Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions | Lex Fridman Podcast #236

1. 0:00 – 0:43

   Introduction

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      The following is a conversation with Jimmy Pedro, a legendary judo competitor and coach. He represented the United States at four Olympics, in '92, '96, 2000, and 2004, winning a bronze medal at two of them. He medaled in three world championships, winning gold in 1999. He has coached many of the elite level American judoka, including Kayla Harrison, Ronda Rousey, Travis Stevens, and many others. Plus, he's now my judo coach, along with Travis Stevens. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, here's my conversation with Jimmy Pedro.

2. 0:43 – 25:12

   The most beautiful throw

   1. LFLex Fridman0:43

      What is the most beautiful throw in judo to you?

   2. JPJimmy Pedro0:47

      I think uchimata. You know, it's the, it's the one that seems to have the most amplitude. The person goes the highest, you see a leg swing through the middle, uh, the person doing the throw, there's a leg swinging through the middle. The other person definitely goes, you know, head over heels flat on their back. Um, it's probably the most dynamic pretty judo throw there is.

   3. LFLex Fridman1:08

      Okay, so it's a single... You're staying on a single foot and you're raising your other foot in the air, and it's a forward throw, which means the, uh, your, your back is facing the opponent, but, uh, they kind of both fly through the air and twist through the air.

   4. JPJimmy Pedro1:24

      Correct.

   5. LFLex Fridman1:25

      Yeah, so how does that throw work? What are the principles behind that throw? It's one of those throws that, um, you know, people can kind of understand how to pick up another human being in sort of trivial ways. But the uchimata to me never quite made sense, like why it works. There, there's a, there's a quirk, there's a twisting motion.

   6. JPJimmy Pedro1:46

      Mm-hmm.

   7. LFLex Fridman1:47

      There's some involvement of the hip-

   8. JPJimmy Pedro1:49

      Mm-hmm.

   9. LFLex Fridman1:49

      ... but not, it's not really a hip throw because the hip is not all the way over, so it's not... It, it, it's a very confusing throw to me.

   10. JPJimmy Pedro1:58

       (laughs)

   11. LFLex Fridman1:59

       I'm trying to s- can you say something more-

   12. JPJimmy Pedro2:00

       It's probably one of the most difficult throws to learn as well because it is so complex. You do have to stand on one leg, balance on one leg, you know, swing your other leg through the middle, hold your opponent up in the air. And it's, and it's hard to, it's hard to make that contact with upper body to your, to your back, you know. You have to turn your back on the throw as well. So how does it work? Um, it's definitely sort of a, a throw where you need to start pulling your opponent's upper body towards you, right? So their upper body starts coming towards you. Your legs go towards them as your body starts to go, uh, to, into the throw.

   13. LFLex Fridman2:38

       Mm-hmm.

   14. JPJimmy Pedro2:38

       So your head is gonna go left, let's say. Your body, your leg's gonna go to the right, your body's g- your partner's gonna start to lean towards you. And just as you start to get their momentum coming forward, your leg is gonna sweep up underneath theirs, pick 'em up onto your hip, right? And then the finish of the throw is a twist. And a lot of times the good judoka will leave their feet when they do the throw. So both bodies are in the air together, and then the thrower comes down on top of the person being thrown.

   15. LFLex Fridman3:07

       So all four feet are in the air.

   16. JPJimmy Pedro3:09

       Correct.

   17. LFLex Fridman3:09

       So there's just this unstoppable force as tw- so you're all in the air. You're, you're basically doing a roll together.

   18. JPJimmy Pedro3:15

       Correct.

   19. LFLex Fridman3:17

       Okay, so who to you is the best uchimata? Who has the... Besides yourself. Uh, the-

   20. JPJimmy Pedro3:25

       (laughs)

   21. LFLex Fridman3:25

       (laughs)

   22. JPJimmy Pedro3:25

       I'm not gonna lie. There's, (laughs) there's plenty of guys that do uchimata a lot better than I do.

   23. LFLex Fridman3:29

       Uh, you do have a nice video about the uchimata online but, uh-

   24. JPJimmy Pedro3:33

       Oh, yeah.

   25. LFLex Fridman3:34

       ... who, who's a great practitioner of the uchimata to you?

   26. JPJimmy Pedro3:36

       Right now, Shohei Ono, who's two-time Olympic gold medalist, that's his favorite throw and he, there's a h- tons of highlight videos on the IJF and Judo Fanatic showing how he does his uchimata. And it is quite different than everybody else's, um, but it's unstoppable. When he, when he comes in, nobody stops it. He's won two golds in, in a row at the Olympics. I think maybe in the last eight years, the guy's lost two matches.

   27. LFLex Fridman3:59

       Yeah.

   28. JPJimmy Pedro3:59

       You know, he's just incredible. So-

   29. LFLex Fridman4:00

       At, at a very competitive division, I guess s- 73 kilos?

   30. JPJimmy Pedro4:05

       Yep.
3. 25:12 – 38:43

   Russian approach to randori

   1. LFLex Fridman25:12

      level of protection. What about the randori? Just out of curiosity. Again, I, I haven't ever had the opportunity to train with folks at a high level. Um, is... You know, in jujitsu, the, there's different gyms have different styles, but I've noticed that at the highest levels people can go pretty hard in a certain kind of way, where it's, it's more technical and you're not... You're moving at 100%, but the power is not at 100%. It's, it's a, it's a weird little dance. It's, it's tech- Like, you're not really, um, forcing stuff. You're more focused on, on the right timing, the right, uh, positioning of hands and feet, and body, and all those kinds of things. You're not like, forcing stuff in the way you would in competition, like really with power. Does that sound similar to you for the way you tried to do randori?

   2. JPJimmy Pedro26:07

      So there's different styles of judo. And, and let's say the Japanese style, the technical style of judo is exactly what you just talked about. It's li- It's almost like two guys in pajamas, right?

   3. LFLex Fridman26:16

      Mm-hmm.

   4. JPJimmy Pedro26:16

      We're not going, we're not usi- We're using minimal effort, maximum efficiency. We're moving around and we're trying to feel that movement, and it's timing and finesse and technique and, and fun and clean throws.

   5. LFLex Fridman26:27

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JPJimmy Pedro26:28

      And when you, you know, when you train in Japan, you can train 15 rounds of randori, five-minute rounds, that's 75 minutes of, of straight, you know, sparring. You can do that straight in Japan without a problem. I mean, you'll get tired, of course.

   7. LFLex Fridman26:43

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JPJimmy Pedro26:43

      You're gonna fall a lot, you're gonna throw a lot, um, but it's very like free feeling, um, and it's technical as you explained. But then when you go to Europe and you try to do rounds with the Europeans, they are very physical. They don't have that same finesse in their training that they do in Japan. In, in, in Europe, you'd be hard pressed to do eight rounds of randori in a night. It's so physically exhausting because so much effort is going into just fighting and fending off the gripping system and the power of your opponent, you're physically drained after eight rounds of randori. So it's a much different feel.

   9. LFLex Fridman27:18

      Uh, when you say Europe, do you mean Germany, France, Britain, Russia?

   10. JPJimmy Pedro27:23

       All of them.

   11. LFLex Fridman27:23

       Is, is there a lot... So it's, it... There's a kind of similarity to all of those kinds of approaches?

   12. JPJimmy Pedro27:28

       The only difference would be Russia, that, that they do a lot more active drilling, a lot more sequential movement training. They don't focus as much on randori. You'll, you'll do much fewer rounds in Russia during training camps than you would in, in those other countries we just talked about, France, Germany, et cetera.

   13. LFLex Fridman27:46

       What about in this kind of American system where you have much less talent, uh, to work with? Is, is, do you, do you, uh, just select whatever works for the particular athletes? Or do you have a... Something you prefer in your system?

   14. JPJimmy Pedro28:03

       So, you need a combination of all of it, right? If you're gonna win at the Olympic level, you have to be able to deal with the finesse of the Japanese-

   15. LFLex Fridman28:10

       Mm-hmm.

   16. JPJimmy Pedro28:10

       ... the physicality of the Europeans. You have to focus on, on the ground niwaza aspect-

   17. LFLex Fridman28:15

       Yeah.

   18. JPJimmy Pedro28:15

       ... because a lot of people are weak there in the world of the sport of judo. That's a chance to win. We've sort of developed our American system of judo, at least for the last, I'd say probably the last 20 years, it'd be the American system of judo, which he- relies heavily on taking the individual and whatever techniques they, they do, perfecting those techniques and the combinations and other throws that go with those throws. But then implementing and overlaying an American system of gripping, niwaza, conditioning, mentality, training methodology, like, and, and game planning, you know, to beat your opponents. And I think that's the, that's the secret sauce to success for, for Americans. 'Cause there's no way... We don't have eight partners to train with in a night that are gonna give us good rounds, right? We might have two, you know, so we gotta go to the same guy four time- Those two people four, you know, two times each. Now I have four good rounds. The rest of the rounds, I'm not being pushed to the limit. So we train differently. Um, and a lot of times, we do a lot of stuff like shark bait. When our athletes are preparing for competition or, for example, when Kayla or Travis were, were pre- preparing for competition, you know, we might only have 20 people in the whole gym work, to work out with those two Olympic medalists, right? And of those 20 people, maybe four of them are Travis' size. You know, maybe there's only one girl in the room for Kayla. She's gotta train with guys.

   19. LFLex Fridman29:37

       Yeah.

   20. JPJimmy Pedro29:37

       And then the other ones are teenagers that are too weak to train with either one of them.

   21. LFLex Fridman29:41

       Yeah.

   22. JPJimmy Pedro29:41

       So what we would do is just put together four or five people that could, you know, give them a challenge, and we'd line them up and they would do a minute, a minute, a minute, a minute-

   23. LFLex Fridman29:49

       Yes.

   24. JPJimmy Pedro29:49

       ... and they'd do five minutes in a row as hard as they can. That person can go hard for a minute with Travis or Kayla. They can't go five minutes hard, but they can go one minute hard. So it made their training much, much more intense, much more physically demanding. And then rinse and repeat that six times or eight times in a night, you know, they just got 40 minutes of intense randori. The person that was training with them that wasn't as good only had to do six or eight minutes of training the whole night.

   25. LFLex Fridman30:15

       Yeah.

   26. JPJimmy Pedro30:15

       You know? So...

   27. LFLex Fridman30:17

       It's so... (sighs) It's so difficult 'cause y- then you look at like the Russian national team. And you have just world champions and... So, um...... or y- you even have like, um, what is it, Tom Browns and Terry Browns in the, in the wrestling system. You have like these people, it's a small group of people, but they're all some of the best people in the world and they're going head-to-head. And yeah, you don't necessarily get a good look kind of a, a variety of styles, but just the quality is there. And even that is missing for people your size in America 'cause-

   28. JPJimmy Pedro30:58

       Right.

   29. LFLex Fridman31:00

       ... that is so difficult to work with. Which it makes Scale as it makes Travis' story that much more amazing. Is, um, you mentioned kind of picking whatever the set of techniques the athlete is naturally good at or prefers or whatever, how much specialization is there? Maybe if I give you like two choices. Is it good to have like one throw and try to become the best person in the world at that throw or do you wanna have a bunch of stuff, uh, like a v- a variety of throws?

   30. JPJimmy Pedro31:33

       Well, for Travis, it was ippon-seoi-nage, that was his main throw, right? But from that ippon-seoi-nage, he had a variety of other attacks he could do-
4. 38:43 – 50:12

   Judo gripping

   1. LFLex Fridman38:43

      tangent. So, we- we're talking about elite level athletes in terms of randori, in terms of rep, like, uh, drilling. For more recreational athletes, like, you know, I have personally that situation going on, but there's other people that are just recreationally training judo. How do you recommend they improve judo? Like, if I wanted to compete a bunch and do reason- reasonable, with a particular set of throws. Say, the split, uh...

   2. JPJimmy Pedro39:12

      Split hip.

   3. LFLex Fridman39:12

      ... uh, seinagi. So how do you, how do you... Do you do the randori? Do you use a crash pad to get in reps? Do you like... What do you recommend?

   4. JPJimmy Pedro39:20

      So, I guess there's two recreational people that we're talking about. One is somebody who wants to learn judo and become good at judo but don't, doesn't necessarily wanna compete-

   5. LFLex Fridman39:29

      Right.

   6. JPJimmy Pedro39:29

      ... but just wants to get better. And I think that there's not enough emphasis in this country on...

   7. LFLex Fridman39:35

      On just that.

   8. JPJimmy Pedro39:35

      On paying attention to that type of student. Everybody pushes them to competition. But in reality, there's a huge audience of people out there that would love to learn judo and be very proficient at judo, and have the skills to go execute if they ever needed it.

   9. LFLex Fridman39:49

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JPJimmy Pedro39:50

       And there's a class, and there should be a program for that athlete. And that athlete does not need to do randori.

   11. LFLex Fridman39:56

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JPJimmy Pedro39:56

       Like, the sport of judo is physical enough, where you're picking somebody up all the time and moving their body weight around the mat all the time, where you can get very physically strong, very physically fit. Technically, you'll be better than somebody that does randori more than you, because you mov- if you learn good technique, and you learn the movement, and you learn the feel, and you move the, learn the timing, you'll actually be a better athlete than the person that just focuses on randori, who does ugly technique and wins with force.

   13. LFLex Fridman40:24

       Mm-hmm.

   14. JPJimmy Pedro40:24

       So, you know, we have a recreational class at our school where they don't do any randori. They have an option afterwards, if they wanna stay for 15 minutes or stay for 30 minutes, where they can participate in randori, but most of the adult students choose not to. Because they're already so tired from the other, you know, hour class.

   15. LFLex Fridman40:42

       'Cause it's a good workout.

   16. JPJimmy Pedro40:43

       Right, they're already dripping sweat. They're already like... If you, if you, you know, work hard and drill hard, it's an intense workout. You're exhausted, you know? So that, that's a, a specific set of, of, or program, I should say, at every, every academy. And then, if you wanna get good and you wanna compete, then, to me, once you have your techniques, it's learning how to, um, implement a good gripping system to put yourself in a position-

   17. LFLex Fridman41:10

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JPJimmy Pedro41:11

       ... where you can always, you know, dominate the grips, um, control the movement, initiate the reactions from your opponent, and then have the opportunity to attack and score. And, and I think that when people train with or when they jump into a higher level of the sport of judo, all of a sudden, the first thing they say is, "I can't attack." Like, "I, I don't know how to attack." 'Cause positionally, they don't know where to put their hands, they don't know how to hold the gi properly. They don't understand that they're... You know, they have an inferior grip-

   19. LFLex Fridman41:42

       Mm-hmm.

   20. JPJimmy Pedro41:43

       ... and, and they don't know how to get into better positions so they can attack. And that's a big part of the game that not a lot of people really understand.

   21. LFLex Fridman41:49

       So, you really, even for recreational competitors, you really need to have a gripping system. You need to understand the gripping system.

   22. JPJimmy Pedro41:57

       If you want to win.

   23. LFLex Fridman41:58

       Yeah.

   24. JPJimmy Pedro41:58

       I mean, if the goal is to go and compete, that's a different story.

   25. LFLex Fridman42:01

       Yeah.

   26. JPJimmy Pedro42:01

       You go... I don't have fun getting beat up or losing in competitions. I-

   27. LFLex Fridman42:05

       Well-

   28. JPJimmy Pedro42:05

       ... I enjoy the, the w-

   29. LFLex Fridman42:07

       I don't even know if it's the winning or the losing.

   30. JPJimmy Pedro42:09

       (laughs)
5. 50:12 – 1:00:37

   IOC

   1. LFLex Fridman50:12

      a small, before we return to the actual sport, the coaching and the sport. It's a bit of a political question. I did a whole rant before Travis' episode.

   2. JPJimmy Pedro50:21

      (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman50:22

      Uh, I love Neal Adams' voice. I love watching judo. And it's really disappointing to me that, uh, the IOC and whoever's responsible, I don't understand this, that they don't make it easy for people to watch the Olympics, uh, in replay for years after. Like I can't watch Travis' matches, I can't wat- Like it, they make it very difficult to watch stuff online. Uh, so what happened is I uploaded the Travis Stevens episode and we talked about his Ole Bishov 2012 match. And it was like one minute of, uh, of like a small overlay of the video as we're talking through it, we're like stepping through it, and it got taken down immediately from YouTube. That co- the whole four-hour conversation because of that one-minute little clip. And the way it got taken down automatically is because the IOC has that video uploaded. It's set to private, but it's uploaded. So like they have the video and they choose not to show it. It's not that they're asking for money or whatever, they're just not showing it anywhere. They, they're not showing it through their own service, like on NBC Olympics or so on. There's just so many great human stories that the Olympics reveals that are just not made easily accessible. That's the Olympics charter is you want to, I think, uh, the actual line is to ensure the fullest coverage and the widest possible audience in the world for the Olympic Games. And it seems like to me as a fan of the Olympic Games, we're not getting any of that. Do you have an understanding of why that is? Like why we can't watch Kayla's matches, Travis' matches super easily, even if we're willing to pay money for it?

   4. JPJimmy Pedro52:15

      So you, you can't go on the International Judo Federation website right now and watch-

   5. LFLex Fridman52:19

      No.

   6. JPJimmy Pedro52:19

      ... any of the Olympic footage?

   7. LFLex Fridman52:20

      No. No. No. Uh, so the only thing they have is for cert- For example, Teddy Riner match, he lost. Not available anywhere.

   8. JPJimmy Pedro52:31

      Really?

   9. LFLex Fridman52:31

      And that's like a dramatic thing. So the, the one thing they have is for certain sports at the highest level, like gymnastics, they'll have a highlight, which is the most frustrating thing to me.

   10. JPJimmy Pedro52:43

       (laughs)

   11. LFLex Fridman52:43

       Because this is what I can't... I, I'm going to go, like I'm going to try to prevent myself from going on a rant. But, you know, people don't just want to see a, a two-minute highlight of a historic moment. They want to see the build-up where the athlete is standing, the nerves, the fear, the confidence. You see the build-up to the event. Say it's a gymnastic, whatever, floor routine. Like their name is announced, they're walking-

   12. JPJimmy Pedro53:11

       Correct.

   13. LFLex Fridman53:11

       ... the co- then they cut to the coach, and the coach with anticipation, and they go to the athlete. You want the full 10-minute thing. You don't want a two-minute highlight of what happened like last second or what- whatever. It, it, it's just like the magic of that full story, like a lifetime building up to those 10 minutes.

   14. JPJimmy Pedro53:31

       Mm-hmm.

   15. LFLex Fridman53:31

       Right? That, that's the magic of the Olympics, the, both the drama and the triumph that happens in those moments. And the fact that you can't re- relive that... Like Travis had a bunch of those, right? Like he, he had a bunch of times he faced like world champions.

   16. JPJimmy Pedro53:46

       Right.

   17. LFLex Fridman53:46

       He won and lost and, and just it's, it's always close, it's always dramatic. (laughs)

   18. JPJimmy Pedro53:51

       Right, right, right.

   19. LFLex Fridman53:51

       And none of those are available except like may- maybe, um, the one where he beat, uh, Armbared, uh, or dr- what- one of the submission was, I forgot. The choke.

   20. JPJimmy Pedro54:02

       The Georgian Churchill?

   21. LFLex Fridman54:02

       The choke, the Ch- yeah, the, the Georgian. But most things are not. Uh, Usain Bolt, the full races, not all of his races are available online. Um, the, the race with the Italian winning the 100 meter, uh, the, the track race, uh, this, this Olympics is not... Only a highlight is available from what I saw. I didn't look too hard. So like, but that, the fact that it's not super easily accessible if you're willing to pay money even, but probably should be for free, is, is heartbreaking to me 'cause to me the Olympics is like some of the best of humanity. Just like, again, the hardship they have to overcome, so like the losses are really powerful-

   22. JPJimmy Pedro54:45

       Sure.

   23. LFLex Fridman54:45

       ... 'cause it's such heartbreak, but it's also like...... the, the triumph.

   24. JPJimmy Pedro54:49

       You're losing history.

   25. LFLex Fridman54:50

       Yeah.

   26. JPJimmy Pedro54:50

       You're losing history, is what you are, of, of, of all the mo- magical moments of your sport, right?

   27. LFLex Fridman54:55

       Yeah.

   28. JPJimmy Pedro54:55

       It, that's, that's a s- it's a sin. Um, I gotta blame it on television rights and, and, and money. It's what it comes down to. You're talking about billions and billions of dollars of, of television rights paid by NBC here in the United States, and globally, whatever the main carriers are in all the other nations that are dictating what can be replayed and what can't.

   29. LFLex Fridman55:18

       Yeah.

   30. JPJimmy Pedro55:18

       And that, it's what it comes down to. You know, I, I made a, I made a, uh, DVD or, you know, a video when I first retired from the sport, it was called Fury on the Mat-
6. 1:00:37 – 1:05:44

   Toughest match

   1. LFLex Fridman1:00:38

      Let's go to you as an athlete real quick.

   2. JPJimmy Pedro1:00:41

      Sure.

   3. LFLex Fridman1:00:42

      You represented the United States at four Olympics, winning a bronze medal at two of them.Who or what was the toughest match or moment you had in those years? Maybe a moment that defined you, that you remember as being particularly, um, defining in your career?

   4. JPJimmy Pedro1:01:06

      I would say the, the bronze medal match in Atlanta-

   5. LFLex Fridman1:01:09

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JPJimmy Pedro1:01:10

      ... in '96. Because up to that moment, the United States team had not won a medal, had not fought for a medal in the games. We were on our home turf. It was my second Olympic Games, right? So I competed in '92 and I had won two matches and, and lost in the third round in Barcelona. Um, I didn't make the podium. I lost to a Japanese, guy from Japan. Um, but the, the gold, silver and bronze medalists at that Olympics in Barcelona were all guys that I had beat. In fact, two of them, I was undefeated against in my entire career. The Brazilian and the Cuban I had never lost to. So that's when I knew I was capable of being, you know, on the, on the podium at the Olympic Games. When '96 came around, I was 25 years old, I was fairly in my prime, I had lived in Japan for six months, my technique was at a high level. You know, I was, I was, you know, amongst the best in the world. Um, I lost at that Olympics to a guy from Mongolia. It was right before the match I was supposed to fight against Japan, so I was like anticipating the match against Japan and I got beat by the Mongolian. Um, so that was kind of a letdown. But the match for the bronze, you know, in front of the hometown crowd, all of my family, all of my friends, everybody who had ever helped me in my s- in the sport, were in the stands that day, including all my teammates at Brown University that were on the wrestling team, and little... My uncles, my aunts, everybody.

   7. LFLex Fridman1:02:35

      (laughs)

   8. JPJimmy Pedro1:02:36

      Everybody was in the stands, right?

   9. LFLex Fridman1:02:37

      Yeah.

   10. JPJimmy Pedro1:02:37

       So it was like the Jimmy Pedro day. And, uh, I'm getting goosebumps right now talking about it, but-

   11. LFLex Fridman1:02:42

       (laughs)

   12. JPJimmy Pedro1:02:43

       Um, but it was a match against a Brazilian for the bronze medal. I had beaten a Brazilian, like, two or three times before that. Um, I found myself, I found myself down in the match. He actually countered me. Um, I came in with my taiotoge and he was waiting for it, and he countered me and he scored a yuko against me. So I was losing the fight, came down to about the last minute in the match, and I was just tucking in my gi and fixing my thing and gathering my thoughts together, and the whole crowd just started chanting, "USA! USA! USA!" And I, like, literally, like, got so much energy. I walked out there, I grabbed the guy, I came in my taiotoge again, he stepped off the taiotoge. I threw him uchi mata, free pone.

   13. LFLex Fridman1:03:26

       Wow.

   14. JPJimmy Pedro1:03:26

       I won my first Olympic medal in front of the hometown crowd. Everybody went bananas. You know, the United States judo team had our first medal from the Olympics. It ended up being the only Olympic medal we won, won at that games. But it was like a magical moment that defined my career and solidified myself in, like, history where, "Hey, and now I get to step up on the Olympic podium and I'm an Olympic medalist." And to me, that was my defining moment. And after that, I was sold. Like, "Man, I had to go back to the Olympics again. I want to win a gold medal. I want to do th- I want this feeling all over again. I don't care if I have to wait four years. Let's, let's do it."

   15. LFLex Fridman1:04:05

       In your career, the, like, moments like that, do you think you love winning or hate losing more? So do you live for those moments? Or are you more driven by just how much you hate losing?

   16. JPJimmy Pedro1:04:24

       So in order to be a champion, my belief is that you have to hate losing more than you like winning. Hate losing more than you like winning. But I live for those moments when you do win. And what excited me the most in my career, in my st- when I was, um, competing was I loved being in the finals. I love the spotlight being on me. I, I can't think of too many times in my career, of course there were a few, but there weren't too many times where the chips were down, like the lights were on, and I didn't win. Like, it was... I might have lost early in the day and didn't make it to the finals or didn't make it to the, the medal rounds. But like, in my career, I have a ton of golds, I have a ton of bronzes, which means the lights are on and I won. And I have very few silvers and very few fifths.

   17. LFLex Fridman1:05:14

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JPJimmy Pedro1:05:15

       So I either lost in the early rounds and didn't make to the medal rounds in my younger days, or the spotlight came and I really shined. 'Cause if you look, I, I don't know how many silvers, but there wasn't very many silver medals in my career that I won. You know what I mean? So I just loved that moment. I didn't feel pressure. I loved the crowd.

   19. LFLex Fridman1:05:31

       Mm-hmm.

   20. JPJimmy Pedro1:05:31

       I loved being in the spotlight. I didn't have, I wasn't nervous when it came to the finals or I knew I was getting a medal. It didn't matter. You know, so it was just me against the other guy, and that's how I always saw it.

   21. LFLex Fridman1:05:41

       Mm-hmm.

   22. JPJimmy Pedro1:05:42

       And I just loved that moment.

7. 1:05:44 – 1:24:59

   Jimmy Pedro Sr

   1. JPJimmy Pedro1:05:44

   2. LFLex Fridman1:05:44

      So your dad was your coach?

   3. JPJimmy Pedro1:05:47

      (laughs) Yeah.

   4. LFLex Fridman1:05:48

      Um-

   5. JPJimmy Pedro1:05:48

      You're gonna get to meet him tonight.

   6. LFLex Fridman1:05:50

      Oh, great. (laughs)

   7. JPJimmy Pedro1:05:53

      (laughs)

   8. LFLex Fridman1:05:53

      Um, he's, he's kind of a legend in the sport. So how has your dad helped you as a coach, as an athlete, as a human being throughout the years?

   9. JPJimmy Pedro1:06:03

      Number one, my dad is the most brutally honest person you will ever meet in your life. Brutally honest. He will tell you eg- if, if you are fat, he will tell you you're fat right to your face. He wants you to get better. He wants you to be healthy.

   10. LFLex Fridman1:06:17

       Yeah.

   11. JPJimmy Pedro1:06:18

       Doesn't want you to die of obesity, right? It's just the way he is.

   12. LFLex Fridman1:06:20

       (laughs)

   13. JPJimmy Pedro1:06:21

       If you didn't do well, he will, will not sugarcoat it. He will let you know what you didn't do right and what... He's, so he's the ultimate litmus test.

   14. LFLex Fridman1:06:29

       Yes.

   15. JPJimmy Pedro1:06:29

       Right? Um, second is, he is the most passionate, caring, like deep, like always thinking about... Very cerebral, very like, um, stud- uh, a student of the game. Somebody who helped me immensely in divin- defining my strategy, um, helping me improve and, and always, you know, look for the, what's next. Um-In terms of training, I think that he's probably the most brilliant, um, human when it comes to preparing an athlete physically, not necessarily mentally, physically for success. When all the chips are down, that athlete will be ready that day. And he has a, a system of, of training and preparing and getting the ath- athlete to peak for performance, right?

   16. LFLex Fridman1:07:18

       You mean like conditioning, like the whole thing?

   17. JPJimmy Pedro1:07:20

       Yeah.

   18. LFLex Fridman1:07:21

       Just... Okay. 'Cause I remember, like, vaguely remember Kayla Harrison talking about her preparation being very difficult.

   19. JPJimmy Pedro1:07:31

       Yeah.

   20. LFLex Fridman1:07:31

       (laughs)

   21. JPJimmy Pedro1:07:31

       That's it. That's-

   22. LFLex Fridman1:07:33

       That's him?

   23. JPJimmy Pedro1:07:34

       Yeah, that's him.

   24. LFLex Fridman1:07:34

       (Laughs) .

   25. JPJimmy Pedro1:07:35

       That's it. Say we go back and ask Rhonda Roussy-

   26. LFLex Fridman1:07:38

       Yes.

   27. JPJimmy Pedro1:07:38

       ...about her career, right? My dad was her coach.

   28. LFLex Fridman1:07:40

       Yeah.

   29. JPJimmy Pedro1:07:41

       My dad moved her to camp, Camp New Hampshire in Boston. Got her up, ran her in the morning, had her downstairs in the basement of his house, training with the weights. We brought a Russian girl in, she did throws on his cement outside with the little crash pad.

   30. LFLex Fridman1:07:56

       Nice.

Episode duration: 2:23:07