One of the most recent guests on the popular Lex Fridman Podcast was Jimmy Pedro. As the team coach of Team USA Judo national coach Olympic and also a bronze medalist judoka. Perdo had a lot to say about various Judo and Jiu-Jitsu related topics.
One of them was the matter of Vladimir Putin and him being a black belt in Judo!
When asked by Fridman what he thinks about Putin – as a president of a major nation – being a Judo black belt, Jimmy replied:
“So i’m actually really good friends with the Russian federation the guy in charge, Izio Gamba. He’s an Italian, he’s a mastermind behind their success of the 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams
That whole national olympic team in 2012 came to our studio and lived here for a month in Boston. I brought them to my house. They had three Olympic champions. I’ve seen all of them with Putin in Russia at their national training center working out with them and taking falls and doing judo with him so you know it’s hard when you’re older to move in Judo I mean, I was at a high level and I’m you know now 51. It’s hard for me to move like I used to so at his age he’s got to be what 60 between 62 65-ish.
I mean, He moves really well for somebody that’s that age and probably hasn’t done very much judo for the last however many years right so that tells you he at one point he had to be a really good Judo player. He put in a lot of work at some point to develop the technique you can tell when a great judo player even if they haven’t practiced it, even if they’re up there in age like just the way they move right the
way they’re going for seoi nagi…”
Travis Stevens on the same subject also stated on the Fridman podcast:
I think it shows… If he (Vladimir Putin) actually got it – let’s go with that premise. If he earned it… That just shows a level of physical persistence and mental fortitude to be able to, like… Take those beatings, you know, and just keep showing up until you’ve overcome (them). And until you can now give those beatings.
