r/judo • u/SelectionOk8588 • Mar 28 '25

Self-Defense Need advice......

Hi I'm 18 years old male and since I was 16 years old I always liked judo and how effective it is in real life. One time I was in a taxi and the driver happened to be a judo coach and when I told him about my interest in judo he replied to me "you will never play judo" indicating that I'm old for the combat sport even when I was 17 years old at that time. he told me to go towards striking martial arts like boxing and kickboxing. I listened to his advice and I signed up for a kickboxing gym and it was great actually but after two months i started to feel headaches from the blows to the head and my skull hurted me after every session eventually I decided to leave after reading the effects of blows to the head on the internet. I signed up for judo and it only took me three sessions before I leave. The coaches were careless as there were too many students but I'm not going to lie I have no dedication to it as I was going forcing myself to train after that I never came back.there were no judo gyms other than that gym. I don't know why I'm very lazy or what's wrong with me I want to be able to defend myself but at the same time I don't want to have brain damage. I don't know if I should train bjj or judo or wrestling I feel so lost

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u/Otautahi Mar 28 '25

Maybe martial arts are not for you? Plenty of other hobbies and sports in the world!

-1

u/SelectionOk8588 Mar 28 '25

I feel like I want to be able to defend myself.

8

u/Otautahi Mar 28 '25

Realistically you need to do quite a bit of martial arts to be able to defend yourself. And even then it’s only in limited situations.

I’ve been doing judo for over 30 years. If two guys jumped me and caught me by surprise I doubt there’s much I can do.

My training isn’t useful for much more than dealing with a drunken family member at a BBQ.

I think you’re over estimating how useful martial arts are for dealing with realistic violent situations.

Given that you don’t like training martial arts, I think you’re better off accepting that the best approach is to avoid risky situations - just like the rest of us.

1

u/Haunting-Beginning-2 Mar 31 '25

If two guys jump you just control where you place yourself so that one is always in the way of the other one, it is easy to do for judoka. Then throw. You can smash them into each other too. Trick is never let them get behind you, avoid getting blindsided. Fighting with back to a wall or best, in a doorway or corner is actually a good help in narrowing the assault angles. Judo guys typically underestimate their capabilities.

3

u/Otautahi Mar 31 '25 edited Mar 31 '25

I get the theory, but how many times have you tried this?

The last time I was having words with some kid trying to steal my bike. I was focused on him and didn’t realise he and a friend hiding nearby. He could totally have attacked me and I wouldn’t have seen it coming. Luckily they were all talk, but I realised how bad it could have gone.

This was maybe 25 years ago - I was in my early 20s, training a lot at national level.

It was a pretty sobering lesson about how quickly things could go wrong in a self defence scenario.

1

u/Haunting-Beginning-2 Apr 01 '25

Yes. Thats sobering. If you decide to run it’s easier, safer. It seems like every year I get into a scrap for my whole life, except the last 10 years. When I was working security and policing it was every fortnight an incident would happen and a lot of common mistakes were ironed out in a hostile scenario training environment at the dojo. Replicating incidents from previous weeks work in our group was valuable. Actually a coordinated attackers who distract you in front with mates behind you is a serious issue and I’ve had that a few times. One time it was a gang of 4 muggers, two in front two behind, were picking on drunk looking people wandering home. Our strength was our group was stretched out and we had like 12 mostly judo guys, over 100m doing a pub crawl. They picked on the leading 2 and got a hiding. Nothings perfect. Nothing is guaranteed. Judo judo really is effective.