Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
travis stevens
2016 olympic silver medalist in judo and
one of the greatest american judoka ever
but his story is inspiring not because
of that olympic medal but because of the
decades of injury hardship incredible
battles against the best in the world
wrapping up in close heartbreaking
losses at the 2008 and 2012 games all of
which eventually led to that very silver
medal in 2016.
as we talk about in the podcast travis
is also someone who is largely
responsible for me getting into judo for
which i will forever be grateful
he also happens to be now my judo coach
and mentor
i'll release a video of travis and i
doing some judo in a few days
to support this podcast please check out
our sponsors in the description
as a side note let me say a few words
that i've written down
about the olympic games and the
international olympics committee
i'm visiting family has the t-shirt
but i had to pull away to write and to
say these words
because this very video was taken down
by youtube as per the request of the ioc
you know it's serious when a russian
takes time away from family food and
drink
i am heartbroken to see continued
incompetence greed and corruption on the
part of the ilc in failing to do as the
olympic charter states to quote ensure
the fullest coverage and the widest
possible audience in the world for the
olympic games end quote
i want to give you two facts first they
do not make most of the videos of the
games available for replay anywhere that
is accessible searchable and
discoverable whether funded by ads or by
subscriptions for example on youtube or
their own service it is not available
anywhere
second in the most absurd violation of
the olympic charter they've uploaded all
of the videos of the 2012 2016 and the
2020 slash
olympics to youtube
and they set all of these videos to
private
this results in a situation like my
four-hour conversation that you're
watching now with travis stevens being
taken down due to us including a few
seconds of a small video overlay of
travis's epic match against ole bishop
in 2012 this is done automatically as
per the request of the ioc
i have the video due to having screen
recorded it from 2012.
here you have travis stevens
an olympic silver medalist
someone who spent his entire life
overcoming injuries losses hard weight
cuts periods of no financial
psychological support culminating in the
biggest heartbreak of his career
in this one match and this match is
available nowhere online not for free
not for one million dollars
our showing short clips of it results in
the ioc taking it down not demonetizing
it taking it down blocking it
the ioc silences this amazing story of
travis stevens of heartbreak that
eventually led to triumph
and there are thousands of stories like
it stories that are supposed to inspire
the world
to me and to billions of others the
olympic games give a chance to celebrate
and to be inspired by the greatest
stories of human flourishing in the face
of hardship and incredibly long odds or
dominance in the pursuit of perfection
at levels previously thought to be
impossible
the olympic games inspired kids
like me
to dream and to work hard to achieve in
our own lives the same moments of magic
and greatness
small or big that the olympic games
reveal
i believe the members of the ilc are
good people
but people who forgot the dream the fire
that was sparked and burned in their
hearts when they first saw the olympics
as kids
they've allowed the gradual corruption
of their own human spirit and thereby
have robbed the world of this very fire
the fire of the olympic torch
the fire that ought to burn in the eyes
and hearts of kids watching the olympics
today daring to dream daring to be great
please
please do better
the world needs you the world needs the
olympic games
this is the lex friedman podcast
and here's my conversation with travis
stevens
judo is a martial art a sport a set of
techniques ideas and philosophies can we
start by uh maybe you giving a big
picture overview of what is judo
to somebody who's like outside of the
whole spectrum of grappling sports yeah
judo was originated in japan that was
used as a police tactic for self-defense
and
you know subduing people it's the art of
being able to throw somebody to the
ground and hold and control the
situation
um i think it's pretty much evolved
since then though you know it's
as you include like the sport aspect of
it it's
it's grown to be something more and more
dynamic
and it's kind of gotten away from that
so the basics is
people wear something called a ghee yep
which i think
nicely mimics like outdoor clothing yep
like a jacket
and uh they start on the
feet and there's uh
they get to grip each other and the
scoring works by
the more badass the throw is the more
points you get and if
you throw the person
big
and hard
on their back
you win the match and it's over and
that's called an e-pawn yep which is
equivalent to a knockout so i guess
there's no knock-downs no judo we don't
count those yeah they gotta hit their
back and they gotta hit it with force
and so there's a huge incentive for the
big throws
and
there's also the drama
of
somebody catching you off guard with a
surprise big throw and it's over yep
there's there's two ways of losing
really there's the
i saw this coming
right like you just
you see it but you can't stop it
and those ones tend to be the ones you
can live with the ones that are like
really hard to live with are the ones
you never saw coming right because that
just shows that
that person has really outglassed you
right so there's like a set of a small
set of throws maybe you can go through
them that are like
you saw it coming but you couldn't do
anything about it and then there's the
set of throws that are more like
surprises so first of all the counters
or if you fake one thing and go the
other way
then that's a surprise and it's like oh
shit you off balance the person
because they think you're going one way
and then you go the other way and
there's this oh shit moment all of a
sudden yeah your back is just slammed on
the ground one other one i mean you're
good of many throws but one of them is a
that i think reveals the beauty of judo
is the foot sweep yep
there's something about the off balance
and the timing that if you catch him
right all of a sudden it's like i had
the same feeling when i went skydiving
like all sudden the ground is not under
you anymore yeah and you just you go
weightlessness for like a split second
and you realize you've lost like all
control of your limbs like
it's like zero gravity right like you
just you can't turn you can't rotate you
can't do much of anything and then
before you know it you've hit the floor
yeah
it's a cool feeling when you get
thrown
um because you hope to do the same thing
to another person it's like you're you
just hit the ground hard because it's
not you didn't see it coming it wasn't a
big throw that got loaded up
it's like all sudden the surprise and
then
like
this like feeling your back just slams
and there's like the air's up
yeah and the worst is when you get hit
twice with one throw right because
sometimes like the guy throwing you
didn't expect you to leave either so you
hit
and then that guy comes down like a
second and a half later and it's like
boom boom and then the wind is just gone
from you yeah
those are the worst and then there's the
disappointment like then the the
intellectual the cognitive part comes in
where you're like oh shit i just lost
yep and you don't have like
a connection to why
right it's almost like you've just like
you didn't literally get a concussion
like you and you understand and remember
everything but you can't figure out how
this just happened
right those are the those are the tough
ones to deal with actually have you had
moments like that yeah where you don't
understand how it happened you have to
watch footage to understand what
happened even when you watch it you're
just like
i don't get it like why wasn't i in a
position to stop this
it makes zero sense
conceptually when you watch it you're
like i understand how to play defense i
understand
it looks like i'm in a defensive
position but at the end of the day
i still got thrown yeah you were talking
about what is it a 2008
match
you have a
non-traditional gripping style yeah
that's accurate to say but and then
you're going against another
right-handed player and then there's
some kind of fake
that he did
and then
he caught you yep can you can you
describe the throw he caught you with he
caught me with a drop sail
but he
he kind of like we were engaged we were
looking at each other and
we were kind of at like a stalemate
right he couldn't really advance i
couldn't really advance and he kind of
just let his gaze like
wander off to the right like he was
looking at something and then i kind of
like
what's over there and then i got thrown
and it's like so first of all uh for
people don't know uh
sayonagi drop means when you drop to
your knees and uh sanagi is one of the
fundamental throws of judo that's just
just a handful but does that actually
ever work
i always wondered that about like
boxing or judo
does the head movement of the person
work because we're still like kind of
dogs at heart if you look somewhere with
a dog the dog is gonna look that
direction as well does that actually
work ever it does um
but on a greater sense
what you try to do is not necessarily
get like a physical reaction of a look
but a lull of security where like
they've almost like relaxed for that
split second because you've
lured them into like a sense of comfort
and then that's when you can strike
so you have this
speaking of senagi you have this
gigantic uh standing synagogue yep
and um you have a specific grip one of
our challenges is there's a large number
of people that listen to the audio
version of this
so we're gonna have to try to describe
some of the stuff uh i'll do my best to
try to describe with words but uh you
have you grip with your left hand on the
lapel of the jacket
or like that area yep
and uh there's kind of a lean into the
person and i suppose is there a feeling
of a lull there that you're trying to
get to where you're just it feels like
you're both calmly dancing before you
turn your hips and go in for the throw
i'm actually trying to
create
a a sense of weightlessness for my lead
leg which would be my right leg
and
a sense of resistance from my partner
so you aren't you both kind of leaning
into each other and it creates like an
a-frame
yeah but when the a-frame is held
together at the top half which would be
my left hand and their right hand posted
on each other's chest it means our legs
are free to move and our hips are free
to move right and they're not gonna feel
your leg move because of the
weightlessness and is there a feeling
like for them is there feeling like
nothing bad can happen here we're all
relaxed everything's fine
yeah
and then they're standing off at a funny
angle and before they know it i've spun
and my back is on their chest and they
can't go anywhere yeah
yeah uh how did you first develop that
throw so for people um
it's called ippon seinagi which means
your right hand goes under their like
armpit area
and that that's like a vice that
connects you to them yeah and then they
get go on for the ride yep the
interesting thing with the standing one
is uh as opposed to drop sanagi version
the drop saying you kind of um
drop under them and because there's the
vice they're like pulled
pulled under and like over yeah
with the standing one i suppose there's
some similar physics but you're kind of
loading them onto your hip
and so they're in the air
while you're standing still
there's there's a there's a sense in
which they're
like you're lifting them above
where they started yes
that's how you get the really big error
yeah if obviously if
um
if everything is right so how did you
first develop that how did you first i
first learned just learning like the
very basics of the throw you know foot
placement all that kind of stuff and
then
you know like anything the basics are
nice
um but once you get good at the basics
it's it's very easy to stop but it gives
you a good like fundamental platform to
learn off of and
to expand off of
and then i expanded when i first started
watching koga the new wind right because
he's the one that first like
introduced that split hip style sanagi
that i do
once i
learned that one i built
about eight different variations of sayo
off that one start position
that way i could regardless of your
defense i had an answer for a throw so
why that one though why can you uh can
you describe love to me travis stevens
why did you fall in love with that throw
in particular
um it
it was really a sense of
you know one of my shortcomings as a kid
like
i hate
leg day in the gym i hate it with a
passion i
if you ask me to do a squat i'll i'll
get it done
but i will bitch and moan every step of
the way i hate it i remember one time i
was at the gym with my trainer and he
goes okay we're gonna do front squats
and i want you to put 225 on the bar and
i was like i can't do that
and he was like what do you mean you
can't do that and i go
i physically i can't do that and he was
like
are you serious and i go yeah so he's he
didn't believe me we put 225 on the bar
and i bottomed out
and then he was like okay let's go down
to 185 and i was like i can't do that i
just it's not happening you probably
couldn't strength wise you just refuse i
just mentally i cannot wrap my head
around like this ain't happening i'm not
doing it so i ended up your man like
principal
95 pounds on the bar i got you with a
front squat no problem by the way body
weight squats are rough too
psychologically so yeah i just when it
comes to my legs like
i want no part of like
leg pressing single leg squat split
squat any of that no part of it so you
think like the more traditional variance
of saying i can require you to have that
leg strength yeah that mass like when
you watch japanese judo players like
their thighs and their hips they're
thick
they got a lot of power there so you're
almost like always dropping a little bit
into a squat position for mine never no
no no not you sorry for the the
traditional ones yeah and so the split
hip
the split hip actually allows me to keep
my legs straight yeah and the farther i
split my legs the lower my center of
gravity goes now i don't need my legs
yeah perfect love it let's do it so
that's the way you were thinking about
it okay yeah um but it's uh you know the
interesting thing about it is because
you know as i mentioned to you i've
gotten to judo after first watching you
in the uh olympics and then uh watching
koga as well and so you start imitating
the people you first see
and then you take it to judo coaches and
they're like no no no that's the wrong
way to do it
and happens all the time it drives me
nuts drives me nuts i was in poland one
time
teaching a camp
and i had two coaches
anti-coaching
telling their kids not to do sayo the
way i do it because it never works yeah
it's crazy how do you have the fortitude
and the guts to just go on with a throw
that's not traditional a variant that's
not traditional
if you think about it
you know from a very
basic like root of it
there's a philosophy and a mentality of
judo of how the throes work
right there's a mechanical structure
there like
this makes sense if i follow that
principle i can do anything i want
nothing else matters as long as we
follow those core principles so in the
early days even
even then you were able to think on your
own yeah and i was able to develop a
pattern for my foot placement
based on my opponent's height
because
the number one thing any judo coach will
tell you is you need your center of
gravity below yours
well now i now i know exactly where to
put my feet because the shorter you are
the bigger the split because the lower i
need to get the taller you are the less
of a split i need
is there something you can say about
fundamental principles of judo is there
over all that time not 20 over 20 years
that you've been doing judo
uh it's not approaching 30 is it
yeah it's it's yeah getting it's going
getting there okay
we're a couple years away let's get in
there
um
is there some like
principles that have emerged like you
said you have to have your center of
gravity below theirs yeah is there other
kind of both on the gripping side the
footwork side
leverage
anything you can speak to there's some
that
have withstood like
time like
you have to be able to get below their
center of gravity because you have to be
able to rotate them
around their center of gravity and then
the other one is
that was always a principle when i was
growing up and i didn't change until
later on in my career was you have to be
able to pull
you need to be able to pull to get them
off balance
but when you think about that statement
as a whole it ended with they have to be
off balance
i don't need the pull to get you off
balance i just need you off balance
and when you think about it that way it
allows you to open up the doors to
what do i need to do to get you off
balance i could push pull i could flinch
i could fake and you could put yourself
in your own off balance state
right when you think about people who
wrestle right if i fake shoot it causes
you to over lean forward which means
you're off balance
there's no pull there's no push there's
no nothing i just get a reaction that
leaves the opportunity in the door open
for an attack
and that off balance could be very
subtle it could be very subtle and the
better you get and the more skills you
get
the less subtle it is
so we should also mention that there is
something called forward throws
where you
throw the person
you know they they're going to fly
facing forward they're going to fly
forward and then a backward throw is
they're going to fly back yep and then
there's lateral you know they actually
go sideways over like a cartwheel almost
okay so the forward throws there's the
one we've been talking about which is uh
say nagi and there's a bunch of
different variants ippon marote seinagi
there's drop and there's standing
versions of them and that all
i don't know if there's a way to
summarize it
but that's like as clean as uh getting
your center of gravity under theirs
as it gets
and then the rest is just gripping
variations yep i guess it's all gripping
variations on all of these throws but um
and then uh there's
uh in terms of forward throws there's
the other big one in competition is
uchimada
which is
i don't know we can try to explain that
one but it uh ends up being where
one or you're standing on just one of
your feet
and the other one is up in the air and i
don't know if you put in that same
category haragoshi like
those kinds of throws where you're kind
of a little bit single footed yeah and
so there's two footed techniques and
then there's a single footed yeah oh
goshi where it's like
you're doing a mix between the uchimada
and
it's a hug
you you hug a person and then you turn
your hips around such that you're now
hugging facing the same direction when
it comes to forward throw there's
regardless of the name of the throw or
the gripping variation that you're using
the whole principle is how do i get this
person to do a forward roll in midair
and land on their back
the more of a forward roll i can get the
bigger the score if i get like
a quarter of a turn where like you land
on your side and you don't go over your
back it's a half score yeah but they all
require me to get you to do that forward
rolling action so just if we think of
one person if they do this nice
leap forward and they do a roll and
their back nicely rolls over the ground
you're trying to do the exact same thing
with you connected to them well and if
it's nice and it's smooth it's probably
not a full score it needs to have like
somewhat of a violent impact
right so if you think of a drop saying
agi if i
if i'm moving too slow
and you still roll over your shoulders
and there's no direct impact it's only a
half score right they want the force
the force the violence that's good
okay uh so then uh
in terms of uh backward throws
the traditional ones there's stuff where
you trip them
from outside their body like osotogari
it's a trip where you hook your leg onto
their leg and you trip them but your
hook it goes outside of their legs and
then there's the trips from inside
their body there's uh one foot is called
kuchigari and then the other is ochigari
it doesn't matter the the most important
thing is outside and inside
uh and then there's like i don't even
know how you throw them sideways except
foot sweeps and then there's the foot
sweeps where you can
sweep one of their legs from out of them
or both their legs at the same time
and like we were talking about this kind
of
is when timed perfectly it's it's
effortless for everybody involved and uh
the ending like you said is big dramatic
and violent yeah
is there other kind of oh yeah there's
uh sacrifice techniques
there's a bunch of them
and that ultimately the variations have
to do with uh gripping but you're
basically you the attacker fall onto
your back
sticking your legs somewhere on
onto their body which is like this
fulcrum over which they fly and do that
same kind of role that you mentioned you
basically sacrifice your back to the mat
in order to throw them into that
circular pattern so they hit their back
sometimes we use a foot sometimes we
don't and so we should probably say
it's okay for you to go on to your back
as long as you're clearly demonstrating
control over the other person's body
correct you can't go to your back in the
same direction that your opponent is
trying to put you to your back right you
have to go the other way or you have to
initiate
you going to your own back
right
uh like clearly and then um and then
there's all the counters which almost
kind of
have a whole group of their own even
though they have
echoes of the same types of techniques
it seems like they're their own whole
thing yeah but they follow the same
principles it's just most
counters like if you wanted to counter
enuchimata for example
you're trying to throw me in a
somersault over my right shoulder
therefore i would counter you by
throwing you over your left shoulder
it goes in the opposite shoulder
direction but in the same somersault
idea
and there used to be
i already at this point forget the years
but it might be 20 before the 2012
olympics where they banned uh you you
used to be allowed to grab legs in the
same way you do in wrestling so you have
basically all the techniques you would
have in wrestling
available to you if you would like
yeah it's just that some of the
techniques in wrestling are not that
effective for getting your opponent your
to their back
wrestlers want to take the other person
down in any way possible and have
control judo wants to take you down like
we said in a big fashion where your back
slams on the ground yeah it has to be to
the back a lot of wrestling take downs
happen because they get behind them yeah
and then they they part tear out yeah
so uh but judo banned all touching of
the legs which is very dramatic change
at the sport but also 2012. after it was
after 20 it was in 2012 so 2008 i fought
the games and everything was free
in 2012 we could only touch the legs as
a
defensive action or
in response to an attack so i could try
to throw you with a
normal throw and then when you try to
counter i could grab your leg
right so that there uh had to be a
secondary technique and didn't like
didn't they disqualify
on a first offense first offense was a
direct disqualification which happened
at the 2012 games to the 57 brazilian
who won in 16 yeah she was dq'd and i
think the quarters yeah and it was like
i wouldn't say it was blatant as much as
i don't think the act
changed the outcome of the match had
they not disqualified it so that's not
that dramatic and by the way you say 57
that refers to weight divisions and
that's in kilograms and kilograms is the
measure of weight that the rest of the
world uses in the united states does not
um so
and there's uh we should say the
divisions for for guys
um i don't know what the 70 i don't know
slower level 16 60 66 73 81 90 100 and
heavyweight which has no ceiling
no ceiling
station yeah it is an important
distinction um
so and you competed most of your career
at 81 kilograms all of it
all you never did never did 73. well you
had to cut big for 81 anyway especially
towards the end of my career yeah
okay
uh
i overly grew into the division what's
uh uh i'm trying to remember is that
about 180 pounds
178.6 i think and you have to weigh in
with the the ghee no nothing
you're not allowed to wear anything
except for your underwear weigh in sorry
confusing jiu-jitsu that's right that's
right that's right that's which is very
nice
um okay so we would you say we covered
most of the throws or no
so the there's the forward and the
backward there's the sacrifice throws
and the counters yep and the and then
there's the leg grabs and we should say
for the leg grabs that were effective
it's like um
the big pickups where you just kind of
pick them up and try to figure out once
they're in the air what the heck to do
with their body to get them to the
ground you just kind of figure it out as
you go i think the really nice one that
was to me heartbreaking as a fan to see
go is
i guess what's called the fireman's
carry
which is uh
you know it does lead to judo like
beautiful throws and the fact that that
was gone is is that one i missed a
little bit but then a bunch of people i
guess came up with the variance where
you don't need to grab the leg
it's definitely not as effective as
being able to grab it but i'm also on
the side of the fence having competed in
all three
it was definitely better for the sport
to remove it
as a whole
it's probably good to cover sort of the
whole spectrum of rules of judo is uh
there's groundwork so there's uh you do
all the stuff on the feet where you're
trying to murder each other with a giant
throw but then you know if the throat
doesn't succeed you go to the ground and
you stay on the ground for some amount
of time like short amount of time you
have to move quickly you have to be
attacking and
two of the ways you can win
is similar to people who do jiu jitsu's
you can submit them
uh chokes arm breaks all that kind of
stuff no foot locks
and uh
and you can also
pin them yep which is get around their
legs and this is very
no this is not like wrestling you have
to actually get around their legs
and uh pin them and
what indigest is called side control
mount all kinds of ways that doesn't
involve their legs yeah and then you pin
them for like whatever 20 seconds 25
seconds yeah 20 seconds now i think the
distinction is
their back has to be facing the mat
you have to be past their legs and your
chest has to be on the same plane as
theirs yeah so it doesn't have to
necessarily be on top but it has to be
on the same plane yeah and all of this
is
i think
different sports of different versions
of this but it's like
an approximation of what dominance looks
like yeah so pin and wrestling is
dominating your opponent presumably if
you're in a street fight that position
allows you to then do a lot of damage
obviously submissions is dominance
because you're breaking their arm or
choking them to uh
unconscious
and then obviously the throw
which is not often
talked about but like if you talk about
a street
fight situation a throw
is like the best way to murder somebody
like this could end anyone's life yes
it's terrifying actually so okay so
these are all elements of dominance
so
going back to set of principles you're
mentioning
getting your center of mass under theirs
which i think applies for type of um
like the forward say nagi throws is
there is there other stuff
um obviously you mentioned off-balance
yep there's the off-balance one where
you can either pull to get an off
balance
or you can give way to the force
which can also lead to an off balance
um
you can amplify somebody's force to so
for example
if you push me
you expect a certain
reaction that you're ready for
but if you push me and i pull you
now you didn't expect that much force
coming out of you therefore you're off
balance
the thing that's distinctly recognizable
about judo
is like when done at the highest level
like it's it seems effortless when the
big throw happens yeah like that's just
it doesn't there is no other sport like
it in the combat sports where
it's like when the timing is right
everything just is perfect i think you
you get that mma and um
boxing sometimes when this is another
scout yeah perfect strike just like yeah
where they it but it's not just like a
hard hit it's like
it's almost like the with conor mcgregor
and aldo for example when you just catch
him just right that's right
and that he didn't look like he hit him
that hard yeah but he hit him just right
yeah and like you get to see this all
the time in judo it's fascinating and so
the beginning part of that
is because there's a jacket
there's also this whole thing that
you're master of which is like which is
gripping yeah so is there something you
can say about
are there some fundamental principles of
gripping that you can speak to
like what the hell is gripping
gripping is having the ability to
hold your opponent in such a way where
you have the ability to be offensive
and also the ability to be defensive at
the same given time
and
[Music]
it's a distinction because i can hold
you in such a way where
i might be able to feel offensive
but if you can take a purely defensive
grip and then i can't be offensive we
are no longer gripping we are holding
each other
right
right so like that would be the act of
being able to grip is to be in a
situation where you have me and i have
you and i can play both offense and
defense at the same time where you can
only play defense
so donahue talks about like jiu jitsu
that way and not that way but maybe you
can see if there's a distinction so you
have a set of weapons the other person
has a set of weapons you want to
sort of maximize the use of your weapons
and shut down
the set of weapons that they have that
they have
you see gripping the same way on the on
the feet
i do if we want to include body
positioning with our gripping
all right okay because i can give you
any grip you want and you still can't
throw me because i can put myself in a
position that nullifies your ability to
use those grips in a successful way
and those um would you say the hips are
critical to that or is it i think hips
shoulders chin position head position
you know the angle of your foot yeah
where you lean
wow okay and so uh and there's a bunch
of places you can grip obviously if
people like kind of think of a jacket
like there's a bunch of places you can
grip that are interesting so you can
grip on the collar
you can grip on the sleeves you can grip
like at the elbow joint yeah and you
could do uh those bad ass like
eastern european georgian over the back
back over the opposite sides of the
heads yeah yeah the koreans that grab on
one side around the head with their
hands together yeah there's something
really nice about just those like i mean
especially george just throwing that
hand yeah just over the person and just
it's you're not actually gripping a belt
or anything you're gripping just the
entirety of like as opposed to being all
nice so i'm gonna grab this part of the
jagger this part of the jacket you're
just like taking the whole fucking
jacket and just launching somebody for
those people that can't picture
judo think about it in like if you
understood like what a boxing match
looks like
and you thought about that as like
traditional gripping
when you throw like a russian grip over
the back that's more like a hockey fight
like i'm just grabbing you and we're
just gonna
we're gonna be throwing punches left and
right because when we have that grip
somebody has to get thrown yeah there's
no there's no we don't walk around with
this grip it's it's go time once
somebody throws it
to me as a as a fan and sort of amateur
practitioner
there's two styles of olympic level judo
one is where you're trying not to get
thrown
and the other is where you're trying to
throw
more specifically when you're trying not
to get thrown there's like the strategy
they're using gripping to
nullify their offense and all those
kinds of stuff you're you're being very
clever and strategic and all that you
know maybe using conditioning
and then there's people who just like
step in the pocket
and they don't almost don't care if
they're getting thrown because they have
the confidence that they're going to
throw first yep and those like there's a
clear distinction between the people
that do one or the other and i think
both can be done extremely successfully
at the highest level it's just like
obviously you admire the people that
step in the pocket and and i think when
you look at the people who do judo
the best like if we want to talk about
like
the top 10 percent of the people who
would compete at the games
they do both
and they do both
really well but they favor one
because
if you look at a player like uh
lutetiliani of georgia for example
there's a guy that stands in the pocket
but we can find numerous occasions where
he's hustled some people for like a
short period of time to get out of
scenarios to
elongate the match to make somebody
tired
so you want both sides of the coin
but you better pick the one that
you know eighty percent of your strategy
is going to be built around
sorry for the romantic question but i
talked to dan gable and uh
he always looked to the russians as um
as the artists in wrestling
and uh he always wanted to be an artist
but i think he's known for being that
sort of uh guts aggression mental
toughness guy but he always was drawn to
the artistry of wrestling it's hard to
know when you just
watch you because it looks like you're
aggressive and you got the guts and the
mental toughness but there's also
obviously a mastery of technique which
would you lean towards in terms of
what accounts for your success and just
the way you approach judo is it the
the guts the aggression the mental
toughness
and or is it the mastery of technique
the artistry
mine would be my
my aggressiveness if i'm gonna pick
those two areas
um
but i think there's a third area in
there that i would put myself in where
i'm more of a strategist
i look at all of my opponents
and all i ever see is their faults
and the way i do judo is built around
their faults
and it's just i put myself in scenarios
where i don't even know how i'm going to
win
but what i've done in those scenarios is
i've made it very difficult for you to
win
and then i figure out the rest as i go
like how do you study an opponent
are there bins you can put them in like
there's a lefty and a righty or yep
this kind of stuff how many bins are
there in judo in your mind that you put
your opponents in
yeah there's probably about 20.
there's like certain players who you
could put in a category of like
they're only good for the first you know
two-thirds of the match
after that they turn into a different
player where they're either falling into
a sense of panic
or uncertainty and you can if you were
to take a video clip of let's say
church's philly right they got george
and i beat in the olympic semi
he's somebody that would beat you in the
first three minutes and if you clipped
out all of his matches and you only
watched the first
three minutes of every match you would
see one style
if you found all the matches where he
got taken into the last minute
and he wasn't winning by a
a major score
you would see a completely different
fighter
and so going into like my olympic semi i
put him into that category of like i
want to get to this guy because this guy
is beatable
the trick is how do you get there how do
you get there and by the way we're
talking about the 2016 olympics where
you won the silver medal you're part of
uh three different olympics but the
cardio
aspect of it
have you faced exhaustion often in your
matches where you have to go deep and go
like past
yeah but that's not from
the judo side of it that's from like i
did a very bad job of making weight it's
always the way cut yeah it's always the
weight cut
and i think people really struggle
with that they blame cardio and training
and everything else but
when it really comes down to it like we
train for an hour and a half two hours
twice a day
how are you tired after five minutes
right right it becomes into a mental
struggle your anxiety your stress your
lack of belief in yourself
or in my case sometimes it's poor
nutrition sometimes i had one too many
mcdonald's meals it just
it happens okay so let's talk about wig
cutting real quick
so
i've i've seen weight cutting
break some of the toughest
fighters wrestlers grapplers ever like
burn out break like where they makes you
want to quit the sport yep um so you
know this is what people don't often
talk about but mentally is one of the
hardest things especially when you're
doing it kind of wrong
because it becomes a mental war
um so you competed like you said your
whole career at 81 kilograms
you walked around at
88 89. so about 15 pounds
sometimes 20 pounds
over that give or give or take
and so what uh
what was your process like mentally and
physically first of all maybe you can
comment on when the weigh-ins are
relative to the mattress and then what
was your process like leading like a
week ahead a day ahead
an hour ahead minutes ahead of the the
weigh-in
man everyone
varies tremendously because we're not
like
most sports because you're dropped off
in foreign countries with
who knows what right some places have
sauna some places have treadmills
i went to a place one time in china in
the middle of winter where the roads
were frozen with ice and we had to use
our hotel rooms because
it was you couldn't sweat outside
because it was too cold right
um and every one of my olympics the
weight cut was different just given my
mass when i went to 2008 i was probably
like
80 to 83 kilos walking around so weight
cutting wasn't a thing for me
in
london we actually weighed in the
morning of so weigh-ins were at like 6
a.m
and the olympics were always beneficial
to me because they actually don't start
until like 10 or 11.
so you actually were able to recover
where on the circuit you would weigh in
at 6am and the competition started at
8am it's like well i was cutting weight
at 5am
and most of it for people who are not
familiar but maybe you can also correct
me
most of it you're really just getting
the water out of your system it was
water at that point yeah
like 24 hours before even like so are
you like an hour before
but yeah but like leading up to it um
and do have you eaten the day before do
you try to minimize the amount of food
in your system my weight cutting process
was a little bit different than than
most people because
i like to eat
um
i'm not
i'm not the type of person that believes
your athletic career is determined by
your nutrition
right i don't i don't believe that i
think some sports are built that way but
when it comes to combat sports like
you know your ability to knock somebody
out has nothing to do with whether you
had a cheeseburger or a salad
my ability to throw you is not
determined by that i may be able to
perform better because i've eaten a
certain way
but not enough to justify an entire diet
change
your body is built and my body is built
to operate with certain things that i've
had in my system for years
yeah i think
i'm with you but i also believe that
there's a
mental aspect so if you're surrounded by
people that tell you diet matters
then if your diet is off you're going to
believe you're going to be off because
the people around you tell you your diet
should be good so yeah
i think it's like
it's the same i i've had an argument
with matthew walker who's uh
who's a sleep scientist about sleep and
it's like if you believe sleep is
essential it's essential to get eight
hours of sleep every single night
perfectly
then you're going to be very stressed
when you don't get it and then i think
it will negatively affect the stress
will negatively affect your longevity in
all kinds of aspects of your life
if you actually just learn to truly
listen to your body become a scientist
for your own body with sleep and food it
might end up that it will be the eight
hours a night or whatever but it might
be something else and probably die here
i remember when i was meeting with the
usoc nutritionist after
london it was probably around
[Music]
2014 i think
and
when we had our team meeting at the
beginning of the year and i was talking
to him he was talking about the
nutrition plans that he could put us on
and i was like time out i've done the
usoc thing like i've done the couscous
i've done the lemon in my water
i go
i'm full shit the kind of goose
oh boy like there was just because
there's like a cookie cutter plan right
right and i was like
look here's what i want you to do i go
i'll listen to you
but you're going to walk into the
7-eleven across the street from the usoc
and if you can't buy it in that 7-eleven
it's not on my plan right
i go because i go to places where
the only thing i can eat is pringles and
a snickers bar
i've done that like i've flown to
azerbaijan stayed in a hotel where the
restaurant is closed usa judo hasn't
paid for the meal plan
and the only thing that's available is
the thing across the street so you were
eating
pringles before fighting a grand slam
event while cutting 20 pounds and and a
snickers bowl yeah
that's the visual of that that's some
like that's some rocky shit okay build
me a nutrition plan go for it because
i'm not paying my own way
to travel with
14 days of food
right i mean that's that's one of the
magic of your whole career and also judo
i mean i'm sorry to say of course you
want athletes to be super rich
and super well funded from an athlete
perspective and the sport to be popular
and managed in an ultra-competent way
but
that's not reality but as a fan it's fun
to watch somebody like you who's
exceptionally driven has to suffer in
all these different interesting ways
it's only suffering if you expect the
other side right i don't expect it i
accept it for what it is which is why i
write off nutrition for athletes right
because it can be done without it as
long as you know to what you said before
like
you don't believe you need it
some people believe they need it
so the mind getting your mind right is
the most important thing you know what i
believe i need what's that a snickers
bar when i'm tired
i want a little bit of sugar makes me
feel better
you want me to see you
uh what are you gonna do
yeah so
i just love the the the visual of you
eating his thinking but that's what it
became but that became part of my
nutrition plan
when the usoc guy wrote my nutrition
plan i was eating a burrito bowl
with brown rice white meat chicken black
beans guacamole cheese two chocolate
chip cookies and a diet coke this is
like chipotle uh it was below co but
same concept same same concept because
chocolate chip cookies because i needed
the sugar i was
i was
88 kilos when i stepped on the scale at
six point three percent body fat
now i got to make 81.
what really yeah
and the usoc was like hey
you know you can't you can't fight 81
anymore you have to fight 90s and i go
i'm already into the quad
i'm not changing i go
build me a plan where i can do this and
now we have to have an acceptable weight
cut like it just what do you want me to
do i'm not the ijf i can't just change
the fact that it takes two years to
qualify
i know where i'm at i know what i have
to go through and i accept the
consequences it is what it is we want
all right so what was the process i mean
can you can you speak too so you you
wake up early in the morning the the day
of the weigh-ins a few hours before
technically my weight cut never started
until i got off a plane
and to a hotel
and how many hours three days
so it's a three day cut to three days
mentally you're thinking of it that way
yep and then you're still eating i eat
every day and then like what do you load
up on water maybe as you start and then
nope or the the water stops just it is
what it is
[Laughter]
so use i mean it's a slow
you're not actually like
sweating all three days yeah
but then it's like torture to sleep
part of the process
are you able to sleep sometimes
it depends
so you're dehydrated further and further
dehydrated with six seven percent body
fat
trying to lose 10 pounds i even
developed a way to drink water out of a
bottle where i don't drink anything but
i feel like i have
uh swishing it what's the no so like i
take like a bottle of water and like if
we were to like to draw a line on it i
would tip it and i would go like this
and you would draw that line but like
i've drink now water for 20 seconds or
whatever it is
and i feel like
i get the fix yeah brain told me i got
there
no problem
that's amazing man you just
your mind's a very powerful tool and
the the problem a lot of people have is
they don't accept the reality of the
situation
they bitch about the reality of the
situation i just
of all you could always quit
right
yep so like you're not ex never missed
wait never never
you can you can perform poorly you can't
miss wait don't miss way don't miss wait
because you you can always win
regardless of how bad the weight cut is
you can never win if you miss weight
but your brain is also really good maybe
not your brain
but
i know my brain i think most people's
brains are good at generating the more
desperate things become the better it's
generating excuses
so what were you doing with your mind
that
resulted in you never
missing weight the plan
so
like i said like my weight cut would
never start until i got to the hotel
because
i didn't check my weight the morning of
i didn't check my weight when i got
there
i just while i'm traveling i'm doing
things at like a minimal level
but i'm never not giving myself
something i'm craving
if i'm thirsty i'm drinking a diet coke
if i'm hungry
i'm buying a snickers bar i'm buying a
sandwich
i am
and i accept the consequences when i get
there and then when i get there
if i step on the scale and it says 88
kilos i instantaneously know exactly
what it's going to take to be 81. and
then you just follow like a robot follow
a very specific process yep
and then i mean because there's a lot of
seconds in three days
seconds and minutes and you just i just
know exactly what it takes from my body
i know exactly what a one hour gym
workout wearing a sauna suit
is gonna take i know exactly what i'm
gonna lose on day one and i know exactly
what i'm gonna lose on day three because
they're not the same so i can instantly
look at a hotel
decide is there a bathroom sauna gym
temperature of the gym
access to the gym and when it is
access to the judo mats my training
partners
the roads versus street lights the
weather outside i can take a look at
that environment and say this is my
weight this is weigh-ins and
instantaneously in my head there's a
plan to make weight and you have a sense
of how much sweat adds up to
to 10 pounds how much sweat plus time
yeah just and i make sure in my plan
all of my meals and how much water i
need in between is allocated to still
make weight because you have to eat or
drink during that time
are you incorporating like mental
exhaustion into this
that doesn't exist
it doesn't no it doesn't do you like
meditators like what did the thoughts
come especially three days we're not
talking about four hours of suffering
i'll tell you this has broken some of
the toughest people in the world the
hardest weight cut i ever had yeah
hardest one
um i fought pan am games in 2015 in
edmonton canada on a wednesday
and i won
so i i've made weight on tuesday
i fought on wednesday where i had to
weigh in five percent of my weight class
so 84 kilos
on wednesday i was 84 kilos i got on a
plane
on
that wednesday night and landed
friday morning in sochi
okay so i've traveled now
i got on the scale all my bags got lost
everything so somehow i flew from
there to here
no bags and i threw all of my stuff
in my bag i wore sandals
one pair of pants and a t-shirt on the
plane because i was like
i'm just tired i just fought like i
don't even want to carry it i don't care
what are the odds that i get there my
bags are gone yeah very low very low
sure enough it's gone i get all the way
to sochi i check into the hotel there's
one sauna
guess what you have to reserve it
and you're only allowed to reserve it
for an x period of time guess get a
small tangent
when you found out your bags are gone
this is something i'll often think about
there's like people that are helping you
right like that there's a person airport
who goes yep oops just like that and
then the person at the hotel who tells
you that you have to reserve the sauna
and looks at you like
you're
yep
they don't care that you've been
suffering they don't know
they don't even understand why you need
it yeah like why oh you know oh this
like uh like this little kid reserved it
for five hours or something to block it
off or so i'm sorry
um is there a frustration that gets in
there are you you just accept reality
don't don't even hinder on like the
things you can't change
because the second you get frustrated
the second
you think you can change it you'll hope
on it and that breaks most men yeah
that like little thing in the back of
their mind thinking oh like what if
there's no what if like there's only
right here right now yeah if it doesn't
work it doesn't work let's just quickly
come up with the solution to fix the
problem by the way as another small
tangent all the greatest people i've
interacted with at the highest level
think like that they don't linger on the
no it's like the next thing yeah because
like if you want to do something great
heart stuff is gonna keep happening to
you and if you're gonna let that affect
you you're not ever going to do the
great thing yeah it's fascinating
actually like that's the one skill you
have to learn
um elon musk is great at this constantly
dealing with emergencies okay okay this
happened what's the next step yep
except it's not that big of a deal every
problem has a solution yeah
yeah
and if i can't solve it it's not my
problem
you want me to do it yeah exactly so
what uh so
you figured it out
get this i get to the hotel
i check in
i don't even know about the sauna yet i
go
i need to find a clothing store i'm in
the middle of russia
i open up google maps and i'm like
sports store
i find an adidas sports store in the
middle of sochi russia right
i spend like 500 on like average sweats
no plastics no nothing
and no running shoes because they don't
have any what's the temperature outside
was it cold it was kind of like
springish so it wasn't cold but it
wasn't hot yeah so you still need a lot
of layers preferably
you would need a lot of layers just to
cut the amount of weight i'm about to
tell you i have to cut because
after i bought that stuff that next
morning and mind you it's a friday it's
a friday morning i go to the venue where
we have the mats open to train and i
step on the scale
and then sagan batara mongolia goes
oh pretty good you're almost there
and i go oh no no
no i'm not
i stepped on the scale at almost 94
kilos
and i looked at him and i was like i'm
and he went
good luck
you're almost there
yeah
for the next weight class above uh the
this is on a saturday or friday morning
no no sorry friday morning the the
competition is when
sunday sunday i weigh in sunday
okay
all right like holy crap i throw on all
my layers
and there's one other person with me
there khalida who's my girlfriend at the
time now my wife we start doing judo
because i'm like this will be the
easiest way to knock off like three or
four kilos
well it's cold i have no ghee
and i'm working out with a female i
can't get like overly physical to like
really get my muscles going to really
break that sweat because she has to
compete in a dare to do this she's not a
training partner you can't just use this
person
i stepped on the scale i was 91 kilos so
i went well i was a nice dent but like
workout yeah i go that's that's not
going to fly
so
sure enough the clothes are now ruined
they didn't help me lose any extra
weight
so i go back to the hotel and i start
reserving the sauna
do you know how hard it is to lose that
much weight in a sauna by yourself
so it's hard on many levels but one of
them is just mental yeah
you're sitting in heat heat and you're
not doing anything like if there had
been a bike or like the sauna was big
enough to use a jump rope or
you could do some sort of activity
but you just sit and you stew
and you're there mentally
at one point during the weight cut i
actually had my mouth on the bottom part
of the door where there was a little gap
and my legs up on the benches and kalita
holding the door
so that it didn't open so i couldn't
open it so that i could lean against
that thing and have fresh air
because i was like i was struggling
and we're talking about i mean how many
hours is that hours and then the thing
is is because you have to reserve the
sauna i can't even take like a 30 minute
break because the sauna's not going to
be mine in an hour
which means you have to use the sauna
and the heat
for that a lot of time period
and i hate saunas yeah that is always my
last resort i would use a bath i will
train i will run i will jump rope sauna
is like
oh let me do that for 10 minutes after
all of my gym workouts just to keep the
sweat going while i stretch and cool
down that's never like the hey i'm gonna
do five ten minute sessions because i
need to lose two kilos that is never the
plan yeah
but i mean uh
so i've done plenty of sauna for weight
cuts to know
i can't even imagine what you went
through yeah the seconds slow down
that's one way to achieve immortality is
like the time slows down to like a stop
and
you're left alone with your thoughts you
can't do anything just like you said you
can't there's nothing worse than sitting
in that kind of heat for 10 15 minutes
yeah and then you walk out and you're
not even sweating
yeah there's nothing worse than that and
if you like it maybe if you weigh
yourself which you should probably
shouldn't be doing because it'll break
you yep you haven't lost anything yep
and i was weighing myself every time
because
i only get breaks when i was hitting
weight allotments so if i could lose .3
in 10 minutes i'd give myself a break
but i had to hit certain numbers
because i only have the sauna for a
certain amount of time and i remember
one time i went downstairs to get my key
to the sauna and the japanese team had
reserved it and took it from me
because the guy didn't put my name on
the list when i called down to get the
sauna so i lost an entire session that i
had to get made up towards the later
part of the day because i still have no
running shoes
and then sure enough
my bags show up 30 minutes after
williams
great
that's like uh the universe just kind of
giving you a little wink there yeah
i think like
because so few people do this weight cut
at this high of a level people don't
often realize because people get a sense
of how hard it is to run 200 miles in
the desert
like they get because they go outside
here in texas you can run five miles oh
it's hard but like the weight cut is
really
i can you so you just uh like how did
you do it
just fucking not refusing to you have to
make weight you have to make way and you
just that's
i am astounded when i hear like
ufc plighters like
miss weight
right like
when jaden cox missed weight at the
olympic trials i was like
at least his was understandable because
he missed the actual weigh-ins he didn't
he wasn't like not on weight
but when ufc fighters like miss wait i'm
like
how did that happen
you clearly like gave up a long time ago
there were times where i was like
well i can't do this
there have been times where i've been
in a s in a sauna suit
wrestling with a training partner who's
probably 60 kilos who fought earlier
that day
to lose point three
like are you considering your mortality
in this moment like
aren't you thinking you're gonna die
because like it's severe dehydration you
could damage your body
i do are you thinking about any of this
or no is it just
ah man
okay yes
i'm on the other level too where like
i've been in belgium right belgium there
used to be a b level tournament and the
tournament used to go on and because i
was always on the heavier side like 81
fights on the second day which is the
heavyweight day
um weigh-ins were always at like let's
say 2pm the day before for that
tournament well there was a sauna at the
tournament i remember like being in the
sauna and like oh
i'm 80.9 kilos
weigh-ins aren't for three hours
fuck it i'm gonna have lunch
because i i mentally understand that
what i eat right now is gonna fuel me
for tomorrow so i don't want to skip it
i have the time to put it into my system
and still lose it right
it's almost like a computer program
you're running through the process you
haven't i i get it but like that all
relies on your ability to be um
to get it back off yeah i mean but also
just like go through this process which
is painful it's like those monks who
meditate while sitting in a fire kind of
thing or something right like it that
uh yeah it's a it's really interesting
is there other people
that are critical to this or is this all
internal to you are there people that
everybody has their own
way of doing it um some people don't cut
that much some people can't wait cut it
all
right they would rather have been like
83 kilos fighting 90 then
you know be 83 kilos fighting 81.
so why did you never move up to 90
what's your sense
is it from your deep understanding of
your own judo and like the judo
opponents you would face at 90
and 81 because 81 is probably the
hardest if not the second hardest
division in the history of judo compared
to 73 and
81. you know when i was a kid like
i always wanted to be like the
middleweight olympic champion like the
81 kilo olympic champion
when i was in high school
i made a decision when i was trying to
make weight for 73 i was like
this is i was cutting weight for 73 like
i was cutting weight at the end of my
career
right and i was like i'm just gonna bag
it
i'm gonna accept the fact that i may not
make a junior world team i may not make
this team but i'll grow into the
division so when i'm a senior player
like i'm ready to go and i'll naturally
be stronger there's an understanding of
like a growth process when you move up a
weight class
most people can't just
oh i'm going to fight 90s and i'm going
to win because i wanted 81.
the style of judo is different how you
move is different how they do things is
different there's like a learning curve
that goes into it
and because the weight cut didn't really
happen until i was getting ready for rio
i wasn't about to have my last olympic
games be at a different weight class
that i may or may not be able to grow
into
i mean this is an awesome story of you
kind of decided
that this will be your life's work in
terms of judo
competitor is like the 81 division i'm
going to i mean i don't know if you saw
it that way but you're talking about
three olympics and it's like this
story of
i would say tragedy and triumph of just
wars and 81 kilograms with with the
usual cast of characters of the you know
top five in the world kind of thing so
you just became a scholar of that let
your body grow into it and then let your
body outgrow it and still suffer through
it to keep it in the 81 kilograms
you never competed at like at the
highest levels at 90. i entered one
tournament at 90 kilos um and that was
because
before
rio
from 20 from the end of 2014
all the way up until rios every time i
fought i got hurt
every time
there was no time where i made weight
and got injured because my body weight
was so high my body fat was so low
that by the time i dehydrated enough to
get down there
and you take the physicality of judo and
throw that into the mix
something broke everything
it was like nature of the beast
so the plan was before
rio
we made an agreement with usa judo that
travis you're going to fight 90 kilos
but you're not going to weigh in at 90
kilos like hey there's no like you get
to be 94 kilos and cut to 90s there's
like a you're going to step on the scale
at 84 kilos like a little bit of a
weight cut but not a full one just so
that you feel like you get into like the
tournament because when i
around 2012 when i was talking with the
usoc nutritionist i actually got my
weight down so much that i didn't really
need to cut weight
the problem is i wasn't cutting weight i
didn't feel like i was competing got it
right there you have to go through like
that mental process
and i never really reworked that it was
easier to just cut the weight and be
ready to go
but when i entered into the 90 kilo
division i was rushed to the hospital
the night after because my body broke
out in hives
like full body my dad they said it was
stress induced
fascinating so a month before the games
i was hospitalized and hungry
and filled with steroids to get the
hives to drop and every couple days
my body when i got back home i would end
up in the hospital because my whole body
would break out again i wonder if it's
like deviating from the process that you
so like perfectly crafted already or it
was stressed from my mind thinking like
even though it's not
top of mind there's probably a portion
of me that like the olympics is coming
around and it could be my last
that like my body just reacted to
something chemically so i was breaking
out in hives i actually bought like a
600u euro
hugo boss suit because when i was in the
netherlands training at the time
i thought i had bed bugs because i was
getting bit everywhere
then i thought there was something in
the detergent at the local thing so i
threw away all my clothes
like i was paying for showers because i
was trying to get the detergent off my
body and buying new clothes at the
airport
trying to figure it out trying to figure
it out just go yeah accepting the
situation i mean but the level of stress
is exceptionally high here can we talk
about the other side
people are going to love this
but you're
um you have a long history of
persevering through
injuries
through insane amounts of injuries
uh my ability to tolerate pain is
probably more than most people
but see injuries aren't just pain right
it's like um it's also mental like
psychological like again like the weight
cut it can make a lot of people quit yep
can you
tell your history of
injuries what are the biggest injuries
the toughest injuries in your career um
starting from
what your early teens my early teens um
i actually got out of sports
from 11 to i say like 15 years old 16
years old because
a kid shot a double leg through my
kneecap and i partially tore all the
ligaments in my knee cartilage meniscus
the whole nine yards
and i had to learn how to walk again i
spent two years in a leg brace crutches
you know hobbling around the schoolyard
that one was a challenge to come back
from
i've broken
most of my ribs
i won nationals with nine broken ribs
i was actually getting
novocaine shots into my chest to avoid
feeling the pain
and then wrapping them to try to
make sure i didn't pop along
i've broken my collarbone um i have five
herniated discs in my neck
i fractured my back twice
i've broken my tailbone i tore my si
joints
i've torn my right hamstring twice my
left one once
um
[Music]
broken my ankles a few times i spun it
once in a 360 that had death surgery
fingers toes elbows shoulders
so all of these are first of all
you're um
you're tough
you're tough dude man
so each of those have a story behind
them
so if you're talking about the
collarbone or the ankles
uh or or the back the neck
is there interesting stories here that
behind these injuries heart training
heart competing
jiu-jitsu judo
on so ground stuff like
uh sparring in the dojo or like drilling
or all that kind of stuff
if you were to sort of break it down
your understanding of this the landscape
of injuries you went through
i've never had one in jiu jitsu
ever
i mean i might have like torn a
fingernail or like
you know gotten g burned but i've never
been like
seriously injured i know when ponza
straight ankle locked me at copapodio
that
hurt but i wasn't injured like it felt
sore
but like if i had to run like i could
run
i can now understand probably exactly
what the injuries came from then
you're very quickly excelled at jiu
jitsu
you have achieved another level in judo
and i think that means
the intensity with which you approach
judo
to achieve that world-class level
probably is the source of the injuries
yeah because
the mentality of how i
approach judo versus jiu-jitsu
jiu-jitsu to me is
like a game that like we would play like
if you wanted to like grab a basketball
and like go play a game of one-on-one
that's like jiu jitsu to me like i can't
take
the sport in its entirety seriously
because i feel like the community of jiu
jitsu doesn't take it seriously so just
for people who don't know just to set
some context
you're you're a black belt in jiu jitsu
but more importantly you've beaten a lot
of world-class jiu-jitsu people
you've done very well at the highest
levels of competition yeah i wouldn't
necessarily say i've beaten them as much
as
i've trained with them
and
they understand whoever it is that
through training with me
that like i'm not just a judo guy
like i know how to do jiu jitsu
right and
if any one of them were to come to me
and like say hey you know
i want to feel what it feels like to do
judo with me
they would quickly understand that like
the way i approach one is very different
than the way i approach the other like
we probably wouldn't be friends if they
did judo with me versus if they did jiu
jitsu with me i'm curious asking for a
friend because mostly because i'll do a
little judo with you today
so you clearly because you're a great
instructor and teacher you have a mode
where you can demonstrate a technique
do you know how to like spar where
you're going like
50 percent
it's hard to put like a percentage to it
because i've never in all of my jiu
jitsu ever gone 100
in jiu jitsu yeah like i had a
conversation with salo one time
where we were talking about like
jiu jitsu and training and i was like
well if i got his arm i would just break
it
and he was like
but what if he tapped i go that's not my
responsibility
if he taps and the ref doesn't say
anything you just break it you just keep
going yeah he goes but the tap means
it's over and i said no the ref tells me
when it's over i go
i never give you the opportunity to tap
because if you have the opportunity to
tap that means you had the opportunity
to think about how to get out make a
decision that you can't
then tap i clearly operated too slowly
yeah so there's a it's either broken or
i don't have it
you're an external
person to go against in judo like the on
the grounds like everything you did
that's that's amazing
um that's really amazing that's what
made you a really fun person to watch
because you really went to war with
these people yeah
so you know what it's like to go 100 in
judo i do because i know
what it's like to
train with somebody under the mentality
of
i'm going to do everything i want to do
you're going to do nothing you want to
do and you're going to accept that
do you ever train in judo where where
you let people get stuff of course
all the time
now or like always
even when you're sort of building up the
four years building up to the olympics
like they're smaller guys that are
throwing you in the gym and that kind of
stuff no i never said that okay
that never came out of my mouth
i said i let people do stuff i never
said smaller people throw me oh you mean
you let him get a grip but then you'll
position yourself in such a way that
it's it's hopeless it's like
the number one skill set that
judo is going to teach you is
the ability to give people false hope
because i can really looking forward to
the video we're gonna shoot
like i can let you take a grip yeah i
can let you think that there's
opportunity but what you don't
understand is by the position and angela
that i'm in
it's actually false hope yeah like
as long as you don't know that it is
then now i'm free to operate and do what
i want see i competed in judo against uh
black belts where i would go in
and it looks like it should be able to
throw them and then you just hit a wall
and then i also saw you destroy those
black belts yeah so there's levels to
this yeah it's the the cliche thing
there's black belts and there's black
belts
you're unique in this there may be a
couple other
jidoka in america but you're really like
unique i then get to see people
that really i felt like
were 10x better than me it just feels
like that sometimes i've learned that
madness that would be true
might only be
just a little better but i saw you
destroy them
and it was like holy shit
there's a thing in judo right where
you know imagine like you as like just
an adult
right
um
and i i hope people can like
conceptualize this when they hear this
but imagine like you're a full-grown
adult even
male female doesn't matter but there's a
little kid in front of you like call him
five or six years old and he's acting
out
like do you think you have the physical
capability of with one hand grabbing
that person
or that kid and making sure that they
freeze
like they feel like they're nervous and
like they can't do anything right
when you fight a good judo player when
they grab you
that's what it feels like as an adult
yeah
when people even i've felt that from
like certain players in japan like when
they get a grip i'm like
i've now lost the function of this one
yeah that's a really good way to put it
i think
i could potentially beat some of the
people i've
went against
but certain grips they took it made me
feel
powerless yep i was like i didn't know
this was possible that kind of power was
possible and you don't even know where
it originates from yeah because you're
like how does one person's hand do this
where i can't use my whole arm yeah or
like i can't pick up my right foot
because he's holding on to my right
sleeve yeah it was kind of um
on a basic animalistic sense kind of
terrifying
it's uh i mean you don't want to
part of this is like ego
but you realize that there's a food
chain and you're not at the top of it
that's part of the humbling process i
think of martial arts it's like
i think everybody
um like a lot of people
think they're much higher in the food
chain than they really are and then when
you realize this is why it's a really
healthy process for people they're not
even competing in the olympics to
practice martial arts because you
realize okay that like putting yourself
more accurately in the food chain is
really good
way to sort of place yourself in the
rest of the world it humbles you to the
reality the harshness of the world yep
it's kind of like when people look at
like survival in the wilderness it's
like oh it's not that hard
no you'd probably die in a couple days
same thing with like judo and martial
arts like
yeah it's really not that hard
but you don't know what to do yet
and so when you find out that first time
that you don't know what to do
it's devastating to a lot of people but
those that like stick through it and
like
start to learn it's a very powerful
like feeling that now like you can take
care of yourself
and i think i want to talk to you a few
times before
you talked about that there's like like
the top three the top five in the world
i don't know where you put them but
they're they're another
like level
here yeah
and the fact that you're i mean it's
it's so exciting to me
uh probably because i just felt all the
levels here
and i have seen you and others at that
height destroy
those i've i have seen the exponential
levels to this game
it's incredible that you're
didn't quit
didn't doubt yourself and just
persevered through three olympics
to get to that highest always fighting
at that like very highest of levels but
just like
you know from the top 10 to the top five
like really breaking in through that
i don't know um
what would you say it took to get to
that highest of levels like if you when
you look back to all the weight cuts to
just the insane amount of injuries
believe it or not i didn't really think
i was there until
2013 i thought i was recognized as one
of the best
because i was able to fight for
oppensburg which was the professional
bundesliga team for germany which is one
of the top clubs in all of europe
um when they asked me to i felt like
europe had like accepted me as like
oh
i'm a top level judo player
but i don't necessarily think that when
i signed on to compete for them that
the division or the world of judo saw me
as a top level judo player
right there's
there's a
mental shift that happens along that
point
and for me
my mental shift really came into play in
december of 2015
before rio that was like
when i lost in japan that's when i
realized like the world
respects my abilities and they compete
against them
they don't compete against me as a
person
they compete against
the idea or
the
the persona that i've been able to
establish over the years of competing in
the division wow so you're the
they probably have a nickname for you
you're the system
of ideas and thought that they study but
they're studying
me as a conceptual whole
not me as the human
is your style relatively unique
in the 81 kilogram division it was
relatively unique for kayla i and jimmy
up until 2016.
now since 2016 you can see a lot of what
we used to do
throughout most of europe and even asia
like you're starting to see some of
those techniques that you didn't see
before
starting to get implemented
because
when i was
when i was gearing up for 2015 i had
such a slew of injuries
that entire calendar year that i never
should have made it to rio i should have
called it quits at the end of 2015
because
i suffered that major concussion in
february i stepped on a mat in may for
the first time i lost five straight
tournaments i left the national team
went to japan
won pan am games got a bacterial
infection at the worlds almost had my
leg cut off
tore my si joint later on that year and
then took fifth in japan
and when you look at like the calendar
year as a whole
like the world should have treated me
like i was washed up like this guy
hasn't been training he hasn't been
doing anything but i took fifth in japan
now how does a guy that hasn't trained
all year
take fifth at one of the hardest
tournaments in the world on two weeks of
training
because they were fighting the guy i
used to be
not the guy i was at the tournament
which means they were competing under
the idea of like
what is he really capable of
not what have i brought to the table
today
and that just gave you the confidence
and that told me that like
well if i can take fifth and i'm this
bad at judo right now
wait until i'm healthy and i'm back in
shape
then they're not gonna know what hit
them
one of the essential components of being
the number one in the world or up in
that
place is that confidence the self-belief
and the rest of the world believing it
you can have all the confidence in the
world but if the rest of the room
doesn't buy it
it's nothing
that's funny it's like there's certain
people right with tyson
uh mike all understand he could not
train and they're still scared yeah
right like he doesn't have to work out
that hard anymore there's several judo
you know this way better but from a
spectator perspective like iliociliatis
is like that he's one of them
it's like he
he's portrayed over the years everyone's
so scared of that guy
it's interesting yep i people were
scared of you too people just gave a
certain level of respect to my skill set
and whether i had a bad weight cut or
didn't have a bad weight cut or not
trained for the last three months which
never happened i'm just saying
they were gonna fight the persona
and it's an important distinction when
you're looking at the top five because
everybody coming up
they're training against the persona
not who you are even i did that at a
younger age
that's why i would always go to people's
hometowns because like i don't i don't
care about the persona i want to know
what you do day in and day out
when i couldn't beat a russian i told
jimmy send me to russia i need to i need
to understand and see it with my own
eyes
what they do outperform so that i can
believe
that i can beat them
casca and this is a small tangent so
uh dagestan has produced some incredible
wrestlers i don't know what the story
where judo is where
the source of source of greatness in
russia is for judo but what do you make
of dagestan why
what is it in the culture of their or
russia broadly that produces greatness
specifically in the combat sports
i don't know yeah specifically in the
combat sports sorry uh but i don't know
if you want to draw a distinction
between wrestling and judah i'm almost
curious do you understand the
differences there in the culture
still a combat sport to them they're
still in that same like
realm of their taking young kids
and
that that's what they do
so khabib speaks very highly of judo yep
like it's funny khabib vladimir putin
people don't get it but like judo is
like
one of the premier sports in the world
but we just don't understand it it's not
just popularity so definitely popularity
but also like this respect
and
there's a certain thing
which is why i really value judo
internationally you don't get this in
the united states but internationally
there's an understanding
like later in life when you're a
scientist meeting a businessman
when you both have done judo there's
this like nod of respect yeah it's so
interesting uh just very few sports like
that you know basketball doesn't have
any i don't know almost any sport like
that and it's fascinating wrestling has
that in the u.s yet it's the us only the
rest of the world doesn't do that
there's a few like you could see that in
like iran or something like that yeah
they'll respect wrestling in that kind
of way
yeah it's um but judo on like a global
scale is probably that only one
due to its like
physicality and the hardships that you
have to go through
to reach that upper level so why do you
think dagestan why do you think khabib
is as good as he is is there is this
just the raw genetics of the human or is
there something about the system the
system
it all has to do with the system
so they um
they grow up around fighting in all
forms yep
um they're also i mean their technique
is exceptionally good because they they
grow up in it they grow up and they
don't they don't understand
anything else so you don't have to it's
almost like you with the weight cutting
it's not like a big dramatic thing for
them to fight it's like it's just part
of life yes and
when you're i don't want to say bread
into it but when you've done it
for
you know i want to say like 90 of your
life by the time like khabib probably
has
right from the time he could crawl he's
probably been grappling in some fashion
thereof right
um
you know when you
as grapplers like you can look at a
wrestler
and having never seen this person before
and go
you wrestled
yeah
why is that it's because he's probably
wrestled since he was like six so the
way he carries himself the way his body
is built the way he grew into it was
framed around wrestling
right so the people in that culture are
framed around
fighting and grappling you're right it's
like
first of all philosophically
psychologically but also just like the
way you move your body yes that means
like when you're young the people you
admire move their body in a certain
certain way and then genetically
it it just as they keep doing that
they're just going to get better and
better every generation yeah
it's just going to keep improving
because they just keep building into
that system of turning them out
and part of it there's like cultural
stuff where
i mean it's such an interesting approach
to wrestling i really want to travel to
dagestan and just talk to them because i
happen to be able to speak russian
because
because there's uh less value for
this kind of materialistic success
that i think sometimes can get in the
way of uh greatness it seems like it
makes coaching more difficult it makes
like following orders as an athlete more
difficult i don't struggle with that in
usa judo yeah because you want more
money
but then more money if not applied
correctly can corrupt the system somehow
can split people up it's just it's same
thing with the prestige around certain
metals over others because athletes
start
chasing
fame
instead of development
yeah
yeah that's i mean uh the satire
brothers are famous for this like
ignoring
ignoring fame ignoring all of this like
focus on the art itself not even not so
it's not even the medals exactly like
you're saying just the purity of like
when you're in it yeah and let everybody
else figure out their stupid medals and
money and all that because it comes it
comes right exactly it's a result yeah
exactly like it's not that you don't
appreciate it but you know that it comes
if you focus on the art there's a
distinction when you're talking about
your athletic career or really any
endeavor right
the problem with goal setting is nobody
teaches the athletes or the people
how to transition from the goal to
reality
right so
when you look at my career as a whole
like when i was getting ready for 2008 i
actually forgot to train for it
i was so happy at such a young age that
i became an olympian that that in and of
itself was a goal that i thought
had to be admired had to be celebrated
that
you know the games are right around the
corner i i didn't really come down off
that high
you're you're the local optima of of uh
just winning the trials
yeah that was it's a big thing it's a
huge thing but then you're just focusing
on the accomplishment not the correct
but at some point right when i
when i went into london
i actually went into london going with
i'm gonna prove i'm the best in the
world because i believe i'm the best in
the world and i believe it from like the
bottom of my soul that i'm winning this
and then you're almost like trying to
tell the universe like i'm accomplishing
this thing because it's a goal
but when i went into rio
i just accepted the fact that i was
winning
it's not a goal like this is happening
you visualize it but i felt it you felt
it right like this is no longer a goal
anymore
like
i anticipating i i can see this coming
down the path because
i'm anticipating that the games is
happening and i'm gonna win it's not a
goal
it's an anticipation and there's a
distinct distinction there
between the two
okay so for people who are just watching
the video of this there should be an
overlay
of uh
young travis this is uh you still had to
make 81. is this still a tough cut here
no this one was relatively easy this is
going all the way back to 2008 so this
is the summer before the games this
probably happened in
june i would say
so this is the
olympic trials so in the united states
you have to
i mean similar to like wrestling you
have to win the trials to qualify for
that particular division to represent
the united states so this is you said
june before an august olympics yep
so here i just wanted to show this match
because
uh what was there there's another one i
think you do a pin you do some there's
groundwork in the other one
but in this one
fighting a teammate
finding a teammate for me former
teammate oh there's an old school double
leg i forgot about that and it's weird
to see
so you so there
um the travis's opponent and he's travis
is setting up here that sanagi
posting his
left arm and getting it done that's a
big that's a big throw
you have too many of those big throws on
uh
on video
because like you often on video you're
going against the best people in the
world it's tough to get like that much
air
and a lot of times the the ones that we
do see and you know the part that a lot
of people don't
experience is
a lot of those times right through
people with that throw
it was in training camps
so by the time i got to the competition
with these guys
they were playing a hundred percent
defense to never let me do that yeah
so you do this
um here are you kind of pulling him down
no he's i'm trying to get him to come up
to come up but are you pulling him down
to get to fake him off i'm not doing
anything with my left hand
uh so here the the opponent's so what
i'm doing right now is his head is like
in my chest
i'm pressing him to get his head to lift
with my chest
so i'm pressing his hand down so i can
use my chest to like pinch my scaps and
roll his head up so he wants to pick it
up
and
and then he i mean doesn't he know
what's coming here
oh no he might not
oh no he knew he was a former teammate
he knew exactly what i was trying to do
and that was a really big step with your
right foot it covers uh about four feet
so you use the distance
and your left
um
catches up in like perfect position yeah
you back it up a little bit
keep going
right there that's this is like an
important distinction between mine and
everybody else's is
because i split his hip um i actually
once i'm able to split i no longer need
his center of gravity below mine
right and when you say split you mean
you put your foot in between
why do that split that four foot split
yes and then when i get my feet back
together it doesn't matter that i'm
under his center gravity or not yeah
that's why my chest is right around his
like
sternum height
for me
yeah so so the there i mean how does he
get uh for people just listening to this
travis steps is like that's a big
huge step gets
like my hip is probably right around his
nipple because he's he's sprawled back
so much yeah that's right so like so
you're how does the physics of this work
you're violating the principle of
your center of mass being under oh i
guess somehow it is
i don't know but he has nowhere to go
he's screwed yes that's the kicker is
the way my
mind works is
in order for him to play an effective
defense
he needs to have his feet firmly planted
on the ground with friction
yeah otherwise he can't press into me to
stop it so when i get him to sprawl back
when i split his legs
he effectively loses that contact with
the floor even though his feet are on
the floor
they're not in a position where he can
drive from them yeah therefore when i
flip he flips so there's a
so there's a natural
like flailing here so he's not falling
forward
you're falling forward yeah he's just
attached to you so like
you can keep him up there and their like
legs would be just flailing yep one of
my one of my golden rules when i'm
training and i get really tired
one of the like mantras i would always
tell myself is i'm gonna put my back on
your chest and then i'm gonna put my
back on the floor
yeah because then you'll be underneath
me that's a good principle to very
simple and it regardless of like all the
chaos and how quickly things are
happening it's something i can just dumb
everything down to and focus on
regardless of the gripping situation the
footwork all of that get my back to your
chest and then put my back on the floor
so this step of getting your back to
their chest
like for for people who are sort of more
like for example for people like me
who are just like amateur judo people
like there's all kinds of ways to
prevent this turn from happening the
gripping and just everything
how difficult is it at the highest level
to get
into this position i mean you make it
look effortless often but like to get to
the position where you're from facing
them to
your backs to them
is that like strategy is that timing is
that timing
it's timing
it's like anything like if i wanted to
punch you in the face like how hard is
it to really do that if you know you can
just play defense and block it yeah the
trick is to get them to play defense to
something that never happened
and then you go through like another way
and then you just go through what would
technically be your first plan if you
planned on them playing defense
so i set the stage from the very
beginning for this to work
so then this you're uh you're
celebrating here it's a huge
sort of uh once a big accomplishment big
relief to qualify for the olympics
and then you go into the olympics and
this is where i first saw judo
and
i kind of thought of them as the same as
judo jiu-jitsu
and i was really impressed by your
performance in that olympics
the footage nowhere to be found these
days but uh um at that time i think you
could still you could watch it live on
nbc olympics or somewhere like that and
i remember watching several of your
matches
one of them was the match against ollie
bischoff the german
and i remember being
it'd be nice if you can talk to that
match because i don't remember it all i
remember
is being frustrated
yep
uh by
him
not letting you play judo yeah
so um obviously you faced him again four
years later and there's a lot of
frustration there as well but i remember
being extra frustrated in 2008
what was that match like so he might
have been number one in the world at the
time or up there he was up there for
sure um especially going into 2008.
he was really high up there yeah and did
he win
gold at that olympics
yes yeah because he's silvered in london
it was the same olympic
final both in 2008 and london yeah
okay so you're facing
him there
were you intimidated what was the
strategy can you talk to that match
because it kind of sets the stage for
the rematch in 2012. yeah he was
somebody that i had trained with in the
past and for some reason when it comes
to him and
i
when we train together
it's more of a physical altercation than
a judo training session
you know like it's just like the coaches
have had to break us up a few times like
you guys get almost like angry too
a little bit it it always goes you know
farther than it should for
we're friends like we say hello to each
other but for some reason when we train
together there's something about like
him and me that just
oil and water i don't know what it is it
could be also the gripping because he's
a great gripping strategist yeah it does
he frustrates you with certain kinds of
grips and then you get pissed off and
then you frustrate him and then he gets
pissed off and then before you know it
somebody's kicked somebody or punched
somebody in the mouth or done something
yeah so one of the only evidences we
have online of you fighting him is you
your foot in his
groin area is the only thing we have
from that olympics from 2008 from 2008
yeah and to answer everybody's question
yes it was deliberate
now you can say this yeah but yeah i
remember there being a lot of
frustration
uh you go you're actually going for a
lot of stuff like sacrifice those i mean
maybe you're not going for the high
scoring epons but you're just trying to
shake things up if i remember correctly
yeah because when he i was so young then
that and he was you know in his prime
really at that time right he was must
have been
24 25
26 you know
world medalist european champion at the
time
and when he would grab me
i would i had that sense of feeling
stuck
like i was strong enough if i used all
my strength to
not let him do anything but then you
can't be offensive when you're using all
your strength to
hold on to the situation
so i was getting really aggravated
because i couldn't i couldn't generate
any offense with every time i felt like
i gained an advantage in the gripping
scenario
he would take some obscure grip
somewhere that was like
well now i've got to go address this
thing give up what i gained and i have
to go back and
it if i were to think about watching the
match now it probably looked like a lot
of flailing because we're just trying to
generate
enough to not get a penalty but also
not enough to where he could counter it
did you think you were you could beat
him like when you were walking into the
match
until i gripped him for the first time
like
because i had trained with him before he
felt stronger and more in shape than
i've ever felt him
that day
at that olympics
which begs a whole nother question but
[Laughter]
i remember i remember when i
when he grabbed me for that first time i
went
this is different
and i there was a sense of panic at the
time because i was like
holy crap where did this come from this
is not the guy
that i've trained with that i expected
because it was a definite like
level change in like his ability
strength speed and stamina
like looking back at that can you
explain that is it just you being more
uh less confident because of the
olympics it was
is there some kind of routine that he
followed to like really level up in
intensity for this particular event i've
been told that
he only gets to like his prime
for
like really big events yeah like he
doesn't train like year-round like i
would train but when it comes to like
the games he doesn't
do social media he doesn't work he lives
breathes eats
his training for the games which could
you know institute that level
what about you is there uh like dan
gable famously said like the one loss he
had in college he was doing a lot of
media and stuff back back then there was
no social media that was a huge mistake
for him
do you do social media do you do like at
that at this point well at that time i
was like aol i don't know what's up i
didn't even have a facebook page uh
myspace nothing at this point yeah i got
my first facebook page from the usoc in
2012. yeah when i went through the media
thing the lady was like
you have to have it i go i don't want it
i don't like people i want to deal with
the people
what am i supposed to do you know like
the social part of the social media no
okay um i i have to bring this up
because uh and then you went on to face
diego camilo uh you lost that match but
he went on to win bronze that's also an
interesting one but we can skip ahead i
just remember being really impressed
both by your ground work
um that was a match i should have won
yeah i should have won that i was
if you don't know judo
you would visually watch that and be
like i'm winning but he was technically
winning on the scoreboard so it is what
it is but the point that he got that
solidified his win
yes it was a point back in those days so
i can't say anything but like
my shoulder nicked the ground so it's
like i don't know yeah a lot of the
stories of your olympic career is like
from a fan perspective it seems like
you should have won or you very close to
could have won yes and there was a lot
of frustration you and your game being
like shut down in certain ways and
but like
the thing that immediately grabbed me in
was how much something about the way you
approached judo
how much you wanted to win
because i was young then
i was
when i was at this at this time in my
career
i was out to like
win like there was no like i'm gonna
grab you i'm gonna throw you and if not
you're gonna go through a battle yeah
you're gonna make sure you earned it
it so happened that you competing in
i was uh i became a fan of yours uh at
that moment and since then
i uh i kind of knew about judo my
university had a judo club and i kind of
knew about jiu jitsu from
martial arts
and uh obviously i wrestled for many
years before and i love wrestling
but there's something about you
competing that made me
well there's no other way to say but it
like changed the direction of my life
because it forced me
to say you know what i'm going to start
judo in jiu jitsu
and first of all for that i'm really
grateful but it's fascinating to think
because this kid is 22 years old i'm
sure i'm not the only one
that you've influenced like you've
changed the direction of my life and
there could be
a huge number of others like that i mean
that's the power of
you as an individual at the on the
olympic stage
you ever think about the pressure of
that did you did you think it's a 22
year old there's a bunch of people
like i know i'm not the only one who
changed i just happened to have
like a microphone recently
you know what i mean like is that
it's fascinating to think about right
like you perhaps you didn't think about
this it's just
just a judo match but you're like you
influenced
hundreds of thousands of people if not
millions is that interesting
it's
it's not something that really
hit me until
um
2012 when i lost
because that's when like
i would say like the world felt bad for
me
at that point and that's when you knew
that like
people were watching
and people were inspired by the loss
because of how much went into that match
yeah
because you know that 99 of us who
watched it thought i won
except for the one percent of the people
who were considered judges at that day
in the event
so
but i mean that's the the winner lose
that that was a really inspiring match
and that's when that's when it dinged
that like
because i don't i don't watch something
and really get inspired by like the
person and the act
it's like a it's an accumulative thing
but for a lot of people like
when they watch how much goes into it
and then when i broke down on the match
like the amount of suffering
that happens when you lose a match like
that and then
you know really coming back and
winning in rio
there's a trend of people who were
inspired
that knew about london and then when
they found out i won in rio that's when
like people like
in droves felt like they could overcome
their own personal obstacles to still
achieve something because they've
witnessed somebody who's fallen
and gotten back up
yeah but it's not something that
you think about like on the day
it's when you look back and you go oh
cause and effect
i wonder if you can comment on that i'm
trying to
realize and live up to
the fact that there's like young people
that come up to me
and i'm starting to realize like
certain words i say will have a long
lasting impact on them yep because you
say it as like
you don't even doesn't just yeah the
whim some of them might come back 30
years later and a word i said was the
reason they quit a thing and started the
new thing that led them to become their
true self like to find success all that
kind of stuff like on the flip side
though some people based on the actions
that we do today even with this cast
will alter the course of their lives
forever i had a guy one time
was it after london
it must have been after london
he actually found me on instagram
wrote me what seemed to be like a
dissertation on instagram about how
much he i disrespected him
14 years earlier because
i didn't step on a podium to take a
picture after winning a tournament where
he bronzed
yeah and i'm thinking to myself like
at the time like
having dinner with my family because i
had to leave the next morning was more
important to me as a person
not thinking about
who you potentially will become
and
the
actions of whatever you do today
if you do become quote unquote famous or
somebody in a spotlight that that could
come back to bite you
to me i don't know about you that that's
that's super motivating
like
not to be
a lesser version of myself
ever
yeah just be on top of your game
whatever that game is be on top of your
game when you're interacting with people
and when you're just in your own private
life i'm trying to make sure that i'm
the exact same person privately as i am
publicly
and like making sure i'm on point i see
like just hanging out with uh joe rogan
a lot i see how he's first of all the
exact same person
and second he he like walks around and
there's like a huge number of fans and
you'll just take pictures and like it's
very cool and it's very cognizant of
like certain words he says especially
young people like they're going to take
that and that's going to be a memory for
them for a couple years yeah that might
be influential for the rest of their
life so yeah
i don't know that's a cool
responsibility
not to fuck it up hey but but anyway i i
bring all that up to just say
thank you
so even if you like were frustrated that
you didn't win a medal at least at least
uh
you influenced one
silly russian kid
to get into the martial arts and what
happens when you get into martial arts
it alters the direction of your life
yeah mine from for for the better okay
so let's go to uh
london 2012 olympics
uh one of the most dramatic
battles
of all time
rematch
yep so you've reached the semifinals
once again to face the german holy
bischoff
do you mind if we step through that
match a little bit
by all means
i've only ever watched the entire thing
one time just because
fucking
so uh for context for the listener um
travis first of all you don't like
losing
i think that's fair to say you know
the the hard part with this match is
because i went into this olympics
thinking
i'm not fucking win the olympics i'm the
best in the world
i never in my right mind thought
oh i'm gonna win a medal like that never
that never crossed my mind
so it's like
i would have rather him just fucking
beat me
yeah because then i lost
so here
the referees as as many people thought
robbed you of a victory but it was also
a really close battle again with
many of the elements of frustration as
2008 in terms of strategically and
gripping wise and it was just a
fascinating battle that went to overtime
uh so
can you set the context so
what what did the bracket look like who
were the players here
um who did you beat leading up to this
match
myself as you walk onto the mat what
happened the day before the the hours
before as you're standing there but how
bad is this is it when just two people
are standing like this
and yes fucking that fucking guy man
but this this bracket
um was really interesting if you look at
like the backstory of 81 kilos like
leading up to the olympics right
because
at this point in time you know
i was inside the top 10 at all times you
know eight seven five four
you know sixes i fell out of there
sometimes due to injuries but i always
climb back in
there was another guy
um
from azerbaijan
that was the olympic champion at 73
kilos in 2008
and
the entire division got rocked
by match one
because his first match was with antoine
vallis fortier of canada
and everybody who saw the draw come out
was like yarza bijani is going to win it
he's the former olympic champion
he's pretty much one of most of the
major events including at 90 kilos
because he just had smooth judo
and
you know match one rolls around
match two rolls around antoine's in the
shoot and he's looking around and he's
like
the azerbaijani is not here
well where is he
no joke he runs into the venue
a match before
throws his gui on and runs onto the
olympic platform
loses to the canadian in like a
three-minute golden score battle
so do you think he warmed up
didn't he ran he literally
ran into the venue threw his gui on and
ran out didn't know judo
and there you see antoine
losing in the quarters
so how good was antoine
at this point in time this is i believe
his first international medal was the
olympic games
so i don't think he'd ever meddled in
paris um he went into this bracket
unranked
beating the ranked guy
first round because he
i don't know if he missed the bus
i don't know if he was off his cycle and
planned on losing because he didn't want
to test positive i don't know
there's a lot of like
questionable things out there that could
have potentially caused him to
you know
run onto the olympic platform for match
one
but
you know
it
it catapulted antoine into like a belief
that like
i beat the seated guy i'm i'm ready and
that was like a turning point in the
canadians career just as a whole
right that's that everybody has a
defining moment
like mine was when i beat bishop
in dusseldorf at the grand prix for
germany
after 2008
right i beat the olympic champion in on
his home soil to go win the entire
tournament so we all have like those
moments it's just when it happens at the
games it throws the bracket like into a
tailspin because typically you'd know
like who's going to beat who where it's
going to happen
and when you look at my quarter final
against the brazilian
what most people don't know is i was i
was so thankful i had that match most
people would never in a million years be
like
i want to fight the world number one at
the olympic games that's what i want to
do i want to be the eighth seed fighting
the world number one because i'm gonna
win
i was pissed off at him i was so angry
because
we
we were at the pan am's i think the year
before
and there was a team tournament and i
wanted to fight him i had lost
the
quarters to a cuban i think in like the
first gripping exchange he threw me with
a drop sale out of nowhere i was pissed
so i wanted my hands on the brazilian in
the team match
well the brazilian team's warming up
so i walk up to him no joke i walked up
to him and i go
you're fighting and he goes
not today
and i went are you fucking kidding me i
warmed up i taped up you're the only
fucking guy i want to fight and you're
gonna fucking sit in the stands and read
a goddamn book
i was so angry i carried that anger
because i never fought him until this
day
i was fucking pissed i was ready to beat
him that's right i remember i forgot he
was uh the world number one yeah how did
he um because i remember like being
really excited at that match how did you
beat him i threw him with two hands on
the same side collar yeah like dropped
sail i cross gripped i yanked him behind
me and i threw him deep on wasari and
then the match ended
30 seconds later yeah
i was pumped i was i thought i think
okay if i'm remembering correctly i
thought okay this guy might actually win
gold
that's that's what made for me as a
spectator remembering now
the next match that much more like
painful and then the fans of judo that
really followed the sport
the stats when you look at the games and
my draws i had the worst possible draw
as you ever could have imagined
at both london and rio i fought the
world number one
to get to the final or into the semis or
past the semis
and everybody i fought in the draw
either beat me the last time we fought
or i had never fought before
so i always held a loss going on to the
mat at the olympic games how'd you feel
about that by the way like what were
your feelings about facing the brazilian
first i was so excited this well that
was match
three
in london i fought the slovenian guy
first round who beat me
um where'd he beat me was it the worlds
might have been the world's and then
church's philly i fought in the second
round who threw me for
wasari in japan
and then
leandro who i don't think i ever fought
who was world number one that avoided
fighting me
at the team tournament but i mean every
single olympics you've fought you really
stepped up the only tournament i've ever
prepped for
mentally and physically and just the
whole thing yeah we never trained
through this tournament like we did for
the others or
i would go into it injured all right
well let's talk about you're standing
there next to that uh
to the german
he looks he looked always smaller than
you but you said like strong yeah
um so what are you feeling now jimmy
pedro behind you i was fucking ready to
take his head off
did you have an idea of what you're
gonna do did you try do you're thinking
of winning by epon were you thinking
like going for big throws take or take
him in deep waters i'll grip him what
were you thinking we were about to have
a battle
and
i wasn't going to throw him until he
broke mentally
okay that was
there was no like oh this is going to be
a clean throw that was never
that was never the thought process
so
so here
you know there's going to be a lot of
gripping so we're seeing a shit ton of
gripping
and right here he throws it bang
close-fisted
you got a lot of adrenaline you seem
calm i'm pissed you're pissed like you
don't look serious you just look like
i'm looking at the ref like because he
keeps telling me to get up i'm like i
have blood running down my face
i go
okay
here see blood see he's like oh yeah go
fix it and that's on your eyebrow
somewhere yeah he split it just
underneath it so you split your eyebrow
and so in judo they don't they're
allergic to blood
probably for a good reason but they
so now you have to try to figure out
how to uh tape that up yeah
which already sets up one of the most
badass
looks in judo history
first 15 seconds yeah busted my eye open
was that getting in the way of your
eyesight at all or no no
damn he looks good at gripping how
difficult is it to get a grip on that
guy very
like i'm struggling just to get my hand
in the collar and he wasn't even
blocking it is he being caged yeah
remember like
is he interested in offense nope he's a
very cagey
you know methodical player
like he he never opens himself up yeah
there you go you grab the leg as part of
a combination yep
and people have told me that he's
actually very good at throwing people he
just doesn't
so but he just doesn't show it at these
no because he
he doesn't care how he wins he cares
that he wins yeah which makes him very
difficult to beat
because he knows when you've strategized
to do that
where you look at the rule set and you
develop a plan to to get through the
matches then
you've really got to figure out a way to
get that person off that game plan
you know whether you get a head by a
penalty or something
right there
like
he wouldn't give me the sleeve so i
grabbed all of his fingers oh nice in
which i just opened
like to like this way or i grabbed them
the other way and i started lifting them
uh yeah i started nice first playing
mercy like this
yeah
is great because he wouldn't give me the
sleeve and i needed an attack
and i'm like okay i can't hold on to
this forever because that judge is going
to see it so let me just do a quick
throw here while i'm using the fingers
and then you're just holding on yeah
and then i just
and then yeah he goes to get up and i go
to get on top and right here
nice that elbow you get him oh you got
him yeah it looks like i elbow him
did you do it kind of no i didn't even i
at the time i never knew this happened
yeah until after i watched this like
three or four years later
didn't even know i didn't even feel it
look at that so he's legitimately angry
here yeah he's angry
and of course you can't you can't move
why would you get this look at this this
moment right there is gold if you're not
watching this on video you're missing
out you do you never get this in judo no
i don't know if that's ever happened
that little face-off especially on a
stage like this the reference and then
he brings us in to like talk to us and
he's like hey we're good right like you
guys aren't about to do what i think
you're about to do
ah you put up like hey shake hands again
because the first time we did it that
wasn't good enough well you got to do it
again
the heartbreaking part about this and
why the ijf switched it to an unlimited
golden score
because we fought five minutes um
through the entire
normal part of the match and then we did
the entire
overtime period of three minutes not one
penalty was given
no gripping infractions zero false
attacks like no stalls that's great
there was that nobody was really backing
up yep i mean it was you know so what
was jimmy telling you here
how was he was he talking to you at all
he's not allowed to talk during medical
things and my nose is now broken but
he's also oh the nose is broken from
what um i caught an elbow from him
glad his face is clean that's fun
and right here like i was pissed i was
so angry at the medic because he's
fumbling around and i'm like my whole
plan is to break the german mentally
yeah you got to hurry up with the tape
man like
he's supposed to be tired like he's not
supposed to be resting
is jimmy yelling here he can't
no not here not here but during the
match yeah and you can see i just take
it from him and i'm like give it to me
i'm going to do it myself get out of
here
how scared is the medic
it's like this guy's going to can't even
tear the tape
look how nervous he is
[Laughter]
we made fun of him for this yes so much
throughout the years
still due to this day all right here we
go oh you look great
can't really see don't care
was there some outcome in your mind that
you could possibly beat him on the
ground with a submission or a pin you
knew you're gonna have to throw him i
knew i was gonna have to if i was gonna
throw him or armbar him or pin him
whatever the case may be
it was going to be his mental like
i'm just tired of this yeah right he's
too cagey of a player he's too
experienced
you know he has to mentally make that
choice to give that inch
and then you just have to be ready to
take it
so i was just waiting for it
and so now this is four minutes in one
minute left yep
oh
um is that in your game plan two
potential likes assuming engage like
these sacrifice throws to him
because the whole point of that that
technique and the sacrifice throws
wasn't because i thought i was gonna
throw him
but
it disrupts the pattern enough to like
get him to make a potential mistake yeah
like see he should have gotten a cheeto
there
hands in the face
but again that's just part of judo yeah
he poked me in the eyeball
this is a rough match
does he act at all or no like was he
acting frustrated or anything like that
was all
like he's like acting for the ref you
know what i mean like oh that all that
kind of stuff you're just going in yeah
hard non-stop
like angry aggressive
feeling cardio here at all like i don't
i'm not tired during this
and then just always pressing forward
time runs out
now we're into golden score 12 minutes
and 38 seconds later
yeah you think about every judo exchange
right every time we grip up every time
we attack sometimes it can take longer
to get back to the line than the entire
exchange yeah
so the the more aggression the more
exchanges you have the
the the longer the time stretches
then here the six seconds left and
golden score
your tape
is uh
is now
yellow and red yeah
with sweat and blood literally and time
is out now what are you thinking here do
you think you won the match
i i thought i won the match a minute ago
i remember thinking to myself like if
this goes to the flags
i won
no doubt in my mind
because
i felt like the whole time like i was
going to him
yeah right he was never coming at me
yeah that's the way it felt
i think like
that's the way it felt body
language-wise just the intensity how
fast you're moving towards him you're
constantly going for throws
now if you want to rewind that we can
talk about the whole because it's a part
of this clip so wait wait a minute uh
they all went blue they did so in judo
there's three referees two on the side
one in the center and they all vote and
now let's pause it right there now the
way this is supposed to work they raise
their flags they do like a one two count
and then on three they all raise it
together yeah now as a little pretext to
this entire match
up until this point
not one match at the olympic games has
ever been a split decision
meaning out of three people
not one of them voted against the other
group members
so they were all unified blue or all
unified white yeah right which is um
statistically difficult to imagine yes
it's almost like the they had a referee
meeting and said um it's better for the
olympics to never have a split yeah
okay
so the question becomes
if you click that frame by frame
right
so right now we have all the refs with
their flags out
and then click that so the middle middle
guy is
he is all the way up all the way up the
other side judges haven't moved
we now have one side raft all the way up
then we have a third side ref
all the way up
yeah so there there's a the time point
when the middle guy has the flag all the
way up if not 80 90 of the way there
yeah then the other one does
and then the third one goes
uh so now the question becomes who
really
like did the outside refs really have an
opinion
or were they told
to wait for the center one to start
and then
lift whatever flag the center ref picked
yeah this is very unfortunate because
it's very honestly it's very possible
that they had this meeting
um
this this is the problem with
the
the olympics they sometimes
it's also the problem in the soviet
union with communism you think the the
committee
knows what's good for the people and so
on so they decide
universally as opposed to letting the
magic of the olympics
be what it is but nevertheless
the in this case the center ref decided
blue
like what do you think
do you think it's just a shitty call or
like
he has the right to pick but yeah the
problem is is
the other two i don't think did
yeah so
and then so when you do this frame by
frame again
right
like i can see from my own perspective
two of the refs and i see them both blue
right so when you fast forward that a
little bit to get to like all the flags
i see the two go blue and i go
i look over and i look at the other guy
and i'm like
really
yeah all three
i fought for eight minutes and i can't
even get a vote i didn't even get a
penalty
i can't even get a vote
and that's when i broke
i like oh
i couldn't believe it
and i'm not going to lie
he looks shocked
and here you're on your knees
you're crying literally you're right
this is it yeah
but i think it's the end amazing match
that was such a war
i mean both people can't believe what
happened i know that's the and like
honestly i wish we had the rules that we
do today as far as the unlimited golden
score
because
i would have loved to have seen what
would have happened what was jimmy
saying here to you i mean i guess
there's nothing to say
yeah he
he was kind of apologizing for the way
the
the scores went because he knows how
badly you want it he saw the match and
he felt i deserved to win it yeah based
on like you know what happened but he
probably with all his experience knows
that this is what the olympics are about
the refs sometimes yep i mean that's the
magic of it man well and at the same
time we're at
we're in the olympic semi-final
in a sport that's dominated by certain
continents
and when you look at the three refs on
the mat
they're all european
yeah you're telling me there couldn't
have been one pan am one african one
oceana
you know different
like why'd they all have to be european
but to be fair
it's a back to your sauna story
you've dealt with this stuff before and
and you've won over this stuff before
and that's why like i was broken and you
thought you won here those
and when i hindered on that for
a year and a half like i couldn't even
stand i was done
but i'm pretty sure there's a
slow-motion replay on this when i watch
that he's all excited that fucking guy
and he's all happy he's released
hey hi guys
i did it
yeah so here's like
slow motion
replay of the flags being raised the
heart being broken travis just spending
over right here watch watch his reaction
like
he like you could see his mouth like
open and ah like yeah really yeah and
he's looking at two refs just like i am
he didn't celebrate until he looked at
the third one and said oh all three
so you think he knew i think in his head
like
i don't think he really believed he was
winning he did it enough to win yeah
yeah
because when his mouth dropped like
oh yeah hey all three like that's not
really the reaction you would give
yeah i mean that was uh that's one of
the greatest matches i've ever seen i
mean obviously it's painful for you but
that pain
first of all sets the stage for uh 2016
but even without that
i think it was just a beautiful story at
the olympics you've still did incredible
job at that olympics you stood
toe-to-toe
i think
in in hindsight having
lost that match did more for me and more
for the sport
yeah
as a whole me losing that match yeah
i mean stories aren't about
winning stories are about the fighting
so and that made one hell of a story but
it it also has to do with
you know
treachery is probably not the right word
to use it's probably the
wrong word entirely to use but
because of the conflict in the match
and because of how the refs
handled the match there at the end
it created controversy that was spoken
about for
months on world media
right i remember articles being written
about the olympics and
you know the reffing and how it was
corrupt and that match was
one of them there was another one in
fencing where like something happened
with the timer where one of the fencers
i guess what happens in fencing the
timer
resets up a second
if it's down so the fencer got one
second played out i think like 27 or 28
times
and then one on like 30. so like there
was like clock fixing for fencing there
was this match
that i think just got publicity good or
bad publicity is publicity for judo
and then you came back
to uh i mean this is the hard thing
after this hard break to step up and
continue fighting right
i really really struggled
like unbelievably struggled from 2012 to
like 2014. i almost quit numerous times
i was so angry
i mean at one point
i got so mad at the ijf feeling like
they were fucking me every step of the
way i threw a water bottle at a referee
after a match
i cussed out a referee one time on a mat
i got suspended from the sport because
i was just so angry at that point in
time and uh igf is the international
judo federation and they're are they the
people that supply the referees
basically like the they're kind of
getting run the sport they're on global
scale
so
uh
you sent a few emails 2014 15
uh basically quitting one of them said
i'm mentally and physically broken
another said with a subject line i'm
done
yep the weight cuts didn't break you no
[Laughter]
so if this broke you you were really
going through a hard time
i was like you know what
we're just gonna like dumb it down a
little bit and get some wins under our
belt i'm gonna go to a world cup which
is like three stages down or four stages
down from like
the olympic games like this should be
like a cake walk like making the final
of a world cup should be a walk in the
park
i show up
i barely beat a 16 year old kid
barely
then i got smoked in the second round i
got thrown three times
i was like i'm fucking done they changed
all the fucking rules they fucked me out
of the olympics like
what am i supposed to do
and it was at that moment when i wrote
the email
where
i remember sitting at a bar i don't
drink by the way but i was sitting at a
bar
um at the hotel sending this email
and i got a response back from jimmy and
he goes well just
just stay for the training camp go to
germany and then whatever happens don't
worry about it we'll talk when you get
home
i was like fuck that fuck these people
fuck the rules i don't fucking care
anymore i'm just going to do judo the
way i want to do judo if i fucking get
shit out fuck them
that was my response
can you become an olympic champion
can you become an olympic medalist with
that kind of thinking you think or no
was that
that's counterproductive yeah okay
just checking because
maybe that's also liberating
the expectation was no longer that
travis is going to win this tournament
the expectation was travis is going to
come home and be fucking pissed off
we're going to have to figure out how to
manage
a pissed off person that's trying to
quit that shouldn't be quitting
and the people still believe that you
can be a medalist again yeah like who
believed that jimmy believed it the team
managers believed it some of my
teammates still believed it
my training partner still did but
they're not the ones that are
cutting the weight
flying around
feeling like
you know all of your judo is now null
and void right because at this point
they took away leg grabs entirely
you couldn't break a grip with two hands
right the meta of judo has changed again
right so
i got fucked out of it they took away
how i did judo again and now it just got
more difficult
so
when i'm sitting in the hotel and i'm
sending this email
i remember being at the training camp
like
i was like i don't even fucking care
what the rules are i'm just gonna
fucking throw people i don't even care
if i'm cheating it doesn't matter to me
i'll just play stupid yeah
right
so i just started going back and doing
judo without the leg grabs but with all
the same gripping that i was doing
beforehand
and then when i got to germany i was
like
i don't fucking care i was like if i
gotta cheat to win then i gotta fucking
cheat to win if i get cheetoed out like
then i get cheetoed out and i won
germany
uh which event in germany the german
grand prix which is grand prix yeah a
week after losing the world cup because
i was trying to do judo around the new
rule set
i wasn't just trying to do judo
right because when you get to the
highest level
your game tends to morph around
you know what can you can or cannot get
away with
i was more focused on trying to figure
out what i can and can't get away with
and i stopped actively doing judo
once i said fuck whatever the rule
changes are i'm just going to keep doing
judo the way i know how to do judo and
if i get a penalty then so be it
and so that that win
that started the road back it wrote back
yeah
because now it's like i don't care if
you penalize me or not because
i'm going to throw that guy anyways i'm
going to beat him anyways
and if i get a shito for doing something
wrong
then i'll just stop doing that one thing
and just keep doing all the other things
that they told me i probably shouldn't
be doing but they're not calling me on
it so i'm just going to keep doing it
well
you uh
you found yourself at the 2016 olympics
was that ever a doubt by the way after
this after 2014 in germany
i had a lot of doubt after the
concussion in 2015.
i remember
when i first came back after four months
of
nothingness that like
even trying to like train
the room would start to like tilt the
world on me
and then when i finally got over that
and i could start doing things again i
stepped on the mat
for the pan ams and i was like
drowning's not the right word but like
everything was being done in such a slow
motion like i had sandbags everywhere
that like i just couldn't keep up
like mental fog
yeah like i remember fighting the
brazilian for
in the semi-final of pan ams
i was halfway through this match i'm
just like
my eyes roll up i'm like i'm just gonna
fucking wing it i just fucking winged it
and i got countered and thrown free pawn
and i was like i don't even know what to
do and i couldn't even think clearly
and that's when i was like
i may not come back
yeah you don't have control over how to
come back from this it's like it's just
your mind it's not just not operating
i can like oh my right hand's not
working because it's fractured let me
figure out a way i cannot use that like
when your mind's not working like
it's the one thing you need yeah like
you gotta have it so i can work through
anything else i needed that though and
so how did you come back from that time
that's when i wrote another email and i
was like i'm fucking off team usa i'm
not fucking i'm not done with usa judo
i'm done with the tour i was like i quit
i'm gonna go do my own thing
they were like whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa
can't quit now the olympics is in like a
year like let's talk about this again
because it's the second time i've tried
to quit in like two years
right
so then we sit down in jimmy's office
and he's like whoa whoa whoa you can't
quit you're gonna kick yourself if you
don't go to rio i'm telling you right
now don't do that to yourself
let's figure out a way of like doing
this and i was like
because when we trained before we did it
as a unit
right we all went to the same
tournaments we all went to the same
training camps and i'm like you guys are
treating me like i'm the same player i
used to be i go i don't
i'm not operating at the level you think
i'm operating at i go i can't do that
and he goes well what do you want to do
and i'll tell you what jimmy you know
i'm being serious because my answer is
something you'd never would have
expected i go i want you to send me to
japan for three weeks
and he was like
really i hated japan i refused to go
there up until this point
but i was like i have to get to a point
where i can get so tired
and get through it
that like my judo will come back and my
body will learn again
and when you say japan you meet the
kodokan like what
tokai that is that the highest level of
judo
it's one of the top colleges in the
world yeah and that's so you can go with
the best people in the world you can go
to war with them top level like strong
players yeah there's a lot of very
strong players there's a lot of middle
class players and there's a lot of
volume of rounds
so you value all of it the middle class
too like that because when you're tired
like you can't just train in areas where
you're
you're battling for every inch at some
point you have to be successful
right so you still under duress and
under strain and
through exhaustion you still have to
have the ability to score yeah well if
you're training with the best people in
the world all the time you're not always
going to be able to score so you still
need those b level players in order to
really develop again
what is it like if you can comment
briefly on
training in japan what's it like to go
into a different place
you probably don't speak the language
that well
um like is there an isolation aspect to
it is it like purely about judo now
i really wanted to be isolated no
training partners no coaches
i wanted to get back to my roots and
just learn how to fight again
i don't want to figure out how to beat
the german i don't want to figure out
how i can develop a new entry into my
sail against
you know
whoever it may be it's not you're just
i'm going to fight hard
let me get back to fighting let me get
back to like
the root of who i am what were those
sessions like what we were talking about
five-minute rounds like what what how
many six six minute rounds 30-minute
breaks 14 rounds of session
sorry what's the 30-minute break 30 30
seconds break 30 seconds 30-second break
sorry what 14 14 rounds 14 rounds every
day
every day
five five days a week and then 11 or 12
rounds on saturday
plus weightlifting plus running
plus weightlifting plus running so that
those are hard rounds yeah what's it
feel like to go through that so you have
a bunch of uh just a sea of black belts
japan
um i'm sure they're hunting you a little
bit
depending on who you are i was hunted a
little bit like i didn't really struggle
because of who i am
them as college athletes
they want to show to their coaches and
their you know higher players like
oh look i can throw the world number
whoever
but if you're just a guy who shows up
like
them beating you doesn't provide any
value or raise their status no but your
your status raising yes
so i was actually like
in a situation where nobody was watching
me
and i was free to just battle at my own
will okay
which is what it was about for me
and you just pushed yourself because i
knew how to do that i know how to push
myself
are you uh when you're doing these 14
rounds is every single one
a standalone thing for you yep so you're
not trying to pace yourself nope it's
just each one as to as much exhaustion
as i can get but then there must be ones
that were like it's like ground nine
where you're got nothing left better
figure out how to score
it's all you got to do
you got to survive you gotta score
what's your memories of that of those
three weeks what's like what stands out
to you
it seems like um
because that's the place where you found
the silver medal yep
because it's the place most people don't
want to be
everybody's comfortable
i would rather
i would rather find out who i am and
what i'm made of and find those
those endpoints and if i can't find them
then
that means everybody else has given up
before me
were there a few people that just kind
of you returned to battle over and over
in those times and then it was just
yep no social media
no none of that it's just like to
lock yourself in your room you come back
you've thought about it
and you come back with a game plan for
that day
against some players here or there and i
would
i would develop a hit list
like i would be like oh that that
motherfucker grabbed me at like 13 and i
watched him sit fucking four rounds and
then come try to kick the shot at me i'm
gonna fucking grab that guy early and
i'm gonna beat the shit at him
and you just developed that list there's
probably some epic battles in that room
right yeah
uh what's it look like like how crowded
is it very
and so you're just like
yeah it's a sea of people see a people
and you're trying to are you doing
groundwork at all just throws just
throws your throws no transitions no
nothing but if i get pissed off and like
you keep dropping or like not let me do
what i want to do i'll rip a choke right
across your face yeah just to let you
know that like
yeah and if i wanted to you have a
really nice style of just like
respectfully
bullying the shit out of people because
some people call me a bully and i have
to remind them that like
a bully enjoys like
beating up the weak right i want to beat
the person that fights back
right exactly it's not fun for me if you
don't fight back right
some of the greatest people i've seen
like do this they they basically
you have this in the iowa wrestling
rooms they'll push each other into the
wall like they get there's like anger
but it's ultimately underneath it all
it's like a deep respect i was training
with colton brown one time and i went to
san jose state because i was in
california for something
and he kept like he kept circling to the
edge
they had like a cupboard that had like
when you opened it it had like all the
tape and like medical supplies i was
like we'll fucking put you right through
that and he kind of lit he kind of
giggled and then he went by that edge
and i fucking ran them right through it
yeah see to me that's an ultimate sign
of respect that both you and colton will
remember well and we're still friends we
still talk it's just i told him i was
going to do it he knew i meant it too
yeah i did it anyways
that was just testing me
uh
yeah
listen that's and that same attitude was
that's that was in japan just day after
day after day after day yep 14 rounds
that's that's rough
uh and you didn't sit out rounds and i
did it all with a broken hand
uh how
wow
how did you do it with a broken hand you
show up every day you show up okay i
actually went left to right my right
okay so that's okay so you can then
focus on gripping with your left
it's always the way
there's always a way but that means you
can't i guess you don't have to grip or
you're right sometimes because i would
palm it with my thumb just like hanging
out like this just like this so you can
do something so you could do like a
ghost because you have a
um
because what were your main throws it
was sanagi koshigoroma
okay
sumi uchimata
but you have this big uh
um like a goshi type of thing like a
yeah but not from like around the waist
it's from over the shoulder over the
shoulder and i can do it with just the
one hand
oh as i wish one hand the right one i
don't need the sleeve hand you don't
need a sleeve hand but you couldn't do
with the broken hand i could
because i can just put my hand in the
key so it can't come off
and then you just
because what happened was
three days before i was leaving for
japan a guy
my hand was rested like this on a mat
and the guy
boom took my whole thumb off and tore
all the tendons in the palm yeah so when
i went to the doctor he was like
you know do we have to put a cast on and
i go i'm leaving in three days so you're
not putting a cast on it and i go this
is what i want you to do just like this
i said i want you to build a cast that
holds it
that velcros around
so that when i'm not training i can wear
it yeah but then when i'm training i'll
take it off and then i'll put the tape
on it and then whatever happens happens
whatever happens
happens all right so that's epic and
that led you to the 2016 olympics in rio
well that led me to winning pan am gold
when i got back from japan and then
almost getting my leg cut off in 2015.
that was like
maybe a month or two later
i was hospitalized for seven days
the leg being cut off for what i had
three different types of bacterial
infections in my right leg my whole leg
swelled
and it was in my blood skin and in my
bone in my right leg
um
so i got stuck at mgh in a hospital for
seven days until they figured out
what the bacteria source was
where was the source of the infection as
in in my knee in the knee yeah
okay so obviously there's a danger of
like that's life-threatening yep so when
i went into the emergency room when i
got back from the worlds the lady was
like hey
you need to call you're gonna call
because you may lose your leg tonight
yeah and then they put me in the
hospital
what do you think in this whole time
are you still thinking about olympics
they put me into the room like four
hours later the doctor came in
um
i was at mgh in boston
and he was like
you have a serious infection in your leg
i go he's like we have to keep you
hospitalized until we can figure out
what it is and i was like
buddy
i have the olympic games in less than a
year i go i don't give a fuck what it is
i go just fucking take it out and let me
get on with my day he goes we can't do
that
i'm like i don't understand i go you
told me it's infected just cut away that
part of the tissue
drain it do whatever you got to do and
then send me on my way he's like it
doesn't work like that he said until we
figure out what it is we can't figure
out how to stop it from growing or how
far it spread so it took him seven days
to figure out what it was
then once they figured out what it was i
went in for surgery to remove it
then i spent i think it was eight weeks
in in-home care with a picc line
and then i came back from that
in the first week and a half of judo i
tore my si joint
trying to throw a guy
and then i came back from that about a
month
later and then
fifth at the kano cup and then the game
six months later how quickly do doctors
understand who they're dealing with
like is that is that difficult for you
to explain who travis stevens is when
you go to visit a doctor i don't think
they understand
you know
their role
is to get me to do my job to the best of
their ability as a doctor right meaning
it's going to be less than what they
want
and they and they struggle conceptually
with like
the textbook tells me this
and i go but i'm not a textbook
right like when you go to physical
therapy the first thing they do is they
pull out that binder that says day one
we do this exercise
i go
but i have my own goals yeah your job is
to help me meet my goal
let's let's work a plan to do that or i
got to go find somebody else
did uh the doctors in general people
outside of your close-knit group step up
if they didn't i found somebody else
and typically i could find a person who
knew the right person
i always wonder with people like because
i'm i'm constantly surrounded by
one of the biggest problems in my life
has been there's a lot of people in my
life who love me very much
but who want me to the equivalent of
that situation um
you know definitely don't go to the
olympics and definitely like like it
seems like the world is full of people
that want you to be
average and happy
which is great which is fine i mean i
perhaps that's the way it should be
like you know my parents people close to
this that's what love
how love manifests itself often in
people but then like i think the
ultimate manifestation of love is
understanding who this person is here's
a madman who's driven towards a
particular thing and the best thing for
you to do is not to say
like
rest is to say
work harder
like
fuck your infection yeah you should be
training yeah
have you ever met anybody as crazy as
you that can help you most of us who
get to this point get there because
we're all a little unstable yeah even my
wife khalida right like
when she was getting ready for 2016
um or when she was getting ready for
2020 because she moved to boston
to be a coach she
had a
neck problem
right
and
at that at some point in time it's like
what's really important
day-to-day life
or judo
and believe it or not
the doctor in canada was like
i am never under any circumstances doing
an mri of your neck again
that's what she told her she goes if you
have me do an mri yeah you're not doing
judo again so just know if you hurt your
neck and it requires an mri
you're done with judo forever
yeah so decide if you want to do judo or
not that was a conversation we actually
had to have that's a cool thing for a
doctor to say
i mean it depends how badass they sound
when they say it
so that's a tough conversation judo won
what's what's this with your wife what's
that relationship like so you're both a
little crazy
a little bit
in a good sense
or from my perspective in a good sense
yeah it's just we've
we understand that when it
when you set a goal to do something
you're not signing on for the good
yeah you're signing on for the bad
and i don't think a lot of people
understand that
that's like a valentine's day card from
travis stevens
you have to like accept everything
negative that could possibly happen and
until you do you're never gonna make it
because you'll always sell yourself
short yeah you'll never go far enough
and if you sign up for the whole thing
then the negative is just like oh great
i expected that if you're experiencing
the negative they're also experienced
the negative
and if you overcome it maybe they'll get
knocked out from yep maybe they won't
deal with it maybe they won't train
through it
right when i had my five herniated disc
and i was in a neck brace i was still in
the gym at 7 am
doing whatever it is i could do because
my job is to be at the gym
david goggins i don't know if you know
the guy he's he's gone he's damaged lots
of parts of his body like you
trying to achieve things so you know
unlike you
his achievements are like
your achievements come with a medal
he's just running in the darkness in the
middle of nowhere by himself it's like i
mean it's the same probably as with you
if you're able to be introspective about
it is he's just battling his own inner
demons and
working through those and he's breaking
up breaking his body doing so
are you
cognizant of the trade-off of the fact
that you know you're damaging
your body
to get to these levels of achievements
of this level of excellence of this
level of greatness i mean i guess that
depends on what you consider damage
really because
i don't really see that i have damaged
my body if anything i think i've
strengthened it
my body can go through more than yours
can yeah whose is weaker yeah
right it's just like
it's just like the thai boxers right
yeah in order to strengthen their shins
they got to break it a few times yeah
it's just nature of the beast you just
uh had to break a bunch of stuff to find
where the weak points are and then made
them stronger yep of course strengthen
the areas around it to strengthen it by
you know the sheer relation to it but
the problem is like you may not be able
to do judo
like for until you're 70.
why not
i may not be able to do judo to the
level i used to yeah don't get me wrong
but i can still do judo because and i
think a lot of people struggle with
they want to keep doing it like they
used to be able to do it i don't try to
do judo like i used to like you're
seeing here yeah i'm not that guy
anymore
i accept that i don't even try to be
that guy anymore
i'm a completely different player today
than i am when i was winning olympic
medals
and so i guess when you're looking at
like my journey and the trade-off is
i never sacrificed anything
the people around me sacrificed for
me and i never had a downturn after the
olympics because i never identified as
an olympian
you know a lot of olympians suffer from
depression because they identify as it
now they don't have who they are
where was your personal
moment of greatness
like
or do you not experience life that way
where you were truly proud to be
yourself like every day i wake up
you wake up and you're not proud of who
you are then
you've really got to seek out some like
help
so that's first of all okay i'll i'll do
that because um i definitely am not
proud
of who i am i just wonder
if you didn't identify with the olympics
was there times
maybe in the training room maybe in
japan
like where you're all
you just kind of felt like
i get more of an emotional
i guess trigger right where like i feel
proud of what i've done
when
i've
set to a task and i've done it
so almost any task and the more
challenging the task to more reward
you fought up a lot of amazing uh
battles in 2016 olympics
so you got
you beat the
let's see the world number four in the
quarterfinals
it's like a replay every single olympics
you're
all the people i got terrible draws
insane terrible draws and then you're
facing this is where i was like watching
this i'm like yeah he's screwed you face
the world number one the georgian and
by the way for people who don't know
he beat me
five times to my beating him once and
the one time i beat him was in london
and all other times he beat me he beat
me by phone
and not by like a little throw like
he threw me on my head
at one point we were in georgia
i'm fighting him in the final i go to my
teammate and i go guess what make sure
you watch this fight somebody's getting
thrown free pawn this matching and the
same magical distance and about a minute
in i tried to take his head off with a
big koshigoromo which was like a head
and arm
he caught me and then threw me on my
head and ended the match
so first of all we're watching the video
of you again standing next to the to the
guy leading up to your semi-final match
so here if you uh if you win this you're
guaranteed a medal yep uh but the
chances of you winning from my fan
perspective i was like god
uh you damn
the rest of the world except for me
except for you wha wha what are you
saying you're talking to yourself here
what are you saying my name is travis
stevens i'm olympic champion i will not
be denied
the georgia is probably like what the
hell is this guy saying
was he talking to himself
so he was probably ultra confident yeah
had to be
the difference is
is i understood the last five times he
beat me
i was purposely trying to throw him not
beat him
i wanted to find out if i could
turns out i can't
but i don't need to throw him to beat
him
i need to know how to not lose
but you were still going for stuff here
but all of my attacks drag him to the
ground
they're never standing on my feet
which is a complete which is a
distinction that we talked about at the
very beginning right you have throws
where you're standing and throws where
you're dropping every time i try to
throw him standing
he throws me free pony he picks me up
and he throws me on my head literally
so what i did is i just needed to get to
that last one minute mark which is what
he does mentally in his own judo where
he changes into a panic and just tries
to like do things that are
uncharacteristic
so you knew he's going to start
panicking here as you get as the match
cl draw still close and you both have a
paschito and actually
did we pass the point where i went for
broke and i broke my rule
which one
i went for a crazy foot sweep
um like epone switch
thing i can't remember what it's called
because it's not used that often
and he actually landed on top of me and
some people wanted it to be called
hippone
but he had actually
let go of the ghee and was looking for
the mat so he didn't have any control so
they didn't award him a point
yeah and here we go now we're getting
down into the see like he's getting
frustrated great yeah i love it
perfect second penalty no big deal we
just got to get to the one minute mark
that's all we got to do
so there's no panic here for you you're
not this i'm right where i need to be
and look it
now if you go back into this match uh
i would love for somebody to go back and
see how many times he did a drop
right ippon say an augie
probably never yeah so why is he doing
it now
because he panics and he changes his
judo at that one minute
so look out look how much i kept that
grip yeah you kept
you have that grip this whole time yeah
of your left hand locking him down
walking him down
the he he you keep the grip as he's
throwing yeah which
do were you thinking choke as he drops
or no it's just kind of natural instinct
yeah because we drilled it i spent two
years drilling this transition and then
very so for people that don't do judo
jiu-jitsu
it's like really nice you keep
everything is nicely controlled to where
you're keeping that ghee under his chin
like it's really tight control like it's
very like you're cog i guess is drilling
but you're cognizant of the position of
your wrist the whole time and you can
tell based on like
just years of doing it whether it's
under or it's not right you can just
feel the difference and it's probably
even if you wanted to stop that it's
very difficult because your whole time
it's like once it's under it's almost
impossible to stop
for people who practice jiu jitsu don't
practice judo one of the very annoying
things about
judo is in order to do
ghee chokes they have to be under the
chin yes
even though the kind of intense jokes
you do work just fine yeah over the chin
but
and the the kicker here and why we
practiced this choke
was because when you go back and watch
all of the other matches he always does
this tripod when i try to do arm locks
yeah which is typically what i would do
yeah and when i do that he ends up
sliding out and i end up falling off
right
so you step up here with the choke he
does a tripod where he sticks his button
to the air
and you
uh
dude what's the name of this choke
bow and arrow
no but okay i mean when you do from like
from that posit
is is there a way this entry into the
bow and arrow i guess because you're
doing we we referred to in judo as a
british strangle which when they when
they're in that turtle position and you
do that rolling
cool
and here
when you go into that you can fall off
of him like you said if you're going for
an arm bar but here literally
because you have it under the chin
really well there's just a nice control
and i've already planned on it being on
his chin that's why i've hooked the arm
yeah right it's already starting to go
straight probably this choke in the
early stages like a few frames before
feels like
it uh
like you're safe it's fine
like like the head will slip out or
something like that yeah and that's why
my left knee is up by his shoulder
to keep that pressure down so that he
can't posture it up
when did you know you have this oh i
work right here
i
i actually panicked
um
right about here
was maybe his head could come out
my hand i tore the muscle in my palm
because i was pulling so hard that i'm
like
he may not tap
yeah like is he is my hand just gonna
give out
beforehand and there he is we're right
on this edge right
yeah so like if we roll a little bit
outside and i still don't have it like
that ref could stop it yeah and then i
felt him tapping and
oh the that
he is um he's heartbroken i felt
surprised
there it is
the relief olympic olympic final
and he knew
he knew he lost an olympic medal right
there
because he already knew
that the japanese guy was going to be
his bronze
that he never beats
see the
but also he probably in his head
was confident that he would be in the
final correct and so like this he almost
is surprised
yeah
it's not supposed to happen this way and
it's the second time it's happened
and that's how you became an olympic
medalist man that must be a great
feeling
that must be a great feeling right here
just like all the years of injuries
all of it
as as fans that watch this too it's like
holy shit he actually did it it's a
packed stadium too
not one empty seat
oh man
so uh
i mean what were you thinking here
i'm just focused on the next match yeah
it took me maybe
like a minute or so to like
decompress
and then like get back to like my normal
state for the final
so the the final
is against the uh
the russian here what can you say about
your mindset
you're saying the exact same same thing
travis stevens olympic champion
i will not be denied
because i had felt like in london and
throughout the years i felt like
i kept getting robbed so i made sure in
my mantra to have that little bit at the
end to reassure myself that like
they are not going to control the
outcome of today
i'm going to control the outcome what
did you know about the russian
everything
um
and i i honestly i thought i'd win the
olympics right now and i still do think
that today just like
mentally when you think about it that
i've won like
yeah he threw me
but it was like a one in a million
chance that that worked for him
like come on so
so it's not like you feel lucky to be in
the final it's like
you you can't remember i'm
i'm anticipating the goal like i'm i'm
past that
there's a confidence in the way you're
moving and the way you're yeah like i
have his sleeve he's not breaking it
like still walking him down still going
forward like
um
i knew exactly how i was gonna beat him
and i developed the plan because when i
was getting ready for
rio we brought in
a lot of the top japanese players that
weren't invited to the camp for the
national team
to boston so i had four people three of
them were on the national team one of
them had won
the universities in japan all at 81
kilos
i only got thrown once during camp for a
month wow
like i was
i was ready
i just
i fucking slipped
where does it happen
right when he threw me so if you let
this play out really quick
there's a point right here where i'm
going to come around his back
and i'm kind of going to just
yokosoteme which means like a lateral
drop and i'm just going to bring him
down to the floor which isn't a throw
right here yeah it's more of like a a
take down right i'm trying to get him to
the ground because i want to burn him he
doesn't do nawaza yeah so i'm just going
to keep burning him and you can see that
like
i get really close here
he just went a little too far
to his side during this exchange
and like he's running
oh my god he
he's very wiry for an 81kg player yeah
there's not much like muscle on him
but he uses his length and his leverage
very well and you can see like i'm
really burning the clock here like
i'm owning these exchanges more than i'm
owning the tachiwaza ones the ones on
our feet so you weren't trying to
necessarily like submit him here or
like really hard or like
pin him you're trying to break him a bit
i'm doing both um i'm being overly
physical
um
[Music]
and to a lot of the bjj people who are
watching this like
they're like oh well i would have done
this i would have done that you've got
to think like
if that referee who's reffing the judo
side of it looks at it for a couple
seconds and it's like
uh he's not really moving yeah they'll
stop it
yeah so you're uh like you understand
judo yeah what's called nawaz or
groundwork like what you because you're
really showing it to the ref yes you
have to show movement and progression
that hurt the forehead like see i threw
that hand in there kind of hard
ripping it across his face just because
the i gotta i gotta tell you there's a
calm well no he does look a little a
little broken
but
the the russians have like this calmness
they're pretty good at well don't forget
they've competed like this for a long
time yeah it's all he knows
and this is where i lose it see how my
knee hit the ground yeah my knee wasn't
supposed to touch the ground yeah
i was supposed to sit to my hip to bring
him down
something happened where my knee touched
yeah and
it didn't happen in the first one it
just happened there
it's like that
we never should have been in that
predicament yeah
and that's that's one of the things
where when you're looking at
you know sports for anybody who's trying
to improve
you have to when you're when you're
trying to improve you've really got to
ignore
the ends of the spectrums right the the
oopsies
and the they got lucky
and you only focus on the middle like
the technique i was doing was perfectly
sound
but it just happened that the one oopsy
happened on the stage it shouldn't have
happened on and there's no
there's no amount of drilling that will
ever
like
prevent that from happening and that's
just the the that's sports that sports
especially olympics especially judo when
it's like one yeah
oopsie can just be your that's it
that's it you know it really requires
and you have to wrap your head around
the idea of like if you want the ability
to beat these people and throw these
people like you got to be willing to get
thrown yourself yeah
like this isn't boxing there's no like
i'm going to stand in a place where he
can't hit me and i can hit him
because we have the ghee and because
they can grab it they have just as much
ability to throw you as you them
so how'd you feel here
how long was the duration of you feeling
upset that you didn't get the gold
versus never felt it never felt it
just
because he didn't beat me right right
it's an important distinction because
when i'm training and when i'm competing
like i understand that i take risks
and i accept those consequences that's
why i take them
that's a consequence that's not him
being the better judo player that
dominated a match and i didn't have an
answer and then he threw me
then i would be a little upset
like when you're tired and somebody's
coming at you and like you can't do
anything about it that's a shitty
feeling yeah
you know and that wasn't this one and
that wasn't this
like i accept
losing when it's
when it's my fault
well that was a hell of a story man so
from 2008
just the sheer number of injuries the
weight cuts
all of that the wanting to quit
the the doubts
uh i'm sure you did not get like the
fans probably started disappearing
somewhere between the second and the
third olympics like the support
from it did judo within the united
states and just everybody you know just
the usoc tried to cut all my funding in
and say nah you're too old
yeah
so through all of that to win the medal
i mean
that's what the olympics is about is is
there some like when you look back does
that seem like another person is this
like another lifetime ago or like that's
a hell of an accomplishment how do you
feel about the whole thing
it's a it's an interesting kind of
predicament because there's like those
cookie cutter answers about how proud
you are and how grateful you are but
at the end of the day it's not who you
are
so that that skill set and that
mentality that
you know it took to accomplish that
that's who you are
and so
this was just a stepping stone in in who
i am
so it's in the past to me
like there's no shrine in my house that
has like an olympic medal in it i can't
remember last time i looked at it
so you're saying like the the
all the stories the skills along the way
that's like you right now sitting here
is the shrine
yeah the who you become along the
journey is really what the prize is
right like when you think about
any of them most of the people that
you know go through that depression
after the games it's because
that is their shrine like that is who
they've identified as that is who
they've told the world the community
their friends their family that's how
they've identified
i've identified as the person who
perseveres overcomes
and accepts challenges
so like i all those things are just like
you know putting a suitcase off to the
side and i'm on to the next great
chapter thing that i'm trying to do
and it's
it's both sad and cool that um
very few people in the world get to to
experience what it's like to be you i
mean this level
of having gone through that yeah journey
everyone has the opportunity to
yeah
i mean i've done a few
uh
difficult things in my life but i got to
tell you weight cuts and sauna
um
and i would tell people right now who
are listening like don't go through that
and i think a lot of wrestlers a lot of
young
judo players a lot of long young like
just combat sports people where
weight classes are a thing
they almost take a sense of pride like
when i hear them talking about like oh
how much weight do you have to cut if
you have to cut a pound more it's like
you've accomplished more like you're
tougher yeah like you're not
like there's no there's no trophies for
that
you whatever the reason had a job to do
and you got it done and that
that is truly inspiring no matter how
hard that there's a big deep lesson to
learn from that
then you start getting to the specifics
of whether you should wake up or not but
if we don't then most of the great
things we have in this world we wouldn't
have the reason we have many other great
things is because people did that weight
cut
the equivalent of the way cut for
whatever the discipline man
there's a difference between
having to do it because you have to and
you get through it yeah then setting
yourself up to do that because you think
it's the cool thing or the thing you're
supposed to be doing in order to be
successful yeah there are plenty of like
two-time olympic medalists i probably
could have been a two-time olympic
medalist had i not
cut that much weight i probably would
have multiple world medals had i not cut
that much weight because my body
wouldn't have been that broken yeah
there's always the other side of it so
just when you're looking at it
like i just hear it in like young kids
even some of my own like when you hear
them talk about like where their weights
at
they almost take a sense of pride on how
much they have to lose because they hear
stories like this
and it's like
that's not the takeaway i did it because
i had to i was put in a situation where
like
i may not have gone to this game that i
moved up to 90 kilos because i wouldn't
have had time to grow into the division
and then you get the job done and then
you get the job done you're right
there's a
it's a very important difference yeah
also with sleep uh that's what people
talk to me about there should not be any
glorification of not sleeping yes there
should not be a glorification of cutting
weight but if that's
on the way
to your whatever
is that fire inside you that you know
needs to get done like the job at hand
if
you need to sacrifice in some of those
ways you get the job done yes yeah and
uh the wake up is an interesting one
because it's different i mean you you
you could speak to this
there's different sports in which the
weight is more important than others and
there's different levels to this game i
think at the level you operated in that
was probably essential yeah like those
huge games change completely from 81 kg
to 90 kg it's a huge weight jump it's
it's first of all it's weight but then
the strategy it's like so much changes
the height and all those kinds of things
the physical like people don't
understand it but the physical size of a
90 kilo judo player versus the physical
size of an 81 kilo cheater player it's
like putting a human in a human like
there's enough space that's not like
you know you could stand next to your
friend who's 180 pounds and you could be
160 and you guys could look identical
yeah it is different when both the 90
kilo 100 kilo and 81 kilo both have six
percent body fat
and they're cutting into the class
it almost feels like there's more
variety at 90 kilo because some of them
are linking tall yeah and some short and
stocky stocky it's like 81 is more
uniform which
but then the you know the flip side of
that is the this is why i like in jiu
jitsu again amateur
uh competing against bigger guys like i
love that more i like i like cutting
weight just so i'm slim like that's when
i feel the best with the same thing that
you mentioned but like i love going
against
200 220 that because in jiu jitsu
the weight doesn't get amplified in the
sport like the weight is just the weight
right if you can
if you can leg press 220 and you can
bench 220 then
yeah you can train with a guy who's 220
that's that's easy they're not going to
hurt you and i mean there's there is a
truth that
you know lightweights and middleweights
in jiu jitsu and the same is true for
judo it's just like a lot more of them
that means if you want to be
is
you're just competing at a higher level
so like
there's much more variety of games the
level is much higher so you're taking on
a bigger challenge even if you're like
um have a weight advantage so those are
all decisions you have to kind of make
and certainly jiu jitsu people that are
way cutting are silly i mean that's
that's the natural beginner thing to do
is to
feel um the way the nervousness about
competition expresses itself
is through the desire to be
as light as possible which is the
totally wrong desire to have right like
when you
when you look at me now i'm probably
like
right
but i probably have the strength of a 70
kilo
judo player yeah right the weight
doesn't really
do much yeah
i mean you have the same thing with
wrestling yeah the skinny the skinny
guys the skinny you that we're looking
at there just the amount of power in
that person yeah it's fascinating
because it doesn't look like you have
some muscle but it doesn't look but i
felt the power of some of those people
yeah uh it's scary yeah
it's different that's the best way i can
describe it it's like scary it's like oh
shit again it's the food chain you're
not at the top of the future yeah
that's the that's the natural feeling
when you're going with some judo people
um
what's your sense about this recent
olympics what uh stands out to you
as uh so like uh teddy renair who was on
a big run for a long time
man he considered to be one of the
greatest judo players of all time
two-time
olympic gold medalist and uh
two-time olympic bronze medalist the
four-legged clothes yeah uh not counting
like team stuff just doing individual
and then like yeah i'm not 10 times
world champ yeah i'm not sure they're
going to catalog that team event like
are they all technically olympic
champions or is france an olympic
champion no they're all technically
olympic champions but i'm going to
ignore that
is that how they're gonna classify it
now according oh sorry according to
wikipedia like according to the internet
i don't know according to igf or
whatever because you know some of those
players never
you know want a match they just filled a
spot
oh that's even a starker example oh
that's sad
you know they lost in the individual and
then they also lost in the team
and so
well it's interesting because in in the
case of uh teddy
uh
he was a you know important to the win
against japan in this olympics so like
in the team event so like if you
i feel like you should put that in the
equation and say who won gold right it
it does feel like he won gold in the
team
because he carried the team well you
have like namura at 60 kilos from japan
three-time olympic gold medalist no team
event
yeah
yeah are you gonna weigh teddy's team
event no no we're not we're not arguing
this of course no i'm just wondering how
like the ijf like when you look at a
player's stat yeah is it gonna be like
team gold medal for the olympics versus
like their own personal gold medal
yeah i think in sports we have to be
brutally honest
and i think i
hopefully this doesn't piss off people i
hope it does but judo is an individual
sport
it's honestly just that one athlete
maybe the athlete and coach
right if you look at the big big picture
but there's no there's no team in judo
that's the beauty of combat sports
that's the honesty of it that's the the
brutality of losing to another human
being in a combat sport that's why it's
so damn embarrassing when you get
slammed is because it's like you there's
no team
to uh uh
to like carry some of that
responsibility it's all on you and you
suck that's what you lost there's that
weight and that's why it's like magical
it's not it's not like soccer it's not
uh it's not like basketball yeah i
couldn't play team sports because if one
of my teammates
wasn't doing their job correctly i would
go play their position
i'm going to do it better than you yeah
but that you know some of the greatest
leaders of teams also do that michael
jordan is like that right i mean it's
like
with your actions
you raise the the level for everybody
like excellence is expected and
therefore everybody needs to step up so
some some of the greatest uh i would say
uh team leaders are
individualists at heart but so okay so
teddy i think ten time world champion
not team
regu regular uh
it's a big number but i think he has
some like open weight categories in
there open weight right right i mean you
can count those right i mean that that's
interesting
it's the same division twice it's the
same division twice that's right one day
after another yeah that's right i don't
know if i want to
count that yeah well i mean that's one
of the the reasons people don't usually
put heavy weights in judo as like the
greatest of all time
because the level of competition is
lower yes
uh but anyway he did lose in this match
to um
to a young russian yep uh tamerlan
besheath
match also not on the internet thank you
olympics i am definitely going to go on
some rants on the internet
because uh
as a fan of um olympics i feel like this
definitely needs to change
moving forward
the like every single major olympic
event i also like i also like random
sports like weightlifting even though i
don't do olympic weightlifting it's fun
just to watch fun to watch such high
level
of excellence and the fact that we can't
just freaking watch the full
like each nicely categorized event is
really heartbreaking in judo in olympic
weightlifting and track and gymnastics
all of that
anyway uh
so teddy
lost i mean that does that stand out to
you if you were to like recap the things
that you remember from this olympics i
picked him losing already like in my
predictions
lose which where that match or just in
general somewhere in the final in the
final you thought yeah final or was it
semi when i looked at his draw because
he decided not to compete throughout the
squad and do like the bare minimum to go
because of his age i didn't think
he would have enough energy to battle
his way through yeah the draw that he
had and sure enough he didn't he he felt
earlier than i thought but
he just he's not the young athletic
person he used to be
and when they changed the rules to judo
they allowed people to take people into
really really deep waters
which you saw at this olympics which
you know
it didn't ruin the sport or did it not
like
i'm not sure but it was definitely
difficult to watch
would you put him at the greatest of all
time or asked another way like who do
you think is the greatest judo player of
all time
he's definitely not the greatest judo
player
but he's definitely the best competitor
what's the difference between judo
player and competitor there's an ability
to like
do the act of judo of like throwing
pinning arm locking
versus
can you win a judo match
right like when you look at somebody
like nomura who like
threw everyone he fought through three
olympics
multiple world championships multiple
things like
that's a pure judo player in the essence
of judo he can throw pin or arm lock
just about anybody he steps on the mat
with during his time
teddy tended to
when you look at his judo
because of his size
again it's just because he's in the
heavyweight category
he was so much bigger so much stronger
people just couldn't handle it and you
would see really good judo players just
break
yeah like they could hang in there for a
little bit but eventually his size like
you can't control that weight
weight moves weight and when you have to
use all your strength to keep him
upright and off of you your muscles just
give out because you don't have somebody
of that stature
and that skill like to train with to
train those muscles so what you're
thinking more like those uh
73 81 90 kg people that just stand in
the pocket and just give yeah everything
like what comes to my mind is like a
koga
koga you know a namura who's a 60 kilo
guy but again like his dynamics
and how long he was dominant for
like it
just do you put value to like
epic throws like singular moments of
greatness
if it's against
um a noteworthy player in a noteworthy
position
there are a lot of highlights of people
that are good judo players but their
highlights are of
you know scrubs yeah on the ijf circuit
but it's like great the japanese guy
threw the guy from
you know
senegal free pwn
great we kind of expected that you took
the world number one against the 330th
person in the world
what did you think was gonna happen like
when i see those highlights like thrown
around like social media i'm like that's
not a highlight
they might as well have just been at the
dojo like practice and throws if you
look at the like top 10 list for judo
kano always comes up you know as um but
he's not somebody that i don't think his
results are there but you don't really
know how he
got there
so it's hard for me to like i can't see
his judo yeah so i'm not sure kano by
the way is the founder of judo for
people who don't or considered to be the
founder of judo yeah
the sport evolves yeah the players that
are like if you took champions from the
past and you fought them against the
players of today
they're
it's not happening and that goes with
anything right
so every time you think of like who's
the best of all time
it's probably somebody within a
generation or two of today yeah if i'm
gonna pick my
my top three let's say top three and i
would go
generationally speaking
i would pick ono for today
probably illiadus for like
my time frame like the
from a developmental standpoint and then
i'd probably go koga and then before
koga i'd probably go nomura
as like the person of that generation
that people like
as a whole in judo respected
yeah well in the case of uh i wonder if
people feared koga
yeah yeah
like here that that little guy's gonna
get under you and you're gonna go for a
ride you know he was 78 kilos when he
took second at the all japans which is
an open weight class yeah
you know like he
he could throw down with anybody any
weight class and still win he was one of
the early people that planted the seed
uh of judo love of judonia like yeah
and when i looked at him like
that was how like i wanted my judo to be
portrayed that style
yeah
and then elias iliadus you just like i
mean you have a similar attitude with
him mm-hmm so you just like the way he
cares that's why we get along
[Laughter]
you guys hang out anyway i'd love to see
that conversation i remember when we
were talking about like his coaching i
was like
why didn't you take this team or like
why'd you pick this team and he's like i
can't work with those people like those
people are weak they're children
like they don't know how to train hard
i love that guy
uh what about ono because he was
competing in this olympics he got he got
gold in this olympics right uh
yeah yeah he lost in the team tournament
though i think he just didn't care yeah
he just really wanted to throw that guy
he like throws everybody yeah
so he's he represents the thing you're
mentioning
i signed up to the judo fanatics best of
uh ono is there something that stands
out to you about him that's especially
you find beautiful like or powerful
about his technique
um
his adaptability to the situations and
understanding of
like what needs to happen in order to
throw these people
i specifically watched a match
with his and i was going to do a
breakdown video on it because
is there a match do you remember what it
is it's him versus
garvey of
hungary um is he good at gripping so
we're watching the match against hungary
uh so the one minute comes right here
coming up i've heard he's freakishly
strong i've never had the ability to to
train with him so i'm not
obviously looks super skinny
but but when you see him without his key
jacket on like
he's a jack dude
which is
uncharacteristic of a japanese player
from back in the day
in a way changed all that he was like
we're gonna get physical to compete with
the europeans that's another one of the
greats right and yeah he doesn't get
mentioned enough
and he's a righty here yeah
okay
and this is where he starts setting it
up it's like you can see he was standing
in like a left-handed stance and then he
changes
[Laughter]
so he grips almost like a double uh
uh double sleeve not a double sleeve
tricep the tricep and the the front
sleeve standing like a lefty
and no body grip just correct tricep and
sleeve and it was like the the biggest
whip and twist of a of a new chamada
yeah he doesn't actually lift him off
the floor yeah and
if you look at it in like slow motion
almost
um
yeah let's yeah there we go
um
the hungarian player was like a hundred
percent defense and he still did this
right so
right here like press pause
this this is like
and identify if you're trying to like
learn judo and figure out how to set it
up
because knowing how to get to the point
right before you pull the trigger is
probably the most important
so when we watch this play out what ono
ono's going to do is he's going to pivot
off his right leg right here
he's going to back step with his left
and it's going to pull um garvey's front
leg all the way forward into what we
would call like a neutral square stance
so he plants hard
and look at there's an interesting pull
with the track oh no it's not try so he
almost like if he starts with the tricep
and he like collects the gear or
something like that but it's still above
the elbow because you can see the bend
right and right here see how he never
put back it up a little bit
that
this is kind of like one of those things
yeah pause it right there
so when he puts his right foot down he's
pulling so hard with his back
that when ono goes to put his left foot
down it never touches the mat
but by putting his left foot back
it actually pulls him garvey's foot
forward
and so he's able to speed up his throw
by just continuing that motion back yeah
which what was supposed to have been a
step
turned out to just
in the middle of the action he makes a
split second decision before putting the
foot down to just continue yeah because
he recognizes that feel in his hands
yeah and so it's like it never it's a
swing like he never touches the guard
but it never it never started as like a
big swing to a back step yeah he changed
his mind part way through so it's right
there
right yeah and then he goes nope he's
bringing that foot forward i'm just
gonna go for it and wait is he full like
full air
look at that
boom boom and look at if you go a few
more steps forward right there his hip
is the same height as um garvey's
shoulder yeah
because he's leaning so far into the
throw with his body weight
and he's allowing that tricep grip to
rotate that's going to draw and garvey
forward
and now when you pause it right here
you think about the sheer physics to
like get your body into this position
jimmy and i were so like when we saw
this for the first time we tried to just
stand like that and we couldn't do it
his
left foot is pointing straight ahead
his chest is perpendicular to that foot
or parallel with it right and his head
is by his foot yeah is that only
possible in the midst of a throw do you
think he works on making like i think
he's done
this particular throw not this style of
it but uchimada so much yeah that his
body has adapted
to be able to do this so when people are
trying to learn and like break down
videos yeah they don't understand like
the power he has and what we call end
range motion
yeah look at that so like look at the
full range of motion he takes right yeah
that left foot swings all the way around
and the torso starts
like at three o'clock and it goes all
the way around
like almost back to the three o'clock
yeah like like like that what it and he
never lifts his leg above his hip
and the crazy part is he never fell over
during any of it yeah look at that
stayed on his feet
what's he doing
is that is that a matter of pride or
just
i think that's just habit
the way the forces work like he can just
stay up
i that's one of the most beautiful
throws i've ever seen
there's so much wrong with it
but it worked it worked because when you
think about remember what we talked
about the very beginning like he's got
to get his center of gravity under his
wow well here's one of the top players
in the world throwing another top player
in the world with his hip at that guy's
shoulder height and it's still working
it's
okay so he this generation he could be
the great yeah and like he switched a
lot of those
details of the throw in the middle in
the middle and that that only is that
means he's probably what like a hundred
thousand times that throws happen yeah
i saw you were into chess recently so
you're like me
a bit of a beginner in chess
you're
part of launching the website effective
chess
so i got to ask maybe it's a personal
question but uh do you have advice to
yourself and to other beginners in
exploring chess
of how to one have fun and to
start getting good it's nice to see like
olympic caliber athlete
take on
a difficult
task with a beginner's mind so like
what's that process like i'm a huge fan
of just
learning new things in general
right like
when i left judo like i took a job as
you know marketing for fuji sports
and
i was getting frustrated with designers
so
i learned photoshop
i also got angry with a photographer so
now i take all the photos too
just because i don't mind learning you
know i've spent my entire judo career
learning
all the time like adding new techniques
finding new ways practicing developing
and so when it comes to
chess i treat it just like i do anything
else i just stick to one plan
and i learn all the ins and outs of that
one plan
and then i develop another plan right
like i might practice
like a london opening for example and
just i don't even care if i win or lose
i just want to figure out how i'm going
to lose
and then figure out how i'm going to win
and once i know
that position is now done then i start
with another position
and then once i've figured out how i'm
going to lose and how i'm going to win
the next thing i do is i don't go to a
third i figure out the bridge between
the two
like at what point during my openings
can i transition back into this opening
right so like you
have like some basic openings and you
want to see how they go wrong how they
go right all the different ways and then
that starts to solidify
a higher level concept of that
particular opening and you start to
stitch together the concept the concepts
together because being able to go from
one to another and then back and forth
is
part of the reasons why like i was
successful at judo is just because
everything i do
at some point it touches that spider web
of like being able to get from one area
to another
we refer to it as like a toolbox right
you need more tools in your toolbox
but if you're always grabbing the wrong
tool for the right for that job then
you're just not going to have success
i actually forgot to ask you mentioned
a few greatest chess players of all time
and i noticed he didn't mention vladimir
putin i gotta ask you about
um
his judo do you by chance know much
about his judo what do you think about
you know
a president of a major nation being a
judo black belt and i think from
what i've seen
pretty good at it
i think it shows you know if he
if he actually got it like let's let's
go with that premise of like he earned
it
right
that just shows like a level of like
physical persistence
and
mental fortitude to be able to like
you know take those
beatings and just keep showing up until
you've overcome yeah and can now give
those beatings as you know in japan and
russia you get it by just like
when you're young it's easier to get a
black belt when you're like just go
through a bunch of beatings
for like 10 years in your in your
teenage years uh but there's also from
it
um
springs like a camaraderie like there's
a definitely a brotherhood
and and sisterhood in terms of judo
to where you're you're connected
forever because of that yeah for many
people it's their childhood connection
you sort of leave judo
you know in your 20s and your 30s but
that's always there and the same is true
with wrestling so it's it's interesting
to see him uh pay respect to that
like by going
uh with the
with the russian national judo team and
i think he did obviously they they have
to get thrown right but just you can
tell
and you probably can tell even better
but you can tell when a person moves
in a way where you're like okay you've
had
like 10 years of beatings
you can tell yeah the way they pull the
way they move yeah but i also like in
contrast to the us national team
or
the i don't even think there's a
national team for us right
it's the pedro judo center right
that there is some
it's really cool when there's a
camaraderie like that amongst the
highest level olympic caliber athletes
in russia i suppose japan might have
similar kind of thing and and then you
have
then you can have the system
of people together and then you can have
a strong coaching staff not just like a
coach but a coaching staff and you can
have the nation backing that stuff i
mean yeah and then the result is like
you have some incredible level of judo
emerge
um
is there something you could say we did
we didn't talk much about jimmy i mean
he was a critical part of your just
like
of your perseverance through all the
all that you had to go through um what
did you learn from jimmy
what are some impacts that he had on
your life
both on the mat and off the mat
you know
if we had to like
put it down to like a very simple thing
he taught me how to win
right it wasn't necessarily
like
the technical side of judo like we went
over gripping we went over this we
adapted that
but the real strength to jimmy was like
he knows how to win
and most people think
well if i get really good at this
technique i'll be able to throw people
with it not win
that is not how the world of sports
works
right like
i
remember in one of my youtube videos i
was doing a breakdown of a match
from the cuba grand prix where i was
fighting a mongolian guy he's kicking
the shit at me not gonna lie
four minutes in like
he was just
throwing me like left and right he was
so fast i felt like i just couldn't get
to him
in the last 30 seconds
he changed he started protecting his
lead
instead of continuing the fight the way
the entire match was going in his favor
he made a mental shift and when he made
that mental shift i beat him yeah
because he didn't know how
to win the fight
he can win exchanges but he can't win
the fight
so the last thing you want to do is have
to
win every exchange in a match
you want to know how to
kick it into sixth gear
like when to step off the gas
when to focus on gripping when to attack
how often to attack all those things
like
and you've had those conversations with
jimmy like this is not like how to stop
trying to win every exchange that kind
of thing yeah and instead because i was
a brawler before i was like if i threw
you once i'm throwing you again yeah and
sometimes you get caught yeah why would
i do that
i'm already winning
what about like the mental side of the
game the preparation all those things
one of the biggest things jimmy brought
to the forefront when it came to like
the mental side was the visualization
right
and when i started visualizing myself
winning i started seeing more success
but once i started seeing more success
with the visualization also came
self-doubt
because as i'm starting to
picture myself like
i would picture myself before fighting
church's philly
i'm going to throw him with koshigoroma
and i can see it and if i stand in the
chute for too long
you start to like
but what if he counters
then you go well if he counters with
this i'm gonna counter with that but you
already let that doubt in
and then you start playing this like
five step scenario but you still come
out on top but all that doubt has like
seeped into your mind
right and a lot of people don't
understand that
that's a bad thing you're still winning
in your mind but you're also doubting
yourself in your mind yeah once you let
the
like that little sleep in itself
destructive yeah
and so i remember i was at the world
championships i can't remember what year
it was
but i was ready like i was healthy
i was ready to go and we all thought
like this is the year travis wins the
worlds
i go out there in the first round
i'm in the shoot for like 45 minutes
like the match went into golden score
then the next match went into golden
score and the fucking next match went
into golden score then the referee came
and told me you can't weigh your ghee
then big jim goes why can't he wear his
key any gui that has his name on it
we're not going to let him wear he has
to wear a different key so then i go
fuck you i'm leaving and i walked out
there and i fought i lost in golden
score because i did a cochi and they
called it a false attack and i went
great i'm out of the fucking worlds
but when i was in the shoot
i struggled because
i started allowing the like hungarian
guy that i was gonna face
to do things to me
that i would have to play defense to and
then counter it's like great but now i'm
doubting my own ability so i went to a
sports psychologist and the big game
changer for me was
i focus more on the
emotional physical response that happens
in matches
rather than the actual
you know quote unquote like instagram
picture that would have happened yeah so
when i was getting ready for 2016
you think about
like
how do you feel like standing in the
chute like what does your body feel like
is your heart racing how's your breath
is your mouth dry
and then you think about like okay the
ref just started the match what happens
like how was the atmosphere like how do
you emotionally respond to these things
more so than
me trying to beat a specific judo player
right like oh the ref just gave you a
penalty at a minute 30 like how do you
feel
and then you start thinking about the
physical responses and when you do that
really well
you can actually get the pins and
needles and your body will start to
sweat and your heart will start to race
as if you're in it
because it's not about the technique
it's more about the physical like what
does it feel like to have your fingers
ripped out of a ghee in the first
exchange now my hands can feel that
that's fascinating and then on a
cellular level
like i fought the olympic games so many
times to the point where like it is no
longer a goal it's an anticipation right
so down to the experience of the grip
break the just the sweat the
the heart beating the yeah
does it feel to have your head smashed
into a mat and driven across the mat
with a map burn yeah and then getting
about that yeah and getting back up
yeah like with a bit of a burn all that
kind of stuff the actual sensations in
this case the actual sensation of what
it takes to fight it you don't matter
it's not a strategy like but the actual
sensations the experience that's
fascinating
because then your body's gonna fight
hundreds of matches without the physical
damage and you could probably get really
far with that and not also in just judo
but basically anything
you can simulate yeah if you learn how
to simulate well
you've lived a very uh
a hell of a life
is there a device you can give to young
people
instead of high school
college
you know thinking about their career
thinking about life
how to live one they're proud of
i think the the number one thing
[Music]
i can tell people is and how i've lived
my life is
you've really got to like forget
everybody in your life right now your
mother your father your grandparents
your girlfriend your boyfriend whoever
it is and really decide like
what is gonna make you happy
right at some point in my career
the act of pushing my body to the limit
made me happier
than winning a grand slam medal
pushing my body to the limit didn't make
me happier than winning an olympic medal
right there was a there's a balance
there
and i think a lot of people struggle
with living their life where they're
happy and they make other people happy
or take in their
their feelings into the considerations
of what they need to do in their life
and i think if they can cut those
strings
sooner
and it'll allow you to get over it
quicker and get to a happier place
sooner
and then as long as you're focusing on
what's making you happy
the things you do that make you happy
will attract other people who do those
things that will in turn build stronger
better relationships
and then you will also
realize the
the best form of yourself and inspire
many others like yeah you've
inspired me
to uh for whatever the hell i've done uh
at least to do a slightly better job
than i otherwise would have by doing
martial arts but taking that uh journey
and i think becoming a better person
because of it so travis i have been i
continue to be
one of your biggest fans i love your
whole career in the way you pursued
happiness i love what you and jimmy have
done i love the support of judo as
represented by you so i deeply
appreciate what you've done man and i'm
honored that you would uh spend your
time with me today thanks for talking
man thank you
thanks for listening to this
conversation with travis stevens to
support this podcast please check out
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and now let me leave you with some words
from napoleon bonaparte
never interrupt your enemy when he's
making a mistake
thank you for listening and hope to see
you next time
you