Picking Up Judo, Tips?

[MizuRyu]

After a few months in my Ryu-Te dojo, I became very disenchanted with it's little charms. I learned that most of the stuff in there was gimmicky, too complex or too 'pretty' to really do anything if someone was trying to take my head off. So, I parted ways, and started looking for a new dojo.

I was leafing through the phonebook when I saw something I've never noticed before: a kodokan judo dojo. Stopped in, watched a 3 hour class, fell in complete love. Lots of resistance, lots of sweat, lots of hard work and realistic technique. I joined up and had my 2nd class this afternoon, and it's absolutely awesome.

What should I expect later on?

And who here knows a bit about kodokan judo, I can't find a whole lot of information as to exactly what it's structure (fighting stages and whatnot) is.

Also, I'd like to hear some good Judo stories or experiences with it, see if I'm daft or not lol.

[bushido_man96]

Sorry to hear that you fell out with your Ryu Te school, MizuRyu. Hey, live and learn, right?

I think it is cool that you found a judo school...I envy you greatly! I imagine that you will be getting into a lot of randori later on, if not already. I don't think they do much grappling from the bottom, but I could be wrong. Elbows_and_knees has judo experience, so maybe he could help you out some.

I have a book on Kodokan Judo, by Jigor Kano, and I love it. Me and my brother used to play around with some of the throws, and had a good time. I think it is a great book, and it explains things very well. Good pictures, too.

Good luck in your training!

[ps1]

https://www.judoinfo.com

I think you'll find this site very interesting. It's the largest and most complete judo website available. You could check it out for years and not learn everything available on it. This is what to expect later.

[elbows_and_knees]

what do you mean by fighting stages? as far as ranking goes, it's pretty much uniform in all judo clubs. Like bushido was saying, you may not focus on ground work too much - that tends to vary from club to club though, as everyone has their preferences. At one club I train at, coach loves ground work and its about a 50 / 50 split between that and standup. At the other club, it's 100% standup, as all of those guys also train bjj anyway, so they get plenty of groundwork.

[bushido_man96]

https://www.judoinfo.com

I think you'll find this site very interesting. It's the largest and most complete judo website available. You could check it out for years and not learn everything available on it. This is what to expect later.

Cool, thanks for the site, man! Another bookmark!

[MizuRyu]

Great site! Thanks a million!

Our club does about 60/40 ground/standup, which was what I was looking for.

[ps1]

That's a great mix. Sounds like a great find.

[Jiffy]

Sounds like a good find. The kodokan is one of the oldest Martial Arts schools in the world. At the time of the creation of my main style (shotokan) it was one of only two such organisations in Japan.

I think you will love it.

[MizuRyu]

I asked my instructor this evening about his views on Judo's olympic aspects, he said: "Whoever you are, if you REALLY want someone on the ground, and have even a general idea of how to do it, you'll do it, but it takes practice and dedication to know what to do after that".

He seems to have a real problem with Olympic judo, but then again our class is more RSBD based. Our groundwork is about 70% chokes and 30% locks, as he said choking someone out is a much more harmless/quick way to end a fight than waiting for them to calm down while you have their arm in a bind, or snapping it in backwards (which doesn't usually hold up well in court )

Good man.

Our school's website: http://www.itama.org/judo/judo.html

As for the class stucture, it's 2 1/2-3 hours. The first half hour is spent working out, the next hour is drilling, and the last hour is ALL randori. It's probably the most intense workout I've ever experienced in my whole life, and I cherish every bead of sweat!

It's a pretty interesting school. It's shared by a handful of different instructors who teach a pretty wide variety of styles, it's really interesting to stick around for a whole day and just watch all the different styles and teaching methods, especially the Iaido class.

[cathal]

When I was little I was my older brother's unwilling resistance partner. My advice is to be patient with the techniques if you find yourself learning slowly, and to start doing cardio workouts.