Judo-When your partner wants to kill you

**pepto_bismol** · Posted On: 10/11/2012 3:53am

I have been doing judo for a short while.. about six years consistently. I am absolutely getting tired of watching novice judoka and even more advanced players complete disregard for their partners safety. In my experience it's usually middle aged novice men who are just hitting 40 that are the absolute worst at controlling themselves. If these men have a background in any kind of martial art their desire to be awesome and rampage through everyone is twice as bad. (mid life crisis?)

There is a guy who joined my Judo club a couple years ago. This man weighs at least 240 lbs. and he fights using 100% strength and body weight all the time! Being at 190 lbs. and wanting to live to train the next day, I have always avoided him. I've even told him in the past that he is simply to big for me to work out with.

Fast forward from two years ago to two nights ago. I decided that he looked more controlled and that I could do some Tachi Waza Randori with him without getting hurt. The guy became frustrated with me and came in for an Uchi Mata to my outside leg (not sure what i'd call that throw, a makikomi variation?) Only thing is he had my right leg rooted down to the ground and swung his leg strait through the side of my right knee cap. I screamed in pain immediately and he followed through with the throw, throwing me over his leg and body. The entire time he had no idea what he did to me knee (you would think my high pitched screaming would of gave away that something was wrong)

Now I only hope that my knee will recover quickly and that it won't need any operation. There's a sharp pain in my knee whenever I extend my leg and I hope it's nothing serious, Since I don't have any health insurance seeing a doctor would be a complicated process. (I know the standard answer is "go see a Dr.")

Anyone have experience with a similar injury? Although there have been plenty of beginner bashing threads on BS doesn't it suck when your training partner hurts you? And if you are that guy who is hurting people at your studio...

I hate you.

**erezb** · Posted On: 10/11/2012 5:41am

Originally Posted by pepto_bismol

I have been doing judo for a short while.. about six years consistently. I am absolutely getting tired of watching novice judoka and even more advanced players complete disregard for their partners safety. In my experience it's usually middle aged novice men who are just hitting 40 that are the absolute worst at controlling themselves. If these men have a background in any kind of martial art their desire to be awesome and rampage through everyone is twice as bad. (mid life crisis?)

There is a guy who joined my Judo club a couple years ago. This man weighs at least 240 lbs. and he fights using 100% strength and body weight all the time! Being at 190 lbs. and wanting to live to train the next day, I have always avoided him. I've even told him in the past that he is simply to big for me to work out with.

Fast forward from two years ago to two nights ago. I decided that he looked more controlled and that I could do some Tachi Waza Randori with him without getting hurt. The guy became frustrated with me and came in for an Uchi Mata to my outside leg (not sure what i'd call that throw, a makikomi variation?) Only thing is he had my right leg rooted down to the ground and swung his leg strait through the side of my right knee cap. I screamed in pain immediately and he followed through with the throw, throwing me over his leg and body. The entire time he had no idea what he did to me knee (you would think my high pitched screaming would of gave away that something was wrong)

Now I only hope that my knee will recover quickly and that it won't need any operation. There's a sharp pain in my knee whenever I extend my leg and I hope it's nothing serious, Since I don't have any health insurance seeing a doctor would be a complicated process. (I know the standard answer is "go see a Dr.")

Anyone have experience with a similar injury? Although there have been plenty of beginner bashing threads on BS doesn't it suck when your training partner hurts you? And if you are that guy who is hurting people at your studio...

I hate you.

Health insurance is a must...especially if you are doing judo...I would concentrate on getting a health insurance if i were you. And switching to BJJ where you can tap.

**DaTedBear** · Posted On: 10/11/2012 9:36am

pepto....have had similar experiences with knuckle dragging low brows that have difficulty figuring out the difference in fitting in training, to refining technique to all out randori. Had a guy that I had known for years and we were cops together do something similar to me. The MRI showed no tear and it would up being just a hyper-extension. After that, i do not cut this clown (or those like him) any slack in any phase of training.

If you only have the sharp pain when extending and flexing, no heavy bruising or swelling, you may only have hyper-extended the knee. If you have the bruising and swelling, plus contant discomfort and aching, you really need to bite the bullet and go to the ER and get checked out. Failing to get checked out, in any case, is a gamble.

**Arskanator** · Posted On: 10/11/2012 9:56am

Originally Posted by pepto_bismol

I have been doing judo for a short while.. about six years consistently. I am absolutely getting tired of watching novice judoka and even more advanced players complete disregard for their partners safety. In my experience it's usually middle aged novice men who are just hitting 40 that are the absolute worst at controlling themselves. If these men have a background in any kind of martial art their desire to be awesome and rampage through everyone is twice as bad. (mid life crisis?)

There is a guy who joined my Judo club a couple years ago. This man weighs at least 240 lbs. and he fights using 100% strength and body weight all the time! Being at 190 lbs. and wanting to live to train the next day, I have always avoided him. I've even told him in the past that he is simply to big for me to work out with.

Fast forward from two years ago to two nights ago. I decided that he looked more controlled and that I could do some Tachi Waza Randori with him without getting hurt. The guy became frustrated with me and came in for an Uchi Mata to my outside leg (not sure what i'd call that throw, a makikomi variation?) Only thing is he had my right leg rooted down to the ground and swung his leg strait through the side of my right knee cap. I screamed in pain immediately and he followed through with the throw, throwing me over his leg and body. The entire time he had no idea what he did to me knee (you would think my high pitched screaming would of gave away that something was wrong)

Now I only hope that my knee will recover quickly and that it won't need any operation. There's a sharp pain in my knee whenever I extend my leg and I hope it's nothing serious, Since I don't have any health insurance seeing a doctor would be a complicated process. (I know the standard answer is "go see a Dr.")

Anyone have experience with a similar injury? Although there have been plenty of beginner bashing threads on BS doesn't it suck when your training partner hurts you? And if you are that guy who is hurting people at your studio...

I hate you.

Health insurance is a must... unless you live in a country that doesn't have a dick health care system. But that's not relevant here.

I know what you're talking about. Once in MMA class, we were doing a drill on protecting ourselves/escaping from ground & pound with the other guy in our guard. The guy I was paired up with? He wasn't pulling his punches anywhere near as much as I would have liked. I know that you got to train alive and ****, but I was(still am tbh) new to being punched while on the ground, so most of his punches were landing. For some reason he didn't see this as a reason to take it easy on me. He didn't keep doing it after that one drill though, so I'm not sure what it was. Maybe he was annoyed that he was paired up with a fat n00b, iunno.

I usually have a... subversion(is that the correct word?) of this problem. That is, I'm so afraid of hurting my partners that I have trouble executing the techniques correctly. I'm 6 and a half feet and 300 pounds, about 50% of my club members I feel like I might break them in half if I'm not careful.

But I'm getting better, since I've both realised that they aren't made of glass and that I'm not quite as strong as I think I am.

**TEA** · Posted On: 10/11/2012 10:10am

Originally Posted by Arskanator

Health insurance is a must... unless you live in a country that doesn't have a dick health care system. But that's not relevant here.

Sadly, it is relevant. Most Americans can't afford health care and since the OP lives in San Francisco, which has one of the highest cost of living in the US, I suspect the OP has to choose between paying the rent of having health insurance.

As to the OP. I feel your pain. I've only been doing Judo for a little over a year but have suffered injuries in almost every martial art that I've studied (even Aikido!!!!!). I know the type of guy you're talking about, but am not sure that it is as age specific as you make out. I've seen lots of mat spazzes in their early 20s, too.

**pepto_bismol** · Posted On: 10/11/2012 1:35pm

Originally Posted by TEA

Sadly, it is relevant. Most Americans can't afford health care and since the OP lives in San Francisco, which has one of the highest cost of living in the US, I suspect the OP has to choose between paying the rent of having health insurance.

As to the OP. I feel your pain. I've only been doing Judo for a little over a year but have suffered injuries in almost every martial art that I've studied (even Aikido!!!!!). I know the type of guy you're talking about, but am not sure that it is as age specific as you make out. I've seen lots of mat spazzes in their early 20s, too.

Both your points are correct. There are a lot of spazzes in their early 20s, and I don't want to send the message that only middle aged men go aggro in practice. In my experience middle aged men are skilled enough to do damage to your body, while the younger aggro guys tend to flail their bodies around and are much easier to throw, and less likely to injure their opponent. Injury is what I worry about in practice, so I am more wary of the middle aged man spaz then the young guy spaz. This is a bias on my part and i acknowledge that.

**Arskanator** · Posted On: 10/11/2012 1:46pm

Originally Posted by TEA

Sadly, it is relevant. Most Americans can't afford health care and since the OP lives in San Francisco, which has one of the highest cost of living in the US, I suspect the OP has to choose between paying the rent of having health insurance.

I meant as in, this is a conversation of martial art douchebaggery, not politics on health care. Gah, I shouldn't have said anything. *Vanishes*

**It is Fake** · Posted On: 10/11/2012 1:57pm

Originally Posted by DaTedBear

If you only have the sharp pain when extending and flexing, no heavy bruising or swelling, you may only have hyper-extended the knee.

Your post is EXACTLY how I would describe how my injury felt. It turned out, I had a small bone fragment that was scarping and slowly causing scar tissue inside my knee.

Go see a doctor.

**pepto_bismol** · Posted On: 10/11/2012 2:31pm

Originally Posted by It is Fake

Your post is EXACTLY how I would describe how my injury felt. It turned out, I had a small bone fragment that was scarping and slowly causing scar tissue inside my knee.

Go see a doctor.

Hi It is Fake, thanks for the reply. If you don't mind me asking, how long after your injury did you wait until you got your diagnosis? I'm thinking about waiting it out for a bit.

Thanks

**It is Fake** · Posted On: 10/11/2012 4:06pm

It was 6 months or maybe longer. I had full range and could do everything like normal, but the sharp pain bugged me. I just decided one day to go get it looked at because I started thinking of long term effects.

Sure enough, after the surgery, they showed me the scar tissue pictures. It was only two small starnds, but it would have been major surgery later. Basically, I was told, the more active your life style the worse the injury. You are active, so it could be a debilitating injury much quicker than an average person.