How easy or difficult is Judo?

Someone posted this link on this forum awhile ago:

http://www.kusu.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~judo/library/pv300.asf

I was watching the moves, and some of them look pretty easy, once you're able to get a grip on your opponent. Are these techniques really as easy as they look, or am i just acting like a wannabe-martial artist and thinking it's all easy?

The reason I want to know is, I study JKD and up until now we've been focusing on strikes. Now I'm sparring (wrestling) blackbelts. I want to know whether or bot I should try some of this, other than where you'd have to grab your opponents gi, because our uniforms will tear.

Oh, and this should probably be in the Judo section; feel free to move it.

 

well they make it look easy. and the techniques, once you have them down, ARE very easy to perform on someone standing still. its performing them on someone whos trying to do the same to you thats the hard part. how easy they are to learn depends on how quickly you pick things up. I got tai otoshi down pat on my first try and it is by far my strongest throw, while seio nage took me ages to get.

 

I noticed that they never really wrestled, they just seemed to let themselves fall into the throws. At my dojo, they're moving around the mat a lot before there's a throw.

 

thats because its a demo, they arent resisting the throws.

 

Bizarre, when I was at Judo I found those 2 easy, O goshi was the easiest for me, but Uri nage was nigh on impossible, I just kept on falling forward, Tomo nage wasn't too hot either.
Wasn't so much the resistance in throwing that made Judo hard, but on the mat, groundwork is hard and frustrating, kata and kesa gatame i can get, but a lot were just a real struggle to pull off. You should try out Aikido if you get chance.

 

It depends on the person, a person who is naturally loose will pick it up quickly but as the guys have said everyone has their problem throws, I must be the only 3rd Kyu in history to be incapable of performing a good Tai otoshi on command but I was the don at Kata Guruma and groundwork.

 

How long or short is a piece of string?

PL

 

my friend gary b from the rp judo team puts it this way:

if you've got basics down: easy to play hard to master.

 

That applies to almost anything shootdog.

I would call it relatively "easy", and as I said before it has a fast learning curve.

 

As with all MA, the higher the skill the person you practise against, the harder it is to execute the moves.

One thing I got very good at when practising with the black belts in Judo, was how not to get thrown, and how to make it as difficult as possible for them to do anything.

 

Florida Warlock,

Judo has a relatively small amount of techniques (compared to some MA's for example Kempo).
The techniques are fairly simple to learn statically (far easier than in some MA's, for example Aikido)
Gaining a BB in Judo means you will have to compete (at least here, under BJA).
If you're training in JKD, then Judo is ideal, it's easy to learn (the techniques with a compliant partner) You'll get realistic competition after a while. You get grappling, throwing, groundwork, chokes, strangles realistic fight timing, and much much more. Plus, the gi holding thing, it's very easy to adapt that to hair grabs, neck grabs (similar to MT clinch) wrist grabs etc.

You might be better off though with an older instructor, some newer instructors are very much focused towards the olympic side, and won't be too keen on letting you experiment by using techniques outside of their particular syllabus.

 

Judo's easy. i did it when i was younger and the one thing i really HATED about it was that i HAD to compete in tournaments in order to advance, even though i was good enough to do so i was never allowed to purely because i didn't wish to take part in tournaments. i wanted to di it for fun, not competition. ANY school that forces people to compete and doesn't advance because they are clearly good enough is no good.

 

Non-competitive judo grades are normally restricted or at least discouraged to all bt those with injuries affecting their ability to compete. Its the way judo is.

 

Judo is a sport, the whole point of it is competition. Take up ju jitsu if you don't want to compete.

 

i paid for my lessons. i was good enough to beat those in the class above me yet despite all that i was held back just because i couldn't compete due to being in the Rugby and Archery teams.
Tennis is also a sport, but if someone pays for tennis lessons but chooses not to compete would you think it fair if the instructor did nothing but teach them how to serve underarm (even though they are ready for overarm serves) just because of them not competing?

 

Yeah, that's a good point. But I mean, judo is made for competition, so in order to judge how effective you are at it, you need to compete to see if you can apply what you've learned, otherwise you may not be ready to advance. Although I do believe in some cases it is clearly obvious that a person is good enough to advance, and in those cases I think they should be allowed to, whether they compete officially or not.

 

i graded to brown belt non-competitively due to injury, but if they ever fix me I want them to take my grade away and let me fight my way back, because I do agree that it's hard to know how good your technique is until you've tried it against someone who is doing their best not to be thrown. But you should never presume that just because someone holds a non-c grade they don't know their stuff.

 

Can you get into it on the move against a resisting opponent? That was the hardest part about O-Goshi I found - getting deep enough in!

 

i did used to compete against the other students at my school, just not in tournaments.

 

Found it easier against a taller partner, wait for them to push a little (as if they're going for kosoto gari) and go a touch off balance, and just whip into it. Arm bits kind of like putting a hundred weight of spuds over your shoulder, and apart from that you just crouch, like a goalie in football (soccer). I did find it hard to get away from when someone else uses it, same with drop knee techniques.