JRE MMA Show #115 with Valentina Schevchenko

Valentina Shevchenko (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan (0:15)

Pleasure to have you in here. Very excited.

Valentina Shevchenko (0:17)

Finally, I'm here, right?

Joe Rogan (0:19)

Finally, yeah. We've been talking about it for a while, and I've been a fan of yours for quite a long time. You're a very unusual person, very unusual. I mean, it's unusual to be a martial arts champion, but you are, you're an unusual martial arts champion. I mean, you're very, you're very diverse. You have so many skills and talents. It's very strange. Like, how does one, first of all, how many languages do you speak?

Valentina Shevchenko (0:44)

Three, what I speak, and I'm learning Thai now.

Joe Rogan (0:49)

You're learning Thai, because you were speaking Thai after one of your fights.

Valentina Shevchenko (0:52)

The last one, yeah.

Joe Rogan (0:53)

So it sounds like you know it. Like you say, you're learning it, but you've got a lot to say.

Valentina Shevchenko (0:58)

Yeah, it's kind of like I can say a lot, but when I mean I'm learning, I want to, so once I will speak it like fluently, and I will understand like native people so good, then I consider it, yes, I speak language. Before that, it's kind of still learning. And I think I started to learning like couple years ago, but I think it's very important to have practice with native people.

Go to Thailand and like forget about speaking English, just speak Thai, and this is how like you just adopt everything. So this is what I want to put this language, Thai language on the next level, then I will say, okay, four, no four.

Joe Rogan (1:46)

So like you immerse yourself?

Valentina Shevchenko (1:49)

Maybe, yeah, kind of, because for me, I try to do everything like the best way I can, not the perfection way, right, but the best what I can.

Joe Rogan (2:02)

Now, your first language is Russian?

Valentina Shevchenko (2:05)

Yes.

Joe Rogan (2:05)

And when did you learn other, when did you start learning other languages?

Valentina Shevchenko (2:10)

So English, it was, I started to learn it in the school, just some basics, because it's like a school program. We learn alphabets, some just very easy words, and nothing enough for like speaking level.

But when I started to compete and go and travel for the competition, that was like my push for bringing my language level to the next level.

And when we moved to South America, then I started to learn Spanish. But learning Spanish, it was kind of like the hard way. I came there with no one word in Spanish, no one word. And it's straight like to there. If you want to learn Spanish, you have to speak Spanish right now. And I say from the moment what I started to speak to the moment when I was kind of like given my first interview, it was four months. After four months, I was given my first interview in Spanish. It was not the perfect Spanish, but I still could communicate.

Joe Rogan (3:17)

So talk us through this journey. So why did you go to South America?

Valentina Shevchenko (3:22)

I was born in Kyrgyzstan. My sister, she's martial artist. I was starting my training when I was very young, age five years old. And definitely like through all the years what I practice in martial arts, I compete a lot.

Every competition, a lot of martial arts and so I started to compete in Kyrgyzstan.

Then there was not any competition, like any opponents, and it was like hard to compete already. Then we started travel, my coach Pavel, with who I trained like since the beginning, he decided like to, okay, let's explore something new. We moved to Russia for a couple of years. And then it was like also no opponents to fight with.

And we decided to move next. And so see how to like explore. And definitely, I think for martial arts, for MMA, for like anything in South America, it's a good place to, and mostly it's interesting to explore, interesting culture from Russia, Kyrgyzstan, it's very far. It's kind of like totally different culture. And we decide to explore over there. We come to South America, and people there just wanted to learn a lot Muay Thai. We started to train, give like classes, and they was asking for the seminars, and we stay a little bit more, a little bit more, and then we decide, okay, why we not stay here and live here? And we stay there and lived for eight years.

Joe Rogan (5:04)

So you initially went there just to find people to compete with?