r/judo • u/Eastern-Swordfish776 • Jul 06 '25

Other What’s your unpopular opinion on judo

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u/An_Engineer_Near_You Jul 06 '25

They should really have no Gi judo like no Gi BJJ

17

u/wowspare Jul 06 '25

There's a reason why it's not popular. d_rome explained it quite well:

The reason is because it's a waste of time for people who are serious about Judo competition. I don't mean that in a disparaging way. It's just the pinnacle of Judo competition is the Olympics. If Olympics are out it's World Championships. If that's out then it's competing internationally at a Grand Slam or Grand Prix event. Judo is very well established around the world as the world's most popular grappling sport. There would be no reason for the International Judo Federation to throw money at a No-Gi Judo division. They wouldn't get the best athletes. Besides, what rules would you have? Without IJF support the rest of the national Judo organizations around the world would have no reason to spend any money supporting it. Without national support then you are depending on independent Judo instructors who are mostly unqualified to teach no-gi Judo to grow it. I teach it but I'm hardly qualified. What makes me more qualified than many other Judo coaches (with no wrestling experience) is that I've spent way more time doing it. Once a week for about 6 years. That's about it. There's many Judo coaches out there that have never spent more than an hour or two doing Judo without the jacket.

I teach No-Gi Judo at my BJJ club but honestly I do it for the sake of my students. I'd rather just teach Judo in the Gi all the time. My students are BJJ guys that want to learn stand-up and they do both Gi and No-Gi. I feel like I have a duty to prepare them the best way I can and my best includes teaching No-Gi Judo. We have a wrestling coach at my club but I still tell my students, "For wrestling in no-gi, do what he tells you. Use no-gi Judo to fill in the gaps."

12

u/Bluddy-9 Jul 06 '25

To sum it up, no gi judo isn’t productive for competitive judoka.

That’s not a good reason to not teach it. Imo no gi judo would increase the popularity of judo in the US (no idea about other countries). No gi is better for self defense and there is a much bigger population interested in self defense compared to competition. The bigger the population you can get interested, the better competitors you will get in the sport.

2

u/wowspare Jul 07 '25

If you want to do nogi judo at your dojo there's nothing stopping you. Clubs are responsible for what happens at the club level.