YouSaid · the spoken record

Travis Stevens

lines on the record: 248
first: 2021-09-21
most recent: 2021-09-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“He uses his length and his leverage very well. And you can see, like, I'm really burning the clock here. I'm owning these exchanges more than I'm owning the Tachi Waza ones, the ones in our feet.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right when he threw me. So if you let this play out really quick. There's a point right here where I'm going to come around his back and I'm kind of going to just Yoko Suteme, which means like a lateral drop. And I'm just going to bring him down to the floor, which isn't a throw right here. It's more of like a takedown. I'm trying to get him to the ground because I want to burn him. He doesn't do any waz So I'm just going to keep burning him. And you can see that I get really close here. He just went a little too far to his side. Doing this exchange. Like he's running. I'm like, ah, he.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like, I have his sleeve. He's not breaking it. Like, still walking him down, still going forward. Um... Knew exactly how I was going to beat him. And I developed the plan because when I was getting ready for Rio, we brought in a lot of the top Japanese players that weren't invited to the camp for the national team. Boston. So I had four people, three of them were on the national team. One of them had won the universities in Japan all at 81 kilos. I only got thrown once during camp for a month. Was ready I just fucking slipped.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everything. And I honestly, I thought I had won the Olympics right now. And I still do think that today. Just like mentally when you think about it I've won yeah, he threw me. It was like a one in a million chance that that worked for him. Like, come on.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not be denied I had felt like in London and throughout the years I felt like I kept getting robbed. So I made sure in my mantra to add that little bit at the end to reassure myself that they are not going to control the outcome of today. I'm going to control the outcome.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Olympic final. And he knew he lost an Olympic medal right there because he already knew that the Japanese guy was going to be his bronze, that he never beats.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My hand, I tore the muscle in my palm because I was pulling so hard that I'm like. He may not Is my hand just going to give out beforehand? We're right on this edge, right? So, like, if we roll a little bit outside and I still don't have it, that ref could stop it. And then I felt him tapping in.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The kicker here and why we practice this choke was because when you go back and watch all of the other matches, he always does this tripod. When I try to do arm locks, which is typically what I would do. And when I do that, he ends up sliding out and I end up falling off”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look Now, if you go back into this match, I would love for somebody to go back and see how many times he did a drop right. Probably never So, why is he doing it now? He panics and he changes his judo at that one minute mark.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Did we pass the point where I went for broke and I broke my rule? I went for a crazy foot sweep. Like Epone, Switch thing. I can't remember what it's called because it's not used that often. And he actually landed on top of me and some people wanted it to be called Epone. But he had actually let go of the ghee and was looking for the mat so he didn't have any control so they didn't award him a point. And here we go. Now we're getting down into the see, like he's getting frustrated. Great. I love it Second penalty. No big deal. We just got to get to the one minute mark. That's all we got to do.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But all of my attacks. Drag him to the ground. They're never standing on my feet Which is a distinction that we talked about at the very beginning, right? You have throws where you're standing and throws where you're dropping. Every time I try to throw him standing, he throws me free pony. He picks me up and he throws me on my head. Literally. So what I did is I just needed to get to that last one minute mark, which is what he does mentally in his own Judah, where he changes into a panic and just tries to like do things that are uncharacteristic.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, had to be. The difference is I understood the last five times he beat me. I was purposely trying to throw him, not beat him. I wanted to find out if I could. Out I don't need to throw him to beat him. I need to know how to not lose.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“By the way, for people who don't know, he beat me Five times to my beating him once, and the one time I beat him was in London, and all other times he beat me, he beat me by a poem. Not by like a little throw. Like he threw me on my head One point we were in Georgia. I'm fighting him in the final. I go to my teammate and I go, guess what? Make sure you watch this fight. Somebody's getting thrown free pwn. This match ain't. And this ain't match going distance. And about a minute in, I tried to take his head off with a big Koshi Guromo, which is like a head and arm. Caught me and then threw me on my head and ended the match.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I get more of an emotional, I guess, trigger, right, where like I feel proud of what I've done. I've set to a task and I've done it.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Why not? I may not be able to do judo to the level I used to. Don't get me wrong, but I can still do judo. And I think a lot of people struggle with. They want to keep doing it like they used to be able to do it. I don't try to do judo like I used to, like you're seeing here. I'm not that guy anymore. I accept that. I don't even try to be that guy anymore. I'm a completely different player today than I am when I was winning Olympic medals. And so I guess when you're looking at my journey and the trade off is I never sacrificed anything. The people around me sacrificed for me. And I never had a downturn after the Olympics because I never identified as an Olympian.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's just like the tie boxers, right In order to strengthen their shins, they got to break it a few times. Just nature of the beast.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I guess that depends on what you consider damage, really, because. I don't really see that I have damaged my body. If anything, I think I've strengthened it. My body can go through more than yours can. Who's his weaker? It's just”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Maybe they won't deal with it. Maybe they won't train through it. When I had my five herniated disc and I was in a neck brace, I was still in the gym at 7 a.m. Whatever it is I could do because my job is to be at the gym.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You have to accept everything negative that could possibly happen. And until you do, you're never going to make it because you'll always sell yourself short. You'll never go far enough.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's just we understand that when it When you set a goal to do something, you're not signing on for the good. You're signing on for the bad. And I don't think a lot of people understand that.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Most of us who get to this point get there because we're all a little unstable. Even my wife, Gleeda, right? She was getting ready for 2016, or when she was getting ready for 2020 because she moved to Boston to be a coach, she had a neck problem. At some point in time, it's like, what's really important day-to-day life or judo? And believe it or not, the doctor in Canada was like, I am never, under any circumstances, doing an MRI of your neck again. What she told She goes, if you have me doing MR Not doing judo again. So just know if you hurt your neck and it requires an MRI. Duma Jud Decide if you want to do judo or not. That was a conversation we actually had to have.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think they understand. You know, their role is to get me to do my job to the best of their ability as a doctor. Meaning it's going to be less than what they want. And they struggle conceptually with The textbook tells me this. And I go, but I'm not a textbook. Like when you go to physical therapy, the first thing they do is they pull out that binder that says day one, we do this exercise. I go, but I have my own goals. Your job is to help me meet my goal. Let's work a plan to do that, or I got to go find somebody else.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or how far it spread. So it took him seven days to figure out what it was. Then once they figured out what it was, I went in for surgery to remove it. Then I spent, I think it was eight weeks in home care with a pick line. And then I came back from that in the first week and a half of judo, I tore my SI joint trying to throw a guy. And then I came back from that about a month later and then fifth at the Cono Cup. And then the games six months later.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Put me into the room like four hours later, the doctor came in. At MGH Boston. And he was like, You have a serious infection in your leg. I go, he's like, we have to keep you hospitalized until we can figure out what it is. And I was like, buddy, I have the Olympic Games in less than a year. I go, I don't give a fuck what it is. I go, just fucking take it out and let me get on with my day. He goes, we can't do that. I'm like, I don't understand. I go, you told me it's infected. Just cut away that part of the tissue, drain it, do whatever you got to do, and then send me on my way. Like it doesn't work like that. He said until we figure out what it is, we can't figure out how to stop it from growing.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yep, when I went into the emergency room, when I got back from the world, the lady was like, hey, you need to call, you're going to call because you may lose your leg tonight. They put me in the hospital”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I had three different types of bacterial infections in my right leg. My whole leg swelled. And it was in my blood, skin, and in my bone, in my right leg. So I got stuck at MGH in a hospital for seven days until they figured out what the bacteria source was.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then almost getting my leg cut off in 2015. I was like, I don't know, maybe a month or two later. I was hospitalized for seven days.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because I can just put my hand in the gee so it can't come off. And then you just What happened was three days before I was leaving for Japan, I died. My hand was rested like this on a mat, and the guy, boom, took my whole thumb off and tore all the tendons in the palm. So, when I went to the doctor, he was like, you know, we have to put a cast on. And I go, I'm leaving in three days. You're not putting a cast on it. And I go, This is what I want you to do. Just like this, I said, I want you to build a cast that holds it, that velcros around so that when I'm not training, I can wear it. But then when I'm training, I'll take it off and then I'll put the tape on it. And then whatever happens happens”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we're still friends. We still talk. It's just, I told him I was going to do it. He knew I meant it too. He did it Just testing”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was training with Colton Brown one time, and I went to San Jose State because I was in California for something. And he kept circling to the edge. They had a cupboard that had like, when you opened it, It had like all the tape and like medical supplies. I was like, we'll fucking put you right through that. And he kind of giggled. And then he went by that edge and I fucking ran him right through it.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Some people call me a bully and I have to remind them that, like Bully enjoys beating up the weak. I want to beat the person that fights back.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No transitions, no nothing. But if I get pissed off and like you keep dropping or not let me do what I want to do, I'll rip a choke right across your face Just to let you know that, like, If I wanted”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Lock yourself in your room, you come back, you've thought about it, and you come back with a game plan for that day. Against some players here or there. And I would develop a hit list. Like I would be like, oh, that motherfucker grabbed me at like 13 and I watched him sit fucking four rounds and then come try to kick the shit out of me. I'm going to fucking grab that guy early and I'm going to beat the shit out of him. And you just develop that list.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because it's the place most people don't want to be Everybody's comfortable. I would rather find out who I am and what I'm made of and find those endpoints. And if I can't find them, then that means everybody else has given up before me.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I was actually like. In a situation where nobody was watching me and I was free to just battle at my own will. Is what it was about for me.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Depending on who you are, I was hunted a little bit, like I didn't really struggle because of who I am. Them as college athletes, they want to show to their coaches and their, you know, higher players like, oh, look, I can throw the world number whoever. If you're just a guy who shows up, them beating you doesn't provide any value or raise their status.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I really want it to be isolated, no training partners, no coaches. I wanted to get back to my roots and just learn how to fight again. I don't want to figure out how to beat the German. I don't want to figure out. How can I develop a new entry into my sale against whoever it may be? It's not.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When you're tired, like you can't just train in areas where you're battling for every inch. At some point, you have to be successful. So you still under duress and understrain and Through exhaustion, you still have to have the ability to score. If you're training with the best people in the world all the time, you're not always going to be able to score. So you still need those B level players in order to really develop again.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was like, I have to get to a point where I can get so tired and get through it that like my Judah will come back and my body will learn again”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You can't quit. You're going to kick yourself if you don't go to Rio. I'm telling you right now, don't do that to yourself. Let's figure out a way of doing this. And I was like, because when we trained before, we did it as a unit We all went to the same tournaments. We all went to the same training camps. And I'm like, you guys are treating me like I'm the same player I used to be. I go, I don't, I'm not operating at the level you think I'm operating at. I go, I can't do that. And he goes, well, what do you want to do? I'll tell you what, Jimmy. You know I'm being serious because my answer is something you never would have expected. I go, why don't you just send me to Japan for three weeks? And he was like, Really, I hated Japan. I refused to go there up until this point.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's when I wrote another email, and I was like, I'm fucking off team USA. I'm not fucking done with USA Judo. I'm done with the tour. I was like, I quit. I'm going to go do my own thing. They were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You can't quit now. The Olympics is in like a year. Like, let's talk about this again because it's the second time I've tried to quit in like two years.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not operating there. It's not like I can, like, oh, my right hand's not working because it's fractured. Let me figure out a way I cannot use that. Like when your mind's not working, like. The one thing you need. Like, you got to have it You work through anything else. I needed that though.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, like I remember fighting the Brazilian in the semi-final of Pan Am's. I was halfway through this match and I'm just like. Eyes roll up. I'm like, I'm just going to fucking wing it. I just fucking winged it and I got countered and thrown free pony. I was like, I don't even know what to do. And I couldn't even think clearly. And that's when I was like, I may not come back.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I had a lot of doubt after the concussion in 2015. I remember when I first came back after four months of nothingness that like even trying to train, the room would start to tilt the whirl on me. And then when I finally got over that and I could start doing things again, I stepped on the mat for the Pan Ams and I was like, Drowning's not the right word, but like everything was being done in such a slow motion. Like, I had sandbags everywhere that I just couldn't keep up.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because now it's like, I don't care if you penalize me or not because I'm going to throw that guy anyways. I'm going to beat him anyways. And if I get a Shido for doing something wrong, then I'll just stop doing that one thing and just keep doing all the other things that they told me I probably shouldn't be doing, but they're not calling me on it. So I'm just going to keep doing it.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“German Grand Prix, which was Week after losing the World Cup because I was trying to do judo around the new rule set. I wasn't just trying to do judo, right? Because when you get to the highest level, your game tends to morph around. What can you, can or cannot get away with Was more focused on trying to figure out what I can and can't get away with. And I stopped actively doing judo. Once I said, fuck whatever the rule changes are, I'm just going to keep doing judo the way I know how to do judo. And if I get a penalty, then so be it.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I just started going back and doing judo without the leg grabs, but with all the same gripping that I was doing beforehand. And then when I got to Germany, I was like, I don't fucking care. I was like, if I got a cheat to win, then I got to fucking cheat to win. If I get shetoed out, then I get cheetoed out. And I won Germany”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Jimmy believed it, the team managers believed it, some of my teammates still believed it. My training partners still did, but they're not the ones that are cutting the weight, flying around, feeling like all of your judo is now null and void, right? Because at this point, they took away leg grabs entirely. You couldn't break a grip with two hands, right? The meta of judo has changed again. So I got fucked out of it. They took away how I did judo again, and now it just got more difficult. So when I'm sitting in the hotel and I'm sending this email, I remember being at the training camp. I was like, I don't even fucking care what the rules are. I'm just going to fucking throw people. I don't even care if I'm cheating. Doesn't matter to me. I'll just play stupid.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Expectation was no longer that Travis is going to win this tournament. The expectation was Travis is going to come home and be fucking pissed off and we're going to have to figure out how to manage a pissed off person that's trying to quit that shouldn't be quitting. And”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I got a response back from Jimmy. And he goes, Well, just stay for the training camp, go to Germany. And then whatever happens, don't worry about it. We'll talk when you get home. I was like, fuck that, fuck these people. Fuck the rules. I don't fucking care anymore. I'm just going to do judo the way I want to do judo. If I fucking get Jetoed out, fuck them. That was my response.”
2021-09-21 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #223 – Travis Stevens: Judo, Olympics, and Mental Toughness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source