Masters Alliance
9th Dan BlackBelt and Olympic Gold Medalist Herb Perez visit with the best and brightest to bring clarity to the future of Martial arts.
Masters Alliance
Crafting Champions: Redefining Success, Coaching Innovation, and the Role of Legendary Figures in Sports
What if the true measure of success in sports isn't just about winning but about pushing the boundaries of performance and personal growth? Join us in Warehouse 15 as we, Herb Perez, Coach Moreno, and Coach TJ, unmask the realities of our athletic journeys. We recount our candid experiences, from my own self-reflective path of balancing martial arts and competitive distractions to Coach Moreno's fatherly pride in his child's theatrical debut in Seattle's "Footloose." Coach TJ brings humor to the table as he shares tales of a local Taekwondo tournament, navigating the dynamics of gratitude and recognition in sports with a light-hearted touch.
Together, we open the vault on the strategic nuances of crafting athletic careers, emphasizing the new flexibility offered by a two-year competitive cycle. This episode invites you to ponder the real benefits of confronting top-tier teams like Korea early on, ensuring athletes are ready for the grand stage of the Olympic Games. We explore the critical role of high-level international tournaments and the ripple effects of facing elite competitors, not just for glory but for the sheer elevation of one's performance. Social media's growing influence and the admiration for legendary figures like Michael Jordan become focal points in understanding the evolving landscape of sports culture.
A thought-provoking critique takes center stage as we examine the current state of sports administration and coaching, challenging inefficiencies and advocating for a system built on merit and objective criteria. With a mix of frustration and hope, we discuss the necessity of revamping coaching structures, the importance of open communication, and the value of fostering genuine growth within national teams. Personal anecdotes shine a light on the intricacies of coaching succession and the often overlooked impact of legacy planning. Our conversations aim to inspire listeners to engage, reflect, and ultimately, to seek out solutions that drive positive change in the world of sports.
Welcome to Warehouse 15, where gold medals hang beside hard troops with a roar of the crowd fades and the real stories begin. Join Perez, moreno and Jennings three legends who aren't afraid to push past the finish line of polite conversation.
Speaker 2:Get ready feelings will get hurt, but the truth, the truth, will be told Welcome to the Warehouse 15 again, and I am Herb Perez, or as I like to call myself, disaster, so Grandmaster, disaster here, along with my two good friends and Olympic cohorts, and we've been through a lot in different stages of our life. How are you doing, coach Moreno?
Speaker 3:I'm good today, I'm happy today. I'm actually heading out tomorrow on a quick little trip out to Seattle to see a play that one of my children is starring in, so I'm excited about that. That's pretty cool, and just get ready for the. It's actually Footloose, oh nice.
Speaker 2:That's a musical, and then we're also joined by the amazing, the incomparable, the reprehensible and today dressed like I'm not sure exactly what. Coach TJ, how are you doing, sir? Oh hold on.
Speaker 4:How are you? How are you, how are you? I got to get shoulder surgery.
Speaker 2:I got to get shoulder surgery. Don't be showing off man. How you doing, sir, Tell us.
Speaker 4:I'm good Chilling, Just had a lot. We actually went to a tournament last weekend, a nice little local tournament. The warm-up Master, Bernard Prozy, had a tournament it. It was a pretty nice event. I like to see the level that we had that local tournament. But it was clean cut, ran well. So I had a couple of my guys out there competing so always Taekwondo in some way shape or form and yourself.
Speaker 2:He was a great athlete. Well, I'm doing okay. You know, today I'm wearing my new mala beads because I'm trying to exactly. I have a good friend who is helping me with my journey to become a better person, which is why I started the martial arts and I got side sidelined by the competition aspect of it where I had to be kind of you know who I had to be to win and I didn't have the Jimmy Kim kind of skills to be both a Buddhist practitioner and a kick ass kind of guy. So I went the other route and decided well, I'll just kind of beat on people and that's. I don't know. I don't know why that was 1992. I stopped competing, so I don't know why it took me this long, but every day it's been a minute, but I'm getting better, you know.
Speaker 2:And uh, I got a phone call from a good friend of mine. Somebody was lamenting. You know, people reach out to me from time to time and they ask me for help with their uh certificates because, you know, I'm I'm fortunate enough to have achieved a certain level at the kooky one, and so I can help people that get stuck. And so I helped this individual. And then I got a phone call from somebody telling me that the same individual was complaining about me, because I'm complaining about the kooky one, but she was not.
Speaker 2:She was not shy in asking me to process her certificates and I don't want to mention her name. She's from Northern California, former student of Jay Warwick. But that doesn't surprise me, knowing that she's a student of Jay, because people always forget who helped them and who got them to where they need to be. But I'm glad that I could process her certificates for her students, one of which was a former friend of ours, diana G, and her sister's kid, who was a famous table tennis player and resident at the Olympic Training Center. But since hopefully you're listening and let me help you with it, you're welcome. You're welcome. You don't have to like what I say and in fact that's the whole point. This is the Warehouse 15 and I'm not going to shy away.
Speaker 3:Can you?
Speaker 2:hook me up with a tent gun. I think I can. The tent, you just have to die. So if you need help with that, let me know.
Speaker 3:Are you sure I?
Speaker 4:can help you with that. No, I'm going to stay where I am.
Speaker 2:I think you better stay where you are till you get some sleeves on that shirt. But let's get started. Today and again, this is the full contingent of Olympic medals silver, bronze and gold. Won't mention who's. All right, mr Moreno what do? We got this fucking guy bro. No, no, I'm starting. No, no, I've been working on my Zen. All day.
Speaker 3:I've been working on my Zen and I've failed miserably and you came out with that one thing, Dude.
Speaker 2:I made the biggest mistake we made the biggest mistake of how he was doing.
Speaker 4:You shouldn't ask. That was the worst question ever. I'm going to tell you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but like most times, young people don't understand this. When somebody says to you hi, how you doing? They don't really want an answer. That's like a greeting. They don't really want an answer, that's like a greeting. You don't literally want to answer, but unfortunately, if you ask them, they say you open the door, you open the door all right, ask me again, ask me again ask me, ask me how I'm doing. Hey, how you doing. Young, amazing day, nice to see you all. Let's go. Did I mention?
Speaker 3:that thing, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, no, but it's true though, you know, you know it's funny that that movie I mean real fast that movie, bike Club, remember that guy talked about like sample size servings on the plane and you small talk with everybody and I feel like that's how the world has gotten, especially I know we keep talking about our sport it's that sample size. How are you doing? Good luck, all right, great to see you. Blah, blah, blah, and I know it's cordial, I know it's cordial, I know it's polite, but it's also call it what it is. It's also fake, it's unendearing and and people really don't care, they're like, oh hey, how you doing? You're doing good luck today, in the back of their mind, like I hope you break your ankle on the way to the holding area. I mean, right, I mean that's what they're thinking, that's what 99 were thinking.
Speaker 2:So keep it, you gotta keep it real.
Speaker 3:Yeah, keep it real. No, I was thinking. You know, we have two big tournaments coming up really close to home. We have the canadian open next week and we have a canadian the the us opened the week after that. Uh, the canada open up is first it's in montreal, starting next weekend, and then we have the, um, uh, the us open in the famous, ever so popular, ever so glamorous Reno Nevada.
Speaker 2:But with the Canadian Open, can I ask a question before you get started, do you have to score 20% less points, since it's in Canada, just like the money, all right, so we just lost all our Canadians.
Speaker 4:I'm going to take up for the wifey here. Actually, they put on a good tournament. It's not bad. It's always in a nice venue. This time it's in Montreal. I think I've been in this venue before. It's usually pretty big, a lot of, I think. Last year we went Korea, bought all some guys I think like their B or C team was there, plus a couple of their big guys.
Speaker 3:that were still qualifying for the Canada Open. I mean, last year it was in Vancouver, this year it's in Montreal. They run a clean tournament. They run a, you know, on-time tournament and actually I was looking at the numbers. I mean I'm not perfect but the numbers are open, which is historically normally pretty big. So it's interesting that.
Speaker 3:You know I don't know how deep the divisions are with quality athletes or anything like that. I haven't given it that much. I will be going. I'm actually this year I'm taking a bunch of cadets and juniors. So it's the first time in years that I've done that and you know, for my, some of my new young kids, I think it's going to be an awesome first step to get their feet wet. But I'm excited also about some of the senior athletes that are going to be competing there as well, because it kind of kicks off this new point cycle. I mean, I know it started last year in June, but for the most part this is the first year 2025, of this new generation of two years, two years with the point cycles and having these two tournaments right here in North America, I think is interesting, it's huge. It's interesting because not everybody, not a lot of the big American players are going to both, which I was a little bit surprised. I mean, historically, the US national team, I mean the group at their academy. They haven't been to Canada.
Speaker 4:I'm not sure why, when they can kind of get two for one you know, build up some points pretty quickly and these points this year around the people at the end of 2025 that have the top 32 points are the ones that qualify for the following Grand Prixs. Correct, correct, okay, yeah, and there's still 40 per year. Just all that stuff. I know you're usually pretty in detail about all that stuff. It's 40.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but there's a bunch of other ones that you can get extra in, like, for the Grand Prix challenge is extra, of course, the president's cup is extra, I mean it's.
Speaker 3:I think there might be even a couple other events that are two events that could be extra. It's a little difficult, you know, with this new cycle, I think you're going to you're going to find some, um, some different strategies. Actually, I mean, I just had a strategy planning, uh zoom call, yesterday with our group and quite honestly, we're we're picking out bigger, um bigger, more difficult events and training camps, camps, um just kind of trying to make sure we have good work in versus quantity of little points and stuff like that. So I'm not saying it's going to be perfect, but that's what we feel like our guys need. They need, like, high level events, obviously, like the grand prix challenges, and go to very difficult training camps, um enough time away from competitions where they can actually train hard, instead of saying, oh you know what, I got a competition I gotta hold back, or right after I just finished a competition, let me just kind of let my guard down. Like you know, we want to make sure that they're working. I'm pretty, uh doesn't, doesn't that pretty focused.
Speaker 2:Doesn't that schedule? I don't know if it's the right doesn't that right, but that's what?
Speaker 2:it's a pretty arduous schedule. It's a pretty complex schedule and you know two things. One does it fly in the face of of athletic performance, because to peak and to be the best you can, you need a certain amount of run-up time, build-up time, otherwise you get mediocre performances over the period of the year. And the second question I know in the past I've seen this you've had less than the most qualified athlete qualify because they were smart about the strategic component of gathering points and at which event they could go to where they have a better chance of getting points, even if it wasn't as prestigious of an event, and at which event they could go where the top players weren't worse. And and that is going to lead us into a question I hope we get to today, which is what's the purpose of the Olympic Games and what should the purpose of the lead-up to that event be? To yield the best athlete or to yield the best smartest strategic coach? Who's going to get his athletes there by gaming the point system right?
Speaker 3:So athletes there by gaming the point system right. So I mean real fast on that, like I, you know it's, and tj you, you know this because you've been in that point chase before. You know, with page mcpherson and stuff like that. Sometimes it is just about getting the points. It's not about going to the best tournaments and really challenging yourself, it's just making sure you maximize your points. And you know I've planned that out for people, um. But, like I said, I think this new cycle of two years and two years gives you a little bit more leeway, you know, to, um, to go get some, some experience and to invest in some young people or to just take off quite honestly, like, for example, some of our athletes are. They're definitely on their last cycle, so I'm not going to uh, uh come say hi, who is that beautiful young lady?
Speaker 2:how are you, my girl, I like that shirt where's the world taekwondo. Where is that? Where is the?
Speaker 3:world taekwondo academy nice that's minnesota.
Speaker 2:He's luckier than me he got to meet her in person on the internet. And do you know that your dad is the most successful, smartest, brightest, most handsome taekwondo player in the history of mankind? And hopefully he is guarding your eyes from the screen to my right over here with the guy with no shirt on? It looks like a like he's selling car washes in miami, so oh nice ask ask, ask her what her first words were.
Speaker 4:Ask her what her first words were tell her tell her story.
Speaker 3:She was like no, definitely not her Perez?
Speaker 4:definitely not.
Speaker 3:She loves me the funny thing is when she first, at the beginning, she would always cry. Cry with Uncle Oye, her godfather, cry with TJ. We have the video and everything. She's sitting with us and she looks at me and she's like no, she was saying PJ peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and jelly.
Speaker 2:Got you peanut butter and jelly it's so nice to see you go train. Good to see you, sweetheart. All right, she has to go. She has to go train. Give me my earpiece. Okay, we can go back to the uncensored version.
Speaker 3:Now go ahead uncensored. Um, where were we? Oh, yeah, no, no, what I was, what I was saying was like, honestly, it was some older athletes like taking off the the burden of going to so many events, so like what you were talking about, young is to kind of get back to really no pun intended, peaking or, you know, periodizing to for one event versus I got this one and then this one and this one, this one, and unfortunately that's the way our, our system works right now. But you know, we're trying to see if we can break that mold a little bit with some athletes and you know it's going to be. This is kind of a trial and error two years, to be honest with you, because we've never had this cycle. So it's going to be weird. I don't know what you think about that TJ. What challenges that that, you know I think, kind of sets us up.
Speaker 4:I think you got, I think the way. I think you can look at it both ways. I think you can go. Okay, we're going to go towards the development route and see what comes out in two years and then pick a strong team for the next two years, moving forward.
Speaker 4:Um, but, like like you said, I think the the issue always be having to go to certain events as opposed to being able to pick the events. Offsetting with training camps makes perfect sense, but I think again that the the mindset used to be going to tournaments where you knew the big names were going to be, and I think that's something we all can. That was always my struggle as far as being on the the us national team back then was, I feel like we didn't get enough shots at like these big guys early, so we'd show up at the grand prixs and fight them. As opposed, I think the european circuit and these guys see each other a little bit more often. So I think that's almost the right approach let's go get in front of the big guys in the division. So, come the olympic games, come those moments where we have to qualify, have to win a match. We don't feel so uncomfortable, we don't feel so thrown off by those moments.
Speaker 3:So I it's definitely a different, uh, but no, no, I was gonna say, I mean honestly, exactly what you're saying. This guy told me I don't know, like you know, you don't go to Korea to be creative, go to Korea to experience them, to see what they're doing, so that the next time you get in front of them you don't freak out. And that was in our day. Okay, they were the big guns. Now it's China, uzbekistan, iran, whoever it is.
Speaker 3:You know, you got to see those guys and you got to be in the same room with them. So you know, know, for a rocky thing, like it's just a man, it's just a woman, they put on their pants just like me, they bleed just like me. So I know that sounds kind of cliche, but it's the truth. I mean, some of these guys, they talk the game and they get in front of those big countries, of those big names, and they're just like. I mean they're frozen, I mean they're deer in headlights. So well, that makes the question right, because I can remember and again, this is dinosaur, you can have a stuff but when we were competing.
Speaker 2:you know, there's always the big guy in the room. At that point it was Korea for us, and maybe a handful of others, mexico, maybe Spain, iran for sure. Was it beneficial for them to fight us, or was it more beneficial for us to fight them? And so, as a number one guy, I'm thinking, yeah, the less I have to see the number two or number three. The only thing I'm doing is raising his level. I might be raising mine, depending how I look at it, but the matrix for me has always been if you're a number one guy and I said this to my son recently because we've been to a bunch of these ID camps and we may end up in your backyard Hopefully we're going out there next week for a final kind of visit Once you're seen, you're known. When you're an unknown, you don't have to worry. Once you're seen, people know you. So you mean they see everybody.
Speaker 4:now I think social media ruined all that stuff. They see everyone constantly. I mean like you kind of. I think that's the we. We have, we have the best dancers posted when they get in. Oh yeah, no tiktok, I watch tiktok of the us. They are definitely the most fashionable of taekwondo.
Speaker 2:They don't win any medals, but man, and where are they? In North Carolina, they must have some TikTok media classes and they must have some dance and hip hop classes, cause that's all I see of their media. What, what is the assassin? But you know what?
Speaker 3:what happened? Tj, you bring up a good idea, good thing, but and again, I don't I don't have everybody in the world now go ahead. No, no, like I don't, I don't follow every top athlete in the world, but I feel like the best of the best aren't necessarily putting out that much stuff. Maybe once in a while I'm with their competitions or a little bit, but not so much, not so much. Right, there's just a handful of people doing that, you know. So I don't know. I mean again.
Speaker 4:It's that whole freedom of speech slash. It's do what you want area. You know what I mean. I don't know if it's a guidance thing. You know I just never had that as an issue. I never really wanted people to know what I was doing. I never wanted them to know if I was having a great day or a bad day.
Speaker 2:It's a combination of dancing, hip-hop and taekwondo. Yeah, it's for the cloud. It's hip-hop and it's shirt off. It's for the cloud individual. I don't want to mention their name, but I mean the name is pretty prevalent I just think that I mean I'll tell you one thing.
Speaker 3:I mean I know we're, we're getting off track here, but like I don't look, you want to put your trainings, you want to put your wins, you want to, but when you start putting your injuries up and your uh man, I guess maybe it's a younger generation it's people expressing their how. When they're in bad moods or bad states, when things are like, I don't know, I just feel like you're, you're, I don't know. Maybe they feel like they're letting the world see them as real people, but at the same time, I think in this kind of sport, you, you're also showing your vulnerabilities. I don't know, it's not my style, I don't know if that's good or bad.
Speaker 4:I wouldn't think I was invincible. I didn't want you to see when I was up or down, left or right. You had to figure it out once you got in the ring. You know, I know that's again. We talk about dinosaur stuff in different situations, but I think that's a mentality thing. That thing too. I mean I would, I would assume that if I got too far outside the box so I'd be like, hey, let's not post that, hey, let's not say that. Hey, let's not do that.
Speaker 4:Of course not and depending on the situation that before the events. But I think social media has gone crazy and especially in the self-promotion and wanting to be, you know, bigger than our sport. And I get that and I can understand all that. A lot of other you know sports, get the following and get the media and a lot of the athletes. You want to get noticed and you want to. You want to be big. You know how you get noticed and be big. I think there's a time and place for everything and then you can do all the tick tocking. You and your team don't do any tick tocks because there's nothing to say I don't want to hear the journey of a loser.
Speaker 2:I don't want to hear the journey of the challenge. I want to hear the. I want to hear the journey of the champion, champion. I watch Michael Jordan's videos. I watch Tom Brady's videos. I just watch little Steven from the E street band and Bruce Springsteen's documentary. Those are the ones I watch. I don't watch the sorry stories about the people that didn't win and, you know, dance towards fame and stardom. I don't watch those. I don't watch the car crashes. I don't watch the 600 pound stories on TMC and I don't watch the biggest loser, my wife. My wife used to watch. I'm like, I'm no interest in why you're fat, to be honest. So I'll get canceled for that, but I'll be okay, all right. Anyway, moving on, you can tell what kind of mood I'm in today.
Speaker 3:So no, it's good, I like it, tjj. So what do you think I mean anybody specifically? I mean I don't know if you know who's going like to canada or us open that you, you want to watch, I think spain is going to uh spain is going to canada. They got a good decent group and I think uh uzbekistan is coming with some, some decent players to us open so that would be kind of cool.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm not sure who's on the registration list. I know I was reading a post on um on facebook earlier. I know that those numbers often change and you know we have the people, have the ability to show up and register for things and they're not coming. The final bracket is always a mystery until you either see them there. And now I just hope the level is good. I mean, like you just said previously, I think for canada and us, open should be, hopefully the level is high so you get some of that development, you get to see those matches, you get to feel those matches that you you're out there looking for, as opposed to it being a glorified canada nationals or usa nationals, you know so I mean I'm not.
Speaker 3:I'm not responsible, obviously, or I don't. Somehow, though I think we need to in this region of the world, we, somehow we have to attract some of these top level athletes. You know, I think we're going to have a pretty decent numbers, you know, across the board, I mean average, but it would be nice to have, like last time they had a Korea was there, I thought that was really good. Brazil came, that was really good. But somehow we have to. We have to really get out there and make sure we get some of these other countries. I mean, I guess there's two ways to look at it, because I spoke to somebody in canada last year and they said they were disappointed that the all these top koreans were there, because they're taking 20 points from some canadians or some americans. So I get that.
Speaker 3:But at the same time which you know, you mentioned it earlier you know about what is the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal should be to get to the Olympics. The ultimate goal of the Olympics is to win the Olympics. The ultimate goal is not to win a bronze silver, it's the goal. That's literally the ultimate goal. Now, I know that varies by country to country, athlete to athlete. I mean, some people are just happy to get there, some people are lucky to get there, some people get put there. So I know that it gets a little muddy, but I think that it would be nice if these two tournaments over here could get a a strong mexican team, a strong brazilian team, a strong us team, a strong canadian team, uh, a good you know german or or turkish team, and all of a sudden you got five, six national teams plus, yeah, I think I think you have to ask me some questions, so I start the other way.
Speaker 2:But I did. You got five, six national teams plus a bunch of other individuals. Now we're talking about a three, but I did notice you started with a strong Mexican team.
Speaker 3:If we can get all these people in the same room. The reason I ask this is We'll see.
Speaker 2:No, but they used to be amazing. Yeah, but they can be right, they have the capacity and they should be.
Speaker 3:So it's a warrior, warrior culture.
Speaker 2:It's perhaps one of the best warriors, right? So here's, here's the question for you.
Speaker 2:You're struggling, so if you think about, the ideal and you think about the purpose of going to an olympic games is and we, we reconciled this when we were building the television show. It wasn't about who won, it was about how high you raise the bar. When I go to the Olympics, I don't care who clears the high jump the highest, I want to see if they can raise it an inch. I don't care who runs the mile the fastest, I want to see if they can shave tenths of a second off of it. So for me, if I'm being pure as an Olympian, as a guy who used to serve on the board and stuff, how high can we raise the athletic level and test the limits of human endurance, strength and conditioning? And what are we capable of? Now, if that's a Kazakhstan person, a Mexican, a Puerto Rican, an American american, whatever nationality you throw in there, I almost don't care. I have some pride in my nationality and my country, but at the end of the day, I want to see the best athletic performance. So I think that the olympic committee, if you were to ask them, they're like we want to raise the level of the games so that the individual performance is is the best it's ever been. I don't think you want to go to an Olympic Games where they don't set Olympic records or world records. I think you want to see that number continue to be better.
Speaker 2:So then, when a country goes, they're under a lot of pressure economically, because most countries have a ministry of sport that's funded by the government, not ours. We're sponsored by sponsors, so we have a different pressure. We have to make sponsors happy. Sponsors like gold medals, because gold medals make money, and, as a country, the mission in the United States is inspire Americans through our performance on the gold medal platform. That's it. That's what the mission statement is of the Olympic movement. Now it used to be, you know, sport for all. No, we want to inspire Americans through our performance, and that means gold medals. Now, if you can deliver, we give you money. If you can't deliver, we don't give you money. Why USA Taekwondo gets money Still a mystery to me.
Speaker 2:Now, as a coach, though, your job, our job as coaches, as purveyors of the torch, is performance. We want our athletes to have the best performance, and that should manifest itself in a medal. But we have to be performance first, results second. We can't be focused on results, because then we do things like okay, let's figure out which tournament should I go to get my guy to be able to go to the Olympics, like, okay, let's figure out which tournament should I go to get my guy to be able to go to the Olympics?
Speaker 2:So we had a situation a few years back with a particular athlete made it to the Olympic Games. Surprise to me, they point gamed it and got to the Olympic Games, went to the Olympics, didn't win, no surprise. And then we have a training center in the middle of nowhere. Athletes training went to the of nowhere. Athletes training Went to the Olympic Games. Something was wrong. They didn't win any medals.
Speaker 2:In a country with the resources of our size, the country of our size, the amount of athletes of our size, the quality of athletes, we have no medals. How's that possible? So we balance these, these different needs, and then it goes back to the fundamental question we can just be happy to participate. There are countries that have never won a medal and if that's where we're at great, let's just do that and it is what it is. But I think it's more than that. I think it's performance for coaches, I think for athletes it's medals, because that's a sign of the work you put in, and then for the movement it's just the best performance. And then it begs the question is taekwondo in its current form representative of an Olympic sport that continues to evolve and get better? And you know how I feel about that.
Speaker 3:I think that's not the case, and I think it is the case with basketball well, but let me jump in for a second, I mean, I mean, you're going back to what you said. You know kind of, as you know, pushing the bar and making it beautiful, making the sport beautiful I mean, I think obviously that would be great in utopia. But like you said, the beginning winning is winning is the, the ultimate Trump card.
Speaker 3:No pun intended, right, I mean it's. It's when you win, you can talk. When you win you can, you can answer questions. You know what I'm saying. Like, when you win, you people yeah, I got a hat Um, when you win, you can, you could say a lot of things. So I think that, ultimately, I think you got to win. If you could do it in a aesthetically pleasing style that you know, I think that would be even better.
Speaker 3:But the truth of the matter is, you know, people get to the Olympic games for all different reasons. The W? Wt does not want what you said aesthetically pleasing, and I'll tell you why. They wouldn't have wild cards, right, you wouldn't have countries that you know have never, you know, won a medal at the world championships, yet somehow get a wild card into the olympic games.
Speaker 3:And you know, you're there and I love them. I love them for trying, but they look like fish out of water. They, they have no idea of what they're doing in the ring and they get demolished by the number one person in 30 seconds. It's almost comical, embarrassing. So the WT they should, they should never have that. It should only be the top of the top. That's what the Olympics represents, you know it's, it's the best of the best you know. And you could say the same thing for coaches. I mean, there's been you know many times where people in this country have lobbied in politics and did this and did that and all of a sudden they show up, they get on a coaching staff and the next year you never see them again. Like, what purpose did that serve? The betterment of the country, the of the country, the betterment of that athlete.
Speaker 4:And you could say, for whatever reason they left, they left to change professions, they left because they were tired, they were left because they're burnt out, but most of them still have martial arts schools that's more those guys, that's more for the coaches though that's more for the coaches ego though I remember when you know, I know you mentioned page a little while ago and having to do point chasing and stuff like that with her as much of a privilege as that was to be at that stage, playing with that level, the anxiety and like the buildup to all that stuff and having to be in those pressure moments was also a big deal. And I don't think these coaches I don't think some look at it that way. I think it's an opportunity for them to go be like look, I'm at the Olympic Games, I'm here to support what you guys just said about the movement of this athlete going to win a gold medal, because if you're looking at it that way, then even and again, we don't got to touch on exactly. But if you're putting people in situations that is not going to put them in the best position, then as coaches we're doing the wrong thing.
Speaker 4:When I was passed, when you talked to me about coaching Paige and we were able to work all that stuff out, that was a big deal for me because you trusted what I knew, how much I knew her, what I was able to give to her in those moments, to go, help her try to be successful. And like. I don't think that's the goal anymore, I think it's the. I'm at the Olympic Games, I have a shirt, I got a jacket, I got on the plane. Necessarily, who? But who's supposed to be there? Who's who should be there? It's it's who who could benefit the team the most. It's just based off of who, who they want in a moment to go and be there I saw.
Speaker 3:I mean I just saw they put I mean this organization just put out a coaching application and I don't know if that's for. I didn't really dive into it. I did look at, like, the criteria but I don't know what that's for. Is it for the world championship? Is it for the junior team, the cadet team?
Speaker 4:there was a lot of it was. It was all of the above.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was para junior history national team, regional history of peace itself and unfortunately in our sport so it'll be interesting. It'll be interesting to see if are we doing the right thing for the athletes and the team.
Speaker 2:If I were going to apply what I would apply for and I would do the job for about two years I'll keep you updated.
Speaker 4:When I did the job, then I'd get ceremoniously fired or run out of town on the rails, because I'm going to fix it. If I were to apply under the sole fact, I'd come in and fire pretty much everybody.
Speaker 2:And I would be. It would make my day to fire and replace the current CEO and then I would come in and fix the sport and we'd have medals at the next Olympic games and at the end of the Olympic games they would put up a noose and hang me because along the way I would get rid of all the third, fourth, fifth tier people that shouldn't be in the room. The politicking of choosing coaching would go away. I'd pick meritocracy coaches, coaches that have proven records and can deliver athletes and deliver results, and I treat it like a professional team. I'd fund them.
Speaker 2:The next thing I do is move the training center out of Kansas or Kentucky or Alabama or whatever backwater country it's in, and I'd move it back where it should be in a central hub, and I'd get it funded by a city where, wherever it is oh, you do you, I'm sorry, god bless you. So how? Hence the shirt and the tech, but the? I would move it out of there and get it to a place where people could actually, where people could get to it easily Get to it easily. It would be a central hub where planes could come and leave freely and like Chicago, new York, la, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:And then places where they actually have planes that land and not have to take puddle hoppers, that's okay. And then I'd get the athletes to be held to a standard They'd have to sign a code hoppers.
Speaker 4:It's okay, and then I'd get the athletes to be held to a standard. They'd have to sign a code of conduct. It was 65 degrees, so they had to pull them out to let them know 80 here, boy.
Speaker 2:Now, that's the way it used to be, and when it was like that, you got results. So right now, go ahead. Are you hiring me? Are you hiring me?
Speaker 3:Are you hiring me? Are you hiring me? Are you hiring me? All right, there we go. So so let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me break in here. No, for real. Let me break in on this one, because first, I want to go back, because we've gone through so many different things. First of all, of course, I wish, but no, I'm hiring you. No, listen, we've started out with identification camps. We started out with regional directors. We've had regional camps, we've had regional coaches, we have state coaches, we have everything, and then we have nothing. And now we're going back to it. It's so um muddy that you really don't know what's going on. And it's interesting because we always talk about they always talk about doing the best for the athletes and all of a sudden they're. Sometimes they use meritocracy, they say you're not ready because you have I think they said this to you tj, but you're not ready because you have I think they said this to you, tj, you're not ready.
Speaker 2:Because I'll let you continue, I'll ask you both a question.
Speaker 3:Here's the question. Here's the question.
Speaker 2:I had already coached the Grand Prix. I think me and Pace called it Grand Prix gold medal in Taiwan before that.
Speaker 4:In an organization who does chaos. That organization told my organization at the time that I wasn't ready to coach at a lot, that the pan am games level it after I was already there to qualify staff gets to do what it wants to do, because the volunteers don't understand what to do or how to do it, so staff does whatever it wants and it's a and it's a, it's an oligarchy.
Speaker 2:they create what they want to create and you just sit by and go what huh? And before you know it and that's why they're doing it You've got second and third tier people running your organization and chaos. Why? Because then you don't know what's going on and you can't fix it.
Speaker 3:Staff.
Speaker 3:Yeah so two, two points early on in this whole progress they came out with state level coaches. I applied, I applied for a state level coach and I didn't get it. A couple other people in the state I'm like, okay, I think I'm just trying to do what you guys asked me to do. You know what, go from the bottom, but I wasn't qualified. I don't know what it was, but I wasn't invited to do it so fast forward to right now. Invited to do it so fast forward to right now.
Speaker 3:Speaking to somebody, I was told that there were probably about three coaches and maybe it's not for sure yet, but just the fact that that was said. Maybe a developmental coach to the world championships. I'm like, I'm all, I'm all for building coaches, I'm all for experience, but not at the world championship level, not at a grand prix level. There's cadet, there's junior there. Not at the world championship level, not at a Grand Prix level. There's cadet, there's junior, there's camps.
Speaker 3:You don't take a spot away from the 16 national team athletes to place even a developmental level. You bring a top-level athlete or top-level coach and if that coach has to hold targets and sit in the stands and scout or go whatever they got to do, but you still surround that team with the best three, four, five, whatever coaches. I mean, I think at the world championship you can have a head coach and two trainers that can actually coach, so you could literally have six coaches per side. Three and three, they could do that, and if that serves through meritocracy, like you said, You've got electricians right, do it, and I've seen them do it at a cadet level.
Speaker 3:Coach Damien Villa had a bunch of kids on his team. You know what they don't get the apprentices Screwdriver they should.
Speaker 2:He's got kids on the team. They keep building your house.
Speaker 1:They let the guy run the conduit they he's building your house the master electrician.
Speaker 3:They let the guy run the conduit, they let the guy do this, they don't let the guy do the circuit breakers. He's not ready yet. He's got to be trained and participate the world championships is not where you build an apprentice coach.
Speaker 2:What you do in an apprentice coach at the world championships you bring him to the training sessions. He holds targets, he carries bags, he gets lunch, he goes to massages, he does whatever he has to do to support the athlete and watch how a master does his craft. That's how you become a master of anything and that comes from the middle ages.
Speaker 3:Yeah so let me ask you this, let me, what about this subjective, something that's very subjective? I say, herb tj, yeah, you got, you got to set, you got. You have to show me, or you have to tell me, that you're, you're, you're investing in yourself, for your, you know, furthering your education within the sport. And now what does that mean?
Speaker 2:Does it mean coming to my my? It's not objective. You got to make it less subjective. You got to make you got to say, if you want to create a coaching program which we did back in the day you say here are the levels you have to know.
Speaker 3:And this is what you need to know and as you know more we'll give you more opportunities.
Speaker 2:Go ahead.
Speaker 3:The reason I bring that up is because that was part of the qualifications to be a national team coach.
Speaker 4:You have to commit to furthering your education. Oh, my God.
Speaker 3:Hold on, I'm real fast. Did you say? What did you it?
Speaker 4:they have what you have to do yeah, it's a, it's what's it called, the the cat program, coaching something, acceleration program, something like that. So they said they'll weigh that into the options of whether they select you. Now, if you've been to one of those things, I don't know. Like I was telling you, I've been to a paul green super camp, though we sat in a room for two days it's about 500 a pop when I was with w cap and we went over coaching and all that stuff like that, and I think that was supposed to qualify as far as level three in the united states. Uh, my badge still says level two. I'm still waiting for this upgrade to level three. That was a two day long thing, so I don't know if they include that in all that stuff, but it's.
Speaker 3:It's again, like you just said, if you're playing ball, if you're going to be there and do this and do that, Listen, it's not if if I mean, if it's a real course, like not just shadowing people are coming out and kind of seeing what we do. If it's a written course, a technical course or something like that, that you can make an argument for that. But what if my program, what if your program, what if someone's program is flourishing and you're putting people on the national team? Matter of fact, you might beat people head to head, so, but I still have to go. I mean, I understand there's a minimum, there's safe sport, there's level one, there's level two. But when they start throwing those other things in there, like I don't know what if you can't make it out there, what if you can't afford to go out there? What if you haven't been invited to go out there? I don't know, all of a sudden that's, that's, that's a prerequisite, and I don't know if that it is or this is going to be in consideration, but I just think it's.
Speaker 3:They throw stuff in there like that to muddy it up. And you're right, herb, that's a good word chaos. And I'm not. I don't know if it's purposeful or not, but it seems like it's built to. You know, and I'm, listen, I'll say it. You know, tj, I'm a champion of you.
Speaker 3:I know you've done a lot in this sport and you continue to do a lot of the sport and for you to not be part of that staff. If it's because of me, it's because of peak, and I know you've. You've heard this thing before. Don't be with one, don't be with peak, cut it up it. Just to think that someone of your caliber that coaches two people on the national team probably three people, to be honest with you like that, they wouldn't even consider you. And you have such a good reputation with so many of these kids, some of these people, I just think you'd be a natural fit for them. You'd be an asset. I think they would love you and enjoy you and be good. So I hope you get in there. I really, really do. So you know. That's my two cents.
Speaker 4:I appreciate you. Yeah, it's it's. It's again like you. You just said it right there it's it's. Uh, I've been told that too many times. You know we've talked about that personally, about those things because of this. Who I stand next to, who I'm friends with, who supported me through my whole Olympic journey that's what people don't. You got to stop and remember like there's something bigger than this Taekwondo shit, like family is family and people that have been there from the tough times and all the way through, when I didn't know what direction to go as far as the sport, I didn't know how to talk in front of people, I didn't know what to expect.
Speaker 2:at the Olympic Games, you were there to help me through all that stuff as a coach, as an athlete, you as a mentor.
Speaker 3:All that stuff is way more important to me than any of this other stuff that goes back and forth.
Speaker 4:So call me.
Speaker 3:If that's the case, I'm going to denounce. I am no longer a P. I'm going to keep to the core because A great program trains the next people that will come into succession.
Speaker 4:When you don't do that, then you're bound for failure. If you look at it I'm looking at these college coaching programs for another sport and what I always see is there's an assistant training under the master.
Speaker 2:That guy's been there for 16 years or so and one of these guys is coaching my son and I see he's going to ascend to the head coach position. Hopefully they always open the door right. You want to get the best person. So in what Coach Moreno said, you might leave the door open for a guy who became a performer All of a sudden. He's performing, he's created something new, he's created a dynamic and you say we've got to recognize this guy and you pull him into the mix. So you have to create succession and legacy planning where you get great coaches in the room and if you do random coaching then you get random results. And this is what's happening with certainly happening with Taekwondo in this country in that sense, except for the private programs, because by nature those coaches are there forever, they own the program, but in the national program it's chaos. And there's a reason why it's chaos, because when you throw crumbs to the masses you keep the masses happy. So every little swish-wash of a coach that would have never even seen the light of day, based on performance, is hoping the crumb will drop. Will they drop a crumb my way Will I get to be an assistant and go to the world championships and I can put on my dojang world. I, I am an assistant coach. Well, welcome to the kooky one dream, right, the kooky one. You know, one day this will all be yours. What day, what? When does that come? Well, guess what? In taekwondo they're playing the same game. Why? Because they were trained by the same people. The guy running it, they're a good friend of ours. He's the master of that political disaster. He was trained by one of the best in the business to be a charlatan. And so, oh wait, you'll get your chance, don't worry, we got a crumb for you. By the way, it'll be one crumb, you'll get it and then bye. So the legacy of coaching here doesn't exist, nor does the succession planning. Now, how do you ignore I laugh when they don't make you a state coach? They could have said you know, you're not a state coach because you're too big for that. You shouldn't be that. Or they could say dude, we got this amazing talent here in Florida that could be helping us build a tremendous amount of athletes. We've got a tremendous amount of athletes. Let's get this guy in the building. The building right.
Speaker 2:In my situation with the kooky one, I chuckle right um ninth degree black belt, olympic gold medalist, pan am gold medalist, world cup gold medalist, all this stuff, kooky one, they choose kim lee park across the board in the united states, by the way, not a kim lee park that you know. Talk about nepotism, racism, uh, ethnocentricity. Welcome to the kooky one. I didn't say anything. I go, okay, I it's hard, okay, no problem, you guys aren't ready to be better and that's okay too. And in your situation, I'm not sure. I'm sure that's what you guys said, it well, but isn't it sad for the athletes? Isn't it sad for the coaches development? I would love to be trained by a Moreno or a TJ If I were a coach, coming up and learn first thing I do when I meet a great coach.
Speaker 2:I talked to him. I went to this program back East and I looked at the coach and he said something. So I went up to him afterwards. I said that was amazing, what you said. He was talking about the four pillars of the sport and he was talking, but he said this thing about mental training. That was amazing. So I talked to him.
Speaker 2:I was like man, that is, can I, can you tell me a little bit more of how you came to this idea and what do you look for in an athlete and what you find are the commonalities? Now, you got to be willing to grow and learn. Now, if you're not willing to grow and learn, then you're you'd be willing to die on the vine and listen. Let's be clear, like I always say performance results Okay. Did they perform? No. Did they have results? No. Have they had results in performance? No. So systematic performance and results. Like Korea, like Iran, like Kazakhstan, like China, like whatever you want to say, there are countries that historically perform and they base it upon historical performance and a development of coaches and athletes and a pipeline. There is no pipeline in the United States. There is no coaching pipeline, there's no athletic pipeline and, if anything, it's become more silo mentality and more secluded and exclusionary rather than inclusive. The inclusiveness has been of second listen, listen again.
Speaker 3:I know sometimes we get going in circles, but the truth of the matter is mean, this country is a great country again, I work in front of the country, you guys know that or brazil, but this country is a great country with great athletes and and some great coaches, and it's just a shame that we're we're struggling like we're struggling and and it's what's interesting is, on a cadet, junior level, we we do pretty decent, especially on the region on the North American. In the Pat-2 level we do great, great and I got to watch some of these kids a couple weeks ago and I think some of these guys are going to do pretty good at the cadet level. How can we keep them to?
Speaker 2:see why they're seeing you like they are. We keep talking about this topic, right?
Speaker 3:And so I think one of the things we should do is it motivation at our next podcast. I think we should tackle one of these things and I'll leave it to you guys coaching thing and think about what kind of just reading between the lines I I'm not a guy to throw.
Speaker 3:It doesn't seem like I'm not a guy, although it may sound like it that throws coaches to be able to keep their athletes in the pipeline long enough. So if I'm going to tell you and point out a problem, so I'm also going to have a potential solution. Like I said, I always hope I'm wrong, because I think it's disingenuous of people that all they do is complain their rock throw is not building builders.
Speaker 2:So I want to build a building. So I tasked the two of you and myself. I want you to think about the problem, whether it's relative to coaching, athlete development facilities, whatever it is planning for competitive success in the next quad coming into LA. Let's address that as a problem. You guys draft the problem and then I want us to have potential solutions. I want you to think about it. We'll discuss those solutions. We'll talk about the problems.
Speaker 2:I mean, I enjoy poking. I can't the weasel. I won't call them the bear because they poking the weasel. I won't call them the bear because they're about weasel size. I enjoy poking the weasel of the organization but it would be disingenuous to just continue to poke the weasel and not have a better solution. So I have ideas on solutions, but I think that's going to be a fun conversation. We can it's easy to point out the faults with the current programs and situation and coaching and yada, yada, yada, but do you have a solution? So maybe that's something we could talk about, Maybe that's our next thing. That would be interesting and then maybe that gives people something and I encourage the viewers or the listeners to send us thoughts on that, and everything, except with the exception of me. So I don't. You know. You can complain about Juan, you can complain about TJ, but me don't complain about. You can, though, but just send it to Juan and TJ. My email is Juan, go ahead, let's do that. No, no, it wouldn't be hard. No, who do you want to bring?
Speaker 3:Give me somebody. Hey, somehow some way.
Speaker 3:Let's do that Well, I think that would be great, tj, anything else as guests, and we'd have to kind of have a couple lines of questions and let them talk. Obviously it's engaging the conversation with them. Couple lines of questions and let them talk, obviously it's in engaging a conversation with them. But and it would be kind of hard having four people, because there could be some interesting people that we could all right something. Wow, I I'll hold it because I I have a couple like surprise people, surprise people. I have a couple international people too, so it'd be fun, but yeah, anyway um no, I don't, I don't think it's either.
Speaker 4:I don't think it's either, you two, I think, I think you guys are judicious.
Speaker 3:I think it's me in terms of I'm always complaining.
Speaker 4:Before we go on to one, I want to say one last thing, maybe I do come up like that, maybe I'm throwing bricks, but like you said from the beginning, like nothing I've said here.
Speaker 3:nothing you guys said is false. We're just talking, it's purely fact, that's the problem.
Speaker 2:I'm going to try to buy TJ a shirt with sleeves. It's always your hating you just don't like them.
Speaker 3:It's going to be to get him a t-shirt and some tattoo removals.
Speaker 2:Actually, we're going to need to make that a little larger target. All right, coach, to make that a little larger target.
Speaker 4:No All right.
Speaker 3:Coach 15.
Speaker 4:15 extra extra large for the arm part no, that actually listen real fast.
Speaker 3:I mean tj is going to piggyback off you because you're right. Look at what you said. Tj is correct. Just because we, because we say stuff, doesn't mean we're trying to be haters or whatever. We're just number one, we're saying our opinion. If we're wrong, tell us we're wrong or show us that we're wrong. And number two, we're not being a hater, we're just calling the facts, we're calling it.
Speaker 3:I mean I would love to sit down and talk with anybody and just go back for back, but I'm going to go against both of you guys on this one, because it's one thing, it is our job to point some things out and maybe some negative things out, but if they don't bring, if they don't want our help, why should we throw up answers? Why should I build a house for them? You know they've never asked, they've never even said. You know what? Can we have a coffee? Can we have an informal conversation? And again, maybe with me? I'm too far down the road. How about you, tj? How? There's other coach? I just they don't want to hear nothing from anybody. That's the truth. They got their couple people and that's it. Going back to the world championships that we talked about this last time. How is there not a schedule? How is there not a detailed schedule for the World Championship team? And don't tell me we're going to have a camp, because you don't tell me the dates, you don't tell me the length, you don't tell me anything.
Speaker 2:Do you want me to send an invite to those individuals? I can send an invite to come on.
Speaker 3:You know there's a national team in April. How is there not a detailed schedule? And if there is, my athlete didn't get it yet. And if there isn't, why not? That's your one job.
Speaker 4:One job. We're all concerned about the people winning that are in the room with them. Everyone else is irrelevant. If you're not in the room, they don't care whether you win or lose, and I'm just being honest with you.
Speaker 3:So are we a national team or are we not a national team? Are we not developing everybody? Or are we just saying come with us? If not, why not reaching out to TJ? No, like, again. I'm going to call out Coach Brown and Mr Nelson, because they talk to my athlete who you coach, tj, all the time. You're the chair guy, we talk about this. They never once came to me and said Juan, what is he doing? Juan, what can we help? Juan, would you? Would you? No, no, no. They talked to him at breakfast and said you know, you should come with us because we're going to coach you. Like, what is that? That's just and that's, that's not. That's not hating, that's fact, like you said, tj. So you don't like it. You don't like it, but why?
Speaker 2:you're not showing that you don't want to. You know what? You don't want to talk to one, because I work with the master of disaster and my cohorts, tj is the one that coaches them, directs them, guides them, all that stuff, and we definitely have chaos why not no results?
Speaker 3:no results in the words of a great situation to make a decision without any, exactly what you have.
Speaker 4:Continue to do the same you know that's in and that way they win, and whoever you're not there, they lose.
Speaker 2:So if you expect, change and you continue to do the same thing then that's more definition of insanity.
Speaker 2:So I'll leave that with all of them and they're always welcome to come. I get phone calls from a former Olympic coach of mine all the time asking me for something. What do I get from USA Taekwondo? I got my lifetime membership and then I get requests to continue to attend coaching seminars which I wrote and designed. But I could point that out to them. But I wish them the best and I welcome them here to come here. I would love to have them on and have these conversations and let them sharpen their sword against the metal, the metal of M-E-D-D-L-E of the podcast, the Warehouse 15. Because, as you know, we keep it real and some people well, some people get a little burnt by that. I won't mention which part of the culo burning, but that's up to them. We're just going to continue to keep it what it is. So, keeping it real.