The story of Julius "Mr. RU-vid Man" Yego. The Kenyan Javelin thrower who coached himself using RU-vid videos. All the way to win a World Athletics championship gold & Olympic silver.
Honestly I think RU-vid back then was better for accessing certain information! Yes the volume and quality of videos was probably worse but back then I remember the search feature was nowhere near as awful as it is now. You’d literally have pages of videos to select from now you get all of these damned shorts with irrelevant information, you type in “how to" and you get videos that somewhat feature the subject but not in an informative context it’s so annoying. And don’t get me started on the "views also watched" thing that just shows you a bunch of completely irrelevant videos that the algo thinks you wanna watch instead of looking for the video you wanted.
@@keovezo this has become a problem with google and all of its subsidiaries that use its search tech. these days its entire purpose is to generate revenue, not actually serve you what you're looking for. surprisingly, chatGPT works well as a search engine as long as you're not looking for info that's up-to-date within the last couple of years
@@keovezo I remember a time when youtube would show me in a line the new videos of people who I have subscribed to. And even those that were not from that list were good as well. I was able to find new quality videos without searching. Now even if I search and type the exact title its still a 50-50
Perhaps, but really not likely at all. And part of being the WR holder in any event is staying healthy long enough to progress to near-WR levels, so that means multiple years of health and progression. The point here is that maybe people get injured, and staying injury-free is a kind of genetic talent, just like throwing potential.
@@Dave-lr2wo Yeah, or maybe, just maybe, growing up in Afrika didn't give him the same start healthwise. Don't you think? His accomplishments in difference to his start are miles in front of many other athletes.
Not likely. For certain he is histories most unlikely 90m thrower. Easily the one guy who throw far beyond his physical size, strength and country’s pedigree ever expected.
@@robertrosen2703 1. Africa is not a monolith, so you really shouldn't be referring to an entire continent in your reasoning about one person. 2. If your argument made sense, which it does not do, there would be no athletic excellence in general in Kenya, which their middle and long distance programs have long disproven. Those are also athletes who grew up with similar nutrition and food availability.
@@Dave-lr2wo i think he probably had the potential, but due to like 10 years of waste in the youth, were you lay a good foundation, was too much. if he had been scouted and properly trained from a young age on, i think theres no doubt he would be at least a serious contender. ps: i dont want to make fun of or make look bad the way he trained. he achieved something amazing with his self training.
My brother is having a similar journey. He went from being a pitcher throwing 79mph to throwing 99mph in three years partly due to the research he did on RU-vid, Instagram, and with online articles. He applied it by videoing himself and improving one thing at a time, gaining weight, and lifting with tons of variability. He’s now in the Orioles organization and working his way up to the MLB. It’s insane how much social media can help athletes.
I keep telling my kids that YT is not just there to entertain you, it can teach you so many valuable skills. You can learn anything, what I would have given for this resource as a child.
@@catwif yes we can learn anything at any age. but todays kids should understand the resources they have at their fingertips. its not something to take for granted.
Man I love this story, it really shows the beauty of the internet. This man travelled the world, realised a talent and brought high level javelin to Kenya.
I won the 2015 ISKA US Open MMA Tournament without a grappling coach, I won by submission. I learned striking from a brilliant kickboxing instructor and then taught myself everything about grappling and wrestling from dvds and youtube videos. I would take notes and run drills with my training partners. The information is out there if you look.
indeed, coaches and instructors alike are more just as mediators of the information although still useful, but if you can do it by yourself then why not give it a try
Yea they also help you to not build bad habits. Whatever works though, if you don't have the money and its all you have then its much better than nothing if you don't have a coach and really focus on drilling technique.@@mizu_7422
@@sirk603 In case you were not being sarcastic, my answer is: Subtitles. Both the generated subtitles and the "official" ones. First I watched videos of BBC Earth, the show I had loved ever since I was a kid. Sir David's voice was easy to listen to too. Therefore, I had recalled the words even before they were uttered. Even if I heard/saw some new words , I could still guess their meanings due to the context and my knowledge of that field. (and most of the time, they were correct/close 😅). Then when my vocabulary got better, I watched different shows. Different contents. I started to read comments. I started to know about slang and memes 😅 It kept snowballing until I was confident enough to comment my own opinions. 😅 That's it. My speaking still sucks, but at least my writing, reading and listening skills is useable
I learnt playing football by using RU-vid and for the first time when i had played under any coach when i was 18 and was in my college team but no one ever realised this was my first ever proper training experience with any coach because i was already familiar with the basics. I won't say I'm as elite sportsman as him but still RU-vid helps you a lot if you have right mindset.
There are a lot of horror stories about the internet but this is a certified wholesome moment. There really is quality information online even though it may be hard to find
People will literally become world champions watching RU-vid and my "damn kids these days" boomer dad will still think the entirety of RU-vid is "pointless" and "stupid" despite not having watched a single video ever but will happily watch TLC all day
This is somewhat relatable, I’m a soccer defender and I honestly sucked. I started watching RU-vid videos, doing Pinterest practices and I’m playing at a professional club! (youth devision) These videos got me really far and I’m extremely happy I started watching them.
thats actually awesome dude! I used to only play goalkeeper since I was the fat kid and everytime I played as an outfield player like in defense or midfield I completely sucked at it because I didn't learn any of the necessary skills, only goalkeeping skills. Fed up, I watched RU-vid vids on dribbling, pressing, passing etc. and now I'm actually decent as a wingback :D
Well the coach plays a great part too. But in order for the coach to teach well, the one taught needs to have determination and love to do his thing indeed ^^
It's strange to say this RU-vid is a good coaching platform, learned so much from watching videos but for a national champion and Sliver Olympic medalist...... total madness 😂 *forgot about him being a World champion too 👏🏾
I disagree a bit. I don't think RU-vid is a good coaching platform, it's a good learning platform for those who can coach themselfes. If you want you can educate yourself on pretty much any topic to surprising depths and from tons of different angles on RU-vid. The challenge is just that you are able to sort out the crap and fuse the good bits together so it works well.
@@thecashier930 I understand, it really depends on many factors like skill set, experience and knowledge etc. It's not the best option but it's not a bad option IMO
I’ve learned most of what I know about cars off of RU-vid videos, articles, and forum posts. Recently just built a wiring harness and tuning my engine myself on an ECU I assembled (Speeduino). Now I’m prepping to swap a different drive train into my 87 MR2. It’s amazing what you can do with the access to information.
I love this story! I'd heard that years ago. Crazy stat about Kenya men's marathon having 30 of the top 50 fastest all times! For comparison America has 23 of the top 50 men's 100m all time!
I learned how to solder. I learned how to clean, repair and upgrade every xbox and playstation console since the 360 and PS2. These skills and a few more I've learned entirely through RU-vid
As a self-taught Nunchaku Freestyle competitor i respect and admire how far this guy went. I started to learn Nunchaku Freestyle like 3 or 4 years ago through RU-vid videos, and since then i did rank 4 in 2022 FNF World Cup and rank 11 on 2023, still looking for the win... I also won the 2023 Nunchaku Indian Freestyle Nunchaku Tournament , the Nunchaku Frestyle Grand Prix 2022, the 2022 Chux Off and the 2023 North American Nunchaku tournament... The sad part is that Nunchaku Freestyle is still very new, and not really popular, so it's hard to get clients to teach, or shows taking me seriously since i started my Freestyle Academy... I never had newspapers looking for me, never had an article about how i'm trying to get my country to the top, just the joy of seeing my name in the top next to the guys i admire...♥ I really hope this year will give me a bit more rewards for the efforts i made to get here... And i wish you all the same ♥.
The good thing about javelin is his improvements can be measured unlike most sports. How good you are is quantifiable so RU-vid works as long as he’s improving then it must work
Wow it was unexpected that the 92.72 meter throw clip was a clip from Yle TV2. Pleasant surprise to hear my own language on the internet every now and then
I love these stories. Friendly people on RU-vid taught me how to play the guitar. Today, I can play my favorite rock and metal songs from end to finish and lower the property value in my direct neighborhood at the same time :)
Great video, and yup, pretty much. You can learn a lot of stuff with only youtube, pretty much anything, however only if you put in enough hard work and discipline to truly do so.
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This is going to start happening more often and in multiple sports. Im sure the next generation of athletes will cite youtube very often as places where they did the most learning.
makes me think of my brother who had such great potential but he left school early and finished studies at college. so he didnt have opportunity to throw javelin. he could throw gholf balls 130m or more.
I was talking about this with a friend of mine the other day and he agreed with me: we've learned (or re-learned) some things in RU-vid better than when we initially found about them in school. And it's just sad to understand that a 10 minute RU-vid video could be better than 15 to 25 years of education.
Funny seeing kiwi legend Javelin thrower Stuart Farquar! I roomed with him in secondary school nationals in Wellington back in 1999 lol. He had a slightly better career than I did
RU-vid is the best place to learn almost everything such as English which I am learning nowadays, and the most amazing thing is that it's totally free🗿❤
RU-vid is a useful tool. Sometimes i dont get what my teacher is explaining, because its not straight forward. So i searched them up on youtube to leanr them better. It worked wonders. You can really learn mostt things on youtube. I learned some coding from RU-vid too.
