Quite a while ago my dad told me to watch a documentary called Jiro Dreams of Sushi. The documentary is from 2011 and follows Jiro Ono, a sushi chef who is in his mid-80s (!!!) and on the constant pursuit of perfecting his sushi-making skills. He is the owner of the restaurant Sukiyabashi Jiro in Tokyo, and in the documentary he is training his eldest son to one day run the business after he deems him worthy (which at times seems like it may be never).

I love sushi and thought it would simply be a documentary highlighting some of the best sushi in the world (and then I would ultimately order sushi after to hold me over knowing I may never get to have the quality of sushi in the documentary). However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was so much more.

My dad is a chef by trade, so I have a little bit of the “cooking blood” in my veins. I tell everyone that he is a chef, and I just know how to cook. Sometimes I can cook on intuition and get lucky with the taste (despite having no real idea what I’m doing). He, however, can cook on intuition and get it RIGHT because he knows EXACTLY what he is doing. I can cook a steak dinner; he can create for you a whole steak meal. This documentary gave me a whole new appreciation of what being a chef means, the combination of art/intuition/”feel” and science that goes into creating a meal, and how chefs and strength and conditioning coaches are way more alike than I ever realized.

5 Qualities of a Top Chef

The documentary presented five qualities that make a “Top Chef” (and at the time of the documentary the restaurant was a Michelin three-star restaurant, which means it’s safe to say that Chef Jiro Ono is indeed a Top Chef). The list is actually very similar to what I believe would make a “Top Strength and Conditioning Coach”:

1. They take their work very seriously and consistently perform at the highest level
2. They aspire to constantly improve their skills
3. They believe strongly in cleanliness of their workspace (if the restaurant does not feel clean, the food will not taste good)
4. They are impatient, they tend to be better leaders than collaborators, and are stubborn and insistent on having it their way
5. They are incredibly passionate about their profession: the cooking, the food, and making sure that people enjoy what they present

Imagine a strength and conditioning coach with these qualities (or really anyone aspiring to get to the top of his/her profession). As strength and conditioning coaches, I think we sometimes collaborate too much within our own profession and should branch out to others in different fields to learn what makes them successful. I am extremely grateful that my dad told me about this documentary as 1) I gained a better appreciation for his abilities as a chef and 2) I was able to take some quality lessons from someone who is a master of his craft in a different profession (while also enjoying the thought of one day eating delicious sushi in his restaurant).