AUDIO: US Judo Olympian Travis Stevens, Prepares for London talks to Takedown Wrestling

Travis Stevens is a member of the U.S. Olympic Judo Team, and he is preparing for the 2012 Summer Games in London. Stevens is currently on his second Olympic squad, his first was in 2008. Among his many accomplishments in Judo, such as Gold Medaling in the Pan Am Games in 2007, he is also a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner under Renzo Gracie and John Danaher. He takes time away from training to share his story with us today.

Thanks for agreeing to answer some questions, Travis. So tell us about your path as a martial artist, when did you start?

My path has been a long one. I started judo as a kid 2 weeks before my 7th birthday. I accidentally signed up for Judo rather than Football at the local youth center by my house. I fell in love with the sport almost instantly. I loved the combat, two guys pitted against each other. It’s not like most sports, you don’t race against a clock, there is physically someone in front of you saying, “I will not let you win and I will do anything in my power to stop you”. When I was 11 I suffered a very bad knee injury and fell out of sports all together. When I was a sophomore in High School I found some of my old tapes from competitions when I was a kid and knew I had to get back into it.

By the time I was a Junior, I was back into Judo. I started off easy, just twice a week. After a month I was doing it 5 nights a week. Once the High School programs started up a few months later I got involved in those, too. I would skip my 6th period class everyday. I would run two miles to catch a public bus that would take me an hour and a half away to another school that had Judo in their After School Sports System. I knew the coach there so he had no problem letting me train. So, my Junior year I was working out as a part of the after school program, then my mom would pick me up there after she got off work. Then she’d drive me an hour and half away to a club that trained at night. So, I was training twice a day and then during my Senior Year, I could drive my self. I spent most weekends driving up to Steveston, Canada for their Saturday workouts and also to Whidbey Island on Sunday for their workout. I was a full time Judo practitioner starting in High School. I lifted weights durning school as my Gym Class. I was lucky enough to have a great instructor.

After I graduated I moved to San Jose, California to go to San Jose State University. I spent two years there going to school and training Judo. After about 8 months of training there I was looking to add workouts into my training schedule. I got in touch with Dave Camarillo down at AKA (the American Kickboxing Academy). I would work out there as much as possible sometimes twice a day plus my lifting and two Judo workouts a day, along with school. I loved Jiu Jitsu it was a great cross training workout that helped me make leaps and bounds in my Judo career.

In 2006, I transitioned to bigger and better things with the Olympics in sight. I moved to Upstate NY and trained under Jason Morris. He was the one that  exposed me to the International scene. I ended up qualifying for the ’08 games with ease. But, I  fell short of a Medal. After the games, I thought long and hard about where I went wrong and why I didn’t do what I trained to do. I decided I needed a new style of training and one that was more professional. I packed up and went to Boston, Massachusetts to train under Jimmy Pedro. I had worked with him years before, he had coached me on many trips and we always got along. I have been here ever since, I love it here and have not once regretted the move.