Judo will cripple you

Fist To FACE

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After years of dedication to judo it gave me a black belt (first dan) and unparalleled skills at taking anyone down.

It also gave me:
1) Osteoartheritis on all my fingers from GI gripping
2) Pinched nerve in my neck
3) Bad lower back from not wanting to fall on my back and lose by Ippon.
4) Destroyed cartilage in my knees because of some throwing techniques like uchimata

That sport is probably the most tough on the joints ever, and to be competing in it will add 60 years to your body. My brother retired from judo at 29. TWENTY NINE! He walks like yoda because of hip surgery. The nature of the sport is geared to demolish you like no other if you want to stay serious in Judo.
 
Seems like its an ugly truth with most sports, particularly combat sports :(
 
while all combat sports CAN hurt you I think there are some that are "safer" due to the rules of the game..............
BJJ for instance will have less high impact throws and less concern about Ippons so contorting in mid air is not a problem..however with all the joint locks and such I can see that it is a possibility to injure certain joints like the wrist, knees, ankles, elbows through prolonged hyperextension or stress.

Wrestling is fairly safe and while there are injuries it is more like a runner turning his ankle...an accident ...rather than the design of the maneuver causing the injury.
There are hard throws but how you land is not important in scoring so yes protecting your self has no drawback(Like an Ippon) the ground work uses leverage more so than pressure against a joint.
 
bjj or mma is better for you than judo man. Except for football and boxing, judo is hardcore like no other.
 
That is why i don't compete in Judo. I decided when i was a kid that it was pointless to learn how to fall properly and not hurt yourself and then to compete and attempt not to fall the way you learnt it and hurt yourself instead. I concentrate on ne-waza instead.
 
High intensity judo training will decimate your body. An awful lot of high level guys have stop competing due to injury rather making the decision themselves.

There is a reason every starts to appreciate groundwork more once get to 30.

Ippons hurt you but its the kokas that injure you.
 
Just about any combat sport or "collision" sport which Judo, Wrestling and BJJ are listed as, will fuck you up over a lifetime. My Sensei has a really f'ed up knee.
 
Gripping the gi alone is enough to give you arthritis ? damn... isn't there any way to avoid it ?
 
Judo is the football of combat sports, I had blisters on my fingers all of the time from gripping the gi. I love the sport but it is rough, the only serious martial arts injury I have had is when my knee got popped from a leg lock, which happened to me this week.
 
sha said:
Gripping the gi alone is enough to give you arthritis ? damn... isn't there any way to avoid it ?
Nogi grips? :wink:
 
Spoonman7 said:
Judo is the football of combat sports, I had blisters on my fingers all of the time from gripping the gi. I love the sport but it is rough, the only serious martial arts injury I have had is when my knee got popped from a leg lock, which happened to me this week.

To be fair the blisters disappear after a few months once you build up some callouses
 
Most wrestlers don't wrestle after high school...so chronic injuries aren't as visible (and there are fewer of them). I don't know a single good wrestler that doesn't have some chronic injuries.

I like and respect judo but it's obvious that it is very hard to remain competitive as you age due to injuries. I've been considering getting into it for a little while and probably still will, but expect that I'll lose by ippon a lot as I take proper falls (which isn't necessarily bad as my purpose would be to learn the stand-up randori portion, not the sport).

One of the attractive aspects of bjj for me is that I know I can remain competitive for many more years, particularly with my game (not explosive) and body structure. The most common injuries I see in bjj are to the knees, but that is invariably guys who play fancy open/spider guard games. Old_Skool is 50 and remains very competitive, and I think I can do better than that.
 
Do Judo for the enjoyment, not the competiton then. My Sensei say it all the time "Competition is something, but it's not everything".
 
Stephen Kesting has a good article on his lower back problems ... he was forced to quit judo and focus on submission wrestling/bjj because judo is so hard on your back.

Some of those judo throws are sooooo brutal. Awesome to know how to do them, but to have them done to you 500 times? That adds up ...
 
i think many sports induce injuries. i know at least 15 people who in their youth used to compete nationally or even internationally in diverse sports (none of them martial arts) and all quit due to injuries. i sometimes even get the impression that those who move on to turn pro are often not necessarily the best, but those who are less injury prone/lucky in this respect.

that said bjj is clearly less damaging that judo.
 
The only reason I did Judo was because SJSU (at the time had no wrestling team of club). I just focused on ne waza. The throws never appealed ot me since only about 25% could be accomplished properly without wearing the gi.

I loved kata guruma and drop seionagis though, very similar to wrestling throws.
 
sha said:
Gripping the gi alone is enough to give you arthritis ? damn... isn't there any way to avoid it ?

Apparently not, because without a grip, you have no throw. Also the problem is when you have a tight grip on his sleeve, then he yanks away as hard as he can to get free, and in the process your fingers get all twisted. This happened to me every time i trian. Hurts like hell.
 
triso said:
Nogi grips? :wink:

There is like only one or two throws which you dont need a grip. (morotegari, etc). Generally if you dont grip the guy, your usually end up getting thrown into space.
 
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