Tuesday, May 19, 2015

The Advantages of Being An Old Judo Player: Less Bullshit, More Tequila

Believe it or not, young people, there are some advantages of being old that make up for the wrinkles and bad knees. Chief among these is less dealing with bullshit.

1. You're more likely to recognize a line of bullshit.

For example, I've heard people saying that judo is growing in the U.S.

My old friends and I laugh at this because we have been around long enough to remember when there were several times as many people in the divisions at the national championships as there are now. Because we were there, we know that those tournaments did not have novice divisions, brown belt divisions, masters divisions. There were actually several hundred black belts competing and they weren't over 40 unless they were Hayward Nishioka.

Some flavor of judo is being taught in many ju jitsu and mixed martial arts schools, but the number of people seriously aiming for the Olympics in this country has never been smaller.  Those of us who have been attending the tournaments realize that there were half as many competitors in the black belt divisions as 15 years ago.

People can't lie to you as easily when you're older because you know the history of events and the character of individuals.

2. You don't have to put up with bullshit.

I don't care if I ever get promoted again. As my good friend, Steve Scott, says,

"It's not as if my belt is going to get any blacker."

People try to give me the analogy of,

"You earned it. You went and picked up your Ph.D. diploma, didn't you?"

It is not at all the same thing. That would be like getting your black belt.

Getting a seventh-, eighth- , ninth-degree black belt is just stupid. It's like if after you got your Ph.D. you got someone to award you a "Gold Star Ph.D." The other people with doctorates would have special parties just to laugh at you. I know they would because I would host them at Lula's with shots of tequila on me.

Much of the business of the judo organizations in this country centers around people paying money and kissing ass so they can get promoted to muckety-muckety-muck degree black belts.

These days, instead of going to meetings with people I don't respect, I get together with my friends, drink tequila and laugh at those people. It's pretty awesome.

7 comments:

FREE Judo Training said...

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Anonymous said...

100% True. I misread what you typed and thought it said "Judo is growing old" which is it unfortunately.

One of the things I wish to help change since I do have some youth verus knowledge and experience.

Although this is my opinion and not based on facts and I know what people say about that.... Growing old is a good thing, although troublesome which all the health complications, growing old is beautiful. It is growing.

Anonymous said...

I'm young and I can still spot bullshit when I see it. Age does not always amount to wisdom, as many older folk are so mired in their outdated ideals that they fail to see the world around them has changed. My Dad is 62-years-old and age has made him senile, not wise.

jon said...

back in your prime, there were no UFC. Did you already know how effective Judo was as a form of self defense?

Dr. AnnMaria said...

Yes. I knew judo was effective self-defense. Even more so than now, because the old rules allowed a lot of techniques no longer legal in IJF judo.

As for Anonymous - you're right, there are some complete idiot older people. Sadly, some people also suffer from Alzheimer's and other age-related illnesses. Some people drank way too much throughout their lives and it has taken its toll on them.

There is certainly no guarantee that older = wiser. What it does mean is that one has had at least a lot of OPPORTUNITIES to learn.

It's up to use to take advantage of those.

jon said...


>Yes. I knew judo was effective self-defense. Even more so than now, because the old rules allowed a lot of techniques no longer legal in IJF judo.

Is it still available to learn thos illegal techniques now? Or is it hard to find an instructor?

Ventus said...

Youve just destroyed years of childish reverence to the idea of importance of degrees of the black belts... i always thought that was the coolest thing! Like, you got to the tenth dan and that means you can punch through walls and wreck everyone and then there is that old master with golden or purple strings on top of all that that sits on top of some mountain and beats up everyone just by looking at them nastily!

I need some tequila shots now.
And of course there is no decent real tequila to buy anywhere in this country.

But we do have our own local kind of moonshine that is quite good.