Crafting Champions: Redefining Success, Coaching Innovation, and the Role of Legendary Figures in Sports

What if the true measure of success in sports isn't just about winning but about pushing the boundaries of performance and personal growth? Join us in Warehouse 15 as we, Herb Perez, Coach Moreno, and Coach TJ, unmask the realities of our athletic journeys. We recount our candid experiences, from my own self-reflective path of balancing martial arts and competitive distractions to Coach Moreno's fatherly pride in his child's theatrical debut in Seattle's "Footloose." Coach TJ brings humor to the table as he shares tales of a local Taekwondo tournament, navigating the dynamics of gratitude and recognition in sports with a light-hearted touch.

Together, we open the vault on the strategic nuances of crafting athletic careers, emphasizing the new flexibility offered by a two-year competitive cycle. This episode invites you to ponder the real benefits of confronting top-tier teams like Korea early on, ensuring athletes are ready for the grand stage of the Olympic Games. We explore the critical role of high-level international tournaments and the ripple effects of facing elite competitors, not just for glory but for the sheer elevation of one's performance. Social media's growing influence and the admiration for legendary figures like Michael Jordan become focal points in understanding the evolving landscape of sports culture.

A thought-provoking critique takes center stage as we examine the current state of sports administration and coaching, challenging inefficiencies and advocating for a system built on merit and objective criteria. With a mix of frustration and hope, we discuss the necessity of revamping coaching structures, the importance of open communication, and the value of fostering genuine growth within national teams. Personal anecdotes shine a light on the intricacies of coaching succession and the often overlooked impact of legacy planning. Our conversations aim to inspire listeners to engage, reflect, and ultimately, to seek out solutions that drive positive change in the world of sports.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Warehouse 15, where gold medals hang
beside hard troops with a roarof the crowd fades and the real
stories begin.
Join Perez, moreno and Jenningsthree legends who aren't afraid
to push past the finish line ofpolite conversation.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Get ready feelings will get hurt, but the truth,
the truth, will be told Welcometo the Warehouse 15 again, and I
am Herb Perez, or as I like tocall myself, disaster, so
Grandmaster, disaster here,along with my two good friends
and Olympic cohorts, and we'vebeen through a lot in different
stages of our life.
How are you doing, coach Moreno?

Speaker 3 (00:32):
I'm good today, I'm happy today.
I'm actually heading outtomorrow on a quick little trip
out to Seattle to see a playthat one of my children is
starring in, so I'm excitedabout that.
That's pretty cool, and justget ready for the.
It's actually Footloose, ohnice.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
That's a musical, and then we're also joined by the
amazing, the incomparable, thereprehensible and today dressed
like I'm not sure exactly what.
Coach TJ, how are you doing,sir?
Oh hold on.

Speaker 4 (01:04):
How are you?
How are you, how are you?
I got to get shoulder surgery.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
I got to get shoulder surgery.
Don't be showing off man.
How you doing, sir, Tell us.

Speaker 4 (01:12):
I'm good Chilling, Just had a lot.
We actually went to atournament last weekend, a nice
little local tournament.
The warm-up Master, BernardProzy, had a tournament it.
It was a pretty nice event.
I like to see the level that wehad that local tournament.
But it was clean cut, ran well.
So I had a couple of my guysout there competing so always
Taekwondo in some way shape orform and yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
He was a great athlete.
Well, I'm doing okay.
You know, today I'm wearing mynew mala beads because I'm
trying to exactly.
I have a good friend who ishelping me with my journey to
become a better person, which iswhy I started the martial arts
and I got side sidelined by thecompetition aspect of it where I
had to be kind of you know whoI had to be to win and I didn't

(01:53):
have the Jimmy Kim kind ofskills to be both a Buddhist
practitioner and a kick ass kindof guy.
So I went the other route anddecided well, I'll just kind of
beat on people and that's.
I don't know.
I don't know why that was 1992.
I stopped competing, so I don'tknow why it took me this long,

(02:15):
but every day it's been a minute, but I'm getting better, you
know.
And uh, I got a phone call froma good friend of mine.
Somebody was lamenting.
You know, people reach out tome from time to time and they
ask me for help with their uhcertificates because, you know,
I'm I'm fortunate enough to haveachieved a certain level at the
kooky one, and so I can helppeople that get stuck.
And so I helped this individual.
And then I got a phone callfrom somebody telling me that
the same individual wascomplaining about me, because

(02:39):
I'm complaining about the kookyone, but she was not.
She was not shy in asking me toprocess her certificates and I
don't want to mention her name.
She's from Northern California,former student of Jay Warwick.
But that doesn't surprise me,knowing that she's a student of
Jay, because people alwaysforget who helped them and who
got them to where they need tobe.
But I'm glad that I couldprocess her certificates for her

(03:02):
students, one of which was aformer friend of ours, diana G,
and her sister's kid, who was afamous table tennis player and
resident at the Olympic TrainingCenter.
But since hopefully you'relistening and let me help you
with it, you're welcome.
You're welcome.
You don't have to like what Isay and in fact that's the whole

(03:24):
point.
This is the Warehouse 15 andI'm not going to shy away.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Can you?

Speaker 2 (03:28):
hook me up with a tent gun.
I think I can.
The tent, you just have to die.
So if you need help with that,let me know.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
Are you sure I?

Speaker 4 (03:37):
can help you with that.
No, I'm going to stay where Iam.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
I think you better stay where you are till you get
some sleeves on that shirt.
But let's get started.
Today and again, this is thefull contingent of Olympic
medals silver, bronze and gold.
Won't mention who's.
All right, mr Moreno what do?
We got this fucking guy bro.
No, no, I'm starting.
No, no, I've been working on myZen.

(04:03):
All day.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
I've been working on my Zen and I've failed miserably
and you came out with that onething, Dude.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
I made the biggest mistake we made the biggest
mistake of how he was doing.

Speaker 4 (04:12):
You shouldn't ask.
That was the worst questionever.
I'm going to tell you.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, but like most times, young people don't
understand this.
When somebody says to you hi,how you doing?
They don't really want ananswer.
That's like a greeting.
They don't really want ananswer, that's like a greeting.
You don't literally want toanswer, but unfortunately, if
you ask them, they say you openthe door, you open the door all
right, ask me again, ask meagain ask me, ask me how I'm
doing.
Hey, how you doing.
Young, amazing day, nice to seeyou all.

(04:37):
Let's go.
Did I mention?

Speaker 3 (04:39):
that thing, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, no, but
it's true though, you know, youknow it's funny that that movie
I mean real fast that movie,bike Club, remember that guy
talked about like sample sizeservings on the plane and you
small talk with everybody and Ifeel like that's how the world
has gotten, especially I know wekeep talking about our sport
it's that sample size.
How are you doing?
Good luck, all right, great tosee you.

(04:59):
Blah, blah, blah, and I knowit's cordial, I know it's
cordial, I know it's polite, butit's also call it what it is.
It's also fake, it'sunendearing and and people
really don't care, they're like,oh hey, how you doing?
You're doing good luck today,in the back of their mind, like
I hope you break your ankle onthe way to the holding area.
I mean, right, I mean that'swhat they're thinking, that's
what 99 were thinking.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
So keep it, you gotta keep it real.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah, keep it real.
No, I was thinking.
You know, we have two bigtournaments coming up really
close to home.
We have the canadian open nextweek and we have a canadian the
the us opened the week afterthat.
Uh, the canada open up is firstit's in montreal, starting next
weekend, and then we have the,um, uh, the us open in the
famous, ever so popular, ever soglamorous Reno Nevada.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
But with the Canadian Open, can I ask a question
before you get started, do youhave to score 20% less points,
since it's in Canada, just likethe money, all right, so we just
lost all our Canadians.

Speaker 4 (06:00):
I'm going to take up for the wifey here.
Actually, they put on a goodtournament.
It's not bad.
It's always in a nice venue.
This time it's in Montreal.
I think I've been in this venuebefore.
It's usually pretty big, a lotof, I think.
Last year we went Korea, boughtall some guys I think like
their B or C team was there,plus a couple of their big guys.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
that were still qualifying for the Canada Open.
I mean, last year it was inVancouver, this year it's in
Montreal.
They run a clean tournament.
They run a, you know, on-timetournament and actually I was
looking at the numbers.
I mean I'm not perfect but thenumbers are open, which is
historically normally pretty big.
So it's interesting that.
You know I don't know how deepthe divisions are with quality

(06:49):
athletes or anything like that.
I haven't given it that much.
I will be going.
I'm actually this year I'mtaking a bunch of cadets and
juniors.
So it's the first time in yearsthat I've done that and you
know, for my, some of my newyoung kids, I think it's going
to be an awesome first step toget their feet wet.
But I'm excited also about someof the senior athletes that are
going to be competing there aswell, because it kind of kicks

(07:09):
off this new point cycle.
I mean, I know it started lastyear in June, but for the most
part this is the first year 2025, of this new generation of two
years, two years with the pointcycles and having these two
tournaments right here in NorthAmerica, I think is interesting,
it's huge.
It's interesting because noteverybody, not a lot of the big

(07:30):
American players are going toboth, which I was a little bit
surprised.
I mean, historically, the USnational team, I mean the group
at their academy.
They haven't been to Canada.

Speaker 4 (07:42):
I'm not sure why, when they can kind of get two
for one you know, build up somepoints pretty quickly and these
points this year around thepeople at the end of 2025 that
have the top 32 points are theones that qualify for the
following Grand Prixs.
Correct, correct, okay, yeah,and there's still 40 per year.
Just all that stuff.

(08:03):
I know you're usually pretty indetail about all that stuff.
It's 40.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yeah, but there's a bunch of other ones that you can
get extra in, like, for theGrand Prix challenge is extra,
of course, the president's cupis extra, I mean it's.
I think there might be even acouple other events that are two
events that could be extra.
It's a little difficult, youknow, with this new cycle, I

(08:27):
think you're going to you'regoing to find some, um, some
different strategies.
Actually, I mean, I just had astrategy planning, uh zoom call,
yesterday with our group andquite honestly, we're we're
picking out bigger, um bigger,more difficult events and
training camps, camps, um justkind of trying to make sure we

(08:47):
have good work in versusquantity of little points and
stuff like that.
So I'm not saying it's going tobe perfect, but that's what we
feel like our guys need.
They need, like, high levelevents, obviously, like the
grand prix challenges, and go tovery difficult training camps,
um enough time away fromcompetitions where they can
actually train hard, instead ofsaying, oh you know what, I got

(09:09):
a competition I gotta hold back,or right after I just finished
a competition, let me just kindof let my guard down.
Like you know, we want to makesure that they're working.
I'm pretty, uh doesn't, doesn'tthat pretty focused.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Doesn't that schedule ?
I don't know if it's the rightdoesn't that right, but that's
what?
it's a pretty arduous schedule.
It's a pretty complex scheduleand you know two things.
One does it fly in the face ofof athletic performance, because
to peak and to be the best youcan, you need a certain amount
of run-up time, build-up time,otherwise you get mediocre
performances over the period ofthe year.

(09:41):
And the second question I knowin the past I've seen this
you've had less than the mostqualified athlete qualify
because they were smart aboutthe strategic component of
gathering points and at whichevent they could go to where
they have a better chance ofgetting points, even if it
wasn't as prestigious of anevent, and at which event they

(10:02):
could go where the top playersweren't worse.
And and that is going to leadus into a question I hope we get
to today, which is what's thepurpose of the Olympic Games and
what should the purpose of thelead-up to that event be?
To yield the best athlete or toyield the best smartest
strategic coach?
Who's going to get his athletesthere by gaming the point
system right?

Speaker 3 (10:23):
So athletes there by gaming the point system right.
So I mean real fast on that,like I, you know it's, and tj
you, you know this becauseyou've been in that point chase
before.
You know, with page mcphersonand stuff like that.
Sometimes it is just aboutgetting the points.
It's not about going to thebest tournaments and really
challenging yourself, it's justmaking sure you maximize your

(10:45):
points.
And you know I've planned thatout for people, um.
But, like I said, I think thisnew cycle of two years and two
years gives you a little bitmore leeway, you know, to, um,
to go get some, some experienceand to invest in some young
people or to just take off quitehonestly, like, for example,
some of our athletes are.

(11:06):
They're definitely on theirlast cycle, so I'm not going to
uh, uh come say hi, who is thatbeautiful young lady?

Speaker 2 (11:13):
how are you, my girl, I like that shirt where's the
world taekwondo.
Where is that?
Where is the?

Speaker 3 (11:19):
world taekwondo academy nice that's minnesota.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
He's luckier than me he got to meet her in person on
the internet.
And do you know that your dadis the most successful, smartest
, brightest, most handsometaekwondo player in the history
of mankind?
And hopefully he is guardingyour eyes from the screen to my
right over here with the guywith no shirt on?
It looks like a like he'sselling car washes in miami, so

(11:49):
oh nice ask ask, ask her whather first words were.

Speaker 4 (11:56):
Ask her what her first words were tell her tell
her story.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
She was like no, definitely not her Perez?

Speaker 4 (12:03):
definitely not.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
She loves me the funny thing is when she first,
at the beginning, she wouldalways cry.
Cry with Uncle Oye, hergodfather, cry with TJ.
We have the video andeverything.
She's sitting with us and shelooks at me and she's like no,
she was saying PJ peanut butterand jelly, peanut butter and
jelly.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Got you peanut butter and jelly it's so nice to see
you go train.
Good to see you, sweetheart.
All right, she has to go.
She has to go train.
Give me my earpiece.
Okay, we can go back to theuncensored version.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
Now go ahead uncensored.
Um, where were we?
Oh, yeah, no, no, what I was,what I was saying was like,
honestly, it was some olderathletes like taking off the the
burden of going to so manyevents, so like what you were
talking about, young is to kindof get back to really no pun
intended, peaking or, you know,periodizing to for one event

(13:01):
versus I got this one and thenthis one and this one, this one,
and unfortunately that's theway our, our system works right
now.
But you know, we're trying tosee if we can break that mold a
little bit with some athletesand you know it's going to be.
This is kind of a trial anderror two years, to be honest
with you, because we've neverhad this cycle.
So it's going to be weird.
I don't know what you thinkabout that TJ.
What challenges that that, youknow I think, kind of sets us up

(13:25):
.

Speaker 4 (13:25):
I think you got, I think the way.
I think you can look at it bothways.
I think you can go.
Okay, we're going to go towardsthe development route and see
what comes out in two years andthen pick a strong team for the
next two years, moving forward.
Um, but, like like you said, Ithink the the issue always be
having to go to certain eventsas opposed to being able to pick
the events.
Offsetting with training campsmakes perfect sense, but I think
again that the the mindset usedto be going to tournaments

(13:47):
where you knew the big nameswere going to be, and I think
that's something we all can.
That was always my struggle asfar as being on the the us
national team back then was, Ifeel like we didn't get enough
shots at like these big guysearly, so we'd show up at the
grand prixs and fight them.
As opposed, I think theeuropean circuit and these guys
see each other a little bit moreoften.
So I think that's almost theright approach let's go get in
front of the big guys in thedivision.
So, come the olympic games,come those moments where we have

(14:09):
to qualify, have to win a match.
We don't feel so uncomfortable,we don't feel so thrown off by
those moments.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
So I it's definitely a different, uh, but no, no, I
was gonna say, I mean honestly,exactly what you're saying.
This guy told me I don't know,like you know, you don't go to
Korea to be creative, go toKorea to experience them, to see
what they're doing, so that thenext time you get in front of
them you don't freak out.
And that was in our day.
Okay, they were the big guns.
Now it's China, uzbekistan,iran, whoever it is.

(14:37):
You know, you got to see thoseguys and you got to be in the
same room with them.
So you know, know, for a rockything, like it's just a man,
it's just a woman, they put ontheir pants just like me, they
bleed just like me.
So I know that sounds kind ofcliche, but it's the truth.
I mean, some of these guys,they talk the game and they get
in front of those big countries,of those big names, and they're
just like.
I mean they're frozen, I meanthey're deer in headlights.

(14:57):
So well, that makes thequestion right, because I can
remember and again, this isdinosaur, you can have a stuff
but when we were competing.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
you know, there's always the big guy in the room.
At that point it was Korea forus, and maybe a handful of
others, mexico, maybe Spain,iran for sure.
Was it beneficial for them tofight us, or was it more
beneficial for us to fight them?
And so, as a number one guy,I'm thinking, yeah, the less I

(15:26):
have to see the number two ornumber three.
The only thing I'm doing israising his level.
I might be raising mine,depending how I look at it, but
the matrix for me has alwaysbeen if you're a number one guy
and I said this to my sonrecently because we've been to a
bunch of these ID camps and wemay end up in your backyard
Hopefully we're going out therenext week for a final kind of
visit Once you're seen, you'reknown.

(15:49):
When you're an unknown, youdon't have to worry.
Once you're seen, people knowyou.
So you mean they see everybody.

Speaker 4 (15:59):
now I think social media ruined all that stuff.
They see everyone constantly.
I mean like you kind of.
I think that's the we.
We have, we have the bestdancers posted when they get in.
Oh yeah, no tiktok, I watchtiktok of the us.
They are definitely the mostfashionable of taekwondo.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
They don't win any medals, but man, and where are
they?
In North Carolina, they musthave some TikTok media classes
and they must have some danceand hip hop classes, cause
that's all I see of their media.
What, what is the assassin?
But you know what?

Speaker 3 (16:45):
what happened?
Tj, you bring up a good idea,good thing, but and again, I
don't I don't have everybody inthe world now go ahead.
No, no, like I don't, I don'tfollow every top athlete in the
world, but I feel like the bestof the best aren't necessarily
putting out that much stuff.
Maybe once in a while I'm withtheir competitions or a little

(17:06):
bit, but not so much, not somuch.
Right, there's just a handfulof people doing that, you know.
So I don't know.
I mean again.

Speaker 4 (17:14):
It's that whole freedom of speech slash.
It's do what you want area.
You know what I mean.
I don't know if it's a guidancething.
You know I just never had thatas an issue.
I never really wanted people toknow what I was doing.
I never wanted them to know ifI was having a great day or a
bad day.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
It's a combination of dancing, hip-hop and taekwondo.
Yeah, it's for the cloud.
It's hip-hop and it's shirt off.
It's for the cloud individual.
I don't want to mention theirname, but I mean the name is
pretty prevalent I just thinkthat I mean I'll tell you one

(17:51):
thing.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
I mean I know we're, we're getting off track here,
but like I don't look, you wantto put your trainings, you want
to put your wins, you want to,but when you start putting your
injuries up and your uh man, Iguess maybe it's a younger
generation it's peopleexpressing their how.
When they're in bad moods orbad states, when things are like
, I don't know, I just feel likeyou're, you're, I don't know.

(18:13):
Maybe they feel like they'reletting the world see them as
real people, but at the sametime, I think in this kind of
sport, you, you're also showingyour vulnerabilities.
I don't know, it's not my style, I don't know if that's good or
bad.

Speaker 4 (18:24):
I wouldn't think I was invincible.
I didn't want you to see when Iwas up or down, left or right.
You had to figure it out onceyou got in the ring.
You know, I know that's again.
We talk about dinosaur stuff indifferent situations, but I
think that's a mentality thing.
That thing too.
I mean I would, I would assumethat if I got too far outside
the box so I'd be like, hey,let's not post that, hey, let's
not say that.
Hey, let's not do that.

(18:44):
Of course not and depending onthe situation that before the
events.
But I think social media hasgone crazy and especially in the
self-promotion and wanting tobe, you know, bigger than our
sport.
And I get that and I canunderstand all that.
A lot of other you know sports,get the following and get the
media and a lot of the athletes.
You want to get noticed and youwant to.
You want to be big.
You know how you get noticedand be big.

(19:05):
I think there's a time andplace for everything and then
you can do all the tick tocking.
You and your team don't do anytick tocks because there's
nothing to say I don't want tohear the journey of a loser.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
I don't want to hear the journey of the challenge.
I want to hear the.
I want to hear the journey ofthe champion, champion.
I watch Michael Jordan's videos.
I watch Tom Brady's videos.
I just watch little Steven fromthe E street band and Bruce
Springsteen's documentary.
Those are the ones I watch.
I don't watch the sorry storiesabout the people that didn't
win and, you know, dance towardsfame and stardom.

(19:34):
I don't watch those.
I don't watch the car crashes.
I don't watch the 600 poundstories on TMC and I don't watch
the biggest loser, my wife.
My wife used to watch.
I'm like, I'm no interest inwhy you're fat, to be honest.
So I'll get canceled for that,but I'll be okay, all right.
Anyway, moving on, you can tellwhat kind of mood I'm in today.

Speaker 3 (20:08):
So no, it's good, I like it, tjj.
So what do you think I meananybody specifically?
I mean I don't know if you knowwho's going like to canada or
us open that you, you want towatch, I think spain is going to
uh spain is going to canada.
They got a good decent groupand I think uh uzbekistan is
coming with some, some decentplayers to us open so that would
be kind of cool.

Speaker 4 (20:23):
Yeah, I'm not sure who's on the registration list.
I know I was reading a post onum on facebook earlier.
I know that those numbers oftenchange and you know we have the
people, have the ability toshow up and register for things
and they're not coming.
The final bracket is always amystery until you either see
them there.
And now I just hope the levelis good.
I mean, like you just saidpreviously, I think for canada
and us, open should be,hopefully the level is high so

(20:44):
you get some of that development, you get to see those matches,
you get to feel those matchesthat you you're out there
looking for, as opposed to itbeing a glorified canada
nationals or usa nationals, youknow so I mean I'm not.

Speaker 3 (20:54):
I'm not responsible, obviously, or I don't.
Somehow, though I think we needto in this region of the world,
we, somehow we have to attractsome of these top level athletes
.
You know, I think we're goingto have a pretty decent numbers,
you know, across the board, Imean average, but it would be
nice to have, like last timethey had a Korea was there, I

(21:15):
thought that was really good.
Brazil came, that was reallygood.
But somehow we have to.
We have to really get out thereand make sure we get some of
these other countries.
I mean, I guess there's twoways to look at it, because I
spoke to somebody in canada lastyear and they said they were
disappointed that the all thesetop koreans were there, because
they're taking 20 points fromsome canadians or some americans
.
So I get that.
But at the same time which youknow, you mentioned it earlier

(21:38):
you know about what is theultimate goal.
The ultimate goal should be toget to the Olympics.
The ultimate goal of theOlympics is to win the Olympics.
The ultimate goal is not to wina bronze silver, it's the goal.
That's literally the ultimategoal.
Now, I know that varies bycountry to country, athlete to
athlete.
I mean, some people are justhappy to get there, some people
are lucky to get there, somepeople get put there.

(22:00):
So I know that it gets a littlemuddy, but I think that it
would be nice if these twotournaments over here could get
a a strong mexican team, astrong brazilian team, a strong
us team, a strong canadian team,uh, a good you know german or
or turkish team, and all of asudden you got five, six
national teams plus, yeah, Ithink I think you have to ask me
some questions, so I start theother way.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
But I did.
You got five, six nationalteams plus a bunch of other
individuals.
Now we're talking about a three, but I did notice you started
with a strong Mexican team.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
If we can get all these people in the same room.
The reason I ask this is We'llsee.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
No, but they used to be amazing.
Yeah, but they can be right,they have the capacity and they
should be.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
So it's a warrior, warrior culture.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
It's perhaps one of the best warriors, right?
So here's, here's the questionfor you.
You're struggling, so if youthink about, the ideal and you
think about the purpose of goingto an olympic games is and we,
we reconciled this when we werebuilding the television show.
It wasn't about who won, it wasabout how high you raise the
bar.
When I go to the Olympics, Idon't care who clears the high

(23:08):
jump the highest, I want to seeif they can raise it an inch.
I don't care who runs the milethe fastest, I want to see if
they can shave tenths of asecond off of it.
So for me, if I'm being pure asan Olympian, as a guy who used
to serve on the board and stuff,how high can we raise the
athletic level and test thelimits of human endurance,

(23:30):
strength and conditioning?
And what are we capable of?
Now, if that's a Kazakhstanperson, a Mexican, a Puerto
Rican, an American american,whatever nationality you throw
in there, I almost don't care.
I have some pride in mynationality and my country, but
at the end of the day, I want tosee the best athletic
performance.
So I think that the olympiccommittee, if you were to ask

(23:51):
them, they're like we want toraise the level of the games so
that the individual performanceis is the best it's ever been.
I don't think you want to go toan Olympic Games where they
don't set Olympic records orworld records.
I think you want to see thatnumber continue to be better.
So then, when a country goes,they're under a lot of pressure

(24:13):
economically, because mostcountries have a ministry of
sport that's funded by thegovernment, not ours.
We're sponsored by sponsors, sowe have a different pressure.
We have to make sponsors happy.
Sponsors like gold medals,because gold medals make money,
and, as a country, the missionin the United States is inspire
Americans through ourperformance on the gold medal

(24:36):
platform.
That's it.
That's what the missionstatement is of the Olympic
movement.
Now it used to be, you know,sport for all.
No, we want to inspireAmericans through our
performance, and that means goldmedals.
Now, if you can deliver, wegive you money.
If you can't deliver, we don'tgive you money.
Why USA Taekwondo gets moneyStill a mystery to me.

(25:04):
Now, as a coach, though, yourjob, our job as coaches, as
purveyors of the torch, isperformance.
We want our athletes to havethe best performance, and that
should manifest itself in amedal.
But we have to be performancefirst, results second.
We can't be focused on results,because then we do things like
okay, let's figure out whichtournament should I go to get my
guy to be able to go to theOlympics, like, okay, let's
figure out which tournamentshould I go to get my guy to be
able to go to the Olympics?
So we had a situation a fewyears back with a particular

(25:24):
athlete made it to the OlympicGames.
Surprise to me, they pointgamed it and got to the Olympic
Games, went to the Olympics,didn't win, no surprise.
And then we have a trainingcenter in the middle of nowhere.
Athletes training went to theof nowhere.
Athletes training Went to theOlympic Games.

(25:44):
Something was wrong.
They didn't win any medals.
In a country with the resourcesof our size, the country of our
size, the amount of athletes ofour size, the quality of
athletes, we have no medals.
How's that possible?
So we balance these, thesedifferent needs, and then it
goes back to the fundamentalquestion we can just be happy to

(26:06):
participate.
There are countries that havenever won a medal and if that's
where we're at great, let's justdo that and it is what it is.
But I think it's more than that.
I think it's performance forcoaches, I think for athletes
it's medals, because that's asign of the work you put in, and
then for the movement it's justthe best performance.
And then it begs the questionis taekwondo in its current form

(26:26):
representative of an Olympicsport that continues to evolve
and get better?
And you know how I feel aboutthat.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
I think that's not the case, and I think it is the
case with basketball well, butlet me jump in for a second, I

(26:53):
mean, I mean, you're going backto what you said.
You know kind of, as you know,pushing the bar and making it
beautiful, making the sportbeautiful I mean, I think
obviously that would be great inutopia.
But like you said, thebeginning winning is winning is
the, the ultimate Trump card.
No pun intended, right, I meanit's.
It's when you win, you can talk.

(27:14):
When you win you can, you cananswer questions.
You know what I'm saying.
Like, when you win, you peopleyeah, I got a hat Um, when you
win, you can, you could say alot of things.
So I think that, ultimately, Ithink you got to win.
If you could do it in aaesthetically pleasing style
that you know, I think thatwould be even better.

(27:35):
But the truth of the matter is,you know, people get to the
Olympic games for all differentreasons.
The W?
Wt does not want what you saidaesthetically pleasing, and I'll
tell you why.
They wouldn't have wild cards,right, you wouldn't have
countries that you know havenever, you know, won a medal at
the world championships, yetsomehow get a wild card into the
olympic games.
And you know, you're there and Ilove them.

(27:57):
I love them for trying, butthey look like fish out of water
.
They, they have no idea of whatthey're doing in the ring and
they get demolished by thenumber one person in 30 seconds.
It's almost comical,embarrassing.
So the WT they should, theyshould never have that.
It should only be the top ofthe top.
That's what the Olympicsrepresents, you know it's, it's

(28:19):
the best of the best you know.
And you could say the samething for coaches.
I mean, there's been you knowmany times where people in this
country have lobbied in politicsand did this and did that and
all of a sudden they show up,they get on a coaching staff and
the next year you never seethem again.
Like, what purpose did thatserve?
The betterment of the country,the of the country, the

(28:40):
betterment of that athlete.

Speaker 4 (28:42):
And you could say, for whatever reason they left,
they left to change professions,they left because they were
tired, they were left becausethey're burnt out, but most of
them still have martial artsschools that's more those guys,
that's more for the coachesthough that's more for the
coaches ego though I rememberwhen you know, I know you
mentioned page a little whileago and having to do point
chasing and stuff like that withher as much of a privilege as

(29:04):
that was to be at that stage,playing with that level, the
anxiety and like the buildup toall that stuff and having to be
in those pressure moments wasalso a big deal.
And I don't think these coachesI don't think some look at it
that way.
I think it's an opportunity forthem to go be like look, I'm at
the Olympic Games, I'm here tosupport what you guys just said
about the movement of thisathlete going to win a gold
medal, because if you're lookingat it that way, then even and

(29:26):
again, we don't got to touch onexactly.
But if you're putting people insituations that is not going to
put them in the best position,then as coaches we're doing the
wrong thing.
When I was passed, when youtalked to me about coaching
Paige and we were able to workall that stuff out, that was a
big deal for me because youtrusted what I knew, how much I
knew her, what I was able togive to her in those moments, to
go, help her try to besuccessful.
And like.
I don't think that's the goalanymore, I think it's the.

(29:47):
I'm at the Olympic Games, Ihave a shirt, I got a jacket, I
got on the plane.
Necessarily, who?
But who's supposed to be there?
Who's who should be there?
It's it's who who could benefitthe team the most.

(30:09):
It's just based off of who, whothey want in a moment to go and
be there I saw.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
I mean I just saw they put I mean this
organization just put out acoaching application and I don't
know if that's for.
I didn't really dive into it.
I did look at, like, thecriteria but I don't know what
that's for.
Is it for the worldchampionship?
Is it for the junior team, thecadet team?

Speaker 4 (30:26):
there was a lot of it was.
It was all of the above.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
Yeah, it was para junior history national team,
regional history of peace itselfand unfortunately in our sport
so it'll be interesting.
It'll be interesting to see ifare we doing the right thing for
the athletes and the team.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
If I were going to apply what I would apply for and
I would do the job for abouttwo years I'll keep you updated.

Speaker 4 (30:54):
When I did the job, then I'd get ceremoniously fired
or run out of town on the rails, because I'm going to fix it.
If I were to apply under thesole fact, I'd come in and fire
pretty much everybody.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
And I would be.
It would make my day to fireand replace the current CEO and
then I would come in and fix thesport and we'd have medals at
the next Olympic games and atthe end of the Olympic games
they would put up a noose andhang me because along the way I
would get rid of all the third,fourth, fifth tier people that
shouldn't be in the room.
The politicking of choosingcoaching would go away.

(31:30):
I'd pick meritocracy coaches,coaches that have proven records
and can deliver athletes anddeliver results, and I treat it
like a professional team.
I'd fund them.
The next thing I do is move thetraining center out of Kansas or
Kentucky or Alabama or whateverbackwater country it's in, and
I'd move it back where it shouldbe in a central hub, and I'd

(31:51):
get it funded by a city where,wherever it is oh, you do you,
I'm sorry, god bless you.
So how?
Hence the shirt and the tech,but the?
I would move it out of thereand get it to a place where
people could actually, wherepeople could get to it easily
Get to it easily.
It would be a central hub whereplanes could come and leave
freely and like Chicago, newYork, la, whatever it is.

(32:13):
And then places where theyactually have planes that land
and not have to take puddlehoppers, that's okay.
And then I'd get the athletesto be held to a standard They'd
have to sign a code hoppers.

Speaker 4 (32:21):
It's okay, and then I'd get the athletes to be held
to a standard.
They'd have to sign a code ofconduct.
It was 65 degrees, so they hadto pull them out to let them
know 80 here, boy.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Now, that's the way it used to be, and when it was
like that, you got results.
So right now, go ahead.
Are you hiring me?
Are you hiring me?

Speaker 3 (32:46):
Are you hiring me?
Are you hiring me?
Are you hiring me?
All right, there we go.
So so let me, let me, let me,let me, let me, let me break in
here.
No, for real.
Let me break in on this one,because first, I want to go back
, because we've gone through somany different things.
First of all, of course, I wish, but no, I'm hiring you.

(33:08):
No, listen, we've started outwith identification camps.
We started out with regionaldirectors.
We've had regional camps, we'vehad regional coaches, we have
state coaches, we haveeverything, and then we have
nothing.
And now we're going back to it.
It's so um muddy that youreally don't know what's going
on.
And it's interesting because wealways talk about they always

(33:30):
talk about doing the best forthe athletes and all of a sudden
they're.
Sometimes they use meritocracy,they say you're not ready
because you have I think theysaid this to you tj, but you're
not ready because you have Ithink they said this to you, tj,
you're not ready.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Because I'll let you continue, I'll ask you both a
question.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
Here's the question.
Here's the question.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
I had already coached the Grand Prix.
I think me and Pace called itGrand Prix gold medal in Taiwan
before that.

Speaker 4 (33:58):
In an organization who does chaos.
That organization told myorganization at the time that I
wasn't ready to coach at a lot,that the pan am games level it
after I was already there toqualify staff gets to do what it
wants to do, because thevolunteers don't understand what
to do or how to do it, so staffdoes whatever it wants and it's
a and it's a, it's an oligarchy.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
they create what they want to create and you just sit
by and go what huh?
And before you know it andthat's why they're doing it
You've got second and third tierpeople running your
organization and chaos.
Why?
Because then you don't knowwhat's going on and you can't
fix it.

Speaker 3 (34:28):
Staff.
Yeah so two, two points early onin this whole progress they

(34:57):
came out with state levelcoaches.
I applied, I applied for astate level coach and I didn't
get it.
A couple other people in thestate I'm like, okay, I think
I'm just trying to do what youguys asked me to do.
You know what, go from thebottom, but I wasn't qualified.
I don't know what it was, but Iwasn't invited to do it so fast

(35:20):
forward to right now.
Invited to do it so fastforward to right now.
Speaking to somebody, I was toldthat there were probably about
three coaches and maybe it's notfor sure yet, but just the fact
that that was said.
Maybe a developmental coach tothe world championships.
I'm like, I'm all, I'm all forbuilding coaches, I'm all for
experience, but not at the worldchampionship level, not at a

(35:40):
grand prix level.
There's cadet, there's juniorthere.
Not at the world championshiplevel, not at a Grand Prix level
.
There's cadet, there's junior,there's camps.
You don't take a spot away fromthe 16 national team athletes to
place even a developmentallevel.
You bring a top-level athleteor top-level coach and if that
coach has to hold targets andsit in the stands and scout or

(36:01):
go whatever they got to do, butyou still surround that team
with the best three, four, five,whatever coaches.
I mean, I think at the worldchampionship you can have a head
coach and two trainers that canactually coach, so you could
literally have six coaches perside.
Three and three, they could dothat, and if that serves through

(36:23):
meritocracy, like you said,You've got electricians right,
do it, and I've seen them do itat a cadet level.
Coach Damien Villa had a bunchof kids on his team.
You know what they don't getthe apprentices Screwdriver they
should.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
He's got kids on the team.
They keep building your house.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
They let the guy run the conduit they he's building
your house the masterelectrician.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
They let the guy run the conduit, they let the guy do
this, they don't let the guy dothe circuit breakers.
He's not ready yet.
He's got to be trained andparticipate the world
championships is not where youbuild an apprentice coach.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
What you do in an apprentice coach at the world
championships you bring him tothe training sessions.
He holds targets, he carriesbags, he gets lunch, he goes to
massages, he does whatever hehas to do to support the athlete
and watch how a master does hiscraft.
That's how you become a masterof anything and that comes from
the middle ages.

Speaker 3 (37:07):
Yeah so let me ask you this, let me, what about

(37:35):
this subjective, somethingthat's very subjective?
I say, herb tj, yeah, you got,you got to set, you got.
You have to show me, or youhave to tell me, that you're,
you're, you're investing inyourself, for your, you know,
furthering your education withinthe sport.
And now what does that mean?

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Does it mean coming to my my?
It's not objective.
You got to make it lesssubjective.
You got to make you got to say,if you want to create a
coaching program which we didback in the day you say here are
the levels you have to know.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
And this is what you need to know and as you know
more we'll give you moreopportunities.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
Go ahead.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
The reason I bring that up is because that was part
of the qualifications to be anational team coach.

Speaker 4 (38:17):
You have to commit to furthering your education.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 3 (38:36):
Hold on, I'm real fast.
Did you say?
What did you it?

Speaker 4 (38:38):
they have what you have to do yeah, it's a, it's
what's it called, the the catprogram, coaching something,
acceleration program, somethinglike that.
So they said they'll weigh thatinto the options of whether
they select you.
Now, if you've been to one ofthose things, I don't know.
Like I was telling you, I'vebeen to a paul green super camp,
though we sat in a room for twodays it's about 500 a pop when
I was with w cap and we wentover coaching and all that stuff

(38:59):
like that, and I think that wassupposed to qualify as far as
level three in the united states.
Uh, my badge still says leveltwo.
I'm still waiting for thisupgrade to level three.
That was a two day long thing,so I don't know if they include
that in all that stuff, but it's.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
It's again, like you just said, if you're playing
ball, if you're going to bethere and do this and do that,
Listen, it's not if if I mean,if it's a real course, like not
just shadowing people are comingout and kind of seeing what we
do.
If it's a written course, atechnical course or something
like that, that you can make anargument for that.
But what if my program, what ifyour program, what if someone's

(39:33):
program is flourishing andyou're putting people on the
national team?
Matter of fact, you might beatpeople head to head, so, but I
still have to go.
I mean, I understand there's aminimum, there's safe sport,
there's level one, there's leveltwo.
But when they start throwingthose other things in there,
like I don't know what if youcan't make it out there, what if
you can't afford to go outthere?
What if you haven't beeninvited to go out there?

(39:54):
I don't know, all of a suddenthat's, that's, that's a
prerequisite, and I don't knowif that it is or this is going
to be in consideration, but Ijust think it's.
They throw stuff in there likethat to muddy it up.
And you're right, herb, that'sa good word chaos.
And I'm not.
I don't know if it's purposefulor not, but it seems like it's
built to.
You know, and I'm, listen, I'llsay it.

(40:20):
You know, tj, I'm a champion ofyou.
I know you've done a lot in thissport and you continue to do a
lot of the sport and for you tonot be part of that staff.
If it's because of me, it'sbecause of peak, and I know
you've.
You've heard this thing before.
Don't be with one, don't bewith peak, cut it up it.
Just to think that someone ofyour caliber that coaches two
people on the national teamprobably three people, to be
honest with you like that, theywouldn't even consider you.

(40:43):
And you have such a goodreputation with so many of these
kids, some of these people, Ijust think you'd be a natural
fit for them.
You'd be an asset.
I think they would love you andenjoy you and be good.
So I hope you get in there.
I really, really do.
So you know.
That's my two cents.

Speaker 4 (41:01):
I appreciate you.
Yeah, it's it's.
It's again like you.
You just said it right thereit's it's.
Uh, I've been told that toomany times.
You know we've talked aboutthat personally, about those
things because of this.
Who I stand next to, who I'mfriends with, who supported me
through my whole Olympic journeythat's what people don't.
You got to stop and rememberlike there's something bigger
than this Taekwondo shit, likefamily is family and people that
have been there from the toughtimes and all the way through,

(41:22):
when I didn't know whatdirection to go as far as the
sport, I didn't know how to talkin front of people, I didn't
know what to expect.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
at the Olympic Games, you were there to help me
through all that stuff as acoach, as an athlete, you as a
mentor.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
All that stuff is way more important to me than any
of this other stuff that goesback and forth.

Speaker 4 (41:39):
So call me.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
If that's the case, I'm going to denounce.
I am no longer a P.
I'm going to keep to the corebecause A great program trains
the next people that will comeinto succession.

Speaker 4 (41:50):
When you don't do that, then you're bound for
failure.
If you look at it I'm lookingat these college coaching
programs for another sport andwhat I always see is there's an
assistant training under themaster.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
That guy's been there for 16 years or so and one of
these guys is coaching my sonand I see he's going to ascend
to the head coach position.
Hopefully they always open thedoor right.
You want to get the best person.
So in what Coach Moreno said,you might leave the door open
for a guy who became a performerAll of a sudden.
He's performing, he's createdsomething new, he's created a

(42:23):
dynamic and you say we've got torecognize this guy and you pull
him into the mix.
So you have to createsuccession and legacy planning
where you get great coaches inthe room and if you do random
coaching then you get randomresults.
And this is what's happeningwith certainly happening with
Taekwondo in this country inthat sense, except for the
private programs, because bynature those coaches are there
forever, they own the program,but in the national program it's

(42:47):
chaos.
And there's a reason why it'schaos, because when you throw
crumbs to the masses you keepthe masses happy.
So every little swish-wash of acoach that would have never
even seen the light of day,based on performance, is hoping
the crumb will drop.
Will they drop a crumb my wayWill I get to be an assistant

(43:08):
and go to the worldchampionships and I can put on
my dojang world.
I, I am an assistant coach.
Well, welcome to the kooky onedream, right, the kooky one.
You know, one day this will allbe yours.
What day, what?
When does that come?
Well, guess what?
In taekwondo they're playingthe same game.
Why?
Because they were trained bythe same people.
The guy running it, they're agood friend of ours.

(43:29):
He's the master of thatpolitical disaster.
He was trained by one of thebest in the business to be a
charlatan.
And so, oh wait, you'll getyour chance, don't worry, we got
a crumb for you.
By the way, it'll be one crumb,you'll get it and then bye.
So the legacy of coaching heredoesn't exist, nor does the
succession planning.
Now, how do you ignore I laughwhen they don't make you a state

(43:51):
coach?
They could have said you know,you're not a state coach because
you're too big for that.
You shouldn't be that.
Or they could say dude, we gotthis amazing talent here in
Florida that could be helping usbuild a tremendous amount of
athletes.
We've got a tremendous amountof athletes.
Let's get this guy in thebuilding.
The building right.
In my situation with the kookyone, I chuckle right um ninth

(44:13):
degree black belt, olympic goldmedalist, pan am gold medalist,
world cup gold medalist, allthis stuff, kooky one, they
choose kim lee park across theboard in the united states, by
the way, not a kim lee park thatyou know.
Talk about nepotism, racism, uh, ethnocentricity.
Welcome to the kooky one.
I didn't say anything.
I go, okay, I it's hard, okay,no problem, you guys aren't

(44:38):
ready to be better and that'sokay too.
And in your situation, I'm notsure.
I'm sure that's what you guyssaid, it well, but isn't it sad
for the athletes?
Isn't it sad for the coachesdevelopment?
I would love to be trained by aMoreno or a TJ If I were a
coach, coming up and learn firstthing I do when I meet a great

(44:58):
coach.
I talked to him.
I went to this program backEast and I looked at the coach
and he said something.
So I went up to him afterwards.
I said that was amazing, whatyou said.
He was talking about the fourpillars of the sport and he was
talking, but he said this thingabout mental training.
That was amazing.
So I talked to him.
I was like man, that is, can I,can you tell me a little bit
more of how you came to thisidea and what do you look for in

(45:19):
an athlete and what you findare the commonalities?
Now, you got to be willing togrow and learn.
Now, if you're not willing togrow and learn, then you're
you'd be willing to die on thevine and listen.
Let's be clear, like I alwayssay performance results Okay.
Did they perform?
No.
Did they have results?

(45:39):
No.
Have they had results inperformance?
No.
So systematic performance andresults.
Like Korea, like Iran, likeKazakhstan, like China, like
whatever you want to say, thereare countries that historically
perform and they base it uponhistorical performance and a
development of coaches andathletes and a pipeline.
There is no pipeline in theUnited States.
There is no coaching pipeline,there's no athletic pipeline and

(46:02):
, if anything, it's become moresilo mentality and more secluded
and exclusionary rather thaninclusive.
The inclusiveness has been ofsecond listen, listen again.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
I know sometimes we get going in circles, but the
truth of the matter is mean,this country is a great country
again, I work in front of thecountry, you guys know that or
brazil, but this country is agreat country with great
athletes and and some greatcoaches, and it's just a shame
that we're we're struggling likewe're struggling and and it's
what's interesting is, on acadet, junior level, we we do

(47:07):
pretty decent, especially on theregion on the North American.
In the Pat-2 level we do great,great and I got to watch some
of these kids a couple weeks agoand I think some of these guys
are going to do pretty good atthe cadet level.
How can we keep them to?

Speaker 2 (47:22):
see why they're seeing you like they are.
We keep talking about thistopic, right?

Speaker 3 (47:26):
And so I think one of the things we should do is it
motivation at our next podcast.
I think we should tackle one ofthese things and I'll leave it
to you guys coaching thing andthink about what kind of just
reading between the lines I I'mnot a guy to throw.
It doesn't seem like I'm not aguy, although it may sound like
it that throws coaches to beable to keep their athletes in
the pipeline long enough.
So if I'm going to tell you andpoint out a problem, so I'm

(47:47):
also going to have a potentialsolution.
Like I said, I always hope I'mwrong, because I think it's
disingenuous of people that allthey do is complain their rock
throw is not building builders.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
So I want to build a building.
So I tasked the two of you andmyself.
I want you to think about theproblem, whether it's relative
to coaching, athlete developmentfacilities, whatever it is
planning for competitive successin the next quad coming into LA
.
Let's address that as a problem.
You guys draft the problem andthen I want us to have potential

(48:19):
solutions.
I want you to think about it.
We'll discuss those solutions.
We'll talk about the problems.
I mean, I enjoy poking.
I can't the weasel.
I won't call them the bearbecause they poking the weasel.
I won't call them the bearbecause they're about weasel
size.
I enjoy poking the weasel ofthe organization but it would be

(48:39):
disingenuous to just continueto poke the weasel and not have
a better solution.
So I have ideas on solutions,but I think that's going to be a
fun conversation.
We can it's easy to point outthe faults with the current
programs and situation andcoaching and yada, yada, yada,
but do you have a solution?
So maybe that's something wecould talk about, Maybe that's

(49:01):
our next thing.
That would be interesting andthen maybe that gives people
something and I encourage theviewers or the listeners to send
us thoughts on that, andeverything, except with the
exception of me.
So I don't.
You know.
You can complain about Juan,you can complain about TJ, but
me don't complain about.
You can, though, but just sendit to Juan and TJ.

(49:23):
My email is Juan, go ahead,let's do that.
No, no, it wouldn't be hard.

(49:44):
No, who do you want to bring?

Speaker 3 (49:49):
Give me somebody.
Hey, somehow some way.
Let's do that Well, I think thatwould be great, tj, anything
else as guests, and we'd have tokind of have a couple lines of
questions and let them talk.
Obviously it's engaging theconversation with them.

(50:09):
Couple lines of questions andlet them talk, obviously it's in
engaging a conversation withthem.
But and it would be kind ofhard having four people, because
there could be some interestingpeople that we could all right
something.
Wow, I I'll hold it because I Ihave a couple like surprise
people, surprise people.
I have a couple internationalpeople too, so it'd be fun, but
yeah, anyway um no, I don't, Idon't think it's either.

Speaker 4 (50:35):
I don't think it's either, you two, I think, I
think you guys are judicious.

Speaker 3 (50:38):
I think it's me in terms of I'm always complaining.

Speaker 4 (50:40):
Before we go on to one, I want to say one last
thing, maybe I do come up likethat, maybe I'm throwing bricks,
but like you said from thebeginning, like nothing I've
said here.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
nothing you guys said is false.
We're just talking, it's purelyfact, that's the problem.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
I'm going to try to buy TJ a shirt with sleeves.
It's always your hating youjust don't like them.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
It's going to be to get him a t-shirt and some
tattoo removals.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
Actually, we're going to need to make that a little
larger target.
All right, coach, to make thata little larger target.

Speaker 4 (51:11):
No All right.

Speaker 3 (51:12):
Coach 15.

Speaker 4 (51:35):
15 extra extra large for the arm part no, that
actually listen real fast.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
I mean tj is going to piggyback off you because
you're right.
Look at what you said.
Tj is correct.
Just because we, because we saystuff, doesn't mean we're
trying to be haters or whatever.
We're just number one, we'resaying our opinion.
If we're wrong, tell us we'rewrong or show us that we're
wrong.
And number two, we're not beinga hater, we're just calling the
facts, we're calling it.
I mean I would love to sit downand talk with anybody and just

(52:03):
go back for back, but I'm goingto go against both of you guys
on this one, because it's onething, it is our job to point
some things out and maybe somenegative things out, but if they
don't bring, if they don't wantour help, why should we throw
up answers?
Why should I build a house forthem?
You know they've never asked,they've never even said.

(52:27):
You know what?
Can we have a coffee?
Can we have an informalconversation?
And again, maybe with me?
I'm too far down the road.
How about you, tj?
How?
There's other coach?
I just they don't want to hearnothing from anybody.
That's the truth.
They got their couple peopleand that's it.
Going back to the worldchampionships that we talked
about this last time.
How is there not a schedule?

(52:48):
How is there not a detailedschedule for the World
Championship team?
And don't tell me we're goingto have a camp, because you
don't tell me the dates, youdon't tell me the length, you
don't tell me anything.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
Do you want me to send an invite to those
individuals?
I can send an invite to come on.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
You know there's a national team in April.
How is there not a detailedschedule?
And if there is, my athletedidn't get it yet.
And if there isn't, why not?
That's your one job.

Speaker 4 (53:14):
One job.
We're all concerned about thepeople winning that are in the
room with them.
Everyone else is irrelevant.
If you're not in the room, theydon't care whether you win or
lose, and I'm just being honestwith you.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
So are we a national team or are we not a national
team?
Are we not developing everybody?
Or are we just saying come withus?
If not, why not reaching out toTJ?
No, like, again.
I'm going to call out CoachBrown and Mr Nelson, because
they talk to my athlete who youcoach, tj, all the time.
You're the chair guy, we talkabout this.

(53:44):
They never once came to me andsaid Juan, what is he doing?
Juan, what can we help?
Juan, would you?
Would you?
No, no, no.
They talked to him at breakfastand said you know, you should
come with us because we're goingto coach you.
Like, what is that?
That's just and that's, that'snot.
That's not hating, that's fact,like you said, tj.
So you don't like it.
You don't like it, but why?

Speaker 2 (54:05):
you're not showing that you don't want to.
You know what?
You don't want to talk to one,because I work with the master
of disaster and my cohorts, tjis the one that coaches them,
directs them, guides them, allthat stuff, and we definitely
have chaos why not no results?

Speaker 3 (54:21):
no results in the words of a great situation to
make a decision without any,exactly what you have.

Speaker 4 (54:26):
Continue to do the same you know that's in and that
way they win, and whoeveryou're not there, they lose.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
So if you expect, change and you continue to do
the same thing then that's moredefinition of insanity.
So I'll leave that with all ofthem and they're always welcome
to come.
I get phone calls from a formerOlympic coach of mine all the
time asking me for something.
What do I get from USATaekwondo?
I got my lifetime membershipand then I get requests to

(54:55):
continue to attend coachingseminars which I wrote and
designed.
But I could point that out tothem.
But I wish them the best and Iwelcome them here to come here.
I would love to have them onand have these conversations and
let them sharpen their swordagainst the metal, the metal of
M-E-D-D-L-E of the podcast, theWarehouse 15.
Because, as you know, we keepit real and some people well,

(55:21):
some people get a little burntby that.
I won't mention which part ofthe culo burning, but that's up
to them.
We're just going to continue tokeep it what it is.
So, keeping it real.