Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Judo in the time of Covid-19: Shintaro Higashi, USA


Shintaro shows you how to do judo with a t-shirt!

You may know Shintaro Higashi from his popular YouTube channel, which the IJF recently recommended. He's a former top competitor who represented the USA in two world championships and is the head coach at two judo clubs in New York, the state that's been hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. Both his clubs are temporarily closed due to the lock-down.

Q: Can you tell us about your judo club?

A: Actually, we have two judo clubs: Kokushi Budo in the Upper West Side – this was the original one founded by my father in 1963 – and Kano Martial Arts in Chelsea. I took over from my father about five years ago after I got my Masters degree in education. Since then I’ve been running it full-time.

Q: What did you do differently from your father?
A:
When my father ran it, it was more a labor of love – it was commercial but not fully commercial. I felt that if we want to do this right, we have to run it like a proper business. Everybody I knew in judo told me it couldn’t be done; that judo clubs can only be run as a labor of love. I didn’t believe that. I saw how BJJ classes ran things on a commercial basis and felt we could apply some of the best practices to our club, so that’s what I did.

Q: What were those best practices?
A:
Two core things. The first was to make classes safe. You have to understand, in comparison to BJJ, the risk of injury for a beginner in judo is ridiculously high. So, I instituted some guidelines to make judo safer for beginners. For example, we don’t allow tani-otoshi in randori. The second thing was to implement a contract. If I’m going to commit time and effort to teaching you something, I want you to make a similar commitment to staying with the club. What’s the point of spending a whole month teaching the basics to someone only to have them leave at the end of the month? So, we started offering contracts for membership.

Q: Do you teach at both places and how many students do you have?
A:
Yes, I teach a few days at each of the clubs and I have other instructors who help me at both places too. In total we have about 300 students, two-thirds of whom are adults and about a third are children.

Q: How big are the adult classes and what’s the structure like?
A:
Each class would have about 30 to 40 students and last for two hours. One hour is technical and the other hour is randori.

Q: How would you describe your club’s culture?
A:
We emphasize safety and friendliness. I hate to see a situation where a higher-ranking belt is acting patronizingly towards a lower-ranking belt. If I see that, I put a stop to it right away. I also tell my players if they ever see me inadvertently acting that way, to call me out on it.

Q: You were a high-level competitor before you became a coach. Was the transition from competitor to coach a difficult one for you?
A:
Yes, it was quite difficult at first because the mindset of a competitor is different from that of a coach. Sometimes I still catch myself feeling competitive around my students, especially if they start becoming a bit of a challenge for me. But I remind myself that I should be happy if my players are getting good and starting to give me a harder time during randori.

Q: How long has your club been closed due to the lock-down?
A:
We’ve been closed for about two weeks now. Obviously, this lock-down has been hard on everyone. It’s hard on the players, some of whom have lost their jobs. It’s also hard on us because no classes, no income.

Q: Have you asked your students to continue paying during the shut-down?
A:
We haven’t asked anyone to pay but we explain to them that we would be grateful if they could continue to support the club during this time. We understand that there are some who cannot afford to pay right now, so we won’t ask them to. But I’m happy to say many who can afford it, have volunteered to keep paying. They understand that what they are doing is helping to ensure the survival of the club. We all want to have a club to return to when all of this is over.

Q: Do you anticipate losing some members if this crisis continues for a while?
A:
Of course. Some people might drop out because they can no longer afford it. And some might drop out because of lingering fears about the virus. So, yes, we do expect a drop-off in membership.

Q: Have you thought about a worst-case scenario?
A:
I’d say a worst-case scenario is if half of the members leave. We could still survive with half the membership though. A real worst-case scenario is if somebody gets Covid-19 and infects everyone else. That would be the end of the club.

Q: In your video for Judo Fanatics, about judo basics, you explain gripping in terms of ai-yotsu (same-sided stance) and kenka-yotsu (opposite-sided stance). You go into a lot of detail about what to do in different scenarios. Did you have to map everything out before the shoot?
A:
Not really because these are things I teach at my dojo. So, it’s not a new concept or anything like that. I think it’s important when you think of judo techniques to think in terms of context such as uke’s stance and type of grip he’s adopting. It’s something I emphasize a lot.

Q: In your YouTube channel you show a lot of new types of techniques and some cutting-edge competition stuff. Do you watch competition videos incessantly?
A:
Actually, no. I don’t watch a whole lot of videos. I like to watch highlight clips on Instagram but I don’t watch full competition videos.

Q: So, how do you learn about all these new throws?
A:
Sometimes I would see a clip of some cool technique and I would work it out with my students. Other times, we’d have judokas from other countries visit our dojo. They would show us stuff. For example, we had this Korean guy who was able to do the most amazing reverse seoi-nage. He showed us that stuff for like half an hour, just different aspects of the throw.

Q: Which judo player do you find to be the most impressive?
A:
I would have to say World and Olympic Champion Kosei Inoue of Japan, who is now the head coach of the Japanese team.

Q: Do you admire him as a player or as a coach?
A:
I would say both. He was such an incredible player yet he was always so kind and humble. But it’s his behavior as a coach that really inspires me. Did you see the press conference where he announced who had made the Japanese Olympic team? He cried when mentioning those who had to be left out, like Hashimoto and Ebinuma, because only one player could be chosen per category (Ono had been chosen for the -73kg category). It shows you how much he felt for all his players. But I’ve got to tell you another story about Inoue. Once when I was in Japan with the American team for some competition, I was in a sundry shop when another American player began berating the cashier for not accepting American dollars. He was raising a big fuss about it but the poor cashier, who didn’t speak much English, really couldn’t do anything about it. Inoue noticed the commotion, walked over, settled the man’s bill out of his own pocket, and just walked away. That is the kind of man he is.

Q: What does judo mean to you?
A:
To me judo is about learning to improve yourself constantly, for mutual welfare and benefit.

Q: Do you feel withdrawal symptoms from not being able to do judo for two weeks? 
A: Yes, I do. Suddenly, joints don’t hurt anymore and my fingers don’t hurt anymore either!

Q: Any advice for fellow judo coaches who are struggling to keep their club alive?
A:
Transparency and communication are very important during these times. Talk to your landlord and explain that you’re having a tough time paying the rent, see if they can cut you some slack. Explain to your students that you’ll understand if some of them can’t pay but that you hope those who can will continue to support the club during these tough times.

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