Normally, when I introduce a podcast episode, I try to say something controversial or, you know, interesting or attention getting whatever. This one I'm going to be simple. We're going to talk to a Olympic handball player. And if you don't even know what that is, you're going to love this.
If you do know what that is, you're going to love it even more. So that's what's going to come on this episode of the movement movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body starting first, you know, those things are your foundation after all. And we break down the propaganda, the mythology, sometimes the outright lies you've been told about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body and to work and play and do yoga and cross fit and tennis and pickleball and anything you do, basically. And to do that, enjoyably, effectively, efficiently.
Did I say enjoyably? Wait, I know I did. That's a trick question, but my brain is a little mush because it's Halloween today when we're recording this and I don't know why. Oh, it's the candy that made me a little nutty.
So anyway, I'm Stephen Sashan from zero shoes.com, your host of the movement movement. And then we call it that because we're creating a movement. That's a thing and something happening in society about natural movement about letting your body do what it's made to do. And that first part involves you.
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I mean, do me a favor. Tell people who you are and what you're doing here with your handball ninja shirt. Everybody, I'm maybe a Jeremy Dodoma. I am one of the captains of the USA men's beach and basketball national team.
My nickname internationally is handball ninja as you see on this show here. And I'm excited to be on the podcast. David, thanks for having me. Thanks, David.
No, it's real having you because you know, you reached out to us at some point and said, if I'm remembering this correctly, please correct me if I'm wrong. I remember at some point getting an email, it's like, hey, I'm wearing your shoes and by the way, I'm going to be a handball player and we're like, what? So first of all, that's how this started. But I think I mean, I was hip to handball a little bit.
But for those who aren't who think of handball as a thing you play in the streets of New York, where you're literally just going to smack a ball against the wall and it's a variation of actually, there's no, it's, oh, you know, it is, it's highlight without the thing that you use to throw a ball and highlight and someone will leave in the comments what that thing's called because I can't remember right now. I love that. I think anyway, so tell people about highlight and then also about, sorry about not about highlight. Jesus.
Holy moly, man. I have got to start this day all over. Talked about handball and we'll dive in from there. And ball is commonly known or referred to as soccer with your hands.
It goes the initial premise of the sport. So if you think of a game involving trying to put a ball into a net similar to soccer, 11 people on the field, they essentially decided let's just use our hands and call that a sport. And that was you. I know, right?
That's the original origin of the sport. 11, 11, depending on the story in that you ask, you know, the roots of the game are traced back to 19th century Europe. As far as the original version of the game, I'll kind of explain how the game has a ball since then. Yeah.
So, we're soccer football known internationally. Somebody said, hey, we should just do this with our hands. And that version of handball was actually the first version of handball. We call it field handball.
That was part of the summer Olympic program in 1936 in Berlin. What ended up happening was the 40s and 50s, they took that concept of the game and they moved it indoors for the winter. And they found that it was a more attractive game because players couldn't throw the ball quite as far on a full 11 on 11 soccer field, condensing the court where passes could be closer, shots could be more frequent. There's an indoor version of the game that was seven on seven in size that became a more popular version of handball versus the original 11 on 11 soccer with your hands version of the game.
And in the 1972 Olympic games indoor handball became the version of handball that was on the summer of the program. It's been there in the 50 years since. So, do people still play outdoor? Is there still an outdoor league or outdoor tournaments?
Outdoor field handball is generally played recreationally and very rarely is it played before the 11 on 11 version that was in the 1936 Olympic games. But handball is played similar to soccer being played across different surfaces. If you think of footsall and beach soccer and indoor soccer field soccer, handball is another sport that is played across different surfaces. The indoor seven on seven version is the one in the senior summer Olympic games and it's arguably the most popular version of the game played worldwide.
Fast forward to the 21st century, similar to beach volleyball becoming a spinoff of indoor volleyball and finding its niche. A beach handball had its first world championship at the terms of millennium and it's the trendy hip, younger cousin of handball. And to gain the emphasizes aesthetics, there's generally less contact between the players than in the indoor version of the game and that's to promote more freedom of movement. So, you tend to see more spectacular and acrobatic plays in the beach version of the game.
And that's the version that I'm currently captain of our US national team. Do you have to wear a little phone like the beach volleyball girls? No. Hardly enough, we actually went through our version of bikini day during the pandemic.
So, on the women's side, it's actually really fun to ask the question, but on the women's side, their uniform was a bikini uniform that was mandated. And at the championships, the region women's team actually protested that. So, they played the Spanish national team. The third place game was shorts.
Nice. The protest, that uniform. And then it actually became one of the bigger public stories throughout the pandemic. They were friends of mine and celebrities that were talking about beach handball.
And I've been trying to turn them onto the sport for a decade, but this bikini game issue becoming global. Had a couple of my friends, hey, this is the sport you play, right? Like, how come the women have to wear a bikini? I was like, I've been trying to tell you about the sport for seven years and now you want to talk about it because you want to change our women's uniform.
So, ultimately, their uniform did get changed. I'll bite with some controversy on the other end because there were some women's players who said, hey, we feel more comfortable competing in the bikini. Or you didn't want that uniform to change. And in most competitions, what we go about in the United States is we follow beach volleyball and having a more flexible team to pick a uniform, lengthen cut that is comfortable for them to wear.
And that's generally how we do U.S. competitions. Internationally, there's just a standardized new uniform that has a little bit of woman shear on top and then it's shorts versus bikini bottoms. But very funny that you asked the question off the cuff because that's something that we very recently went through in our sport.
Well, I'm curious. See, if I was on the men's side and this was coming up, the way I would have done a protest is I would have had all the men going out wearing a bikini bottom and just say, you know, just to see how you like it now. So, believe it or not, when this was going on, our men's team was thinking of ways in which we could advocate for our women's players. And that idea came up and a couple of guys were like, let's even get by it enough to wait until it's now.
I'm guessing, and please don't pass this on to the people who said no to that idea. I'm just guessing the people who didn't want to do it were worried about whether they could feel out of a bikini bottom. Sure. Let's go with that.
We'll say that was the reason why. Yeah, okay. I know at some point I'm beating up by a couple of handball players. No, no, we're non-violent group of guys.
We're very fair play-worances. So, don't worry about any of the telly-s. Excuse the couple of them who have not packed it. So, that's a whole lot of stories.
But I don't know them, so I don't know who it was. Law and joke. I don't want to be walking down the beach and get a few people out of the ball in the back. So, but backing up, I've got to say this, you know, with the description of soccer with your hands, that does not do it justice because soccer, while it can be engaging sometimes, especially as the ball gets close to the net, handball is like exciting 24-7.
You know, and one thing too that because I've become a beach sport ambassador and official non- I think the issue that some people may have with soccer being not quite as exciting as handball has to be with the size of the field because when you have such a big field, build up takes a long period of time. But beach soccer, in contrast, the field is small enough that literally anybody can score at any time. Like, because both goals are close enough. And to me, that's what makes the soccer an extremely exciting version of soccer.
And handball being a size court that is similar to basketball a little bit longer, you know, you have fast breaks, you have such quick transitions. It's a very high scoring game as you're alluding to. I think part of that's new with the size of the field, not just the fact that we get to use our hands over our feet. There's a joke in there about size, which is going to become a theme in this podcast.
I can tell. You know, it's funny. I'm thinking about we were invited, we were talking to USA rugby about working with them and we got invited to a world championship match and the rugby pitch is even bigger than soccer pitch. And the thing that was interesting is there the delineation is between the number of players on the field.
And when there's more players on the field, ironically, the game moves a little slower. When there's only seven guys on each side of the field, it is insane because it's just, you know, people sprinting like crazy and then smashing into each other. I mean, it's like roller derby. The same concept applies even within the sport of handball.
And part of what's a crease attractiveness of the sport over time is moving to smaller sided versions of the game where there is more space for players to move more freely. So if you compare Beach Hamble, which is a four game versus indoor Hamble, which is seven out of seven, the beach game is extremely fast. Interesting. Yeah.
The seven out of seven version of the game is faster than 11 and 11, but not quite as fast. And so, and I don't know if you know that I actually have experience with USA rugby. I played on the sixth side version of rugby national team for the US. And that game is extremely fast because players have to cover a full pitch with us.
Small number of guys and with so much open space, everybody's able to sprint around versus with 15s rugby. The more people you have on the pace, there's less space and so the general pace of play will slow down. Well, I mean, the other thing with the 15s, I'm guessing, is that there's more guys who are just monsters. I mean, they're fast, but you know, they're monsters.
And I mean, the first time these guys all walked on the field, this is a group where every one of those guys could walk up to Mike Tyson, go pussy and, you know, and do it back down. I mean, I mean, Mike's a different breed, but point taken. Now, the guys on the 15 squads, they're just massive human beings. Oh my God.
Especially the front line. Yeah, that front line is just just incredible. I mean, there's times where from the other side of the pitch, I mean, a good 100 meters away, you hear a collision, it sounds like a car crash. I mean, geez, anyway, but enough about rugby.
So how did you end up getting involved in handball at all? Because this is not a sport, obviously, that is super, super popular in America, and definitely not when, you know, whenever it was, you got introduced to it. Certainly. And I don't get old, it never gets old for me to tell my handball origin story.
So when I was 15 years old, I was going into my junior year of high school during the summer Olympics in what was then Beijing. And just that summer, I happened to be flipping through channels, I happened to flip to a handball game, right as a goal was being scored. I was like, oh, what was that? It was just something that caught my attention.
I'm watching this game go back and forth. And it looked like water polo, but it was on land. And your basketball was my first lungs and it looked like basketball, but there were gollies at the end. And I, for as much as a sports official, I thought I was, I had never seen or heard of this sport.
So I thought, and I'm just trying to figure out like, what is this sport? So I'm watching it. I'm looking for a name to come up, somebody to mention it. And it wasn't until the end of the game that there was a handball decal with the Olympic logo that came up.
It was like a handball, did a Google search. And it was used to me that it was an Olympic sport. It seemed like something that my fifth grade PE teacher made up. I didn't know that actually passing and catching and trying to throw a ball into a net outside of water was an Olympic sport until I happened to stumble across that Olympic games.
And I became so enamored with it that the rest of the Olympic games I did whenever I could to watch a handball game in LA to Beijing. Yeah. There's a few times no difference. So I'm up at 2, 3 AM trying to catch some of these handball games.
And at the end of the Olympics, I was so enamored with the sport. I asked around friends, family, you know, the Google search is looking for just a place to play the sport. And I stumbled across the Portland Sasquatch Handball Club. I don't know if I mentioned I grew up in a suburb of Portland, Oregon.
And I sent them an email, said, hey, you know, play basketball baseball at Laker Thai School. And if there's any opportunity for me to try out a handball, I don't know what the league season is or what the competitive teams are like because you've played AU basketball and they have different sporting systems in the US, but playing for your school and playing separately of that. And they said, yeah, just come out in the first day. They kind of tricked me the first day that I came out.
So the very first day I came out, they were actually putting on a youth clinic at the school where one of the players in the club was a German teacher. It was a German-American exchange. She brought out her German students to play handball. So my first day out, I'm playing with high school kids, like kids my age.
A little did I know that that wasn't the composition of the actual club. So I come back the second week and it's the entire adult club that shows up. And they essentially embraced me as one of their own. Obviously didn't know much about handball, but I was a pretty good athlete.
And they said, look, we'll have you play on the wing, which is basically as far from the middle of the court as possible. And we get the ball, run as fast as you can. Otherwise, we'll take care of the rest as far as organizing and actually playing. And that's all I got started.
And honestly, it was the perfect place for me to get started, just cherry-picking on the wing with a bunch of older guys who were more experienced, but they were past their prime athletically. And over time, directly and also Vias Melsi, just taught me the game and the flow and the movement of the game. And I played with them. They were made in my time in high school and they made the decision to go to the Oregon State University, one of the only schools in the US and the only school in what was then the Pac-10, but now the Pac-12 to date my age that had a college club handball team.
So how big is handball in the US and then outside of the US? And what are the opportunities here if somebody wants to play? That's a great question. So membership was just over 1,000 people for US-16-handball last year, which in the grand scheme of an Olympic sport is very small.
It's actually the smallest national governing body under the Team USA umbrella to give you reference to how relatively overlooked the sport of handball is. But it is a massive sport internationally. I believe, I know it was the second highest rated sport, Team Sport at the Summer Olympic Games in Rio. I don't have the specific analytics for Tokyo, but it is a very well received sport globally.
There are a number of professional opportunities primarily in Europe to play the sport. And it's such a weird dichotomy for us as Americans that put billions of dollars into a sport to have this one Olympic sport just seemingly slipped through the cracks where we invest so much in so many different sports. I mean, obviously, we have our big three and gridiron football, basketball, baseball, and then the other sports like soccer, hockey, water polo, volleyball that have X number of followers. But handball for whatever reason just slipped through the cracks in North America as a professional in Olympic sport that just never got traction.
It's not just within the country, but in the content. But yes, it's a key term. And a big part of what I try to do as a national player as well as someone who serves on the board of directors, who says you have all just changed just that and have grown opportunities to build exposure to the sport for fellow Americans. Because I've been able to play in 20 countries outside of the US, in my international body career, and I've had some great experiences.
And I want to be able to share some of what this sport can offer, not just domestically but globally with fellow Americans. It's actually a funny, but interesting pitch is given that it is so small in America, the opportunity, if you're getting a good to do something like, you know, play internationally is obviously much higher than if you're trying to get into sport where there's a lot of guys above you who are going to close positions. I 100% agree. And there's a little bit of an internal debate amongst like former US, 18, and well, then the players as far as how accessible we want this sport to be.
Because naturally we're competitive guys. We don't want to make it seem like average Joe can be on our national team. But I'm more on the side of I want the average American who comes across this to feel as if they could be my teammate, whether it's at the World Beach Games next year in 2023. If you know we had to qualify for the Paris Olympic Games, there's so many amazing American ball sport athletes who play basketball baseball, football, water polo who just do not know that they're elite handball players.
But if you give them a handball, they'll have the athletic attributes to be able to cross in. And internally at the bit of debate as far as, you know, how much of kind of a old boys or close boys club we want this to be and how much of a, you know, like, yeah, like you definitely can be a Olympian through this sport. This is going to be your best bet. You know, it's like other sports.
It reminds me of the former sprinters who then became Bob's letters because they were great in the back of the sled. And so, you know, to get someone from someone of some notoriety from some other sport to join handballs to kind of think, make a move. But of course, the biggest thing is getting kids starting to play because obviously the more the bigger the pool that you're able to draw from, the more you're going to start finding players of, you know, that are really, really talented and they'll always rise to the top. But this just makes me think of a fun question, which is what was the conversation like when you said to your parents you were going to be a professional handball player.
And to give you some context, I didn't necessarily grow up in an athletic family. I mean, I have some athletes in my family, but I grew up in an academic family. My mom's a Harvard Law grad, dad went to Yale. You know, my mom's in the family trade, the grandfather who was prime minister of Uganda.
So I grew up in a family that very much prized academia and they supported, you know, sport to an extent. But, you know, the decisions I made late teens, early twenties to really pursue a sport at the time wasn't so initially well received, especially considering that, you know, handball isn't like basketball. At least we know what this sport is and the amount of opportunity there is in it. But what's this handball thing?
But it was just something that I fell in love with. And I mean, there's so many different levels and layers to the story. But just to get to just kind of stay on topic with the questions you asked, initially not so great, but you know, families over time come around. They found the sport to be very exciting and particularly as you have been able to play between us over the past eight years.
And it wasn't until my third year internationally that I had some family members come out to my first world championships. And then from that point, once I got seen personally, I haven't been supportive ever since. But the initial conversation wasn't, it was a soggy dory to say the least. It makes you feel any better.
I graduated from Duke and told my father I was going to be a stand up comic and that went over like a lead balloon. I can imagine. Yeah. The only thing that I had in my back pocket literally I had a letter from Northwestern Business School saying if you want to comment it's free.
And so I said, let's just try this for a year. And you know, we'll take it from there. Meanwhile, I had no intention of ever going to Northwestern Business School. And I bought myself a year at the end of the year.
You say, asking me about my friends who went to business school, I said, I'm making more money than the guys who just got out of business school. And I'm working an hour a day and I'm having a blast. So we're done with this conversation. You know, I got it.
I'm curious when you go to international match or even especially I was going to say even national, but definitely international match. I'm wondering how much it's like when I went to the Atlanta Olympics as a spectator and watched Greco-Roman wrestling and what I mean more specifically is other than me, it seemed that everybody who was watching those matches was either a current wrestler or former wrestler or family of a wrestler. And it made the event like being it was like it was a giant picnic. I mean, it was everyone knew each other.
They'd all been around each other. And there was my favorite part was there was this one Polish wrestler who was just having an incredible Olympic games and everyone knew he was playing, you know, playing. He was wrestling way above where he normally was and everyone was so excited to see him kind of breaking out that suddenly everybody was Polish. The entire audience was like screaming, Paul's guy.
I mean, they were because they knew and it was like, how could you not be excited for this guy? It's the best. The handball definitely has a similar culture and funny enough that you mentioned Polska because I played my club ball in Poland this summer and Poland is one of the more well-liked countries, particularly in B-Chamel. So it's actually ridiculously funny that you use Poland as an example.
But actually the last world championships, the team that took that spot as the country that the fans locally ended up joining was the Netherlands on the women's side. They ended up having amazing run. They won bronze in the competition. And you know, they're fans that came out wearing all the orange so much that I'm wearing, right?
And as they're making this run, they're playing the semi-finals in third place game. Yeah, the fans that were Dutch were joining the Dutch crowd of the fans because their cheers were so fun and it was just a fun team to root for. So there is some of that element of camaraderie and for the people in the sport being a big part of the crowd, particularly non-willed championship events, you tend to have more local fans who are connected to the sport in some regard. And when everybody knows everybody and they can say this is a player and you have played in five-ball tournaments, you get to know the other players and you have to inform relationships with them and you get to know everybody knows everybody.
I imagine, look, everybody athletes are athletes you want to win. But when it's not like there's a boatload of money at the end of the rainbow, I imagine that at the end of a match, regardless of what happens, there's definitely a, all right, let's go out and have a drink kind of mentality. Yeah, there's definitely a camaraderie and you had said post-competition, you know, we definitely as athletes we find a way to get together, have a good stop and I'll leave it at that. Well, I hope people, I'm going to ask one other, maybe more, but I got one other specific handball question in mind.
And this comes from when I, one of the athletes we work with is Rafael Stazis and MMA fighter and I asked him for people who don't follow MMA if they're going to watch a fight and especially if they're going to watch his upcoming fight, which a little over a month from, this is a little over a month from now, six weeks from now, he's going to be in a world championship fight. And I said, for people who don't know MMA, what should they look for? How do they watch it? So they are not just watching people just smack each other and roll around and they have no frame of reference for what's happening.
And I'll tell you his answer for the fun of it. He said, you want to look to see who is in control and interestingly, you can be in control from the bottom. So it might look like you're on your back and you're getting beaten up, but you're actually the guy in control. And if you're looking for that, trying to just understand what control looks like, even if you don't know what that means, it gives you a way of kind of getting in like with gymnastics, I'm not former Al-American gymnast, when I tell people about certain events and gymnastics, you can describe certain things to look for other than whether someone falls off or not, that gives you a way of getting at some sense of how to judge from your own little armchair, whether someone's doing well or not.
So is there an analogous thing like that for handball for some people when they're watching how they can feel like they know how to watch? Certainly. And in both instances, both the gymnastics example, as well as the MMA example, there are parallels in handball. As far as control in MMA, I'd say that's a similar concept in handball.
You want to get a feel for which team is more in control. And you can see offensively and defensively teams that are a little more frantic, a little more sporadic are probably on the losing end. Generally, efficient offenses are those where guys have calm faces. Because you can tell they're in control, they're getting to the spots and they want to get to on the court if they're having the defense to rotate and scramble while they're composed, like that's generally the team that's better.
And then vice versa, the defense is well positioned and the offense is looking to break through and if you're stuck and they start getting frantic and they have less control, they're probably going to be less efficient overall. So I'd say that concept of control as far as if you don't understand the sport, but you're trying to figure out who's winning or who's doing well. Look for the team that's more composed, that's probably the team that's in the lead. So very direct parallel as far as your MMA example.
And then with gymnastics, you want to think that's unique to be chambal as a discipline is you get extra points for performing to a tackular goals. So, exactly. So, spin, if you do a 360, there are more rotations before you score. It's actually worth extra.
If you throw the ball in the air to a teammate and they catch in the air and they shoot and score before they land, and for those of us who are fast-balled, akin to an alley, that's also worth extra as well. And so, one of the things that we try to work on in our sport is that element of increased body control and awareness and the kind of the spectacular movement similar to what you see in gymnastics and try to utilize that in an effective means to score. Is that something that fans who maybe don't know about hamball or beach, this is the first introduction to it, if they stumble across my page or that of my team, that goes with things that they can look for, those spins and alley-oop and spectacular type of goals. So, has anyone done a forward or back flip goal yet?
Yes. And let's see if that, the sport is deemed that to be too dangerous of a spectacular action to perform. So, it's a maneuver that is particularly outlawed at this point. It was previously done.
Another exciting action that you can't legally do is propel yourself off of a teammate. I was going to ask that one because watching a rugby thing, where they will grab some wind and line up. It just lifts so much healthier. It literally cannot do that anymore in hamball.
There's some kids who have tried and there have been some horror stories that I personally haven't witnessed myself, but enough to outlaw that particular action as well as a life front flip. But they have been performed and they are quite a set of people who have been pulled off. It's a big debate in the gymnastics world as well. There are certain moves that, when I was in high school, there was a, actually I'll tell this story, when I got to college, I asked the coach to spot me for this one particular move.
And I said, you just have to stand there unless it looks like something's going wrong. And it's called a running one and three. Basically, it's a one and a half front somersault. You end up in a dive roll.
So, you take off on your feet, you spin around and you're basically trying not to land in your head, but past your head. And he actually spotted me badly and I ended up ripping a bunch of muscles in my back. And years later, I said, why'd you do that? He goes, because there was only one other guy in the world who was doing that move.
And I didn't think you were the other one. So, I thought you were just lying when you said you were going to do it and try to show off. It's like, no, I was one of the two guys. But that same year, there was like three guys who were paralyzed.
So, there's that, where you get extra points for risk, some of this stuff is stupid. Yeah, I know there are a number of sports that have a dynamic where you're trying to push the sport forward. But at the same time, you don't necessarily want, not even for athletes, you can do something, but athletes can do something, think of someone like a single bounce that the majority of the games just cannot do, but they try to replicate it like they're like themselves. Because I know if I'm not mistaken, because you're more akin to the gymnastics world than I was, that there's a pretty strong debate when she started performing a couple maneuvers that were either outside of the scoring system or...
Well, they're inside, but it was really... That's what system, yeah. But it was just that. It's like, should we allow this because it is so risky.
So, yeah. On the one hand, it's like she's the only one who can do it, you can let her do it, but it inspires other people to try. There's a move that now looks quaint that Kurt Thomas did. It was a one and a half twisting back one and a half.
So, you're taking off backwards, but you end up doing it like a one and three, like a dive roll. Yeah. And I actually had a conversation with a three time or two time Olympic gymnast who I met a couple weeks ago who used to do this movie. Oh, yeah.
There was once where I hit my head when I landed and the rest of the routine, I just had no memory of it at all. And it's kind of thing that... I mean, he hit his head as he was rolling, but it definitely wakes you up. Yeah, it's a tricky one.
And there's things like that in just regular diving, too. I mean, basically anything where you have the possibility of getting it. They don't want you doing it. Exactly.
It reminds me of Soribinale, who was a figure skater, who did the first back whipping competition and how much of a controversy that was. Huge. Huge. Huge.
And it's an interesting thing because we're as spectators, we're looking for those exciting things and people are always pushing to do those things. And I don't think people realize what the real risk is. Certainly. And at the same time, I think some of it's related to how popular the sport is because we actually all know how risky just playing football is.
That's what you're saying. But people are like, yeah, we're going to keep playing football. But it just asks if they'll have an opinion, like with Simone, when she said, I need to take a mental health break. And people are like, you're a chicken.
You're a good chicken. You're a responsibility as to this one. You know, to be entertained. It's like, oh, no, I don't think you get what it's like when there's a move that you've been doing successfully that's super dangerous.
And then you do it once and you realize you were totally lost for the first time. Yeah. I got to back up and people just don't get the terror of not trusting yourself anymore. I can only imagine it's also one of the things I can relate to, at least in some most particular situation is when you're doing something that most people aren't doing, sometimes the degree of difficulty gets lost because you're kind of in your own space and you're trying to push the envelope out of it and people may not necessarily be able to relate to, okay, I made that move look easy, but it was extremely difficult or as dangerous.
No, you nailed it. But when you can do it well, it doesn't look difficult. They're called, yeah. I mean, I remember for the second rambling about myself for a second.
When I watched video of my competitions, the simplest moves got the most response because I mean, I tumbled, I was flipping really high in the air. It was a simple move, but it was just like really high, but the really difficult stuff looked easy and didn't seem like it was a big deal. That's the one that I spent four years working on. Yeah.
I didn't 100% relate to that even within this one of Amball moves that people relate to versus the moves that technically have a more difficult ones. There's definitely a discrepancy between the two. Sorry, I got to do this one. This is my favorite version.
You ever gone to a Cirque du Soleil show? I have once. It was incredible. Oh, it's my favorite.
The first one I saw was Jesus 30 plus years ago. The last words I heard after the show ended was, sir, you have to leave now because I was just in the stands crying. I was just so impressed and thinking, I should be doing that with my life. I'm glad I didn't, but regardless, there was in one of the early shows, I forgot the name of these two brothers.
They do a hand balancing act and you wouldn't know their brothers. One is really big and blonde and the other was still pretty big, but not that big and brunette guy. And they used to do this one bit where the blonde guy, he's lying on the stomach on the ground and the brunette guy is doing a handstand on his feet. And then what the blonde guy does is he gets up so he's on his knees.
The other guy is still doing a handstand on his feet. And then basically the blonde guy does a leg curl with the guy doing a handstand on his feet. And it's like, he tries and doesn't make it. And he tries again and doesn't make it.
And then he tries. And then he makes it. And the place goes crazy. Well, it just happened again.
I stayed till way after people were supposed to leave. I saw these guys warming up for the next show and he was doing that hamstring curl with the guy doing handstands on his feet, like just sets of 20. Yeah, I guess nothing. But it's definitely self-fertless.
Yeah. So I guess the only part of the performance is selling the struggle or selling the journey of the struggle, even if it's something that's something simple for you at a certain point. Yeah, look, it's a show. It's not.
Yeah. So anyway, I got to go on to the part where we kind of came to the beginning. I'd love for you to chat just about this whole phenomenon. You're an athlete who is on your feet doing things.
You somehow discovered us and have been happily wearing your shoes. Can you talk about just how you found us, what made you interested in what your experience has been from getting out of shoes that look like the thing of holding up this big, big padded, elated motion for whatever to what you're now wearing? And my journey into barefoot shoes were to minimalist shoes starting when I made the transition from our indoor hamball national team to our beach, Hamball national team in 2015, because that was the first time I played a barefoot sport. And very quickly recognizing that it's a different dynamic playing sport without your shoe supporter pad support, just how you articulate your feet in my cases, first I was playing sports sand.
And it became quite evident that strengthening my feet was going to become important for me to be successful. And that was something that I didn't just want to do on the court. That was something that I realized that I wanted to integrate into my life as a made-be chambal, a part of what I wanted to do. And as I started transitioning to the minimalist footwear, discovering some other companies, what happened during the pandemic was I competed in February 2020, I've been world shut down a couple weeks after my competition in Mexico, I was back in California, just training at home.
And I wanted to chronicle the type of training I was doing during the pandemic, right? Because I wasn't around my teammates, I was going to sport, but just training by myself. And I wanted to really chronicle this particular and unique period of time, known as COVID-19. And the world shut down February, March of 2020, my birthday was in June 2020, and I had this idea in May to make a video, basically just capturing how I was training March, April, May by myself.
And I wanted a pair of all-black, minimalist shoes. And I just happened to stumble across you guys. I was familiar with a couple other companies, but I happened to stumble across a pre-op. That was an all-black pre-op.
And there was one in my size, size 15. I was like, okay, this is going to be perfect for the video. And I'd be a chance to try out a different minimalist shoe. And I got the pair, loved it, wore it in the video that I shot, ended up winning wargains after the month through that video as a result of inspiring people to train in isolation during the pandemic.
And I had to be wearing a pair of pre-os in that video and through Rachel's social media team, she reached out and was like, oh my God, this video is incredible. When you're in our shoes, we have to interview you, we have to get to know your story. And it just took off from there and explored more of a line and essentially the soul of my footwork collection at this point. And it's very in line with who I am on and off the court.
And it's just been a great three years, just living like the first. Hey, thank you. And we don't need to dwell on that because you just maybe think of something else that in a little bit of time we have left. One of the things that I really love when I've talked to you is I don't think people think about this a whole lot is what is like being a professional athlete, a world-class athlete and what you're doing when you're not doing that sport or when you're not training specifically or explicitly for that sport.
And I'm going to set you up, I'm teeing this one up and you can hit totally out of the park. There's another thing that you discovered that you do that you do when you're not training, that actually facilitates your play and I think you know what I'm referring to. And I do and I'm pretty sure it's dancing but you're teeing it up. Let's be clear, it is a special kind of dancing.
What's the dancing that you do? More specifically social dancing or a partner dancing and that's something that I've found to be on a number of levels conducive to my handball game. So it occurred to me, it appears to me now that I would think that being a good social dancer and this is like swing and salsa, those kind of things. I would assume that being a, how tall are you?
I'm 6'1. I'm 6'1. Good looking man. That this would be counterproductive to your professional athletic career because you'd be the bell of the ball and have some opportunities.
You're mortals like I would not have. I'm flattered. I'm flattered. I'm flattered.
I'm not going to say that you're wrong. But okay, leaving that aside now, I would love for you to talk about just the relationship between social dancing and partner dancing and playing a sport like this. Because when we brought up our last conversation, I thought this was so interesting. There are a number of dynamics when you partner dance.
One, there's a generally person who's more masculine role, who's leading or determining the moves that are going to be done. And then there's a follow-up typically feminine role who's responding to that. And that ability to interact generally with a stranger because a lot of times you'll go to a place where you don't know your partner. And so you have to improvise your dance on the fly to music that you're not necessarily knowing.
And that dynamic of reacting to a partner or an opponent in concert with maneuvering around other people or other couples who are dancing so much of your teammates and the other teammates on the floor helps train a number of crossover cognitive skills. Obviously there's you interacting with your partner. The only difference in your social dancing is you're reading and reacting to the partner you're dancing with and you're trying to work in concert with them. Whereas if I'm in a one-on-one situation with a handball opponent, I'm reading and reacting to them to not working concert with them.
But the same underlying reading reacts is there where I'm physically moving myself and I'd be sensitive to the movements of my opponent. And then the only difference when I'm dancing is I'm responding to my opponent's movements and then trying to facilitate the next movement to be easier. Whereas when I'm on a handball court, I'm responding to their movements, I'm trying to make their movements more difficult. Ever any opportunity when playing handball to dip and drop someone?
Not immediately. I'm trying to think if I have, I've definitely been fouled and have been caught by a teammate in falling over. I think it's probably the closest. I don't think I've zipped an opponent in a handball.
I think it's actually that if you do get fouled and someone does catch it, you've got to do something out of that. You've got to make that. You've got to turn that into a good step. I'll work on it in the future.
That's kind of what you've got to practice it so you're ready. It's just in your back pocket ready to pull out. Maybe it could be one of our next team celebrations. But I'm assuming for the group of guys who weren't too fond of wearing bikinis, I'm not sure if the next team celebration.
But we'll see. If it happens, obviously. Good point. Good point.
You have a good call back. That was pretty good. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
No, no, no, this is a total blast. And I can't tell you much. I appreciate the conversation. It's a conversation to be you're being part of what we're doing to help people understand the value of natural movement.
That's blah, blah, blah. We just are really, really able to help. We're trying to help more people, obviously. So thank you for helping do that.
If people want to find out more about you and what you're up to and handball, please tell the humans how they can do that. I've tried to make this simple over the years. You can find me on all social media at handball ninja, H-A-N-D-B-L-L-N-N-J-A. That is Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram.
Basically any social media handle at handball ninja, you'll likely find me the easiest way to get in contact with me and keep up with what I'm doing in the sport of handball and otherwise all across the globe. Beautiful. Well, thank you so much. Oh, wait.
So you haven't been doing this long enough to have a MySpace page? No, Facebook was my first social media profile. As far as what I'd also do, you have business-wise as well. MySpace was, I first discovered MySpace when I was a junior.
I didn't really get into social media as I was at high school. But that is a callback. It's a flashback. It's like, you can't say MySpace without people instantly getting an image in their mind of their MySpace page.
It's just like this. I think MySpace, I think of Tom. And that's what I was going to say. I was going to say, yes, you either think of your page or you think of Tom.
You think of Tom. That's really... I was going to leave people in that image in their brain. Get all MySpace.
Now I'm curious what Tom's up to. I know. That's definitely something I bet if we just Google what's Tom up to. I'm going to Google what's Tom up to.
Wait, hold on. Wait, hold on. Wait, hold on. Wait, hold on.
I'm curious now. I might have to put in what's MySpace Tom. I'm going to try what's Tom up to now. Let me see if I can answer.
This would be so great. It'd be funny if the first thing that comes up is what MySpace Tom is. It is. I'm here.
The thing is, well, the 50-year-old is in Hawaii and appears to be leaving an amazing life as a travel photographer exploring the world and sharing his beautiful snaps from exotic destinations like Thailand, Bhutan, and Maldives on Instagram and Twitter accounts. So now you know where Tom is now. He's on Instagram and Twitter now. Oh, that's brilliant.
He seems like he's living a good life. Yeah, I think that's a fine thing. It's a fine thing. Well, speaking of getting out and having fun, first of all, thank you.
Next competition coming up, next match. Next competition. As far as what we're doing at Team USA, internationally, we're building up to the 2023 World Beach Games in Bali, Indonesia. So I'll link to Tom being an exciting candidate.
Yes, let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Look for Tom.
I was in the Bali industry. In August 5th, 2012, 2023. That's the next big world competition. The national team.
Good luck with that. I'm only now imagining, yes, I was going to say, sorry to call it here in Colorado. It's only cold at night. It's in the 30s at night.
It's in the 70s all day. Still, it's crazy. But nonetheless, thinking of Bali, that's a pleasant one as the weather starts to change. So all right.
Thanks so much. This is again a total treat for everybody else. Once again, thank you for joining and go check out www.jointhemovement.com for previous episodes, all the ways you can interact with us, all the places you can find podcasts, and of course, you have any questions or feedback or comments or recommendations people have on the show. You can drop me an email.
I'm at moveatjointhemovementmovement.com. But most importantly, just go out, have fun, and live life-feet first.