# Judoka Competing against BJJ



## Independent_TKD (Jun 27, 2007)

From practicing Judo I have encounterd many practitioners of Brazilian Jujitsu. I have to say that most that I have met have a pretty negative view of other martial arts. The art is very effective, but I think that kind of attitude will ultimately hurt BJJ in the long run.

I believe that everything that exists in BJJ also can be found in Judo newaza. With that said, what would a Judoka need to improve on (specifically) to compete effectively against practitioners of BJJ.

In other words, why to BJJ students seems to win over Judoka on the ground most of the time?

Also, has anyone noticed a negative vibe from practitioners of BJJ?


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## arnisador (Jun 27, 2007)

Independent_TKD said:


> In other words, why to BJJ students seems to win over Judoka on the ground most of the time?


 
It's a matter of what the rules/scoring reward. In Judo, they'll stand you back up after 30 seconds of groundwork. In BJJ, that's nothing!

Basically, Judo and BJJ are the same, but the scoring system makes Judo be 90% stand-up and BJJ just the opposite.



> Also, has anyone noticed a negative vibe from practitioners of BJJ?



I take BJJ and I know what you mean. In their defense, a lot of traditional martial artists still don't get that it's very effective. But the attitude bothers me too.


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## Brian R. VanCise (Jun 28, 2007)

Judo is a very, very strong martial sport as is Brazilian Jiujitsu.  However, both practice slightly differently with Judo working more on takedowns and BJJ working more on grappling on the ground.  There are also small fundamental differeances in the grappling between the two.  If a Judoka wants to compete against BJJ guy's on the ground then simply put they need to spend alot more time on the ground grappling.  They would also need to practice defending against various BJJ submissions and in doing the above they would probably have a really good chance depending on personal attributes, skills, etc.

Now personally I used to train with a really good (runner up to national champion) judoka and we was simply *awesome* when we were standing up. (I remember going on a couple of serious rides)  His ground game was still strong but not as diverse and he was more limited when we were down.  This was because his strong suit was the throwing aspect (which is advocated by Judo) and the weaker part of his game was the ground.  We also went no gi every now and then and his game dropped off considerably.  Still some of those throws were just *wicked*!


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## Tez3 (Jun 28, 2007)

I've been reading recently a discussion about Judo and it seems a lot of the negativity towards Judo comes from two things. One was the perception that Judo is a watered down version of juijitsu and the other was the changing of the rules to make Judo attractive to watch ie televisual for the networks at the Olympics.
My other 'sport' is dressage riding which is also an Olympic sport but a minority one worldwide and I'll admit to most people probably a very boring thing to watch! Pressure has been on the sport to 'jazz' it up for the tv cameras, to attract spectators and presumably the money that goes with it. If we did that though it would no longer be pure dressage so it was resisted, sadly though I think Judo didn't. The fighting on the floor that Judoka appreciated but the non informed spectators didn't was changed to make it camera friendly.
 To my mind no one is going to watch dressage or Judo who isn't interested, you can't make people watch by fiddling around with the rules, all you do is weaken the sport and lose the original competitors.


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## Never_A_Reflection (Jun 28, 2007)

I believe that the reason so many Judoka lose to practitioners of BJJ on the ground is simply because the instructors of Judo nowadays tend to concentrate on the throws, mainly because they are teaching it as a sport.  My Shihan has his own, rather down-to-earth methodology for teaching Judo.  He teaches us Judo as a martial art, and then tells us how to use it in sport, and how to use it in self-defense.  Also, we practice 50% throws/sweeps and 50% groundwork, so that we get to practice both equally.  You have to try and keep your training even and diverse, but even doing this, BJJ practitioners practice groundwork almost exclusively, and so they will have an edge on the ground quite often.  It isn't that Judo is less effective than BJJ, it is simply that they are effective in different ways.


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## BlackCatBonz (Jun 29, 2007)

Watch Karo Parisyan.......he puts on a judo clinic everytime he fights in the UFC......simply amazing.


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## Freestyler777 (Jun 29, 2007)

Let me throw my two cents in:

I have practiced Judo for years now, and now I train in BJJ in the city.  I always favored the newaza, but now I see just how great BJJ is.  

In essence, the body of knowledge between judo and BJJ is the same.  But the rules of competition and how to win make the two arts completely different.  Competition Judo is an Olympic Sport, and ever since Jigoro Kano's rule changes in 1925 continuing until now, ne-waza has gotten less and less significant in judo and throws (tachiwaza) has increased, because spectators like throws better than ground battles.  

BJJ stays true to judo's origins, especially pre-1925 judo.  The focus is on submission only.  They practically spend the whole rolling session starting on the knees (newaza randori).  So Obviously jiu-jitsu guys are better on the ground than classically trained judo players.

Judo has tremendous merit, but if training strictly for self defense, I would say BJJ is better.


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## Abbax8 (Jun 29, 2007)

In my club we do Judo for the sake of doing Judo. We do standup and grappling with about a 50/50 split. We also practice kata and self defense applications. We do few competitions because the rule set is just so restrictive. Don't grab the belt, don't hold on both sides, limited time for groundwork. I do stress an upright stance when doing randori and we will also do ne-waza only matches. We have a lot of fun.

Peace

Dennis


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## zDom (Jun 30, 2007)

Abbax8 said:


> ... We have a lot of fun.



Sounds like it


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## thetruth (Jul 2, 2007)

Tez3 said:


> I've been reading recently a discussion about Judo and it seems a lot of the negativity towards Judo comes from two things. One was the perception that Judo is a watered down version of juijitsu and the other was the changing of the rules to make Judo attractive to watch ie televisual for the networks at the Olympics.
> My other 'sport' is dressage riding which is also an Olympic sport but a minority one worldwide and I'll admit to most people probably a very boring thing to watch! Pressure has been on the sport to 'jazz' it up for the tv cameras, to attract spectators and presumably the money that goes with it. If we did that though it would no longer be pure dressage so it was resisted, sadly though I think Judo didn't. The fighting on the floor that Judoka appreciated but the non informed spectators didn't was changed to make it camera friendly.
> To my mind no one is going to watch dressage or Judo who isn't interested, you can't make people watch by fiddling around with the rules, all you do is weaken the sport and lose the original competitors.



Just a couple of things.  Firstly,  although judo was derived from JuJutsu and watered down somewhat for schools and competition, so was BJJ.  There are just as many elements of traditional jujutsu missing from BJJ as from Judo.  Second, although Judo isn't a very spectator friendly sport unless you really know what you are looking at, BJJ is exactly the same with a lot of the action appearing as though 2 people are hugging.  Lastly I believe that Judo could be marginally improved for spectators by perhaps starting competitors in the classic gi grip rather than them spending half of their time trying to get something resembling a grip in order to throw.  Aswas mentioned earlier,  Judo has a superior stand up game to BJJ and because of more liberal rules BJJ allows for far more options on the ground and concentrates totally on submission where as Judo allows one to simply pin someone down to win if you choose.

Cheers
Sam   :asian:


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## zDom (Jul 2, 2007)

thetruth said:


> Lastly I believe that Judo could be marginally improved for spectators by perhaps starting competitors in the classic gi grip rather than them spending half of their time trying to get something resembling a grip in order to throw.



I agree


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## arnisador (Jul 2, 2007)

Ditto, yeah--to make it a good spectator sport, that would help. For self-defense, that's another matter!


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## thetruth (Jul 3, 2007)

I think Mike Swain tried to put together some sort of Judo competition to improve it for the spectators.  I'm don't know how successful it was though.


Cheers
Sam:asian:


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## Darth F.Takeda (Jul 3, 2007)

Freestyler777 said:


> Let me throw my two cents in:
> 
> I have practiced Judo for years now, and now I train in BJJ in the city. I always favored the newaza, but now I see just how great BJJ is.
> 
> ...


 

The whole "practically spend the whole rolling session starting on their knees" part kind of cast doubt on saying BJJ is better than Judo for self defense, fights start standing more often than not, and their is plenty of concrete and glass in cities, keeping on your feet and chokeing or slamming the enemy onto the ground has a lot of merit.

Not saying BJJ is not a good art, it is a great art on the ground, standing up or with weapons involved, it's not as hot as many MMA fans want to beleive.

But hey I am a Jujutsuka and a practitioner of FMA/IMA and I crosstrain with Judoka's and BJJ players, because they both have alot to offer.

Shugyo!


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## TjThunder (Jul 28, 2007)

Both arts are awesome for their "aliveness" training aspect.  For a physical example of this topic check over at www.Youtube.com and search for Kimura Vs Helio Gracie.  The clips are awesome.


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## Ybot (Aug 15, 2007)

I think that in order for Judo to do better against BJJ in newaza matches it would have to do the following:

1: Compete under modified Judo rules.  In other words include the pin as a win, but allow unlimited time limit on the ground.  I think that if you allow pins Judo would require very little modification in it's training methods other than spending more time working the ground and using leg locks and other judo banned subs.

2: If the rules are basically like BJJ then the Judoka is going to need much more practice from their backs.  Spend much more time on half guard and sweeps.

3: Judo will need to include should widen the variety of submissions used to include various leg, shoulder, and wrist locks.

Judo is an amazing art, and one that I intend to study in more depth in the future.  Quite honestly I like Judo as it is.  As a BJJ guy who would love to go somewhere to work on my stand-up game Judo as it is now is a wonderful option.  Why does it need better Newaza?  If you want to spend more time on newaza there is alway BJJ.


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