I know a buddy of mine that took kickboxing classes and then switched to judo classes.
When I asked him why he did this, he revealed to me a mugging incident that took place. He said that for all the experience and skill that he had learnt in his kickboxing, it didn’t help much in a real-life encounter.
He said that this was primarily due to a fault with his instructor’s teaching. That is to say that his instructor taught him to punch extremely well but at a distance - training consisted of him coming home with aching bones after having “sparred” with the instructor for half an hour. Well he did other stuff as well but this was the crux of the groups training session.
In any case, he said it did no good because in a real life situation, a guy who thinks he can take you will attempt to get real up-close-and-personal with you, and for this his training did not suffice. Judo is more “personal contact”, as he described it, and he thinks he will fare better “next time” (yes yes, we all pray it won’t happen again).
How does judo stack up against the other martial arts? Is it really more “up close and personal” the way my bud describes it? How does it fair against something more traditional, like karate or even kickboxing itself?
I often thought of judo as more wrestling-oriented, and that you probably need a stocky build to be good at it. But some of the guys I see going to practice are these absolute weeds - I mean the way I use to look when I was 14 (they’re like 25 YO’s). How can these guys be winning any fights? Is a certain type of build necessary to be dominant?
And finally (most important of all), how effective is judo in a real-life fight situation?
Judo is probably the most effective martial art in real life situations.
When your opponent starts grappling, as they always do, Judo answers the call. Aikido is up there too along with Kickboxing. Combining elements from each of those is the way to go for really effective self-defense.
the arguments for and against striking vs grappling arts are many and tedious…and arent likely to get sorted out in the near future. IMHO, good hard muay thai is a very effective art…in the limited sphere of experience that training in it provides.
Judo is also very good art - again, in its own limited shpere. Often h2h incident will end up in grappling range, and any trained dirt-roller will kick ur ass at it if u dont know what ur doin…but get on the ground against more than one BG, and ur toast.
IMHO, a balanced approach to learning what u can at all of the effective ranges of h2h is ur best bet…
IANAN (I Am Not A Ninja) but I have studied enough to get by.
The one thing I do know is that street fighting is not like a sparing contest or boxing match. You don’t want to be grappling around on the ground with some guy and have him pull a weapon or have his 6 buddies come up behind you.
What I do remember of Judo was that it involves a lot of pins and throws. Fine and all but what do you do with the guy once he’s pinned?
I’m guessing that you pretty much want a martial arts style that allows you to quickly incapacitate an opponent while allowing you to stay mobile.
The latest trend in martial arts right now is grappling, and Judo is a very good grappling art. Some feel that since it became more ‘sport oriented’ it has lost some of its effectiveness, and that an art like Jui Jitsu or Brazillian Jui Jitsu is more ‘street effective’.
In order to be effective in a ‘real life’ encounter you must be competent in all fighting ranges. However, the ideal situation is NOT to get into a grapple with someone. If this does happen, knowledge of a martial art like Judo is extremely beneficial, but this is something which most self defence practitioners would stress as a ‘last resort’. Ideally you want to keep your distance from the guy and hit him not roll around on concrete/broken glass etc with possibly his mates taking the odd kick at your head.
In my opinion as a self defence practitioner (as well as being a martial artist, there is a distinction between the two), the most useful thing to learn for self defence is the pyschological and physiological reaction of a human being to a violent confrontation. One aspect of this is termed ‘the fence’ and is a tool designed to keep your attacker out of grappling range in the first place.
In summary, grappling is an important skill for self defence, but certainly not the only one I would choose to learn. A sound knowledge of an art such as boxing, combined with an understanding of how to control the distance of the fight is a better ‘first resort’ but if the fit hits the shan and you get into a grapple then you have to be able to function well at this range too. Judo, depending on the nature of the instruction, is as good a grappling art as any to enable you to do this.
A very good source of information about reality self defence and martial arts can be found at www.geoffthompson.com.
<In my opinion as a self defence practitioner (as well as being a martial artist, there is a distinction between the two), the most useful thing to learn for self defence is the pyschological and physiological reaction of a human being to a violent confrontation. >
This is true, in my case I’m like the LEAST intimidating person there is, but when someone alarms me, I completely switch modes and go into “Uptown” (Uptown Chicago, not New York)
Uptown was a really, really bad neighborhood for years and I grew up around a bunch of bullies, gangbangers, halfway houses and crazy people.
After awhile the trained response to any threat is to get very, very angry, so angry you don’t CARE if they kill you.
Usually people freak out when that happens and even the worst gangbanger doesn’t want to do life in prison for your gold chain or wallet.
The verbal/body-language ‘prefight’ is sometimes called the art of fighting without fighting and once mastered is probably the best form of self defence there is.
IMHO Judo and Tae Kwon Do are almost completely useless in a real life situation. I’ve seen Judo people get into scuffles, whatever training they’ve had almost instantly flys out the window. They hesitate and end up getting kicked in the ribs. When they attempt to throw someone they realize its a lot harder to toss someones when their resisting. Its also not a good idea to get in grappling range of a thug who may be holding a blade out of sight. Rolling around is a good way to get yourself stabbed.
Akido is a better bet, instead of Judo’s take of tossing the perp to the ground, Akido takes the stance of breaking the guys arm then throwing him to the ground. Slightly more effective. I’ve sat in on a session or two and they did a bit on disarming knives coming at you from all angles. That could be of some use.
I’d stick with kickboxing seeing as how your friend is already into it. Just switch dojos. There probably someone out there who teaching practical kick boxing instead of flashy technique.
Wearia makes an important point; its not the art, its the training that’s important.
There are many Judo schools that train throws and grapples against opponents who are resisting. There’s ‘flashy’ and ‘practical’ schools for just about any art. Although Taekwondo focusses on flashy high, jumping and spinning kicks it can still be a good self defence tool in the hands of someone who has had proper training; for instance, low level leg sweeps are a very useful and practical self defence tool, and if you can kick someone in the head hard enough to knock them across the room, think of the power that kick would have at knee height!
One important thing to consider about violent confrontation is that it scares you. No one is exempt; the fear, the ‘fight or flight’ adrenal response is something every single one of us (including the person attacking you) experiences. One upshot of this condition is that fine motor reflexes become unreliable and possibly even stop working altogether. Gross motor actions are more reliable and so therefore are more convienient to train int he short term; that’s why so many doormen, bouncers etc use boxing techniques.
Arts such as Aikido, Wing Tsun etc rely a lot on fine motor action. Of course, I’m not saying these arts are useless (they very definitely are not) but they need to be trained for long enough for these actions to become almost instinctive before they can be relied on; its a longer path to effective fighting.
Having said all that, I disagree with the sentiment that ‘such-and-such an art is rubbish in a real life situation’ as this is often based on observation of a poorly trained individual. What does this say about the art? Nothing.
Big ol’ nod ‘o’ the head to <b>green_dragon</b> - the most effective fighters train to fight; that is, against resisting opponents, and especially against resisiting opponents who dont know whats ‘supposed’ to happenwhen a tech goes right.
Boxers, good MT gyms and lots of good dojos/kwans/etc train this way. It’s central to train full speed, full force (with the right protective gear and supervision, oc course ; ) ) to amke sure u can do it when it counts.
Many people claim that Judo teaches you to fall down correctly, a skill useful in many types of real-life accidents. I have no first-hand experience myself.
R-Con, dear friend, this is a message board, not chat. Lightning speed is not necessary. Please be so kind as to use full words (“you,” not “u”) and avoid abbreviations such as “h2h” and “BG” that are not familiar to the most of the folks who read these messages.
Does anyone remember the name of the martial art (if it is a martial art) that is taught to the Israeli military? I can’t for the life of me remember what it’s called, but I seem to remember that it was very practical for self-defense.
scr4, judo has literally saved my life with the falling techniques it taught me. I got thrown in front of my motorcycle at 40+ mph (the fork shocks blew and caused the handlebar to violently wobble full left to full right, one wobble I tried to hold and it threw me). I rolled to my feet, skidded on cowboy boots (if I had been wearing sneakers I’d have fallen again) and managed to jump out of the way of my bike and a truck following behind me. I didn’t even lose my sunglasses or baseball hat (no helmet- stoopid) and only scraped my knee and wrist a little. I even yelled “God! Did anyone get that on tape?!?”
I’ve studied judo (and Brazilian Ju-Jitsu) and now take Thai boxing. I’m glad I have the variety of training, and would not recommend only one art. Especially given a situation like a mugging which has so many other factors in it that we don’t know about (the mugger could have been a blck belt in 10 martial arts, the friend drunk, jumped in the shadows, etc.). Even a great fighter can be taken for a loop. The problem with switching like he did was that it seems he is looking for the ‘perfect martial art’ which doesn’t exist. People tend to take the human factor out of martial arts, which is a conditioning brought about by our romanticized knowledge of them. All those martial arts movies about finding the secret book of the old masters and in 10 easy lessons conquering any foe probably have done more harm to martial arts perceptions than good. Otherwise put, a skilled person in Tai chi (a very mild martial art focused on energy and exercise) is probably going to do well against a bad person in Thai boxing. It’s not the art, it’s the person.
If the friend mentioned above keeps switching from one art to the next because they don’t use it properly (and win), then he will be a beginner in a bunch of arts. Not the best IMHO.
Sqube I believe you mean Krav Maga. I know nothing more about it than its name and that it was developed in Isreal.
Judo is good because a great deal of the practice is done at full speed against a skilled and resisting opponent. Bad because it IS a sport martial art, and does not primarily focus on street fighting techniques, those have to be added by your sensei, and likely won’t get as much time as the sport aspect.
My sensei told us a story of his near-mugging by 3 guys, I think it was. He basically grabbed one of the guys, tossed him on his noggin (out cold), and looked at the other two. They decided to leave.
When it comes to grappling, generally people don’t know how to fight down there, so a GOOD Judo guy won’t spend any time rolling around on the ground with them. He’ll execute a takedown, then get on top or apply a choke/joint lock to end it immediately. As mentioned, this is not a good idea if his friends are around, my sensei preferred to teach the “throw to ground, kick in head/ribs, run” method.
Judo IS a sport, it was developed as a sport, it has never been a martial art. Judo is the sports version of Jiu Jitsu, with the practical applications taken out.
No rules, Shooters type fighting has taken towards grappling, because it prevents being knocked out by a punch. The organisers are trying to move it away from this as its not very spectator friendly.