YouSaid · the spoken record

Jimmy Pedro

lines on the record
157
first
2021-10-31
most recent
2021-10-31
sittings or episodes
1
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podcast

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  1. “But you were somebody that showed up, was so prepared with your notes, knew everything about like. The history of what I had done. The questions you asked were intelligent questions. They were well thought out. And at the end of that interview, I was really genuinely impressed, and I wanted to let you know you did a great job because you stood out from the rest.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “I had been to so many interviews when it's around the Olympic time. There's lots of beat reporters that come out and they're trying to get your time and they're just. There because they have to get the story For their newspaper or their television show. And a lot of times those people show up, right? Pronounce my name wrong Or they get something wrong about the background, or they offend me because they call me five minutes before that they're supposed to be there and say, oh, sorry, we're running late. We'll be there an hour and a half. A busy guy too, you know”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Give nothing but good, good comments about us, good, good, like they'll remember it forever. They become like family. And they're the best advocates for your business ever. And so the kids that I taught at my dojo are treated that way. The people that work for me get treated that way. The people that my customers that I work with and building their dojos get treated that way. People that ran tournaments, whether it was grapplers quest years ago and helping that guy with the full set of maths for his, Brian Simmons with his thing or, you know, any of the Gracies, it just became like family. And then I just work hard and deliver on what I say I'm going to do. If I say I'm going to do what I do it, you know, and I think it goes a long way.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Going to be willing to adapt. And I think listening, believing in myself, and creating opportunity. And the other thing is helping others. Something I always did in my judo life and in my business life. If somebody came to me and asked for help with, hey, man, is there something you can do to help me? I'm trying to get this thing started. You know, I'm trying to get this dojo off the ground or I'm trying to run this event series or I was creative and trying to figure out a way to help them make it work. Because if that really was their dream and I could help them do their dream, I felt like that person would then.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Be resourceful, figure it out. Don't let anybody tell you you can't do it. I didn't know that I could have a 200 person judo school that only taught judo because that really didn't exist in this country that actually charges money like jiu-jitsu charges, right? We're talking not, there's plenty of clubs out there that charge 10 bucks a month that might have 100 people, but there's not many that where the tuition is $150 a month having 200 people. So that's a successful business. But it wasn't done before. But be passionate about it. Understand you're going to fail. Understand you're going to get knocked down, beat up, right? There's going to be dark days, but you got to persevere. You got to believe in yourself. You got to have a plan. You have to be willing to learn from other people. And that's what I did. If I didn't know it, I brought somebody in to tell me, what am I doing wrong? Like look from the outside. What do you see? Okay, great. Then we got to be willing to change.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “My whole day is tied up doing something that I'm really not passionate about. She said, if you know you can figure out how to make money from your dojo and other things, judo related, then I think you'd be successful. And so she's the one that my wife Marie gave me that advice and I would give that to others. Find something that you love doing where it doesn't feel like work. Something you're passionate about.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “That makes their living exclusively for martial arts or judo because that wasn't really an opportunity when I was a kid, but I've created that opportunity. I would just say that pick something that you're passionate about. You know, I was stuck in a career before where I wasn't passionate about it. And it was my wife who said, you know, Jimmy, if you can figure out how to make your living exclusively from martial arts, you know, where your brain and your heart and your passion is all towards one thing that you really like, then you'll be successful. And I left the job. I had three kids. I was working for monster.com. I was an internet marketing. And I was working for that company, great company. Nothing wrong with the company. But sitting behind the desk from eight till five. And then I get to go to judo from six till nine at night.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “You have to be true to yourself. You have to decide what it is you really want to do with your life. And it's hard because when I grew up, I didn't know I was going to be successful. When I was, you know, when I was young, I didn't know I was going to be an Olympic medalist. I certainly did envision myself owning a couple of companies that”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Or you need to have if you're going to be a successful judo dojo, you have to have that recreational fundamental adult program in your school where people actually come to judo, learn the moves, Barnhartt pushed into randori training and pushed into things where they're uncomfortable and they can't control the situation. There's too many unknowns.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “And also, there's a good culture in jiu-jitsu where it's becoming a family. You know, the dojo is the family place. You go to feel good. You go to see a friends. You go to get fit. And you have a good time, right? So it makes a lot of sense why it's growing. Judo, on the other hand, I think is a better sport for children to do. It's more, I would say, fun and interactive. It's a little easier to teach the kids how to do the throwing skills and for safety and things like that. Their body can handle more than the adults can. They're less likely to get injured. Know they can make them better athletes because it's a lot more three dimensional, in my opinion. So I think there's a good fit between judo can thrive from kids till, you know, whatever high school.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “That's that last athletic endeavor, most of them. So you're talking about as an adult that's 35 or 40 wanting to start a sport, Judo's a really hard sport to start, especially in today's dojos that don't have a recreational adult program. You know, when it's one size fits all, it's hard. So for those people, Jiu-Jitsu makes a heck of a lot of sense. Good self-defense. It's cerebral where you got to use your brain. You're a smaller person. You have to use technique. teaches all the same things as judo but it's a safe way to do it And because of the validation it has with the UFC and MMA today, right, everybody knows jujitsu. So now they can be part of mainstream society and talk intelligently about what they see on television. What's going on on ESPN today, right? They have some knowledge, so they have an identity.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “I mean, I think that judo's a hard sport for adults to do. It just is, especially people that haven't fallen in a long time, haven't very athletic, haven't I think about my own experience, right? Other than Judo, when did I ever do like a forward somersault? Maybe when I was in grade school, right? That's the last time I've left my feet in grade school. Most people haven't got off of a chair or a couch. They spend eight eight to ten hours a day either working behind a computer or sitting on their couch watching TV, right? And they're not that athletic. They haven't done anything athletic, at least probably since high school.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “You can't learn because it's not at the appropriate level for you, and usually you're pushed into doing Randori where you have no choice but to do the Randori part of the training. So it's a challenge to go learn. And then a lot of times the schools are old school. So they go make you do falls for a half hour. They make you do things. Maybe you're a jiu-jitsu person who knows how to fall already, but you haven't proven it to the judo instructor and they don't break the norm and say you still have to fall for six months, which turns a lot of people away as well. So it's. It's like any business if you don't deliver on your customers expectations, you're not going to have very many customers. Which is the way it is now”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “The problem with most judo dojos right now is that most of them cater towards the competitive side. Also, a lot of them do it recreationally, meaning this isn't how they make a living. So they're there three nights a week or they're there, even if they're there five nights a week, it's still only one junior class and one senior class, and that's it. And it's one size fits all. Doesn't matter what level you're at, it's one size fits all. You can't get out of the training what you're looking to get out of the training. It's whatever the instructor's teaching, you know.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “We have a live training class every couple weeks, every two weeks he or I answer questions online for our members. Ideally what we'd like to do is have a standing curriculum for jiu-jitsu instructors that want to learn and become black belts in judo. Here's how these are the techniques you need to know. This is how many reps you need to do. This is how efficient you need to get at that those techniques to become certified as an instructor or become a black belt. And eventually have an online promotion system where anybody, anywhere could just submit videos and show us that they can do those techniques. And obviously we'll have people review them. And this is a dream and a vision, but we've already started the platform. We're about to do a collaborative effort with USA GIDO where all of their members will start to get access to this platform as well. And if we can get that influx of money and people.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “The very, very basic elements of just movement. So we teach every technique of how you do it mechanically with just your feet, then how you incorporate your hands and your feet together, how you do it in all directions moving forward, sideways, backwards, how to then introduce a partner into the movement, how to do basic Uchikomi or repetitions with a partner, then moving with a partner, then how to throw your opponent static, how to throw your opponent. So basically from the very foundation of the movement all the way to the most advanced level, we've documented this through separate videos. And we've taken now, I think, 12 to 15 of standing techniques combined with a whole bunch of groundwork techniques. And our goal is just to continue to build this platform out so that anybody anywhere can learn online and can ask questions.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “If you're fortunate to live near another dojo, right, a place that has judo locally, then that's your best opportunity to learn, is to go learn from another school. Unfortunately, sometimes the nearest dojo might not be for two hours or three hours away from where you're at, which is an obstacle. You're not going to do that. Travis and I did start the American judo system online. It's at usaguto.com. And we've broken down every single judo technique.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Somebody that did Judith with my dad had a kid who trained with me, who loved Judo so much, had a kid. That kid was now in his 20s who did judo and now has a kid who's two or three or four that's coming to my toddler program at my school. Like we're talking four generations. And they all love the experience so much and what it did for them in their lives that they wanted the next generation to also experience the same thing.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Of it. It makes you the human being that you are. It really does. It becomes a fabric of the people that stick with it, right? That stay with it. And because it... I mean, it teaches you so many lessons. It's so memorable because of what you talked about, the tradition. But it's also, you grow with other people and you learn from other people and you experience things with other people. It's such a hands-on sport that's very memorable. And people love it so much. Right now at my dojo, we have like four generations.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “So I've seen all of them with Putin in Russia at their National Training Center, working out with them and taking falls and doing judo with him. So, you know, it's hard when you're older to move in judo. I mean, I was at a high level and I'm now 51. It's hard for me to move like I used to. So at his age, he's got to be what 60 between 62, 65-ish. I mean, it moves really well for somebody that's that age, you know, and probably hasn't done very much judo for the last however many years, right? So that tells you at one point he had to be a really good judo player.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “So I'm actually really good friends with the Russian Federation. The guy in charge is Izi Ogamba. He's an Italian. He's a mastermind behind their success of the 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams. 2020, he suffered from leukemia, blood cancer, so he wasn't part of their 2020 program, but he was part of 2012-2016. The Olympic team in 2012 came to our studio and lived here for a month in Boston. They went to school in Boston. I brought them to my house. They had three Olympic champions. Oh my god. What a team. They all came and lived here in Boston for a month. They wanted to be part of experience America type program.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Unless he's, you know, if he could go placed in the Nationals in Russia, he would beat her. But if he's not at that level of judo, he's more like a brown belt or he's not a high-level judo player, she will win. I saw her take some of our best juniors in this country, some of the guys that went and won, meddled in our senior nationals. I've seen her smash all of them in judo. Now, she's not going to do that to a Travis Stevens. She's not going to do that to a to a senior national champion, you know, or Olympian in our sport. But she will go toe-to-toe with every other male, black belts or not.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “I will tell you is this I trained with Kayla and I was an Olympic medalist and a world champion in Judo and granted I was older when I trained with her but you have to go as a man you have to go 100% or she will smash you As a man. And I could tell you that if Khabib doesn't do a lot of just judo, doesn't like, you know, gripping and doesn't understand, like if he's, you know, if he can throw, that's one thing. But if he doesn't really understand Judo at a high level. She will throw him. She would beat him in a match. In a judo contest, not in a mixed martial arts contest, not in a wrestling contest, not in a submission contest, in a pure judo match where he cannot grab legs. And he has to grip up and just throw. I'd put my money on Kayla.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Her kids adopted her sister's kids, so she's their legal guardian now. So that is her purpose, right? Raising these kids and making them. She's fortunate enough that she has enough money that she can do that and she can give them a good life, you know.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “The end of the day, she has no revenue coming in. How do you live? You get a bonus of 25 grand from the Olympic Committee or whatever for winning a gold. But aside from that, you're not going to live on that money. So no purpose, no goal, right? What am I going to wake up and do tomorrow? I don't know. So she has no direction. And at the same, then at the same time, she has no money coming in. So everything shuts off. So now it's like, where do you turn? What do you do? That leads to being depressed because, yeah, even though I've accomplished all this stuff, I'm kind of lost in life. Like what's next for me?”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Know they can no longer give you stipends because you're not competing and representing them anymore. So that goes away. All of your sponsorships and all of your money that you would make from your TV commercials or whatever, that didn't happen for her after the Olympics because Judo's an obscure sport, right? So she didn't have any opportunities for that.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “But what happens is, and what most people don't understand is once you say, I'm retired, I'm no longer competing in the sport of judo. Don't get a salary from USA Judo anymore, which she was getting. I think she got like $72,000 a year from USA Judo at the time. Don't get a stipend from the Olympic Committee anymore goes away. Your sponsor, like the New York Athletic Club, was a great sponsor for her for all those years. In fact, she could have never been the athlete she became without the support of the NYC because I talked to them when she was 15. I said, hey, I got a girl that's really good someday, like if you invest in her now, I promise you she'll pay back for you. And I remember the day she won the Olympic gold. I called the guy up. I said, Hey, I told you.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “There was no path set out for Kayla that said, okay, we're gonna, you know, you're gonna become ambassador, a global ambassador of judo. The IJF is going to help pay a salary. The USA Judo is going to give you a salary. Here's what we want you to go teach children. We want you to go be an ambassador for women. We're going to fly you around and, you know, whatever it is, go ahead and give you a job and here's what you're going to do, you know, if you'd like to take it. There was nothing for her. Like I remember doing the interview at the Olympics with her and they said, are you going to compete in the next Olympics? And I said, no. Why? She's already two-time gold medals. What does three-time gold medalist do for her? Nothing, right? Doesn't motivate her to do it again. They said, are you doing MMA? I said, no, why would you do MMA? That's ridiculous. Like, she doesn't need MMA. She should be able to make a living off of what she's accomplished in this sport for the rest of her life.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “There's a lack of purpose afterwards Because you've done in life what you set out to do. You've had a goal every day you woke up. You knew what your purpose was. You knew what your Know what your day looked like? You knew why you were doing that. And all of a sudden, you won and you got all the fame and you're all happy. But then you wake up and you go, Now what? I don't have a next. And also because there was nothing for her. There was no”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “There wasn't a girl in that division that thought they could beat Kayla going into those games. Not a one. They just looked at her and went, No, not happening.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “And it tells you if you can beat these girls when you're not 100%. You're not at your best. You're physically beat, mentally beat. Imagine what you're going to do when you're fresh.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “And then she went out there, she fought, didn't even know she was injured. No, you know what I mean? She just went out there. She fought the tournament. She beat the Japanese girls. She ended up going through the whole tournament. She took a gold medal. She won the event.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “He said you're good to go Looked at us like, and then we had to talk to her and say, Listen, you're not injured, you're in pain because we just came from a camp. I said, you're in pain. But here's the deal. We want you to fight this girl. We want you to go out there and beat this girl, period. I don't care. I want to know that you can beat this girl. This is why we came. This is our last hard tournament before the Olympic Games. This is what we want from you. And lo and behold, she understood. They gave her a quick shot. The rest of the world thought we were crazy making her compete.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Yeah, I can do this and that, and I can give her a shot, and the pain will go away. Okay, then do that. And so Kayla comes up. She goes, didn't the trainer talk to you? I said, yeah, he talked to us. He said, I can't fight. I know, but we already talked to a trainer.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Of a sudden, the trainer comes up to us and she didn't come to us. The trainer came to us and says, You know, I really don't think it's a good idea that Kayla fight today. I mean, we looked at him and we're like, well, your opinion doesn't really matter, does it? What's up with her She has this thing in her neck. It's like a pinched nerve, and this, and then. We talked. I said, Is there a risk of her getting injured? Like, is this pain or is this risk that she's going to get injured and she's going to set her back long time in her career? He says, no, she's not going to get injured. She's a pinched nerve, a little pain she's going to have to deal with. I go, okay, well, can you fix the pain?”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “And it was a first round match, and it was going to be tough for Kayla, right? It was going to be a really hard fight. And she had won a bunch of tournaments in a row leading up to that. So her confidence was really high. But at the same time, she didn't think she needed this fight. And she showed up to the tournament and she said, I don't think I can fight today. I've got a stinger in my neck. You know, I've got a stinger coming down my neck and I'm kind of sore. And she didn't tell us. She went and told the trainer. She walked around. She's holding her neck. And me and my dad were like, what's up with her? Maybe she doesn't want to fight that. I don't know. Yeah. Right. So”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Another story I like to share is that Have to know your athletes, right? And you have to really get to know their psychological, what they're thinking psychologically, mentally, what's going through their head. Another story was in Tokyo. It was 2015. Tokyo Grand Slam. So we had had Caleb face off against almost all the top girls in her division. She had beaten everybody going into the 2016 Olympics. But at the 2015 Tokyo Grand Slam. As a girl from Japan, that she hadn't fought in a long time, and she lost to a girl last time she fought her. So it was something we wanted her to beat this girl going into the Olympics so that she knew she could beat everybody.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “I made all those, we fought at every local, the mentality of our team was no tournament is beneath us. If our goal is to go to the Olympics in the worlds and win, there's no tournament that's beneath us. We're going to get experience. We're going to fight. We're going to learn. We're going to compete. We're going to get better, you know?”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “The time. But so now there's another level. This is a senior level, right? You got to go up another level. Here's two girls that aren't even medalists that are beating you. So now there's more work to be done. And so I like telling that story because Everybody sees the champions in the greatest moments. They don't see them when they have bad days. And could you imagine being 0-2? You feel like you feel like a failure, right? Ten months later was Tokyo 2010. She went from Ott, New York. Two world champion 2010 in the Motherland. Japan I mean, that's an amazing turnaround.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Of them I knew were going to be at that tournament. So I said, Kayla, we're going to go to this tournament, you're going to compete against the Canadian girls, get some good experience, you know, figure out what you need to work on, and then we'll go home and work on some stuff She went to the tournament. There were only three girls in the And the two Canadians at that tournament, she lost both fights. So, this is January 2010. She lost both matches. You know, she was competitive, but certainly things she needed to work on. It was good development thing for her and for us. It also opened her mind to say, oh man, because she was already a junior world champion”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “Everybody hears the good ones, right? So everybody knows she won the World Championships in Tokyo in 2010. She was our two-time Olympic champion in 2012, 2016. I'll never forget those moments, right? Because they're historic. One of the biggest moments that I like sharing this story with everybody is that. In 2010 and January, Klo is still a developing athlete, and we had a local tournament in New York. It was in Brooklyn, New York. It was called the Starrett Cup. And I knew that at that tournament, that two of the Canadian girls were like ranked 15th or 20th in the world. They weren't superstars, but they were tough players.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “People that cut weight too hard too long, they forget about technique because they're only worried about losing weight. They're always tired in training. They don't give 100% effort. They're not getting better. She now is just focused on getting better at judo. I'm getting bigger, getting stronger, getting more powerful. So I think given her that purpose, and that was a great call.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Went to the weight above so she could make the national team and she had a chance to go to the Olympics and all of that because we envisioned Rhonda staying around until 2012.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “The wherewithal to develop a strategy and a plan for her because when she first came here, she competed at 63 kilos, which is 138 pounds. The time was also training here, and she was 70 kilos. So if Kayla was struggling making 63, so the only way to, obviously, the only way to still compete is to move up. But my dad said, well, if you move up, then you're in Rhonda's weight. So let's skip that weight. And you're going to go to 78 kilos. And he told her, listen, you're going to go up two-way classes. She looked at him and was like, That's 172 pounds. And he goes, I don't care. Like, you're already struggling making 138, you weigh 150. What's the difference? We put 20 pounds on, go to 170. So that's why she jumped two weights because she passed Rhonda.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “In a way you're going to get bigger and stronger is you're going to work harder and you're going to keep, you know, and she came to us when she was only 15. So at that time, we got her with a really good strength and conditioning coach. We did all the core Olympic style lifting. Like as her body was developing, she was getting stronger every single day. And then, you know, she had the luxury of being on the mat with, at the time, I was still young enough to train and be on the mat. And I was around her weight class and Travis was able to train with her. And we had all the top U.S. athletes at the time training here at my school. So she got the benefit of all the best guys to train within the country and her doing all of those rounds, you know, night in, week, every night, every week, every year compiled with the best, you know, highest level she could as a girl. She got the strength, she got the techniques, she got the, and then she had the coaching on top of it with my dad being on her as, you know, working her out and, you know, having.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “Know she's a lot like Travis. You know, she's a warrior, she's a fighter, you know, my dad always jokes with her, you know. He says, You're a workhorse. You're not a thoroughbred. We're not going to treat you like a thoroughbred, right? You're a workhorse. So you're going to work.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “Because she had zero self esteem, zero self worth. She was Didn't even want to be on this earth, right? So she was. Traumatized, obviously, and getting her the right help and surrounding her with the right people who could help her get through that and be by her side as she's getting through that and letting her know and reaffirming that she's doing the right thing and she made the right decision and she should have zero guilt and you know this doesn't define her. It happened to her, but it doesn't define her. What defines her is what she does from now on. And then rebuilding that person to become who she became, I think the mental toughness is a big part of it, her mind. But then as an athlete,”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “Combination of a lot of things. One was obviously Caleb's mental toughness, right? To overcome what she overcame. You know, this is a girl who... Let's forget about the sexual abuse, but the fact that she had to go through that in life and learn how to compartmentalize that and keep that off as a separate part of her brain, you know, and forget about it and move on. That took an incredible team to help her do that. And my dad was a huge potter of her accomplishing that.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Carried the flag for the Georgian Federation walking into the games, most dominant 81 kilo player in that way class for quite some time. And man, we just had his number and Travis was ready to go. It was so cool. It was so awesome. We had already won. Kayla had already won her second goal. The way the event went, and Travis went in that was like icing on the cake for our team. That was the best performance we've ever had in history.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “So focused, so relaxed, and couldn't wait. It was like a caged tiger. Like if you like coming out of the chute to go step onto the mat was like this tiger that you were just letting out of the cage and he just go. Like now is your time to go fight. And that's what he did that whole day. And like when he beat Cherikishvili in the semis and choked him out and won that fight There's nobody with the exception of maybe the guys in the American team. There was nobody in that stadium that expected Travis to beat him. He had smashed Travis. I don't know how many times before that free pony, like in the first minute, even it wasn't even a fight, right? And it was great game plans.”

    2021-10-31 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #236 – Jimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source