I might get crucified for this, but that judo needs to focus on its martial roots and not just the sports aspect of it. I'm all for the sports of judo, but I see too many people "gamify" it and do things that would in fact be dangerous for yourself outside of a sporting context. The sport should serve the martial aspect, not the other way around. This was why Jigoro Kano created judo, and the peak that a lot of the pioneers strived for, a lot of us nowadays have forgotten that.
To spin off this, i get that its pointless to learn throws that involve leg grabs for sports context but man....looking at old fight vids....some of those were fucking class
i love this, but mainly because i try to do judo throws in wrestling, where leg attacks are the default and bread+butter. but its always fun to send my oppenents flying or falling when they least expect it. sadly, every drilling partner i have in the room are very aware of me trying funny throws and always block or counter. i need to work on better nogi set ups. any advice?
Transition from lower to upper body. The YouTube channel EarnYourGoldMedal is a goldmine (pun not intended) for this.
As perhaps the most fundamental example of this, here’s a classic Kolat video where he demonstrates hitting an O-Goshi off your opponent reacting to your sweep single with a hard whizzer:
To be crucified by non-judokas: It has the potential to be the greatest self-defense art.
To be crucified by judokas: The current rule set is rancid dog shite and results in a 10:1 ratio of looking like a game of assgrab vs looking like an actual combat sport.
Apparently, it was mostly because it was too much of an overlap with wrestling and the Olympic committee changed the rules to increase viewership.
Also, leg attacks allow judokas to stall the fight more easily.
I have no idea why you guys don't do legs. I am a jiujitsu Muay thai guy that gets a couple judo black belts who come by occasionally for open mat. I'm not a great wrestler, and I don't practice standup other than the fact that I start every round standing but way too often Ill hit a fake posture up to a double leg on these guys with pretty good regularity. It seems incredibly goofy to me to become a black belt at a primarily standup art only for someone who is basically a highschool wrestler to hit you with double leg take downs often.
There’s absolutely a balance. I do classical JJ and we are moving through so many techniques in any given class that we don’t practice enough the techniques with higher success rate to risk calculation. We do hip throws and seioi and all the other judo basics, but not enough of them to get really good and effective. But then, as you said, we get to do some really cool looking stuff and cool theory.
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u/luke_fowl Jun 07 '25
I might get crucified for this, but that judo needs to focus on its martial roots and not just the sports aspect of it. I'm all for the sports of judo, but I see too many people "gamify" it and do things that would in fact be dangerous for yourself outside of a sporting context. The sport should serve the martial aspect, not the other way around. This was why Jigoro Kano created judo, and the peak that a lot of the pioneers strived for, a lot of us nowadays have forgotten that.