Neil Adams: Judo, Olympics, Winning, Losing, and the Champion Mindset

When we go to the dojos there, we all get thrown by people that never come out to be world champions. They're just in the mix or they're going through three years of university and then they go. We had a guy, we had a guy that came in. He was business guy, came in with his suitcase in his tie up like that. And he's in his lunch hour. He's in his lunch hour, right? So it's got to be quick. Yeah.

You are a five-time European champion, world champion two-time Olympic silver medalist. Let's first go to the 1980 Olympics. Where was your mind? What was your preparation like? What was your strategy leading into that Olympics? That was my first Olympic Games. So my preparation was a little bit different to how it was the '84 and the '88 Olympic Games. And I'd kind of done part of the preparation as well for '76 Olympic Games. I wasn't quite old enough for those, but I was first reserve. So in 1980 I'd had four years build up and I was hungry and I was one of these young athletes and I see them so often now that was developing and full of, I won't say I was full of myself, but I was certainly confident of my ability and I wanted to conquer the world. And I'd had a couple of really tight matches with the current Olympic world champion. So I knew that there was a possibility that I could get there for the '80 Olympics.

So can you speak to that? What are the different styles of judo? So for you, you mentioned uchi mata, tai otoshi, these... How would you describe them? They're like these effortless, less lifting off the ground and power and strength and more timing and position, movement, momentum, all this kind of stuff. That's more traditionally associated with Japanese judo because for Japanese judo, the traditional judo, you're supposed to throw people in a big way without much effort. And of course, 1990 we saw the introduction of all these Eastern Bloc countries. There were so many more, I mean it was Soviet Union when I was competing. And then of course in 1990 everything changed. And then there were so many more of them out there, different countries, their wrestling styles were introduced into judo. Put a jacket on them and let's get into judo.

I hate losing more, but I love winning. When I won the world title the year later, and I had no doubt when I went into that day that I was going to be world champion. No doubt. So you won the '81 World Championship.

Yeah, definitely. You were the favorite to win the 1984 Olympics, but you got silver. I watched that match several times. You probably have it playing in your head. So there is a nice change of direction by your opponent, German Frank Wieneke. Yeah.

In the book A Game of Throws, you have a chapter titled Lessons in Losing. What are some of the lessons here? What are some of the deeper lessons you've pulled out of losing? I think great champions are made up of the people that handle it in the right way. And you could say, "Well, I don't like losing." And you could throw your dummy out the pram and you can be a bad loser in front of everybody. And actually people pick up on that very, very quickly. You know what it's like in broadcasting, right?

Any one of them. That's so cool. That's really well done. Really well done interface. Anyway, let me first ask the ridiculous big question. Who do you think is the greatest of all time? Is Teddy Riner in the running? He's the greatest judo winner of all time. Of that, there's no doubt. I think if you asked him whether he was the greatest judo man in the world of all time, he would say, "No, I'm not." And he's not the greatest judo man. There are people with more beautiful judo in some ways, although he's got great technique. But he is the ultimate winner.

That's great. If we can just go to, you've trained in Japan. What are those randoris like? What's that training like? I touched on the danger. That danger of being thrown, when you get hold of somebody or somebody gets hold of you. And I often reflect-

The highest level, which is crazy. So you mentioned jiu-jitsu a little bit. What to you is an interesting difference between jiu-jitsu and judo that you've observed? Because you're one of the greatest ever on the ground in judo. And so jiu-jitsu is primarily focused on similar type of stuff on the ground. So what to you is an interesting difference there? They're a different approach, different timescale to them, and they have a different way in. So [inaudible 01:45:57] ours comes from a standing position directly in, we've got a timescale on it so we have to, like the catch, I always talk about the catch. Because in judo terms, if you don't get the catch immediately, then the referee won't see the transition in. And also the continuation from plan A, B, C, D if something builds. So we have to build it and we have to build it quickly. And I think in jiu-jitsu terms, you have more time to build.

And Kayla Harrison, I don't know anybody that works as hard as her. That's a crazy, crazy, crazy work ethic. Well, let me ask you about training again, Jimmy Pedro said he learned a lot from you. He learned how to do a tight ocean, the arm bar Jujigatame, but he also learned from you training methodology. So what's he talking about? He told me about this. What's your approach to training throughout your career and as it developed? I always wanted to train harder than anybody else. I still train now every day. If I don't train, do something, I do an hour of my physical work, and I still go on the mat a little bit. I'm 65 now. And so I'm not doing really heavy stuff on the mat, but I still like to train. And when I was 21, 20 up to 30, I was one of the best trainers. But Jimmy Pedro was one of the best trainers as well. He's one of your dream athletes. When Jimmy Pedro steps through your door, and he was just a kid. He was just young when he stepped through my door, and I had a lot of full-time trainers, so I had up to 20 really good athletes that were training hard. And I only wanted hard trainers. Give me 10 that train hard rather than your one pre-Madonna that you're skillful, the one that could do it. I wanted 10 or 20 really hard trainers because you can do so much with them. You can make champions, you can make them world champions. If you've got somebody that was a special talent and they wanted to work hard, then you had a special athlete.

What advice would you give to beginners, people starting out in judo, how to develop their game, how to find the beauty in the sport and the art of judo? If you put 10 people in a room and said, "Right, get on with it," you'd have mayhem. And I think that whatever sport you're doing, you need good instruction, good teaching, and a good club atmosphere, somewhere that's not so intense that winning is the only thing. And I think that if you look at 90% of the people that practice martial arts are doing it for pleasure. So they want to get pleasure. So you need a club that's got a bit of a mixture. They've got a direction to go into competition if they want, and then the rest, it's for fun and to enjoy it, but with really good instruction because with really good instruction and a good foundation and a good base, you get more enjoyment because you have more success. Let's be honest, the more success we have with something, the more we like it.