I did judo as a kid for maybe 2-3 years? I liked it a lot. In competition I wasn't too good, though. Besides having general NVLD dyspraxia going on, I was fat and a late bloomer pubertwise. So in competition I got matched with way leaner people that hit puberty earlier. Not fun. As far as improving social skills. Well I didn't know mine were off until a few psych evals told me they were. I didn't make any friends I saw outside of judo there. But it was really fun. In typical Aspie fashion, I liked interacting with the teachers and older students more. Physically, not really crazy amounts of improvement, but not horrible I guess. I'm not sure really, as it's hard to gauge it from when you're a kid. As a kid I tried doing lots of athletic things and sucked at all of them. Judo I probably sucked least in, but still sucked. Judo I also liked most, except for maybe hockey. Both things I couldn't do past like 6-7th grade, as my parents divorced and had no money to continue enrolling me in sports.
The most important thing in judo I learned was actually how to fall. Like 3-4 years after doing judo, I fell off a 8-9 foot wall, and landed on my back and got right back up like nothing happened. They really drilled in learning how to fall correctly. That's about the only thing that's muscle memory. That and possibly sweeping the feet under for fights.
Overall, I like judo. It's a good art, and relatively more practical. At least as a kid, everything you do is full contact. No pads, no learning a bunch of kata in the air, etc. I thought it was sorta uncool as a kid, because I couldn't punch stuff and break boards and do cool karate things, though. But it was certainly better than being McDojo'd. I'd do it as an adult if I had money and time to pursue it, but I've got other athletic ventures I care more about now. You can't be good at everything, after all.
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If you just wanna improve balance and coordination, think about figure skating or dance. I started figure skating and it's changed things drastically as far as my balance and coordination goes. I can hit 5/6 numbers going 1-6 on a dartboard now. I walk with much much better posture. I can jump way higher, I can do head kicks (to punching bags) and feel way faster on my feet. If you're skinny and can do pullups, gymnastics could be great for you, too. Eventually I'm gonna have to get at least an elementary understanding of dance if I want to make my skating better. Socially there's like a small chance you might meet some girls doing both of them, but I wouldn't pick any activity if you're just doing it to plan on making friends. To be good at it, you need more than making friends as motivation.
Also, regardless of if you go into martial arts, definitely do some sort of strength training. Bruce Lee even commented on this. He said of traditional Chinese martial arts, there's a ton of emphasis on technique, and not enough on the body. I see this mentality a lot in a lot of sports. There's not a lot of chance of you becoming "musclebound" unless you take a ton of drugs. Basically, if you have more strength, your technique can be less than perfect, and then if you have perfect technique, obviously more strength plus perfect technique will beat someone with less strength and same technique. I feel like my strength training has given me a lot more confidence about being physically strong enough to handle myself than martial arts would. Also, if you get, say, broader shoulders and veins popping out of your arms, it's a visual deterrent to would-be people who'd wanna do you harm. What you wanna do is up to you, but I'd say the big compound barbell lifts should be bread and butter of your program. After you get a handle on them, then you can add in some bodyweight stuff, isolation exercises, etc, as weak points are exposed in those exercises.
06 Apr 2013, 9:38 pm
