So I've two Judo clubs to choose from. One's BJA and the other BJC. I've been down to the BJA one and enjoyed it immensely. Not tried the BJC one. Is there any differences? The BJC one is a bit closer to my house but only by 10 minutes or so. The only down side of the BJA club I've been to is that it was mainly mid-late teen boys and guys over 50. One session is far to early to really judge a club but that was my first impression. Training times are very similar so there's not much to choose on that front.
Links for anyone interested. BJA club - http://www.yorkrijudo.org.uk/ BJC club - http://www.opjcjudo.co.uk/
The BJC class will be more kodokan judo where as the BJA will likely be more IJF orientated which means no legs grabs etc. Depends on what you want out of it, the BJC has longer sessions and more of them which would be a bonus. Best bet is to try both clubs and see which one you prefer.
Actually I'm not sure if that is a BJC club. No mention of it from their website but I've got the idea from somewhere.
BJA is a much bigger association (and the Olympic one), so there will be more opportunities for competitions. None of the instructors from the OPJC club hold Dan grades in the BJA, so it's definitely not a BJA club
Ah right cool. Can't find any reference to it on the BJC website either. Is there such a thing as independent Judo clubs that aren't BJA or BJC?
Yes, and there are probably more clubs outside of the BJA than in it! The BJC is affiliated with the BJA as well.
Curiouser and curiouser. So how are grades awarded/ratified in these non-BJA clubs? I always imagined Judo was much more cohesive than something like karate.
I'm not convinced that's true. I've never been clear on what that affiliation means, because they have their own grading syllabus and their own competitions etc.
Boils down to politics. I would say the majority of the independants are ex BJC, the club my son trained at was independant after leaving the BJC, they are now BJA. There will be judo clubs under most large associations, like the AMA, Bushido Zazen International, Judo for All. Then there's the Zen Judo lot!
Just join a BJA club. The quality control in that association has been tried, tested and demonstrated for decades.
I remember a few years back when the BJA was first introducing the UKCC judo coaching qualification there was uproar over the possibility of judo club coaches having to have the qualification or else they wouldn't be able to run clubs in local authority venues. The BJA wanted to keep it purely for BJA coaches which of course would have meant the independents having to join the BJA or close their doors. There was a big campaign, save independent judo. There was a big thread on judoforum site but since that has gone down the drain its hard to find facts, but in that discussion there was mention of over double the BJA membership are independant judo players.
A mention on another forum isn't a credible source. The BJA has a couple of thousand (or thereabouts) clubs under its umbrella, the BJC is the next biggest (I think) and has less than 150.
Basically just because there not in the BJA doesn't mean that they don't teach good judo, and like wise just because they are in the BJA, doesn't mean you will get good judo either. There's good and bad in all of the orgs. The BJC is more traditional and will probably still teach the full gokyo where as the BJA will drop all of the techniques recently outlawed by the IJF from competition. So if you want full traditional kodakan judo go with the BJC.
True enough. I thought that was true, but the BJC grading syllabus doesn't have any mention of Morote Gari or Kata Guruma. Have they stopped teaching the banned techniques too? http://www.britishjudocouncil.org/documents/grading-syllabus/bjc-full-syllabus-feb14.pdf
I didn't say it was a credible source, just that I had read on there that there was a lot more independents. There are also a little under 1000 judo clubs in the BJA not a couple of thousand.
Oops, I wrote a bit of JS to parse the BJA website and didn't check it was working properly. It's about 909.
