Martins Licis, the 2019 World’s Strongest Man, recently took his talents to the tatami as part of his Strength Unknown YouTube series, where he faced an unusual challenge – sparring against two Judokas at once.

The episode was filmed at Keiji Judo Academy in Machida, Japan, and featured training with none other than Keiji Suzuki, an Olympic gold medalist and two-time Judo world champion.

Suzuki, famous for his elegant ashi waza despite being a heavyweight, now serves as a coach for Japan’s national team.
Licis, though new to Judo, isn’t a complete newcomer to grappling. He’s been steadily building experience in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, even earning gold in the beginner’s division at the ADCC San Diego Open earlier this year.

Licis has since been promoted to blue belt in BJJ and continues to push his skill development.
One reason for visiting Japan, he explained, was to sharpen a key part of his Jiu-Jitsu game:

So the reason I’m taking on Judo right now, or really want to learn some Judo, is because in Jiu-Jitsu a lot of the moves transfer over.
Especially in the standing game, and I wanna make sure that my standing game in Jiu-Jitsu is as good as it can be because my guard right now sucks.

So I better be able to take an opponent down and maintain top control.
So that’s the plan right now.

After drilling some foundational techniques with Suzuki and his students, Licis stepped into a few rounds of randori.
The early rounds were one-on-one, but due to Licis’ sheer size and strength, his training partners eventually decided to team up and go two-on-one.

Check out the video below to see how he held up: