Traditional vs Modern MAs

Thanks for this tip! Happened to me at my last match.

 

the thing is, i've done judo at on old school place, that spent equal time doing tachi-waza and newaza. judo the art is bad ass. there just happens to be a sport component, which if you're not careful, can dilute the art itself.

http://www.jjichicago.com/

this place is no joke.

 

Nice place, all the BJA dojo I've visited change their training straight away to the ijf rules, no leg attacks, limited newaza, its great for me learning judo, but not that great as a solo study.

 

Contrary to your belief that a sport component risks diluting an art, I believe a sport component is necessary for preventing dilution of an art. Look at arts like boxing and muay thai, still incredibly useful in a fight after years of evolution. The corollary has to be that a poor ruleset will mean that even competition wont save an art. Look at what fencing has become, the relevance to combat is tenuous at best. However, a lack of competition enables an art to degenerate into a pit of useless techniques that have to relevance to the original purpose of the art. A combination of chinese whispers, and the adoption of untried combat theories leads uncompetitive arts into irrelevancy.

 

sorta

I am pretty sure that this isn't completely the case...

Spine locks are allowed in wrestling and I'm pretty sure they aren't in BJJ. There a few other things but yeah a certain amount is carried over.

I wonder how no gi/BJJ guys would do under a wrestling rule set? If you are just talking BJJ then of course things work the way they do but if you consider the way things might have been.. Judo stopped having guard slams 60+ years ago as people were getting knocked cold... You know when Kimura fought in Brazil they had to add lots of extra padding to the mats in the ring because they were worried that Helio would get knocked out by a throw... and Kimura used to knock people out with his uchimata..

Once you add ALL the stuff from other grappling systems things aren't quite so clear cut . Unfortunately so many of the sporting bodies keep changing the rules so things become lost/hampered..... under today's mess BJJ probably allows one of, if not the best, grappling rule sets. (rant over :' P )

LFD

 

I was shown some ways that "energy" can be used to improve pins and immobilization technique. You might think this just talk but I personally could feel the difference.

Here is an example: Take your knee and place it on your training partner. As you apply continuous pressure using the weight of your body (pinning), visualize that the force is going to the center of the training partner (a point just below their belly button).

See if the training partner feels the difference without letting them know what you are doing differently so that can honestly provide feedback.

It should make them feel like they don't want to move their body (they can move limbs) but will have a harder time moving the mass of their body (e.g. they won't feel like they can easily shrimp).

Edit: Oh if I was going to show someone else what was being done, I would start with "fill yourself with energy" before even placing the knee on the training partner. Not sure how serious people would take what I was saying, however.

 

well, what i was getting at is that, for instance, fireman's carry is no longer allowed in judo competition, or leg attacks. i think this is a case where the "sport" rules risk diluting the art.

i agree with your points about sporting being necessary though. you'll get no argument from me on the efficacy of boxing or muay thai.

 

Most people who do judo do it as a sport and it makes sense that most clubs would conform to the rules. You still need to learn kata guruma and morote gari for gradings and you can still train them, but you can't use them in competition.

The most ridiculous part of this is that the rules were changed to stop wrestlers putting on a judo gi and winning everything. That kind of crap goes directly against what Kano was trying to do with Judo.

To play devils advocate, judo is a much more exciting sport now that you can't attack the legs, so in those terms, the rule changes were a massive success. It has just made judo less effective as a martial art.

I read somewhere about how over time, kata guruma, morote gari etc etc will stop being taught full stop, just like the leg and shoulder locks that used to be incorporated into judo never get taught anymore. If that happens, it is the fault of the judo community at large; if enough of us rebel against the IJF's rules, a new association would inevitable emerge that undoes a lot of the damage the IJF has wrought, but that wont happen, because so many people see the Olympics as the be all and end all.

 

Absolutely, we are in full agreement. I just think it's necessary to distinguish between the effects that sporting competition has on an art, as opposed to the effects that stem from a poor ruleset. I think judo is strong because it is a sport art, but is weakening itself through undesirable rule changes.

 

In the modern world, you do need SOME form of competition sparring or fighting (it could be point sparring or full contact fighting or submission grappling or whatever it is) to keep it relevant. Rule-sets are entirely subjective to begin with, though, and are based on what type of audience you're looking for and how much injury risk you want to tolerate in competitions.

Obviously this works the opposite way it's intended to if the people who teach the art suddenly begin developing everything around a narrow rule-set that isn't the most combat relevant thing in the world in order to create nothing but competitors in one organization or another, then the art can become diluted or simply become a sport like basketball or football. Pretty much every martial art is very sports-oriented today.

In today's world, competition leagues just don't stand for the injury risk they once did. The NFL is a prime example, and comparing the UFC now to what it was before is a more relevant example. You can never really bring the entirety of self-defense on the streets to the class without severely injuring people, but my experience is that you can approximate it pretty well in a controlled environment.

The key is for people to teach these arts to recognize and understand that competition and sparring, while somewhat combat relevant, isn't the be-all end-all of being able to defend yourself. There are ways to practice techniques that aren't necessarily legal in competitions in a class environment (even in an uncontrolled, full-contact manner if you want).

I guess it's all just a long way of teaching students to understand their environment.

 

Why can't the technique still be taught/used in a class competition environment and happen to be set aside when moving to/ prepping for IJF's competition? Then it doesn't lose combat effectiveness and still sees the success that the new rule changes bring.

 

Because for many people judo is a competition sport first and foremost. You train for competition and it doesn't make sense to spend a lot of time working on techniques you can't use.

Most high level judoka have a small set of techniques that work for them and they drill them into the ground because that's what they use in competition. Everything else is superfluous.

As long as those banned techniques are on the syllabus, clubs will teach them, but I don't think it will be long before national federations start to remove them, or make them optional for gradings and from there, they'll disappear.

 

I think this is maybe overstating the point, and inferior is as you say not the right word, its just different.
I don’t know how it is in the states but here in the UK (and most of Europe) judo clubs still outnumber BJJ and no gi grappling clubs, judo has far more competitions running for all age groups, and gets more coverage on tv both at the OL games and outside of them, the grand prix circuit is on one of the amin eurpoean sport networks weekly for example.

And the rule changes have made judo (arguably) more exciting to watch, I love all grappling, but given the choice id rather watch a judo match with big throws and quick submissions and pins, or a free style match with quick takedowns than a BJJ match where they spend 5 minutes hugging each other on the floor.

Whatever the real reasons behind the rule changes (and I agree they do seem aimed at making it harder for non judo people to take part) the publicly stated ones of making the art more appealing to public by limiting the endless grip fighting, making people stand more upright to allow throws, and make the ground work quicker seem to be working

 

How do you mean not so great for solo study? Are you talking personally as someone who enjoys more time on the ground or do you mean generally as its not as complete an art as it used to be?
If it’s the latter is it really any different than attending a BJJ class where you spend maybe 2/3 of the class doing ground work, and only a little time learning any throws or takedowns?? Which art is more well-rounded is really in the eye of the student, someone interested in more standing techniques would think judo was more well-rounded, someone interested in more ground orientated stuff would say BJJ. Someone who does MMA would say they are both lacking as you cant hit during the takedowns and submissions attempts lol

I think it all comes down to personal preference as to what you want to learn, and to the fact changes to arts are never popular with people who have spent years studying one set of rules only to have them changed completely.

A new person coming into judo will see lots of big throws, pins, chokes with and without the gi and attacks to the arms, see both throw sparring and ground work sparring and think its pretty well rounded for a grappling art.

 

I meant in terms of complete standing grappling, very good point about BJJ however. I don't tend to see that myself, but that's because coming from a SBGi gym we cover standup, clinch and ground as part ofour approach, which isn't that usual.

 

Hey guys long time no see, but you know I wouldnt be gone forever right ok anyway I will get down to business. This thread is really good, in fact it comes up in conversations around the gym I train at all the time, which is really better, or more effective or which training principles are best for developeing a technique.

 

A friend of mine is on the Olympic judo squad, the rule changes drastically changed his game, he's got on with it, but he defiantly cared as it impacted his ability to compete at the top levels.

 

He's a judoka, so of course he cared about the rule changes. I daresay he didn't care about the recent rule changes that have been occurring in Ultimate Frisbee, however.*

*I don't know if there have been rule changes in Ultimate Frisbee, but I needed an example.