Judo and BJJ

[Rainbow_Warrior]

In some judo forum , some guys mock ´bout BJJ... They say that it came from judo...and If A contains B , B never could beat A.

The newaza ( ground work) is similar to bjj ground work , I know what they mean. But judokas are less specialized on that....

Those judokas talk about the Kimura vs gracie fight....( were the grand master gracie lost) . But they dont mention tons of fights where bjj won...

I think that many people does not know about the Judo ground techniques.. And I dont know why M Artists hate each other always

[marie curie]

Yeh, it's kind of funny. Judo and BJJ are plenty different I think that the rules of Judo (no stiff-arming, bending at the waist too much gets you a stalling penalty) make it not too realistic... but BJJ often has you in positions where in a BJJ match you are winning, but on the street you are getting pummeled by fists from above

IMHO, If two people are fighting and the rules are closer to BJJ, the BJJ person will win, if the rules are closer to Judo, Judo person will win.

[bushido_man96]

What it really comes down to is what the practitioner is training for. Most Judoka are training for their sport, while BJJers are training for theirs. I also firmly believe that if you give each of them some time, they can alter their game to be more balanced.

I have heard many times that BJJ contains the entire Judo curriculum, and I believe this to be true. The thing is that each one has a different focus. BJJers work on the ground a lot more, trying to force a submission or choke. The Judokas work to throw for points, and then pin the arm, if I remember right.

I honestly think that BJJ is what Judo has evolved into. Jigoro Kano studied Jiu-jitsu, and then stripped it down a bit to make the training methodology that he did for Judo. Now, the BJJ masters of Brazil have taken the Judo (or Jiu-jitsu) methodologies, and brought them into their own training methodologies, effectively forming a visible family tree of these three arts.

If you think about it, we really got to see the evolution of an art form, and I think it is really cool to see.

[marie curie]

Yeh, that all of Judo in BJJ thing is true of some schools and less true of others. My instructor teaches half of the class of traditional judo (and is a black belt and promotes us independently of our BJJ rank according to USJA standards), and the other half of BJJ (which I have yet to promote in, but have at least had the chance to have my butt kicked a couple of times in tourny ).

However, the club that he used to teach has changed to a BJJ/no-gi grappling group, so those guys don't really do any Judo at all. Most of their stand-up work is wrestling based.

[gzk]

One thing I wonder is how effective Judo is at fighting from the bottom, since you can win by pinning. BJJ has loads of submissions from the bottom (indeed, some guys prefer to fight from there in grappling tournaments) which I imagine would be much harder to do in Judo for that reason. Sure, you don't want to ever end up in that position on the street, where you're forced to try and win from the bottom, but if I was, I'd rather do so as a student of BJJ.

[marie curie]

Yes! I had done Judo for a couple years before starting BJJ, and I'd pin someone, thinking I was winning,t hen before I knew it I was armbarred and tapping

It took a long time to get used to fighting from my back. In Judo I won a bunch of times at tournaments, pretty much every time by pin. Hehe, that just doesn't cut it when people know how to properly fight from their back!

[ninjer]

Most Judo people get upset at BJJ because they see it as a threat- its very similar, but the small differences are what really distinguishes BJJ.

Judo was made as something for everyone to train in- thats what Kano wanted. If we could turn the clock back to the infancy of Judo, it would pretty much be the same thing that jiu jitsu is today.

Two things influenced Judo:

1: Victory in interschool fights was determined if one person were to successfully throw (ippon) another. This was a rule that Judo adopted, not created.

2: Interschool challenge matches with the other Ju Jitsu schools of Japan.

When Kano's school started throwing everyone around and winning the challenge matches, one school had the bright idea to take the fight to the ground immediately in the match by simply sitting down-this avoided the ippon throw and allowed them to work their groundwork, which they knew extensively (much like a modern day BJJ student fighting in a Judo tournament). Judo had practically no ground work prior to this time. After all his students were submitted, there was a surge in ne waza (ground training) in Judo.

Kano wanted his new style to be spread around the world, and eventually had olympic aspirations for it. Ground work, while very effective for real fights, is boring to watch. As such Kano started implementing rules that limited the amount of groundwork allowed in Judo to place the emphasis on the more crowd pleasing throws from the feet.

As to why the Gracies called it Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and not Brazilian Judo, come the time they were taught Judo and Jiu Jitsu by Count Maeda, open challenge matches were frowned upon by Kano. you see, old ju jitsu schools used to fight all the time in Japan prior to that time and developed a reputation as being thugs. Kano outlawed challenge matches in Judo to avoid giving that stigma to his Judo. Maeda was aware of this, and so he simply called what he did Ju Jitsu to get through that little loop hole. (Maeda did in fact train in both Japanese Ju Jitsu and Judo, but was sent to Brazil by Kano to help spread Judo).

In the end, it was a reinventing of the same style but with more emphasis on practicality rather than popularity.

[marie curie]

nice post! I like to learn the history behind this stuff!

[bushido_man96]

Excellent post, ninjer. I had read about Maeda in some of the BJJ books that I have, and I enjoy the history behind it. Thanks a lot!

[Rainbow_Warrior]

There is a video of a young BJ Penn, fighting in a black belt judo tourney, when he was a BJJ amateur.... Is cool to see the differences there.