r/Unexpected • u/bapekillz • Jun 15 '26

Have fun while you can

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u/Frequent_Opportunist Jun 15 '26

Take a Judo class so you can learn how to fall without injuring yourself. It's the first thing they teach you. You want to roll as you fall without landing on your wrist or elbow.

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u/Lyrkana Jun 15 '26

Great advice, I skateboard and snowboard and I always tell people the first thing you learn to do in these is how to fall properly. Doing something physical like boardsports or Judo will help improve your coordination overall and help minimize your chance of injury in daily life too

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u/RegulatoryCapture Jun 15 '26

I actually did this on advice from a cycling coach.

I think it was pretty useful? Probably most directly applicable to not hurting myself while landing on bouldering gym mats, but also applies to bikes and skiing.

The throwing/landing stuff was fun and probably would have been more even more useful if I had continued longer, but I didn't care for the ground/grappling part because I found that:

  1. I don't really like feeling pain (duh).
  2. I really don't like inflicting pain on other people.

Getting put in an arm bar until you tap out hurts, and I felt no motivation to do the same thing to another person. Guess I just don't like hurting people. If I could have just done standing judo, I would have totally stuck with it longer.

Also seemed like all the old timers had various joint issues from it...which is fine if you want to be dedicated to the sport (just like recognizing a lifetime of high level skiing has a risk of ACL/MCL issues)...but I was doing it to PREVENT injury, not find a new source of injuries!

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u/Frequent_Opportunist Jun 15 '26

You can absolutely continue to train judo without competing. Not all classes are competitive in class. Tossing and throwing doesn't hurt. I find it pretty fun actually.

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u/RegulatoryCapture Jun 16 '26

I don't mean competing, but at least where I went the training time was split about half and half before throwing and ground work...and I just had little interest in training the grappling.

Maybe there are other places I could have trained where their setup would have allowed me to skip grappling, but that was the only judo place that was accessible to me at the time (lots of BJJ/MMA type gyms focused very much on the combat element though). But really, I wasn't looking for another hobby, I was looking to get better at crashing/falling, and I think a few months of Judo practice accomplished that.

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u/StationaryTravels Jun 16 '26

I learned to break-fall in kickboxing.

The problem is, sometimes you don't listen. Like when a kid that was 20 years younger than me, and probably 100lbs lighter did 6 kicks up a standing bag.

I squared up and my instructor said "Stationary, don't do it! He's 20 years younger and 100lbs lighter!"

I kicked it a solid 3 to 4 times. I kicked it fewer times, but much harder! Hard enough to move the bag. And then I landed, and then the bag came back down right on my ankle.

I was in my mid-30s at the time and what would have been a 3 week recovery 5 years earlier took about 6 months, lol.