This is judo?

 

My son is like that,,,very difficult to get him clean on his back, but he is only 23.
The joys of youth and a flexible body. 

I have to wonder if its worth it to do that?

How many (esp in the shiai clips) did uki land on his head or neck area? Surely this is very dangerous and the risk of neck or spinal injury must be very high.

I recall seeing somewhere some guy that claimed he did not teach ukemi in the traditional sense but rather this type of thing. IE to avoid a score being scored against you at all costs. "Turning out" I believe it is called.

I just dont like it and will never encourage my students to do so. Take the ukemi and walk to fight another day I rekon...

Dav, I agree. Although my son has his own mind in shiai ,and will try to turn out of an ippon throw (only in shiai mind you).
He takes his falls in normal practise like all others. I used to be the same when I was his age.
I got wiser as I got older and will take the ukemi any day of the week now.

I know the guy you are on about. He used to post on the old forum.
If I remember correctly the topic caused quite a stir.

Some of that is real impressive and some of that is "Why the H## would you want to do that?" It's a match not a fight and doing that in a fight would be even dumber.

In Hamilton WC posting with your head caused a injury to the neck vertebrae and was very close to cause permanent invalidization. I would strongly discourage trying to take the fall with your head.