Judo’s culture is worse than BJJ’s and is the sole cause of our slow growth. The warmups are excessive, annoying and scare off beginners. The elitism means we don’t have as many content creators. The lack of critical thinking is a constant source of frustration for people at all levels. Finally a lot of judokas have this crabs in a bucket mentality where they try to knock overly excited beginners down a few pegs instead of helping them achieve their goals.
There is tons of interest in judo and every gym I’ve trained at has a huge stream of new members, but the lack of instructors (due to elitism influencing NGB standards) mean the demand is never served and the culture causes massive attrition.
I dunno, the rolling at my BJJ gym is far less concerned with helping newbies than randori at my Judo club. At the BJJ sparring, they kinda focus on "breaking" new white belts to prevent spazzes. At our Judo club, we do cooperative randori with the newbies until we're sure they're okay with taking falls - and i dont mean just "they can do breakfalls," but more of "we wont break their bodies if they get thrown uncooperatively." And from hopping gyms and dojos over the years I can tell this isn't unusual way how BJJ or Judo treats complete beginners. Just my 2 pence.
Your second point is spot on IMO. Lotta BJJ students i know have interest in judo, but no one can/will train them very much.
You know, that matches my experience.
But being crushed in sparring when your brand new might just convince the beginner that they're starting something that works. Or maybe BJJ guys could stand to be nicer on new guys... No maybe about it haha.
The first month I'm more worried about the class structure than the randori style, though.
I think it more has to do with the nature of the sport differences... judo more likely to hurt your training partner/opponents than BJJ, not to say BJJ isn't dangerous by any means of course.
I will say "leave your ego at the door" seems to be said more at BJJ than Judo, but i see more people with egos at BJJ than Judo. Maybe that's just my sliver of the universe I've observed 😂
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u/Uchimatty Jul 06 '25 edited Jul 07 '25
Judo’s culture is worse than BJJ’s and is the sole cause of our slow growth. The warmups are excessive, annoying and scare off beginners. The elitism means we don’t have as many content creators. The lack of critical thinking is a constant source of frustration for people at all levels. Finally a lot of judokas have this crabs in a bucket mentality where they try to knock overly excited beginners down a few pegs instead of helping them achieve their goals.
There is tons of interest in judo and every gym I’ve trained at has a huge stream of new members, but the lack of instructors (due to elitism influencing NGB standards) mean the demand is never served and the culture causes massive attrition.