JRE MMA Show #115 with Valentina Schevchenko

(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) Okay, here we go. Valentina, pleasure to have you in here. Very excited.

Yes. Finally I'm here, right? (laughs)

(laughs) Finally, yeah. I mean, we've been talking about it for a while and, uh, I've been a fan of yours for quite a long time. You're a very unusual person, very unusual.

(laughs)

I mean, it's, it's unusual to be a martial arts champion, but you are ... You're an unusual martial arts champion. I mean, you're very ... You're very diverse. You have so many skills and talents. It's very strange. Like, how does one ... First of all, how many languages do you speak?

Um, three what I speak, and I'm learning fourths. I learning Thai now.

You're learning Thai?

Mm-hmm.

'Cause you were speaking Thai after one of your fights.

The last one, yeah.

Yeah. So it sounds like you know it. Like you say you're learning it, but you, you got a lot to say.

Uh, yeah, it's kind of like I can say a lot, but, uh, when I mean I'm learning, I want to, um ... So once I will speak it, like, fluently-

Mm-hmm.

... and I will understand, like, native people so good, then I consider it, yes, I speak language. Before that, it's kind of still learning and I think, um, I started to learning, like, couple years ago, but, um, I think it's very important to have practice with native people.

Yes.

Go to Thailand and, like, forget about speaking English, just speak Thai, and this is how, like, um, you just adopt everything. So this is what I ... I want to put this language, Thai language, on the next level. Then I will say, okay, four. Now four. (laughs)

So, like, you immerse yourself?

Um, maybe. Yeah. Kind of. Uh, because, for me, um, I try to do everything, like, as best way I can. Not the perfection way, right, but the best what I can.

Now, your first language is Russian?

Yes.

And when did you learn other ... When did you start learning other languages?

Um, so, English, it was ... I started to learn it in the school, just some basics, because it's like a school program. We learn alphabet, some just very easy words, and nothing enough for, like, speaking, uh, level. But when I started to compete and go and travel for the competition, that was, like, my push for, uh, bringing, uh, my l- um, like, uh, language level to the next level. And, uh, when we moved to, um, South America, then I started to learn, uh, Spanish. But learning Spanish, it was, uh, kind of like the hard way. I came there with no one word in Spanish. No one word, and it's straight, like, to there. "If you want to learn Spanish, you have to speak Spanish right now." And, uh, I say from the moment what I started to speak to the moment when I, uh, was kind of, like, given my first interview, it was four months. After four months, I was giving my first interview in Spanish. It was not the perfect Spanish, but I still could communicate. (laughs)