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
Pimps, Pinky Rings, and Performance: The Truth About Sports Funding
What if everything you thought you knew about creating champion fighters was wrong? In this raw, unfiltered conversation with Olympic gold medalist Herb Perez and bronze medalist Juan Moreno, we crack open the uncomfortable truth about what's really happening in American Taekwondo.
The discussion begins with a critical examination of the recent Cadet World Championships, where Russia's dominance reveals a stark contrast to America's approach. Despite our supposed advantages in resources and population, we're watching other countries consistently outperform us—and it's not for lack of talented athletes.
"You take kids from a system they're growing in, just to go there, and then what?" TJ asks, challenging the centralized training model that uproots athletes from their support networks. Moreno and Perez both built their Olympic success outside the system, training in environments where accountability wasn't optional and performance wasn't just measured, but expected by entire communities who knew them by name.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Perez shares insights about his mentor, the legendary Stephen Vizio—one of the first non-Asians accepted into traditional Kung Fu schools who later created an underground fighting system that produced champions across combat sports. His philosophical approach distilled fighting to its essence: "Do what you do well, avoid what you don't do well, and exploit the weaknesses of what other people don't do well."
Between discussions of "pimps and pinky rings" in sports leadership and the absurdity of talent identification camps for athletes who have already proven themselves, this episode offers a masterclass in what actually develops champions versus what merely creates the appearance of development.
Whether you're a fighter, coach, or simply fascinated by high-performance mindsets, this conversation will challenge your assumptions about talent development and make you question the systems we've built to create excellence. Subscribe now and join us next week when our hosts share stories about the mentors who transformed their lives.
I'm Terrence run to the St Louis grill. I'm sorry, not sorry. Ain't it funny? Herb P on the track, my sister ill Advise opinions maybe, but facts ain't lies, it's cold metal mentality. Watch the sunrise 1F1, them checkin' in. So we're sittin' pretty, still mean. Second best in the world. Get witty. Face down to Polnick's pressure cookin' hot. Gave my sweat, my focus, everything I got DJ Grimes a.
Speaker 2:DJ, holding down the bronze Stood on the stage. I fought. The giants turned the new page, learned to discipline, focused respect for the fight. My fight ain't lies. It's something that no one tells me.
Speaker 1:We've been through some hell. It's one of our names in reality. Just me. It's still me, it's like me. That's how the world gets ready.
Speaker 3:Breathe, let it out, see, cause you're on back. We are back. It is the warehouse 15 and, as we say in the video before this, sorry, not sorry. Today we are joined by grandmaster of disaster ju Juan Moreno, second in charge, third on the award chart as a bronze medalist, grandmaster of Sub-Disaster. He is actually in an internal police interrogation room. Hence the light, and it shines bright. We are hoping and wishing him the best. Hopefully Johnny Cochran or whoever is still alive can come and get shines bright. We are hoping and wishing him the best. Hopefully Johnny Cochran or whoever's still alive can come and get him out. If it does not fit, we must acquit. Welcome to the warehouse. The Menendez brothers are getting out. The Menendez brothers are getting out. They're getting out.
Speaker 4:Are they really they're getting?
Speaker 3:out. They're eligible for parole. They're white. They're white, they're getting out. Are they really? They're eligible for parole. They're white, they're getting out.
Speaker 4:How.
Speaker 5:How are they out, abuse?
Speaker 3:They had it in self-defense man, in that case I did. Bring long to me. Bring long to me. That's an old joke. You have to be an insider to know that one. That guy shouldn't get out. Bring long to me, bring long to me. That's an old joke. You have to be an insider to know that one. That guy shouldn't get out. Bring long to me. But anyway, gentlemen, what do we got this today? What's going on? Tell us a little bit about life. Who's starting us off today?
Speaker 2:I am currently in Richmond Virginia, not too far from my actual hotel. Just first warning if you say anything bad about VA, I'm going to fly to California and fight you.
Speaker 3:What is it Richmond?
Speaker 2:Virginia. Yeah, we're in Virginia, the home of the lovers. 703 is where I'm from Alexandria you know. So don't talk bad about Virginia. You can talk about North Carolina, you can talk about anywhere else you want, not Virginia. But I am here. We got the Grand Prix or no? What is it called? What is this shit called? What is? It.
Speaker 2:East Open. Yeah, east Open qualifier for the final and for the national. So I got a bunch of my guys here fighting as some seniors, some cadets, some juniors. So we'll be doing some karate this weekend. Nice, nice, ready for it? Yes, yes, yes. Nice, nice, yes, yes yes, so that's what's up for me. Drove a four and a half hour drive Just got to the hotel, so you know, getting ready for the weekend.
Speaker 5:I'm back in Miami, back in 305. Uh-oh, what do we got here? I'm from Richmond, Well, actually from Henrico, but nobody knows anything about Henrico so I just say I'm from Richmond, just to make it easier. Yep, okay. I'm from Richmond, he's not from.
Speaker 2:Richmond. I'm not from Richmond.
Speaker 3:I'm not from Richmond.
Speaker 5:Sorry coach.
Speaker 3:No, no, no.
Speaker 5:Actually not sorry, sorry, not sorry, sorry, not sorry. Wait a not sorry, sorry, not sorry. Wait a minute, what happened? My screen went off because I had a so on Kim calling me. No, I got back from Uzbekistan on Saturday night. Still a little bit jet lag trying to get over that, but real successful trip for me up there.
Speaker 5:My wife actually is in Virginia with my athletes from Miami. Yeah, so she's going to be up there competing or coaching, is in virginia with uh, with my athletes from uh, from miami. Yeah, so she's gonna be up there competing or coaching. You know some of those athletes.
Speaker 5:So, yeah, I'm home for the weekend, I'm gonna recover, do some things and I'd like to talk about um kind of a couple different topics. I'd like to talk a little bit about the cadet worlds. I'd like to talk about some um training and some coaching stuff. I think it'd be a interesting topic. I mean, me and uh tj were talking about a little off air before we got out with you young, and I think you have some really interesting insights to to some of that because of you know, based on how you trained and how you broke some some models of what, what do you say, what, how, what the common things that people talk about, what you need to train, and I think you broke a lot of those barriers and I think we did it a little bit in some sense too. So we can talk about that afterward, but maybe we should talk about the cadet worlds first. You want to start off TJ, your observations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I'll start off. I mean, obviously USA finished with two bronze medals, I believe. Right, I don't know the divisions and the weights and all this stuff Silver.
Speaker 4:Silver.
Speaker 2:Silver won bronze medal. Yeah, overall I watched a lot of cadets. I think this is the most cadet fighting I've watched in my entire life. So I've watched a lot of the fights back. I mean, the strong countries are the strong countries. I see a lot of intelligence.
Speaker 2:It's crazy because, like we were talking about it earlier, I think it's a weird, I think it's a. It's a newer game for them. It's the, it's the. They've grown up only using electronics. They've grown up only training to win on this system, and that's something that I didn't come. That's not the generation I came from. Obviously, you know kind of going through all the different levels of no, no scoring to electronic, to all that stuff. But it's interesting to see how, how smart these kids are getting on spinning the, are fighting on the system and scoring on the system, and I think the intelligence level for me is kind of cool to see. I mean you see some of these younger kids making some smart adjustments in rounds and stuff like that. So I mean, overall I think it was what's it called the venue looked awesome. I like the way the venue looked.
Speaker 2:It looked very professional Very professional. It was a bizarre game. Yeah, awesome. I like the way the venue looked. It was very professional. It was a bizarre game. Was it the same place that we went for the Grand Prix final? You don't know.
Speaker 5:I think it looked like it, but I don't know, Overall.
Speaker 2:Like I said, I watched a lot of cadet matches but I think the level is definitely getting higher. Like I said, I think a lot of the Asian, middle Eastern countries or Asian countries are doing very well, along with, you know, the Eastern Europeans and Russians. I mean. Their kids are tall, long strong and I mean it's definitely interesting to see at that level and kind of compare it to the other levels, going through the juniors and the seniors.
Speaker 5:Well, there's only one dominant country in the world, and that's Russia. I don't care what anybody says.
Speaker 4:Not.
Speaker 5:Korea.
Speaker 4:Not even close.
Speaker 5:I mean not even close. I mean Russia, listen top to bottom I'm talking for cadet, juniors and seniors not even close. I mean, and you know how much I have affinity for the Iranian program, the Korean program and some other programs, but I'm just talking as a squad, from weight, from the lowest to the heaviest. All their people are competitive and you know, I want to talk about that a little bit because I mean they're, they're smart, they're playing the game, they're they're. They have good height, they have good ability, they're calm. There's just so much good things to say about them. And you know, I mean again I think it was back to saying I had a couple gold medals.
Speaker 5:K Kazakhstan was good, korea had a few. I mean, the medals were spread out, but just consistently. I mean, what do you say with a country that gets five or six or seven medals? I mean they're dominant, they're dominant. And when they did lose it was close. Or when they did lose, they lost to somebody else that was really good, that got at the medal stand. So I was super impressed by them.
Speaker 5:But, to your point, the level was amazing. I love to see some of these kids make adjustments. It was really crazy how these round-by-round system nowadays some kid would go lose first round to Korea by a point gap, lose by 12 points, and then come back the next round like nothing happened and point back uh, point, gap korea, and then win the final round like the how these kids, you know, as we're older, we, we remember a little bit too much. You're supposed to have this, this clear mind, where you can forget things quick, but these kids, they can just let all the bad go and move to the next round like nothing happened. And it was impressive. I saw that over and over and over and it was just strange to me, because the first round I'm like, oh man, this person is going to kill them, they're so good. And then the second round changed the round. I'm like, what happened? You don't see that too often in the senior level, maybe in the junior level, but not in the senior level.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's always one of those. I mean I've talked junk about that too. When I see a senior gap, someone that first round and then gap the second round, I'm going that's either a player error or a coaching error. That shouldn't happen at the higher levels. That's a tough one for me and I'm going to say the person that wins that second round, I've seen it both ways. I've seen them drop the third round, but more of the times they win that second round and they win the third round. So they figure it out. So it has to be a coaching, a good up for the coach and kind of like whatever they changed in that situation. But nah, like I said, I think you're right.
Speaker 2:These kids are all tall, they're all long and they're getting smarter. And I see them playing the game, the electronic game that Grandmaster of Disaster hates so much. Wouldn't call it a game. Maybe we'd call it a game but not a fight. But I think they're getting really smart at it. I think they're getting used to the system. I think that anxiety, that it would be interesting to see those same kids in the same group once they get to the juniors and the seniors. I always find it interesting in that point A lot of these countries have the advantage of height. When they're cadets They've got the tallest cadets or the longest cadets, and then all of a sudden, juniors happens and they're not so tall, they're not so long, and that's when things start to get interesting for me.
Speaker 5:Let's be clear there's very few outliers that have success at cadets, success at juniors and success at seniors. They're really, it's kind of that third tier down from the Olympics. So I mean.
Speaker 2:So you think there's no correlation? There's no correlation between cadet success and senior success.
Speaker 5:I'm not going to say there's none, but it's not as big as you would think. I think what's important is that they're in that mix and the question is now this is where we've dropped off. We have pretty talented kids and cadets, but they just don't seem to continue their growth at juniors and continue the growth at the seniors, like some other countries. So are there some kids that are winning Olympic medals that were good in cadets and good in juniors and good in seniors, of course, but there's way more people that are good in the Olympics that weren't so good in cadets. So I don't think the data shows that it's that important, did you?
Speaker 2:guys make your junior team every year. That it was a possibility.
Speaker 5:Who what guys?
Speaker 2:You two, you two.
Speaker 5:When that it was a possibility. Who, what guys? You two, you two. When I competed, they didn't have a junior team.
Speaker 2:No junior team, no junior team. I would have that's crazy.
Speaker 5:I never lost a junior match, so wait, wait, no junior team. I mean I'm bragging. But from the time I was a yellow belt to a black belt until I started fighting seniors, I never lost a junior taekwondo match ever. I lost. Point karate matches, I mean I lost. No, I didn't lose any full contact matches, but I mean point karate matches I lost. But taekwondo, aau slash, usat, slash, wtf, none, none.
Speaker 2:What was the first junior world's year 89. 89. 89.
Speaker 5:89 was like in Colorado Springs. It wasn't like what we have now, and then I think there was a little gap and then they started it up again.
Speaker 2:So 89 was the first one. Got you, got you. Okay, that's pretty cool. I didn't really even think about that that far back. As far as that system was.
Speaker 5:You know what One thing I noticed and again, I'm going to say this from a programming standpoint, not an individual athlete, because I personally think most of our national I didn't see all the national team kids fight, but I thought most of them fought very strong, very competitive. They showed that they had some. Now, just because they showed they had some doesn't mean that they were competitive with the top four, like you know. I'm saying like in the medals, I so. But I also think some of that has to do with our leadership and our programming and why we don't, why we're not able to do some more things. But I wanted to bring this up because I saw a country like mexico, which we thoroughly dominated at the pan am championships, like two months ago, on the cadet level, junior level, dominated, but yet they had, I think, four or five medals. I don't know if it was five or four, but they were consistently winning medals right from the beginning. And I was trying to ask myself why. And the only thing I could come up with is that the team is together more, they're training more and I think that they domestically they've been built to fight four and five and six matches all the time. I think they're ready for our.
Speaker 5:Most of our kids have never fought four or five matches. The girl that made it to the finals, she had six matches. It was a real tournament, yeah, and she had three out of the five that. She went three rounds like she battled, she, she was impressive. I mean, I'm gonna tell you, in the semifinals she got smoked in the first round by korea. She smoked her in the second round. In the third round it was four, four and they gave the decision to her, but that was, I mean, she fought extremely well and six matches. The kid joe, uh, josh, he fought five. He would have fought six if he would have made it to the final. Um, but I think those were probably one or two of the, the rare kids that are used to that could actually do four or five. Now I can't say that for sure because I don't know all the kids and I want to be disrespectful to anybody, but I just think, as a our team trials are one or two matches, three matches, but Mexico.
Speaker 2:Some of our seniors are one or two and three matches, let alone the cadets.
Speaker 5:Some of our seniors have zero matches. That's also true. I mean, let's be real. So I mean, anyway, I just think there's something to be said for that. Like, I think somehow we have to get our, um, our system built up where our kids are. You know that whole out they and I've heard the people say it's steel, sharpen steel. Well, I'm not sure we have any steel. You know, I don't think we have any steel sharpening each other right now because we just don't have enough people. Um, for whatever reason it is, that's a crazy thing to say that we don't have enough people.
Speaker 2:Um, for whatever reason it is, that's a crazy thing to say that we don't have enough people like that's a that's we do but we don't.
Speaker 2:No, I'm sorry, no no, I agree with you 100. I'm just saying like that's a crazy problem to have. You know what I mean. That I mean, I mean, yeah, all I know is when I hear other countries talk about the united states is how many people we have and how many access to athletes we have, and you know blah, blah, blah resources and all that stuff. It's just interesting to hear you know that has to be the issue, you know.
Speaker 5:I'm going to ask you a question, but first let me. That is so funny because I was in Uzbekistan. There was a Russian teams were there and we had this nice lunch and they were. I really enjoyed it because they asked me a lot of questions about America. And you know, they know peak performance and they have this thing young over there in Russia called the grand masters club and so they're like peak performance, peak performance. And then I was like I said so, tell me about the grand masters clubs. I've seen this stuff. How many people? 2,500 people in their program, 2,500 people. Yeah, I think it's more like a federation than actual club. I don't think it's like what Peak does. But when they told me 2,500, and then they have another program that kind of competes against them and he's like when we did it, it's war. Like when these two clubs fight it. It's war like when we, when these two clubs fight, it's war they have 2500 people at the grandmasters club yes, and that's like crazy.
Speaker 2:So it's like, uh, it's like, it's like a peak, basically like different schools together, or yes, I mean I think they, they all decide that they, they work together, they have a leadership.
Speaker 5:But I don't, I don't think it's exactly like peak, but just the fact that they have a group outside of their organization, outside of the Russian Taekwondo Federation, that they have this own group, I mean, think about that.
Speaker 2:I mean, they got funding, they got athletes, they, I mean One thing that we I think that we miss out on and again I go back to our day like we had internal conflict, like you're talking about those two teams like war against each other. We had internal conflict in America. You know we had strong areas of the country and strong coaches and strong teams that you, when you talk about steel, sharpening steel, you know maybe I mean I know that's got to be part of it. I don't think we have those same kind of hubs anymore.
Speaker 5:So let me transition to you, because a lot has been said that you have to have a specific look of a room to be successful, and I'm not going to say that that's wrong. But I know that there's also some different models, right, and you had one growing up in your heyday, because I know I was at the Olympic Training Center and you had one growing up, or in your in your heyday, because I know I was at the olympic training center and you weren't. And you and your training partner, kevin padilla, spent your time in hoboken and and preparing yourself and you were never unprepared. You were never, uh, uh, didn't have the cardio, you were never out of strength, you were never out of timing. Did you win everything?
Speaker 5:Yeah, you won a lot, but you know I'm saying like so it's funny because didn't have the cardio, you were never out of strength, you were never out of timing. Did you win everything? Yeah, you won a lot, but you know what I'm saying. So it's funny because people want to say that you have to have this, but I'm not so sure.
Speaker 3:I mean it all depends on the athlete and what they have relative to their support structure. So I've been thinking about this a lot, because I've written a lot on performance and how do you build performance. And then, quite frankly, I'm looking at like we talk about every week almost about my son and his performance, and what can I do to make things work better? So I think, first and foremost and this went astray with a particular group out of Texas that I won't mention but first and foremost, and this went astray with a particular group out of Texas that I won't mention but first and foremost, you should always look at what the athlete, where they came from, what has brought them to this place of success so far, and then, what do you need to fund? It's called bubble funding. They're on the bubble where you need to get them to the next level. Now, that works if you have a responsible subsystem of people that understand it, support it and do everything necessary to make sure that it happens, and in that case, it works.
Speaker 3:It can be abused, though, and when it was abused, it was. It was you. They funded a particular group of athletes and the person in charge of that program was a neophyte and had malintentions and only cared about the subgroup of that group which happened to be his family. They then brought people in because it was the mecca at that time and they abused them. They abused them and and there's a bunch of stuff that happened to people that were there, and then there were people a bunch of stuff that happened to people that were there and then there were people that got harmed and then there were people that many other bad things happened and that's because there was no oversight by the funding agency, which was, in part, the US Olympic Committee and USA Taekwondo. So the caveat is, when you build high performance plans which I built a few and I actually worked on one for USA Taekwondo you've got to have markers and you've got to have first you start with a plan, a hypothesis. If I do this, this is the outcome. Here are the markers. So you say I believe, if I fund 12 to 15 year olds in domestic programs across the United States and we hold regional or national level identification camps and then we refund them based on progress and what we feel progress is not results then we will yield this improvement in the regional championships, the Pan Am Games and the World Championships and ultimately the Olympic Games, and then, based on those markers, you either fund or continue to fund, or you decrease funding. This used to be the Olympic Committee's model. So when you do that, you hold people's feet to the fire just like a professional team, and if they perform they get rewarded and if they don't, they get fired. And when you take the, when you take the fear of firing people out, they don't perform.
Speaker 3:So there was a car and I'll go back to commercial. There used to be a car dealerships. They paid the car dealership guys a hundred dollars a month. That's all they got, or a thousand dollars a month, it doesn't matter, it wasn't enough to live on. But for every car they sold they got an additional $1,000 or $2,000. Well, those guys worked their butts off to sell cars because otherwise they didn't eat. And I always joke about the model for USA Taekwondo, but it should be. You take these high-level athletes, you take them to a world championships, you pay for their flight and you pay for their hotel room. If they lose their first round, you don't pay for their flight home and you kick them out of the hotel room if they win their second fight damn you pay.
Speaker 3:You pay for their flight and and you give them some money for food if they make it to the third round. You pay for the flight home and the flight there, and you give them a little more money for food if they win a gold medal it reminds me of a story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was at american when they had american sports university. I don't know if anyone knows about that. It was like it was a. It was a university that was being built in california. It was um and basically offered me to come out there and train there and it's supposed to be accredited by the time I graduated and everything. But they offered me to pay for my flights, my hotels, my food, my training, everything. So I went for a little over a year. I was actually trained while I was there. I was trained with Joseph Saleem. He was the head coach of the program at the time. So it was a pretty good time while I was there.
Speaker 2:But I remember, before the Pan Am Games team trials I can't remember what Pan Am Games team trials the guy who was the president in charge of the whole college, a Korean guy, asked to have a meeting with us. It was like 9 in the morning. We go to this meeting, we sit outside of his office for, I think, until about 1030. So an hour and a half and we've been sitting out there and, mind you, he's in the office. Finally he calls us in. We go in there. We're all standing there, me, it was. You remember? James Mutaseri, nia Abdallah Me. James Mutaseri, nia Abdallah, jessica Torres. We're all standing up in a line and we're standing in front of his desk, hands behind our back, doing like the very traditional thing, and he looks at us. After waiting an hour and a half, he goes if you lose, don't come back. And then sends us out of his office.
Speaker 2:That was the end of the. I kid you not, that was the end of the conversation. I made the team that year, james Wachowski made the team that year. I think a bunch of us did. Well, my point is like so I agree with you a little bit. I think there has to be some follow-up and some repercussions and some we're not just giving things out for free just to be a part. You know what I mean.
Speaker 5:But I'm going to ask you another question there, because this is so unbelievable, because you're so unsolicited, and so you were talking about if, if the scenario presents itself where there's a, there's a good athlete and a good coach and a good support network, somebody has to look at this and decide if that's true or not. And if it is you, it is, they could be funded, hypothetically, right, and then have oversight. So it doesn't get crazy like what you mentioned as well, because that's my I guess that's my question, because I think there has to be some oversight group. Let's say it's not the USOC, let's say it's the USAT and they have to say is TJ really the coach? I'm just using your name, you know it's coach X who's got these programs. Can you really get them to where they need to get to just because he has people on the team? Because if he hasn't, if he hasn't won a world championship medal, if he hasn't won a grand prix medal, if he hasn't won an Olympic medal, we're just speculating, right. So I think that weeds out a lot of people.
Speaker 5:Number one and then, if these athletes are doing well because I think there's some athletes that have a system, like you did, herb, like they would have loved you to come. We would have loved you to come to Colorado Springs, but you didn't need it. You didn't want to leave your home in New York, you didn't want to leave your training partners in New York, you don't want to leave your food in New York, and it didn't matter. You didn't really need us and you were still successful. You still won Olympic gold medal. Blah blah, blah, blah blah. And I think there's a few pockets of people with their athletes that can do the same thing. And, should there be oversight, absolutely You're not going to give people money for free. I'm not going to pay you money. And then I hear someone talking.
Speaker 3:I know, I don't think they realize I'm doing a podcast, but now they do Go ahead.
Speaker 5:Okay, okay, no, no, no. So my question is do you think that let's say let's use USA Taekwondo they so my question is do you think that let's say, let's use USA Taekwondo they have their academy. But let's say there's an athlete or somebody out there that has a good program with a good coach and they have some results. Do you support them?
Speaker 3:without them coming out. You have to. You have to, and the reason is this Right now, what you've created in the US is nobody oversaw that program. So they took dollars first, performance second. So they were enamored with, hoodwinked by and courted by, some medical finance group in the middle of ass backwards, kansas, nowhere, and they're like come, come, come, because we need something to do with all this money and and we want to we want to be cool too, and we have this training center that we really don't actually care about your sport. We have other things here that are better than your sport, but we need to show them that we have diversity in our approach and we have a pile of money we need to spend. So come and we'll welcome you with open arms now. Now your job is to get people actually come here, because nobody wants to come here and you bring them here and, by the way, we are the Mecca of nothing. So come, come anyway. Now, that's okay. Take the money, put your national office there, and the group before this which people don remember is indianapolis. Indianapolis had more ngbs than colorado springs because they had, they created a infrastructure to support them, they gave money to them, they gave them free, rent, whatever, and so swimming's out there, everybody's out there. So all of a sudden, if you do get critical mass, you become the de facto olympic training center for sport not training centers, but where people come to do business as such, in in, in kansas or wherever this place is that you have this training center? It's not the same and you're not developing excellence. And, by the way, you can't what.
Speaker 3:When you develop these kind of programs, you either get two types of athletes. You get the athlete that's got nothing going on in his life or her life needs somewhere to be, doesn't want to work but wants to train and doesn't necessarily want to perform. They want the free paycheck, they want the free food and they want a place to sleep rather than getting a job at Starbucks or Home Depot, like some old job programs had to have to make money to train and compete. So that's part of the problem. Now you take a guy like me or anyone else.
Speaker 3:In our generation we worked, we found a way to work in things that we could to make enough money to survive, and then we were surrounded by our best coaches, our best partners and our community, and so we managed to survive and thrive, in part because we had the constant fear of performance, meaning if we didn't perform we couldn't come home. You could come home to the training center in North Carolina because nobody cares, they don't even know who you are. You can't come home to Jersey or New York because everybody that you left is expecting you to win and, by the way, they know you, like cheers, by name. We know your name, and so you have a certain level of accountability, of pride in your performance, and so right now, what you have, unfortunately, is a well-funded system where the ngb is pocketing all the money they're paying for the plane tickets. I saw sherman, whatever his name is, sphinx, nelson lopez, whatever his name is, in fajuja. Wherever he was in, whatever the last, what's he doing there? What?
Speaker 6:having a good old time. What's he and then I? What?
Speaker 3:and then I watch his his, uh facebook post. Is he a preacher? Is he a rap star? Is he, uh, pimpy rings, pimp, pinky rings and pimping so that he's become the de facto um prince under the king and queen, jay and steve and you can figure out which one's which and they're all happy why? Because they're getting plane tickets, they don't have to stay home and they don't have to see their wives. And that's not the way you run an NGB. And so let's just call it for what it is Now performance-driven under performance-driven models.
Speaker 5:Hold on, hold on.
Speaker 3:And no performance reviews either. Oh, no, no. I mean, let's be honest. Who's reviewing their performance? No one, you know why? Because there's nothing to review. If the board were awake and they weren't drinking the Kool-Aid and they weren't having the Soma from 1984, George Orwell keeping them happy, they would be going. What did you guys do at the last Olympics? Nothing. Find a new job.
Speaker 2:Before we go too far, I want to go back just real quick and then we can keep going. But with the whole, you know, you find that one athlete that is, you know, in a great situation training-wise, has a great coach, has a great system, has a great path, has a big network of people. I mean, is that not why I was able to stay and train in Miami when I went to WCAP? They don't take that stuff lightly. When you go to USM, you have two reasons. You have environmental reasons. Like you ski or something, or not even skiing, you need to be somewhere where your environment condones you need to be there. That's one. And then for two, it's support system and training system. They came out, they vetted the system, they saw the training, we had dinner, we talked about it, they talked to you, met you, and they allowed me to stay for two years and train to pursue something that I had already started, because they saw that the facilities, they saw that the coaching, they saw the support was there.
Speaker 2:So when you ask the question of, when you ask the question of, should the answer be yes? The answer has to be yes because America's big, the country's big, the area's big, and then you do have coaches who can coach. You do have programs, who understand what programming is. It's not a Taekwondo school, it's not your run of the mill, no, you have Olympic-level coaches, olympic-level athletes with Olympic-level prestige and Olympic-level sight, working with an athlete on a level that's making them, it's working for them. Right now, that's my biggest thing, that's why I go a little crazy is that you take kids from a system, take people from a system that they're growing in, just to go there, and then what, and then what? That can't be. The only indication of funding cannot be your location, like if you come train with us, then we'll pay you. That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my entire life.
Speaker 3:It can't be your only way. It can be different in team sports. So in a team sport you can make an argument that teams should train and live together and you could create a model In individual sports and the way you understand this. Just look at what the IOC does. The IOC funds individual athletes in individual training programs where they reside. That's where the money goes. They don't fund training centers. They fund individuals in their training environments because they realize that's what works.
Speaker 3:So when you're looking at Africa, when that IOC money comes from Solidarity and some of it went to Patrice from Mark and his group, they looked at okay, who is the guy running the program? What's his level of success? Where does the athlete want to train? In that situation, they moved the athlete to the best coach. So it's really not hard math. It really just is a question of whether you want to do the math and sometimes you don't like the math. And in this particular situation, usa Taekwondo doesn't like the math because it doesn't benefit what they want to do, which is playing tickets and pinky rings. Pimps and pinky rings.
Speaker 5:But, I'm not even thinking of changing it.
Speaker 2:They can still fly wherever the hell they want. They can go wherever they want. I'm just saying from a go ahead, Coach.
Speaker 5:No, no, I agree. I'm going to agree with you, tj, because you're right. If the only way that they will fund somebody, first of all, if I think Athlete X is good and I pitch them, I talk to them, I tell them everything we want to get because obviously I believe in them, they're not having this conversation with everybody, they're having it with a select few people. And what if that person says, no, I can't, I have to be with my mom, I have to be with my dad. I got to support my little brother, I have a great training, I have all those different things that you just said. Do you believe in me or don't you believe in me? If you believe in me, you would give me that support and there could be some oversight, there could be some results orientated right, like you said, young, if all of a sudden I'm taking the money and all of a sudden I'm getting my ass kicked.
Speaker 2:They're called benchmarks. It's what? Again back to the Army system. It's called benchmarks, benchmarks, whatever, bench.
Speaker 3:Oh no.
Speaker 2:Yeah, benchmarks, bench, benchmarks. You set things in place where this is where you are now. By next year, let's say, if it's something as basic as you're in the top 20 now or top 50. Now, by next year, you're on the national team. You set benchmarks and you review those benchmarks every year, case by case, because different, because maybe athlete a was injured through half the season, didn't get to compete, maybe there's a reason to keep him on athlete b, blah, blah. You keep it moving, but you, you cannot tell me.
Speaker 5:The only way to be funded in the united states of america to do taekwondo is if you go to that one room in north carolina and train, it's impossible I'm gonna get, I'm gonna give you, I, you and I want to keep going on this because so, for example, if you have a situation where you have a good coaching right, you have access to other good coaches that work with that athlete. If you have programming enough where people are coming in consistently, that's good and you have access to where you can send that person. They don't, so that's all. In their home, there's nothing. That's all the right model, that's the same or, if not, better than what other people are doing. So it's a it's a great model. But I'm going to go. I'm going to go. One more. That cause, I think what's what they say a lot of times when people say is like, oh, I need to train with you. You know, you got to come train with me so that we can understand each other. It makes sense, but it's a lot easier for the coach to learn the athlete than the athlete to to abandon everything that they've done for 15 years of their life, to go into a new system and expect results in the next 12 months, six months, eight months.
Speaker 5:As a matter of fact, I was a living proof of this. I trained up until 1988 by myself. Blah, blah, blah, got to the Olympics, won a World Cup, won a Pan Am Championship and got a silver medal at the Olympics. All right, I went out to Colorado Springs and I probably had my. I was lucky, I had some medals, but my performance was not good for another two years.
Speaker 5:Because I look good in training, I look good doing the drills and, I kid you not, I remember getting to the match and going what the hell do I do? I wasn't comfortable with my old shit. I wasn't comfortable with the new crap. I was lost. God gave me a gift and I was lucky enough to kind of figure it out, but in my brain that's how I was feeling and I don't think there's many people like me. So my point is you take a kid that's successful, has a support network, all the coaching, all the resources other than financial support and you know getting to events out of his system that he's successful in or she's successful in, and put him in somewhere where they don't want to be, with not the right training partners, with a different coach from a different mentality. They're not the same philosophy.
Speaker 2:It just means, as an organization, you just don't really want to win. You don't want to win. You want to be like going back to. You just want to be around for a long time. You know you just want to. You just want to be a for a long time. Because what they're saying is it makes no sense. You can't make it make sense. You've got to know your surroundings. You've got to know your atmosphere. You've got to know who you're working with. You've got to know who these kids are being trained by. You know what I'm saying. You know what I'm saying. You know what I'm saying. He likes to cut me off.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's too loud, yo it's way too loud.
Speaker 2:He's getting bored over there. It's too much karate talk. No, but it just doesn't make any sense. You can't explain it to me. Where it makes sense, let's say we've never done it before, but where we are now in this whole point of going, are we ahead, are we behind? Are we somewhere in the middle? Do we need to catch up? Do we need to go faster? Where are we at? That's the part that I think I don't think we're realizing. I don't think we're ahead.
Speaker 5:We're definitely not ahead. Bring it full circle. We talked about the cadets. This is our leadership having these situations right now with athletes. They have six people out there right now with athletes. They have six people out there right now.
Speaker 2:They got six people out there and how is that? At the academy, at the training?
Speaker 5:center, okay, academy, yeah, and maybe now Will's coming. Okay, eight people, ten people. That's the model for our junior program and our cadet program. We're behind. We're behind from a programming standpoint, not from an athlete standpoint, not from a potential standpoint, but from a programming standpoint. Not from an athlete standpoint, not from a potential standpoint, program programming standpoint we're.
Speaker 2:We're behind, so do another. We're about to do another id camp, though no, we're not excited about the id camps. We're about to do another id camp. We're good, but I don't know. We're gonna identify for 20, apparently, 2032, um 2028 and 2032, as if, like, we don't support our cadets and juniors. Now why the hell does it matter if I identify you as a cadet or junior? What is? Were you going to get a letter from me saying you're cool?
Speaker 1:I don't get it.
Speaker 2:You're not going to do anything with the information. You clearly haven't done anything with the information. We've done these talent IDs before. What has become of the talent? What comes from it, besides them putting more money in their pocket.
Speaker 5:My athlete was offered to go to a talent ID camp. What? He's on the national team for a second time. He's won European Opens. He's won Pan American Opens. He beat the Pan American Games gold medal. He beat the guy that's at the academy. And you want him to go to a talent ID camp and he went out there for a week by himself. That's what.
Speaker 2:I was going to say Meanwhile, you just had him in your room for a week for a week.
Speaker 5:What do you need an ID? Against who?
Speaker 2:Because if there's more talent that he needs to be compared to in the rest of the nation other than this room, then what are we doing? Clearly, we're all wrong.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so I got. So we got this Grand Prix challenges in Charlotte. It's coming up, it's in June. You're going to love this. They had this thing. They were trying to bully people calling a stay to play. You had to book through their. Well, they tried to make you see that you had to book through their agency in order to compete at the Grand Prix. So you had a booking agency and they were like, threatening people, like if you don't, we're going to remove you from the list, and like, finally, I think that WT was like a housing agency can't remove people from a list.
Speaker 2:But who's housing agency? Because I feel like we've been through this story already. I feel like we've done this a few times in other places in the world and it just held up to nothing. People figured out and the organization already, WT figured out that people book in advance, People book for their groups. You can't force anyone to stay anywhere.
Speaker 5:They were calling people and telling them you have to cancel your reservation and book through us. I'm like what if I only booked and it got a non-refund? It was crazy.
Speaker 2:But who is this organization is what I'm saying? It's just some housing company randomly that somebody at WT works with.
Speaker 5:No, it's USAT, it's LLC, local Organizing Committee. It's not WT stuff at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, that ain't gonna fly, but we've tried again Once again. We've tried that already, right? Some of those people in the organization complained about this already. We've already been through this. That's silly.
Speaker 5:I thought that was crazy, because people get like really threatening letters, emails and stuff like that. People are freaking out. Oh my god, they're gonna. You know, I got my plane ticket, I already have my hotel room and they're gonna disqualify me. I'm like, bro, they ain't disqualifying you. There's no way they can't. I mean unbelievable, so usatwt type stuff. Right, herb, if you're going to come watch for $50 a day, make sure you go to the housing agency so that you too. Oh so in Brazil we sent a message. We were like we were going to save that hotel, but we get it for this price, and the housing bureau's price was more. We're like, why would we pay for more? Hey, the cheeseburger costs five bucks, but I'm going to pay you ten. What kind of shit is that? You got a lot of poor countries, man. Come on, man, this is some.
Speaker 2:BS, I don't care None about that. I ain't in no poor country with 50 bucks a day to watch Taekwondo. I want to know how much the Olympics? I meant to look it up before this podcast to see how much the Olympic tickets were To go to the Olympic tickets for the three sessions.
Speaker 5:It can't be crazy, Even at the Olympic Games we're talking about $50 a day, I think so Like $35, $35, $35, something like that. I got it, but that's you're talking about the Olympic Games.
Speaker 2:Right, we're talking about the Olympic Games.
Speaker 5:You're talking about the NBA Finals. You're talking about the NBA Finals. You ain't talking about preseason shit.
Speaker 2:Exactly it's a Grand Prix challenge.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I think, like you said, it comes down to you got to figure out how to fund athletes where they stand at the point, especially if they're not being successful. Again, I want to leave the coach the air, the space to go. I think that kid can be something good. I think he's not yet not in this system, not the way he is, but I think I could personally take him and make him grow and our system could take him and make him grow. That's why you move someone to somewhere else. But if it's not for that fact, I mean you're just I'm going to say you take random people.
Speaker 5:That I'm not sure you know what to do with. I'm not sure they fit your mold, I'm not sure they fit your system and that's just a waste, like in my. In my case, with my athlete, I mean my athletes and again I'll debate with anybody on it, cause there's no debate but my athletes is different than every single athlete that went out there, because my athlete comes from a program that's you know that's produced multiple Olympic games.
Speaker 5:you know, olympic medals, world championship medals, grand Prix medals a network that is just bigger than anyone's in the country, and they don't want to accept that as fact.
Speaker 2:What you're saying is fact, but people don't hear that as fact, Like I don't know if it needs to be written down, put on paper, spread out in a spreadsheet, strategically placed so you can understand. But it's happened over and over again.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean, it's crazy, and so you know. My point is the other athletes, whether they're good or not, they were coming out of programs that didn't have a high-level coach, that didn't have a good room around them. So maybe those people over there said you know what, you can't compare what we're doing over here to what you're doing at home. And they could be right. But in this situation I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. We're on par, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and I'm being nice, I'm being kind, because you know, again, if you give Juan Moreno a facility and a budget and athletes, yeah, try me out.
Speaker 4:We're rocking and rolling baby?
Speaker 2:No for sure. But that's the thing. It just comes down to this wand of money that they try to wave in front of everyone's faces, like I don't think they've went as far as they go. What are we going to do with this athlete when we get him there? Like I don't think they've went as far as they go? What are we going to do with this athlete when we get him there? How are we going to take Athlete X and make them better progressively through the time.
Speaker 5:And Young they've done it for I don't know how many years now, because they've done it with Gavin they did it with. I forgot the other kid, joe Whitworth's kid, they did it with. I mean, how many kids have they have come through that program that have come and gone that?
Speaker 2:they picked and they got no medals. I think more kids have quit the sport as a whole than the number of champions they've made or people they've made better. How about that? How about that as a fact? How about that as a fact? I'm going to say, even the ones that achieved high-level medals Olympic gold medals, pan Am Games gold medals, world Championship gold medals all those people they're gone, they don't exist anymore. Gold medals, world championship, those, all those people, they're gone, they don't exist anymore. So, so, so, so we've made. We've made more people quit this sport than we have people that have progressed and continue in a part of this world right now. That's a fact. That's crazy. That's a fact.
Speaker 5:No, that's a fact.
Speaker 2:That's crazy too, so what are we talking about? I I. Every time we get here, I get to the point where I'm just like this is where I turn the light on right. That's what I go you know, like I mean, what are we doing? We're clearly not doing the right thing. We're clearly not doing the right thing. There's no way.
Speaker 5:So I don't know so but that's, I mean, it's, it's, it's some stuff, simple, as you know. You know, congratulating the cadet team, you know, uh, after it's over, and you know you're supposed to motivate them before, like that, that team of egg head coach, you know, good luck guys, come on.
Speaker 3:So I think that's part of the. You know, there's obviously a lot of problems, but certainly one of the problems that is happening is and it goes back to just foundation. So the foundation of performance is not being used, it's simply not being done. Number two, the accountability isn't happening. And then, number three, the leadership is vacant and vacuous. And so when you look at those three things, you have absent a glorious accident or a wonderful miracle like the Pope coming from Chicago. It's not going to happen and you'll have no results. But the wake up call should have been the last olympic games, where they invested all this time, energy and money and I was just watching a funny video of uh gareth, uh brownstein and um and cj talking about what they were going to do and why and how they were going to do it and why and what was going to happen and why. And I I almost think that should be played endlessly on cycle for the board of directors, because those were inherent promises in bose and nothing happened.
Speaker 4:So I know we lost him yeah I don't know he's.
Speaker 3:He's probably got bored and he's he's got to go. He's got to go do something. So someone would like to join the room. I, of course he'd like to join the room he's back, he's back, he's back.
Speaker 5:I was talking to Elsa and you guys were like are you guys frozen?
Speaker 3:well, I found. I found some early footage of of WON in Korea what is it gonna be?
Speaker 5:I gotta ask hyung, I gotta ask you last one I'm not a fan of WON but I don't think it's light.
Speaker 1:People when they see it, they think it's a little bit I got to ask you.
Speaker 4:I got to ask you what last one of the questions about training.
Speaker 5:Am I the?
Speaker 4:black guy.
Speaker 6:Yes, I thought, I thought, I thought that was the both of you that was me. That was me interviewing you. I was the Asian guy.
Speaker 5:Just because a good story. I was telling TJ off camera when we were starting. I was telling him about Sifu Vizio, because he's like this iconic guy and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:He used to beat you up.
Speaker 5:He did right. You said he was this, like I was telling TJ off camera. I was like, oh my God, I'm just kidding when I first I had heard all the stories about him and how amazing he was as a fighter, as a person, as a philosopher, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean he's a legit underground fighter. I mean crazy. So and I almost like loved the guy without even knowing the guy, just from you know, growing up with you and hearing all these stories, cause if you tell me someone's good I believe you. You know. So anyway. So when I met him at Kevin's wedding and the dude was about this big, I was like that's the guy. But cause I remember you telling me you'd go in like a little ring with them and he wouldn't wear any pads except for boxing gloves. And you guys would we have all gear head to toe and have like literally and I know how brutal you were and I'm like I don't understand how you didn't like kill that little man, but he was just so he's an individual.
Speaker 3:You know, and I don't I um he's. He was very private about his training. It was very private about his uh preparation and he didn't think that we should share even our own preparation. He gave me permission at one point because he realized. He said you know, you're going to be different. You need to spread your message, your gospel, he says you, you can't be like, you shouldn't be doing what I'm doing. You need to teach many people, not a dojong. And so he was um. You got to understand.
Speaker 3:He was one of the first non-asians to learn kung fu period. He was taken in at a school where they didn't take non-asians and then he fought in those underground things and he was the real deal. Then he went into the pka and he was the real deal there and beat everybody and did it even later in his career, after I retired from the olympics you gotta understand, older than me and retired and he still did it. So for me there wasn't a question as to whether I would um train with him and whether I would stay with him. I stayed with him because that's where my success was and he was a mystical character and anybody who ever trained with him and, by the way, I wasn't alone, like Emilio Navarez, world champion kickboxer, came to him, the Chong brothers, george and John, when they were on the Budweiser team, came to him to train and these people would just, if they could get an invite, they would show up for a couple of days. And uh, the national karate team came to train with us because they three or four of the guys came from Sensei Miyazaki school, tori Miyazaki, and they came to train with us. So to be invited there or to be able to train at that level.
Speaker 3:It was a different environment. But, by the way, the environment. You came for free, you didn't pay, you trained if you were able to get to train there, and you met the expectations and that was it. So it was a little bit underground, it was brutal, it was no holds barred, literally like in. You know, as far as the training, not the stylified and and then it produced champions, many, not just me, but anybody that came in there was better for the experience of having come through it. So that's a culture that exists. It's a culture that exists at peak performance, right. It's a culture that exists.
Speaker 5:But what about him as an individual, like how I mean, because, like I said, he was so little? First of all, I'm jealous and I'm pissed at you because you never invited me. I thought I was your brother. You never invited me to come and train well, once you get beat up, well, I, to be honest, I had run out of invites.
Speaker 3:So what would happen is I was looking for people. I was looking for people that could help me be my training partner, so I wanted them to train with us there so that I'd have somebody to train with that would understand. When I left there and I brought, I tried, four or five people, six or seven or eight or 10. And the last one was Kevin Padilla, because he was the only one that stayed. The rest quit, the rest wouldn't do it. And then he got to a point where he said don't bring anyone else. He said because they're not going to stay. He says they don't understand, understand.
Speaker 3:And so, um, you know, for a guy, for a person of his stature and his power and his understanding of fighting, if he were today to coach the usa taekwondo team, they would win. They would win because of his method, he, he would shortly, quickly figure out the system. He would look at it, say this is how you win, here are the things you can do to thwart, how they win, here are the things you can do in addition to what they do to win, and here's how you win. And that's what he did with my game and, quite frankly, he took Padilla, who was a good player, potentially a great player, and he took him from a player who wasn't winning and made him a player who won five for five years on the US team, right. So he had the ability and still has that ability to see the potential in somebody and and and make it now for himself.
Speaker 3:Personally, he fought everybody and anybody, any size, didn't matter, and that's a skill you know well. That's Mark Williams too, and Mark Williams um was 140 pounds, 150 pounds to do. The guy you know, for whatever it's worth, you got to understand what he did. This is a guy who didn't train, he just fought, show up at the gym and fight for an hour. He thought training was showing up a couple days before the tournament and training a little bit. He went into the national championships and dismantled every fighter put in front of him, including Dung Lee Dismantled, dismantled, dismantled.
Speaker 2:We used to go to his gym in New York and we'd walk downstairs to this weird basement area, move the curtain and it was just like 20 sweaty men down there just fighting each other no, I mean like talk to tony talk to tony five hours, six hours talk to tony graff it was crazy talk to tony graff.
Speaker 3:So tony graff comes in as a, as a kid, with peter and bardatos and and talk to tony this this is a man who and this is one of the things that people forget about fighting, and this is why I'll give everybody a chance, anybody from any sport. He was a guy who didn't fight the style of Taekwondo we did. He fought point Taekwondo and point karate. He fought in tournaments where everybody, anybody, monkey kung fu guys would come in literally doing monkey kung fu. Mafia Holloway came in and was robo breakdancing during his fighting. He fought cats that were like ridiculous and he dismantled every guy because he understood, first of all himself, second of all, fighting in general, and this was the gift that Sifu Vizio had. He has and has he had the ability to understand what it means to fight.
Speaker 3:And right now I'm working on my you know, my next book and I'm talking. I'm thinking about and I'd ask some of my friends to participate. I know you're waiting for your invites, but I'm trying to understand what I want to say about fighting and the strategy of fighting. So I'm working on it now and what I realized is philosophically, we all start with an idea of what is fighting. What does it mean to win? And you can break it down into three simple things. And you can break it down into three simple things you do what you do well, you avoid what you don't do well and then you exploit the weaknesses of what other people don't do well and avoid their strengths. That's fighting in general. Everything else we do from there becomes strategic implementation of those basic comp, of basic confines and constrictions. Now how you do that? Coach Randall knows I always talk about progressions. I do A. I see what happens when I do A. I do B. When A doesn't work, I do A, b, c when I'm trying to trap somebody, because fighting is basically do what you do well. If it works, continue doing it. If it doesn't work, figure out how to trap somebody. Because fighting is basically do what you do well. If it works, continue doing it. If it doesn't work, figure out how to trap what they do well and then exploit their weaknesses.
Speaker 3:Now if you watch any sport, you'll see that and um, I always use the second analogy as a weakness of fighting and sport and anything. And you see it in fighting. All the time when somebody is fighting, they try to win. Then when they start losing and there's 20 seconds left, they start fighting differently and they actually enjoy, in some cases, more success. Now, had they done that earlier, they would have enjoyed the success sooner. And you see it in football all the time Guys are trying to win, they're trying to win. It's not working. Last two minutes they change their whole game and all of a sudden 20 points go on. It's the risk reward factor, right.
Speaker 3:And so as we look at this and as I write this, you know I want there's no book, and I think you guys would be hard pressed to find it or video series on that concept of Taekwondo, because it's hard to write and it's hard to think about and it's hard to say, but it needs to be said. And, by the way, I can tell you this once I write it, or once it's said, it'll just be a starting place. It'll evolve, but I guarantee you it'll be more truthful and useful than whatever is going on in North Carolina right now at their center, because that's not. You need to bring in those athletes and do what's called an individual education program, an IEP. You look at each athlete. You look at their strengths, weaknesses, see what opportunities are, what threats there are to their success. And then you work with them. In addition to the core foundation of what they should know, what do you do to make them better? That's the difference between a great coach and a good coach.
Speaker 5:Yeah, sorry, a couple things on Mark Williams, because I know he's kind of he's a crazy guy. But TJ, literally the guy never fought a Hogo tournament in his life. You got to imagine this. He's coached people, he's sat in his chair, he's been around forever. He's never fought a Hogo tournament in his life. The dude goes to nationals in featherweight and wins the national championships, doesn't go to the trials, he just wants to go and beat everybody. Just because I'm like I was mad at people for losing to him, because I'm like how are you going to let this dude come in there that's never fought and beat everybody? And he beat everybody and he beat them at exactly what he said. He knows what he does well. He knows what to avoid on theirs and how to exploit them.
Speaker 3:He kicked three or four times the entire tournament, maybe five.
Speaker 5:It was a thing of beauty. It was a little crazy. So once I got to know him a little bit later, he coached me. One time he comes up to me, my nickname was Flaco for being skinny. He's like Flaco, don't get hit, and I'm like freaking genius. Okay, I was like.
Speaker 3:I was planning on the other one I was gonna get hit a lot, all right, I've had the.
Speaker 2:I've had the privilege of him coaching me too. The select words he used were a little bit a little bit tougher, had nothing to do with tecua dope, but the point was received and I did not lose, so I don't yeah for sure, but but then, when Herb had his first gold medal camp, it was me, Kevin Steve Kaepner, Christina Rodriguez, who's appointed fighter for the match, and then Herb Pedro Xavier.
Speaker 3:No, Pedro wasn't the first one.
Speaker 5:The second one, third one. Yeah, he was the second one, so anyway it was boiling up. I mean by then I was retired. I can fight a lot of people and I'm like it was only a matter of time before me and him had to go. And so we're fighting and like you know he, you know he fights like this and stuff, like he freaking reverse punched like a hole in my, he's like, and we're like no hokus on, just like shin guards, forearm guards, we fight hard but like in those days you didn't punch like that. That was considered like not appropriate. You could kick the shit out of me, you could kick my, you could knock me out, but you didn't punch somebody because he didn't. And he went and it hit me and I was going like I was like and I was like all right, I can't let him know. He got me.
Speaker 5:Later on I got him with a cut back kick. Nice, cut back kick Hit him. I knew I got it. So later on we're out there, we're at dinner. I said I got to tell you man, you punched a hole in my freaking chest. Man, that shit hurt. He's like yo, that back kick. It almost sat me down. I was like all right, we're cool, we're cool, we're cool. Yeah, we're cool, we got it.
Speaker 5:But it was funny. I mean, mark's always crazy like that. But yeah, anyway, I just I was going on about that. You know stephen vizio because he was mythical to me and you know I, I knew about his history and I knew how important he was to you, like I said, for training wise philosoph, and I remember you telling me that he didn't like you guys showing people what you did. Just be quiet, you, tj. We talked about how everyone gets on the internet right now and you know we had a great match. It wasn't what I came to do and everyone wants to tell all the details of why they lost, or you know why they won, or like as if we didn't think they were trying to win, like it's almost like a what do you call it? Some kind of imposter.
Speaker 2:Imposter syndrome, almost. You want everyone to feel you feel not that who you say you are is who you are, but even what you just said about the training stuff and exposing the training, I mean this is a different world, though I'm still getting used to putting trainings on the internet and trainings on YouTube and trainings on Instagram. I don't think there's any secrets in taekwondo, let me tell you. I really, really don't think there's any technique secrets or anything like that. But, like I come from the same generation where you didn't really talk about if you weren't in a room with me, you don't know what I do and you didn't want to be in a room with me. If you didn't want to be in a room with me, you knew what I did that's how it works.
Speaker 3:I think I just heard that quote from the puff daddy uh trial.
Speaker 2:That's going on right now that you didn't want to be. You didn't want to be in a room. If you want the room, only way you know what's going on in the room.
Speaker 4:Is you in the room, baby? And apparently she's telling everything happened in the room but but but you know what?
Speaker 5:I guess maybe we could finish on this. I know we can finish on this. You know, because p because Peter you asked you know about, like, you know our programming and where we are with cadets and juniors and seniors. How can we're? Are we behind, aren't we? You know where we're at?
Speaker 5:I'm going to say that we, a lot of people, have imposter, you know, syndrome number one and number two. I think people want or allow themselves to be victims. They allow themselves to have an excuse on they're young or it's their first time or they didn't know. Whatever it is. I don't understand why you should verbalize that publicly. It's okay if I'm talking to my athletes saying, hey, listen, tj, you're young, you're new in the division, you changed divisions we're going to build up, but to have to go out there and publicly tell everybody that I think we're creating a victim mentality. I think we're creating a weak person. I think we're building excuses where it doesn't have to be you won or you lost, it's okay.
Speaker 5:Whatever people need to think about it, they will or they won't but to go out there and have to say it. I think we're becoming victims and we're becoming weak and therefore we won't but to go out there and have to say it I think we're becoming victims and we're becoming weak and therefore we won't be successful. So I think that that's got to stop. I think coaches, I think we should talk to our people, I think we should talk to our kids and just have the coaching and the conversations in-house. You want to put stuff on social media? I won, I lost the conversations in-house. You want to put stuff on social media? I won, I lost, had a great time, okay, but to go into details of this and that man that's too victim and that's too weak and that's too soft and that's not a winning model in my opinion.
Speaker 2:I don't think they're making it.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it feels like they're making excuses for themselves. You know what I mean. It's not for the athlete, they're making excuses for themselves. Or, like I trained them, I did this, I did this, we didn't do this, we didn't do that like I don't know. I agree with you 100%. I think that that's where we have to start with our, with our kids. We talk about the cadets, the juniors or seniors. I mean, unfortunately, I think that those levels used to be a lot stronger in America than they are now. From the. I'll start from juniors. I didn't grow up with cadets as a, as a whole. We had team collegiate team, pan Am Championship team and the world team. Those are like your three, your like stepping stones in the direction. Obviously, the Olympic team coming later, olympic medals, but I just think we're not as strong like that. We're not as strong anymore and I think, like I said when I said earlier about the having those strong hubs and those strong coaches and those strong programs, I think those are really utilized, whether it was on purpose or an accident.
Speaker 3:Those rooms were utilized and you knew where you had to go if you wanted to be the best that was there was there was. There was really no other word for it. So well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use that as our jumping off point. I'm gonna remember and remind, remind everybody of a couple of things. Just the last thing is if you want to be in the room with tj, that's how you know what goes on in the room right and bring your own bottle of baby oil. That's all I'm asking.
Speaker 2:Go to my school website that has no baby oil, but go there. I'm putting some new videos and training stuff up there.
Speaker 3:You don't get that with your white belt and everybody. If you get a chance and you find yourself stuck in North Carolina, make sure to visit TJ's new facility. It's beautiful. And of course, if you're in Miami, go visit Coach Moreno's facilities. If you're in California, go visit somebody else's. I'm busy, but this has been the.
Speaker 3:Warehouse 15. Now, you're always welcome. My friends are always welcome to come out and visit. I was in most recently in Maryland. Shout out to Chan Yun Lee who invited me to go to his dojang in Boyd and he's actually in Germantown, maryland, which is outside of Boyd, and what a professional facility, and you know I love success. I went to this guy's school and the school really wasn't physically much bigger than mine. Outside he had four buses that he did pick kids up in. He had a van. He had 60 kids on the mat. I gave this pretty decent, hopefully, seminar and left them with some stuff and enjoyed some good food on the way out. But it's nice to see our brothers in Taekwondo.
Speaker 2:Are you going to teach entertaining at my gym when you come? Are you going to teach entertaining at my gym when you come? You gotta teach a training at my gym when you come listen, I'll come to your.
Speaker 3:I'll come to your gym and teach on a couple of things. One I don't know where. I don't want to know about that other room. You got to have a secret entry. Number two, you know I'll bring my books and you better you. I like to sell my books. You better sell some books. I got my training manual manual.
Speaker 2:I'll get your area set up in the corner. That's it.
Speaker 3:I'll sign some books and then three, I don't want to go visit that other place in North Carolina and I don't want to spend $50 a day and stay at the Hooker Hotel for $200 a day. So otherwise, like I said before, sorry, not sorry. This has been the Warehouse 15. It'll be up and then next week I'm going to challenge each of you to bring a story. Since Coach Moreno talked about my mentor, one of my mentors, I want you to dig down deep, deep into your heart and find a story about a mentor in your life that changed your life and made you who you are today. And with the exception of the Pink Diddy story, we'll save that one for later. Warehouse 15, we're out, out.
Speaker 4:We are back.
Speaker 3:We are back. It is the Warehouse 15. And as we say in the video before this, sorry, not sorry. Today we are joined by Grandmaster of disaster juan moreno, second in charge, third on the award chart as a bronze medalist, grandmaster of sub disaster, he is actually in a he's in a internal police interrogation room. Hence the light, and it shines bright. We are hoping and wishing him the best. Hopefully johnny cochran, or whoever's still alive, can come and get him out. If it does not fit, we must acquit. Welcome to welcome to the warehouse.
Speaker 3:Well, the menendez brothers are getting out the. The menendez brothers are getting out, they're getting out, they're getting out, they get, they're. They're white, they're white, they're getting out, they're getting out in. In that, in that case. In that case, bring long to me, bring long to me, bring long to me. That's an old joke. You have to be an insider to know that one. That guy shouldn't get out. Bring long to me. But anyway, gentlemen, what do we got today? What's going on? Tell us a little bit about life. Who's starting us off today? What?
Speaker 4:is it Richmond Virginia? Oh okay.
Speaker 3:Okay, nice, nice.
Speaker 1:Nice nice, nice, nice and Say I'm from Richmond. I'm from Richmond. Well, actually I'm from Henrico, but nobody knows anything about Henrico so I just say I'm from Richmond, just to make it easier. Yep.
Speaker 2:I'm from Richmond. Well, really I'm from New York, but All right, go ahead.
Speaker 3:Sorry, mr Moreno, sorry coach. Well, actually not sorry.
Speaker 1:Wow. Hey. Jason's trying to reach me. Oh no, oh, my God, silver, silver, my god, it's over, it's over. Yeah, yeah, oh, my god, they love his dad. I've been asking about his dad. They took his dad off the meds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I see a lot of intelligence.
Speaker 1:They didn't think that it was called it. So yeah, oh my gosh, I know All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, his dad has been doing great. But I think, like I asked him last week, when he went to the doctor, the doctor provided him with an IV off the meds because it was like he was seeing like a whole big band. Okay, all right no-transcript.
Speaker 3:So I've been thinking about this a lot because I've written a lot on performance and how do you build performance. And then, quite frankly, I'm looking at like we talk about every week almost about my son and his performance, and what can I do to make things work better? So I think, first and foremost and this went astray with a particular group out of Texas that I won't mention but first and foremost, you should always look at what the athlete, where they came from, what has brought them to this place of success so far, and then what do you need to fund? It's called bubble funding. They're on the bubble. What do you need to get them to the next level? Now, that works if you have a responsible subsystem of people that understand it, support it and do everything necessary to make sure that it happens, and in that case, it works.
Speaker 3:It can be abused, though, and when it was abused, they funded a particular group of athletes and the person in charge of that program was a neophyte and had malintentions and only cared about the subgroup of that group, which happened to be his family. They then brought people in because it was the mecca at that time and they abused them. They abused them, and there's a bunch of stuff that happened to people that were there, and then there were people that got harmed, and then there were people that many other bad things happened, and that's because there was no oversight by the funding agency, which was, in part, the US Olympic Committee and USA Taekwondo. So the caveat is, when you build high performance plans which I built a few and I actually worked on one for USA Taekwondo you've got to have markers and you've got to have first. You start with a plan, a hypothesis. If I do this, this is the outcome. Here are the markers. So you say I believe if I fund 12 to 15 year olds in domestic programs across the united states and we hold regional or national level identification camps and then we refund them based on progress and and what we feel progress is not results then we will yield this improvement in the regional championships, the Pan Am Games and the world championships and, ultimately, the Olympic Games, and then, based on those markers, you either fund or continue to fund or you decrease funding.
Speaker 3:This used to be the Olympic Committee's model. So when you do that, you hold people's feet to the fire just like a professional team, and if they perform they get rewarded and if they don't, they get fired. And when you take the fear of firing people out, they don't perform. So there was a car and I'll go back to commercial. There used to be car dealerships. They paid the car dealership guys $100 a month, that's all they got. Or $1,000 a month, that's all they got, or a thousand dollars a month, it doesn't matter. It wasn't enough to live on. But for every car they sold they got an additional thousand dollars or $2,000. Well, those guys work their butts off to sell cars because otherwise they didn't eat. You know and I always joke about the model for USA Taekwondo, but it should be.
Speaker 3:Take. You take these high level athletes. You take them to a world championships. You pay for their flight and you pay for their hotel room. If they lose their first round, you don't pay for their flight home and you kick them out of the hotel room. If they win their second fight, you pay for their flight and you give them some money for food. If they make it to the third round, you pay for the flight home and their flight and and you give them some money for food. If they make it to the third round, you pay for the flight home and the flight there, and you give them a little more money for food if they win a gold medal yeah. Thank you.
Speaker 4:Thank you, thank you Bye.
Speaker 1:So it doesn't get crazy like I mentioned.
Speaker 5:Well, because that's my I guess that's my impression, Because I compare it to the other side Then the feed is a positive thing.
Speaker 1:Feed is like that's the key. Now, that's really good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know it helps affect Scott, I don't think they realize I'm doing a podcast, but now they do.
Speaker 3:Go ahead, you do, yeah, you have to, you have to, you have to. And the reason? The reason is this right now, what you've created in the us is nobody oversaw that program. So they took dollars first, performance second. So they were enamored with, hoodwinked by and courted by some medical finance group in the middle of ass, backwards, kansas, nowhere, and they're like come, come, because we need something to do with all this money and and we want to we want to be cool too, and we have this training center that we really don't actually care about your sport. We have other things here that are better than your sport, but we need to show them that we have diversity in our approach and we have a pile of money we need to spend. So come and we'll welcome you with open arms. Now your job is to get people actually come here, because nobody wants to come here and you bring them here and, by the way, we are the Mecca of nothing. So come, come anyway. Now, that's okay, take the money, put your national office there, and the group before this which people don't remember is Indianapolis. Indianapolis had more NGBs than Colorado Springs because they had. They created a infrastructure to support them, they gave money to them, they gave them free rent, whatever, and so swimming's out there, everybody's out there. So all of a sudden, if you do get critical mass, you become the de facto Olympic training center for sport Not training centers, but where people come to do business as such in Kansas or wherever this place is that you have this training center, it's not the same and you're not developing excellence and, by the way, you can't.
Speaker 3:When you develop these kind of programs, you either get two types of athletes. You get the athlete that's got nothing going on in his life or her life needs somewhere to be, doesn't want to work but wants to train and doesn't necessarily want to perform. They want the free paycheck, they want the free food and they want a place to sleep rather than getting a job at Starbucks or Home Depot, like some old job programs had to have to make money to train and compete. So that's part of the problem. Now you take a guy like me or anyone else. In our generation we worked, we found a way to work in things that we could to make enough money to survive, and then we were surrounded by our best coaches, our best training partners and our community, and so we managed to survive and thrive, in part because we had the constant fear of performance, meaning if we didn't perform we couldn't come home. You could come home to the training center in North Carolina because nobody cares, they don't even know who you are. You can't come home to Jersey or New York because everybody that you left is expecting you to win and, by way, they know you like cheers by name. We know your name, and so you have a certain level of accountability, of pride in your performance, and so right now, what you have, unfortunately, is a well-funded system where the ngb is pocketing all the money they're paying for the plane tickets.
Speaker 3:I saw sh Sherman whatever his name is, spinks Nelson Lopez, whatever his name is, in Fajuja. Wherever he was in, whatever the last, what's he doing there? And then I watch his Facebook post. Is he a preacher? Is he a rap star? Is he pinky rings and pimping? Is he a rap star? Is he a pimpy rings, pink, pinky rings and pimping so that he's become the de facto um Prince under the King and queen, j and Steve, and you can figure out which one's which.
Speaker 3:And they're all happy why? Cause they're getting plane tickets, they don't have to stay home and they don't have to see their wives, and that's not the way you run an NGB. And so let's just call it for what it is now performance driven under performance driven model. Oh, no, no, because who's reform? Who's who's reviewing their performance? No one, and you know why? Because there's nothing to review. If the board were awake and they weren't drinking the kool-Aid and they weren't having the Soma from 1984, george Orwell keeping them happy they would be going. What did you guys do at the last Olympics? Nothing.
Speaker 1:Find a new job. Um, I'm going to go ahead and start the recording. That's perfect. Little, little.
Speaker 3:So you could, you could. So it can be different in team sports. So in a team sport you can make an argument that teams should train and live together and you could create a model In individual sports and the way you understand this. Just look at what the ioc does. The ioc funds individual athletes in individual training programs where they reside. That's how people, that's where the money goes. They don't fund training centers, they fund individuals in their training environments because they realize that's what works.
Speaker 3:So when you're looking at africa, when that ioc money comes from solidarity and some of it went to Patrice, from Mark and his group, they looked at okay, who is the guy running the program? What's his level of success? Where does the athlete want to train? In that situation, they move the athlete to the best coach. So it's really not hard math. It really just is a question of whether you want to do the math and sometimes you don't like the math. And in this particular situation, usa Taekwondo doesn't like the math because it doesn't benefit what they want to do, which is playing tickets and pinky rings. Pimps and pinky rings, thank you. Bitch marks, oh, no, oh, thank you, that's good, Thank you.
Speaker 6:I went out to Colorado Springs and I saw that I was fine.
Speaker 1:I was looking at the medals but my performance was not good for another year Because I looked good, right, I looked good, good, good. I remember getting to the match and I was like what the hell did I do? Look, I wasn't running the game. I wasn't helping you, I was running the game. I was running the game. I was running the game. I was running the game. I was running the game. I was running the game. I was running the game.
Speaker 6:I was running the game. I was running the game. I was running the game.
Speaker 1:I was running the game. That's no-transcript. I feel like we've done this in other places in the world. It helped us. People figured out the organization already figured out that people can't stay anywhere. They were talking to people and telling them you can't do this.
Speaker 2:What if I don't do this? It was crazy. It's just some housing company like randomly that somebody at WP works with. No, it's WCT, oh.
Speaker 1:It's looking hellishly important the corner. Thank you. Okay, thank you, I got it Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, I don't know. But if it's not for that, thank you. I've been over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, which it could be, but it's different. You know, if Juan Moreno wasn't happy, he wouldn't be able to talk about it. I don't think they. What's the question?
Speaker 1:I'll be here and take questions to make this better. I think that's more. How about that? How about that? I would say, even the ones that have set a cheap high level battle, how about that? How about that? How about that? I want to say, even the ones that have achieved high level battles, the ones that have gone better, the ones that have gone better, the ones that have gone so far, I think if they want to move with the course, they're going to have to do it so.
Speaker 3:So so I think that's part of the. You know, there's obviously a lot of problems, but it's certainly one of the problems. That is happening is, and it goes back to just foundation. So the foundation of performance is not being used, it's simply not being done. Number two, the accountability is inhabiting. And then, number three, the leadership is vacant and vacuous. And so when you look at those three things, you have absent a glorious accident or a wonderful miracle like the pope coming from chicago. It's, it's not going to happen and and you'll have no results. But the wake-up call should have been the last olympic games, where they invested all this time, energy and money.
Speaker 3:And I was just watching a funny video of uh gareth, uh brownstein and Brownstein and CJ talking about what they were going to do and why and how they were going to do it and why and what was going to happen and why. And I almost think that should be played endlessly on cycle for the board of directors, because those were inherent promises and boasts and nothing happened. So, yeah, I don't. He's, he's probably got bored and he's, he's got to go. He's got to go do something. So someone would like to join the room? I, of course. He'd like to join the room? Yeah, he's back. Yeah, he's back. Well, well, I found I found some early footage of of wadding korea. Well, I found some early footage of Juan in Korea.
Speaker 4:I thought that was the both of you, hmm, thank you.
Speaker 3:So he's an individual, you know, and I don't. I um he's. He was very private about his training. He was very private about his uh preparation and he didn't think that we should share even our own preparation. He gave me permission at one point because he realized he said you know, you're going to be um different. You need to spread your mess, message your gospel. He says you. You can't be like, you shouldn't be doing what I'm doing. You need to teach many people, not a dojong. And so he was um. You got to understand.
Speaker 3:He was one of the first non-Asians to learn Kung Fu period. He was taken in at a school where they didn't take non-Asians and then he fought in those underground things and he was the real deal. Then he went into the PKA and he was the real deal there and beat everybody and did it even later in his career, after I retired from the Olympics. You got to understand older than me and retired and he still did it. So for me there wasn't a question as to whether I would train with him and whether I would stay with him. I stayed with him because that's where my success was and he was a mystical character and anybody who ever trained with him and, by the way, I wasn't alone, like emilio navarez, world champion kickboxer. Came to him, the chong brothers, george and john, when they were on the budweiser team, came to him to train, and these people would just, if they could get an invite, they would show up for a couple of days. And, uh, the national karate team came to train with us because they three or four of the guys came from sensei miyazaki school, tori miyazaki, and they came to train with us. So the to be invited there or to be able to train at that level.
Speaker 3:It was a different environment. But the, by the way, the environment. You came for free, you didn't pay, you trained if you were able to get to train there, and you met the expectations and that was it. So it was a little bit underground, it was brutal, it was no holds barred, literally as far as the training, not the style of fighting, and then it produced champions. Many, not just me, but anybody that came in there was better for the experience of having come through it. So that's a culture that exists. It's a culture that existed at peak performance, right, it's a culture that exists. It's a culture that existed at peak performance, right, it's a culture that existed.
Speaker 3:Well well, I, to be honest, I had run out of invites. So what would happen is I was looking for people. I was looking for people that could help me be my training partner, so I wanted them to train with us there so that I'd have somebody to train with that would understand. When I left there and I brought I tried four or five people, six or seven or eight or ten, and the last one was Kevin, kevin Padilla, because he was the only one that stayed, the rest quit, the rest wouldn't do it. And then he got to a point where he said don't bring anyone else. He said because they're not going to stay. He says they don't understand.
Speaker 3:And so you know, for a guy, for a person of his stature and his power and his understanding of fighting, if he were today to coach the usa taekwondo team, they would win. They would win because of his method. He would shortly, quickly figure out the system. He would look at it, say this is how you win, here are the things you can do to thwart, how they win, here are the things you can do in addition to what they do to win, and here's how you win. And that's what he did with my game and, quite frankly, he took Padilla, who was a good player, potentially a great player, and he took him from a player who wasn't winning and made him a player who won five for five years on the us team, right. So he had the ability and still has that ability to see the potential in somebody and and and make it now for himself.
Speaker 3:Personally, he fought everybody and anybody, any size didn't matter, and that's a skill you know well. That's mark williams too, and mark williams um was 140 pounds, 150 pounds, the dude, the guy you know, for whatever it's worth, you got to understand what he did. This is a guy who didn't train, he just fought, show up at the gym and fight for an hour. He thought training was showing up a couple days before the tournament and training a little bit. He went into the national championships and dismantled every fighter put in front of him, including dung lee dismantled, dismantled, dismantled. But talk, talk to tony tony.
Speaker 3:Talk to tony graff. Yeah, talk to tony graff. Talk to Tony Graff. Yeah, talk to Tony Graff. Talk to Tony Graff. So Tony Graff comes in as a kid with Peter and Bardatos and talk to Tony.
Speaker 3:This is a man who and this is one of the things that people forget about fighting, and this is why I'll give everybody a chance, anybody from any sport. He was a guy who didn't fight the style of taekwondo we did. He fought point taekwondo and point karate. He fought in tournaments where everybody anybody monkey kung fu guys would come in literally doing monkey kung fu. Mafia Holloway came in and was robo breakdancing during his fighting. He fought cats that were like ridiculous and he dismantled every guy because he understood, first of all himself, second of all, fighting in general, and this was the gift that Sifu Vizio had, he has and has he had the ability to understand what it means to fight.
Speaker 3:And right now I'm working on my you know, my next book and I'm talking, I'm thinking about and I'd ask some of my friends to participate. Um, I know you're waiting for your invites, but um, the I'm trying to understand what I want to say about fighting and the strategy of fighting. So I I'm working on it now and what I realized is, philosophically, we all start with an idea of what is fighting. What does it mean to win? And you can break it down into three simple things you do what you do well, you avoid what you don't do well, and then you exploit the weaknesses of what other people don't do well and avoid their strengths. That's fighting in general. Everything else we do from there becomes strategic implementation of those basic complement, a comp of basic uh, confines and constrictions. Now how you do that, you know, coach mirandol, you know I always talk about progressions. I do A. I see what happens when I do A. I do B. When A doesn't work, I do A, b, c when I'm trying to trap somebody. Because fighting is basically do what you do well. If it works, continue doing it. If it doesn't work, figure out how to trap what they do well and then exploit their weaknesses.
Speaker 3:Now, if you watch any sport, you'll see that and I always use the second analogy as a weakness of fighting and sport and anything. And you see it in fighting. All the time when somebody is fighting, they try to win. Then when they start losing and there's 20 seconds left, they start fighting differently and they actually enjoy, in some cases, more success. Now, had they done that earlier, they would have enjoyed the success sooner. And you see it in football all the time Guys are trying to win, they're trying to win. It's not working. Last two minutes they change their whole game and all of a sudden 20 points go on. It's the risk-reward factor, right? And so as we look at this and as I write this, you know I want there's no book, and I think you guys would be hard pressed to find it or video series on that concept of taekwondo, because it's hard to write and it's hard to think about and it's hard to say, but it needs to be said. And, by the way, I can tell you this, once I write it, or once it's said, it'll just be a starting place. It'll evolve, but it will. I guarantee you it'll be more truthful and useful than whatever is going on in north carolina right now at the, at their center, because that's not.
Speaker 3:You need to bring in those athletes and do what's called an individual education program, an IEP. You look at each athlete. You look at their strengths, weaknesses, see what opportunities are, what threats there are to their success, and then you work with them, in addition to the core foundation of what they should know, what do you do to make them better? That's, that's the difference between a great coach and a good coach. Thank you. He kicked three or four times the entire tournament. Maybe five, five, five. I was planning on the other one I was going to get hit a lot. All right, I got that you.
Speaker 4:Pedro.
Speaker 3:Pedro Xavier.
Speaker 4:Oh, second one, third one, no-transcript puff daddy, uh trial, that's going on right now, the p diddy thing only way you know what's going on in the room is you in the room, baby, and apparently she's telling everything happened in the room where's my baby oil?
Speaker 3:um, thank you, um, thank you. Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use that as our jumping off point. I'm gonna remember and remind, remind everybody of a couple of things. Just the last thing is, if you want to be in the room with tj that's how you know what goes on in the room right, he and? And bring your own, bring your own bottle of baby oil. That's all I'm asking. That doesn't. You don't get that with your white belt. And everybody, if you get a chance and you find yourself stuck in North Carolina, make sure to visit TJ's new facility. It's beautiful. And, of course, if you're in Miami, go visit Coach Moreno's facilities. If you're in California, go visit somebody else's. I'm busy, but this has been the Warehouse 15. Now you're in California, go visit somebody else's. I'm busy, but this has been the Warehouse 15. Now, you're always welcome. You know my friends are always welcome to come out and visit.
Speaker 3:I was in most recently in Maryland. Shout out to Chan Yun Lee, who invited me to go to his dojang in Boyd and he's actually in Germantown, maryland, which is outside of Boyd and what a professional facility, and I love success. I went to this guy's school and his school really wasn't physically much bigger than mine Outside. He had four buses that he did picks kids up in. He had a van, he had 60 kids on the mat. I gave this uh pretty decent uh, hopefully seminar and uh and and left them with some stuff and enjoyed some good food on the way out. But it's nice to see our brothers in taekwondo.
Speaker 3:Listen, I'll come to your, I'll come to your gym and teach on a couple of things. One, I don't know where. I don't want to know about that other room. You got to have the secret entry. Number. Two, you know I'll bring my books and you better you, I like to sell my books. You better sell some books. I got my training manual and, uh, that's it. I'll sign some, sign some books and then uh. Three, I don't want to go visit that other place in north carolina and I don't want to spend $50 a day and stay at the Hooker Hotel for $200 a day.
Speaker 3:So otherwise, like I said before, sorry, not sorry, this has been the Warehouse 15. It'll be up and then next week I'm going to challenge each of you to bring a story, since Coach Moreno talked about my mentor, one of my mentors. I want you to dig down story. Since coach moreno talked about my mentor, one of my mentors, I want you to dig down deep, deep into your heart and find a story about a mentor in your life that changed your life and made you who you are today. And with the exception of the p? Diddy story, we'll save that one for later. Warehouse 15 we're out.