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

Lex Fridman 0:00 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.

Lex Fridman 0:43 What is the most beautiful throw in judo to you?

Jimmy Pedro 0:47 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.

Lex Fridman 1:08 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.

Jimmy Pedro 1:24 Correct.

Lex Fridman 1:25 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.

Jimmy Pedro 1:46 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:47 There's some involvement of the hip-

Jimmy Pedro 1:49 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:49 ... 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.

Jimmy Pedro 1:58 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:59 I'm trying to s- can you say something more-

Jimmy Pedro 2:00 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.

Lex Fridman 2:38 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 2:38 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.

Lex Fridman 3:07 So all four feet are in the air.

Jimmy Pedro 3:09 Correct.

Lex Fridman 3:09 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.

Jimmy Pedro 3:15 Correct.

Lex Fridman 3:17 Okay, so who to you is the best uchimata? Who has the... Besides yourself. Uh, the-

Jimmy Pedro 3:25 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 3:25 (laughs)

Jimmy Pedro 3:25 I'm not gonna lie. There's, (laughs) there's plenty of guys that do uchimata a lot better than I do.

Lex Fridman 3:29 Uh, you do have a nice video about the uchimata online but, uh-

Jimmy Pedro 3:33 Oh, yeah.

Lex Fridman 3:34 ... who, who's a great practitioner of the uchimata to you?

Jimmy Pedro 3:36 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.

Lex Fridman 3:59 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 3:59 You know, he's just incredible. So-

Lex Fridman 4:00 At, at a very competitive division, I guess s- 73 kilos?

Jimmy Pedro 4:05 Yep.

Lex Fridman 4:05 Okay. And then three, three-time world champ too. Is he the greatest of all time to you?

Jimmy Pedro 4:12 The only reason why he's not is because Nomura is a 60 kilo player. He was three-time Olympic champion. So Nomura, I mean, un- unless O- Ono's gonna stick around for another three years and, and win again in, uh, win again here in Paris, that's, you know, then he'd match what Nomura did. But three-time gold medalist in judo in a lightweight division, that's pretty spectacular.

Lex Fridman 4:34 So to you the, the... Being able to win a championship, world championship or Olympic medal is a, is a measure of greatness. It's not like, um... You have some people who are not as accomplished like Koga or something like that, but just the, the beauty, uh, the, the moments of magic, the number of moments of magic is the highest, even if it's not championships.

Jimmy Pedro 4:59 I, I think you have to go by that because it, it... There's so many phenomenal judo players that have come through the system of spectacular judo, um, have won, you know, countless major events. But, you know, the ability to pull it together, right, those magical moments, the, the pinnacle of the sport, the world championships, the Olympic Games, and proving that you can do it time and time again makes you unstoppable, it makes you the best. Um, you know, there was a guy back in the '70s and '80s by the name of Fuji, and he won four world championships back to back. And back then, the worlds was every two years. So he was, here he was a four-time world champion, that's eight years the top of the sport. He never, uh, won an Olympic medal.

Lex Fridman 5:43 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 5:43 You know, he never went to the Olympics, you know. So this is a guy who missed out on, on Olympic greatness, but was arguably the best competitor back in that, that period.

Lex Fridman 5:52 By the way, same Fuji as f- as Fuji?

Jimmy Pedro 5:56 (laughs) Right.

Lex Fridman 5:57 Really?

Jimmy Pedro 5:57 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 5:57 Okay. Wow, I didn't know that was an actual guy, Fuji.

Jimmy Pedro 6:00 ... our brand is, is named after the mountain, Mount Fuji.

Lex Fridman 6:03 Okay.

Jimmy Pedro 6:03 But, you know, this is a different guy, his name was Fuji.

Lex Fridman 6:05 All right. Well-

Jimmy Pedro 6:06 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 6:06 (laughs) Um, history rhymes. What about, uh, Teddy Riner? Ten-time world champ, I think. Two-time gold medalist at the Olympics, two-times bronze medalist at the Olympics. Probably the most dominant judoka ever. Is he in the running? What do you think about that guy?

Jimmy Pedro 6:29 I think he's a, uh, a freak of nature, Teddy. You know, if you look at the size, just how big he, how tall he is, how big he is, how physical he is of a specimen. Like I sat next to him on a bus-

Lex Fridman 6:40 (laughs)

Jimmy Pedro 6:41 ... and like his legs are literally-

Lex Fridman 6:44 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 6:44 ... the size of my waist.

Lex Fridman 6:45 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 6:45 Like when you sit next to him and l- just look at the size, he's a big man. You know, so obviously to win 10 world titles-

Lex Fridman 6:53 (laughs)

Jimmy Pedro 6:53 ... in the sport of judo, I mean, it, that's a, that's almost an incomprehensible feat. Uh, two-time Olympic champion. Again, um, but, you know, that puts him in one of the maybe 10 or 12 people to ever do that in the history of the, of the sport. So, he's definitely got to be con- in the running for, for the best. But, you know, technically, I don't think he's as technical as some of the other, um, in terms of pure judo finess- finesse technique, you know. It's, he's powerful, he's explosive, he's dominant, he's strong. Um, Teddy also grips really, really well which makes him, uh, that much tougher to beat. Because a lot of times heavyweights, especially in the heavyweight division, a lot of them just grab the key and they go, you know, man-to-man, and, and judo to judo, and take shots at each other. And that's why a lot of them end up getting beat. But Teddy is in control, like positionally, he stays in really good position.

Lex Fridman 7:47 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 7:47 And he controls his opponent the whole fight. So, they really don't have a chance against him. He doesn't give them a chance to beat him, which is why he's been so dominant.

Lex Fridman 7:55 But he's not really stalling. So I mean, he does have a really nice, uh, osotogari, this, uh-

Jimmy Pedro 8:02 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 8:03 ... backward trip, outside trip, in case people don't know. I mean, he, he has just like technically pretty good throws, and for a heavyweight.

Jimmy Pedro 8:12 Yes.

Lex Fridman 8:12 'Cause heavyweights can be sometimes messy-

Jimmy Pedro 8:15 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 8:15 ... with their, uh, judo. He's pretty t- technical and, uh, clean in the execution of his big throws. But, um, a lot of that probably has to do with the dominant gripping that he does. It's not defensive gripping, it's offensive gripping, but the dominant gripping.

Jimmy Pedro 8:32 100%. He, he, he controls the grips, he controls the movement of the match as a result of that, and, and then he creates his own openings. So I mean, for, as a, for a heavyweight, phenomenal technique, yes. Um, and what you said, messy, I'd like to call it sloppy, right?

Lex Fridman 8:46 Sloppy, yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 8:46 A lot of, a lot of the, uh, heavyweights tend to be sloppy, they're falling on the ground a lot. It's hard to move somebody that weighs 350 pounds, you know, it's hard to get that body moving and, and just with the simple, uh, pull motion. So, um, he's definitely found a way to do it. But he's also, I don't know, 6'8".

Lex Fridman 9:02 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 9:03 You know, he's probably weighs 140 kilos. You know, he's a big boy.

Lex Fridman 9:07 And, but he had this winning streak of just, uh, I don't know how long, but like over 100 matches. And he lost at this, uh, Olympics that we just went through, the 20... I don't even know what to call it. 2021 Olympics? I don't know the proper terminology.

Jimmy Pedro 9:22 Tokyo 2020 is what they called it.

Lex Fridman 9:24 Tokyo 2020, all right. So, he lost to, uh, Tamerlan Bashaev. I mean, it's always sad to see a sort of greatness come to an end. It's like, um, Karelin in wrestling and Greco-Roman.

Jimmy Pedro 9:38 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 9:39 Did you shed a bit of a tear to see greatness go? Or, um, like, or is it just the way of life? Um, I mean, h- what did you think about sort of this dominance, this run of dominance being stopped?

Jimmy Pedro 9:53 I think, I mean, it, it's obviously sad to see. I love seeing champions succeed, um, especially people that, that are good people. And I think Teddy's a good person, you know what I mean? I think there's some arrogant champions that everybody would like to see lose just because they don't want to deal with their, um, (laughs) you know, their personality or... But, and I think, but I think Teddy's a very humble champion, you know. He's, he's a people's champion, you know. He's, I think he's been privileged and he makes good money from the sport of judo, and the French Federation has taken care of him well. So he's a, he's a lifelong judo icon. Um, so it's sad to see somebody like that get beat, especially when this could have been, you know, his, his third Olympic title. And, um, you know, just become, put him in infamy, you know.

Lex Fridman 10:36 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 10:36 So, it was sad to see, but I think, you know, every athlete goes through it, right? I mean, you, you... It's just, that's what the Olympics is all about. You... The great ones fall sometimes. And, um...

Lex Fridman 10:48 Especially in judo-

Jimmy Pedro 10:49 Right. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 10:50 ... it's, it's like so, like the margin of error, I mean, the, I guess, uh, the other question I want to ask here is, in your sense, how difficult it is to not lose for s- so long? It seems like in judo, like a little mistake and it's over. Th- there's no, there's no coming back, an ippon means it's over. So, how difficult is that? Is it-

Jimmy Pedro 11:13 It's hard to stay that dominant, without question. First of all, when you are, when you are, the entire world is, is training against you, just to beat you.

Lex Fridman 11:20 Right.

Jimmy Pedro 11:20 They're studying every single movement, they're, they're studying patterns, they're, they're trying to break it down and find a flaw in your game. So everybody's hunting for you when you're the best in the world, especially at the Olympics. That's, that's the, that's the one to beat you at. So, everybody's focused on you. And then there's an incredible amount of pressure on that athlete to perform, you know.

Lex Fridman 11:39 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 11:39 You carry the flag for your country, you know, when you're at opening ceremonies. Sometimes, you know, there's... All spotlight is on you. Um, and it's particularly hard when things don't go well early, you know. In other words, when you're s- expected to win and then all of a sudden now you're in a hard fight and it's not going the way you want, that, that pressure, the one who's the favorite feels the pressure the most at the Olympics. And that's why I think the other ones are able to win it.

Lex Fridman 12:03 I've actually have never gotten a chance to listen to Teddy Riner sort of explain-... uh, hi- ideas behind his judo. Like I wonder what his mental game is like, 'cause I think his English is pretty- not very good. And so, um, and I just haven't seen good interviews. But it's always fascinating to... There's certain great athletes that are also great thinkers and speakers like, um, the Satya brothers in wrestling. Again, not meaning... That, that's on my to-do list, 100%.

Jimmy Pedro 12:35 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 12:35 I'm going to, uh, Dagestan and talking to them because they're brilliant. But to be able to sort of, um, maybe after retirement, to, to think back, what were the systems involved? Both on the technical, the training side, and then the, uh, mental side. 'Cause like to stay that dominant, just like you're saying, everybody's studying to beat you. And, and the heavyweights are just these powerful dudes. (laughs) So, so to be able to control them with your game and like the game that everybody knows is coming is... I don't know. I don't know what's behind that, but there's got to be, um... It feels like m- the mental game is exceptionally important.

Jimmy Pedro 13:17 I think a lot of people underestimate just how important that, that side is. Ment- being mentally prepared for victory, mentally prepared to be the best, to stay the best, um, there's nobody that's weak-minded that (laughs) they're gonna accomplish that. You know, it, it's, it's 100% confidence and belief in yourself.

Lex Fridman 13:36 If we take a big-picture view then, not necessarily Teddy Riner, but if you wanna go from the very beginning, from day one of judo class to Olympic champion or Olympic medalist, what does it take to become an Olympic medalist in judo, from start to finish? Like how many different trajectories do you see? Or is there some unifying principles?

Jimmy Pedro 14:01 I think a lot of it has to... Your journey is gonna depend a lot by where you're from. So a path that an American might take versus somebody who's from Japan or somebody who's from Europe. There's two very dis- three very distinct paths, right? 'Cause, you know, j- in Japan it's, it's part of the culture. It's, it... There's a, there's a system of excellence. There's, you know, there's elementary school judo, there's junior high school, there's high school, there's collegiate, there's Olympic. And, you know, much like our wrestling is here in our, in our, in the United States, right? It's very similar. There's youth wrestling, there's high school, there's NCAA, and then there's Olympic wrestling.

Lex Fridman 14:40 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 14:41 And, you know, when you, when you... Your country is a factory of producing athletes at the highest level, then all of those top athletes typically go back into the sport, and there's professions for them. They have an opportunity to coach at all those different levels. And just the level of their game and the expertise that all of them have, even down at the elementary level, make their skill so solid.

Lex Fridman 15:04 And as a coach, in that situation, you can just sit back and watch who stands out as opposed to, I think in America, I guess, you would need to craft. You don't get to choose from a thousand people a few people that naturally stand out at the age of nine. You get, you have to actually, uh, whatever the natural resources you're given (laughs) -

Jimmy Pedro 15:28 (laughs) Right.

Lex Fridman 15:28 ... craft them into a champion. Um, so if we look at that, the American way, where you just have a person with a smile show up, show up to your dojo, says, "I want to be an Olympic medalist," what process do you take them through?

Jimmy Pedro 15:43 The odds are really insurmountable. Uh, it's a, it's a very, very high hill to climb. Uh, and there's only a few... I, uh, there's only a few people, and there's only a few coaches in this entire country that really understand that process and that can, that can help people reach that level. Uh, as it's, as it's been proven, right?

Lex Fridman 16:00 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 16:00 Um, number one, you, you, you certainly have to have a, a solid base, a fundamental base of, of an expectation of what the training is gonna be. And it has to be a level of, of professionalism very, very early, where you're teaching all the basic judo moves, all the basic fundamental movements, posture, gripping, um... Well, maybe gripping doesn't come in so early in, in the game, but, um, throwing methodology, movements, newaza position, um, standing fundamental throws, and I think most importantly is really the work ethic. Just the way you're going to train, the intensity you're going to train with, the ability to, uh, you know, mindset of going to tournaments constantly. You need... You know, in order to compete with the rest of the world, our young kids need to, uh, be tested a lot when they're young. They have to be put through adversity 'cause they don't get put through adversity in training 'cause you don't have that many good training partners. So you get put through adversity in competition, and then we see what your weaknesses are, and we continue to make improvements on those. Um, but the journey is, is... It's long. And, and until they're kind of at the teenage years, they're gonna have to pretty much stay domestic, right? 'Cause they gotta go through life as a normal kid. But they've gotta be training in the dojo at least, you know, five days a week. You know, sometimes they might wanna get, you know, an extra technical workout in or doing some base conditioning in addition to that. And then really at the teenage years, that's where we really, um, we've struggled in America, of, of keeping teens in the sport of judo as well as developing them properly.

Lex Fridman 17:34 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 17:34 'Cause up until around the teenage years, I think the Americans are on par with the rest of the world in terms of technique and in terms of skill and in-

Lex Fridman 17:42 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 17:42 You know, we've, we've proven we can compete with the rest of the world up until that age. But that's where Japan and that's where the Europeans and the, the countries that are strong in judo, that's where they put a lot of time, energy, and effort is into the teens where they have a great coaching staff, they have good training camps with, with 800, 1,000 people going to 'em every single weekend. Um, you know-

Lex Fridman 18:05 When you say teens, what do you mean? Do you mean literally like 13?

Jimmy Pedro 18:09 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 18:09 Do-

Jimmy Pedro 18:09 Age thir-

Lex Fridman 18:10 So you-

Jimmy Pedro 18:10 ... 13 to 17, 13 to 19.

Lex Fridman 18:12 And that's where sort of, that's when you really accelerate your development. So you're saying like in America when you're young-... like, before, you know, nine, 10, 11, 12, you're stick in judo, you can progress quite a bit.

Jimmy Pedro 18:25 Right.

Lex Fridman 18:26 But then I guess the other competition there, if you're into, um, uh, two people, uh, you know, doing stuff to each other in a combative way, (laughs) uh, the other competitor in America is wrestling. So, judo almost primes you, like it teaches you-

Jimmy Pedro 18:44 Right.

Lex Fridman 18:45 ... uh, how to be a great wrestler as well. And so then you have to have a hard decision because you could probably be a collegiate wrestler.

Jimmy Pedro 18:54 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 18:54 You can, you could, you have like a, a clear plan of where you're going to go if you wanna be a wrestler. With judo, that plan is more, um... It is less clear. So you, uh, you, you have to be on your own a bit with your coach, that kind of thing.

Jimmy Pedro 19:11 Exactly.

Lex Fridman 19:12 Okay, so when you're on your own with your coach, to me that's just a fascinating journey 'cause it then is just like the purity of it. It's the coach and the athlete and the dream. It's all about the dedication, the, the five, six, seven days a week competing, what, once a month? Twice a month?

Jimmy Pedro 19:32 Twice a month.

Lex Fridman 19:33 Okay. And just, but also you probably don't have that conversation. I don't know if you do, maybe you do, saying like, "We're gonna do this for the next eight years."

Jimmy Pedro 19:43 (laughs) Right. Right.

Lex Fridman 19:44 Do you ever sit down or do you just do it, take it the David Goggins way, which is like, "Let's just take it one step at a time"?

Jimmy Pedro 19:51 (laughs) Let's hope we're there in eight years.

Lex Fridman 19:54 Yeah, let's hope we're there. Do you like actually-

Jimmy Pedro 19:56 Well, no, like right now, you have to think about the, the Olympics is gonna be in, in Los Angeles in 2028. So it's really interesting now, now would be the time and now is the time to identify talent and get commitment out of students that in seven years you can make a US Olympic team, because we're gonna have a full team. Uh, America is gonna have 14 athletes compete in those games, one in every weight class. So now is the time if you're gonna go on a journey to the Olympics and stay with the sport of judo-

Lex Fridman 20:25 This is it.

Jimmy Pedro 20:26 ... now would be the time to do it, you know?

Lex Fridman 20:28 And so what, uh, you show up to the Pedro Judo Center and how much drilling, how much technique strategy discussions, how much Randori or like live sparring, how much conditioning and strength training, how much of all of that? How, h- h- how much of cross-training to other gyms or something like that?

Jimmy Pedro 20:51 Yeah, so-

Lex Fridman 20:52 Traveling abo- abroad, is there something to be said about a s- um, some aspects of that system?

Jimmy Pedro 20:57 For sure. Um, you need it all, what you just said. We needed all of it, and we do do all of that. Right now, we have a young group of kids at the, at the academy, you'll see tonight. Some of 'em are 14, 13, 15, 17.

Lex Fridman 21:09 Are they good?

Jimmy Pedro 21:09 Yeah, really good.

Lex Fridman 21:11 Okay.

Jimmy Pedro 21:11 So they're gonna-

Lex Fridman 21:12 Can't, can't wait.

Jimmy Pedro 21:12 They're, they're right around your weight, so it'll be perfect. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 21:14 That's, that's... (laughs)

Jimmy Pedro 21:16 They're just young boys, but they've been training hard through COVID.

Lex Fridman 21:19 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 21:20 Um, we've been, Travis and myself have been training them. We share responsibilities. Um, they're doing Randori like five nights a week. You know, we have 'em doing Randori Tuesdays, Wednesdays, uh, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays is when they're doing Randori. They're coming to the dojo Friday night and Sunday night to do training.

Lex Fridman 21:39 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 21:39 Um, we also have technical sessions for them in, they're in school now, so it's a little bit challenging, but they come five o'clock in the afternoon and they do a technical session. Through COVID, they were coming every morning doing technical sessions.

Lex Fridman 21:51 What's the technical session? You're...

Jimmy Pedro 21:53 It's an hour of, um, repetitive throwing or repetitive drilling to, to reinforce movements that we deem important to our successful, uh-

Lex Fridman 22:02 Okay.

Jimmy Pedro 22:02 ... system. So, newaza positions, groundwork positions where we want them to be put in this position and they're gonna drill it 50 times.

Lex Fridman 22:10 Yes.

Jimmy Pedro 22:10 You know, with resistance, in big groups, you know, doing drills over and over again, picking apart the details of the technique and what they're doing wrong, showing them how to fix it. But now we've done it so much that now we can do a whole drill session with them where they know all the different techniques inside and out, and they can move from position to position really quickly.

Lex Fridman 22:29 Do they do it for, uh, a, a period of time, like two minutes, five minutes? Or is it like one, two, they are actually counting the reps?

Jimmy Pedro 22:37 No it's a, sometimes it's both. So sometimes we do it for reps, sometimes we do it for time.

Lex Fridman 22:42 Oh. Okay.

Jimmy Pedro 22:42 Yeah. And so sometimes it might be as many as they can do in, in 60 seconds, or as many as they can do in two minutes, and sometimes it might just be I want you to do every position five times.

Lex Fridman 22:51 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 22:51 You know?

Lex Fridman 22:52 In terms of throws, we're not talking about i- on a crash pad, right? It's, it's just-

Jimmy Pedro 22:56 No, we're talking about free moving around the mat and, and, you know.

Lex Fridman 22:59 And, and just dynamically and just throwing.

Jimmy Pedro 23:01 Correct.

Lex Fridman 23:02 How many, um... Because, uh, uh, as I was mentioning to you offline, uh, Travis threw me a few times, a lot of times when he was visiting in Austin, and I just remembered... Uh, so there's two things. I fortunately or unfortunately in my life haven't gotten a chance to train at, with folks of that level with the, uh, just cleanness of throw and the power, and it's, it was very nice. I ca- I immediately actually enjoyed being thrown like that.

Jimmy Pedro 23:30 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 23:31 To throw a little shade at Craig Jones with his current mat situation, um, is they're very th- they were quite thin, uh, and as Travis commented on. And not just the thinness of the mats, but they were laid on like concrete.

Jimmy Pedro 23:45 Right.

Lex Fridman 23:45 So I felt, I felt... So it, it's, it's like soft until it's not. Um, but, uh, d- being thrown very cleanly, I just felt like there's, this is not gonna lead to injury, it was great. It, it wasn't injury prone, but then, uh, as I mentioned to you, when I, the day or two after, my entire leg, one of them, I guess it's the left leg, um, was just in- it was just black with bruise.

Jimmy Pedro 24:10 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 24:11 It didn't, it didn't hurt too bad, but it was just the body has gotten soft. So I guess the question I have is, um, does the body get used to just that number of throws, just over time being thrown thousands of times a month?

Jimmy Pedro 24:26 ... unquestionably.

Lex Fridman 24:27 Okay.

Jimmy Pedro 24:27 Your, your body gets used to it. So, it hardens-

Lex Fridman 24:30 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 24:30 ... it gets really hard, which is why judo is, is hard to come back to after you've taken a long period of time off-

Lex Fridman 24:35 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 24:35 ... because your body is not used to that impact anymore. Um, I always found out that, you know, when I was training judo a lot, it w- it's hard to, it's hard to, uh, shed weight and keep weight off because your body like, you know, it, it, it develops like this layer of protection on itself-

Lex Fridman 24:51 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 24:51 ... that it doesn't want to give up.

Lex Fridman 24:52 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 24:52 You know? When you're sucking a lot of weight, that means you're frail and, you know. So, I always seem to retain weight more, you know, when you're doing hard judo training, as opposed to, you know, losing weight. It's easy when you go out for runs and things like that, to, to shed the water weight, but to actually keep the pounds off was-

Lex Fridman 25:08 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 25:08 ... pretty hard.

Lex Fridman 25:09 Yeah. The body kind of develops, like you said, a, a

Lex Fridman 25:12 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?

Jimmy Pedro 26:07 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?

Lex Fridman 26:16 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 26:16 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.

Lex Fridman 26:27 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 26:28 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.

Lex Fridman 26:43 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 26:43 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.

Lex Fridman 27:18 Uh, when you say Europe, do you mean Germany, France, Britain, Russia?

Jimmy Pedro 27:23 All of them.

Lex Fridman 27:23 Is, is there a lot... So it's, it... There's a kind of similarity to all of those kinds of approaches?

Jimmy Pedro 27:28 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.

Lex Fridman 27:46 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?

Jimmy Pedro 28:03 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-

Lex Fridman 28:10 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 28:10 ... the physicality of the Europeans. You have to focus on, on the ground niwaza aspect-

Lex Fridman 28:15 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 28:15 ... 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.

Lex Fridman 29:37 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 29:37 And then the other ones are teenagers that are too weak to train with either one of them.

Lex Fridman 29:41 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 29:41 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-

Lex Fridman 29:49 Yes.

Jimmy Pedro 29:49 ... 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.

Lex Fridman 30:15 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 30:15 You know? So...

Lex Fridman 30:17 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-

Jimmy Pedro 30:58 Right.

Lex Fridman 31:00 ... 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?

Jimmy Pedro 31:33 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-

Lex Fridman 31:41 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 31:41 ... you know, that mixed it up so that you kept people guessing it w- maybe it wasn't the ippon-seoi-nage was coming, maybe it was the koshi-gruma that he did, or maybe it was the ippon to osoto that he did-

Lex Fridman 31:50 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 31:50 ... in combination. So, you typically have one main throw that you do. For me it was tai-otoshi.

Lex Fridman 31:56 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 31:56 For Kayla, it was her o-goshi. For Travis it was his ippon-seoi-nage. But then you come up with a variety of other throws that you do from the very same grip. So whatever grip you take for your main throw, you wanna develop, you know, an arsenal of attacks that go in all different directions holding that same grip. So y- you keep your opponent guessing as to what's coming. You know, because if, if they're just sitting on one technique at the highest level of sport with the exception of a few, right? We talked about onos-uchimata.

Lex Fridman 32:25 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 32:26 Uh, with the exception of a few, most of the world catches on pretty quick on how to beat you.

Lex Fridman 32:30 There is something to just sticking, making sure you really dedicate to the main thing.

Jimmy Pedro 32:36 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 32:36 So for Travis that would be like the main version of his seoi-nage. Like, really making sure you don't forget to really put in the time on that because, um, I mean, one, one way to say it is that threat being dangerous opens up a lot of things.

Jimmy Pedro 32:56 Right.

Lex Fridman 32:57 But also, I don't know. I think I'm just as a fan, I think it, it's sad when like elite level athletes in, in all like combat sports kind of start taking their main thing for granted. Like, um, they think, "Okay, I've, I figured that part out. Now I'll be working on all the, this whole system on variations, on different setups, on, uh, lefty versus right." There's some like weird variation as opposed to... You know what? If you look at some of the best people ever, they seem to have not cared (laughs) about variations at all.

Jimmy Pedro 33:32 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 33:32 They're just like, literally, th- they are more like Jiro Dreams of Sushi and like g- like fine-tuning their ear, their ability to detect the minute movements that give you an opening on that main thing. And so the whole time you're just s- waiting for that throw, you're like dancing with the like little bit of pressure and the like releasing the pressure and putting the pressure maybe a little bit off, off balance and finding like the right moment to strike and, and fo- focusing on that. Again, maybe that's just like a ro- romantization of like the simplicity of that. Maybe it is kind of impossible to do that on a large scale, but I just, um... Yeah, I, I, I don't know if you can comment on that, whether there is some value in still putting in like tens of thousands of reps on the main, main thing.

Jimmy Pedro 34:25 Well, there's unquestionably that has to happen. Y- you still have to drill your main throw and you have to fine-tune it and continue to do, you know, repetition after repetition and throws on the crash pad, you know, or throws on the mat moving around, just explosive movements doing your main technique. You're never gonna forget that and you're not gonna put it to the side and not practice it anymore. It still has-

Lex Fridman 34:44 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 34:44 ... to be part of your repertoire and part of your daily training but you do have to evolve. And I think that's, and I think that's the sport of judo makes you evolve. You know, when I look at we talk about Koga from before, right? And we talked about he had a dynamic ippon-seoi-nage that nobody could stop for years and years and years. But when people started to, you know, be unorthodox and come down his back and, and cross grip him and he couldn't get to the lapel, he had to come up with something else. And all of a sudden you saw Koga doing, now he did o-sotoe or now he did a tomoe-nage which so he can... He added to his arsenal, you know, to keep people thinking, keep people guessing so it's not, you're not just that one trick pony. They still couldn't stop his ippon-seoi-nage once he got that grip.

Lex Fridman 35:26 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 35:26 But if they stopped him from getting that grip or putting two hands on the gi, he had to go to something else and that's what he did.

Lex Fridman 35:33 Does, uh, Travis's or Koga's seoi-nage make sense to you? That weird, uh... So when I c- 'cause-

Jimmy Pedro 35:39 Split hip. It's a-

Lex Fridman 35:40 Split hip.

Jimmy Pedro 35:40 ... split hip.

Lex Fridman 35:40 Split hip. So, uh, I don't know if you know this, but like I got into judo 'cause of Travis. I watched him in 2008 Olympics and I was... Uh, there's something about like, uh, just the... Not the cockiness but the confidence and just the refusal to quit, the refusal to... Just some... That energy, whatever it was, it connected with me. I was like, "Oh, that guy is badass. I want to be badass like that."

Jimmy Pedro 36:03 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 36:03 And then I also there happened to be in a university judo and I, um, a- and I got into it and just fell in love with the elegance and the beauty and the power of the sport. Um, but also I started to mimic Travis's game, uh, his and Koga's. And I, and then, uh, the instructors I worked with they said that's the wrong way to do it. And I always... I never found somebody that told me that like, "No, that's not the wrong way to..." There's a lot of ways to do it and there's like the classic way and you have to understand it and you have to learn it but this is not the wrong way 'cause I was trying to find somebody who understands this throw, um-... 'cause it's so beautiful at the highest level, especially with Koga, the way you're able... The, the quickness with which you can strike, the fact that you can stand on the feet and the, the elevation you can get, and the power you can get. It has... Certain throws just, like, uchi mata doesn't look powerful. It, it just like, it's eff- it looks effortless. But like, the standing seinagi with a split hip, it just looks powerful because there's a... You- you're like, you're stepping into them, you're lifting the opponent and they still have, they're not surprised. They're now like helpless. (laughs)

Jimmy Pedro 37:17 Right. Their feet are fluttering in the air. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 37:18 Fluttering. So, and then there's just this, this pause, and then just big slam. With the uchi mata, it's almost like you don't know what hit you. (laughs)

Jimmy Pedro 37:28 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 37:28 And so, tai otoshi is the same. It's almost like a surprise. Like, "Oh, shit. I'm now on my back." And, um, so I, I just, I just love that throw but like, I, it didn't make sense to me. Like, when trying to explain it to others, when trying to learn, it didn't make sense to me, uh, how it works. Does it make sense to you?

Jimmy Pedro 37:47 It does. Well, I'm a... I was born a judoka, right? So, I- I- I've lived this stuff since I was an infant, um, and I've seen every style and every technique. Um, the split hip seinagi is, is, is difficult to learn. It's harder to learn than the b- the basic form, but it is powerful and it does, upon entry, both your opponent's feet leave the mat at the same time. So you've got 'em. Once you enter, you've got 'em. You just gotta finish, right?

Lex Fridman 38:13 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 38:13 You just gotta lock 'em and turn and go. So, it makes sense to me. My dad did teach me how to do that...

Lex Fridman 38:19 Oh, really?

Jimmy Pedro 38:19 ... when I was younger. Yeah, he wanted me to do a split hip. We have kids at the school today that we teached the split hip seinagi same way.

Lex Fridman 38:26 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 38:26 Um, because it is that dynamic, right? You don't drop to the ground and roll and turn. It's not the classic form where you're giving way to your opponent. It's actually, you go pick the guy up in the air-

Lex Fridman 38:36 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 38:36 ... and then you slam him, so.

Lex Fridman 38:37 (laughs) Okay, uh, beautiful. So, maybe on a small

Lex Fridman 38:43 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...

Jimmy Pedro 39:12 Split hip.

Lex Fridman 39:12 ... 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?

Jimmy Pedro 39:20 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-

Lex Fridman 39:29 Right.

Jimmy Pedro 39:29 ... but just wants to get better. And I think that there's not enough emphasis in this country on...

Lex Fridman 39:35 On just that.

Jimmy Pedro 39:35 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.

Lex Fridman 39:49 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 39:50 And there's a class, and there should be a program for that athlete. And that athlete does not need to do randori.

Lex Fridman 39:56 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 39:56 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.

Lex Fridman 40:24 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 40:24 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.

Lex Fridman 40:42 'Cause it's a good workout.

Jimmy Pedro 40:43 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-

Lex Fridman 41:10 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 41:11 ... 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-

Lex Fridman 41:42 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 41:43 ... 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.

Lex Fridman 41:49 So, you really, even for recreational competitors, you really need to have a gripping system. You need to understand the gripping system.

Jimmy Pedro 41:57 If you want to win.

Lex Fridman 41:58 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 41:58 I mean, if the goal is to go and compete, that's a different story.

Lex Fridman 42:01 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 42:01 You go... I don't have fun getting beat up or losing in competitions. I-

Lex Fridman 42:05 Well-

Jimmy Pedro 42:05 ... I enjoy the, the w-

Lex Fridman 42:07 I don't even know if it's the winning or the losing.

Jimmy Pedro 42:09 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 42:09 I don't... (laughs) I, I think this is what... 'Cause I competed a lot in both judo and jujitsu. And in judo, it feels like... 'Cause I didn't have a gripping system. It, it feels like you're not even playing judo against the, the good black belts. You're... They're just, they're not, they're not even trying because they have, they get a certain kind of grip, and you just can't do anything.

Jimmy Pedro 42:31 Right.

Lex Fridman 42:31 And I don't have a good answer for that. I don't even know what I'm looking for. And so, it's not even fun. It's not like even losing. It's, it's like, um... I don't know. It's like you d- didn't even show up to play.... is what it feels like.

Jimmy Pedro 42:44 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 42:44 And it's unfor-... And, and I think that is a big gap in knowledge actually in, um, judo schools, is, is the gripping part.

Jimmy Pedro 42:55 When you first go out to, to do judo, right, you, you, the first thing you have to do is you have to grab your opponent, right? And a lot of times I hear coaches say, "Get a grip. Just take a grip." Well, sometimes if you take a grip, you're in a worse position than not having a grip at all. And that's what a lot of people don't understand. Like, if you hold the gi in the wrong way, your opponent can attack you but you can't attack him. So, why would you ever do that grip (laughs) if it's only to your detriment?

Lex Fridman 43:22 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 43:22 Right? So that's... Uh, and the way you grip does set up what attacks you can do as well. So, that is a huge part and I'm not saying that you have to be 100% disciplined and only, always out-grip your opponent and only be able to do throws when you have a superior grip. I'm just saying that to be able to put the grips together with the throws and understand the movements is gonna make you that much ahead of the game.

Lex Fridman 43:45 So, if we take a step to, uh, our previous discussion of going from zero to hero. So, going from the, the early days, through the, the teenage years, to winning an Olympic medal. So, we mentioned a lot of training; the dedication of the training, the competing. What other elements are there? The mental side. There's, uh, visualization, believing that you could p- perform at that level. Uh, so what else can you say about that for us?

Jimmy Pedro 44:13 I think that comes at the highest level. The, the visualization, the success, that comes at the highest level. I think in the teen years, um, there is the experience-

Lex Fridman 44:23 Just the experience.

Jimmy Pedro 44:23 ... plays a huge role.

Lex Fridman 44:24 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 44:24 In getting to train with other people. Like, as Americans, we have to go train in Europe. We have to feel the European style of judo. We have to understand that physicality. They, they grip very differently. They, they put you in very unorthodox positions and if you, when, if you don't know how to deal with that, you get thrown before you even have a chance to try your own throws.

Lex Fridman 44:46 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 44:47 You know? So it takes a lot of, it takes a lot of that experience and understanding what's going on. Um, and then you also need to get that physicality. You need to be physic- you know, strong and, and hard, I would say, by doing all those rounds with the Europeans. And at the same time, you need to go to Asia and you need to train in, in, in Japan because you need to feel that free-flowing judo for your technicals, the technical side. And I think that's one of the things that I was able to benefit from. My dad was a coach who said, "Listen, I've taken you as far as I can take you. I want you to go to the next level. I want..." You know, he sent me to, to England with Neil Adams, who was an Olympic silver medalist and was a world champion, had a great ground game and was good at gripping and actually did taiotoshi, which is the throw I did. So, my dad said, "I want you to go learn from Neil." And I ended up going to, to England probably eight to 10 times in my career and spending a good amount of time there, training at the Neil Adams Academy. Um, he's now the voice of judo, Neil Adams, um, so.

Lex Fridman 45:43 What do you make of that guy? Just a brief pause. He's like the, like, uh, Morgan Freeman is the voice of-

Jimmy Pedro 45:48 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 45:48 ... like, March of the Penguins and any other nature documentary.

Jimmy Pedro 45:52 Sure.

Lex Fridman 45:52 And Neil Adams is, uh... There's very few sports that have a Neil Adams, I would say. Because he's legitimately, maybe like Joe Rogan-

Jimmy Pedro 46:00 Yep.

Lex Fridman 46:00 ... is that for mixed martial arts. It's just like an exceptionally recognizable voice, he's really knowledgeable. Also, the passion is conveyed so well. Like, many times I'll watch just because he's talking.

Jimmy Pedro 46:13 Right.

Lex Fridman 46:13 So, who, who is he? Since you've gotten a chance to, to train with him, to learn from him, who is Neil Adams?

Jimmy Pedro 46:18 He's a great friend of mine.

Lex Fridman 46:20 He is? Okay.

Jimmy Pedro 46:20 Um, he's a mentor. Um, I, like I said, I lived and trained at the Neil Adams Club in Coventry, England-

Lex Fridman 46:27 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 46:27 ... since I was like 16 years old. I went and visited him for the first time. He's the one who originally taught me how to do juji-gatame and the way that I do juji-gatame.

Lex Fridman 46:36 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 46:37 Um, I trained with him. He was just retired, he was in his early 30s when I first went out there and, you know. So I, I trained with him many times and, um, over the years, he's, he was a mentor, um, great person. You know, cares, uh, cares about people, cares about, you know, the sport of judo. Um, had a good little club that was a fitness club and-

Lex Fridman 46:58 (laughs)

Jimmy Pedro 46:58 ... you know, had a... It was, it was judo, it was fitness, it, it w-... You know, used to go there, I'd show up at that place at like 7:00 in the morning and the first thing we would do is we would go for a run. And we'd either be running mountains or we'd be doing a five-mile run, or we'd be doing something at the park, we were doing sprints and buddy carries and all this stuff. And then at 9:00 AM we'd have a technical session with Neil Adams where he would, you know, for an hour and a half we would drill techniques and learn positions and... It was no Randori, it was that sequential drilling that we talked about before.

Lex Fridman 47:27 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 47:27 Right? Where you're reinforcing your, your two or three attacks to set up your main attack or if you're on the ground, you're going through repetitions of certain movements. Um, and then I'd spend all afternoon at the club, have lunch, I'd go do my weight training in the afternoon at that, at that place. And then in the evening, we would either do Randori training at the Neil Adams Club, or we would all get in a car and we'd drive to another, another location.

Lex Fridman 47:53 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 47:53 You know, and we'd go train at another club that might be an hour away and there'd be, you know, 50 bodies there to train with and each night we'd go to a different dojo. And so it would be all day at the club and I'd do that for like three weeks straight.

Lex Fridman 48:04 (laughs) That's awesome.

Jimmy Pedro 48:04 You know, all we'd do is train.

Lex Fridman 48:05 Do you know how he became the voice of judo? Do, do you have an understanding of, uh, what his thinking o- is around like how much he dedicates of himself to just, uh, commentating on judo? I imagine the amount of research required, but also just like psychologically, just the excitement he has in his voice, it, it just, it takes work to do that. Do you have an understanding of like what his vision is with that?

Jimmy Pedro 48:31 He's always been a very charismatic, uh, animated person, Neil.

Lex Fridman 48:34 Okay. So...

Jimmy Pedro 48:34 You know, very passionate and loud.

Lex Fridman 48:36 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 48:36 And, and, you know, funny.

Lex Fridman 48:38 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 48:38 And the Brits are very funny to begin with. So, he's, he's, you know, very charismatic. But, um...I think after coaching. He tried coaching. He coached the country of Wales for a while, he tried coaching stints in other countries. He didn't, he didn't have a lot of success on the coaching side, um, developing an Olympic champion. I know that's something, that was a goal of his that he, he was a world champion, I think it was 1981. He won two silver medals in the Olympic Games, um, himself. He went on to coach for a while and had some poli- political issues with the, the country of, of England for a while.

Lex Fridman 49:12 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 49:12 And then left England and went to Wales, and I think he had a coaching stint somewhere else as well. Didn't have a lot of success coaching in the sport, um, with athletes. Not at the highest level. Had a great national team and things like that, and he was really good at, at teaching his technique to others 'cause he, he helped me a lot. Um, but running a program I think was difficult for him. You know, the boys not listening and not having that same kind of passion and intensity that he...

Lex Fridman 49:37 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 49:37 And that's why I bonded well with him because I was all in, right? I went there and whatever he said, I did. I didn't care how hard, I didn't care how long.

Lex Fridman 49:45 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 49:45 I just wanted to get as good as I could. And so that's why he was a good mentor for me. But now in terms of a, um, a commentator, I mean he, he's very cerebral. He just, he, he loves judo. He, he look- researches it nonstop. Um, he's got that great voice and he knows how to bring, bring life to the, you know, to the game. And that's what he's done. And now this is who he is, right? He, he does judo full-time. This is his job.

Lex Fridman 50:11 Can I ask you, uh,

Lex Fridman 50:12 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.

Jimmy Pedro 50:21 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 50:22 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?

Jimmy Pedro 52:15 So you, you can't go on the International Judo Federation website right now and watch-

Lex Fridman 52:19 No.

Jimmy Pedro 52:19 ... any of the Olympic footage?

Lex Fridman 52:20 No. No. No. Uh, so the only thing they have is for cert- For example, Teddy Riner match, he lost. Not available anywhere.

Jimmy Pedro 52:31 Really?

Lex Fridman 52:31 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.

Jimmy Pedro 52:43 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 52:43 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-

Jimmy Pedro 53:11 Correct.

Lex Fridman 53:11 ... 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.

Jimmy Pedro 53:31 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 53:31 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.

Jimmy Pedro 53:46 Right.

Lex Fridman 53:46 He won and lost and, and just it's, it's always close, it's always dramatic. (laughs)

Jimmy Pedro 53:51 Right, right, right.

Lex Fridman 53:51 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.

Jimmy Pedro 54:02 The Georgian Churchill?

Lex Fridman 54:02 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-

Jimmy Pedro 54:45 Sure.

Lex Fridman 54:45 ... 'cause it's such heartbreak, but it's also like...... the, the triumph.

Jimmy Pedro 54:49 You're losing history.

Lex Fridman 54:50 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 54:50 You're losing history, is what you are, of, of, of all the mo- magical moments of your sport, right?

Lex Fridman 54:55 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 54:55 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.

Lex Fridman 55:18 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 55:18 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-

Lex Fridman 55:27 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 55:27 ... it was kind of my story, right? And I did it with a friend, um, who was a videographer, and we grabbed a bunch of my old footage and Olympic footage and somebody said to me, "You know, you can't use that Olympic footage." And you know, I was young and I had just retired, I said, "What do you mean I can't use the Olympic footage? It's not, it's not the television footage, it's my buddy who filmed it-"

Lex Fridman 55:46 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 55:46 "... with his own camera. It's my footage."

Lex Fridman 55:48 Yeah, exactly.

Jimmy Pedro 55:48 You know, and they said, "No, if it has an Olympics in it or it's anything to do with the Olympics, the USOC owns it."

Lex Fridman 55:54 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 55:54 I said, "Okay, well..." They said, "Well, you just gotta send it to them and let them, you know, review it." So I sent it to them and I got a, I got a bill back. I got a thing back that said, "If you want to use this footage, it's going to be like $30,000." And I said, "Man, it's only like three minutes. I spliced it up-"

Lex Fridman 56:10 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 56:10 "... as much as I could and I only have highlights in there." And-

Lex Fridman 56:12 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 56:13 ... and then I said, "Come on." I, I, I went back and I negotiated with them. But at the end of the day, I still had to pay like $15,000-

Lex Fridman 56:20 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 56:20 ... just to have a few minutes of footage in my own film.

Lex Fridman 56:23 This is... (laughs)

Jimmy Pedro 56:25 And I'm thinking, "You wouldn't even have that film if I didn't compete in it." You know, like, you can't... You know. So that was a, it was a struggle.

Lex Fridman 56:31 Yeah. This is the diff- Like you have the same in, uh, jujitsu. There's certain organizations, IBBJ- IBJJF or like Flow Grappling and Flow Wrestling. I understand, I think when it's a business, it might make sense. First of all, you should actually be good at being a business and making money, which is why for me, the IOC doesn't make sense. Like, it should be accessible, but it would cost money. Uh, if, if it's in ex- I can't buy it. Like I wou- would I, would I have to email them for this footage and pay $30,000?

Jimmy Pedro 57:01 Yeah. Yeah.

Lex Fridman 57:02 No, but the, the, the, the question is that, like, the way you run a business is you make that frictional-less. You... Whatever the money is, $30,000 or $30, you, you make it frictional-less and easy to pay that money. But anyway, I, I understand why that might be the case with Flow Grappling, but to me, the Olympics is a special thing.

Jimmy Pedro 57:21 For sure.

Lex Fridman 57:21 It's like, like you said, it is history. Like there's not even... Like, the, even the world championships don't compare. I, I understand they're p- they're really important, but Olympics is history and the, t- the, the stories sh- should certainly belong to the athletes if they want to do like Fury In The Mat to do their own story, or like on a podcast to talk about the most, uh, tragic moment of their career. It... Uh, do you have a sense of how that could be fixed or no?

Jimmy Pedro 57:54 The only thing I can think of is, you know, you'd have, you'd have to go to the Olympic Committee. The US Olympic Committee is the place I would start, 'cause the US controls the worldwide market when it comes to television. We pay the most for our television rights. Our sponsors pay the most for their, uh, rights to be associated with the best team in the world, which is the United States, right? So, so all the money starts here. Um, I gotta believe there has to be a way to get that footage that should be accessible to the sports themselves. I'm surprised it's not, but if it's not, then you know, it's because of dollars. You know, it's because n- people aren't... The sport itself is not willing to pay enough money to have it on its, you know, accessible to its audience.

Lex Fridman 58:35 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 58:35 It's too cost prohibitive for them to do it.

Lex Fridman 58:38 No, but I, I think it's also unfortunately might be some mixture of incompetence and just an old way of doing things. Because, um, there's a lot of money to be made on television rights where you like live show the event, right? But what's not being leveraged is the huge amount of money that could be made on the replay. This is what people don't understand is, do you know how many times, th- just the tens of millions, the f- the, uh, of times that people watch individual events years from now?

Jimmy Pedro 59:10 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 59:10 You, you watch like all the videos on YouTube that are still getting plays. Hundreds of millions of views on stuff that happened 10 years ago, 15 years ago. That, that's really powerful and there's a lot of opportunity to make a ton of money.

Jimmy Pedro 59:21 For sure.

Lex Fridman 59:22 So it's not that they're necessarily greedy, they're also just not good at being greedy. (laughs)

Jimmy Pedro 59:28 No, I get what you're saying. Yeah. It's not the tradi- You know, think about it though, it's not traditional, right? For, for television studios it, it's non-traditional to go to online streaming to, to, you know, online access to information. It's not hard, right? 'Cause everybody's doing it now, but it's, it's not typical.

Lex Fridman 59:45 Yeah. So it's... It requires for the IOC to operate outside their comfort zone. Well, I definitely hope that's the case and I... Since Travis' uh, video got taken down, uh, it's obvious they have it. They have it on their YouTube channel.

Jimmy Pedro 1:00:01 Right.

Lex Fridman 1:00:02 So it's like, um, I'm, I hope, I hope that they will just release it and for money, for whatever, but release it and have, um, that s- that, uh, history not be erased, right?

Jimmy Pedro 1:00:16 It'd be wonderful if athletes would be, could buy their... You know, even if you could buy your own footage, you can't use it commercially, you can't... But you could, you can buy your own matches and have them available for yourself or package the, you know, the, the footage. It'd be, it'd be awesome.

Lex Fridman 1:00:31 Thank you for that. That was, was, uh, quite heartbreaking for me so I, I wanted to talk about it a little bit.

Lex Fridman 1:00:38 Let's go to you as an athlete real quick.

Jimmy Pedro 1:00:41 Sure.

Lex Fridman 1:00:42 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?

Jimmy Pedro 1:01:06 I would say the, the bronze medal match in Atlanta-

Lex Fridman 1:01:09 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 1:01:10 ... 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.

Lex Fridman 1:02:35 (laughs)

Jimmy Pedro 1:02:36 Everybody was in the stands, right?

Lex Fridman 1:02:37 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 1:02:37 So it was like the Jimmy Pedro day. And, uh, I'm getting goosebumps right now talking about it, but-

Lex Fridman 1:02:42 (laughs)

Jimmy Pedro 1:02:43 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.

Lex Fridman 1:03:26 Wow.

Jimmy Pedro 1:03:26 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."

Lex Fridman 1:04:05 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?

Jimmy Pedro 1:04:24 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.

Lex Fridman 1:05:14 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 1:05:15 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.

Lex Fridman 1:05:31 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 1:05:31 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.

Lex Fridman 1:05:41 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 1:05:42 And I just loved that moment.

Lex Fridman 1:05:44 So your dad was your coach?

Jimmy Pedro 1:05:47 (laughs) Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:05:48 Um-

Jimmy Pedro 1:05:48 You're gonna get to meet him tonight.

Lex Fridman 1:05:50 Oh, great. (laughs)

Jimmy Pedro 1:05:53 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:05:53 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?

Jimmy Pedro 1:06:03 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.

Lex Fridman 1:06:17 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 1:06:18 Doesn't want you to die of obesity, right? It's just the way he is.

Lex Fridman 1:06:20 (laughs)

Jimmy Pedro 1:06:21 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.

Lex Fridman 1:06:29 Yes.

Jimmy Pedro 1:06:29 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?

Lex Fridman 1:07:18 You mean like conditioning, like the whole thing?

Jimmy Pedro 1:07:20 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:07:21 Just... Okay. 'Cause I remember, like, vaguely remember Kayla Harrison talking about her preparation being very difficult.

Jimmy Pedro 1:07:31 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:07:31 (laughs)

Jimmy Pedro 1:07:31 That's it. That's-

Lex Fridman 1:07:33 That's him?

Jimmy Pedro 1:07:34 Yeah, that's him.

Lex Fridman 1:07:34 (Laughs) .

Jimmy Pedro 1:07:35 That's it. Say we go back and ask Rhonda Roussy-

Lex Fridman 1:07:38 Yes.

Jimmy Pedro 1:07:38 ...about her career, right? My dad was her coach.

Lex Fridman 1:07:40 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 1:07:41 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.

Lex Fridman 1:07:56 Nice.

Jimmy Pedro 1:07:56 Threw the Russian girl, you know, 100 times that morning and then every night, came to Boston, you know, to the training center in Wakefield, trained at night and went back and slept at my dad's house. And three weeks straight before she went off to Beijing. And he did the same with Kayla, he did the same with me. Like, he's just, uh, his passion is, is, is producing athletes at the highest level, and he knows how to do it. And then the one side of my dad's, um, coaching where I think there's a flaw or weakness is on the mental preparation side of the game. He wasn't somebody that was, um... I don't know if he, he... Maybe because he wasn't an Olympic champion himself and wasn't a world champion, he lacked the confidence in helping others be more confident. So he's more of a, a, "This is what you need to work on," type of thing. He doesn't know how to build the athletes up to make them feel invincible. And I feel like that's something that I was able to give all of the athletes, to, to help them with that visualization, belief in yourself, knowing that you're gonna win before you step out on the mat. Knowing that we've earned the right to victory. You know, seeing success in your mind, having a positive, uh, mantra that you, "I'm the best in the world, nobody's beating me today," type of, type of feeling. So you go out there feeling like King Kong when you step on the mat-

Lex Fridman 1:09:12 Yes.

Jimmy Pedro 1:09:12 ...that nobody's gonna stop you. You know? And so I think the combination of both of us as coaches, I, I'm a, a lot more technical. My dad is good at letting, identifying what they need to do for their techniques and what, you know, how, and strategy, how to beat, how to beat opponents and putting game plans together. Um, so combined, the two of us made a, an unbelievable team.

Lex Fridman 1:09:33 So he, uh, he's not gonna let the athlete be soft when they, uh, when they enter the highest, the most difficult, uh, uh, competitions of their career.

Jimmy Pedro 1:09:43 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:09:43 So on the mental side, what's mental preparation look like? Like, how many years before the Olympics do you start helping an athlete believe that they can win an Olympic medal?

Jimmy Pedro 1:09:57 Well, I think it's gotta be a seed in that athlete's brain, something they want to do, right? Um, nobody, nobody can quickly get there, right? It's a long process. But if your goal, if you're a national champion or you've proven yourself to win at, at, in some international tournaments, and you think the Olympics is a possibility for you, then defining it as, "Hey, I want to be on the Olympic team," that would be the first step into, you know, into, um, getting ready. And, you know, but you, I always make them put it on paper. You know, "If it really is your goal and you show me that it's your goal and put it on paper and commit to it. I wanna be an Olympic medalist, I wanna be an Olympic champion, I wanna go to the Olympics. World team member, maybe junior world team member," whatever it is, we, we walk before we go to the highest level. But if the goal is to go to the Olympics, let's, let's accomplish these other things first, right? Because if we, if we can accomplish these other things, then we're on our way to getting to the ultimate goal, which is the Olympics. For somebody like Kayla, for example, you know, she didn't, she didn't say that she wanted to be an Olympic champion, you know, when she first came here in 2005, right? We wanted to become national champion, then we wanted to be on the world team, then we wanted to be a world medalist. Then we, our sights were set on the Olympics or the Olympic gold. You know, so it's, it's having those clearly defined goals that are attainable. Like they, they should be a reach, they should be a stretch, but they have to be attainable. They can't be just a pipe dream, you know? But once you put it to paper and it, you think it's achievable, then it's, it's mapping the plan to get there.

Lex Fridman 1:11:33 Is there a daily process of visualizing yourself as an Olympic champion or national champion?

Jimmy Pedro 1:11:40 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:11:40 Or...

Jimmy Pedro 1:11:41 It is, and it take, y- you should do it every, either every night before you go to bed or every, um, before every training session or after every training session. One of those three times, it should... Or first thing you wake up in the morning, 'cause it maybe it hel- some people, it motivates them to go do what it is they, they're supposed to do in the day. Um, but the process of visualization is, is to me, is closing your eyes for a few moments. Your brain works really, really fast, right? And it's actually picturing the day in its entirety from start to finish. You know, from the moment you wake up and you step on the scale, to the moment you have your breakfast and you go through your morning routine. Like, live the day that you're gonna have at the Olympics. So whatever it is you're trying to do, let's say the Olympic day for, for example.

Lex Fridman 1:12:27 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 1:12:29 Picture yourself making weight, picture yourself, who you're around, eating your breakfast. You know, having, maybe saying a few jokes, laughing.

Lex Fridman 1:12:35 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 1:12:36 This is a real day. Make it real.

Lex Fridman 1:12:38 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 1:12:39 Um, going back and getting, packing your judo bag for the day, you know, getting on the bus, driving to the venue. Feel what it, it's like walking into the stadium, you know, for the first time. Going to the warmup area, seeing your drawer up on the, you know, on the sheet, who you're gonna fight that day. Watching yourself warm up, go through your warmup routine.... um, walking out of the shoot, you know, into the venue, going to do that first fight. Picture the moment of throwing your opponent, coming off the mat, high-fiving the coach, getting ready for your second fight. Like, live the day-

Lex Fridman 1:13:14 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 1:13:14 ... from start to finish, and make it as real as possible. You know, where all the way to the moment where you've just won and you're raising your arms in celebration. You're bowing, you're hugging your opponent. You come off the mat, you hug your coach. You're running around the stadium with the flag. You know, you, you, you stepped up on the podium. You heard your name, "Olympic champion, Jimmy Pedro." Like, you heard the moment.

Lex Fridman 1:13:38 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 1:13:39 The, the, the medal being put around your neck. Picture the people coming up on the podium with you, arms around them, taking the pictures. Like, the more real you can make it, even before it ever happens, right? When you do that enough times, I feel that like pathways get created-

Lex Fridman 1:14:01 (laughs) Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 1:14:01 ... for you so that when your, your body gets to that moment, "And I've been here before."

Lex Fridman 1:14:06 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 1:14:06 "This is it. This is my moment. This is what I pictured-"

Lex Fridman 1:14:08 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 1:14:08 "... my whole life. I'm not nervous 'cause I've seen this. This is gonna happen." I believe it's possible."

Lex Fridman 1:14:13 Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Pedro 1:14:13 Right? And I believe the athletes that do that and make it real enough, that when they get to that moment, they go right through. There's no hesitation.

Lex Fridman 1:14:22 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 1:14:23 "This is what, this is meant to be. This is my destiny. This is why I did everything I did." Versus the ones that don't think about it ever, but just kind of like hope.

Lex Fridman 1:14:31 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 1:14:32 Uh, it's not real to them. It doesn't feel attainable. They don't believe it's possible. They haven't committed to believing it was possible. Without that commitment in yourself and that belief, it can't happen.

Lex Fridman 1:14:44 And one thing that, uh... I talked to Travis a bit about this. Uh, you probably worked with him on, uh, on the details of what you're talking about. But he said that you should really, like, focus on visualizing, like, the sensations-

Jimmy Pedro 1:15:00 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:15:00 ... you feel. So, like say if you's drinking coffee or something like that-

Jimmy Pedro 1:15:04 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:15:04 ... you're not thinking about, like, like observing yourself from a third person perspective drinking coffee. Like, you're, you're thinking of how your hand will feel when it touches something warm. Like, you try to replay the actual sensations you would feel. Right? So, uh, uh, it sounds, uh, kind of strange, but meaning like you really wanna put yourself in the body as you would experience those moments-

Jimmy Pedro 1:15:30 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:15:30 ... as opposed to, like, watching yourself on TV experiencing those moments. Like, really be inside and... Yeah. So that means sensations like, how does it feel when you grip a gi? How does it f- you know. Um, the, yeah, the, the, the sweating, just the sensation of sweat, like rolling down your forehead or whatever. Like all of those actual feelings.

Jimmy Pedro 1:15:52 When I explain it to you-

Lex Fridman 1:15:53 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 1:15:54 ... like, I guess my body has been through, through it so many times, both in my mind and in reality, that it brings back all of those same emotions.

Lex Fridman 1:16:02 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 1:16:02 It, it... I start to get goosebumps. My, my armpits start to sweat.

Lex Fridman 1:16:06 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 1:16:06 Like, I'm living it if it's real.

Lex Fridman 1:16:08 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 1:16:09 I'm reliving it now, but I... In your, when you're going through the visualization process, it has to be that real. The, the smells, the, the, the taping of the fingers. Like, the more colorful and the more real you can make it, the more believable it is.

Lex Fridman 1:16:24 Mm-hmm. So I've been doing this kind of thing, just having listened to you enough, (laughs) for, uh, other stuff in life. And so let's see if it works. Uh, but do you see this kind of visualization being useful for other things, in career and all those kind of things?

Jimmy Pedro 1:16:41 Oh, 100%. 100%, because I just know with my own life, my own, my own experiences, like I... Like my wife sometimes says to me, she says, "Well, where do you see yourself in, like, you know, five years from now?"

Lex Fridman 1:16:55 Yeah.

Jimmy Pedro 1:16:55 And five years ago, I had said to her, you know, "I wanna have my own business. I wanna have... You know, I, I... This is the