How Break Falling Saved My Life

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Chapters

• 0:00 Life Skills From Judo
• 0:26 Strongman Mishap And The Save
• 2:10 Technique Debate: Breakfall Vs Roll
• 5:04 Competition Throws And Injury Risk
• 7:36 Ad Read: Electrolytes For BJJ
• 8:24 Training Falling For Everyday Life
• 12:10 Floor Culture, Longevity, And Parents
• 14:21 Practical Ways To Teach Safe Falling
• 16:06 Final Thoughts On Judo’s Value

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

The life skills we can learn from judo. How breakfalling has saved my life. More than once, Joe. Oh, really? Yeah. You're talking about off the mat. I'm talking in like yeah, day-to-day life. How learning how to fall has kind of probably stopped me from dying or serious uh disability and dismemberment. A couple of those moments myself.

SPEAKER_00: 0:24

Tell me, tell me about a recent breakfall.

SPEAKER_01: 0:26

Okay. So I've been doing strongman training on the weekend. So I do my normal training during the week, and there's a big fella named Bradman. He's uh I saw him on your Instagram, he's a big guy. He's a huge unit, six foot six, think he's about 150 kilos, second strongest human in all of Australia. Open weight strongman, fucking strong. Anyway, he had us doing a thing called a continental clean, which is you've got an axle bar, so it's very hard to actually do a proper clean as you would with a normal Olympic bar. So typically the big thick, thick bar, thick bar, the big boys will park it on their belly and then kind of kip from there to the chest to press it. I don't really have a belly, thankfully. I got like an ab, I got an ab belly. If I relax my posture, ah, it's coming once I go up to 110 kilos. No, so uh typically folks who are slimmer use a belt. You kind of pull it up, park it on the belt, and you do the clean. Yeah, I have never done this before in my life, and I didn't want to look bad in front of the boys because I was like, nah, I gotta hold it down anyway. I had no idea really what I was doing, and so it's it's 110 kilos. Uh I I'd done some lighter weights and I felt okay, but I I barely got this up to the belt, and I was like, I gotta heft, I have to flip yoink hoist this mother up, but I went too hard, so it's from here. I've gone and I almost ate the bar, and so I was like, oh no. So I'm falling backwards, and the bar is absolutely coming from my face. So there is Olympic plates on the bar, the bar is thicker, and I was on an angle, so the the bar could have fallen on my knee, it could have easily hit me in the face, but as I fell, I just forgot. I just totally didn't wasn't worried about everyone watching. I just was like, fuck this. As I fell, I pushed the bar away and I turned to try and like break fall. So it was a bit of a side breakfall. Needless to say, I did get, you know, the kind of doodle chop, like the side slap, but I landed on my hip so hard, bro. It was just like every everybody went, ooh, you know, when you see something, even on video, you're like, oh, that fuck that hurt. I landed so hard on my hip, but because I landed on my hip and I did the kind of side break fall, I didn't land on my spine, I didn't crack my tailbone. Like, even though it was kind of a little bit embarrassing, a bit painful at the time, everybody came over like, fuck, dude, are you okay? I was like, I'm fine. I don't I'm fine. Just got up. No, no, shake it off, shake it off. It was fine. Anyway, I didn't eat the bar. I actually didn't sustain any serious injury other than I kind of bruised my my side ass cheek. Bruise your ass. My ass, not my asshole. So yeah, it was it was okay. It could have been a lot worse. Yeah. Because in my head, as soon as I was like, fuck, I'm falling, I immediately thought about how do I break this fall.

SPEAKER_00: 3:23

That's an aerial awareness in that moment.

SPEAKER_01: 3:24

Yeah, it was just a split second of get the bar as far away from me as possible, but then also don't eat shit completely because it occurred to me like, okay, I'm going down. Just in a it's just it's a split, split second thing. And I've had other times where I've tripped or I've I've just kind of misstepped and immediately I don't necessarily like reach, but I'm like tucking the shoulder or going to the next thing. Yeah. Have you had a situation, Joe, where the breakfall saved you from eating shit? Um, or can you think of time when you've incorporated that kind of movement into life?

SPEAKER_00: 4:00

Yeah, the breakfall specifically, no. Um what I what I have incorporated into defending myself in a life situation against gravity is a forward roll.

SPEAKER_01: 4:12

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 4:12

Or rolling generally. But I remember once I was um I was in Centennial Park and I was I had my skateboard and I was like hammering at home. I'd gone to meet some friends there, and then I was hammering at home and I was just booting it down this road. There's no cars on there at the time, and I was like, it's like a short longboard, so it goes really fast. Yeah, and uh I was you know, I was I was going really fast, relatively flat, and then I just hit like a tree seed or a nut or something, and it literally just went and it skateboard just stopped and I went and I got pitched and I I just remember flying through the air. Oh my god, and I just went, I just went into a shoulder roll and then came up on my feet. And I was like, Oh my god, that was fucking sick. And I and I looked around and there was no one there. Oh no one's there. So I was like, fuck, that was that was some Jackie Chan shit. Wow, yeah, amazing. Um, because I was just gonna face plant, you know, so it was just a question of just like tucking the chin and you know, bringing the shoulder over. Um, so like that that side of like the JIT stuff has served me well in in quite a few occasions, yeah. Or even even being in the gym and like, yeah, whatever, like dropping a bar or something. And and you know, I've I've fucked around with a bit of parkour and whatnot over the years. That sort of thing has come into it. But breakfalling, I've always had a bit of a um, I don't know if I quite trust it for myself. Fair because when I did, remember I told you I did that sumbo coach's course years ago. Yes, to be a certified instructor. That's right. And uh I'm a level one sumbo coach, whatever that means. Who knew? Under some kind of New South Wales Federation, amazing, it probably doesn't exist anymore, but I have the certificate. But he was like, he was Dimitri was like, no, no, no breakfall. And someone was like, why? Because it was all jujitsu people, like, why? And he's like, You're flying through the air, you put your arm out to hit the ground. He said, It's very common. You can you can land on your hand, break your arm. He said, No, we we just tuck into a ball. Like if you're going down, you just sort of protect yourself. And and I was like, I can actually see the I can see the relevance. A breakfall is great if you got the timing, but if you preempt that shit and put your arm in the wrong place, could be a fucking snapped elbow there.

SPEAKER_01: 6:28

Yeah, but I think that's a misunderstanding on his behalf of what a breakfall is. Like in judo, they definitely they they teach you not to put your arm out, right? That's a mistake. You will not get punished, but like the coach will be like, What are you doing? Like, you don't post. You definitely like it's more that you're trying to distribute the impact, however, you do that, right? But if but there's a timing piece in that, isn't there? Yeah, definitely, which is the skill, right? There is skill to that, and yeah, you might break your wrist, but it's better than breaking your neck. Yeah. I think this is the this is the trade in those situations where you're like, oh my god, I could totally just fucking break my face here. And like you said, the the idea of the kind of chin tuck and the shoulder roll, that that's in judo too, right? And they they do variations of that. I think it's also around the idea that you don't want to get KO'd when you hit the ground. Yeah because then if it's a fight, well you're dead, right? Like if we throw it back to kind of older times where if you were to come in with the sword and they were to shoulder throw you, if you were just KO'd in that spot, then you're getting ganked once it's game over. Uh I but how about this? Stop wasting money on useless sports drinks that do not help your hydration for BJJ. You know what you need? You need sodi. Sodi is the perfect blend of sodium, potassium, and magnesium. These things are what they call electrolytes, which keeps the water in your muscles to keep them working for better rolling. Now they have all the flavors of the rainbow. It is the chef's kiss of electrolytes. And when you use the code Bulletproof15 at checkout, you go to sody sodoui.com.au, you get 15% off. So not only do we save you money, but you also get the best product out there. Go to sody.com.au and get it today.

SPEAKER_00: 8:24

In competition, you've been you've been thrown in competition? Yes. Rarely, but it's happened. It's happened. Did you break fall? Yeah. Or do you just eat it because you're still trying to keep your grips and keep fighting?

SPEAKER_01: 8:36

Well, no, it's it's I guess it there's two parts to that. You do at a critical point with which you're being thrown, you don't you don't have much say in what comes next. If you're an expert, you might turn slightly so you don't get landed straight on your back. But even the elite level pros do. But it's when you get thrown clean, it's not that bad. You might get a bit winded. Getting thrown clean is actually great. It's when you get thrown a bit ugly and you land like you land a bit off, that's when it gets a bit kind of that's when it's fuckery, that's where you get injuries, get spiked, land hard in a bad spot, them and your weight, etc. Yeah. So in that way, I I think the familiarity with being thrown and being comfortable with not having that fear reaction of putting out your arm, you're more likely to go with it in whatever controlled way you can. So you're actually less likely to get injured.

SPEAKER_00: 9:34

Hey fuck, was Merengali break falling against Michael Pixley?

SPEAKER_01: 9:37

Bro, I don't know what Merengali was doing.

SPEAKER_00: 9:41

Did he dislocated? I think he just he he was Did he move to another planet?

SPEAKER_01: 9:46

I've not seen shit from that guy ever since that ADCC. Maybe you just got a personal coach who said, Hey man, stop talking about your 17-year-old girlfriend, right? Like that don't play in certain states in America, okay? Like, no, I I think there is I don't know what's going on with him, but uh yeah, I mean maybe he's maybe he's training judo now. Who knows? He needs it. But um, I mean, I've had similar experiences to you with the the Ford role with the the skate where I I literally have just not been paying attention. I tripped and then it was like the ground was rushing up at me. Yeah, and in that moment, I went shoulder tucking, pulled out a roll and it and was like, fuck, am I a ninja now? Like, have I just have I just graduated to some new plane of skill? Fucking get at me, Sigal. I just need fucking throwing stars of shit. Um, it it's one of those things that if you've trained it, it I think the key thing is if you don't ignore it, if you accept that falling on the ground is part of grappling and you practice it, it's not something you can think of in the moment. It just happens. You just you have to react so fast. Yeah, yeah. And so another reason why this came up is like, so my I this is why I think it's valuable in life. I mean, my parents are getting older. I am concerned about them tripping and falling.

SPEAKER_00: 11:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 11:09

And getting up and up and down up off the ground is a is its own skill, even though we take it for granted, getting off the couch, getting up off the ground. But you know, when you feel pretty sore, or let's say you've been sitting and your coach is talking for a while, and you go to get up, you're like, oh, I've stick the adrenaline's worn off, you're a bit stiff. Yeah, the grading the other night, getting, I was like, oh, the old knees. Yeah, the knees, the ankles, and you're like, oh, I sat cross-legged for too long. Yeah, it can be uncomfortable. You know, when you get to your 60s and 70s, your reaction time slows down. So falling and knowing how to fall is actually like quite a good skill. And so I saw a video where Eugene Teo was talking about his mum how to fall. And so what he wanted to do is teach her how to fall. So she doesn't just smash her head or break her hip. So even though you might get some bruising, it's not going to turn into like a surgery-level problem. Yeah. And I think this is a huge value for a lot of folks, even though people are like, Oh, I don't train judo and man, it's too traditional. I I think all people should do a certain amount of training with breakforce and also being thrown. Like just getting familiar with not fighting it and going with it is actually uh finding a way to just at that last second turn yourself so you don't break your neck is very important.

SPEAKER_00: 12:29

You know, I think um I reckon that like a very because I have the similar concern for my parents, more so my dad, because my mum's got my mum's got really good mobility and therefore like good flexibility, therefore good strength, moves better, better control. Yep yeah, dad not so much. Um I think that the benefit of jujitsu or judo for them would actually just be getting used to doing something on the floor other than walking on it. Yeah. This is the problem for the West is that the we only walk on the floor. We don't sit on it, we don't sit, we don't, we don't kneel, we don't crack, you know, yeah. And so as a result, our relationship with it is pretty non-existent. Yeah. So this is, you know, and so this like like my old band has a hard time getting up down because his wrists don't have the flexibility, right? Whereas if he lived in a if we lived in a culture where you do a lot of things on the floor, that naturally would have, he would have naturally nourished that range of motion through his hands and shit to get up and down. Yeah. And you know, it it is a soft mat that we use in jujitsu and judo and whatnot, but you're on the ground, you're standing up, you're on the ground, you get that practice in.

SPEAKER_01: 13:41

Yeah. And and they have shown that for longevity, your ability to get up off the ground unassisted really determines how long you live. So they have it's it's it's got its own score. If you can get up off the ground without using your hands within a certain amount of time, that will predict your longevity. But the more points of assistance you need to get up off the floor and the longer it takes you, this will predict that your um overall life, like all cause mortality will be higher. So I think there's a massive, other than the comical, lucky no one was recording, the comical outcomes of me just fucking eating shit at strongman training, saving myself in the last second. If you know, I not that I'm gonna be taking my parents to judo, but definitely what I have done more recently is I've said, all right, you guys, all right, on the floor. Now pick one foot up, put one foot down. Like just hip stuff. Yeah, use the couch, don't use the couch. Can you kneel? Can you squat?

SPEAKER_00: 14:40

Like, I and I'm not trying to throw it in their face, I'm just saying I know you don't want to go to the gym, but it's like, yeah, like it's we don't have to do yoga, but like how about a bit of a like a this is how and this is what they would pay big money for, or the government would pay for an occupational therapist to do, which is what will happen once they have a fall and someone breaks a wrist, yeah, or God forbid breaks a hip. Yeah. And then it's like then then they'll listen, right? And I know the same with my dad. Yeah, and it's like now he'll listen because it's like because the stats show that if you fall and break a hip, your chance of dying in the next five years goes up by like fucking 80%. Yeah. You know, like it's pretty significant. Yes. Um, so yeah, that's the coolest shit for you to be doing with your with your parents.

SPEAKER_01: 15:21

Yeah, and you know, I'm pretty overbearing. I mean, I try to be cool, I always soften them up, make them some breakfast. They produced you, so cup of tea. I am a byproduct. I I always say to them you reap what you sow. That's right. I am the son of your contributed like some total of your stubbornness. So it's revisited upon me.

SPEAKER_00: 15:37

Tough shit, mum and dad.

SPEAKER_01: 15:38

Yeah, I saw this mad meme, which is like a woman who's like, she's like me reading my parents' blood work the same way they used to read my report card. You know, it's for your own good. I fucking told you. So yeah, I think there's a huge value in it. So look, as much as people might say different things about judo and tradition, I think um, if you haven't done any judo or you haven't practiced doing falls, it's it's it's very valuable. It does help in day to day life, but I think it's gonna overall reduce injury in in your grappling too. Boss boss. Awesome.