Ep514 - Masatoshi Ohno & Jérôme Guth | Turning Fear into Excitement
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Welcome to the Talks at Google podcast, where great minds meet. I'm Kyle, bringing you this week's episode with Japan's surfing team Olympic head coach, Masatoshi Ono, and Japan's fencing team Olympic head coach, Jerome Guth. Talks at Google brings the world's most influential thinkers, creators, makers, and doers all to one place. Every episode is taken from a video that can be seen at youtube.com slash talks at google.com.

Masatoshi Ono and Jerome Guth visit Google to discuss how team sports fosters a sense of belonging, appreciation, and resilience.

Masatoshi Mar Ono is a three-time Japan Pro Surfing Association Grand Champion surfer who has made significant contributions to the Japanese surf industry. He holds the record for the most consecutive wins in a single year, with seven golds in 2013. Mar has also been instrumental in promoting surfing in Japan, leading the national surf team to multiple victories and serving as the captain and coach of the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympics.

His dedication to the sport extends beyond competition as he has created the Fun-The-Mental Surf Festival and currently serves as chairman of the S-League.

Jérôme Guth is a French maître d'armes, specialized in sabre, and is head coach of the Japanese fencing Olympic team. Jérôme leads both the women's and men's programs, which makes him the youngest coach in the world with this kind of responsibility. Under Jérôme's leadership, the Japanese women's sabre team qualified for the first time in history for the Paris 2024 Olympics, later clinching a bronze medal at the Olympic team event. Moderated by Michael Lee, here are Masatoshi Ono and Jérôme Guth, turning fear into excitement.

MICHAEL LEE: Hi, Googlers. Really good to see you today, and thank you for joining the event. My name is Michael Lee. I'm a senior partner manager on the global partnership team. And as part of our talks at Google event, we're extremely happy to welcome two

very special speakers today, Masatoshi Ohno and Jerome Guth to Google. So please give them an enormous welcome and let's welcome them on stage. Thank you. Take a seat. Thanks. Thank you again. I'm just going to give a quick introduction of both our speakers today. So starting with Ma, we made a little intro video of him as well.

Let me just play for everyone while I go through his profile. So Masatoshi Mahono is a three-time JPSA Japan Pro Surfing Association, now known as SV, Grand Champion Surfer, whose most significant contribution to the surf industry has been his participation in the mission to get surfing added to the Olympic Games.

He holds the record for most consecutive wins in a single year with seven goals in 2013, has never been done before in Japan. He's also been instrumental in promoting surfing in Japan, leading the national surfing team to multiple victories and serving as the captain and coach at the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympics. He currently also serves as the chairman of the S-League.

On top of all these incredible achievements, Ma also created the revolutionary surf festival called Fundamental, which we'll talk about later on in the talks, in 2017. I'm so well received that he has grown by popular demand into a much anticipated yearly event. Please give a huge welcome to Ma, which I can say a few words to the audience. Hello, everyone. Thank you for coming. And I hope you understand my broken English and do my best to...

explain how I feel and I'm very excited to be here. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome to Google. And Jerome, it's such an honor to have you with us today. We have an intro video of you as well.

A French... Do my best here? Master of Arms? Master of Arms? Not bad, not bad. Not bad, not bad. Not bad, not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad.

Jerome has the particularity of being in charge of the women's and men's programs. That makes him the youngest in the world with this kind of responsibility at only 39. It's incredible. Jerome is also coaching the current back-to-back individual Women's Sabre World Champions.

As you are now aware of, like Emira Misaki-san, the athlete who was the flag holder for the Olympic team in Paris, has been ranked number one in the world for over six months now. Under Jerome's leadership, the Japanese women's sabre team qualified for the first time in history for the Paris 24 Olympics. They even beat the odds and clinched a historical bronze medal at the Olympic team event. So everybody would get a feel of that medal later on. Please give a big round of applause to Jerome.

hello everyone it's a it's an honor and a pleasure to be here thank you very much for coming so many of you and uh i'm looking forward to talking about all these experiences with you and showing you the metal and the saber here that i brought so let's let's have fun and let's have this discussion going thank you very much for coming

Thank you. So we look forward to hearing some great stories from our captains today. Also, we want to just make this as interactive as possible. So if you have any questions, feel free to enter it into Dory. And we also take questions on the floor later on.

We'll do that after the end of the talks. And with that, we'd like to get right into it. To start off, tell us about your sport. I think surfing fencing is very different. Not all of us do it. We'd love to learn more. What ignited your love for the sport? I'm starting with Jerome. For me, it was very simple. I'm French and the fencing is a French sport. It's very complicated.

I wouldn't say very common, but it's quite easy to find a fencing club around you, like in France. So I just started when I was six and I immediately fell in love with the sport and still today. So it's my job. I consider it more as a passion. It's really that I think about fencing on the time. It's for me, it's everything. And I am...

I am blessed. I am very, very happy that it can be my job and I can do that on a daily basis. So right now I'm the Olympic head coach for the Japanese men's and women's Sabre team. So I specialize in Sabre, this weapon here. And yeah, it's...

It's a huge privilege to be here in Japan. I have a young team and we have crazy infrastructure that was built for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. I arrived right after the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Just doing this sport as my job, it's a passion and it's something that I invite you all to try. It's fantastic.

So it's like a lifestyle, right? It's a lifestyle completely. It's not a sport anymore. Like I said, it's a sport, it's a passion. I think about it all the time. It's very fun for me to watch fencing videos. So yeah, it doesn't feel one second as a job. Beautiful. And Thomas, what's surfing like for you? For me, my parents are both surfers.

I grew up in this small town called Izushimoda. It's basically a mountain, and the ocean, and the river. Since I was zero, I was at the ocean, and I started surfing around five, I think. Since then, I can't remember the first wave I got on the wave, but the excitement is still in my body. I can still feel the excitement.

And to me, surfing is a way of life. Basically, I learn and I meet people through surfing. Everything through surfing, I hardly ever went to school. So I just, ocean was my school. Surfing brought me to overseas.

Yeah, it's basically a way of life. Yeah, as you said, you know, it's a way of life for me too. Like we, I just traveled the world like when I was a competitor or now as a coach and I have so many friends from so many countries. Like I go to amazing places, maybe places you wouldn't go as a tourist. Maybe, you know, like when you travel to some countries just for a competition and you just meet amazing people, discover so many cultures and it's a blessing. It's awesome.

Man, that's what a journey. And on the way of life part, right? Ma, I remember we had this conversation before and you said sometimes surfing is your philosophy. It teaches you, you know, like every wave is different. There's always timing to things. You don't force things in life. Do you want to elaborate on that? Like what do you mean by that? I mean, when I'm on the land, I tend to forget things.

But when I'm back in the ocean and be in the nature, it always teaches me flow with the nature because the swell, the wave created it miles and miles away, thousands and whatever miles away. And we're riding at the last bit of the energy. Mm-hmm.

And if you, you know, when you try to catch a wave, it's called paddling. And there's no waves. If you try to even when there's no wave, you paddle. It's a waste of energy. So if you, it learns, it teaches me to wait. And when the wave, wait and while you're waiting, you get ready when, get ready for when the waves are come so that you're ready to go.

I mean, not just this, but it just teaches me a lot of things. It applies to life. When he told me the story, I was thinking this is actually very applicable to what's happening to us, you know, on a daily basis. You know, when we think about like sometimes we talk about career development and all that, you go through stages, sometimes, you know, the opportunity is not there. You know, there's no opportune moment, but let me say, you know, like there's things you can control, you can prepare, you know, paddling, reading the waves. And so, yeah, I actually learned a lot just through these kind of conversation. And so I really wanted him to

him to kind of share about that in today's talk as well. And on that note, Ray, I think you both started at such a young age, five, six, and you start going to the ocean when you were like zero years old. So that's incredible. Like how has this passion evolved over time? Right. I mean, obviously it's been decades now. How do you maintain this drive and enthusiasm in the highest level of competition?

In my discipline in fencing, I'm lucky enough to see the sport change a lot. The sport changing crazily. If you look at footage from the Olympics, even 2020, 2016, it's totally different. So I am in a constant evolving sport and it's fascinating. It's passionate. It is really passionate. It makes it very passionate for me to

to try to stay on top of the trend, try to understand what makes fencing go around and know how to be excellent and excel at it. And also, actually even further than that,

Yeah, staying on top of the trend is good, but trying to actually make trends, create our own trend, and that's what we're trying to do with Team Japan. Be disruptive, right? Yeah. And then sometimes we train, we have our own Japanese style, and then when you see other countries, or whether it's an athlete or referee or another coach, like, oh, okay, that's nice, that's new, and then trying to do it.

And this is very satisfying. This is, you know, like trying to, the sport is evolving so, so much, so much, so much and staying on top of it. It's actually taking a lot of time and a lot of work and studying. And that's what makes my sport so fascinating. Amazing. So it's not static, right? It's actually evolving all the time. And it's always a learning process for you as well, even at this stage of your career. And Ma, what's your take on that? You know, like how do you keep that drive going?

To me, there's two faces to surfing. I feel there's one side, it's artistic side of surfing and also competition side of surfing. To me, to balance these two is very key for me to striving a competition as an athlete. And it's purely just to get on the wave and just

to express how you feel on the wave is very much... That gets me when I first started surfing. That part... That's the artistic side of it. Of surfing. I mean, there's no rules. You just get on the wave and you just do whatever you like. And you can see the style. When you see the surfer riding on the wave, you can see, you kind of feel...

I don't know how to explain it, but it's just a feeling you get from watching. I guess the fencing is the same, right? There's a different style. And actually what you said before, Marc talked about like the timing and yeah, for us too, like, you know, like we have to do...

I'm training like top level athletes, world level athlete. And it's all about repetition, repetition, repetition, and they are excellent at what they do, but you can be excellent at this and execute it perfectly. But it's all about the moment, like at what moment you're going to do it. It could be part of your strategy, like some, so that does a tactical aspect.

But also, yeah, you have the nicest attack in the world. You have the nicest footwork in the world. But when are you going to do it? At which moment are you going to do it? And yeah, so it's a moment, timing moment. And very, very importantly, it's a feeling. Like, yeah, you cannot explain what you feel when you step on these podiums, on these strips. We call that a fencing strip. And you're right there and you feel it's the right moment. You feel it and then you go for it. So yeah, the moment is key.

I feel like sometimes it's like, you know, the feeding side of things when you really enjoy the sports and the competitive side of things could be like contradictory, right? Because in actual professional sports, you have to, in surfing, you need to win points. But that might not be the best way to do it. But in order to win, you have to do certain things. How do you, what's your feeling of that, right? When you said there's two sides of, you know.

like the more artistic side and the part where there's rules that governs it as in like it's a game, right? For me, the game, the competitive side for me is to explore

how good you can play the game. That part, I really love it and I still explore and I think until I die, I'm still exploring. And the Arctic side of surfing also, there's millions and there's no count. You can't even count. It's just non-countable ways of expressing the feeling. So it's just... And also...

traveling around and finding new waves, exploring and going soft trip with friends. That, this is just balance. For me, it's the balance. Finding that balance. Finding the balance, like a good balance that keeps me

And for us, like very similar to what Marc said before, you have the fencing also could be considered as an art, the art of fencing. And when you're at practice every day, like you're trying to do pretty fencing, you try to do something that looks very good and be very aesthetic. But then when you go to competition, like you're here to win. So whenever you were, whatever you were saying, Michael, before like the,

could lead to overthinking, oh wow, like I need to win, but I need to do something that looks good. Like if you start thinking like that, you're going to fail. So really like relying on the, you need to be well prepared, well trained to be able to do that, but relying on the feeling on the day of the event and when you're here to actually win. Your intuition. Still having intuition, the feeling is key. Definitely key. That's really good learning. That's a lot that I could take away from that.

Also, you both started as like, I mean, Ma, you're still a professional surfer, like individual, what we hear called individual contributors, but now you're coach, captain, which is more like a managerial role. Like, how do you like, what's that mind, like mind shift for you when it comes to like how you see your career?

I mean, yeah, I've been doing, there is not a big gap for me. Like I've been fencing my whole life. Like more has been surfing his own life. He still surfers and I still hold a saber and I wear a jacket every day. Um, yeah, like the, the, the trickiest part for me right now is that I have to do that in Japan and I don't speak Japanese. So, but, uh, yeah, managing that group, uh,

is amazing. Like I have a great group of young fencers and boys and girls, and they're just amazing. We are very close connection and we developed a strong bond and switching from being a fencer to being a coach was natural for me. Like I didn't really overthink it. And it was just like continued motion, like through my fencing career. I coached at a very, very young age immediately. So it was kind of a calling for me.

That's good to learn. When it's organic, right? That transition feels natural. So I want to go a little deeper on that because I think my image of both surfing and fencing is more of an individual sport. And, you know, the Olympics focuses a lot on the team aspect of these sports as well and winning as a team, right? So can you tell us more about your approaches to captaincy? I'm going to start with you, Ma.

I don't really see myself as a coach. I like to call myself a sparring partner. Okay, a sparring partner. Yes, and the always ocean is changing you every morning, every day, every session. I always go with the athlete to surf together and I want to surf better than the athlete so that they get inspired. Competing with them. And there's a mutual respect. So...

Yeah, to me it's a sparring partner and I always want to get better at surfing and as a human, I want to get better as a human being, you know? I think like just now, Jerome, when you talked about intuition, right?

when you go out there in the water, you're not there with them, right? And this time in Tahiti, it was like huge waves. I think one of the key things you talked about is to be able to help them shape that intuition so they can only depend on themselves when they're out there, right? Do you want to talk a little bit more on that? I mean, any kind of sports, even the fencing, all the sports, I mean, coaches cannot be right next to you and telling you what to do. As much as you want to sometimes.

You can shout all you want, but it's just basically when they get on the stage, it's all them. And to sharpen the instincts is very key. And by doing sharpening, by sharpening the instincts is to, I mean, of course, from training and also getting your...

The self-awareness, I feel, is everyday life. You're self-aware, what you feel and what you think and why you say this when you talk to people, why you said this. It's all self-awareness, I feel. Basically, your sense is your awareness and that all ties to intuition, right? Yes.

Nicely done. To go back to your initial question, like about the team sport and the individual sport. Yeah, fencing is an individual sport, but you stand alone on that piece. But in fencing at the Olympics or any competition, you have individual events and you have team events. And the actual team event is the way we qualify for the Olympics. That's the way a nation qualifies to the Olympics. So the...

the team events, whenever I started my contract with Japan, the first thing I told them, like, we are going to emphasis on this. Like, we are going to work as a team, move as a unit. And yes, you have your individual competition, but that grants you access to be part of the team for the team event. And I think...

not seeing that sport as an individual sport helps us a lot. And I actually don't even differentiate the men's and the women's team. Like we all practice together at all times. And I know like I have some colleagues around the world and there's like different schools of that. They like to separate or not. And I'm just like trying to have my whole group, men's and women's group, like moving as a unit. And that makes also, that makes it unique. That makes our style.

Amazing. But how did you foster that camaraderie, that bond? Now we have what we call Kizuna Week. And so like that Kizuna, to have a shared vision, what was the challenge that you've experienced? And at the same time, I think everybody, even though it's a team sport, they have their individual aspiration. Everybody wants to win gold. There's only one gold. So how do you do that within a team setting?

So again, for me, the first challenge when I first came here was the language. Like the language, because I don't speak Japanese, but also knowing the culture. Like we are completely, drastically different culture. Like I'm French, Japanese culture. So trying to...

to learn them, like learn their culture, like how they work, what they think. And they also need to try to understand me. It's not just one way thing. So that was very important.

Also, when I started my mandate with Japan, we were in the middle of COVID. So we spent the first three months just living together. We were a whole group living together and actually we're living together in France. So yeah, because I couldn't come here because the country was locked because of COVID. And even like with the ministry of sport, it was very complicated to get me here at the beginning. So the whole team came to France and to my home city in Strasbourg. And

And so we live there. So the adaptation was easy. And yeah, so, and then this whole camaraderie is, you know, like on a daily basis, like we have to make the practice not being too much of a routine, try to have fun. It's really, that's a challenge.

that's an aspect they didn't really have before, like having a lot of fun trying to do what we love, but having fun doing it. And yeah, it's hard, but we have, you know, whenever it's deserved, we have parties, celebration, and we are trying to break the routine by going to camps, to changing the location. - It's nice. It kind of unwind as well, right? - Absolutely. - It's not all training. - Being every day to the same gym in Tokyo, in Tokyo, in Tokyo, and we love being here and gym's amazing, but it's hard, it's good to break the routine. And so, yeah, we have all that.

And I'm lucky enough to have amazing staff and amazing team. We are big. Everybody among the team is friend. And it's also very important to understand that, yes, we are very friendly with the coaching staff, but we are actually not friends. That's also a thing. Like, yes, we are very friendly, but we are not friends. So...

trying to have all that and being strict but at the same time being... - So find balance. - Trying to find the balance and that's what we do with my staff and I guess so far it's working.

Good, nice. I mean, what about in Paris, right? I think surfing took place in Tahiti this time and it's a very different vibe, very different compared to what Jerome just described, what you've experienced in Tokyo 2020 or 2021. This time in Tahiti, how did you build this bond with the team?

Um, we, we basically doing everything together. We surf together in the morning and eat together and play together. And at the end of the night, we always recap and how you, how your day went and, uh, that starts to build, build the bond. But at the same time, like what Jerome said, it's, it's a, it's a competition basically. And especially in surfing, there's no team gold. So we going into the competition as a team Japan, but then, um,

It's awkward. It's a conflict. Yeah, that's true. They all need each other to get better. That's what they need to understand. In the event, you meet each other in the competition. So you talked in the introduction about Emura Misaki was the flag bearer for Japan. She's two-time world champion, number one in the world, but she needs her teammate. And her teammate wants to get close to her, wants to even beat her. But without them, she cannot do anything. I want to...

dive a little deeper into that. But I also want to talk about the unwinding, the relaxation part. I think Ma, you shared a pretty fun video of how you guys relax in Tahiti. So I just want to share that with the crowd. Maybe you could talk through what you guys are doing here.

He is the world championship surfer, Kanowa Igarashi, one of the most impressive surfers in Japan. Basically, we got coconut. All we got was coconut, so we were just like, "Haha, who?"

That's a big rope.

So, not to Blackberry, huh? All these things fall together, but at the same time, you know, we as a human, we feel envy, we feel jealous, but to acknowledge that it's very important to every single partner, every single party, and even the coaches, to acknowledge that is very first step. Yeah, so like,

Like you said, right? It's Team Japan, but there's only one gold medal. There's no team medal, right? For surfing. I mean, fencing, actually, there's a team medal. It's kind of a weird setup because...

you still only win individual medals for surfing, right? And like you said, every athlete, professional athlete wants to win. Now, how do you kind of balance that out? I mean, it's easy to say, but to create the healthy competitive environment is, for me, is very important. You do better, one better, and I want to do one better. And you, you, and it's that, yeah,

The healthy competitive environment. Healthy working environment. Healthy competitive, healthy working, whether it's at a company, it's a team sport, anything. Working in a healthy situation, healthy environment, it's key. How do you, like, you know, any tips on how you can build that healthy work environment so that, you know, it's like a healthy competition where people can try to push each other further, higher? I think it's done through mutual respect. Of course, we have different...

different level of fencers and in my team you have someone that is better than the other but like there is no looking down on anyone and what I said before trying to have everybody move as a whole unit and trying to make sure everybody understands that it's for the greater good and we are here for Team Japan and we are here to reach that goal and yes in my case there's only four girls standing on that podium but

it's a group of 20 girls and 20 boys working every day together. And, uh, without them, that's not possible. To me, acknowledge that we're all human. And I feel when you do, when you, when you, when you win the heat, when you win the competition, I, of course I feel maybe because I want to get the gold, the same gold. I feel MB. I feel, uh,

jealous, whatever, but it's to acknowledge that is the first step. And then it's okay. Everybody feels that way. Everybody, we're humans and acknowledge that. And then to empower, empowerment comes from that. I feel to acknowledge it. It's okay to feel this way. It's okay to feel any kind of emotion. It's normal. And by doing that, I feel everybody, everybody,

hope hope everybody can bring out the best of themselves exactly yes okay yeah because i remember you telling me like if you don't like everybody has emotions right especially when you're a pro athlete you're very competitive but if you don't acknowledge that and know that it's okay to have that uh feeling it kind of festers inside and then

you hold back and you go to really dark places. So like, how do you like approach them to kind of be able to create that safe environment? We can actually let it out. Yeah. Conversation, conversation, communication, conversation. As you say, professional athlete, they, they,

they work so hard, they work every day and it's not... They need to lose, right? They gotta win. And you know, there's so many lows and such only a few highs of emotion. And during these lows, like during this bad result or a bad time or just all these things like you...

there's some burst of emotion, there's sometimes stuff that are being said that are not meant or just during the heat of the moment. And yeah, just talking about it, letting time to cool down, talking about it after having conversation, whether it's private or in front of the whole group, it's helpful, very helpful. - Ma, you also do like one-on-one,

Whenever there's time and space, yes, we talk and just let it out. Whether the group setting or one-to-one, it's very healthy to talk about it and just let it out and just...

open about it because it's normal it's natural to have that feeling and you I think you also said before that you wanted like to you health like a healthy competitive team environment is when when you lose to somebody you don't take it personally or something leave everything in the ocean that's what we say just it's battle it battle it out just leave it on the stage leave everything on the strip yeah it's not personal it's not personal we're there to

play the game that we dare to win right and just leave everything in the ocean or stay on the stage and when you come out from the ocean it's all yeah

and also whoever wins right kind of my personal experience I feel like they light the path for you they show you where you could go you know like if you just work a little harder it's right in front of you you can get there right and so I actually feel it makes it easier when you lose to somebody who are better than you and you look at it and you go hey you know as a model that's a model you know it's a benchmark I can get there I can exceed that um so that's how I see it I don't know if that's totally right

and it's very important that right now we talk we're using the word the word health a lot speaking about health being healthy but the mental health of an athlete is kind of trendy right now it's not something that has been talked about for he's very for a while it's only recent that people are worrying about the mental health health of an athlete before we just

talking like an athlete was almost a robot that has to be performing, performing, performing and being like a superhuman somewhere, somehow and strong at what they do. But the mental health of an athlete or mental health of any working in any kind of line of work is so

so helpful to get you where you want to be. Without your brain functioning properly, you cannot go where you want to be. So it's very important to maintain that, to check on that and to have professional people that are better qualified than me, like helping my team to be performing like that. I think you started your project Fundamental just because of that, right? Which I think we'll talk about later as well. Exactly on the point that Jerome just mentioned.

To know yourself, I mean to fund the mental is like fun to know the mental. Fundamental and then you know, it's fundamental, right? The way you put it. Yeah, we'll touch on that later. But I want to go in a little bit more on the Olympic experiences. Do you have any stories on how you became part of this incredible journey? I'll start with you, Ma. Like, how did you become an Olympic captain?

Basically, the guy in front, the right in the center, ISA, the president of the agrarian called me and you're interested in...

doing the presentation to the ISA to put the surfing in the Olympic and I was very excited. So I hopped on the team and we did the presentation and surfing became the Olympic. That was pretty much the first time I've ever experienced a team effort. And it was very fun. And I've been surfing and surfing is very individual.

But this experience just got me into the team effort and the excitement that you feel. I mean, all the strong people and all the Lions come together and doing what you're good at. Everyone does your part and the result comes. Actually, you made it so much funner than you getting your own goal. Right.

and you actually got one for tokyo right silver and a bronze right yes after this yes yeah 2020.

Regarding me, it was, so I got appointed as the Japanese head coach after the Tokyo Olympics. So pretty much January 2022, I started. And so I am not an Olympic coach right there. Like we have to qualify. I have to take my team. I am not an Olympic coach. As long as I haven't set a foot on the Olympic stage, I am not an Olympic coach. And it's not...

I don't know any other sports, but like for us in fencing, it's very exclusive. Like it's very hard to qualify. And the Japanese team has never qualified before. So I was 36 back then and it was a huge responsibility to lead that group and men's, women's and like so the senior team, like the professional team, but also the under 20, the under 17. So I'm handling the whole program and it was a good,

I made it big, big responsibility. And then the qualifying period is a year, it's from March 2023 to March 2024. So we only know a few months before the Olympics if we do get to go or not.

And this whole year, from March 2023 to March 2024, was by far the most intense year I've lived. Like roller coasters of emotions. It was good results, bad results, but you got to keep going even if there is a bad result. You got to keep looking forward to the next qualification event and the next one and lots of doubts.

But yeah, having reaching March 2024 and getting the ticket to go to the Olympics,

was a huge relief. And only then you can qualify, you can think about, okay, like now I'm going to Paris. So we have like three, four months to get ready for the big, big event. And then like, then yeah, I became an Olympic coach. My fans became Olympians and even Olympic medalists. And that was, yeah, when you look at the whole event,

pattern, the whole working that the whole work has been done for the past three years, the step and the step that led us there. It's really humbling. It's every little thing counts. And it was long and it was dreadful, but it was all worth it. It's worthwhile. Yeah. I mean, the medal was right there. So everybody would get a feel of it later on. So...

We can pass it around. Yeah, we'll pass it around later. Thank you for sharing these amazing stories. I want to pivot a little bit to touch on the main theme of our talks today, which is turning fear into excitement and conquering challenges, right? So like, to Ma, right, surfing is inherently risky. If you look at the Tahiti waves, right, it's like 20 feet, you could die. So how do you approach fear and manage risk? Like what's going on through your mind when you see that like wall coming at you? It's all about getting ready.

When you face 20 feet wave right in front of you, there's nothing you can do. All you have is what you... The best thing, the only thing that can rely on is how hard you trained until that point. And that's the only insurance you have. And it's all instinct when it comes to 20 feet. We go back to instincts, you know? Yeah, we go back to instincts. I don't think you can...

You can turn anything into anything. It's just fear is fear and excitement is excitement. You still need the fear, right? The element of fear is important. You have to have a fear because you could just walk straight into the car and you can die if you don't have a fear. But when you're facing 20 feet wave, if you overcome by only the fear, I don't go out. But if you have excitement and the fear at the same time,

And that's when you feel... That you're ready? Ready, but at the same time, the excitement is... You have to have the danger on the other side to feel the excitement. Okay. And...

You can be excited licking the ice cream. You can feel high licking the ice cream, but there's no danger. That's not excitement. You have to have a danger, live or die kind of situation. Yeah, because I think in our rehearsal, he mentioned a very interesting point. He said, the fear is a...

what is it like you're aware of the fear but you're anticipating excitement right so the anticipation the excitement overweighs like the awareness of fear because you know it's there but you're not expecting to get hurt yeah yeah you're expecting to come out of that if you're ready yeah if you're ready um so yeah i think it's almost like a risk and return balance that he always has in his head and yeah which is a very interesting approach and

How do you see that? It's very contradictory because surfing is very, very dangerous. And I'm the one using a weapon, but it's actually less dangerous because that weapon is completely safe. Like it's not sharp or not pointy, but it still remains a combat sport. Fencing is a non-contact combat sport. So you're not going to hit each other like physically, but you still get hurt and you still can leave a lot of bruises or injuries.

or so you gotta come on the piece and overcome all that and trying to tame your fear and um there's so many different sources of fear you can have uh you can fear yeah i actually think because fencing is so fast right we can't even see it live it's just too fast to catch and

but you train so hard so long but it's finished it's over in such a short period of time it's a burst of energy physical energy but also mental so what more to say it's like the mental fear is massive right so the only way to overcome it to overcome it is to

to come very prepared. But then there's so many, many kind of fears like the, you can, you can have the fear of losing, which is natural, but you also have the fear of winning. When you were reaching the last point, say, Oh my God, one more point and I'm going to win. And my opponent is supposed to be stronger than me, but I'm about to beat him or beat her. And then you lose. So overthinking, overthinking,

or you have the fear of being injured, the fear of disappointing, fear of looking stupid that exists too, you know, like you're going to peace, like you have all the cameras in the world filming you at the Olympics, you don't want to look stupid or fear of being not ready. Like there are so many fears, but all that, you can beat that.

you can never completely beat it. You're going to have that fear. You're going to feel these butterflies in your stomach like going there. But yeah, through preparation, so physical preparation, of course, and technical preparation, which is fencing, but the mental part, the mental preparation is going to help you overcome all that. I guess you have to love it, right?

You have to? You have to love. You have to love it, yeah. Even that feeling, you'll make it or break it. That's why you do it. Like you're having these goosebumps, you're having like these... Some people are vomiting, something like that. Or it could be an artist guy about to perform at a big concert. It could be anything. It could be you have a big presentation, you have a job interview that's going to change your life, stuff like that. It's like you have to own it. You have to own it and you have to...

look at the bad experiences you had, the negative experiences you have, learn from it. Own your own mistakes too. Like, "Oh, I messed up. I shouldn't have done that." And try to understand what happened. And as we said before, like having conversations, turning a negative experience into something positive and trying to move forward.

Yeah, but again, as you said, fencing is very, very, very fast. So there's going to be a lot of instincts and reflexes that are built through training, muscle memory.

And yeah, so that's still right. It's easier said than done. If I, for example, right. If I look at this picture, I don't, I don't know if my excitement would ever overwhelm the fear, but, um, um, that's like the mental preparation is definitely important and like whatever you, the work you put in. And there's another thing I'm using, like, uh, so it's called SOP standard operation procedures is like,

Throughout our training, we have a solution for any situation. So that happens, you have to answer by that. That happens, you have to answer by that. And doing that on a daily basis when, of course, you cannot cover everything. And as you said, it's going so fast and you don't know what the opponent is going to do. And you can never recreate the atmosphere that was here at the Grand Palais in Paris or the stress you're going to feel for the Olympics. But you're trying through these SOPs, these standard operation procedures to...

You try to cover all bases as much as possible and then whatever is left is going to be your instinct, like your reaction at the moment and owning your fears. But even if you do all that, there's still obviously setbacks and adversities. This is a very emotional picture and I put it up there. How do you bounce back from these situations?

This is the toughest part. I said before, you have so many lows, so many lows and just only a few highs. The few highs are all worth it. But there's a lot of moments of doubts. You're trying to understand what happened. You cannot even point it out. Yeah, that part like I did at the Olympics. So five days before the team event, where was like the pinnacle of these athletes of my career so far.

Five days before we had the individual event and that was the complete bust. But how can we be that bad five days before and so good five days after? We didn't do anything much in between. The preparation came for years and years and years back. So since we got the medal, it meant we were ready. But what happened five days before?

And just a month before we had the Asian championship that went well, very well, she won the Asian championships. So how can you be so ready, but like being just that day, it's not working. And then you say, oh, all right, so we are not ready for the Olympics. So I started thinking myself, like, okay, maybe the Olympic preparation, like we did a camp before and then maybe it was all wrong. Maybe, and you start questioning yourself, maybe what I did was all wrong. And then we have this, like,

So my, my whole Olympic period, like being in the village, uh, for me was very, very, very difficult because the first day of the events were at the very beginning in fencing, the individual events. And, uh, I was so sad. I was so like, uh, I lost, I lost, uh, I lost everything that day. And, uh,

I stay one day in my room. I stay one day in my room in the village and go out. And then we have to go back to practice. We have to go back to training, find the right words to put the athlete back on track. It's a very weird atmosphere at practice. We go there, we expect to get medals, we get nothing, but get to refocus for the last day. And then the last day of the Olympics were just one of the most amazing day in my life. So,

It's, it's, the sport is cruel. Like any, especially high level sport, like, uh, or any situation you can have in a work environment, like could be very, very cruel. You just got to believe in yourself. And if you did the right thing months and months and weeks before in the preparation, if you work hard, if everything has been done properly, you should, everything should be fine at the end. If it's put all out there. It should be. Yeah. I mean,

I think resilience is a big factor. I mean, Ma, you talked about resilience in sports and how that ties to actual real life, right? Do you want to comment on that? To me, what pushes me is love for surfing. I want to be... I want to surf forever until 100, 120. I don't know how long, but I just want to go on forever and I want to explore how could I surf better or how could I...

better at what I do. In sports, I feel it's out in the ocean, out in the public. When you lose, your face bashed or you get lost by the other person. It's all in public and you feel the shame, you feel the what, you feel whatever, you feel... But...

That gives you a chance to look at yourself and hope every dark corner or subconsciously maybe hidden, whatever dark things comes out by losing and facing yourself. And it's that self-awareness, interesting self-awareness. Hopefully one day...

I don't think that they will come, but it's just every day my shoulder will get lighter and lighter. Hopefully, that gets me going. Yeah, but it teaches you a lot, right? So like, you know, the spotlight is all on you and you can handle that pressure in life. It feels lighter to some extent. Trying to understand what happened. You know, you can take a lot of positive stuff from losing, from a setback. Just need to be open-minded enough.

and accept self-criticism or criticism. You just got to be strong enough to accept that, to see through that, and then you can transform something negative into positive. That's, yeah, that's so much learning. There's a lot of takeaways from that.

hopefully it can apply to my own life as well. Yeah. And I want to kind of follow up on that. I mean, like, yeah, I think being a captain is about growing the next generation. I mean, here we have like Kanoa, I think he won the silver medal, right? For Tokyo 2020. So to Ma, right? How are you pushing the boundaries of surfing right now? Like whether,

you know, it's through your own writing style or like your vision of S-League now that you're the chairman or any other project that you're currently working on. I think Fundamentals is one of them that you touched on. Do you want to tell us more about that? For the Fundamentals, competition is all about the difficulty, how you get your score and how judges judge you. So it's basically you have to fit in to this competition.

criteria but i like to explore more on the fun side of surfing which is the creative side of surfing you can you you ride away with with body surfing which is just right away with the body just just you're using your body to ride away well just a long board short board whatever way way um

Artistic aspect of surfing, right? Yes. And who had the most fun is the, I wouldn't want to call a winner, but the fundamental of the day. And it's not about how good you are, but how fun you had. How much fun you had. This was the base idea created for the fundamental.

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of events, right? It's not just surfing, but enjoying the ocean. But through surfing, you learn, you know, how to take mental care, how to be more resilient. Is that the concept of like fundamental? Yes. And the workshop and all the kids and the young to elder come and see or you meet the professional, not just surfers, but the musician, any kind of profession. I would like to...

invite every single event and hopefully you the kids you find the dream that you i like uh find the find the dream to be the musician or the surfer or the or the carpenter or whatever and like to create that space creating a space for them to get together to because because it's way of life surfing taught me a lot and uh

and explore, basically exploration of yourself. I feel like Google is the bigger version of that. It's like a platform, right? So you have YouTubers, you have a lot of people who share knowledge and exchange ideas through that.

you know, we come up with new technologies and new ways to help the world. And so I think fundamentally the concept is pretty similar as in like we need a platform for people to interact. We're all social animals. So yeah, I really respect that, you know, the project that you're running. One of the things I told my team when I took over in January 2022 is like,

I told them literally, let's try to have fun together on a daily basis. And yeah, of course there's good days, there's bad days, there's days you don't want to go to practice. But these athletes, they go to practice morning, afternoon, morning, afternoon, every day. They travel the world, they have competition. There are so many hard things, goals to do like any other profession. If you try, if you can implement some fun in it, if you try having like a good time all together,

it's just gonna make you swallow the pill easier. You can work even more and even harder and push yourself deeper if you're finding some fun in it. That's awesome. Yeah, so we're kind of running out of time, but this has been such an engaging conversation. I'll open the floor up for questions now. Let's take up as many questions as we can from the audience while we have time. I'll also show the Dory later, but any live? Go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Thanks, Ma and Jerome, for that conversation. Yeah, I mean, I've got a quick question. Like, as a parent, when you have your kids do, you know, different activities, whether it be sports or anything else, and I guess, you know, you both started your prospective careers five or six. My kid's five. As a parent, how do you...

Any advice for parents, you know, kind of encouraging their kids to follow their passions in their respective, you know, sports or whatever, for example, like I think especially when when you first start out, it's pure fun.

But I think as you get older, you start to enter a competition. And that's when you start to... It's great if you win, but you also start losing, which sometimes takes the fun out of the sport. As a parent, you know, you had parents, you know, I think that were...

surfers as well like how involved were they in you know pushing you through some of the times maybe when you wanted to were there times when you wanted to quit or wanted to stop or didn't enjoy it as much how involved were they and how involved do you think the parents should be in in kind of the they were very involved it was their almost like their dream i mean yeah yeah sometimes i feel i'm more passionate about what he's doing than he is

So as a parent, you're pretty much going to choose the sport of your kid right now. You're going to take him to the sport, take him, take your kid to the sport. But yeah, what's the first thing you say? Like, it's very important that the kid has fun. If the kid has fun doing whatever sport it is, and the two words are put together, it's fun and discipline. You've got to be disciplined in what you do. And if you're disciplined, you're going to win, you're going to lose. If you're still losing and having fun doing it, you're still going to learn a lot of stuff from it.

And if you find an inner satisfaction doing it, and if you can all enjoy that as a family, parents and kids, like going through that motion, that sport, that journey together, there could be a lot of very cool family stories as well. And...

And then, yeah, then you have also like, I was working with younger kids or I was working in USA for 10 years before and I was having a club and academy with younger kids. So yeah, you do have, you do have parents that are getting very involved. You have sometimes parents that are getting too involved. And, yeah, it's true. And, but do not try to replace the coach. That's just the only advice I would get, give to a parent is,

Unless you're an expert in the discipline. So let's say if I have a parent that is coming to the club with a young fencer, he was a fencer himself before, herself before.

which kind of fencer were you before? You were a recreational fencer or you were a top, top, top level fencer. And, um, but I think leaving your kid to do the sport with the coach, with the teammates, without being present would also help the kid develop into its own person, shape his own journeys on destiny in that sport and, uh, try not to make the kid do something he doesn't want to do. And, uh,

and yeah like just trying to find the limit the boundaries between being a dad being a coach being a supporter being supporting them like with your time with you with your money with everything but uh they tried to find uh yeah to separate yourself from uh from from the sport and try to let the kid do the sport and uh try not to do it with the kid like try just to support the kid

And I had situations like that in the US mostly. Right now in the national team, you don't really have contact with the parent. And the athletes I'm training are older than that. But yeah, when they're young, it's all about having fun, all about teaching them discipline. And as long as they enjoy it, especially at a young age, winning, losing is not that important when they're five, six, seven. As long as they enjoy it, they're building it for the future. And if you're looking at the sport for a long-term thing,

Just get the experience, just get the fun out of it. And we will see later when the kid is starting to get 12, 13, 14. These are pivotal moments in a sporting career when you have to make the decision pretty much, are you going to be serious about it or not? And yeah, as a dad, just support them as much as you can with all the love and the time you can. That's it.

Same. Full support. You had parents that are surfers, so this is very similar to what I just said. You have parents that are surfers, you can look... My parents were not fencing.

But you can look up to your parents and you can have like literally surfing conversation at dinner at night. I cannot have a fencing discussion with my parents. And fencing is very hard to understand after they still don't understand anything. But yeah, like you need to find the right balance. Like if dad was a soccer player, you want the kid to play soccer, but actually maybe the kid preferred to do tennis. So let him do tennis, you know, stuff like that.

Oh, fencing. Fencing is fun. We have a few online questions as well. So this is from Mariko-san. Let me just read them out. What do you advise Japanese people to be competitive in the world-class competition? Japanese is known for quiet, humble discipline, not sharing their opinions in front of other people. However, some people may struggle to have what they want because of it. Any advices from your experiences? To practice with the best of the best, to put yourself in the position where you can...

For me, it was surfing. So parents, it costs you a lot of money, but put yourself in the position where you can play with the best if you want to be the best and hang with the best. Just be with the best. You learn through that. That's what I feel. In fencing case, like it's...

It's a European sport, it's a French sport. And I always tell my team, you're Japanese people trying to do a European sport, a French sport. If we were doing judo right now, like...

you're trying to do it the Japanese way, but like now we're trying to do a French sport. So you got to try to do it. So I think the sport brings you, brings you just like an open mind in as long as, as soon as you start traveling and fencing is a very confidential sport. So you get to travel a lot very quickly as you get to a certain level. And I just bright, brightens your horizons, just like have you meet a lot of people. And so the Japanese people like are going to,

do that sport in a very Japanese way but try to be still as open-minded as possible because you don't want to you don't want to lose it lose inside that it's not a Japanese sport idea at the beginning so use your Japanese qualities like your physical qualities or your hard-working qualities or so many take the best of your culture and try to apply it to that sport today thank you we're out of time so we can take one more live question please okay -

Go ahead. Thank you so much. I work in social media and I've been looking at the Paris Olympics and how exciting it was following the Muffin Man. And there's so many backstories that you got to see from the Olympic Village. And then on the flip side, there's athletes like Osaka Naomi and Simone Biles who's really open and sharing their mental health state.

And so it was kind of interesting seeing like the backstories and behind the scenes of how athletes feel and being very open and candid about it. And social media can have, you know, it's good sides, but also it's negative sides. And especially with comments and negativity in such heightened times during competition. What advice do you give to your athletes on approaching social media considering the pros and cons?

Naomi Osaka and Simon Biles are superstars. Like they're, they're really part of the media and like they're, like they're followed by hundreds and hundreds of reporters all day, all the time. And they have to shine, they have to shine at that moment. But this is the same for any other athlete. The, these athletes are very famous, but in my sport, which is not a very famous, there's not many superstars in fencing. And, yeah,

But the mental health issues are the same. They're exactly the same. Whether you're a world-class fencer, I mean, all of them at the Olympics are world-class fencers, but there is better ones. But even if you're in the middle of the pack, you have to battle with your own mental issues and you have to find a better inside yourself. And...

the advice I would give. So there's many signs that shows that you are having a problem, because it is a problem, that you're...

it could even lead to being a sickness, which is bad at that point. But like the signs you can see very early, as soon as you start feeling it, like my advice would, again, would be communication. Try to talk about it with your coach, with your family, with your loved ones, with your closest friends, and try to...

try to overcome it as fast as possible through try to reach out for help not only within your Federation and your sport but like maybe outside help someone that doesn't have a close-minded vision of the sport but like something a little bit broader and being proactive about it being proactive already we talked about it an hour ago like as the mental health of an athlete is something quite new

in the world of sports, only people start caring about it like for one or two decades, but that's it. And so I assume it's been the same for athletes like a century ago too, but nobody were talking about it. Yeah, like as a parent too, you know, like if a parent sees their kid being sad, being depressed, being like a...

try to keep in mind that you're doing that sport is something that you love at the beginning like you were doing that as passion you were doing that and then then you have like also the pro the professional sport aspect like you have some athletes that doing their sports for the wrong reasons some of them are doing a sport just to make a living out of it

And this is not the case in fencing. We're not tennis players. They're making millions of dollars. But in fencing, if you do that kind of sport, you're doing it for pure passion. But maybe the people that are having like mental problem during their sport need to get back to the roots and like to... I always tell my athlete, like remember like the little boy, the little girl you were back in the days and when you started fencing at 10 and you know, like...

Even if you need, I could ask your parents to show you a picture with a big smile on your face and holding the saber and going to competition and looking all goofy and all. This is the roots of, this is when you started. And if you can try to fuel that into the present and try to battle your demons with that, maybe it could help. Every case is particular. But yeah, seeking, reaching for help is always the first step for sure.

I mean, nowadays you have to have an Instagram to promote yourself, right? But it's me personally, I don't really like it. So I just don't do it whenever I feel like I just do it. But then if you love it and if it depends on the athlete or person, you just got to know you yourself, how you just, you don't push to the point where

I'm doing it, but I'm depressed. You just, you just, you just gotta be aware of how you feel, why you're doing it. As long as you know why you're doing it, you're promoting yourself and you're doing it to doing it to promote yourself. It's not, it's nobody's fault. It's nobody asking you to do it. It's, it's, it's on you. It's on me, whether I want to do it or not. I mean, it's,

The responsibility is all on me. So it's up to the athlete or the individuals to decide whether you want to go on or you want to stop or you just want to... But it's good to see when I see Osaka Naomi talking about her health, it's okay to feel this way. We're human and it gives me comfort. It gives me...

"Oh, Osaka Naomi feels she's a human. I'm okay to feel this way." It's really encouraging. So I hope... I mean, not hope. I... Thank you for that.

I'm thankful for that. I mean, you know. Okay. Yeah. Last super quick question. This is a question for Mar actually, because I love surfing. Amateur, you know, Shakaizhingsurfer, so please keep that in mind. But what are your favorite surf breaks or surf points? Maybe one in Japan and one like, you know, in the world. And also no 20 foot places, please. No. No 20 foot. No Nazare, please. You mean...

Indonesia, one of the best. Tahiti in Japan. You gotta talk about home, right? My home is Shimoda. It's clean water. Cleanest water you can find in the mainland of Japan. And white sand. The wave-wise, it's a beach break, so it's not really a perfect point break, but it's come to my hometown and surf. What about where in Indonesia? And Okinawa is good too. Where in Indonesia?

Way in Indonesia, it's basically the whole of Indonesia. You can explore the whole of Indonesia. It's the Indonesian Indian Ocean. If you're facing an Indian Ocean, you can find any kind of wave if you have a boat or you just explore the jungle by yourself. But Indonesia, one of the top for me is the top of the top. Nice. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ma and Jerome, for being with us today. Thank you. I hope everyone enjoyed this as well. And I mean, this was a real pleasure and I really appreciate it. So, you know, can I ask everybody just to say a huge thank you to our wonderful guest? Thanks for listening. To discover more amazing content, you can always find us online at youtube.com slash talks at Google. Talk soon.