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
Foot-Farting for $50: Is Grand Prix Challenge Worth Your Money?
We discuss the challenges and opportunities facing USA Taekwondo, from centralized training models to athlete development disappointments, while celebrating TJ's exciting announcement of a new Peak Performance Training Center in Charlotte.
• TJ announces the opening of his new Peak Performance Training Center in Charlotte, North Carolina
• The Grand Prix Challenge ticket prices are unexpectedly high at $50 per day
• Taekwondo has failed to expand its Olympic presence while other sports continue adding events
• Modern competitive Taekwondo technique has deteriorated compared to previous generations
• UFC fighters like Jair Rodriguez show impressive Taekwondo skills at the highest level of MMA
• Centralized training models have proven ineffective with only two male athletes participating
• Junior development funding is virtually non-existent, creating a broken pipeline for future champions
• Eight years of current leadership has shown little improvement in international results
• The U22 tournament received inadequate support despite being crucial for Olympic development
• A results-oriented approach with accountability is needed to revitalize USA Taekwondo
Back to the Warehouse 15, and I am your grandmaster of disaster and CEO of Sorry, not Sorry, I'm not going to mention my name because I don't want to get trolled how you doing, Coach Moreno.
Speaker 3:I'm doing good. I wonder if I can buy some stock in that new company. Sorry, Not Sorry, because that shit's going to blow up.
Speaker 2:It's going to blow up. It's already blown up. How you doing, Mr Bronze TJ.
Speaker 4:I'm good. I'm good. Bronze TJ. A little bit elevated today, we were talking a little bit, but I officially found my gym and location here in North Carolina. Congratulations. I'm very excited about that, thank you.
Speaker 2:Is it in a barn or does it have windows? Does it have paved streets?
Speaker 4:gravel. It's a horse stable. It's a horse stable with uh, nice, yeah, I share it with a couple of cowboys and circus people that perform in the local area so and good.
Speaker 2:And then did you do a tooth count.
Speaker 4:You get in any so no, but I will be bringing, uh, you know, peak performance training centers to charlotte, which I'm super excited about and you know, you guys know that that that that place means something very special to me, obviously the whole organization as a whole. But being able to kind of like form, fit that same kind of style and I got lucky enough to find out almost a warehouse style too. So we're doing some good things over here and I'm super excited and I'll definitely be rolling out a little bit more details well, I'll be waiting.
Speaker 2:I'll be waiting for my personal invite are you gonna going to come?
Speaker 4:But if I invite you, are you coming? But if I invite?
Speaker 2:you, I will show up and. I will come, you guys. Don't invite me to anything, you guys get married, you get girlfriends, whatever.
Speaker 4:I'm the last guy. You heard him right. He said he's coming. Right, you heard him say he's coming.
Speaker 2:I will come to North Carolina for you.
Speaker 3:I don't go to North Carolina for reason at all, thank you. But I will come to north carolina for you, because I I had a traumatic experience in north carolina, so I I try to oh, I got this one. I you know what I want to go back. Let me say something. First of all, congratulations to you and your gym. I mean, I've been lucky enough to see it. It's a great look up facility. It's very big, it's got a lot of potential, so I can't wait to go there.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna, matter of fact, we're going to have a kind of a nice little international camp right after the Grand Prix Challenge in June. So some people if you're listening, if you're interested, we're looking for a few different people to piece it together. We're going to have a Brazil squad there and some other people as well. So I think it'd be awesome to kind of inaugurate that facility. But I'm happy for you and I know you're going to be successful. But, young, speaking of that, the Grand Prix Challenge is going to come. It's only cost $3,000 to watch so you can go watch it.
Speaker 2:Yo, I saw that. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4:I saw the bill.
Speaker 2:Was that $150 for a minute?
Speaker 4:No, but 50, okay, maybe I don't know because I was trying to remember the other Grand Prix but $50 a day or $125 for three days to watch Taekwondo in the Charlotte Convention Center. I guess I've always coached and stuff, so I don't really know the price. I remember looking at the tickets, they weren't $50, though that sounds steep.
Speaker 2:I've got a lifetime membership which entitles me to free entry to any USA Taekwondo event for the history of mankind.
Speaker 3:Is that true? No, it's not true. What are you talking?
Speaker 1:about.
Speaker 3:They can't rescind that. It says for two tickets, for US Opens and for Nationals. What yeah, that's what I looked the other day, for US Opens and for Nationals. What yeah, that's what I looked I looked the other day because $800.
Speaker 2:I got my official membership patch, I got my little card, I got a gold card.
Speaker 1:Okay, I had one too.
Speaker 2:Now they want to change the rules. They could change the rules. I mean, I'm not sure I want to go in there because I may have to slap somebody.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm not trying to be facetious here for Olympic Olympic medalists. If the Olympic medals want to show up and go to the grand prix challenge the USA Taekwondo should 1000% be like. Absolutely, we'd love to have you here. I mean, I'm just being honest I be making.
Speaker 2:You know me making any further donations to USA Taekwondo or the world Taekwondo Federation would be tough. I'm not. I don't mind spending money on on stuff, that kind of matters, I think the problem is to be on. I don't want to pay for jay and steve's plane tickets anymore.
Speaker 3:I'm kind of done with that. I think the problem is is, is it's not going to be a big event, in a sense of, like you're not going to have, you know, 800 competitors, so you're not going to make a lot of money, right? So, um, but it does kind of suck for the specters. I mean, if I'm a, if I have my, my kid there and I want to bring my me, my wife and my you know, one of the siblings now you're spending a lot of money to, and that's just.
Speaker 4:You know, that's a lot of money. It's 125 for the weekend if you want to watch all three days. Obviously divisions on different days, like for some of my parents and I was like pushing for them to go watch and everything I'm looking at.
Speaker 3:Some got two and three, four people in their family so we're looking at like six over 600 bucks for a week in the watch tech window and normally they have three sessions.
Speaker 4:So I mean yeah, it said for the, it said for the day. That would be crazy. It did say for the day, so at least we're not going that deep into it. But 50 bucks is still crazy it's a little.
Speaker 2:That's a little bit of money. I mean I, to see something. I mean what's the right way to say it? To see something I want to see, I wouldn't mind paying it.
Speaker 4:You know I'll pay that for a jeff beck concert may he rest in peace but the idea that I would pay it for this I would pay it but like I'm gonna be very I would have to be very unhappy about it because obviously I've been to a lot of grand prixs and got to sit a lot of grand prixs from coaching or being in the stands and stadium, like I like watching it at that level or like that competitive level. This is the problem with this one is it's a challenge. So it's not like you're getting that the highest ranked people in a room like and with the ranking reset, you're not, and you'll get a couple. You'll get a couple big names that'll mix in and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:But 50 bucks a day, my man, that's let me ask you, speaking about that, the grand prix, you know, challenge. Do you think that, um, do you think that americans are gonna like, if they're not involved, they're gonna, they're gonna fly there to watch it?
Speaker 4:I'm gonna say slim to none. We got the internet, internet. Now, like I try to get you know people to watch matches and stuff online, I don't see them buying a plane ticket flying in staying there for the weekend. I mean maybe a few, but it ain't going to be like a flood to Charlotte kind of event.
Speaker 3:It's going to be local people, it's going to be whoever's in the Charlotte.
Speaker 4:you know North Carolina maybe South Carolina area, georgia, georgia, I don't know. But that's what I'm saying. That's why I think you would make it a little cheaper. You know, reach out to some of the school owners to be like, hey, you bring that from your school, get some like group discount or something, but 50 bucks a day is is crazy. What are we watching?
Speaker 3:why are you bringing up old stuff, man, that's like 10 years ago bro yeah, I'm not coming to watch this.
Speaker 4:I'm not coming to watch that says no, actually it's illegal's illegal and you cannot do it.
Speaker 2:I'm not coming to watch this? I'm not coming to watch this. This looks like that thing, that process. What's his other hand doing? That's what I want to know. What's his other hand that you can't see?
Speaker 3:So I'm just yeah, I see that guy right there. That's an Iranian guy that fought for Azerbaijan. That's a bad dude. Oh no, no.
Speaker 2:I never have a bad thing to say about Iranian fighters. Those guys are amazing. But you know, $150 for a good $125.
Speaker 4:$125.
Speaker 2:$125 for three days $125 for a good meal, watch foot farting, I don't know, but I think you guys are. I think you guys are wrong.
Speaker 1:I think what's going to come up. I'm coming to see you guys outside the arena. We'll go outside the arena. Let's go podcast live there.
Speaker 3:We could do that.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you what I want to do. I want to get some fried alligator Chitlins grits and some Elvis Presley fried peanut butter banana sandwiches Is that a North Carolina thing? Isn't it.
Speaker 4:I don't know. You know more than I know Anything south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Speaker 2:If I go to Miami, I want some cafe con leche. I go to North Carolina, I want somebody serving me with teeth and I want a little bit more of fried food.
Speaker 1:Well anyway.
Speaker 2:I heard they have fried espresso down there. Is that true Only on Wednesdays? I need to stop because I don't want the North Carolina people hating me.
Speaker 4:They're going to be waiting for you when you get off the plane. It's a beautiful state.
Speaker 2:They'll be waiting for you when you get off the plane. It's a beautiful state. They'll be waiting for you to get off the plane for a different reason, my friend. So you know, I'm hoping, but I'm hoping, but not hoping. So you know but don't worry, we always got your back, so you don't have to worry.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But the pricing on tickets. They should want full stands. So they should do, and even Korea does this, and you guys know this. When they can't find spectators for an event, they go into the local school system and they invite them in for whatever reason.
Speaker 1:Maybe they do that, I think guys will go to this.
Speaker 2:It's international competition in the States and I think you'll get all these Johnny Come Lately Johnny Come Hopefuls which is going to bring us into our next conversation that think they can be Olympians. You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning, run over by a car and opening a taekwondo school in North Carolina than you do of an Olympic berth at this point right. So you know the amount of people trying to get to the Olympics and the amount of spots available in the United States and the qualification process. You either have to be independently wealthy or travel savvy, like our friend Grand Master Lee was in figuring out the travel hacks to get to all these events that you got to get points in. So I think the process is interesting.
Speaker 3:You know it's funny. You say about I mean I know we're getting off topic real fast, but you know the Olympics obviously it's hard, I mean to get there, but you know it's funny. You say about I mean I know we're getting off topic real fast, but you know the Olympics obviously is hard I mean to get there, but you know kind of well you're going to crucify him. So obviously, dr Cho and WT, he really was trying to be close to Bach, right, you know. And now he's out. And now there's a new president. We talked about her a couple episodes ago.
Speaker 3:It's interesting because now on the Olympic docket in 2028, gymnastics think about what gymnastics have. They've got women overall, women, men teams, individual things. Now they have mixed. They have men and women are going to be a team. They got another chance to win Olympic medals. Soccer went from. I think the women are going to be a team. They got another chance to win olympic medals. Um, soccer went from. I think the women are going to have 12 teams now and the men are going to have eight teams. So they they increased the. The women's team, like there's all swimming got another another. Uh, the distance, I forgot what I want to say it's 50 something. But my point is they've expanded and yet we still haven't got one more weight category per gender, the mix. They were talking about this tag team fighting Right TJ, and it's exciting and guess what?
Speaker 4:I hate it. I hate it. I'm not a fan. We did tag team stuff. I liked when we did it, that one time I forget what year it was where each person had to fight the whole match. So the flyweights fought the flyweights, the featherweights fought the featherweights and it was the overall team score. Now that format for a team thing, I think you take that and it's better. I like that better. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:It it's a little bit more like a real fight versus this craziness. But I mean, I've been to, you know, a couple of these big events and I'll tell you what it's crazy and I can understand the fans sitting back going like whoa. But my point whether it's good or bad is not the point. My point is they almost man sold us fake stock, but that's going to be in 2028 or poomsae. And now here we are nothing new on the docket in 2028 or poomsae's up. And now here we are. Nothing new on the docket, like I just I don't know a failure on you know, on our part, you know on taekwondo, to not have the right connections or doing the right thing to get them in. I mean, as far as I know, I mean that's. That's sad that we weren't able to expand on my part.
Speaker 4:That's definitely. That's definitely a big part of the problem, though I mean he just said it like the the likelihood of you getting there with a number of spots available and the way the system is rigged.
Speaker 2:Well, the cap, the athlete cap and the coach's cap and all that stuff is going to make it tough, but they have announced the new uniform for 2028. And I know that it was. I don't know if you guys have seen it, but I'll share it with you.
Speaker 4:That's his favorite picture. That's literally his favorite picture ever.
Speaker 3:He had that picture on bio. It's behind me.
Speaker 2:That's why I'm not doing my screen share.
Speaker 4:That's his favorite picture.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean, I keep hearing these stories about these amazing athletes who can jump, jump through the air, flying, kick things and actually really do taekwondo. Yet every time I watch a match, you know I I see what I see and I and I know I don't like to. I'm not slamming the athletes, I'm just saying there comes a time kids right now, for example, can't research anymore because they have Google and soon they won't be able to write because they have AI, google and AI Gemini and all these other things. So once you stop using something, it starts to deteriorate. So when you start changing the paradigm of what excellence is, you stop, you lose it. You use it or lose it. And so right now, you know I hear all these stories about people that can back kick. I haven't actually seen it, but I hear that people can back kick and, as a guy who can back kick, I can tell you I haven't seen anybody actually back kick. I will say this and both of you will agree you both know that when you're getting ready for a competition, you don't waste time on true technique. You waste time when we did, because it was what scored, but you waste time on what's going to score, points and strategies that are going to score points. Now, if that's what you spend 10 years doing, there comes a time when your strategy and your technique atrophies, and that's kind of what I see happening, and I see it happening in my gym.
Speaker 2:You know, I have a gym where we teach and we have competitors come in and coach. Moreno and Pete come in and do our high level training and our guys, we and, by the way, we do a lot of stepping we warm up with stepping. My young three and four year olds actually step better than my current competitors they use because we do a warmup, which, Jason, you know my head instructor, uh, I was on the national team for the AAU. Um, he teaches at the beginning and he's actually good at it, better than me. So my, I was watching my three and four-year-olds and I'm like, oh dude, these guys are, they're good at stepping. My competitors, they're all leaning back on their back leg, their hands are covering their taint and uh, you know, and and I, I'm yelling at him I'm like, you know, I, I, I forced them to do Taekwondo and so, um, anyway, you come to North Carolina, I think you'll, you'll like it Taekwondo.
Speaker 3:When you come to North Carolina. I think you'll like it. I think when you come to North Carolina you'll sit back and have a coffee and kind of watch these kids. I'm not going to the gym.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. I'm coming to see you guys, I'm not going to the gym.
Speaker 3:You're not coming to my gym.
Speaker 2:I'm coming to your gym, I'm not going to a Taekwondo event. I'm not going to a Taekwondo event. No, I mean like I'm not going to the Grand Poop. I think he's talking about training. He's talking about training.
Speaker 4:No, I'm coming to see you.
Speaker 2:No, I'll come in your gym and I love you guys. You know I'll come to your gym. I'm not going to the Grand Poop. If I want to see a Grand going to be going to Ithaca, I am going to. Um. I'm going to now openly ask for any Taekwondo guy out there that wants to run a Taekwondo gym in Ithaca to let me know, because I'm going to put some sort of facility out that way so I can visit my son when he's at college. So I I thought about a little bit. So if you are from that area of the world where cold knows no bounds, let me know, because I'll come visit you and I'll talk to you about uh, doing something out there, and that's going to be my contribution back to taekwondo but, more importantly, my contribution back to myself. So I have an excuse to go visit uh, ith Syracuse, that whole area there and Binghamton, binghamton, Binghamton. So I want to put a good school up there to compete with my good friends up in that way. Let's get to our next one. Go ahead.
Speaker 3:Coach, I know we want to get into talking about some centralized training stuff. You guys happen to watch the UFC and notice it was in Miami. First of all, I love watching all the MMA stuff, but there's one here in UFC UFC I think it was three, 14. It was in Miami. One of my former students fights in the UFC. She married a UFC fighter that fought against George St Pierre. His name is Dan Hardy and she was in town to do UFC Latino. She cause town to do UFC Latino.
Speaker 2:She cause there's a lot of Hispanics on the card, and so she was doing all the interviews. What's her name?
Speaker 3:Her maiden name was Veronica Macedo but now her name is Veronica Hardy and she lives in. She was in England with him and he's from England. But super nice guys. I mean she's a great girl. She, like I said, she fights. But anyway, I went to see her at the hotel. We know that all the UFC guys were hanging around. But earlier in the week I got a call from you guys both know her, sanaz Shabari. Sanaz called me and said she's working with a guy or has a friend that's in the UFC and he's fighting on the card and he ended up fighting where I'm going with this.
Speaker 3:He came over from Bellator. His name is Fabricio Pitbull and he fought Jair Rodriguez, who's a Mexican that lives in Chicago but has a Taekwondo black belt, apparently, and he's supposedly one of the best kickers in the UFC. And they contacted me because they wanted to see if we had a guy that can kind of mimic him and stuff. And it didn't work out. I mean it was short, short notice, but if you watch the fight, this dude was doing Taekwondo. This dude did double kicks. He, uh, did a back kick, he did a Rouse kick, he did fast kick, like he was. He had a huge height advantage but he, he didn't kick like a UFC guy.
Speaker 3:You know what I'm saying. He didn't have the Muay Thai style. I mean it was fast. I mean I didn't think it had a lot of power because it didn't do a whole lot of damage to the guy, but from a distance standpoint it was pretty interesting. I was just thinking how important kicking is nowadays in UFC. You'll hear all the commentators. I wish they'd kick the Langer. I mean it's just funny how the last year and a half to two years, how kicking not. You know he needs to shoot more, he needs kicking. Kicking to set up a level change, to set up the punches, to set up grappling.
Speaker 4:Yeah, kicking's huge. I think finding the right people to teach you to kick the MMA style of that I hate when I see them kick and spin around in a circle like a long. It drives me nuts. I'm like no one's ever said don't do that to you. And they're doing it at the highest level and I don't get it and I always thought maybe it's some kind of like super secret mma technique or something that's her. Hey, yep, she got a nasty knockout. Remember that one. You showed me her route dude, that was nasty.
Speaker 4:She slept her her.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was nasty.
Speaker 4:It was when she was young too, and the worst part about that was when she slept her.
Speaker 3:She just like you know we all hit some people. She just like just walked back. I'm like dude, she's a killer man, tough girl, tough girl, but you're right. Tj, I mean, I think it was even worse when they kick and they try to stop and they don't go all the way around.
Speaker 4:But that's weird, like how, but that's timing. This does not know how to throw the technique and stuff like that. But if you can kick what's his name? What's his name? Wonder Boy he can kick. He's a kicker, you don't think so? I think the best.
Speaker 2:He can do a sidekick. As far as you know, he's got some fun connor. Connor mcgregor can kick conor mcgregor did. He did some. They have some look out there for videos of him.
Speaker 3:You're crazy trading in tight in tight, can't fight at all.
Speaker 2:Anyway, got a left hand oh, I'm not saying anything bad about him.
Speaker 1:He's still a bad guy the uh I offered a long time ago. You know, as you guys know, they asked me to trash. They asked me I'm not going to say it, I hear they asked me to fight. I said trash.
Speaker 2:They asked me to. I'm not going to say it. They asked me to fight because he's crazy. I was asked to fight in the first UFC, I commentated the second and then, after I watched the second and a few others, I was going to put together a team of guys which they actually have done years later to train those guys, because I figured a guy like me or you guys could help them learn how to kick properly and become some of the best kickers in the world and then get the best boxing guy, a guy like Mike Swain with judo, to train these guys. And then, of course, they already had the best jujitsu guys, so they don't need that now because they've incorporated all that. But I gotta be honest, the uh, the Taekwondo guys still are. You know, it would be difficult to say that taekwondo guys aren't the best kickers in the world, right?
Speaker 3:I mean it just would be impossible to say. I think I mean honestly UFC people, like I mean I don't know. Do you remember the name? Rick Rufus.
Speaker 2:Oh, he was a bad guy man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, he was a kickboxer but he so I grew up with him, him and Arlene. Him and Arlene actually used to travel around together when they were kids and he was a point karate fighter. But he comes from a Taekwondo background. His dad, pat Rufus, and my instructor, my first instructor, named Jerry cook. They were like good friends, friends, and so you know rick, uh, pat, the dad rick, and then now, um, duke rufus has a big gym in milwaukee and that's where pettis came from. You know pettis, the guy that jumped off the cage and kicked him down the face. Um, and, they have a taekwondo background. He's a huge muay thai guy too, but his original background was taekwondo. So, talking about integrating tj, he knew how to do it.
Speaker 3:You know, my guy russell, from iowa, russ is a ticwano guy, kickboxing guy, and he's had a stable of people that nobody knows and they kind of slowly made their way up into the ufc and he just knew how to kind of teach kicking a little bit with the punching and as the guys got better they move on to bigger, better gyms, you know. So I think it takes the right guy, the right understanding of the fight game, both punching, kicking and grappling, because if you just got Do you think you have to know how to kick now or do you have to know how to?
Speaker 4:I think you have to know how to defend getting kicked and I think if you know how to kick, you know how to defend getting kicked, and I think that's the problem with the UFC. I think some of those guys shots probably the middle to lower level guys, but they're getting hit because they don't know how to defend it.
Speaker 3:That's true because think about any of us Young, you had a great spinning, hook kick. But just to stand there and spin, hook kick someone in the face, not on a counter, not on a setup, that should never happen. No, getting up front leg in the face is bad enough, but a big spin, and so you're right. Sometimes somebody spins and you guys are like, and all of a sudden there's like you're getting cracked off the line dude and it makes no sense to me.
Speaker 4:I'm like you knew exactly what angle it was coming, where it was going to land, and they're just like hands down looking the opposite way, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know. But I will say this these guys, you know anybody, anybody that can get elbowed in the face, and just look at you. You know they get my respect. You elbow me in the face. I'm gonna lay on the floor and cry, so you know I, I, I uh me too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I let nobody punch me in the face those guys are views they're. They're nasty dudes, they're rough dudes and they and they train hard you.
Speaker 2:One thing I don't know, that's why that's why you got to say this is what you got to take. From that, though and this is what I loved about I don't like all the tattoos and the bravado and all that nonsense. I like, though they took just anything and turned it into something, so they realize they have their hands like this, they can drop an elbow, that dirty boxing stuff.
Speaker 1:They said okay what's effective.
Speaker 2:Forget all this nonsense about. You know, I lived on a mountaintop. I'm a fat picture in a Korean cave and I did take young. They took all that nonsense, threw it away and said, okay, if I drop my elbow on this guy's head when I'm posting up, it's going to really hurt. Or when he goes to punch me I put my elbow up. You know which? We knew it's going to hurt, and so they, they just, they utilitized, they made it real and pragmatic.
Speaker 3:Listen, jujitsu with the Gracies and then UFC even more to a different level, because when the jujitsu came from the Gracies they actually proved that they had the best martial art by just winning all the matches. But UFC has even MMA, has even eclipsed just jujitsu. Because, you know the best, the best base for mma right now is wrestling. Wrestling is not judo it's wrestling because these dudes are so strong they can hold people down.
Speaker 4:But to your point, you're exactly right, they, you, mma screwed martial arts, because now, if you just do taekwondo, you just do jiu-jitsu, just do kickboxing, just do kenpo, just do whatever it's, it's, it's, it's only one little part of defending yourself yeah, but I, when I, when I see, even when I see these like, uh, like a taekwondo school or martial arts school or whatever you want to call it mma school that starts teaching mma from the beginning, I'm always so baffled, like because it's as they incorporate everything. It's like, oh, we're going to teach you MMA that's such a broad term to use. But then you see the result of that they know a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
Speaker 3:I know, I know I get it they're getting these young kids that are 18 and 19 in the UFC. One guy just fought in the car too. I forgot his name. You know, a white dude in little curly hair. He looks if you saw him at Starbucks you'd be like yo go give me a latte, fool Like. He looks like that kid. But this kid's like 155 pounds, he kicks, he punches, he submits, I mean, and that's how we learned. He didn't even learn taekwondo, he just learned MMA and that's kind of the to your point, young that's the facility.
Speaker 4:Why is?
Speaker 2:Tony Graff calling me. Hold on a second. You know what I mean, coach. Are you lonely? Do you want to be on the podcast? I'll send you a link. Yeah, yeah, do you want to be on, would you like? Would you like to come on as a guest?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we have call-ins. Now what we have call-in now.
Speaker 2:Do you want to be on or no? I'm not Right now. All right, call me later. Love you, bye. That's funny.
Speaker 1:That was.
Speaker 2:Anthony Graff, who has had the good pleasure of training with or being trained by everybody on this podcast. So he's a great young man, a picture of masculinity with a lifting body that was featured on men's health and fitness, and he walks around miami without a shirt, shirtless, or with a tank top.
Speaker 4:I remember this guy. When I first came to Miami he was obviously the team.
Speaker 2:I think, he's 5'8.
Speaker 4:No, he's a little shorter than me.
Speaker 1:A little shorter, I don't know.
Speaker 4:But I remember coming there and I always tell people I appreciated the welcome that I got. I remember since we got there we were doing some kind of warmup drills and me and him ended up fighting up and down the floor. But he kind of set the tone for me and I think at that point in my career I needed someone like that. He just came, he showed up, he trained, he worked hard, he wanted more and if you weren't there for the same reason you avoided him. You just stayed away.
Speaker 4:If you weren't a serious guy, if you weren't there to train for real, you needed not to be on that side of the room, because if you were on that side of the room you were meant to work and you could get the worst of him and the best of him all at the same time. So that was my guy. He was, I mean, talk about just pure, savage and pure just wanting to train and want to hit people and want to work like it was. It was phenomenal being able to train next time in the gym, in the gym, so shout out.
Speaker 3:it's funny because I know he came there you go. That's when he was skinny.
Speaker 4:That's when he was skinny.
Speaker 2:Look at his neck he looks like Jason Statham. I'm waiting for him to save the world.
Speaker 3:Get the Isopure picture.
Speaker 2:Isopure that's the one where he's going to end up Isopure advertisement.
Speaker 3:You know what Young he was at the Olympic Training Center and he left and he had never made the team. He comes to Miami and he makes the national team, but he was At the bottom. The bottom of the image, right there, see that one, this one. Yeah, he might have the full body. There should be a full body one like that. But even that he's skinny there.
Speaker 2:Look at this nonsense. Holy Jesus, I bet he's 25 pounds heavier.
Speaker 3:I can't see that Anyway.
Speaker 2:Tony's a great guy.
Speaker 3:His daughter changed with us now so I see him, you know, four times a week and stuff like that.
Speaker 4:Those are the vibes, though. Those are the gym vibes that I miss, those like raw and cut.
Speaker 3:It kind of goes right into what we were about to talk about. I mean that he called we're talking about centralized training, we're talking about you know somebody I guess somebody put something at the post on social media about the Olympic Training Center. I mean, I didn't see it.
Speaker 2:So there was this post put up. So a couple of things, and I don't want to throw shade or whatever they call it on people, but I will say this Okay.
Speaker 4:I will say this Shade warning guys, shade warning, this might be scary. There might be a boulder horse. I should change my name.
Speaker 2:I should say Shade Master, shade Master, that's me Shade Master Flex.
Speaker 2:Shade Master, that's me, shade Master Perez. So here's the thing, and you got to always remember this Everything is temporal or time-based. So if you want to talk about the greatest fighter or the greatest basketball player or the greatest, this, and you say, but if he fought him in this day, so it's all time-based, like Rocky Marchiano, whatever his name was, versus X, y and Z. So you can't really say, but what you can say is at the time. If you want to look at things in time, that's one thing. So there was a post put up recently about the grand old days and the amazing Olympic training center and how it developed athletes and how it had so much success. Now, that's a time-based thing. And so what I will say from my experience as a guy who was there when they started the program I was there when they started the program.
Speaker 3:I was at the Olympic Training Center. Was it 86 or?
Speaker 2:87?. First batch of people that actually went there in 1985 was when the first time they allowed taekwondo to have athletes there and I was there for a camp with mike kim. Uh, canada, canada, from your area, the all those hoodlums, eric errol, whatever his name was, and, um, a lot of great athletes, um, and they were all the second, third and fourth place finishers at the national championships and we had a camp there and from that camp I made the national team the next year. That and a few other things, that was the first time they had it. That next year they made an application to get beds at the Olympic Training Center and that was the first time they had a team there. Other than that, the only time you went to the training center was when you were preparing for an international competition.
Speaker 2:So, to be clear, the first group of people that went to the Olympic Training Center which I was offered to go and I chose not to go, and they wanted us to go because they wanted us to train with the resident coach, our best coaching was at home, our best training partners were at home, and every sport that had athletes at the Olympic Training Center in residence program, including judo, those were the wannabe has-beens. Those were the guys that could never make a national team. Because I love all those guys, the judo guys especially, and I'd be like, oh you guys going to? Where are you guys going this year? And they're like we're not going anywhere. They were the team they never won nationals, they never did anything.
Speaker 2:And so we used the Olympic training center team when it was there as target practice, because they would show up at practice and these would be the guys that didn't make teams, had never made a team and weren't good enough to make teams, to be honest. And so when they show up at a practice, we were kind of like aspirin. We were like what are these guys doing there, which we should have been? We were there to train with the best in the country to beat the best in the world, so we could use them as target holders. We could put chest protectors on and beat them up, but they weren't really ending.
Speaker 2:Now that may have changed over the years, but that's a focus of the Olympic Training Center program and each one of you have been in different incarnations of that program and I watched the program. I was on the US team for eight years right, kind of right right, 86 through 92, four plus six years, and I watched the program evolve so that guys who did make the national team would move to colorado and then they were already on the national team and then they went to train and you guys probably did that at some point yeah, I, I, when I was, I had two team members that actually went one year to graduate and next year the other one graduated and I was kind of in line to kind of follow them up there.
Speaker 4:But I think about it now, it was, it was the thing to do at that moment. Like I said, two of my really good friends were going out there. You know they were building a young team, I guess.
Speaker 2:But well, who was the?
Speaker 4:coach? Who was the coach? What's his name? Who was coached when Arnell and Anthony were out there and all Han Won, lee, yes, yeah, but Han Won.
Speaker 2:Lee was part of the crooked mafia Han Won.
Speaker 4:Lee was. I don't know anything.
Speaker 2:Han Won Lee had the Korean mafia cheating with the referees. Han Won Lee was the worst incarnation of the Olympic team coach that we ever met. That's right. He was my teammate and I went to Korea with the guy, but once he got there he corrupted and and and, quite frankly, had a program, had a lot of problems. There were lawsuits and all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 4:They left athletes on mountains and you know they abused guys and it was ridiculous I mean, yeah, no, I was gonna say like, and I think that's really what it comes down to when you say like, I don't know if it's, I don't think that's necessarily the case now, but, like for someone outside the program, I ended up becoming a world-class athlete, a part of the world-class athletes program. I had friends that were part of the program and they had all the benefits and they were, you know, they had the full salaries, they had the, you know, travel, international and all this stuff like that. And at 18 years old, in my brain, like you just said, I had the best coaching I could possibly get. You just said I had the best coaching I could possibly get.
Speaker 4:So, me being where I was, it's hard to go. I'm going to join this program and leave everything I've been doing that's gotten me to this level just because they have control or just because it looks good or sounds good, and I think we're back at the same thing again. I mean you got kids and people that you got kids outside the system right now that are top performers in the country. I had some athletes that were in the WCAP program at the time that were top, um, top performers in the country, and there's there's no site of being funded or supported because they're not within the, the, the system or within the academy. So cause like that's why, when I go back to the whole club team thing, that's the issue you have talent, you have coaching, you have people, but for whatever reason, we can't figure it out that you can't just plunge everyone into one place and teach them all the same thing and hope it works.
Speaker 3:So let me. Let me add this First of all. I think it's all in the, in the, the explanation, the branding of, of the marketing of what the facility is supposed to be. You're right, young, and back in the day it went through a couple of different transitions. Some people were there that didn't deserve to be there and everybody asked how come not me? Then people were resentful because why did they get to train and eat and travel all the time when I'm way better than them? I'm on the national team. And then I got to a point where it was the national team, other than you and Kevin Padilla. Six of the men were from the team. And so we have all these ups and downs. And so now, tj, I'll say you're probably right.
Speaker 3:This program was brought here in the United States to centralized training. I think in concept it makes sense, but I think athletes have to be willing and able to go there, not required to go there. Especially if they have a world-class coach, they have great opportunities. They should be able to kind of come and go because they're performing. Now, if they're not performing and they're no good, then probably nobody would want them anyway. Or you say listen if you don't really want to get better and come over here and do what we're doing, but it shouldn't be mandatory, because look right now if I'm not mistaken. Correct me if I'm wrong. Tj, our centralized training program in the United States of America, has two male athletes Is that correct? Out of eight?
Speaker 4:On the team. I think you might be close. I think it's heavyweight multiweight.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's it, that's it too.
Speaker 3:On the women's side there's a few more. One didn't have to fight, one made it. Who else made it? I mean maybe Hannah, but anyway, my point is if you got the biggest, best program, you should have all the people on the team. Hypothetically maybe an outlier here or there. The fact is there's a lot of good coaches with good programs that people feel comfortable in and if they make the team and they can go out there for some camping and get some extra stuff in maybe a thing or two to add to whatever you're doing I think that's the way it should be here in America. I know there's other countries where it's systematically you go and you get better, but in America there's good coaching, there's good programs, there's good competition. Sometimes there's good funding. That's the one thing I would say, tj, and I think you know you'd probably agree with as well If people are doing, if you're on the national team, you should be getting some kind of funding. If you're performing on the national team, you should be definitely getting funding.
Speaker 2:So we looked at this model. I was on the board of directors and the executive committee for the U S Olympic committee for 12 years and I was in on the board I don't know 20 years some ridiculous amount versus an athlete Then as an administrator and all that, all that stuff. And then I worked with the Olympic council of Asia, helping them with developing countries, developing programs to success. So here's what. Here's what not me. This is what the US Olympic Committee determined. You could give all the money in the world to somebody to win a medal and they're not going to do any better. What's better is what they call bubble money. You find people on the bubble of success, they're in shooting range and then you finance whatever they tell you after review is necessary for them to succeed.
Speaker 4:We're doing the exact opposite right now. We're funding only the top guys. We're funding the successful ones in their limits, yeah, and that's not helping.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you need to identify guys who are on the bubble and have a potential success. Look at their training situation. See what would be helpful for them to help them train better. That could be knowledge, that could be coaching, that could be financing trips, that could be additional trainings, that could be massages, that could be paying for their school, that could be paying for their living. Whatever it is that they need to succeed. And then you test it. And this isn't just whatever it is that they need to succeed, and then you test it. And this isn't just. I'm not talking about taekwondo.
Speaker 2:We did this for 45 Olympic sports or whatever the number is, and we did it for winter and summer. We looked at high-performance plans. We determined I reviewed a bunch and approved a bunch and disapproved some things. Some sports came to us for cameras. They needed money to purchase high-velocity cameras it's the wrong word, but the idea that you could slow down. It takes very high frames so you could slow it down so they could watch their competitors do whatever. And others wanted money to go scout. Others wanted money for individual athletes to be able to live.
Speaker 2:So you determine what a program or an athlete needs. Now you fund success where you find it. You don't fund success. You don't say we're building something, come to it because people have lives. Now I will say this Without oversight, I have seen that funding model fail and in particular, I can think of one place where it failed horribly because it wasn't overseen and it was overseen by a nepotistic, hedonistic, abusive coach and abused everyone except three related people that were competing and everybody else were victims and fodder for those particular athletes.
Speaker 2:So that's an example of funding that went awry, where you were funding success where it was and you weren't overseeing it. So it's got to be funding with oversight and then it's got to be and one of the things we lost when we lost the Korean overlords, we lost that sense of responsibility to anyone and you can love or hate what USA Taekwondo used to be. But it's worse now. Now you have non-Korean overlords who are self-centered, like plane tickets, and fund a particular place where they all live, and it's like either you become part of our gang and you wear the right color in the right place, or we don't give you anything, and that's not right either.
Speaker 4:I think you reposted it too. It was one of the I think you wrote something about it like when they were like oh, it's fun to see our young guns out here competing, how about you guys fund our young guns? How about that? I I'm going to say we, we under supported this under 22 team. You've got teams in the Pan Am region that have six people, seven people, eight people qualified for this event. That could potentially get you to a Pan Am games. That could potentially put you on the Olympic team. So obviously you guys have heard me say the juniors need to defund it. But like, if we're focused on this under 22 range and it's an opportunity for those kids to be in a position to make an Olympic team, how did this go? Unfunded, unwatched. I watched countries. Everyone got the information late. I got it. It was late, it was scrambled, it was this. But I watched countries pull together, national teams pull together, people pull together resources, put together funding, whatever you want to call it and send full teams and coaches to these events.
Speaker 4:It took you seriously. Meanwhile we have people there's no thing, it's fake, I'm sorry. Meanwhile we got, you know, kids from the U? S doing it on their own and I'm talking about top athletes doing it on their own to make sure they get these opportunities. And that just seems a little silly to me and, like I said, I can't. I talk about the juniors and you're not going to fund the juniors, but you're going to talk about the under 22, but there's no support going into this.
Speaker 4:What are we doing? We're talking about getting full Olympic team in 2028. How are you going to do that when you're missing out on developmental opportunity spots? How are you going to do that? When you got the grand prix challenge thing and we're, we're, we're, we're, we, we go so simple-minded and go okay, if you're on the national team, you go. This, this, this you put no thought into. Let me find some of these people that on the bubble in that cusp that could, could, squeeze into a grand prix and really need it, that may not have the funding to get the points required to get into the grand prix by themselves, like we're just talking bullshit. We're talking four teams and it's all bullshit it's impossible.
Speaker 3:I mean, I mean that's an open up a can of worms. I mean, even from that standpoint, like tj, like what we we've talked this through a million times we know the average age. Why, for, for such a sophisticated, supposedly group, how do they miss this? How do they miss this one? You know? Again, looking at what's the best interest of athletes, you got this young girl, montana miller. She's clearly the best 57 girl and well, one of the best, you know, because I know there's faith there.
Speaker 3:But it's not having the chance at a grand prix challenge, they're, they're missing out. And, like you know, going back to this national team or this, uh, centralized training, if you're not in that bubble, and that bubble seems to get smaller and smaller, you, everybody else, is out for themselves. That's that. That's when all this, you know, falls apart. And, and for me, if, if, if, the U? S does good, it doesn't matter where they come from, right, it doesn't matter if they're coming from Alaska, california or North Carolina. Why didn't you, shouldn't you just be throwing money at those kids, you know, assuming that they do well? It's just again a lack of I'm going to call it what it is, I'm going to lack of true understanding of what's happening. Lack of true understanding, or either you what's that word? Either you don't care, you're ignorant, or you're….
Speaker 4:What's the term? Asleep at the wheel?
Speaker 2:We've talked about this a lot. It's either incompetence, ignorance, or naivete. And and, by the way, none of those are acceptable in a performance sport. So and I, and I can only keep going back to results.
Speaker 4:I don't think our national team coaches took their jobs to make the country better. They took their jobs for the amount of paycheck they were getting with the athletes in front of them, Paycheck and travel.
Speaker 3:I want to run away and say we did this, this and this with these three people, but that's like man TJ, you said this I don't know how many episodes ago. The United States always gets a medal. They always get here, we're always going to get that. No one's done anything special. We haven't got four or three. That's.
Speaker 2:That's special and that's what we need to do, but we're not we are definitely not taking the steps to that definitely no, we're not talking about again.
Speaker 4:I think I talked about it before too, but you know that whole and again, I don't. I don't forget stuff like this because I, when people take charge and the people are going to lead this country, say things I, I want to, I want to understand what they're saying. I'm never going with like a, I don't want to hear it. I'm trying to understand and one of the interviews was we want to change the culture of just wanting to be on the national team. I think that's the culture now. It is way worse than ever. We have people going and making our national team with one match, two matches, like no real competition, and they're happy about it and we all know it's going to be tough for them at the world championships, which is we all know is going to be tough with the Pan Am championships, but it's celebrated. It is celebrated, the coaches celebrate it, the schools celebrate it, everybody celebrates it. But that's what it's about. Then there's no reinvestment in those same athletes. They're going to go out there and learn something and get ready. Dude, it's a wormhole, it's a joke. It doesn't make any sense. Like you just said, we always have those outliers and it's funny.
Speaker 4:Going back to your original comment. It seems like those outliers, those people doing great things, are never within the system, never. I played that game for a long time. I wasn't the level I wasn't supposed to win. It wasn't a clear path, but I had an opportunity and I was able to try to go do it. But I wasn't the fan favorite or in the system like that deep, you know. And I think how do you not make room for those, how do you not support those in?
Speaker 3:this day and age Even even more so. Like I think you know, talk about potential, like training and stuff like that. I think, I mean, I think I think we should make stars of our athletes. You know, we should, you know. Then again, where's that balance? Because, for all we know, there's like two people, you know that, the USA Tech one who cares about and they get promoted about seminars or training camps or things like that.
Speaker 2:Just so we can all be clear. The last time we had systematic success was 1987. Gold medal Daesung Lee Gold medal. Doug Lewis Gold medal. Christopher Spence, stephen Kaepner, herb Perez, jimmy Kim. Six out of eight gold medals.
Speaker 3:I mean, we talked about that as an incredible team and that was the first time the Pan Am Games hosted Taekwondo. I was one years old.
Speaker 4:I was one years old.
Speaker 2:So you should have started training with me back then that would have helped you. That would have helped me stay up.
Speaker 3:I just think people are. You know, I remember when I was a national team coach and you know there was national team coach and I had obviously my own personal business and there was some controversy. Can they have both? Can you do both? I mean, it's a good topic for discussion, but I was never employed.
Speaker 4:Can you do both? Sorry I missed it.
Speaker 3:Have my personal business and be the national team coach. That's another topic. But I was and we could. That's another topic. But I was never employed. Where here's your job come over here and work at this facility, that's all you have to do, right? That was different. I had to have my own business because what they paid me was not enough money, right? So, and I'm not even closed. But now you have a job. So where is that fine line where, all of a sudden, I have this own job but I am going to do my own personal seminars and camps? I mean, that's great, but is it the obligation for the organization to market me for my personal benefit?
Speaker 4:I don't know, isn't that like not supposed to happen? I don't know. When I was in WCAP and Army, I could never use anything like that to promote myself. I couldn't be like look at me, I'm a US Army Olympic coach, or I'm a US Army coach to what's that Hereby favor a competitor and a young American. A match that was close ultimately wound up in controversy.
Speaker 2:I like this video, though I want to see the picture. I want to see the picture With the voice of Greg Loews I want to see his face.
Speaker 1:I had changed on Jermaine's in there. That's the face, just to be a part of this.
Speaker 4:You got to let her run. Look at this. Look at this.
Speaker 1:Every other sport here and I just want to be. I sound like a little rabbit A little mouse and I want to win, and I want to, and I want to and me, me and Vanilla Ice.
Speaker 2:Vanilla Ice. Come on, what's going on? Baby, you look good.
Speaker 1:I had that hair before Vanilla Ice.
Speaker 2:Dude.
Speaker 1:I know I was there when it was created, People.
Speaker 2:that's a story we got to tell one day.
Speaker 3:That was you doing what you do. Go to the end. This is real fast. Check out, see if you can see me doing the interview. Keep going Right. Check out, see if you can see me doing the interview.
Speaker 2:Keep going right there, right there, right there first I'm going to play it why do you think the decision was made that way? Do you think this is the fact that it's a Korean sport in Korea? Before Korean fans and you were fighting a Korean.
Speaker 1:I think that's the number one priority. You know it's hard to say. I think that's the main, the main thing that you know. They're in front of all the Koreans. It's a Korean sport. There's a lot of Korean pulling this, a lot of politics, so I think that was a major reason they did that. You went out, you took the silver medal, are you?
Speaker 4:proud of the silver medal in your heart. How do you feel about it?
Speaker 1:I'm not proud. In the press conference I took it. First thing I did was take it off. You know silver medal in the Olympics. But knowing what I went through, that I feel I should have won the gold medal. I'm not proud of it. I'll probably never wear it again. I wanted the gold. I didn't come all this way to be second best and I don't feel I was, so I'm not very proud of it. No, of course, marino's coach Sang Lee is a native Korean. Between 1960 and 1970, he won 13 gold medals here in Korea in national competition.
Speaker 3:It's funny because you hear the whole interview. For a 16-year-old kid it was actually pretty good content. I even thought it sounded like a damn chipmunk. It was interesting how I put things together in perspective. I like looking at that one. Anyway, let's not talk about that shit.
Speaker 2:I like it, no, it's important to talk about the evolution of taekwondo and and you were instrumental in that and your mindset is what got you to where you got to. And then the thing you said, which is true, you know, which I've said you know, we didn't go there when silver medals, we didn't go there for the warm we didn't go there for the warmups.
Speaker 2:We didn't go there to show up and whatever you know, so like um I. I could I, could. I could be a jerk and go and post the post that I watched from the last Olympics of the fashion show and the guy that went and came home without a medal but his fashion show was awesome, right.
Speaker 4:So that's what was a happy moment for us and a tough moment at the same time at the Olympic Games in 2012. Again, I think I studied on the other one. I was chasing an Olympic silver medalist, so to be him in the country it had to be silver or better, minimum silver, but it had to be gold To make my mark. I had to hit gold to accomplish what I wanted and how. Like you said, you're talking about the path and the things that had to happen for me to get there. It was gold or nothing in my brain, so it was. It was hard for me for a while. You know, everyone around me celebrated it way earlier than I celebrated.
Speaker 4:I look back in perspective now and obviously over my career, I'm happy to have a piece of the olympic games. You know what I mean. Have something to go. You know this is the one you show people, this is the one, this is the, the capstone right here to show. Like you know, I've done this for long enough. I've played on the highest stages and but yeah, we, we went there to win, and that's, I think, that's my main point. I think where we, we, we haven't progressively gotten any better. It's like you just said. I think we've. It's become tougher. I think the world is caught up and surpassed us in in in performance and in training methods and in support and funding. Like I and I'm going to say it every freaking podcast until we start funding our juniors and they feel important to the system, that they can be developed at that age, you will lose them afterwards, as soon as they get to high school.
Speaker 4:Why would they stay? What would draw them to stay? What's the appeal If you're not in the room, if you're not being supported? If I'm making a national team, I'm paying my way to the events. My parents are paying my way to advance. I heard parents in the stands and it was funny.
Speaker 4:In a moment we're at um the pat, the patu tournament, the sub 22 thing. There's a parent in the stands making a joke. He goes man, this sports suck, why didn't we choose soccer? So his daughter won the match, by the way, and he's going man, this sport sucks, why didn't we choose soccer or something? And I laughed and in my brain I'm going look at this venue. We're, we're in a venue, the holding areas outside. We're crammed in here. The the, you know they're stopping in the middle of the matches. I mean, why would you and I think within the us, it being such a big sport and a sport that's deep to my heart, obviously you know. You told me that that thing about being a lifer. I think I'll always have some involvement in du teclado and to see it at this state is just silly. We're not. Yeah, we are a third world country at this point, with a little bit of money and a room to support a few people.
Speaker 3:Speaking of that, after our conversation last week, all of a sudden we all have schedules. Two events just got canceled in June the Pan Am Open and the Dominican. I don't know whose fault it is. I don't know if it's the country's having financial things, but dude, it's April 15th.
Speaker 4:They need to stop prioritizing money and make a system, make a season.
Speaker 2:We need a season.
Speaker 4:Give people the same tournaments across the board 12, 15, whatever the number is and only allow those for the year. Stop just patting our pockets and well, okay, you can have one, you can have one, you can have one, you can have one, you can have one. We just water down the system and medals earn aren't really that big of a deal anymore. There are a few points in our pockets and you know we wait till the year before to try to fill an olympic spot. Basically that's what it feels like to me. Maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you, don't have a systematic approach to your process, you're doomed to repeat the same mistakes. So I don't believe there's been a systematic approach towards athletic development at all and and as a result, you you're going to have random and myriad results of randomness and it's going to atrophy.
Speaker 4:So the muscle for winning has atrophied.
Speaker 2:So anything you don't do repeatedly and understand and learn from your mistakes. So you know I've been talking. You know I have a book that I and coach has seen this book when I was young, I I had a book that I wrote down my method, wrote down my plan, wrote down my reflections daily on my progress and then at the end of an event, if I won or I lost, if I won, I went back and saw, looked at what I did well, what I didn't do well, and then I improved upon that plan. If I didn't win, I went back, looked at that and decided what I needed to change. And it's as if USA Taekwondo if they have a plan, if it's written down anywhere, they just randomly change it every year and proof is in the pudding.
Speaker 2:Listen, in a country of 330 million people, which I say endlessly give me their budget, give me the budget, make me CEO and I'll guarantee you results. Because three things will happen. One I will fire everybody that doesn't perform. Two I'll fire everybody that doesn't show up. Work to become incrementally better on a day-to-day basis. Number three non-performers will exit the building. At that point you can hold me responsible and, by the way, you don't have to pay me. You can pay me if we win. So that's number three. As a CEO, if the corporation doesn't perform and it doesn't do its job, which its only job is to put people on the medal podium, they need to figure out how to do that and, as part of that process, everything else will work. Now, if you do that, you'll get success. If you don't do that, you'll continue to have guys who don't. So right now, after the last Olympic Games, they should have came in, fired everyone.
Speaker 3:I was going to get to that. I was going to get to that. I was going to get to that this year. Let's be honest, usat is going to have a big bump, I think at Nationals, because AU has had some turnover. It's in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 2:They're going to get a bump through no structure or earning of their own To no credit of their own, to no credit of their own, to no credit of their own, to no credit of their own, but I was going to go like I mean and TJ, I hate to be the dead dog 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, we're in 25, eight years.
Speaker 3:Is this pipeline? Is this national team in a healthier situation than it was eight years ago?
Speaker 4:They should have a full room by now. Let's be ox, like, let's, let's just go to the bottom of the, the minimal thing that we can talk about. They should have an entire full room. Eight men, eight women. It should be a solid team. They should be taking over the world at this point, because when is this plan to take over the world and dominate in 28? When does this start? What? When does this start?
Speaker 4:I mean like you just said what I don't know. I don't know. Is it the system, is it the, like you said, the lack of information? Is it the handpicking of the ones, the people that are winning, like? It's the people? Like you said, you have to be willing and want to go up there. It's the discounted, it's the discredit of coaches who actually can train people outside of their system, as opposed to as, instead of empowering them and like going, hey, I'm gonna give x athlete this amount of money, I need you to send me a plan and show me what you're gonna do with this money for this athlete and interest the coaches to put their guys in a place. At least let them prove, disprove me, disprove them wrong or prove them wrong, but we're not even at that point. We, we only fund the people in front of us. We, we, you know, we get people to come up there. We, we travel around the country, we spend some money on them and we call it building towards success. That's what we're doing?
Speaker 2:They bet on the wrong horses, and what I mean by that is they bet on the wrong horses, they bet on the wrong group of athletes, they bet on the wrong coaches.
Speaker 2:I don't even think that's it and this is like they're playing Hold on, they're playing blackjack and 50 cards have been dealt and you've seen 50 cards and there's two cards left and they see four aces on the table, they see four tens on the table and they have a two in their hand. But even if they were going to repeat, the system we talk about that.
Speaker 4:Obviously, I don't play blackjack, Obviously, the self-named black ops team when that was a joke, you know they came in, they got a bunch of 18, 17, 16 year olds and did a thing with them, Right. So even if that was the system of success to repeat the system we've missed that boat because we don't support the under 22 as a team, as a country. We just kind of had people go and then put up a post, going like it's great to see everyone compete. That just seems backwards to me. Now we've moved on because we've already sold everyone. We need to support the 17, 18.
Speaker 4:You already said this and now we've moved past that and these are. Now these guys aren't important anymore because we have this room that we've chosen. This is who we want to work with, or this is what we're going to do, or this is the only people we have. I don't know what the reason is. For me, it doesn't make any sense. I think we should have a full, at least a full 16 people in a room on a daily basis. If you know, this is the system, this is the funded system, this is the way and all this stuff like that. But the reality is we don team in eight years.
Speaker 3:There was a, there's a ceo a couple ceos go ask me like I want you to do what you do with your organization for the org, for the usat, you know, remember going why? Why would I give you, like, my whole model and blah, blah, blah, like, and again I'm now just talking business. Well, how does this, how does this help me? Why would I just I'm, I'm, I do a lot of good things for people and I do. I have a do the right thing model. But I'm not just going to give something to an organization and say go. But one thing that I'll share is TJ, you know firsthand how I partner with the people that become part of peak performance. I don't mandatory make. If they want to come, they can come. But I'm certainly not going to be like if you don't come, screw you. I mean, look what I do with Evan, an apparel Olympian. He lives in Michigan full time, but when it comes Olympic time he comes here. Sometimes he comes with his coach, sometimes he comes by himself and when he's done I send him back. I'm not looking for a pat on the back, I'm not looking for hey, it's my guy.
Speaker 3:That would be what the organization should do. And partner with the Terrence Jaynes of the world the same Charles, the Joe Whitworth, the coaches that I'm missing right now. They should partner with them so that they do feel like we can come and we can go and we're going to be celebrated, rewarded and funded. You'd get a lot more, but they haven. They haven't eight years in. They've done just the opposite. They've discredited. Don't be with peak. Don't be with terrence. Don't don't be with one more, I know. Don't be with this person, that person. And again, I know I'm making it personal and it shouldn't be that way, but I think that's a microcosm of where we're at right now, you know yeah, you're you're labeled you're labeled.
Speaker 4:Uh, I don't know what that is. I can't see it. You're labeled. I don't know what that is?
Speaker 1:I can't see it.
Speaker 4:You're labeled the guy, guy, I've had so many people tell me hey, I'm going to reach out to you next week and I think the reality for them part of the time, like I said, that's it and that's why I have my training facility. That mold has to be broken, like you just said. Look at this picture.
Speaker 2:This is not a sad picture. Can you see the picture?
Speaker 3:Oh, that was a pen and games. That's pen and games, don't matter.
Speaker 2:This is a sad picture. This is. I don't remember ever taking a picture like this. It's embarrassing when you perform the way they perform. So, anyway, that's just my personal. Whatever, let me stop to share because it is what it is. Go ahead.
Speaker 4:No, I don't remember what I was. I just um, it just doesn't even disturb you that much. Um, no, I I lost my train of thought, but yeah, it just doesn't. It just doesn't make any sense to me. I think at the minimum we should be able to have a full team in a room and and those guys rotate or something, but there should be a lot more want to go out there and make it, being able to make their schedule.
Speaker 4:I remember making the national team and knowing I'd have to go to a national team training camp because it was. It was a part of something I wanted to do. I wanted to go at that point, be in a room with some people and do some things and you know, whatever. A lot of those guys at the time obviously were my friends and they were kind of coming from the same place I was coming from, so that made it a little bit easier. But at the same time, I just think we've we've missed the boat. We've changed the, what they call it. We've moved the cheese several times at this point. We've told people that this is important. Now. This is not important.
Speaker 3:Now we're funding and lost credibility with these guys?
Speaker 4:yeah, you, I would think, but I don't know, I don't. I would think. I would think. I mean it's not like I'm just pulling all this information out. I mean, like I said, if I ever say anything on here, just please write on the right on the video, send me a message. Whatever you gotta do, let me know that I've misspoken about something.
Speaker 3:But the funny thing is it's not. You're not trying to attack anyone's character or anything like that.
Speaker 3:No, I don't care about none of that we can debate about their level of competence in a position or whatever the case may be. But the truth of the matter is it's not a personal thing. We're just kind of like you said, you're going data that you've been able to collect and being able to see, and that's why I said, eight years into this, where are we at right now? And listen, look at me, the 17-year-old Juan Moreno. When I told someone asked me something about competing the other day, I said no, I don't miss fighting them. I said, but I used I love the big match. I wanted to go into a room when I was a kid and I went on the state team in Illinois and there was a bunch of, you know, 25-year-old guys. I year old guys. I'm like I want to be in here to see who I can fight. I wanted to go to Korea like I was I was never the best, but I certainly wasn't afraid like I literally wanted that and whenever that that opportunity presented itself, I was the first one in line, like even with you, I want to fight with you, I want everybody, but people aren't like that anymore, you know.
Speaker 3:Going back to that silver medal thing, of course, I'm extremely proud to have gone to the Olympics and have a career. But the first thing I think about to this day when I introduce my if someone wants me to talk about my silver medals is I lost. That's the first thing I think about, even as a 54 year old dude. How many years removed, didn't win. I would much rather talk about my Pan Am Games or my World Cup or something like along those lines. I know I finished the job and that's again. That's not taken away from a silver or bronze or even a participant. That's just me.
Speaker 3:And going back to your point, tj, you felt like that, but people don't. They don't feel like that for real. I say that and I was excelling. People say that nowadays oh, I came here to win, I came here to win. I lost my first match. I lost 12-0, 12-0. Of course, it didn't get to that. But who really wants that fight? Who really wants that training? I don't believe they do, because put them in a room, give them an opportunity. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.
Speaker 2:I still think we need to go back at some point and this should be the topic for another day. Which we keep kind of circling around the same way is what would it take if you could design? Because you know, I know Coach Renner and I have talked about this and we've actually thought about trying to do it and I can tell you it happens in soccer right. So across the country they have soccer academiesies and they're privatized. Some are attached Most are the big ones are attached to professional teams and the rest aren't. And then they, the kids, live there and they train there and they choose them based upon their whatever. And the kids are. They train for free and they go to school.
Speaker 4:I bet you can find that information. Though I bet you can find that information, someone would tell you how your kid qualifies for this, how you get to this point, how you get. Oh, no, no, no, yeah, ours are these backdoor conversations and offering of information.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Right now in Florida there is a GA cup. That's the generation Adidas cup, and the top teams in the world are competing. It's the top teams from America and the 32 top teams from the world, so I think it's 16. I'd have to look at it, but they have a mini World Cup Generation Adidas and it's held in Florida at the IMG Academy and it's the top 16-year-olds U16, and the top U18s, not the top U22s, not the men Top 16, u16, top U18, because they realize that that's the development. That's where everything comes and, by the way, these guys come in and those are the future stars. It's like the guys you're hearing about this is where they're coming from. So they have developed a system that works. It's not? Yeah.
Speaker 3:If they have a GA cup for Adidas, does Nike have one of those? Nope.
Speaker 2:They should. But Generation Adidas has it and soccer's rife with a bunch of these cups. They have the gold cup, they have this cup, they have that, but they have um other tournaments across, like the MLS next has a huge showcase and then it has a championship for this age group, these, all these age groups, but this GA cup is outside that box, you know.
Speaker 4:Adidas sponsored and it's huge. They do it the same way that they do with the coaching applications. You take your time, you fill out application, you put all your accolades, you put everything you've done and then you just get ghosted. I'm waiting for my letter that says sorry, you didn't get accepted. Please apply again next year, or something.
Speaker 1:Give me a response.
Speaker 4:I know it just like maybe they didn't get it.
Speaker 3:Maybe that's why I got the email wrong. I was reading all those calls, those, uh, what do you call it? Requirement, you know, to be on the coaching staff for the World Championships. But, tj, do you know that this is another thing and, herb, you'll appreciate this too? The Asian Presidents Cup. I look, you know, because I look. I always look who registered and where they're at blah, blah, blah. When I go to Asian, I see like 500 people registered. I'm like, damn, that's small, because you know US Open has 1,200, dutch Open has 1,800. But I go there, I click on it. It's only adults. There's no cadet, there's no juniors, there's no poops. I was like, yeah, so the division 50, 60 people. I'm like, okay, that's interesting. I bring that point up because I'm sure they're not trying to make money, they're trying to have a quality event. You only got three days or two days the referees are. They're not like falling asleep from, you know, coach or referee until 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, you know, four days in a row. It's crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy.
Speaker 4:It's all about money, though. You know what I mean. You know what I mean. I've done a lot of seminars and a lot of traveling. No-transcript. That like that's just. I just feel disrespected, just just simply like how is our big guns, our shield, not there for that? Our quote-unquote guy that's supposed to be teaching people? They're not there for that. Or leaving the team trials early with guys that are trying to make the national team? How are you not there to support those guys? And then you guys want to point the finger at people and say who's detrimental to the program? That guy's detrimental to the program. How about that?
Speaker 4:yeah, that guy's detrimental to the program. Am I wrong? You're. You're, you know, prioritizing other things when you should be at work putting people on a national team. But you got family matters. You got to go. Do this, you got to go do that, don't got to go do that.
Speaker 2:Don't tell me that They've done it.
Speaker 4:They've done it. I know you guys don't stay up to speed.
Speaker 2:You don't stay up to speed on this stuff, but USA Taekwondo has launched its new water bottle campaign to finance Cheddar.
Speaker 4:Cheddar baby, but real question though I was going to ask you before. We're running a little bit over, but as far as, like, the funding for, like, the juniors and stuff like that, are there no? Like I know you know a little bit more about the usoc or wherever they get their money from, and all that stuff like, yeah, is there no requirements to fund grassroots like is?
Speaker 2:there no like there, so they put together a high.
Speaker 2:They put together a high performance plan. In it they say this is how we're going to fund success. So if there's any and part of the problem is the usoc has lost its volunteer structure. So now you have administrators, of which Jay Warwick was one, writing plans for success and those plans are visualized by them and they say here's what we want to do. And then if somebody's paying attention, they look at it and say, oh, that seems like it might have an impact. That means you have to understand where you're lacking, what your plan is to get through that lack. So if I were the USOC right now, I'd be looking at the fact they're not putting any people on medal podiums and I'd say you need to identify your youth athletes and fund and finance them. So the answer to your question is they probably didn't ask for money for that and they probably said we have enough money, we'll fund that ourselves.
Speaker 1:They probably asked for money, but nobody checks.
Speaker 2:They do check. But they'll say in their high performance plan we need additional money for this. Their plan will say we have a sufficient pipeline of athletes, we have sufficient money for them, we have a sufficient structure for them. We need money for plane tickets for Jay and Steve to go to Korea and drink soju and get massages. So they won't write that in that way, but they'll say we got to go to an international meeting. So the question is, if somebody were to complain to the USOC and say I noticed that they're not funding the developmental pipeline and the athletes are struggling and are moving to other sports, then somebody at the USOC might start to pay attention. At least when we had volunteers like us, we understood what we needed. Athletes were involved and we said, oh, there's no money for this, go ahead, coach.
Speaker 3:I do know that, like you know I mean again from before the USOCs when they look at the NGBs, they're like we're taking care of your high performance program. It's your responsibility to take care of your development and program your grassroot. So yeah, your grassroot, for example, in Brazil. I mean, hopefully we'll do a podcast. I'm going to be going to Uzbekistan. We're taking some of our high profile Olympic level athletes. We're taking four athletes that we think are going to be potential for 2028. Athletes that we think are going to be potential for 2028.
Speaker 2:But it's got to be in your plan. In other words, what you're saying is correct, but it's got to be in your plan. In other words, when you give them the high-performance plan, you say here's our pipeline. I understand you're only funding this. They're not going to fund your grassroots development. They're not going to give you money for posters in local schools, but they're going to say what's your plan to get people in the pipeline.
Speaker 3:This is where I'm going with this, as I was saying, tj, like they don't mandate that for us, but these guys are going to go. They happen to be going to the U22 as well, right, so they're going to go to the Grand Prix Challenge as well. Like we've made a concerted effort. Take these kids. Maybe they get smacked up, but we just believe that they have the potential, just like we did with Enrique and Maria Clara. But my point is it should be part of the plan. You should be part of the plan and it obviously isn't. How is it not when you know the age of Olympic medalists? You know the pipelines has to be developed, you know all this stuff, but it doesn't seem to be part of the plan. If it was, there would be money there for them. If it was, there would be money there for them. If it was, there would be a conservative effort, you know to to get them from A to Z.
Speaker 4:There isn't, and that, and that in itself is just disrespectful. Like I said, they're they're paying for none of these kids to travel anywhere. They get a shirt and short that to to the world championships. Like I keep trying to like rationalize, I'm like, okay, maybe not to the Pan Am championships, maybe not to the Pan Am Championship. Maybe not the cadets, all these things, but the cadets need to be funded. Obviously, the jury need to be funded, but we're not funding them at all like $0. When again like.
Speaker 4:I said you have organizations that are developmental organizations paying more money out for these kids to travel and do things. I don't get it. What is that? Get ready baby. It's not moving on my screen I hear some music.
Speaker 2:Just wait for the music.
Speaker 4:We got to work on our graphics.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, there it comes hey. It's my pizza. What are you playing?
Speaker 3:that should be our theme song oh my god, that's, so fun that's prodigy man, prodigy baby, that's prodigy, we've been all over the place today, but it was obviously fun, well, I think it's been a great.
Speaker 2:Well, you know it's not supposed to be what it's supposed to be what it's supposed to be right 100% but. I appreciate you guys. This has been the Warehouse 15, which took almost an actually took an hour and 15 today. I want to thank my compadres, my companions, coach Moreno, thank you. Thank you, mr TJ.
Speaker 1:Anything before we go.
Speaker 3:No, it's always fun.
Speaker 4:Yeah, always fun. Like I said, I'm super excited about having a gym out here. I'm looking to set up an open gym kind of process in my gym as well for the athletes that don't have somewhere to train and actually want to work out Higher level, lower level and need some space and um. So I'll be putting out more and more information throughout the, throughout the week, the coming months and, like he said, I'm super excited about that um the training camp that'll be there after the grand prix challenge. I think we'll get some good action, some good um interactions at the gym that week.
Speaker 2:So, thank, you guys always don't forget to you're coming, I'm coming, and then don't forget to check the last thing. I'm coming, and then don't forget to click the GoFundMe link. Tj, could you slide a little bit to your left? We're going to get him a new picture from behind. All right, we'll see you later.
Speaker 4:Everybody loves that picture, except for you. You're a hater.
Speaker 1:I can't. You're a hater. I'm going to wait until you see what I post next week. See you guys.