3 ms·

I think American wrestling and or BJJ are much more practical than Judo as a martial art for police, but Judo is better than nothing. Judo is good for getting t

I think American wrestling and or BJJ are much more practical than Judo as a martial art for police, but Judo is better than nothing. Judo is good for getting things to the ground, but the ground system of Judo is inadequate for many situations. (I’ve trained Judo and with many judokas, even advanced ones just aren’t very good on the ground without some other ground fighting system). Regardless it’s a big step in the right direction.

stouset 5y ago
As a fellow judoka, I’d agree. It’s unfortunate because there are some aspects that could make judo a better groundfighting base than BJJ for this type of situation. When a judo match goes to the ground, the competitors must be clearly making progress toward a pin or submission or the referee stands them up. This favors more explosive movements (resolving a situation quickly) over a slow positional game from your back. Of course, a skilled BJJ practitioner could also make quick work of an untrained opponent. But judo’s focus on quickly establishing a dominant position has some advantages. Unfortunately this ruleset also enables competitors to “turtle up” in a defensive position on all fours. It’s hard for your opponent to quickly get a submission or a pin from this position, so the fight will quickly be reset by the referee. This has led to a lot of even competitive judoka having very weak ground game, as they can get by for the most part by assuming this position. Obviously that’s not going to be very effective in a real-world situation. BJJ has its flaws for this sort of thing too. At least in the gyms I’ve trained in, there was very little focus on throwing. So once a fight is on the ground someone with a BJJ background will excel. But against a resisting opponent, they don’t have nearly the tools that a judoka has to bring things there. In the end I think either one will give you a massive leg up, but it’s important to keep in mind why you’re training in the first place and understand the bad real-world habits that their respective rulesets can encourage when taken too seriously for the sake of competition.
- bitexploder 5y ago
  Good points, gyms can vary a lot. My gym and most gyms I have visited focus on wrestling style takedowns, and maybe some Judo stuff too depending on what the instructors know. Honestly, for the general self defense you only need a few well practiced takedowns. We drill single leg, double leg, and I drill a couple collar based judo trip/throw. It mostly comes down to spending time on the feet. No-Gi at my academy lets you do basically anything from standing. My gym does a lot of MMA and has a strong competitive nature (we train for comps a lot) so we get a lot more focus on the standing game I think. FWIW I have done Judo some too and find it fun. Except when I get slammed lol.

stouset 5y ago

As a fellow judoka, I’d agree. It’s unfortunate because there are some aspects that could make judo a better groundfighting base than BJJ for this type of situation. When a judo match goes to the ground, the competitors must be clearly making progress toward a pin or submission or the referee stands them up. This favors more explosive movements (resolving a situation quickly) over a slow positional game from your back. Of course, a skilled BJJ practitioner could also make quick work of an untrained opponent. But judo’s focus on quickly establishing a dominant position has some advantages. Unfortunately this ruleset also enables competitors to “turtle up” in a defensive position on all fours. It’s hard for your opponent to quickly get a submission or a pin from this position, so the fight will quickly be reset by the referee. This has led to a lot of even competitive judoka having very weak ground game, as they can get by for the most part by assuming this position. Obviously that’s not going to be very effective in a real-world situation. BJJ has its flaws for this sort of thing too. At least in the gyms I’ve trained in, there was very little focus on throwing. So once a fight is on the ground someone with a BJJ background will excel. But against a resisting opponent, they don’t have nearly the tools that a judoka has to bring things there. In the end I think either one will give you a massive leg up, but it’s important to keep in mind why you’re training in the first place and understand the bad real-world habits that their respective rulesets can encourage when taken too seriously for the sake of competition.

bitexploder 5y ago
Good points, gyms can vary a lot. My gym and most gyms I have visited focus on wrestling style takedowns, and maybe some Judo stuff too depending on what the instructors know. Honestly, for the general self defense you only need a few well practiced takedowns. We drill single leg, double leg, and I drill a couple collar based judo trip/throw. It mostly comes down to spending time on the feet. No-Gi at my academy lets you do basically anything from standing. My gym does a lot of MMA and has a strong competitive nature (we train for comps a lot) so we get a lot more focus on the standing game I think. FWIW I have done Judo some too and find it fun. Except when I get slammed lol.