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
The Taekwondo Landscape: Brazil's Dominance and Referee Chaos
Welcome to a fresh episode of Warehouse 15, where we're diving back into the taekwondo world after our adventures in Peru. The episode kicks off with light-hearted banter about travel experiences before tackling the recent President's Cup results that have sent shockwaves through the Pan American region.
Brazil's dominance steals the spotlight as we analyze their unprecedented performance—securing seven out of eight finals positions and claiming six gold medals. This historic achievement prompts us to question the current competitive landscape, especially with the absence of American athletes on the top podium despite their significant presence at the tournament. We explore what this shift might mean for the future of Pan American taekwondo competition and the upcoming World Championships in Wuxi, China.
Electronic scoring controversies remain a persistent challenge in modern taekwondo, and we don't hold back in discussing the frustrations of inconsistent referee decisions and scoring system flaws. From the potential removal of video replay cards to the messy dynamics of pushing and grabbing rules, we examine how these technical aspects impact athletes' performances and coaches' strategies. Our conversation reveals how constantly changing rules create a chaotic environment where skill doesn't always translate to victory.
The podcast takes a thoughtful turn as we reflect on deeper questions of friendship, loyalty, and principles that extend beyond the sport. Drawing from personal experiences and observations, we consider how these values shape our interactions and relationships in both taekwondo and life. The conversation closes with measured thoughts on maintaining respect and dialogue in an increasingly polarized world.
Whether you're a competitive athlete, coach, or taekwondo enthusiast, this episode offers valuable insights into the current state of international competition while challenging you to consider the values that truly matter in sport and beyond. Join us for this thought-provoking discussion that balances technical analysis with philosophical reflection.
Sorry, not sorry. Yes, I know it's been too long and you've been waiting for us, but we have resurfaced. We are back from Machu Picchu and other places south, after. We've had some pisco sours and some sour piscos, some sour finishes and certainly some sour looks. This is home of the warehouse 15 that gives each of us five, five, five and five and, as we say, here's the disclaimer if we offend you, we rear-end you. Sorry, not sorry. What's going on, gentlemen?
Speaker 2:I have to say that was probably your best intro to date. That was good. That was good. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I got my flow going. I'm tapped into the eternal spirit.
Speaker 3:I got my incense burning. It's all that. This guy took off the weekend he studied.
Speaker 2:That was good that was good.
Speaker 1:I'll take it All right. I'll take that as a compliment. Thank you so much. Is that an upside-down P on your?
Speaker 2:He loves me. Yes, yes, it's a brand. Yes, it's just an upside-down. P.
Speaker 1:Oh nice, Is it for peak performance?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, it's just a clothing brand, different clothing brand. Oh nice, okay Cool, all right, what Great intro. No, like you said, just got back from some traveling a lot of planes and a lot of walking and buses and horns and crazy stuff and a lot of good food. But yeah, like you said, just got back from Peru.
Speaker 1:Great food, great food, great people, great people. How are you doing, Coach Moreno?
Speaker 3:I'm good, I told everybody the same thing. I said, man, you know what I mean for a price point and stuff like that, go to peru, man, the food is good, the hotels are great, the people are cool and just chill. I mean it's uh, definitely go. Actually, this weekend I was a little bit north of tampa, in port richie, doing a little small seminar for master rage of lima, um, actually a brazilian guy that's been in the States since 1970. He's a student, young, of Fabio Goulart.
Speaker 3:Nice nice guy. Great school had a good group of people. It's always fun for me to meet new people. You know what I'm saying. I do a lot of my seminars and training camps with my circle, so this was a new group of people Super nice, super polite, just fun.
Speaker 1:It was good, alright, good. Well, we got a lot to catch up on. I know it's been a monumentous and momentous day here. Who wants to start? What do we got?
Speaker 2:You want to start with the. President's Cup.
Speaker 3:Let's start with the. President's Cup.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, for me I think it was the event itself kind of ran like it was supposed to run, I mean obviously like we talk about you know. Yeah, exactly A couple. For me even the check-in process wasn't as long as I thought it was going to be. The facilities was par with every other Pan-American region facilities, pretty much you know the equipment. For me, what do you think?
Speaker 3:about the equipment Coach. First of all, let me say I'm going to tell you what I'm going to say that that organization was awesome. I think it was great. I think the venue was awesome. The holding area is a little bit small, but I mean I'll tell you what I was super impressed with just how they ran everything. And those dudes were professional man. They didn't play around in the stands, they didn't play around in the holding area. You couldn't get away with nothing. I mean, I know you got sent back around a couple times instead of walking across. But you know, is there credit? I have to give them credit for that. The equipment listen, I like KP.
Speaker 2:I'll give anything for that seating. I always like the stadium seating that goes up that high, so you can kind of see everything no matter where you're sitting, you know. So that's always a plus, that's better.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was good. I think the venue was great. The electronics I mean typical KPMP. I thought it was pretty good to the body, the face, I mean. Just like always it seems like something's wrong and you always have to IVR. Some of the IVRs threw me for a loop. I ain't going to lie. I mean, but that's look at this guy, look at this guy. But yeah, I think overall it was pretty good. I thought it was pretty well run. I stayed there an extra day for the junior cadets so I got to see some of that and I thought that ran extremely well as well.
Speaker 3:So pretty good, I feel like that went pretty fast. Very good, very good as far as the results. I mean I have to do a little bragging right now. I mean the Brazil team, the men Actually you know what Young I got to challenge you. I think your greatest team, the greatest US team ever, maybe in Pan Am region, is the 87 team. Yes or no, hands down.
Speaker 1:Yes, six out of eight gold medals. Okay, how many finals? Seven finals, six finals, six finals? Yes, six finals, six finals.
Speaker 3:So you had seven medals out of eight.
Speaker 1:Yes, so seven out of eight. Jay warwick um got a bronze. He wet the bed and and uh didn't feel like showing up that day.
Speaker 3:Paul paul lee, no medals paul lee was brand new.
Speaker 1:Paul paul lee was the newest guy on the team, nicest guy in the world, but had tough way to go. Did he lose to Arlindo?
Speaker 3:Probably, I'm not sure exactly, but anyway. So in this event, brazil has seven out of eight finals six gold medals, a silver and about seven bronze, I don't know, so I'm not going to say nothing.
Speaker 1:There's nothing to say. All you can say is congratulations. We held the title for a lot of years and we're going to have to give it up. Now it's 30, just almost 30 years, and they took it, and I couldn't have it do a nicer job.
Speaker 3:Unprecedented. To be honest with you, tj, we've been around these presidents come for a long time and to see seven Brazilians in the final is crazy. To win six golds is crazy. On the women's side there was five out of eight and they won three. So I mean the overall team was a slam dunk for the Brazil group. But I don't know, tj, we haven't seen something like that in a long time, right, I mean no. Americans, zero Americans I mean.
Speaker 1:So historically, Did they come to the tournament?
Speaker 2:We had a lot of people from the USA there.
Speaker 1:The Americans came.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:The only one that wasn't there of a major status was CJ, but other than that everybody was there.
Speaker 1:So I mean Did they fight or they just came to watch.
Speaker 3:No, they fought, they fought.
Speaker 2:They made some finals, that's what you're saying was that, yeah, we had a few in the finals, but no gold medals throughout the whole competition for the seniors I'm not talking about the kids, obviously for the senior day, I mean. I look at the other side. I think it's still. It's crazy to see that many gold medals. The results, like you just said, were pretty lopsided and heavy on, like the Brazil side, you know. I mean, I know Mexico had a couple gold medals. Canada had a few gold medals as well. Right, mexico, canada, yeah, mexico had one, yeah, and then one female.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean that's crazy to think, I mean's, that's crazy to think. I mean, whether it's this is a pan am region. This is our president's cup. You know, this is our, our bonus points of our region. So all of our big guys usually show up that need the points this is the.
Speaker 1:This is the president's cup. Yep, oh, no, no, we still got the title in pan am games, baby, we still got the title. No, no, we still got the title. We own it, baby. No, no, president's, no, president's Cup no, no, no, no. Sorry, yeah, yeah, it's still a good result, but I mean, come on now, no no, listen, it's not the Pan Am Championships but the Pan Am Games.
Speaker 3:But I mean to be honest with you, to be fair, like this event is probably harder just because of the volume. I mean you got 40, 50 people in the division and it's open. So Mexico could have five, usa could have five, brazil could have five. So it's not like you're oh no, no, I know it's a great tournament.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying for the Pan Am Games. We still own it.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm just going to keep that one and to be honest with you right now. I mean, we're an Olympic weight category, so there's only four.
Speaker 1:you know what I'm saying so.
Speaker 3:We'll never, you know, I mean unless something changes, if we get back to 8 weight categories, I mean you know that 87 team is luck we're going to have to do some trigonometry calculus.
Speaker 2:That was probably the last big one before the world championships, correct? Well, we got left to take that pretty much. Yeah, for a lot of people, probably that's the last one.
Speaker 1:I realized the other day, we still got some time right. This is 2025 and the Olympics aren't until 2028.
Speaker 3:Oh, we got plenty of time Listen.
Speaker 1:Lots of time, a lot going on.
Speaker 3:Listen, you know what the funny thing is? Because there's so many events and there's so many peaks and valleys, actually next year the points reset. So for all the success, great congratulations to whoever blah, blah, blah. Come next year it resets. And 20 late, 2026 and 2027, that's going to be, that's going to be the money, money, events, that's going to be. You know, it's like one of those things you know don't get, don't get hot too early, you know, because late.
Speaker 1:And don't get too comfortable.
Speaker 3:Right, and I think that's what, like some of these Asian countries, some of these European countries I mean TJ right, we're looking at some of these Grand Prixs and we're looking at who's not there. We're like what's going on? Why aren't they there? I think they're just chilling, chilling a little bit, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, chill a little bit.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, I think it's gonna be interesting to see, like, but you said, once the points go back to zero, like right out the gate, like, I still think some of the faces are going to change. Still, you know what I mean. I think we're seeing a lot of, a lot of uh, I still think, middle of the ground, maybe experimental people, but I think all the big dogs are the ones they've been investing in, will be the ones back at the show once we get back around to like 2026.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's scary because I don't know, yeah, we haven't seen iran at all like a year and a half, like we have, oh really nowhere, they haven't come to any opens. No opens, another grand prixs, challenges like.
Speaker 3:I'm shocked, I'm really shocked, interesting very yeah, and and last time they came on really late with their 58s and their 80 guy, I mean, and they came on like strong. So it should be interesting. It should be interesting, I mean, for us. You know, the Brazil national team went there as a national team and of course there was other Brazilians as well. I don't am I wrong TJ? I'm not sure. Did the USA team go there as a national team?
Speaker 2:I don't know. It couldn't have been, because I saw like I think our 54 and our negative 87 guys were being coached by someone that wasn't their home coach but at this event, while we had national team coaches there. So I'm assuming it was an academy thing or whatever as far as who they were coaching, who they weren't coaching.
Speaker 3:So for me, I think this would have been a great opportunity to have kind of like a preview of your national team. Right, you're about to compete at the Worlds. You might want to work with them, you might want to sit with them, you might want to kind of break down what they did good and what they didn't do good, and so to now sit in some of those kids' chairs. Because I did see, I think I saw the 54 you're right, 54 and 87, and I didn't see them being coached by the national team?
Speaker 2:I don't know how that I don't know how that came about or how it comes about, or if it's like a they don't want or these guys don't want to, however it gets there, but not to be able to cultivate that relationship at this point leading, it's just, it's just strange, it's, it's a waste unless they there's some ultimate other plan, but like that's what you'd want to do at those events.
Speaker 2:You know what you have and uh, michael rodriguez 87 has experience, you know yeah, he's, he's been to some of the bigger games and been in front of some people and I think he has been around those guys.
Speaker 3:So I I don't, I just don't understand how you don't invest the time or energy in that situation especially with and again I have to go back my thoughts, especially when you see these national team kids there to compete. You would think that they would want to work with them as they get prepared for the world championships and they weren't coached by them and then you see them coaching some other random people that aren't on the national team. That's where the disconnect kind of like you know kind of a little bit stands out. For me. A little strange, but again, not knowing the situation, I think it's. I think it's a little uh, probably a bad uh it's lame I don't care, it's lame, it's lame, it's lame, you got.
Speaker 2:I don't care, it's lame, you gotta. I think you figure out a way to be in their chair, even have something to do with them building a certain way how does the structure work?
Speaker 1:and I guess what I'm asking is how is the structure of the coaching staff working? In other words, who is the coach, coaching staff answering to in the organization? What's the what's the leadership pipeline like? Who's making those determinations? Who they coach that there isn't?
Speaker 2:I would assume them. I mean, I would assume them or whoever is their, their planning, but like, like I said, I know when. If there's national team members there on a trip, it's just really strange this close that they're not somehow being coached by national team coaches or who's going to meet. Maybe there's this crazy list of people who are going to be at the world championships or something, but like it just doesn't make sense and I don't think that makes any kid or anybody on the national team feel comfortable going into the situation without someone ie their home coach or that's actually paying attention to what's going on, you know I mean it's a silly thing I'm going to say this, but like it's even weird to me, like when in a registration process, you know, like when you're on the draw, like for example, when when we take our group, we're the Brazil national team.
Speaker 3:If you're not, you're just Brazil, right. And when I look at them, they're not US national team, they're academy, us academy or academy, I don't know what academy team, and it just seems like it's a club team, and for me that's a little I don't know.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you're trying to create cohesion, Can you make an argument that it's not a club team? No, I think it is a club team, that's what I'm saying, I'm agreeing, I just don't it has to be, you know. Yeah, I mean, if we're differentiating the two names and it's like USA national team, that means it's just not a national team event.
Speaker 3:I don't even know what it says when championships. Does it say national team or academy team? I wonder? I think it has. I think at that point it has to be just usa. There's no like it's just usa, brazil, mexico, canada. It doesn't say anything else. But I just think of these opens and stuff like that. You know you're, you're representing usa. Taekwondo, not, I don't know, maybe maybe semantics, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think it's a little buying the ticket that's a question.
Speaker 2:But they also coach the other 54 kid. They go, they go other 54 kid too, the one ethan that's not on the national team. They coach them there. I'm not saying it's an issue, but I'm just saying like I just don't understand how it doesn't make sense to be coaching a national team member. You know, leading into the world championships, you know that's a great point.
Speaker 3:So you're not coaching the national team athlete, but you're coaching another national. You know another. You know national level athlete. Good kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I don't care about none of that. It just doesn't make sense to me, that's all.
Speaker 1:When are the world championships and where?
Speaker 3:October in Wuxi Wuxi China.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's in Wuxi.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've never been. Yeah, Actually I get my, it's been a mission to get a visa for me, but I get it on Monday. It's been a mission to get a visa for me, but I'm I get a Monday. So that's cool, that's good.
Speaker 1:But Can you get back in the country?
Speaker 3:I hope so. Actually it's funny Cause I've got to. We have a pre, a pre-staging camp in Brazil, and then we go to Wuxi, and then, right after Wuxi, they had the China's hosting a grand, a grand slam event, and then there's a World Cup team event, which is like a tag team fighting. So they're there another two weeks after the World Championships. So all together.
Speaker 2:The Brazilian team likes that. The team fighting stuff. It's like that, they like it.
Speaker 3:We're just doing it because we keep thinking that it's going to be on the docket somewhere. But yeah, we've done pretty well, pretty well I mean every time we've done really well. We won both pan ams, we went under pan am 22, we won the world cup, I mean so yeah, we're pretty good pretty good, that's the mixed one, right, it's like two guys, one girl well, we fought
Speaker 1:both, that's that, no, that's that late night video you watch. Oh my god, no, no, no what is it?
Speaker 2:what's the what's the makeup of the?
Speaker 1:team. That's a. That's a late night video you watch. Oh my God, no, no, no, what is it? What's the makeup of the team? That's a different. I don't know. It depends what side you're batting for. You keep going. I'm trying to get you out of the hole, so I just got to ask you one more question about the shirt. So you're out late night at Walmart or Target, whatever your store is and you're looking through the kids section and you find this thing.
Speaker 2:So what does it stand for?
Speaker 1:what is it? Is it a, d or a p? What? What is that? California? I want my california outfit for you. It's a. It's. This stands for what's the bottom one.
Speaker 2:What's the bottom? It's an upside down p what obviously doesn't look like a d, does it? It's actually. It is a D Stands for diamonds.
Speaker 1:Oh, diamonds.
Speaker 2:Is it a D? Okay, okay, I'm just checking, I just he always fit, checks me Every, every, every, every podcast that fit check me. It's weird.
Speaker 3:I got it like that. Hey, breaking the subject, I just want to say for the record Cowboys about to win the Superbowl.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know, this is me for Dallas. Oh my God, what a crazy game.
Speaker 3:We won, but like we're so bad.
Speaker 2:Our kicker's a hero.
Speaker 3:Kicker's a hero, kicker's a stud. He kicked a 65-yard field goal to push into overtime. After we're up, man, we're just horrible. We're just trash. 49ers won. Your wife is happy, right.
Speaker 1:She was extremely happy, as we all were. That was after we watched LAFC beat the Earthquakes yesterday, which was horrible.
Speaker 3:Have you guys seen America's Team on Netflix? I?
Speaker 1:haven't started watching it, yet I started watching it the other day. That's the cowboy thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's basically when Jerry Jones bought the cowboys. First of all, those are always well-made, but it's pretty cool there's a lot of San Francisco in there, because obviously they had a big rivalry in the 80s and 90s.
Speaker 1:It was pretty cool. There was a point when the cowboys mattered. Right, they were the guys cutting the cutting edge stuff. You want to hear something funny?
Speaker 3:This dude, Jerry Jones, bought the Cowboys when he was 46 years old eight years ago. That's me buying the Miami Dolphin for 150 million. Think about the contracts that these guys, these kids, get nowadays. He bought the Cowboys, the most expensive franchise in the world right now, and he bought for 150 million.
Speaker 2:It's like nothing. It's nothing what they pay each person. You know what I mean. Yeah, Crazy.
Speaker 3:When they were trying to get Dion and it's funny because they paid him $35 million. They're like $35 million. They're talking like, oh my gosh, it was so much. I'm like $35 million.
Speaker 1:You can't get a third stringer for that. I mean it's crazy. Can't get a San Francisco kicker for that.
Speaker 3:No, no, no no. Hey would you? You guys watched the fight last night.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Canelo and Crawford. Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Crawford.
Speaker 2:He's good. What else do you say? He's amazing, amazing, how old is.
Speaker 3:Canelo. The funny thing is Canelo is younger than Crawford. Everyone thought that Canelo was so old. He's 35 and he's 37. But Canelo's got like 25 more fights. He's like 60 fights and I think Crawford was 65 fights, 66. And Crawford has like 30, I'm sorry, 41, 42, 43, something like that, but it's just. I mean, I think it's a style matchup. I mean Canelo's historically had a problem with quick boxers and if he's able to hit them and knock them out. But Crawford put on the weight. Crawford man did a masterclass. I mean that was impressive.
Speaker 2:I'm going to tell you that right now. To do it at that level against someone at that level you know what I mean. That's been around for as long as Canelo and fought big matches like Canelo. It's crazy to see. It's crazy to see man.
Speaker 3:You know what's cool? You look at the post-fight conference. Canelo is so professional. He didn't take anything away from Crawford. You know, sometimes the guy's like a little bit sour. They're like what surprised you? His speed, his power, he's like everything. I tried to figure it out but he was just he was too good, Everything was too good, he was a better, like literally gave him all the credit. And then when they, the guy was like how does it feel not to be a world champion anymore? Has it sunk in? He's like I'm a champion. What are you talking about? I'm a champion. I was a champion before. I'm a champion now. Sometimes you got to take that loss and you just got to move on Like I did everything, I trained right, I was healthy, I did my best every single round. I didn't quit.
Speaker 2:He was better, but I'm still a champion good for him, man, just like nice, do you want to?
Speaker 3:see it again.
Speaker 2:No, me neither no me neither, zero interest, no, no, it was just too clean. It was just too clean. I thought I thought canelo would get off a little bit sooner though, like when it got to like the fifth and sixth round. You know, I thought he's gonna kind of like put a little bit of pressure on him and kind of start throwing him around a little bit, but not too much.
Speaker 3:He was just too fast. He was just too fast for him and you know, crawford didn't hurt Canelo at all. He doesn't hit hard enough to hurt him, but he just he was too fast and Canelo never caught him with a big shot to put Crawford in trouble and boxing once. Like they always say, speed kills, speed kills man once.
Speaker 1:Like they always say speed kills, speed kills man. He was just way, so where? Where are?
Speaker 2:they, where are they in their careers, their respective? Careers both and, yeah, both on the end maybe like yeah, so that's what made it such a good fight, because they both had such big, big records and big histories in boxing. To make this fight kind of late him being you know undefeated and canelo losing to only you know a few people it's, it's a big fight to kind of close out everything.
Speaker 3:But you, you know, I give Canelo credit for it. He fought. He fought Mayweather when he wasn't supposed to. He was like 21, 22. And he fought him. He fought Bival, who's way bigger. He fights Crawford. Gives Crawford like, think about it. Canelo has nothing to gain by this match. If he wins, he beat a smaller guy. You know what I'm saying. If he loses, he lost to a smaller guy. And you know he fights all the big people, he doesn't. He fought, you know, triple G three times. He fought Kovalev, a light heavyweight. He fought all the big dudes and you know he has obviously his fair share of wins and he made $100,000,000 plus for this fight, $100,000,000 plus.
Speaker 2:That's crazy. Did he actually lose then? No, but Crawford was amazing. It was a master class, though, coach, it was damn near perfect, you know.
Speaker 3:It was a master class, for sure.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 3:Hey, did you look at the German? Uh, german open at all a little bit.
Speaker 2:I didn't see. I didn't see too many matches. I saw some of the complaints about the matches and the scoring and a couple headshots that kind of went up twice and shouldn't have came up. Win of all.
Speaker 3:You can't fix it, I just I still don't understand the purpose of taking away the card, though yeah, I was talking to an ir this weekend, a pretty good ir that actually travels around to everything world championships, grand prixs and he was like he, you know. I was asking like can't the headshots be video reviewed by ai? If you think about, like tennis, tennis, you don't ever watch the video of the ball going out. It's like a, it's like a little dot. Right, that's done by AI and it's done right away. Couldn't AI show you if you hit the head and maybe the video replay official looks at if you grabbed or whatever he was like with this system, if there's no video replay, you're going to use less referees. I'm like I don't know. This is going to be interesting if they really take it away.
Speaker 3:Actually, I had a debate with my wife today. I said and you'll appreciate this, young, a little bit because we've accepted the body shots, we've accepted that, okay, these little slashes score and when we see a big body shot, tj, we don't even flinch, we just keep going, keep going, kick again. But for the head, if we get a little scratch, we want to be able to video review it. But if you're just being even across the board, if you can't video review the body, why should you video review the head?
Speaker 2:I think you know. I remember I started with the whole like kicking the front of the face thing and saying that the helmet wouldn't score if it hit the face. That's where it started and it turned quickly from that to any little toe touch, you know, wins the match, but it's I don't know. I don't know what you do. I think I think I agree with you. If you're going to do it, just let it be one way or another. As far as like, no cards for anything, you know so young, you might like this.
Speaker 3:So what did you think? It will revert back to old school, like, think about it. Like, listen, I somebody sent me a fight I won't say the fight and I was watching and I I hit the guy twice in the head in the first round. The score was zero, zero. Hit him once in the round. In second round zero, zero. Third round, two times in the head zero, zero. I lost one to zero because there was a cut kick. So three rounds I hit the head.
Speaker 3:I easily like, not, we're not talking. Like you got a video review to see. Like you just see them. But in that day, in those days, they didn't score it, unless she was like like kaboom. So right now we're conditioned to go oh my gosh, it touched the face, oh my gosh, I saw it go like that. And we're saying, hey, that's good, but what if we start just going the other way? Dude, that didn't hit hard enough, it didn't score. You know what I'm saying? Just like we do with the body, because the body, we see some bombs go off and we don't go like, oh my gosh, we just got to like twist, kick again you know, yeah, I think the question was what happens in the reverse, where it does get hit and it goes off twice.
Speaker 2:It gets hit once and it scores twice and you still can't do anything about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that'd be bad.
Speaker 1:But you guys, you know it goes back to the question which we've had a lot of conversation about. What we have here is a from a movie, a failure to communicate, but what we have here is a problem where we're again, we're acquiescing to the system as opposed to the laudable outcome. So if you start from a place right now, what you're saying is okay, here's the system. So do we adjust our expectations to the system and then accept the system as it is and just make it a video game? And that's like I always used a karate fighter video game analogy. You play that thing with your quarter, keep doing the same move, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it does the move, you doing the same move, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it does the move. You do the same combination, you don't start yelling at the game, you just keep pressing the buttons.
Speaker 1:But isn't the better outcome, potentially the better outcome to try to really think about what you're trying to fix and then, rather than accepting mediocrity you know, or or less than mediocrity that you try to figure out how to make it better Once we start. You know, like I told you that saying in Korean once it starts to rain. People walk when it starts to rain, then they first, then they run till they get wet, then they start walking, they give up, and that's kind of where we find ourselves right, like, if you listen to the conversation, we're, we're all walking. We're like, yeah, wouldn't it be better just to get completely wet? You know what I mean? Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 3:No, I mean again, I've debated with you and I've debated with Steve Young about the system and stuff like that. But when I start to think about this head thing, because you know what's going to happen, tj, they're going to come back and say, oh, the german opening was great and it's just going to be a reason to push through the agenda, and so we're all going to have to adjust to these shots getting hit in the head. Or, like you said, if there's two, they go, one kick and two go up, or someone just literally, because we'll see some blast young, we see some. Like you know, at the olympics we saw a dude slide back, put a chuggie, the guy's head gear off like a bat. The cuban guy zero points. The coach had a review like when you see that you're gonna be like what the heck you know?
Speaker 1:and that's gonna be outcome. Yeah, what do you want, right?
Speaker 3:that's when the referees guys step in and use their card and we're going to have to rely that the referees are good. They also use the gloves this time.
Speaker 3:So it's funny because they test on the body, they test on the head, and then they punch each other. They got a square like right in the middle, right here. I didn't watch a ton of fights, but I didn't see any punches scored. It's kind of dumb. It's right here. So I didn't watch a ton of fights, but I didn't see any punches scored. It's kind of dumb. It's like it's right here. It's like right here. So if I push you right here or right here and I folded you nothing, I mean it was kind of gross too. I think what I read was they used the same gloves, like when I was done. I put them there. I'm like that was that US, I put them there. I'm like.
Speaker 2:That was that US Open in like 2000. I forget what year that was when they first started using the just and they were putting the socks in the bags. Do you remember that?
Speaker 3:That was in 2008 in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 2:I did that US Open once too. It was gross. Disgusting Like yeah, disgusting like ugh yeah, that was like, and those brackets were huge. I think I fought, I fought six times and didn't get a medal come on. I swear to you, I lost my six, the six match. It was quarterfinals in lightweight one year that's over over 60.
Speaker 3:That's over yeah, 64, yeah and talking about that, there was one guy in the turkish uh nationals. In the cadet divisions there was a one draw and 345 kids in one one division. Imagine that 345 people. You want to talk about a pipeline.
Speaker 1:There's your pipeline. That's crazy. That's one of those days where you're fighting and you hope you lose so you can go home.
Speaker 3:You're like dude I'm on match number five and I'm not even in quarterfinals yet. That's crazy, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:They have a huge following. I don't care for whatever you say. That's a lot of people.
Speaker 3:That's crazy. How does it even finish in a day?
Speaker 1:You can't finish in a day unless you're fighting multiple rings. I mean, just think about the draw itself 128.
Speaker 3:That's one division. All the divisions are like that. I don't understand that. We do 50 in President's Cup and we're there until 8 o'clock at night. Granted, we had 8 rings or 10 rings, I think it was 10. 10. I saw 15 rings at the German Open.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's ever too many rings, I like 6. I like 6 rings, rings. I think it's good for a tournament. I know it's not big enough, but just six is like my max when everything's going on and stuff like that. I think six is good. It keeps you out of like the whole like not waiting for your coach thing and all that stuff like that you know yeah, I think six is manageable, but like just again, when it's pure numbers, I mean's just, you don't got that many good referees.
Speaker 3:That's when you said you know what's the number. I'm like that's the problem. You know, 15 is way too many because it's just difficult to get any kind of quality. And let's say there's quality Consistency how about that word? Consistency from each ring, you know, and that's there in problem, and that's the problem.
Speaker 1:So that's why they used to try to keep all the matches in the same ring from one division. This way, at least you're all on the same sheet of music, right? You have the referees. Good or bad, they're all they're doing that.
Speaker 3:It opens right now. It seems like right, I mean very rarely do you.
Speaker 2:You mean changing rings?
Speaker 3:yeah, you stay in your same ring.
Speaker 2:For the most part Like towards quarters. This one jumped around a little bit, I think. I went from like one side to the other.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think just because when rings got out of balance. But I think generally speaking you're always in the same ring. But I know, like I mean that doesn't happen in America, it just kind of runs off. I mean it's good and bad, right, young, because if you have a good ring you have a good ring, but if you have a bad ring, you know. You're kind of like please, man, send me to ring five, let me get out of ring one.
Speaker 1:You know that's why we would always adjust. You know we'd look, and you know that's always one of my favorite stories when I was doing seminars, right after the games. You know, I'm teaching down somewhere and it's a taekwondo guy, and so you were talking about cut kick and talking about so he does a cut kick. And I said what do you do if that kick doesn't score? I said he goes. Well, I had an athlete he raised his hand that went to a tournament and he kept doing skip side kick and they wouldn't score it. It was like in North Carolina somewhere, and so actually it was. And I go. So what do you do? He goes, well, I'll tell him to keep doing it until it scores. And I go all right, you're a terrible coach. What I said if you go to a pizza restaurant and you order chicken, what are you going to get? You're not going to get chicken, you're going to get pizza. So start ordering pizza. I said you're out of tournament, Start doing what they're scoring. You're not going to change.
Speaker 1:The ref's going to be like, oh, I really didn't like that kick, but I like this one. No, you got to. And that's where you have the problem with the refereeing. You know I still go back. I think our biggest challenge today still is the referee core itself, the individuals that referee in general. And you know, whenever you say that people, like when you talk about lawyers are like, oh, but this one's good, yeah, I get it. But you know, yeah, one out of 200 are good. Reality is that the average Taekwondo referee can't score properly and the average taekwondo scoring system can't score property. So how can you expect an athlete to perform properly?
Speaker 2:I think it's kind of. It's kind of cool when you start looking at, I think, um the pan am region, referees in general offer offer a different kind of fight in the pan am region like a comparison to like european referees and obviously the asian refere referees. When you watch some of their nationals and other events, it's such a different play call.
Speaker 1:Watch soccer. Watch soccer Basically. You watch South American soccer, south America's soccer. It's a fist fight. To get a foul in South American soccer and not to have a fist fight during the fight is an anomaly. When you watch European soccer or you watch even American american soccer, it's a different. Watch college soccer, right. The refereeing is just so different and it creates a different environment, which makes the point even more so, right yeah so which is better?
Speaker 2:which one you like better tj oh, that's a good question, I'm gonna say for the pan am region, for what I've noticed in the last few ones I've been to, I think in the beginning we were hypersensitive about a lot of the over hopping and the canceling stuff. Right that was kind of like what the referees looked out for. I feel like they've lightened up on that but it's starting to allow back to a lot of grabbing and pushing and kind of stuff that lingers and kind of makes the fight messy for me. Um, I think, for where we are now in this sport, I I think Europe probably has the best referee core in my, in my, in my head, the way that the game's kind of a little bit played sometimes a little lighter, but I think now they're allowing for it to be just rough enough where everyone can kind of still be there without it becoming like a full blown wrestling match, you know you're talking about the pushing and the shoving and the grabbing.
Speaker 3:I think obviously, like again, I think the Penn Am region has a lot of punches. I think it gives us a little bit of a false sense of success because all of a sudden we go to world-level events and Grand Prix's in Europe and you start punching and they don't push the button. That kind of sets up our game for our inside kicks or our face kicks and stuff like that. So I think that some of the things that are scored and rewarded and not rewarded in the Pan Am region kind of hurt us when we travel abroad. But is it me or doesn't it? Do you feel like their referees? Caliolo, they break you, you know, really fast or for no reason, like, like something happens in there, caliolo, I'm like why did he stop that match the?
Speaker 2:the guy was continuing to attack like did you see this? A lot in presence cut a little bit. I've seen it like a lot recently. I don't know why it's. I mean I've seen some crazy stuff, but a lot of times it looks like I don't know if they're trying to interject before it gets to the next part of the action or whatever. But then sometimes it's the same thing. You watch it go on for three, four seconds too long. You know, like we could have stopped this one, you know. So I don't really know what they're looking for as far as, like, what they stop or what they don't stop. But a lot of times it'll be this weird kind of stop and immediately say go again and everyone in the ring's completely lost on. Why?
Speaker 3:especially for the person that's towards the edge or trying to push the person back to the edge, you know know, yeah, yeah, I mean listen, obviously, just like a good coach or a good athlete, sometimes they feel the fight, they feel the match. I think a good referee feels the match, like, hey, this is the flow of this match. These guys are being a little rough inside, Let them go, and then if it's too much I can stop it, Whereas some other ones break it right away and you're like you're disrupting the flow of the match. I mean you're not helping anybody and quite honestly, you're not supposed to help anybody but you're not letting the match naturally take its course. You're not helping the game, You're not shaping the game.
Speaker 1:So I mean, here's the question. So because the guy, the genius that pushed for pushing no pun intended was Yang Jinban and just a self-centered, megalomaniac short person, Napoleon complex, and so he pushed to have this pushing allowed because he felt, if you're allowed pushing, it would stop grabbing. So what do you think about this whole pushing grabbing dynamic and what the solution is, or, if it needs to be fixed, do you think pushing should be allowed?
Speaker 2:I mean even old school Taekwondo we call it old school Taekwondo before. I mean you push people off you to try to make space to kick, but it was for the purpose of kicking. You've changed directions. You switched your feet on the inside, I think all the pushing and everybody grabbed in too. Directions you switch your feet on the inside, I think all the pushing and everybody grabbed into.
Speaker 2:I just think that it's become so prevalent, in a sense of. We didn't used to get in the ring and like push each other back and forth for three, four seconds at a time. It was like someone tried to make space, someone either responded or they shut it down and then the referee did his job. I think with this five gum john thing it just made the game a lot more messy. Um, it allows the I don't know, do you say it Especially with going out of bounds and the aggressive, the kind of pushing people towards the edge and kind of make it more so about the outside aspect of it as opposed to just the scoring side of the whole thing. You know.
Speaker 3:My, my, my, my. My feeling is, you know, I mean right, when they first said it, people were like, literally like sumo wrestling, pushing, and they kind of figured out okay, this is the wrong concept. So they said it has to be like a quick push and a follow-up. And if you do that it's okay, and if you have a sustained push, it's a calm down for you. For pushing you obviously can't push somebody out of bounds. You can't push them while they're kicking. It's got to be a sharp movement and then a follow-up.
Speaker 3:But I think these athletes that get in the clinch and put their head down and start to shove, I think that should be an automatic come john, I mean because it's. If you just ask me, should you push in a fight, in a tequana fight, I'm gonna say no. But if you're like over there, the guy comes, we're in the clinch and I, I push off and kick right away, yeah, yeah. But this sustained push, head down and just drive you back and try to kick over the shoulder, I think it's just ugly, I think it's stupid, I think it's not skillful, it's just kind of being brute force, weird. And then the guy's like, shoot, you're just shoving me back, I'm going to grab you. Am I grabbing or Are you pushing? You know what are we doing here. What are we doing?
Speaker 2:The crazy part in those situations is the no call, like someone's clearly grabbing and someone's clearly pushing, and like when they just kind of break it in and let it happen again. Then you're just confused. You're just hoping that whenever they decide to make this call, it's just the opposite way, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, well, I guess it goes back to if you're looking at and this is something for you guys to think about, because I'm not training or competing or coaching at this level I'm coaching, obviously, but not coaching the level you guys are coaching currently what should it look like? Are you happy with what the game is now? And if you're not, what? What? What is it that you're unhappy with?
Speaker 3:now you guys, you start first well, listen, I, I, I, I can't say I'm happy with the game. What I just, I really just despise is the, the, the changing of the rules. So often, I think, just when people get a flow of what's going on from a coaching standpoint, from an athlete standpoint, from a referee standpoint, they, they, they adjust something for some crazy reason, I don't know who, who sits in the room and decides it. I think that's a big problem. I think that I watched a match today and, um, when I looked at it, I go. The wrong person won. The person that won was not good at all and I had to rewind a bunch of times to see what was scoring. I just couldn't figure it out. So, from the eye test, I'm like that guy's not that good, he's really good, but he's losing. And it wasn't because he was doing something stupid. It was just like how Like I'm watching American football, I watch soccer you don't see a bad team that kicks the ball out of bounds, that can't pass this Like very rarely do they put the ball in the goal.
Speaker 3:The better team usually win. And when people are kind of closely matched, somebody makes a mistake, somebody capitalizes and you go back. But when you see a clear, a clear mismatch in ability. I mean strategy person, the wrong techniques, and so, for me, until they fix that, we're going to be here. I don't know. I don't know what to say.
Speaker 2:TJ yeah, I'm pretty much on board with that. I think it's definitely the system. I think we're too smart for our own good in certain situations. You know the interpretation, like you said, the rules, interpretation of the rules, like what's good, what's not good. It's just we said we've learned to deal with it, but you'll, you'll see several calls for the same thing called differently by the same person in the same ring, in the same match. You know, and it's it's, that those are always the issues.
Speaker 2:I don't know if we I think we said before we have too many rules and it's weird to me that we're going the opposite way. We're creating more rules and then taking more away from the coaches as far as, like, now I can't even say that hit. You know, now I can't even interject and stop a bad call. So it's, it's interesting, I think it's tough, I think it's tough on the athletes, um, so that's why I'm always impressed with the ones that can kind of win consistently in this this chaos, because it is a little difficult, you know tj, you're in the wt.
Speaker 3:What's up chat? Yes yeah, so you saw that somebody was asking about. Hey, I saw a bunch of monkey kicks inside the clinch of people kicking and then they came back and they said if you, if the points score, they should give the come john, if it doesn't score, they should let it go. I'm like I didn't understand that If they do it, they do it. Whether it scores or not, they should be penalized for it. If that's the rule. If that's the rule.
Speaker 2:It was like that for the kick after Cali. I remember it had to make contact. If you kicked after Cali and it didn't touch, it was okay. Now, when you see people go out, hits nothing, you'll still get it. Um, it does. I think you just make a decision, it's, your leg comes up. But I don't even think that should be. It should be up to the referee to go. Okay, it kind of hit him a little bit, but you got two people fighting and you're seeing matches dictated off of someone being a little aggressive before the referee says start because they halfway move their arm and not all the way, like it's. We have too many rules and it's just like I said, it's backwards, backwards out there it's kind of changing.
Speaker 3:But along the two-way rules, young, you know like I'm winning, tj is losing and you're the referee. You're about to say go and I know TJ is going to come at me and kick right away. So you're about to say go and TJ goes like that, like he kind of flinches, and I kick. I kick because I'm trying to defend myself and the referee didn't say go. Yet I get a come John, and all of a sudden I lose the match because TJ was trying to get me and I'm like I got to protect myself and I pick my leg up but then I kick before the referee said go. It's things like that. They're like don't decide the match like that.
Speaker 2:Have nothing to do with the game.
Speaker 1:Have match like that have nothing to do with the game. Nothing has nothing to do with the game. Well, this is an old this is an old thing that you know. It's been a been pet peeve of mine for a very long time. The korean culture in general has been a culture of punishment and not reward. And when we change the system back in the day, we changed it because we pointed this out to them that they had 295 warnings and deduction points and they spent 95 of the referee seminar and how to teach people to give those warnings and how to look for those warnings, and they spent zero I literally mean zero percent on what a point was and how to how to score a point. And this is part of the problem. So what you're seeing is that's the rationale back in place. You know, yeah, let me punish the guy who did something as opposed to find out what the causation is and reward the guy who didn't do something. But such is life.
Speaker 3:What do you think about? Like I have two things. I got a philosophical question for you guys later, but, like TJ, like it's interesting because you know, going back to the president's cup, you know, I know that at one point, uh, it was told to at least the American population of Taekwondo that the Pan Am region didn't matter. That wasn't the measuring stick. The measuring stick was Europe and Asia. And you know, it doesn't matter if you win over here. And I was thinking to myself. I couldn't help but think to myself like okay if that's the case, but like we're not winning over here. So what does that say? You know, I don't know. And then you got, like you know, coaches going in the back area and talking to referees and talking to officials, and I don't know if it's the lobbying or complaining or whatever, but I'm kind of like it's just interesting, that interesting that yo, interesting enough that they're. They said that the level was so bad, but it's so bad that and you still have to go back and complain.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying I mean, like I said, I know we talked about a little bit earlier, but when I was thinking about it, like it's hard for me to believe that we took that many people there and then come back with a gold medal, finish like I don't know if that it can't be good. You know what I mean. It's not again, I never. It's never about that athletes, but like the overall result of having a lot of our national team members there, a lot of our high profile athletes there, and not being able to to end up at the gold medal spot is a little bit weird. You know, when you have smaller countries and different divisions and you know, granted, some are world divisions, some are olympic divisions, but I I mean, if it doesn't matter, you still got to win it. You know what I mean. It doesn't matter, we still should be finishing ahead of everybody else. That's the only. I guess that's my biggest feel.
Speaker 2:I think Brazil has always historically had a tough national team. It was always USA, mexico, brazil, canada, obviously the bigger countries. But this is, it seems to me a little bit it's lopsided right now from all aspects. It just doesn't make any. It's one and then it's the other.
Speaker 3:I mean having the Pan Ams, the under-20, we talked about that a couple of podcasts ago. That same thing. You know you had Haiti finishing in front of the United States. That's not good. I mean good for the Haitian girl, because she happens to be a peak performance athlete, so that's kind of cool. But hey, how about a little philosophical question for you? Young, you'll probably like this. I don't know how to let me see if I can put this right for the people out there. So me and TJ are friends, me and TJ are good friends and Herb, you're my enemy. We just don't get along. Tj knows it. Tj knows that me and you don't get along, and TJ goes and befriends you, good or bad for me and TJ. That did I explain that right, try it again. Me and TJ are friends, me and TJ are friends and I got beef with you over there. Me and TJ are friends. I got a beef with you and for some reason, I got it.
Speaker 1:I got to draw it.
Speaker 3:Hold on, just give me for some reason, tj all of a sudden becomes friends with you, got it? If we were all three friends together and all of a sudden I have a beef with you, tj could be like yo, man, I mean you and Herb got a problem, but, man, I've been friends with Herb for a long time. I mean I'm not trying to get involved in it, but you're out there, you're nobody. Me and TJ are friends and TJ knows that I got a problem with you for whatever reason. And all of a sudden TJ goes over there and makes friends. Cool or not cool?
Speaker 1:I just have a personal philosophy, that's. You know. I think that men and women I use the word man because you know it's my point of reference but I think that you have a fundamental responsibility in your friendships, depending on the relationships that they are, that you maintain that level of friendship. And that means that if you and I are friends and TJ, you have a problem with TJ and I don't have a friendship with TJ, I still don't have a friendship with TJ. I don't get involved with TJ because I have a value in, not just in, your friendship.
Speaker 1:I'm going to assume that you as an individual and I share the same moral value and same ethical value, and so I don't have a need to have a friendship with the other person because that there's no reason that I would start it. Knowing that, and this is that's just the way I look at it, if the three of us were friends, right, yeah, and TJ went to Walmart and bought a shirt with an upside down P and then, okay, you know, and then I decided not to be his friend, you could still be his friend, right, yeah, yeah, because you guys had a pre-existing friendship and most likely that's okay too. And you'd be like yeah, you know I get it, but that's between you two because you guys have your own issues. But I've been friends with him for a long time. But yeah, I mean that's my feeling on it, tj I mean TJ, watch friends.
Speaker 2:You already admitted to watching friends, um, I'm like I said it's, it's not too hard to figure out. I mean, it just makes sense. It's hard to create that type of relationship with someone, knowing that there's already an issue with someone that you already know, you know to. To even, yeah, to go out of your way to put yourself in the middle of something like that, to me is always strange, because it's definitely a choice you know, yeah, I mean it's funny because I was thinking about it recently and then you know, talked to.
Speaker 3:I was like man, am I being weird? But then I remember actually an MMA guy, khabib, with Daniel Cormier. You know Daniel Cormier was being friendly with Conor McGregor and Khabib got really mad because him and Cormier are like brothers and he's like your enemy is my enemy. You can't go across that line. And again, I know there's different degrees and stuff like that. But anyway, I was just thinking about it because it's even like that politically, you know. I mean you know there's a lot of things that go on and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:And in light of you know, I know maybe it's not proper for us to talk about it, but like, obviously there was a a huge tragedy in america and I don't care what side of the fence you're on left, right, blue, red, I mean when somebody gets assassinated, when somebody gets shot, you know, by a sniper rifle, I mean it's, it's a sad time in the country, it's a sad time for humanity. You know, I mean I dude, I have so many I mean I'm just speaking from personal experience I have so many friends that may not agree with what I agree with politically or economically and stuff like that. But I'm still friends with them and we can agree to disagree. It doesn't mean we got to freaking, hate each other and shoot each other. I don't know what's happened in this life that we're at, man, it's a little scary, it's a little sad, you know it's, it's, it's rough, you know. I'm seeing people on both sides of the fence nowadays just celebrating somebody's uh, you know death it's weird, weird to me, you know.
Speaker 2:You know what's crazy for me I mean, I know we live in a time of like media and a time, you know, social media and news and public information and all that stuff like that. But I remember turning my phone on and just seeing video after video after video after video of that like that, shot over and over again just on public platform. No, no, like a graphics warning, no blocking, and again, I don't think you should block it. But there's kids there's, there's, there's people that those aren't like mature audience. You know Instagrams, it's just out there, and I and I, when I tell you, every time I flicked up it was another angle, another video, another this, another bit.
Speaker 2:That's what was sad for me. Obviously, not that his death is not sad, but like the overall. How, how do we know where we are, how far we've, I say, fallen, how we've normalized bad things and we we allow, like you said, negative talk about someone's death, like that's the core of it. Someone died, someone was shot, you know, and that can never be good or bad. You know me, I'm not a big political person at all Like I just I can't with any of it. But, um, it's just sad and I said that that's where we are in the world, where we just can flick through our phones and see that over and over again.
Speaker 1:You know I think you know, um, for whatever it's worth, the only the only reason I knew of the individual and the rhetoric associated with is it would come across my tiktok feed right. And I'm one of those people. I'm not afraid of information, I listen and I watch and I listen to a variety of viewpoints and stuff, and so I don't think that anyone and I'm not sure I would use the word assassinate, because then assassination makes it a political thing based on well see, can say that either, because it could just be one person and his political views. So if at the end of the day, you come up and you figure out this is an assassination, it means they thought by taking this individual out they would change the political climate based on a politic, and so there's no doubt that this person had an agenda in what they did and why they did it. So it's probably not an inappropriate use of the word assassination, but I think that word becomes pregnant with a lot of other meaning where you assume that the individual that did the act was representing a community or a bunch of people that disagreed with the individual that got shot. Individual that got shot I think it's I get, without getting into all those philosophical conversations and certainly not any of the content of the individual who was speaking and got shot. I think it's a bad time and a bad place when we resort to violence as part of the dialogue.
Speaker 1:And the diatribe as far as but you know, a week earlier, just to put it in perspective. The diatribe as far as, but you know a week earlier, just to put it in perspective. Um, a girl was sitting at a subway, just sitting minding her own business, like, walked into the subway. Yeah, scary, that's just you know. So, like you know, I always joke. You know, if you want to assassinate me or kill me, you got to come to my house and get me on my couch, because that's where I go. I don't go outside, because I go, I go. But like there are people listen in this weird little city that I live, you know, we had a lot of crazy people. So what if these crazy people that didn't like the way I handled the public business? One of them decided they were going to shoot me, which they could have right, because these people were crazy, they lied. They of them decided they were going to shoot me, which they could have right, because these people were crazy, they lied, they were cheaters.
Speaker 1:They were horrible and so I was like you know. I just decided okay, I'm going to exit the public because I did it to help. I didn't do it to hurt people and I definitely didn't want to get hurt as a result of my service. And in a weird way, you know, in Taekwondo back in the day, I had a couple of Korean guys try to take me in a bathroom and rough me up Like they didn't know who I was. They obviously mistook me for one of them and it's a funny story because I went and told John Holloway and Holloway wanted to find them and help them with their pain. I just laughed because I was with I think I might have been with Steve Kaepner. And when the guy kept going, it was a guy from Washington, a little puffy-haired dough boy, and he kept talking to me. So I finally realized he was trying to intimidate me and I said, hmm, sounds like you have a personal problem. Do you have a personal problem with me? You don't have to like my opinion, but I didn't ask you. I'm head of the Athletes Advisory Committee. I don't really care what you think, but if you have a personal problem we can handle it differently. And then all of a sudden he changed his demeanor. But that was even that's taekwondo.
Speaker 1:You can remember back in the day in Chicago. In Chicago there were guys that brought guns to tournaments. There were tables thrown over. They cared so much about whether their students won, lost or went to a tournament. They pulled out guns and that was an American, by the way. The Koreans ran across the gym and kicked each other or took guys out into a parking lot, right. So you know violence of any sort in those kind of discussions. We come from a violent sport, so to some degree you can expect there to be violence in our sport in the sense of just physical confrontation, not guns and stuff. But in this particular situation I don't think anyone, regardless of how, you don't like their message. Don't listen to them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1:You know the justice, supreme Court, justice not this group of clowns, but the one in the past who made the rule on it. He says the solution for bad speech is more speech. So his thing was like that's why we have free speech. If it's bad speech lies, more speech cures that, not censoring the speech. So it's an interesting thing to think about. I listened to some of the rhetoric of the individual who got shot and I didn't agree with the rhetoric and I hate the kind of argument that kind of individual does because it's a very childish sort of argument and so I don't agree with it. So I don't pay attention to it, I discount the content. But on the other side of it, there were some times when the individual said stuff where I was like okay, well, all right, that's true, yeah, all right. So you got to like not even individuals that you may not agree with. They will come up with speech that makes you think about your position. Right, because we get so caught up.
Speaker 1:One of the problems in American politics these days is the silo mentality. You're a Republican, you're a conservative. That's a problem right now. Yeah, and I'm not. I'm not any of that. Yeah, exactly, that's a problem. There are things. I'm a person, I that's the problem. There were things.
Speaker 1:I'm a person, I have things and thoughts about different things and I have different thoughts on that. You would be like, really, and you'd have other ones where you go. Oh, I could see that, like most people that know me, they see me as a freedom fighter. I'm a freedom fighter. I fight for what's right in Taekwondo. I fight for what's right in my city. I fight for what's right in Taekwondo. I fight for what's right in my city. I fight for what. They would be surprised to know some of the other views I hold, which are very dogmatic, because I think it's a more pragmatic way. If you want to watch a political documentary, there are two things actually I'd tell you guys today. You want to watch a political documentary and it's a fiction. Watch the Handmaid's Tale. It's a long, six seasons of it to get through it. But when you watch that it's a commentary on the current political affairs. But if you want to watch something for pure enjoyment and see the future of TJ in a podcast in the future, watch the Charlie Sheen documentary, the 2.1.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, good, I didn't see it. You saw it Did you see it?
Speaker 2:No, I heard it was good, I heard it was really good. Dude, you got to watch it.
Speaker 1:It's fascinating because it talks to. Unfortunately, it's a precursor for one of our current athletes. This athlete should watch this documentary because it's what happens when everybody around you tells you your shit doesn't stink. And it's what happens when you believe it doesn't. And it's what happens to you when you lose yourself in the process and that's going. It's a little too extreme for the athlete. I don't want to mention that for the athlete, but it's not untrue. Look at what happened to Mike Tyson. Look at anybody that goes down that path.
Speaker 1:So in this particular documentary, it's fascinating because Charlie Sheen, who's become the butt of many, many jokes for different reasons, but when you watch it he kind of explains the last part of it. It's extremely shocking. The last five minutes.
Speaker 3:I just listened to a podcast that he was on. He was explaining all that stuff. It's in the documentary but I didn't see it yet, so I'm going to watch it.
Speaker 1:Have you seen the TikToks of Nick Nolte, butter sausages, just after you get off the phone, go to any platform, type in Nick, not Nick Nolte, gary Busey, gary Busey Close, yeah, close, kind of the same to me and butter sausages, and then you'll see a guy who's lost great actor for 10 seconds, lost his mind, all right, I think it's Gary Busey. He's the guy that was in all those. He was in a couple of Steven Seagal movies. He played a really good bad guy and he's an interesting guy. But you know interesting times. Well, we've come up on an hour. We've covered some politics, we've covered the philosophical musings of Coach.
Speaker 3:Buda Moreno.
Speaker 1:We have done the D which is now a P, which I think is a D. Again Diamond available at your local Walmart in the discount bin for $5.95.
Speaker 3:I'm going to as soon as I get off this thing.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go look at like you're going through the store. I just want to understand your fashion. Are we watching his shirt? You're going to the store and I don't. I'm trying to figure out. I am so behind at times I don't know what diamond is, so I'm going to have to now go look up this brand Dude, would you?
Speaker 1:I got to invite you out for a seminar. I keep forgetting. I'll charge you for it. I got to bring you out, I'll go, why wouldn't you? Well, you know, that's the whole part. We're supposed to be in this cycle of seminars where we take care of each other, so that's what we're doing. Well, we got a podcast coming up. Thank you, gentlemen. As always, this has been the Warehouse 15.
Speaker 3:Let me send out some words, Sorry not sorry, sorry, not sorry.
Speaker 1:I go to love and the peace. Gentlemen, we are out. Good work.