What you saw at the Olympics was it being used as a sport. But the person on the street if they got into a close enough range to be grabbed or touched by a judoka would be in a lot of trouble very quickly. They would hit the hard ground very fast and hard. Most people do not know how to fall safely. After hitting the ground a well trained judoka knows how to injure a person using a variety of joint locks. They are also skilled at choking out a person. In fact a well trained judoka doesn't have to throw you. They can apply a joint lock or choke without throwing.
Edit:
Mark's statement about judo made me add this. Yes in judo competition your objective is not to injure someone and to be safe. We have mats or tatami to cushion our falls and reduce the opportunities for injuries. However, injuries do occur. Back in about 84 a guy from my judo dojo was competing against a 2nd Dan (black belt). My fried was a green belt at the time. He threw the black belt and the guy wasn't able to get up. The ambulance came. Later we learned that his collarbone was broken from the impact.
Another friend from our school went to a mall to shop. We were teens at the time. He saw a man abusing his girlfriend. He told the guy to stop. The guy came after him. He then threw the guy with a technique learned in class. The guy went through the windshield of his corvette. He pressed charges on my friend and was filing a lawsuit for damages to the car. He later dropped the charges because his girlfriend told him if he didn't drop them she would have him charge for abusing her. My friend would have been her star witness along with her bruises. He used his training to stop another person from being harmed and to defend himself.
No one art is good or bad. With that said it really depends on how you use things.
I personally don't like the mindset that many folks have that all fights go to the ground. Used correctly a good striking art or even an art like Judo or BJJ can keep you up while you take someone down.
With that said, I feel the best martial artists are the ones who are good at blocking, striking, kicking, grabbing, and doing take downs. To be good at all of these takes a lot of time in training and often folks don't train long enough to be good in all of them no matter the art.
Judo traditionally had a pretty strong self-defense aspect. Escapes, damaging holds, defenses against various attacks, even weapons use (usually only taught to higher ranks).
As noted, the type of judo practiced in Olympic competition is pretty formalized. However, all the classic techniques can be used to good effect.
For instance, in competition, when one throws one's opponent one tries to avoid injury to the other player by "directing" him to fall squarely on his back.
In a fight, it's easy enough to control the opponent's fall so that he lands on his shoulder, with an excellent chance of breaking a collarbone.....
Disregard Olympic styles of everything if you wish to be practical.
Sports are games, for competition and ego boosting.
Martial arts are for protection and safety, health and longevity.
So find a protection oriented teacher, and learn well, then you will have a great protection art. Kudokan judo is very effective using strikes and grappling as do all good martial arts.
I rather think it depends on how good one is at it. I have a friend who has used judo in self defence and walked away, for example. In the Olympics Judoka were up against other, very highly skilled Judoka, but on the street you're probably up against someone with very little experience of martial skill, and who is probably drunk, so it's an entirely different kettle of fish. Any martial art puts you ahead of the competition in that situation.
Yes. Have you ever been tossed around like a rag doll on the hard floor with enough force to knock all the wind out of you? It isn't fun lol.
Trust me it works.
If you know how to use Judo in fight it will work and if you don't know how to use it you willl failllll
yes it is
how good is judo for self defense. from what i saw at the Olympics it looked kind of crappy, they just held onto each others kimonos and that was it....I'm not saying judo is a bad martial art just from what i saw of it it didn't look great. and if you tried to grab someones shirt in a street fight to get in a get position you would just get your face pounded
