I just read a review on the ’’Indoor Game’’ of Judo and found some mistakes in it. It starts with the title of the other review - it refers to Judo as self-defense.
Judo today is usually ’’sports judo’’. Most dojos teach sports judo.
Some words:
judo = being the ’gentle way’.
dojo = Japanese for ’the place to learn the way’
Besides sports judo, there is the old, traditional judo. Judo was created by Jigoro Kano in Japan. He took moves from military arts and stripped off the deadly / dangerous parts. Judo is completely layed out to be a safe sport.
This is also the reason why with judo alone, you will not survive in a streetfight. Traditional judo for example teaches you that you have to hold the opponent in a pin on his/her back. It doesn’t matter if the opponent has the hands free.. as long as he’s on his back.
In real life, if you’d try to hold an attacker that way, he’d be punching in your face. Granted, he’d be on his back but from there, he’d dig out your eye-balls and you’d lose your teeth.
Sports judo does not allow attacks to the knees or kicks at all. Any streetfighter will apply these techniques.
Before you conclude now that judo is useless, let me continue on the self-defense. It is true, that judo is a good basis for learing self-defense. The best self-defense is still running, of course ;-). I suggest 400 meters (quarter mile). Someone who trained judo for a few years will find it easy to learn extra techniques for self-defense. That are sometimes only small modifications from already known sports-judo moves.
There are people who claim that they can switch at the blink of an eye from sports judo (self-defense) to street-fighting ’’mode’’. I never had to do it, but I am uncertain if I could. If you train all the time with the protection of your PARTNER in mind; it just seems a big switch.
The other good thing is that training in any sport will give people a better self-confidence. If they learn a martial art, they will be used to the idea of dealing with another body. Some martial arts are .. less contact. Judo is ’’full contact’’, naturally. It looks a lot like wrestling, which is more popular in North America.
Ultimately I would recommend people to learn judo because of all the benefits. I have not even gone to the point of the mental education that comes with it. Besides self-confidence, it is about respect of the partner and teacher.
When you look at Tae-Bo (’’Cardio Karate’’), then you see what remains from a martial art with the mental/ spiritual part stripped away.
Judo is a sport, but it does teach beyond the physical level. Other arts like Aikido or Karate will put even more emphasis on the spirit stuff. Some people will consider Aikido an art, but judo a sport.
They ’’practice Aikido’’, but ’’train judo’’. Now stop reading and look out for a dojo. You don’t learn judo on the computer by reading useless words.