and I competed against all the men.
00:09:21.800 | And at that tournament I had a great day.
00:09:26.140 | I lost to Eddie Liddy who took third in the Olympics in '84.
00:09:31.560 | And then I battled back and I was fighting
00:09:33.420 | for a bronze medal against the guy from Korea.
00:09:36.000 | And I scored in the first like 30 seconds,
00:09:38.460 | I threw the Korean guy.
00:09:39.620 | And he was a man, he was 24 years old,
00:09:41.680 | strong as heck and physical and technical.
00:09:44.780 | And I was just this little scrappy,
00:09:46.100 | wiry 16 year old, right?
00:09:47.940 | But I threw him, I scored right away
00:09:49.800 | and then he just grabbed me and manhandled me
00:09:52.100 | across the match.
00:09:52.940 | He started shaking my gi and snapping my gi
00:09:55.140 | and I ended up getting three penalties
00:09:57.480 | and losing the fight.
00:09:58.740 | My father went nutso on me.
00:10:02.260 | He yelled and he screamed at me,
00:10:04.340 | he embarrassed me in front of everybody.
00:10:05.980 | - What was your mistake in that match?
00:10:07.940 | - According to my father, I fought afraid.
00:10:12.500 | I was scared to lose but physically
00:10:14.980 | I couldn't match this guy.
00:10:16.380 | So anyway, long story short, I went out in the snow,
00:10:19.260 | took my gi off, laid down in Colorado Springs
00:10:21.460 | in the snow and just cried.
00:10:23.100 | Just fought my heart out, fought like eight fights.
00:10:26.380 | I lost for a bronze medal at 16 years old
00:10:28.620 | in one of the toughest tournaments
00:10:30.180 | and I felt like a failure.
00:10:31.620 | My dad, and I felt like my dad hated me.
00:10:33.620 | And he embarrassed me in front of everybody
00:10:36.040 | so I wanted to quit.
00:10:38.100 | I had another time, I was in Japan
00:10:40.720 | and I had spent six weeks training in Japan
00:10:43.140 | and I went to the Kano Cup.
00:10:44.780 | And the Kano Cup is one of the best tournaments
00:10:46.900 | in the world and at that tournament,
00:10:49.260 | I sucked a lot of weight after being in Japan
00:10:52.300 | for six weeks.
00:10:53.940 | I sucked a ton of weight and I was all excited to fight.
00:10:56.060 | Well, my first round was against Sergei Kosminin.
00:11:00.180 | Kosminin was a Russian.
00:11:02.100 | First match of the tournament,
00:11:03.340 | Kosminin threw me free pwn.
00:11:05.340 | I had no idea who he was.
00:11:06.820 | I was all pissed off and upset.
00:11:09.100 | Kosminin then threw Nakamura free pwn.
00:11:13.380 | And then so my, and Kosminin went on
00:11:15.500 | and he won the tournament, he took first.
00:11:17.860 | My second round was against Nakamura.
00:11:19.860 | He beat me by pwn.
00:11:20.860 | So I went 0-2 in the Kano Cup
00:11:22.660 | after being in Japan for six weeks,
00:11:24.660 | dieting and losing a lot of weight,
00:11:26.660 | made all this sacrifice.
00:11:28.220 | I remember sitting on the steps at the Budokan
00:11:30.860 | at 19 years old thinking to myself,
00:11:34.460 | I hate this sport.
00:11:35.620 | I just wanna quit.
00:11:36.900 | This stinks.
00:11:37.780 | - So how do you find the will?
00:11:40.660 | Where do you find, how do you continue?
00:11:43.380 | Every champion wants to quit.
00:11:46.220 | I love that.
00:11:47.060 | That's brilliant, yeah.
00:11:49.340 | You know, it's lost as part of that.
00:11:51.840 | - The hardest thing, I think the thing
00:11:53.700 | that most people don't realize
00:11:55.180 | is that they only see champions as winners.
00:11:57.380 | They only see the times when they succeed.
00:11:59.140 | They don't see those dark days.
00:12:01.020 | They don't see those days where they struggled
00:12:02.900 | or they lost or they failed
00:12:05.060 | or the day in training where they got their butts whooped.
00:12:08.780 | Right?
00:12:09.820 | Or those tournaments where they just fought miserable.
00:12:12.140 | Nobody ever hears about those days.
00:12:13.820 | But we all go through it
00:12:14.980 | because nobody goes undefeated in their career.
00:12:17.860 | It doesn't happen.
00:12:19.080 | So really what makes champions is
00:12:21.620 | how do you wanna go out?
00:12:23.420 | You know, do you want that to be your last competition?
00:12:25.860 | Do you wanna go out as a loser, as a quitter?
00:12:28.100 | - Right.
00:12:29.020 | - Or are you gonna suck it up, learn from the loss,
00:12:32.020 | dig deeper, get better, re-motivate yourself
00:12:36.220 | and become a champion?
00:12:37.900 | And I think that was my mindset my whole career.
00:12:39.940 | I wanted to be on the top of the world.
00:12:41.540 | I wanted to be top of the podium.
00:12:43.500 | Worlds or Olympics, that was my goal.
00:12:45.720 | And quite honestly, that same guy, Kozminian,
00:12:49.940 | you know, he beat me in the '91 Worlds the next year.
00:12:53.660 | And then finally in '92,
00:12:55.140 | I got him in the finals of the Italian tournament,
00:12:58.260 | the Guido Sienni, and I beat him in that tournament.
00:13:00.620 | So, you know, perseverance and tenacity
00:13:04.020 | and sometimes it pays off.
00:13:06.980 | - Is there something you regret
00:13:10.380 | about your early judo years in terms of training?
00:13:13.820 | Something you wish you would have done differently?
00:13:19.500 | - I think early days, no, because, you know,
00:13:21.640 | I played a lot of sports as a kid.
00:13:23.420 | My dad allowed me.
00:13:24.520 | I played, you know, football, Papuan or football.
00:13:27.060 | I played baseball as a young kid.
00:13:28.980 | I wrestled in high school.
00:13:30.660 | I did judo.
00:13:33.180 | So I had a good balance to my adolescent years
00:13:36.420 | and my childhood where I got to play a lot of sports
00:13:40.060 | and learn a lot of things about teamwork
00:13:42.380 | and really found out that the best thing about judo
00:13:45.780 | and wrestling and individual sports
00:13:47.380 | is that you ultimately decide how good you're gonna be.
00:13:50.460 | You don't have to rely on the rest of your team
00:13:52.340 | or you don't have to worry about having a crappy coach
00:13:54.380 | or, you know, being in a bad situation.
00:13:56.920 | You get out of it what you put into it.
00:13:58.940 | So I don't think I regret anything as a youngster
00:14:01.540 | other than I wish I could have enjoyed it more as a child.
00:14:06.540 | You know, I went undefeated in judo until I was 11 years old
00:14:13.020 | and I fought when I was six.
00:14:15.540 | So I fought six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11.
00:14:18.260 | I didn't lose a match until I was 11 years old
00:14:21.100 | and that was the finals of the national championships.
00:14:23.700 | So think about the pressure of going undefeated
00:14:26.360 | for all those years.
00:14:27.340 | - You're scared of losing.
00:14:28.580 | - Right. - Basically.
00:14:29.460 | - Right, and having your father always bump you up
00:14:32.720 | to the next weight class or fight the harder person
00:14:35.420 | or in the next age category,
00:14:36.820 | you're always challenging yourself.
00:14:38.720 | So to have all that pressure
00:14:39.860 | and push the envelope and the threshold,
00:14:42.500 | I had anxiety about every tournament I went into.
00:14:45.380 | Up until I finally lost.
00:14:47.980 | - Right.
00:14:49.180 | You talk often, you yourself are a graduate of Brown.
00:14:53.140 | You talk often about the value of education.
00:14:56.940 | So do you think there's room for life outside of judo
00:15:01.940 | for somebody who wants to make the podium at the Olympics?
00:15:06.540 | - Absolutely.
00:15:07.900 | With unquestionably, I believe that athletes
00:15:11.180 | who live a balanced life,
00:15:13.940 | who don't put all of their energy into just sport,
00:15:17.540 | end up becoming better athletes.
00:15:20.260 | Because when you fail in sport,
00:15:23.660 | you feel like a complete failure if that's all you do.
00:15:27.260 | But if you have something else
00:15:29.420 | that you're pursuing parallel to the sport,
00:15:31.740 | whether it's an education or whether it's a career
00:15:34.820 | or whether it's family,
00:15:36.300 | if you have something else in your life
00:15:37.980 | that you can put your energy to
00:15:40.000 | that makes you feel good about yourself,
00:15:42.060 | then they kind of balance each other out.
00:15:45.500 | So if I fail in sport, but I get an A on this exam,
00:15:48.940 | I still feel good about myself.
00:15:51.340 | Or if I do lousy in school, but I just won this tournament,
00:15:54.860 | I feel good about myself
00:15:56.060 | because I found some reward in something I did.
00:15:59.380 | Whereas if all you do is sport and you fail,
00:16:02.900 | then you have nothing else.
00:16:05.140 | You feel like I sacrificed everything I gave,
00:16:07.540 | everything for this moment and it didn't happen.
00:16:10.060 | So I think the lows end up being lower.
00:16:12.780 | And that's why I encourage my athletes
00:16:14.940 | to either teach other students,
00:16:18.820 | get involved in some other way.
00:16:20.460 | Like they can take pride
00:16:22.100 | in their students winning tournaments.
00:16:24.200 | That's a parallel path.
00:16:26.820 | Or like I said, education or work or something else
00:16:29.900 | to provide some sort of enjoyment.
00:16:31.540 | - So you don't think that's a negative distraction
00:16:34.260 | to that one singular focus towards the--
00:16:37.580 | - I think there's certain times
00:16:38.980 | where obviously six months before the Olympic games,
00:16:42.620 | it's time to focus and put all your energy into sport.
00:16:45.580 | Okay, so when I was at Brown, I took a break from Brown
00:16:49.060 | and I focused just on training in judo in the Olympics.
00:16:52.300 | But I had never really put my life on hold for sport.
00:16:56.160 | I had kids.
00:16:57.240 | Before I won the 99 worlds,
00:17:00.020 | I mean, I had two kids already and one on the way.
00:17:04.180 | So I was a father and coming home
00:17:07.260 | from a long training trip or competition run overseas
00:17:12.260 | and coming home and seeing your two and three year olds
00:17:14.440 | run up to you and you're like, "Daddy."
00:17:16.020 | You forget about that guy that just whooped your butt
00:17:19.580 | in Russia or wherever it was, right?
00:17:21.900 | You know, it brings new perspective to life.
00:17:24.100 | - So you medaled in '91 at the worlds
00:17:29.940 | and in 2004 at the Olympics and many times in between.
00:17:34.900 | So that's at least 13 years
00:17:36.500 | of being one of the best judo competitors in the world.
00:17:39.500 | So what would you attribute that longevity to?
00:17:43.220 | For so long being at the top?
00:17:47.700 | - Well, like I said, I wanted to be the best in the world.
00:17:51.260 | So my motivation was to be world or Olympic champion.
00:17:54.380 | - There's an injury in there too.
00:17:55.700 | - There's a bad injury in there, yes.
00:17:57.580 | Well, and that also plays into every,
00:18:00.180 | you know, everything happens for a reason
00:18:01.700 | and everything plays into what you ultimately become.
00:18:05.960 | My injury was pretty devastating.
00:18:08.140 | - Can you describe that by the way
00:18:09.080 | for people that don't know?
00:18:10.820 | - I actually was in a tournament in the finals of Korea
00:18:15.700 | and I got picked up and thrown on my head in that tournament
00:18:19.100 | and really instead of taking the fall and just losing,
00:18:22.220 | stuck my head out and I came right down
00:18:23.980 | on the top of my head and then my feet went over
00:18:26.420 | and I did a bridge.
00:18:27.900 | I didn't think anything of it.
00:18:29.200 | I got up and I finished the fight and I lost.
00:18:32.120 | But then going home on the airplane,
00:18:34.540 | I noticed that it got harder and harder
00:18:38.060 | to lift my chin up off of my chest.
00:18:40.520 | By the time I landed in Boston,
00:18:43.860 | the neck and the disc had swollen so much
00:18:46.020 | that it was hitting the spinal cord.
00:18:48.020 | And so my chin got pinned to my chest
00:18:51.380 | and then I just had radiating, shooting pain down my arm,
00:18:54.320 | into my hand and it was numb.
00:18:57.060 | And it was like that for quite a while.
00:18:58.620 | So obviously I went to the doctors.
00:19:00.760 | The first MRI, doctor said, "You will never,"
00:19:05.180 | he said, "Jimmy, I'm sorry,
00:19:06.220 | "but you will never do sports again in your life."
00:19:08.700 | He said, "I hope that someday I can get you
00:19:11.460 | "to become just a normal functioning human being again."
00:19:15.500 | And I remember going, and I cried.
00:19:17.540 | I remember being in the elevator at 23 years old,
00:19:22.180 | thinking that my entire career is over.
00:19:24.900 | And at the same time, I couldn't sleep
00:19:27.980 | because I couldn't lay down in a bed.
00:19:29.820 | My chin had to stay here and my arm had to stay here
00:19:34.720 | or else the pain was excruciating.
00:19:36.400 | If I lifted my head in any way, I just couldn't move.
00:19:39.540 | Well, that whole arm and that chest muscle
00:19:41.820 | and tricep shrunk to zero.
00:19:44.440 | All the nerve damage happened on the right side.
00:19:47.060 | So I slept many a nights just sitting in a traction unit
00:19:51.080 | with a weight over the door in my dorm room.
00:19:53.720 | And I would just sit there with my head trying to pull up
00:19:56.580 | and I would try to sleep
00:19:57.680 | because it was the only time I could ever get comfortable.
00:20:01.120 | But it was miserable.
00:20:02.540 | I had about six months of living like that.
00:20:05.440 | - For how long did you believe this is it,
00:20:07.560 | that you're not doing judo ever again?
00:20:09.680 | - The entire time I was injured and the pain,
00:20:11.560 | the pain wouldn't go away in the arm.
00:20:13.320 | It was just like a dull throbbing pain
00:20:16.160 | shooting down the arm.
00:20:17.680 | And you had no feeling in your hand.
00:20:20.120 | So I knew it was serious.
00:20:22.860 | And I tell you, sometimes the only thing I could do
00:20:26.580 | was I would drink like eight or 10 beers to pass out.
00:20:30.440 | I couldn't stand the pain.
00:20:32.380 | I couldn't move.
00:20:34.080 | I didn't sleep in a bed for that whole time.
00:20:36.880 | And then even when it started, I got lucky.
00:20:40.320 | I just kept taking anti-inflammatories.
00:20:42.600 | I kept doing the traction.
00:20:46.880 | And I think I just got lucky over time.
00:20:49.620 | The nerve regenerated itself.
00:20:51.280 | The disc started to go back in.
00:20:52.880 | I never had surgery.
00:20:54.400 | And I started getting a little bit of range of motion back.
00:20:58.780 | And then I was so excited.
00:21:00.060 | I went back to the doctor and I said,
00:21:01.320 | "Doc, I know you said I'm never gonna do judo again,
00:21:03.640 | "but I can move my head now."
00:21:05.520 | And the guy was like, "You've made a lot of progress."
00:21:08.220 | And he said, "Okay, now still, I don't want you to run.
00:21:12.040 | "You can't do judo, no wrestling."
00:21:13.940 | I said, "But I want you to go back in the weight room
00:21:16.380 | "and I want you to start retraining that muscle
00:21:19.180 | "and those muscles to move again."
00:21:21.460 | And I remember the first day on the Nautilus machine,
00:21:24.780 | no weight, there was no weight on the thing.
00:21:26.980 | I pulled the pin out and my arm was just like this.
00:21:30.580 | And I would just straighten it and I would pull it back
00:21:33.160 | and I would straighten it and I would just keep trying
00:21:36.120 | to train my muscles to move.
00:21:38.440 | First time on the bench press, just the bar.
00:21:42.100 | I remember all these girls in the weight room at Brown
00:21:44.880 | and they're all pushing weight
00:21:46.280 | and I remember taking the bar off.
00:21:47.940 | And I would try to get that off.
00:21:51.260 | I just, yeah, it just shook and it just,
00:21:53.820 | and it took a lot of rehab to get that.
00:21:57.560 | And then finally, over time, I got stronger and stronger.
00:22:01.480 | And he said, "Started to train neck muscles and traps."
00:22:04.340 | And it came back and it took about nine months
00:22:07.700 | to be back strong enough where I could get back on the mat
00:22:12.060 | and start doing what you call me and start to train again.
00:22:15.260 | - It's incredible.
00:22:16.180 | And then almost 10 years after that,
00:22:20.660 | right, the Olympics. - Yeah.
00:22:23.860 | - So how is the Jimmy Pedro of 1991
00:22:28.860 | different from the one of 2004?
00:22:31.340 | So at the beginning of the dominance to the end of the-
00:22:35.780 | - I would say that the young Jimmy Pedro was fearless,
00:22:40.780 | was raw, talented, just gritty, and got after it.
00:22:49.860 | Just tough, just went after it.
00:22:52.940 | - Fast.
00:22:53.780 | - Yeah, not so explosive though
00:22:56.660 | 'cause I cut a lot of weight when I was younger.
00:22:58.380 | So I wasn't so explosive in '91.
00:23:00.300 | And my best years in the sport of judo
00:23:03.060 | were between '95 and '99 was when I was explosive,
00:23:08.060 | technical, really strong on the mat,
00:23:13.780 | physically real explosive.
00:23:16.340 | My judo was real technical.
00:23:18.420 | Those were my best years in the sport, '95 to '99.
00:23:20.900 | In fact, '95, I look back
00:23:24.460 | and I should have been in the finals
00:23:26.220 | of the world's that year.
00:23:27.060 | I could have been world champion in '95.
00:23:29.020 | I lost to a Korean in the semifinals by a split decision.
00:23:33.560 | And it was a split flag decision that I thought I won.
00:23:38.380 | And I think the Korean thought I won.
00:23:41.060 | In that year, the Japanese who won the world's
00:23:44.820 | three months later, I beat him pretty easily in Germany.
00:23:48.420 | So I thought I should have been world champion '95.
00:23:51.260 | And then two weeks before the '97 world championships,
00:23:55.840 | which I was undefeated like the whole year,
00:24:01.700 | winning everything.
00:24:03.180 | Two weeks before I was supposed to go
00:24:04.500 | to world championships, I went to a training camp
00:24:07.140 | that the coach talked me into going to.
00:24:10.460 | And two of the heavyweights,
00:24:12.500 | one guy got thrown into my leg and he took my MCL.
00:24:17.500 | I had a second degree sprain of my MCL.
00:24:21.140 | He just fell into it, but it swelled up.
00:24:23.420 | And it was only two weeks before I had to step
00:24:25.140 | on the mat at the world's.
00:24:26.580 | And that MCL couldn't heal in time.
00:24:29.380 | So I didn't actually fight in the '97 world championships
00:24:32.880 | as a result of that.
00:24:33.980 | But '99, I was 98, 99.
00:24:38.260 | I don't think I lost maybe two, three times
00:24:41.500 | in that whole run.
00:24:43.100 | And really it was because I competed
00:24:44.720 | so many tournaments right in a row,
00:24:46.180 | one week after another week after another week,
00:24:47.820 | your body gets broken down.
00:24:49.340 | But then 2004, I retired after 2000
00:24:55.460 | only because I told my family that,
00:24:58.260 | all right, this is the end of my run.
00:24:59.420 | I'm supposed to win the Olympics.
00:25:01.540 | This will be my last Olympics.
00:25:02.980 | It's time to start life.
00:25:04.060 | My wife has sacrificed 12 years
00:25:06.460 | waiting for me to come home.
00:25:08.340 | And when I didn't win in Sydney, I started life.
00:25:13.220 | I started working and I just didn't want to go out
00:25:17.900 | as a loser, as somebody who didn't medal in the Olympics.
00:25:21.500 | And I just couldn't accept it.
00:25:23.140 | So I was inspired at the 2002 Olympic games.
00:25:27.660 | And I was really inspired by that.
00:25:28.940 | And I said, Maria, I want to do this one more time.
00:25:31.500 | So she said, of course, I knew this was coming
00:25:33.420 | and by all means, let's do it.
00:25:35.680 | And that was the most enjoyable two years of my life.
00:25:38.900 | From 2002 to 2004, I was in the finals
00:25:43.580 | of every single tournament.
00:25:45.280 | Every tournament I made the finals, all the way through,
00:25:48.580 | no matter what tournament it was.
00:25:49.780 | And I just enjoyed the life of an athlete again.
00:25:52.780 | And you can be selfish, you can focus on yourself,
00:25:57.100 | you can train, you feel great.
00:25:59.420 | You never get that same feeling out of anything else in life
00:26:02.460 | as being a winner or a champion
00:26:04.620 | or having the crowd roar.
00:26:06.540 | And you don't get that from anything else.
00:26:09.180 | I'm in business and I can do some big deals,
00:26:11.100 | but it's still not that same feeling.
00:26:12.460 | - Yeah, it's all on you.
00:26:13.740 | All eyes are on you.
00:26:16.060 | It's all up to you.
00:26:17.300 | - Right, it's awesome.
00:26:18.620 | And so I enjoyed that.
00:26:20.280 | And so as 2004 athlete, I was physically strong.
00:26:24.700 | I had the- - Great cardio.
00:26:26.300 | - I had great cardio.
00:26:27.960 | I was efficient with my muscles.
00:26:30.340 | I knew how to spend energy.
00:26:32.380 | I wasn't as good of a judo player in 2004
00:26:34.940 | as I was in '95 to '99, but good enough to win.
00:26:39.600 | - Do you think, to be poetic for a moment,
00:26:43.260 | do you think, like you said, with age,
00:26:45.760 | athletes lose the fearlessness of youth?
00:26:51.580 | How essential is that?
00:26:54.020 | That stupid, being brave and stupid
00:26:58.460 | and your singular focus on this just drive.
00:27:02.820 | - Absolutely.
00:27:03.660 | You know, I think it's a good balance.
00:27:06.620 | It depends on how the athlete deals with the pressure.
00:27:10.100 | You know, going into the 19, going into the 2000 Olympics,
00:27:15.100 | I was '99 world champion.
00:27:16.900 | So all eyes were on me to win the gold, right?
00:27:19.740 | All the newspapers, all the magazines,
00:27:21.740 | everybody was talking about America's first ever gold.
00:27:24.340 | So I had all that pressure on me.
00:27:26.960 | [coughs]
00:27:28.600 | And it wasn't that the pressure got to me.
00:27:30.600 | It's just that first round,
00:27:31.720 | I had the Korean guy was top five guy in the world
00:27:34.640 | and he was always a tough match for me.
00:27:36.980 | So I just didn't, wasn't meant to be.
00:27:38.840 | But going into 2004, I was old, I had experience,
00:27:44.000 | but I wanted it.
00:27:44.960 | I was hungry again.
00:27:46.120 | I wasn't afraid.
00:27:47.040 | I didn't have pressure.
00:27:48.020 | I couldn't wait to compete in 2004, you know?
00:27:52.000 | So I was older, but I had that hunger.
00:27:55.480 | And what happened was ironic with Kayla Harrison,
00:27:58.460 | you know, when she was world champion 2010,
00:28:02.680 | she tried to repeat in 2011.
00:28:07.880 | Well, all you could see it in her training,
00:28:10.880 | you could see it in her competition,
00:28:12.240 | the pressure of trying to repeat as world champion
00:28:15.680 | was so great, she kind of cracked on,
00:28:17.760 | you know, she cracked on the pressure.
00:28:18.920 | She felt it similar to what I did in Sydney.
00:28:22.200 | You feel the pressure.
00:28:23.160 | You don't, you're not sure if you're doing enough.
00:28:25.280 | You're not sure if you're ready.
00:28:27.200 | And probably the best thing that ever could have happened
00:28:29.880 | to her in 2011 was to lose and finish third.
00:28:33.840 | Because it set her up.
00:28:36.400 | And she wasn't the top dog going into London.
00:28:39.780 | She was one of the favorites,
00:28:41.480 | but she wasn't ranked number one.
00:28:43.140 | She was number four.
00:28:45.360 | And she was an underdog.
00:28:47.040 | And she wanted to climb back on the top of the podium again.
00:28:49.640 | So she had, she was hungry again.
00:28:52.240 | Whereas if she had been a world champion in 2011,
00:28:55.920 | she would have never won the Olympics in 2012.
00:28:58.040 | Never would have happened.
00:28:59.320 | - What, now you don't have to admit this,
00:29:04.600 | but have you ever been broken on the mat in competition?
00:29:08.180 | For whatever reason, you lost hope or confidence
00:29:10.680 | in the match.
00:29:11.680 | Has there ever been a guy tough enough to have broken you?
00:29:15.100 | - I've never been broken in a judo match
00:29:19.040 | and I've never quit, ever.
00:29:21.440 | It's just not my mentality.
00:29:22.920 | I fought some guys that were tough as nails,
00:29:25.720 | you know, that I had to fight for my life against,
00:29:28.240 | but I never backed down, never backed down to anybody.
00:29:32.160 | I might've got beaten, but I went out fighting.
00:29:34.440 | - Never quit.
00:29:35.280 | - I never quit ever in a match.
00:29:36.600 | - So maybe, can you think of anyone in particular
00:29:39.960 | who's the toughest guy who ever faced the competition
00:29:42.360 | for you personally?
00:29:44.140 | - I mean, I had so many tough, tough fights
00:29:49.140 | in judo competition.
00:29:50.480 | I mean, I had some real matches with Udo Qualmals,
00:29:53.520 | the German, he was two time world champion,
00:29:56.520 | Olympic champion, and Udo and I fought hard,
00:30:00.040 | you know, five, six times.
00:30:02.340 | Those were wars that if it was golden score,
00:30:07.160 | we might still be fighting today.
00:30:08.760 | [laughing]
00:30:10.160 | You know?
00:30:11.000 | And there was a Japanese guy, Nakamura,
00:30:15.480 | Yukimasa Nakamura, he was somebody
00:30:17.200 | I never beat in my career.
00:30:18.960 | Like I never beat that guy.
00:30:20.760 | He beat me in the semis of the junior worlds,
00:30:22.760 | he beat me in the semis of the senior worlds,
00:30:24.920 | beat me at the Kano Cup, he beat me in the finals of France.
00:30:27.880 | I remember every loss.
00:30:29.280 | So he was just a very skillful,
00:30:32.640 | and you know, judo is a lot about matchups.
00:30:34.520 | If you don't match up well against somebody,
00:30:36.160 | then you know, you have a hard time beating them.
00:30:38.040 | But he was a guy I had a hard time beating.
00:30:39.520 | So, but I never backed down and I never,
00:30:41.900 | you know, nobody ever just ran over me.
00:30:44.900 | - So I remember I talked to Taraji Williams
00:30:48.480 | and he said he was really depressed
00:30:50.040 | after his Olympic run, I think second.
00:30:52.680 | What is that life after the Olympics?
00:30:56.440 | Were you haunted by the losses?
00:30:57.880 | Is there a depression?
00:30:58.960 | Like you will never achieve this kind of high.
00:31:01.840 | What is that transition into normal life,
00:31:05.280 | into a life of a coach?
00:31:06.600 | - It's really hard.
00:31:08.840 | And I can tell you, having been to four Olympics,
00:31:11.880 | they were all very different.
00:31:13.320 | My first Olympics that I lost,
00:31:17.400 | I won two matches, I lost my third.
00:31:20.000 | But the three guys that were on the podium
00:31:21.940 | were three guys that I had beaten.
00:31:24.340 | And I'd beat them many times.
00:31:25.680 | So I felt as if I should have been there.
00:31:27.720 | And sitting in the stands with my father,
00:31:30.400 | I remember crying, thinking, I gave up my entire life.
00:31:34.760 | I sacrificed all those trainings in the gym
00:31:38.120 | and all that time overseas and away from home
00:31:40.680 | and missed parties and missed this and missed that.
00:31:43.620 | And that's it?
00:31:44.880 | It's over?
00:31:45.980 | Like three matches, I'm done.
00:31:47.460 | I didn't do anything in the Olympics, I failed.
00:31:49.760 | I felt like crap.
00:31:51.920 | It was depressing.
00:31:52.860 | Luckily, I was young enough and stupid enough
00:31:56.260 | that I wanted to try again.
00:31:58.440 | - Go meet again, yeah.
00:31:59.540 | - Winning in Atlanta was fabulous.
00:32:03.800 | Winning in America and walking around town
00:32:06.440 | and have everybody treat you like a hero
00:32:08.780 | and welcome you into their store or their restaurant
00:32:10.960 | or their bar or whatever it was
00:32:12.440 | and show your medal and take pictures.
00:32:14.560 | You were a rock star in Atlanta and it was awesome.
00:32:18.060 | But when you come home, you get tugged
00:32:21.360 | in a million directions by a million people
00:32:23.320 | that want your time.
00:32:24.620 | So what ends up happening is you start doing everything
00:32:28.000 | for everybody else.
00:32:29.080 | Hey, can you show up to this kid's thing
00:32:30.820 | and talk at the school or can you come to this appearance
00:32:33.920 | and sign autographs?
00:32:34.740 | And you find that your time is all about giving
00:32:38.840 | other people your time and you don't really
00:32:41.320 | ultimately enjoy it anymore because you could see
00:32:45.240 | how sometimes stars just feel like they never have
00:32:47.440 | a sense of themselves.
00:32:48.280 | - It's a curse of celebrity, really.
00:32:49.100 | - Right, you never have a sense for yourself
00:32:50.400 | or peace for yourself.
00:32:51.840 | When you never do anything for yourself,
00:32:53.000 | it's always about other people.
00:32:54.680 | So that becomes hard.
00:32:56.240 | But it comes with the, I'll take the win every day
00:32:59.280 | of the week over not, right?
00:33:01.360 | So then Sydney was devastating.
00:33:05.840 | Losing in Sydney was the worst ever.
00:33:08.320 | It really was a dark--
00:33:10.200 | - And you retired.
00:33:11.020 | - And I retired.
00:33:11.860 | So I felt like a failure and I felt like,
00:33:14.560 | fifth place in the Olympic Games for me
00:33:17.600 | was a total failure considering I was supposed
00:33:19.640 | to win the Olympics.
00:33:20.480 | So that was a hard one to swallow
00:33:22.440 | and that's why I couldn't ever swallow it forever.
00:33:25.280 | I needed the fight again.
00:33:26.620 | But yeah, I could see how somebody like a Taraji
00:33:31.080 | who didn't medal in the Olympics, who pursued it
00:33:33.960 | as long as he did and made two Olympic teams,
00:33:36.500 | as great as everybody else sees that feat,
00:33:39.480 | as an athlete, when you have your sights set
00:33:41.380 | on achieving excellence and you don't,
00:33:44.460 | you definitely feel unfulfilled.
00:33:46.240 | And you could see that, like I said, in sport,
00:33:48.900 | you really don't get that same sense of elation
00:33:53.640 | from anything else in life.
00:33:55.140 | I ran a marathon.
00:33:57.980 | And I ran the Boston Marathon one time.
00:34:00.420 | And when I got done, people were like,
00:34:01.640 | "Oh my God, that must have felt awesome."
00:34:03.580 | I said, "No, I couldn't wait to go home.
00:34:05.200 | "I was tired.
00:34:06.240 | "I just wanted to lay down and eat."
00:34:08.980 | "Well, wasn't that the greatest feeling in your world?"
00:34:10.420 | I'm like, "No."
00:34:11.660 | "Would you do it again?"
00:34:12.500 | I said, "No, why would I do it again?
00:34:13.720 | "I already did it once."
00:34:15.500 | But most people, for them,
00:34:16.580 | it's such a massive accomplishment.
00:34:18.900 | For me, it was just, "Okay, I did it.
00:34:20.140 | "I'm done, move on."
00:34:21.220 | Childbirth, I hear people say childbirth is awesome.
00:34:25.180 | And it is, it's different.
00:34:27.540 | It's a sense of, but it's a different feeling
00:34:29.740 | than what you get from winning.
00:34:33.100 | And the only thing that has ever come close
00:34:35.420 | to me doing it was when Kayla won.
00:34:38.740 | It was being a part of something,
00:34:40.380 | and I believe that was destiny,
00:34:42.620 | that she came here for a specific purpose,
00:34:46.120 | some higher being stuck her in this dojo.
00:34:48.620 | And the reason why I didn't win in Sydney
00:34:51.020 | is 'cause that girl was supposed to win in London.
00:34:53.180 | And we were supposed to help her on that journey,
00:34:54.840 | my father and myself,
00:34:56.700 | that we were supposed to be a part of that.
00:34:58.700 | And that was the magic moment.
00:34:59.900 | - It's an amazing chain of events
00:35:01.100 | that it feels like it leads up to, yeah, to--
00:35:03.740 | - And to me, I believe in that destiny,
00:35:06.540 | and I believe in karma and good things, so.
00:35:10.380 | - And a repeat in 2016.
00:35:12.440 | - Let's hope, let's hope.
00:35:14.540 | It's setting up nicely.
00:35:16.340 | - So in the United States,
00:35:18.740 | a country where judo has struggled to gain ground
00:35:22.460 | over the years, over wrestling, jujitsu,
00:35:24.820 | compared to other nations in the world,
00:35:27.980 | you have produced almost all, if not all,
00:35:30.820 | of the US medalists at Worlds and Olympics
00:35:32.900 | in the last two decades.
00:35:35.820 | What is your secret?
00:35:37.700 | What is the system that you follow?
00:35:42.340 | Let's say, how do you take a six-year-old,
00:35:45.740 | maybe not a six-year-old, but let's say a six-year-old,
00:35:48.240 | with an interest in judo and give them a shot
00:35:50.020 | at the Olympics medal stand by the time they're 22?
00:35:53.020 | What is the process you follow to make so many champions?
00:35:57.540 | - Well, first and foremost, there is a system.
00:36:00.380 | And that's the thing that most other places
00:36:04.100 | in America don't have.
00:36:05.620 | And that's really the problem with the entire USA judo,
00:36:09.820 | is that we don't have a system
00:36:12.300 | to produce high-level athletes.
00:36:15.380 | We've done it here in Boston.
00:36:17.580 | And I was part of this elite under-23 program
00:36:21.980 | where we took the 20 most talented kids in the country.
00:36:25.060 | And of that crop came Marty Malloy, Travis Stevens,
00:36:30.060 | Kayla Harrison, Nick Del Popolo.
00:36:32.860 | They were part of that U23 program
00:36:35.220 | that I was a part of for six years.
00:36:37.860 | So that was also my system.
00:36:40.500 | And really, it's obviously, to be great,
00:36:43.860 | you gotta be willing to work, right?
00:36:46.580 | You have to be willing to put in the hours
00:36:49.060 | and you gotta be willing to take the punishment.
00:36:51.060 | So it's a mentality.
00:36:52.940 | Number one, it's a championship mindset you have to have.
00:36:56.060 | Second, you gotta know how to train.
00:36:58.920 | And we believe in a system of conditioning.
00:37:02.940 | We believe in grip fighting.
00:37:04.940 | We believe in Newaza.
00:37:06.740 | And we're big into strategy.
00:37:09.140 | So we know that we cannot beat the Russians.
00:37:13.060 | We cannot beat the French.
00:37:14.100 | We cannot beat the Brazilians.
00:37:15.180 | We cannot beat the Japanese
00:37:17.660 | by doing more judo than they do,
00:37:19.280 | because it's impossible. - Theoretically, yeah.
00:37:20.900 | - Right, we can't beat them with judo,
00:37:22.620 | 'cause they have way more people to train with, right?
00:37:25.540 | Way more opportunity.
00:37:26.660 | So we have to beat them with physicality,
00:37:30.420 | technical strategy, gripping,
00:37:33.300 | Newaza, conditioning, toughness,
00:37:35.860 | in a mindset that we're gonna win.
00:37:37.940 | And this is how we're gonna win.
00:37:39.100 | And you gotta get your students to believe in that system
00:37:41.960 | that, okay, we're doing all,
00:37:43.740 | and the way we train, we train very intense.
00:37:47.460 | When I go to Russia or Japan,
00:37:50.620 | there's, well, two different things.
00:37:51.940 | Russia's a lot of drilling, a lot of technique,
00:37:54.460 | a lot of free motion and free feel,
00:37:56.900 | and not a lot of randori, right?
00:38:00.100 | When you go to Japan, it's the opposite.
00:38:02.320 | It's all randori. - Really, randori heavy, wow.
00:38:04.620 | - They all do tons of,
00:38:05.700 | they do 15 rounds of randori a day in Japan.
00:38:08.920 | It's insane.
00:38:09.760 | In Russia, they're lucky if they do 15 in a month, right?
00:38:13.180 | It's 'cause it's very technical.
00:38:15.260 | But two different schools of thought.
00:38:16.220 | We do really intense, focused training here.
00:38:19.540 | And we're smart with the periodization of our athletes.
00:38:22.900 | - Yeah, so you've mentioned that you believe in
00:38:25.620 | the idea of peak peaking. - Peak performance.
00:38:29.060 | - So what is, is it essential to cycle?
00:38:32.880 | - It is. - Why can't you be
00:38:34.280 | your 100% year-round?
00:38:36.660 | - Because-- - Is it a mental aspect?
00:38:39.880 | - Physically, you can't be, and mentally, you can't be.
00:38:43.200 | You need to have times of relaxation,
00:38:45.320 | and you need to have times of focused training.
00:38:47.880 | And actually, as I tried to teach this just recently
00:38:51.080 | to my 16-year-old boy who was trying
00:38:52.600 | to be the best in wrestling.
00:38:53.600 | I said, "Son, you can't go 365 days a year
00:38:58.000 | "banging your head against the wall and not enjoying life
00:39:01.200 | "because in the end, you'll be like this.
00:39:04.320 | "You'll be great, and you'll be here,
00:39:06.420 | "but you'll never have that performance of a lifetime
00:39:09.400 | "that you need to have, and you need to have this.
00:39:11.400 | "You need to have the time where you're not at this level,
00:39:13.680 | "but you're at this level."
00:39:15.160 | Your body needs time to heal.
00:39:16.820 | Your muscles need time to heal and rest.
00:39:19.160 | Your mind needs time to heal and rest.
00:39:21.280 | In order to have, otherwise, it gets used to being,
00:39:24.820 | it gets used to being right here all the time in this zone.
00:39:27.740 | We wanna have a zone where it's above that,
00:39:30.560 | and that's what's Olympic champion.
00:39:31.880 | That's what world champion is.
00:39:33.380 | But in order to have that, you gotta let your body come down
00:39:38.080 | so that it can build from somewhere.
00:39:40.760 | So you see that a lot,
00:39:41.880 | boxers are actually pretty good at that.
00:39:44.440 | I mean, they take it to an extreme
00:39:45.660 | where they get so fat and so out of shape,
00:39:47.900 | then it's their training camp
00:39:49.040 | for 12 weeks or 16 weeks, right?
00:39:51.340 | But that's the idea is that I'm not training now.
00:39:53.760 | I'm relaxing, I'm having fun so that I can focus
00:39:56.760 | when it's time to focus and get real serious about this,
00:39:59.520 | and I can push my body to limits that I otherwise wouldn't.
00:40:03.400 | And that's what we believe in.
00:40:05.360 | - You've mentioned your father, Jim Pager, Sr.,
00:40:08.960 | is a big part of the club.
00:40:10.200 | What role does he play as part of the system?
00:40:15.200 | - He's a huge part of the system.
00:40:16.840 | You ask any of the athletes, he gives his time.
00:40:19.680 | I work full-time, I have four children.
00:40:23.680 | So judo's never gonna make me rich.
00:40:25.720 | - Yes.
00:40:26.560 | - So my life as a judoka has helped me
00:40:30.640 | become pretty wealthy
00:40:32.640 | because of being involved in martial arts.
00:40:35.320 | So I'm able to, I just started a brand new mat company,
00:40:38.680 | the Fuji Mat Company, just started that.
00:40:41.080 | I've been involved in selling Fuji
00:40:43.120 | and Harashita sports goods for the last year or so.
00:40:46.680 | So I've been able to make my life
00:40:48.600 | through martial arts and judo,
00:40:50.280 | but the sport of judo is not what puts food
00:40:53.060 | on my kid's table.
00:40:54.800 | So in order for these athletes to become great,
00:40:59.000 | they need to train more than once a day.
00:41:00.640 | So my dad is down here with the,
00:41:02.400 | every single morning he runs a morning
00:41:04.640 | technical training session for all of our elite guys.
00:41:07.800 | - Yeah, can you actually describe,
00:41:09.120 | at least in broad strokes,
00:41:11.520 | what a weekly program looks like
00:41:13.860 | for an elite level judoka?
00:41:15.720 | - Sure.
00:41:16.600 | So our athletes train Monday,
00:41:20.520 | Monday morning they train here judo, technical session.
00:41:23.680 | It's about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes
00:41:25.840 | of technical training.
00:41:27.080 | - What do you mean by technical training?
00:41:28.240 | So it's like drilling, throws, and narandori?
00:41:30.800 | - Sometimes, depends on how many bodies we have
00:41:33.840 | and depends on who's in town training.
00:41:35.780 | But for the most part, it's mostly drills,
00:41:38.840 | gripping drills, nawaza drills,
00:41:41.240 | throwing, throwing drills, three man uchi komis,
00:41:45.400 | speed drills, sprints in the morning
00:41:48.280 | at the end of practice, some conditioning.
00:41:50.520 | But they're training for an hour to an hour
00:41:52.440 | and 15 minutes every morning.
00:41:54.640 | When they leave here,
00:41:56.000 | they then go to a professional strength coach.
00:41:58.920 | Some of them go to Mike Boyle's
00:42:01.160 | Strength and Conditioning in Woburn.
00:42:02.600 | Some of them go to the place I went with Paul Soussi,
00:42:05.880 | one-to-one strength training in North Andover.
00:42:07.700 | But after they work out here, they have a break,
00:42:10.800 | they go eat, then mid-afternoon,
00:42:13.280 | they're at a strength training place.
00:42:15.240 | Judo-specific strength training.
00:42:17.180 | It's not power lifting, it's some type of circuit training.
00:42:21.560 | Again, it depends on what type of time of year it is
00:42:24.960 | and what phase of training we're in,
00:42:26.240 | what type of lifting they're doing.
00:42:28.040 | So it depends.
00:42:28.880 | But they're doing something focused for, again,
00:42:32.000 | between an hour, an hour and a half
00:42:34.600 | with stretching and everything else built in,
00:42:36.200 | an hour, an hour and a half of afternoon.
00:42:38.520 | Then they come back at night
00:42:41.240 | and they'll train rendori at night.
00:42:43.840 | We do another hour and a half rendori session at night.
00:42:46.620 | So they're minimally doing three trainings almost every day.
00:42:51.120 | They go Monday like that, Tuesday, Wednesday.
00:42:54.760 | Thursday, they have the morning off.
00:42:56.640 | So they just do weight training and judo.
00:43:00.600 | And then Friday morning only, they train.
00:43:03.480 | - And then Saturday, Sunday off?
00:43:04.800 | - Saturday depends on the weightlifting schedule they're on.
00:43:08.920 | Like a Friday, they only have one training.
00:43:10.920 | And Saturday, they normally have one training,
00:43:12.680 | a weight training.
00:43:13.520 | But they get Saturday night off and Sunday off.
00:43:15.760 | - Beautiful, okay.
00:43:17.100 | - Unless we're fighting in a tournament,
00:43:18.420 | then they have to go to the tournament on the weekend.
00:43:20.440 | (laughing)
00:43:22.160 | - What has been the biggest challenge for you
00:43:24.240 | in preparing for the 2016 Olympics in Rio?
00:43:27.760 | Preparing the team.
00:43:28.840 | - For me, personally, it's been balancing family with team.
00:43:34.060 | My wife's been at this for a long time, right?
00:43:39.280 | So she's been helping since 1992.
00:43:41.120 | She's been living with me going to the Olympics.
00:43:42.840 | So after the 2012 Olympics,
00:43:46.320 | it really took a hard toll on my family
00:43:48.080 | 'cause I had to travel so much.
00:43:50.520 | So I took a break after 2012 and I've been home a lot
00:43:54.560 | and I've been focusing on the family.
00:43:56.080 | I have a daughter that's six.
00:43:57.320 | I have three teenagers that give mom hell at home
00:44:00.200 | when I'm away.
00:44:01.040 | So I've been really focusing on family.
00:44:04.760 | So that's why it's been hard for me to balance
00:44:06.440 | because I love judo, I love the sport,
00:44:08.380 | I love helping the athletes, I love being in the game.
00:44:11.080 | And I genuinely feel that the athletes benefit
00:44:15.120 | with having me in their chair and with them
00:44:20.120 | and it inspires them
00:44:21.720 | and I think it gives them a lot of confidence.
00:44:23.640 | But so that's been the challenge for me is balancing both.
00:44:27.960 | But now that the Olympics is ramping up again here
00:44:30.560 | and we're just about to turn 2015,
00:44:33.240 | there's gonna be a lot more traveling
00:44:34.400 | to come in with the team.
00:44:35.960 | But my dad's picked up, I've put my dad in that role
00:44:39.840 | because the best two athletes in our country
00:44:41.720 | are Kayla Harrison and Travis Stevens.
00:44:43.480 | So they're from our territory, they're from our home club.
00:44:46.840 | So my dad is their coach and I'm their coach.
00:44:49.440 | So if they can't have me, they have the next best thing
00:44:51.800 | and that's my dad.
00:44:52.860 | - What is the most painful moment you remember,
00:44:58.920 | maybe one that stands out as a coach?
00:45:00.900 | - Watching Travis Stevens lose at the semifinal match
00:45:05.520 | at the Olympic Games unquestionably as a coach
00:45:07.840 | was the most painful moment I've ever been involved in
00:45:10.680 | because I see how hard the boy works.
00:45:13.200 | I see how much he wants it.
00:45:14.280 | I see how much he sacrifices.
00:45:15.720 | He's a kid who doesn't drink alcohol.
00:45:19.480 | He's straight as an arrow.
00:45:21.760 | - Yeah.
00:45:22.600 | - And when I gave you that schedule
00:45:24.320 | of three times a day training,
00:45:25.920 | he's out there right now doing jujitsu.
00:45:29.520 | So he trains four to five times a day.
00:45:31.640 | Like he's a mat rat.
00:45:33.200 | You know, he wants it.
00:45:34.280 | - And when he's hurt, he pushes through.
00:45:36.320 | - Yeah, he's a tough kid.
00:45:37.880 | So I felt really bad for him
00:45:40.400 | because you don't really get those moments back in life
00:45:42.920 | where you're in the semifinals of the Olympic Games.
00:45:44.880 | In fact, he may never get that moment back.
00:45:47.040 | We hope he does,
00:45:48.320 | but that was flip of a coin who wins the fight.
00:45:52.240 | And if it goes his way,
00:45:54.200 | he's a silver medalist or a gold medalist in the Olympics.
00:45:56.840 | You know?
00:45:57.840 | So that was really painful.
00:45:58.920 | And I watched him cry on the sideline
00:46:01.560 | for an hour after that.
00:46:03.720 | And then he had to fight for a bronze
00:46:05.120 | and normally nine times out of 10,
00:46:07.480 | he'll beat that Canadian.
00:46:08.760 | You know, he beat the boy before the Olympics
00:46:12.040 | many, many times.
00:46:13.000 | It's just, he had physically drained his body
00:46:15.240 | of all emotion.
00:46:16.600 | He had nothing left for the bronze fight.
00:46:18.520 | So.
00:46:19.560 | - So you're a coach now,
00:46:20.720 | but you're also in forever judoka.
00:46:22.800 | So how's the Jimmy Pedro of today
00:46:25.640 | different from the guy who won bronze in 2004?
00:46:28.400 | In terms of how has your judo developed?
00:46:31.400 | How you think, technically, how you think about judo,
00:46:34.800 | how you approach judo?
00:46:36.040 | How you teach judo?
00:46:40.200 | - Well, I try to,
00:46:41.200 | I take a lot of what I learned in my career
00:46:47.640 | and I pass it on to my students.
00:46:49.360 | Nobody ever, I really had nobody that gave that to me.
00:46:54.120 | - Right.
00:46:54.960 | - So there's a mental side of this game
00:46:57.440 | that I learned and I trained my mind.
00:47:00.480 | I visualized success myself.
00:47:02.600 | I had some good self-talk
00:47:04.520 | that I did with myself all the time.
00:47:07.840 | I've passed all of that onto my students,
00:47:10.880 | how to use their mind to achieve success,
00:47:12.920 | how to see it, how to believe it.
00:47:15.160 | Even before they do it, they have to believe it
00:47:17.720 | and they have to see it.
00:47:19.280 | And I'm a firm believer that if you create that pathway
00:47:22.080 | in your mind enough times,
00:47:25.080 | what happens is when the moment comes for it to happen,
00:47:27.960 | your body thinks it's been there before
00:47:30.240 | and that's where it's supposed to go.
00:47:31.520 | So it'll go.
00:47:32.840 | - Yeah.
00:47:33.680 | - And most people, they never see it happen.
00:47:36.520 | They only, oh, I hope I wanna be
00:47:38.080 | an Olympic champion someday.
00:47:39.640 | But they never really see it, believe it,
00:47:43.960 | experience it before it happens
00:47:46.840 | and therefore it never will
00:47:48.760 | because they don't think it's possible.
00:47:51.000 | So I--
00:47:51.840 | - Kayla talked about that that is something you taught her
00:47:53.480 | and then she just felt like at the Olympics,
00:47:55.640 | she felt like it's almost like you're an autopilot.
00:47:59.600 | It's an obvious fact that she's getting the gold.
00:48:02.280 | She's almost walking through the--
00:48:04.320 | - Right.
00:48:05.160 | - And she's visualized a million times.
00:48:06.600 | - So I was able to pass that on.
00:48:08.800 | And they say sports is like 90% mental, right?
00:48:12.960 | I mean, because if it was just training,
00:48:14.800 | everybody would train 365 days a year, right?
00:48:19.560 | 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
00:48:21.280 | That's it.
00:48:22.120 | It's just whoever trains the most, but it's not.
00:48:23.600 | We all do the physical stuff,
00:48:25.320 | but not everybody does that mental stuff.
00:48:26.920 | And I really, as a coach, focus on that side of the game
00:48:30.280 | as well as the strategy and looking at videos
00:48:33.400 | and studying how to beat this opponent
00:48:35.080 | and what our objectives are in this match.
00:48:37.560 | And I think that also, rather than just walk out blindly
00:48:40.400 | and just fight, you've gotta have a strategy going in.
00:48:44.960 | So I think taking that professional approach to the game
00:48:48.840 | and with our system, if you look at the number of people
00:48:53.520 | we have in this dojo in terms of elite athletes
00:48:57.080 | and the number of bodies we have to train with,
00:48:58.800 | there's gotta be doing something right, right?
00:49:01.080 | Because we're competing with Japan and Russia
00:49:04.040 | and France and everywhere else with what we have,
00:49:06.800 | and we don't have very much money either.
00:49:08.760 | So we're up against all odds,
00:49:10.320 | yet we're still getting it done.
00:49:12.440 | So I'd say, how is it different?
00:49:15.240 | I think I'm a little bit more cerebral as a coach
00:49:17.680 | than I was as an athlete,
00:49:19.560 | because I had to learn a lot of it on my own
00:49:22.360 | when I was a player.
00:49:23.920 | - So last topic, one that gets a lot of talk,
00:49:27.300 | but in the last half decade,
00:49:31.360 | the IJF, the International Judo Federation,
00:49:35.040 | has made a lot of rule changes,
00:49:37.440 | starting from banning leg grabs.
00:49:41.440 | Can you summarize the rule changes
00:49:44.040 | and say whether you think they have had
00:49:47.440 | an overall positive or negative effect on judo?
00:49:50.600 | - The IJF's goal was to differentiate judo from wrestling.
00:49:55.600 | They really wanted to differentiate the two sports
00:49:59.960 | so that in case the Olympic Committee said,
00:50:02.800 | "You know what, we need to get rid of another sport.
00:50:04.800 | "Which sport are we gonna get rid of?"
00:50:05.880 | Well, wrestling and judo are kind of the same.
00:50:07.760 | They're very similar.
00:50:08.760 | Why don't we just get rid of one of them?
00:50:10.560 | So they really wanted to differentiate itself
00:50:12.400 | from wrestling.
00:50:13.240 | - That was before they threatened wrestling.
00:50:14.920 | - Before they almost chucked wrestling, right.
00:50:17.280 | So that was one reason.
00:50:18.640 | Second is they tried to make it
00:50:21.320 | a little bit more fan-friendly.
00:50:24.640 | So, man, how much time is spent gripping
00:50:27.720 | and ripping and gripping?
00:50:28.840 | So they've taken a lot of the gripping rules
00:50:30.720 | out of the game and you're not allowed
00:50:31.960 | to break grips so many times anymore.
00:50:33.720 | And they thought that was a boring element of judo.
00:50:37.200 | But the reality of the situation is that judo's
00:50:39.440 | never going to be a fan-friendly live sport.
00:50:43.120 | It just isn't.
00:50:43.960 | It's never gonna be.
00:50:46.280 | And if you're not a judoka and you don't have an interest
00:50:49.040 | in who's fighting, it's boring.
00:50:51.680 | Judo can be very spectacular if you create a story
00:50:56.880 | behind it and you do a one-hour show
00:51:00.120 | where you're only showing highlights of,
00:51:02.440 | and behind the scenes, and who is this athlete,
00:51:04.600 | and get to know him, and get the people to know who he is,
00:51:07.560 | and then show his series of fights,
00:51:09.240 | and show his throws or submissions,
00:51:11.080 | and pump him up to watch the final.
00:51:13.400 | And then when the final happens,
00:51:15.440 | just show the best clips of the final
00:51:17.360 | and have some commentary going about what's going on.
00:51:20.200 | Then it can be a good sport.
00:51:22.320 | But it'll never be a good live sport
00:51:24.000 | because it's very boring.
00:51:25.160 | And it always will be.
00:51:26.640 | No matter what rules you put in.
00:51:28.760 | I love wrestling.
00:51:30.440 | But wrestling, if you don't know who is wrestling,
00:51:33.840 | it's boring.
00:51:34.680 | - Yeah.
00:51:35.520 | - You don't, and it's, and same with--
00:51:36.720 | - Especially at the elite level.
00:51:37.920 | - Same with American football, though.
00:51:39.440 | If you truly, all the Europeans say,
00:51:41.840 | "Football's so boring.
00:51:42.800 | "You start, you stop, you start, you stop.
00:51:44.600 | "I don't get it."
00:51:46.040 | And because they don't have an interest in any team,
00:51:48.760 | they don't care who wins.
00:51:50.480 | They're not from New England rooting for the Patriots.
00:51:53.680 | Say, when we watch soccer as Americans, it's boring.
00:51:57.280 | We're not rooting for any team.
00:51:59.040 | - So it's really the story that people fall in love with
00:52:01.160 | in football and everything.
00:52:02.000 | - Or it's the team.
00:52:03.120 | - Like, yeah, they know the players.
00:52:05.040 | They know, they have a close connection with the people.
00:52:07.240 | - You gotta be into the game to enjoy it.
00:52:09.040 | So no fan who has never done judo
00:52:12.160 | is ever going to enjoy watching judo,
00:52:14.160 | unless it's a highlight reel and they're like,
00:52:16.320 | "Oh, geez, oh."
00:52:17.960 | And they see the cool stuff going on.
00:52:20.520 | So I think all the rule changes are for not.
00:52:23.280 | I don't think they're affecting,
00:52:25.000 | they're not gonna affect the popularity of the sport.
00:52:27.960 | Unquestionably, they're not gonna affect.
00:52:30.000 | I go to all of these big Grand Slam tournaments in Abu Dhabi
00:52:34.320 | and there's nobody in the stands.
00:52:36.040 | You go to all these tournaments
00:52:37.680 | and there's nobody watching.
00:52:39.160 | Everybody's watching online, but nobody's watching.
00:52:42.000 | So I think the rule changes, to be honest with you,
00:52:45.480 | I think it's gotten more towards sport.
00:52:48.100 | It's less towards, if you think about
00:52:50.800 | what judo was founded on,
00:52:52.040 | it was founded on sport, the Olympic sport.
00:52:55.000 | It was founded on self-defense, right?
00:52:57.440 | As an element of the sport.
00:52:59.400 | Judo has no self-defense element whatsoever anymore.
00:53:02.480 | It's all about sport.
00:53:03.640 | No dojos really teach self-defense element of judo.
00:53:08.820 | And what are leg grabs?
00:53:10.840 | Really, leg grabs are self-defense.
00:53:12.360 | If some guy attacks me with his legs,
00:53:14.080 | I'm grabbing his leg, right?
00:53:16.280 | So they've taken that out of it.
00:53:17.440 | And even as a judo player who's in the sport,
00:53:20.160 | some guy who's very six foot one,
00:53:22.640 | and I'm five foot five, he's got really long legs.
00:53:25.320 | So if he comes in high, I should be able to grab it.
00:53:27.960 | So you're taking that part of the sport,
00:53:29.540 | so I disagree with that.
00:53:30.740 | And then the kata, the prearranged movements.
00:53:35.000 | Nobody does that anymore, really, anyway.
00:53:36.800 | So judo's lost a lot of its,
00:53:39.360 | well, it's basically come down
00:53:40.440 | to just being an Olympic sport these days,
00:53:42.920 | which is impractical for the masses
00:53:47.080 | because the masses are never gonna compete in the sport.
00:53:49.960 | It's too dangerous.
00:53:51.800 | It's too physical.
00:53:53.440 | So if you, like jujitsu succeeded
00:53:56.000 | because it's taken it to a safe place.
00:53:58.300 | It's taken it to the ground.
00:54:00.000 | Nobody's tumbling and falling and doing 360s,
00:54:03.120 | and they're rolling.
00:54:04.520 | They're getting a good workout.
00:54:05.880 | They're learning some self-defense, right?
00:54:08.880 | You can be 80 years old and--
00:54:10.320 | But it's safe, right?
00:54:11.800 | But that's okay.
00:54:12.880 | That's what, if you wanna make the sport popular,
00:54:15.920 | everybody has to be able to do it.
00:54:18.280 | And right now, judo has become a sport
00:54:20.840 | that only the young can do.
00:54:22.140 | That's why I think it's failing.
00:54:25.320 | - The question is, judo got into the Olympics in '64, 1964.
00:54:29.320 | That's exactly 50 years ago.
00:54:31.340 | So martial arts in general have gone a long way
00:54:36.920 | in the last 50 years, thanks to the Olympics.
00:54:39.920 | And even, I think very importantly,
00:54:42.560 | thanks to mixed martial arts,
00:54:44.120 | where they kind of put like sumo and karate
00:54:47.640 | and all of these things together.
00:54:48.920 | And you realize that the grappling arts
00:54:51.280 | have a lot to contribute to.
00:54:52.880 | This is a really effective art, an exciting art.
00:54:57.640 | So where do you think judo will be,
00:54:59.280 | this is a weird question, but 50 years from now?
00:55:02.340 | So do you think there's something timeless
00:55:07.260 | in terms of value in the sport of judo?
00:55:09.900 | - Judo's trying to become more professional, right?
00:55:16.560 | But it's also becoming a very expensive sport.
00:55:19.760 | So what I see happening over the course of time
00:55:22.960 | is all of the big programs are gonna continue to be big
00:55:26.840 | in the sport of judo because they're invested--
00:55:28.400 | - Across the world. - Yes.
00:55:29.520 | So only the big programs though.
00:55:32.360 | So what's gonna happen is, like right now,
00:55:34.880 | they have a cadet circuit.
00:55:36.440 | So kids 14 to 18 years old,
00:55:38.820 | they can get on a world ranking list
00:55:40.520 | and there's a cadet circuit
00:55:41.720 | that they compete against other cadets.
00:55:43.960 | Then there's a junior circuit,
00:55:45.880 | that's up to 21 years old
00:55:47.480 | and all these juniors have world rankings
00:55:50.200 | and there's a junior competitions all over the world
00:55:52.820 | to develop those athletes.
00:55:54.320 | And then there's a senior circuit.
00:55:56.120 | The problem is the big countries,
00:55:59.200 | like a Japan and a Brazil and a France and a Russia,
00:56:03.640 | in a lot of the European countries,
00:56:05.820 | they have the budgets and they're investing in their youth
00:56:09.080 | to ultimately run from cadet to junior to senior.
00:56:14.260 | So they're gonna continue to flourish as countries
00:56:17.340 | and get stronger and invest more money and grow.
00:56:21.100 | All of the other countries, including America,
00:56:24.260 | who don't have money,
00:56:25.780 | we don't invest any money right now at all
00:56:29.140 | in our junior program.
00:56:30.300 | Not even, forget our cadets.
00:56:31.740 | Our cadets, their parents have to pay US judo
00:56:35.820 | just to have their kids do judo.
00:56:37.220 | But we invest nothing in our juniors
00:56:40.260 | 'cause we don't have the budget for it.
00:56:41.900 | So all we focus on is the elite side
00:56:44.220 | and it's becoming more and more expensive
00:56:47.180 | to fund these athletes to qualify for the Olympics.
00:56:51.540 | Soon as you shut off that opportunity
00:56:53.260 | for us to qualify for the Olympics,
00:56:55.660 | judo's gone in America.
00:56:57.420 | It'll be non-existent.
00:56:59.060 | Okay, so and that's the direction we're headed.
00:57:01.360 | We have less elite athletes today in America
00:57:03.980 | than we did four years ago,
00:57:06.340 | than we did eight years ago,
00:57:07.900 | than we did back in the '70s.
00:57:09.620 | There's less elite players today than there was then.
00:57:11.940 | So judo continues to shrink.
00:57:14.120 | The more expensive it becomes,
00:57:16.000 | I don't even see countries like Peru
00:57:21.000 | and a lot of the South American countries,
00:57:25.060 | Argentina, Venezuela,
00:57:26.140 | they used to have good full teams of athletes.
00:57:29.460 | Nowadays, the number of athletes
00:57:31.300 | that are competing at the World's and Olympics,
00:57:33.600 | they're less and less and less and less.
00:57:35.260 | They have less money to do it.
00:57:36.780 | They have no budgets.
00:57:37.960 | They're gonna disappear.
00:57:39.140 | So what judo's gonna become,
00:57:40.420 | it's gonna become a much smaller sport
00:57:44.760 | in terms of number of countries that participate
00:57:47.440 | because there's not gonna be any programs
00:57:49.080 | in any of those other countries
00:57:50.080 | that can compete with the rest of the world.
00:57:52.760 | So 50 years from now,
00:57:54.720 | I don't think you'll see,
00:57:56.800 | I don't think you'll see anybody from the United States.
00:58:00.720 | - There always could be some renegade club from Boston
00:58:06.200 | that proves everybody wrong.
00:58:08.480 | - I'm gonna tell you, mark my words right now,
00:58:10.620 | that if there isn't a drastic change in this country.
00:58:13.660 | - Or funding from--
00:58:15.060 | - That come the 2020 Olympic game,
00:58:17.940 | you'll be lucky to see two Americans on that team.
00:58:21.420 | Two.
00:58:22.260 | We get one guaranteed 'cause the IJF will give you one.
00:58:26.780 | But you'll be lucky to see two in Tokyo,
00:58:29.860 | the direction we're headed.
00:58:32.660 | 'Cause you're gonna lose, Travis.
00:58:34.200 | You're gonna lose, Marty.
00:58:35.220 | You're gonna lose, Kayla.
00:58:36.260 | You're gonna lose, Nick.
00:58:37.660 | You're gonna lose all your best athletes right now.
00:58:40.260 | And I really don't see the pipeline coming up.
00:58:42.660 | - I hope that doesn't come to reality, but.
00:58:49.140 | - Me either.
00:58:51.520 | - On that dark note,
00:58:54.280 | people can find you on jimmypedra.com,
00:58:58.900 | on Facebook, where else?
00:59:00.660 | - I'm a vice president and a partner in Fuji Sports
00:59:04.860 | and the Fuji Mac company.
00:59:06.220 | So we love your business and love your support.
00:59:08.980 | We deck out clubs with complete outfitting,
00:59:13.340 | their gyms with mats and wall pads and all kinds of gear.
00:59:16.380 | And then obviously the gi and gear.
00:59:18.380 | We do custom uniforms for gis and shorts and rash guards
00:59:21.900 | and stuff for clubs at fujisports.com.
00:59:24.820 | - That's the only gi I own is Fuji gis.
00:59:28.220 | Like I'm moving to California now.
00:59:31.380 | I have a closet full of like 20 gis I have
00:59:34.580 | to figure out what to do with them.
00:59:36.380 | But.
00:59:37.380 | - Before we end, I'd like to comment, Lex,
00:59:40.060 | that I've done considerable amount of interviews in my day.
00:59:45.060 | And through the years, I will say that this is
00:59:48.260 | the most well thought out, comprehensive, intelligent,
00:59:53.260 | thought provoking questions that I've ever been asked
00:59:55.660 | in my career.
00:59:56.540 | - Thanks, I appreciate that.
00:59:58.220 | So I won't, since you said that,
01:00:00.300 | I will not hold your comment in the beginning
01:00:01.940 | about you choosing the Russian against you.
01:00:05.460 | So thank you very much for the warm welcome.
01:00:07.060 | It's been fun.
01:00:08.460 | Next time I'll come on by Gian.
01:00:10.420 | - Awesome, you're welcome anytime.