December 8, 2020 • 108 mins
One of the first objectives of the podcast was to bring knowledge of successful professionals that could help with their advice and experience to the taekwondo community.
The idea was to interview athletes, coaches, health care professionals, Masters, business owners to share ideas from their respective fields to us.
Today we will cover many of these fields in one interview. As our guest was former USA national team member, he has excelled at coaching and sports performance and he is also a top health care professional who has worked with professional athletes and performers in places like the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Cirque du Soleil and now works for one of the best soccer teams in the continent, the Los Angeles Football Club.
He also co-owns The Juice Compound, a World Class Coaching program that helps individuals to reach their potential.
I’m talking about Dr Jason Han, taekwondo World Cup Medalist, doctor, consultant, owner of Health Fit and father of family.
Dr Jason Han very kindly accepted to share with us his experiences since he started taekwondo as a child after watching a demo at his school.
Taekwondo demonstrations
Dr Jason was a multi sport child. He decided to focus on taekwondo until he had to make a decision between it and basketball.
Usually, when we think about successful athletes, we can suppose that they started competing in taekwondo very young, but it is not the case for Dr Jason.
First he was part of his dojang demo team, and it is interesting that also a demo was what brought him to taekwondo.
He saw a demo at his school and so he asked his parents to take him to taekwondo.
Another interesting aspect that made him stay in taekwondo in certain moments where he wanted to drop out was the opportunity to mentor lower belt students of the dojang he attended.
It’s interesting how this seed of helping others was one of the things that made him stick to taekwondo. The social part more than the athletic achievements.
Athlete and coach at the same time
Dr Jason studied in one of the most famous and prestigious universities in the world, the University of Berkley.
And one of the reasons why he chose Berkeley was the taekwondo coach that taught there, Dr. Park Bong Kwon.
But curiously, when Jason had only one year at Berkeley Dr Park Bong Kwon had to leave the university and so Dr Jason, being the most experienced athlete had the big responsibility to lead the team..
He remembers it as a growth experience as he had to start to research how a training plane was made and also he had to focus on his studies and on his athletic career.
Dr Jason shares with us that in those days access to knowledge was really difficult comparing it with nowadays.
At first he had to plan according his experience as an athlete and then slowly pick up information from different sources, for example, if he went with the USA Team to the World Championships and he saw the Iran team doing certain drill or exercise before the competition, he analyzed it to see if it made sense to try it.
This is a great reflection of what we can do as coaches, maybe we don’t have the experience of other coaches, or maybe we don’t have access to Sports Lab or to a multidisciplinary team to work for us.
So, we have to do what we can with what we have. A reflection that also Stephen Lambdin shared with us.
Choice management
Almost at the beginning of the interview Jason shared with us this quote:
“Is not time management, it is choice management”
This came out because of the multiple areas in which Dr Jason works simultaneously.
He works with the LA Football Club, owns his clinic with his wife, co owns and works with The Juice Compound helping athletes to achieve their goals no matter their level.
And he shared with us that everyone had the same amount of time within a day. But it is up to us what we decide to make with our time.
We can decide to spend one hour on Instagram or Facebook, or maybe we can use the same time to something more productive that can make us feel better and to achieve other kinds of goals.
Dr Jason wakes up every day at 4am, that is a choice.
Because at 8am he is a father and takes his daughter to the school, and after it he works, so, to dedicate time to himself and his personal projects he had to wake up at that hour.
And to invest in his body he goes to bed early, because also is not the best choice to sleep only 4 or 5 hours per night.
How is it to work at the Cirque du Soleil and Pittsburgh Steelers?
Dr Jason has worked in places like the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cirque du Soleil.
And I was really curious how and why he chose those places to work.
What did he learn working there?
And his answer, more than technical things, was more directed to the human part.
Of course working in those places must require high level technical knowledge. For example, in the Steelers Dr Jason had to deal with really serious contact injuries.
But Dr Jason put things clear, he doesn’t want to talk about bones and muscles and techniques.
Some of the challenges of working in those environments are in dealing with humans. In learning to communicate with others in an assertive way.
Politics are everywhere, in any kind of job. You have to earn the confidence of your coworkers and in health care of your patients.
In the Cirque du Soleil Dr Jason had to treat performers from all over the world, all of them with different ideas on how to deal with injuries and recovery.
He had to convince them that he was on their side, not trying to take them out of the show. His job was to prevent damage that could actually get them out of the show.
No matter if your patient is from Poland, China, Russia, or wherever, the most important thing to earn confidence is honesty, and this tool can help you to motivate your patients and athletes.
Connection with the patient
With years of experience, technical skills and physiotherapy experience of Dr Jason has improved. He tells us, if you are in the physio area you need to love to be better at technical things.
But not only the technical skills are important. He mentions the 80/20 rule. Maybe the technical knowledge is the 80 percent and the connection the other 20.
Maybe viceversa. But both areas have to work together to make people better, faster and as safe as possible.
In physiotherapy and rehabilitation you will spend a lot of time with the patient, you will not be like a surgeon who needs to be very good at the technical process and who probably won’t interact with the patient.
A physio is someone that is trying to make you something that is uncomfortable. And some people don’t want to push, some people want to push too much.
And you have to read the situation, if they push more they maybe will hurt themselves more and not gonna trust you and go with someone else. Which will not allow you to help them.
As I mention in the audio, the interview is very rich. So I hope you can listen to all of it, I share with you the links below. Please let me know what you learned from Dr Jason.
The idea was to interview athletes, coaches, health care professionals, Masters, business owners to share ideas from their respective fields to us.
Today we will cover many of these fields in one interview. As our guest was former USA national team member, he has excelled at coaching and sports performance and he is also a top health care professional who has worked with professional athletes and performers in places like the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Cirque du Soleil and now works for one of the best soccer teams in the continent, the Los Angeles Football Club.
He also co-owns The Juice Compound, a World Class Coaching program that helps individuals to reach their potential.
I’m talking about Dr Jason Han, taekwondo World Cup Medalist, doctor, consultant, owner of Health Fit and father of family.
Dr Jason Han very kindly accepted to share with us his experiences since he started taekwondo as a child after watching a demo at his school.
Taekwondo demonstrations
Dr Jason was a multi sport child. He decided to focus on taekwondo until he had to make a decision between it and basketball.
Usually, when we think about successful athletes, we can suppose that they started competing in taekwondo very young, but it is not the case for Dr Jason.
First he was part of his dojang demo team, and it is interesting that also a demo was what brought him to taekwondo.
He saw a demo at his school and so he asked his parents to take him to taekwondo.
Another interesting aspect that made him stay in taekwondo in certain moments where he wanted to drop out was the opportunity to mentor lower belt students of the dojang he attended.
It’s interesting how this seed of helping others was one of the things that made him stick to taekwondo. The social part more than the athletic achievements.
Athlete and coach at the same time
Dr Jason studied in one of the most famous and prestigious universities in the world, the University of Berkley.
And one of the reasons why he chose Berkeley was the taekwondo coach that taught there, Dr. Park Bong Kwon.
But curiously, when Jason had only one year at Berkeley Dr Park Bong Kwon had to leave the university and so Dr Jason, being the most experienced athlete had the big responsibility to lead the team..
He remembers it as a growth experience as he had to start to research how a training plane was made and also he had to focus on his studies and on his athletic career.
Dr Jason shares with us that in those days access to knowledge was really difficult comparing it with nowadays.
At first he had to plan according his experience as an athlete and then slowly pick up information from different sources, for example, if he went with the USA Team to the World Championships and he saw the Iran team doing certain drill or exercise before the competition, he analyzed it to see if it made sense to try it.
This is a great reflection of what we can do as coaches, maybe we don’t have the experience of other coaches, or maybe we don’t have access to Sports Lab or to a multidisciplinary team to work for us.
So, we have to do what we can with what we have. A reflection that also Stephen Lambdin shared with us.
Choice management
Almost at the beginning of the interview Jason shared with us this quote:
“Is not time management, it is choice management”
This came out because of the multiple areas in which Dr Jason works simultaneously.
He works with the LA Football Club, owns his clinic with his wife, co owns and works with The Juice Compound helping athletes to achieve their goals no matter their level.
And he shared with us that everyone had the same amount of time within a day. But it is up to us what we decide to make with our time.
We can decide to spend one hour on Instagram or Facebook, or maybe we can use the same time to something more productive that can make us feel better and to achieve other kinds of goals.
Dr Jason wakes up every day at 4am, that is a choice.
Because at 8am he is a father and takes his daughter to the school, and after it he works, so, to dedicate time to himself and his personal projects he had to wake up at that hour.
And to invest in his body he goes to bed early, because also is not the best choice to sleep only 4 or 5 hours per night.
How is it to work at the Cirque du Soleil and Pittsburgh Steelers?
Dr Jason has worked in places like the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cirque du Soleil.
And I was really curious how and why he chose those places to work.
What did he learn working there?
And his answer, more than technical things, was more directed to the human part.
Of course working in those places must require high level technical knowledge. For example, in the Steelers Dr Jason had to deal with really serious contact injuries.
But Dr Jason put things clear, he doesn’t want to talk about bones and muscles and techniques.
Some of the challenges of working in those environments are in dealing with humans. In learning to communicate with others in an assertive way.
Politics are everywhere, in any kind of job. You have to earn the confidence of your coworkers and in health care of your patients.
In the Cirque du Soleil Dr Jason had to treat performers from all over the world, all of them with different ideas on how to deal with injuries and recovery.
He had to convince them that he was on their side, not trying to take them out of the show. His job was to prevent damage that could actually get them out of the show.
No matter if your patient is from Poland, China, Russia, or wherever, the most important thing to earn confidence is honesty, and this tool can help you to motivate your patients and athletes.
Connection with the patient
With years of experience, technical skills and physiotherapy experience of Dr Jason has improved. He tells us, if you are in the physio area you need to love to be better at technical things.
But not only the technical skills are important. He mentions the 80/20 rule. Maybe the technical knowledge is the 80 percent and the connection the other 20.
Maybe viceversa. But both areas have to work together to make people better, faster and as safe as possible.
In physiotherapy and rehabilitation you will spend a lot of time with the patient, you will not be like a surgeon who needs to be very good at the technical process and who probably won’t interact with the patient.
A physio is someone that is trying to make you something that is uncomfortable. And some people don’t want to push, some people want to push too much.
And you have to read the situation, if they push more they maybe will hurt themselves more and not gonna trust you and go with someone else. Which will not allow you to help them.
As I mention in the audio, the interview is very rich. So I hope you can listen to all of it, I share with you the links below. Please let me know what you learned from Dr Jason.
Mark as Played
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