Judo vs. BJJ

So, the commonly heard axiom is that BJJ derived from judo but evolved a much more advanced ground game while Judo developed a much more advanced standing game. I think that's mostly too simple a distinction to be useful - judo also has very advanced groundwork and BJJ also has a stand-up game that is in some ways superior to that of judo.
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.Studying BJJ (admitedly mostly from video and book) I can honestly say that I have not seen much BJJ that I'd not already learned in judo except for leglocks and omoplata. Perhaps it's just my particular judo background. Coming up through the ranks, our club seemed to spend much more time than average on the ground. Also, nearly all of us that were studying judo were also concurrently studying aikido or hapkido or jujitsu, so it could just be that what I associate in my mind as 'normal judo' is closer to BJJ than it is to mainstream judo.
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I think that what BJJ (and especially Gracie JJ) really has going for it that judo does not have is excellent, excellent instructors. While there are some good judo instructors out there, there are also a lot of regional champions teaching wannabe-champions 1-2 throws and working on conditioning to try to prepare them to use their power to thrive in competition environments. It seems to me that because of their excellent pedagogy, an average BJJ instructor could probably teach a pencil-necked geek more in less time than an average judo instructor could.
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With all that said, here's a quick point-by-point comparison of a few of the differences between judo and BJJ. Bear in mind that these are simple trends - individual clubs can vary a good bit from these ideas.

• Throws vs. takedowns - Judo players value the perfect throw (ippon) because judo rules reward the perfect throw. BJJ rules do not reward the perfect throw differently than the merely-okay takedown, so BJJ players are generally free to use a wider variety of entries into groundwork. This does not make either art better - it's just a difference. If you want to see larger, higher-impact, more technically perfect throwing techniques, look at judo. If you want to see easier-to-perform, more functional, lower-impact entries into the ground, look at BJJ.
• Different competition rulesets - BJJ has a more practical, more fun ruleset for competitions - The judo ruleset has been modified to a shameful degree over the years, diluting the virility of the art and reducing interest in the sport. The BJJ ruleset is remarkably like early judo rulesets, and has remained mostly unchanged - resulting in an explosion in popularity and interest in the sport.
• Inductive vs. deductive - Judo seems to me to be generally more deductive, while BJJ is more inductive. Judo starts with a handful of principles and deduces the techniques through randori. BJJ teaches lots of techniques, one for every conceivable situation, and leaves the student to induce the general principles through experience in live rolling. Both eventually get to the same state. Both end up with nearly identical sets of techniques. The same principles are at work in both arts. But they approach the development of the art in the student from different directions.

Want more info on the differences between judo and jujitsu?  Mastering Jujitsu (Mastering Martial Arts Series) is one of the best books I've ever read on how BJJ and GJJ evolved differently from judo and why they do things the way they do in BJJ.

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Interview: Rener Gracie on Bullyproof

A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to purchase the new Gracie Bullyproof DVD set, and it turned out to be all it was cracked up to be and much more - a really excellent set of DVDs about teaching kids to grapple and helping them to avoid bullies and other common predators.

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Today I had the fortune to be able to have a brief email conversation with Rener Gracie, son of UFC creator Rorion Gracie, and one of the instructors on the Bullyproof DVDs. I got to ask him some questions about teaching kids to grapple and he let me post it here as a short interview.

PATRICK PARKER: Thanks Rener! I really appreciate you taking some time from your busy schedule to answer a handful of questions for me and my readers. I wanted to start by congratulating you and thanking you for such a fine instructional product as Bullyproof. My kids and I have really been enjoying working through it together. Were you or your brothers ever bullied at school or did everyone around know not to mess with "those Gracie guys?"

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RENER GRACIE: I was 10 when my father created the UFC so people knew who we were..

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PATRICK: Other than just playing the Gracie Games with y'all, how did your dad and grandfather motivate you and your brothers to want to make jiujitsu such a large part of your lives?

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RENER: In the early years it was just the Gracie Games. Around 6 or 7 years old, is when the real learning began. The key to making sure that we stayed motivated was the use of the Golden Rule: expect nothing, praise everything. He never condemned us for not meeting his expectations so we never felt like we were letting him down.

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PATRICK: Was it expected of you, like "You're a Gracie so you will do jiujitsu?"

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RENER: He never forced us to train (although he did have to bribe me a few times).

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PATRICK: Did any of y'all decide, "No, I don't want to do jiujitsu?"

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RENER: Some members of the family are less involved than others, but all of them know enough to defend themselves and that's what matters most.
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PATRICK: That's exactly right. In the Bullyproof program you have the child paired with an adult partner who is always adjusting the intensity level so that the child always succeeds. When do you start emphasizing randori or sparring or more competitive games where the kids compete against each other?

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RENER: As soon as a kid feels like he/she is "not good at it" they will want to quit. So it's our job to make sure they are never in over their heads. As a result, we don't let kids do live sparring exercises until they have trained for several months and we can see that they have a very dedicated learning spirit and, more importanly, they can lose without taking it personally. All kids start in a program based on the fundamentals, with no competitive sparring, until they display a very mature learning attitude, and then we send them to the "Black Belt Club" where they learn more and train harder. All it takes is one bad experience for a kid to quit, so we are very careful to manage the intensity in our classes.
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PATRICK: A while back I interviewed Dave Camarillo, and he said he thought it was probably better to start kids in judo and graduate them into BJJ later. But your generation of Gracies seems to have had pretty good success starting young in BJJ and (I suppose) cross training some later in judo or wrestling, etc... What are your ideas about the path kids should take in cross-training these martial arts?
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RENER: I can certainly see the benefit of the path Dave describes, and from a technical standpoint I don't think the order matters too much, but from an engagement standpoint I think that starting with GJJ is the best option because any kid can do it and it's simple, fun and low impact, resulting in less injuries, therefore a child is less likely to quit in the early stages.
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PATRICK: Wow, Rener, that was some really great info you just gave us. Thanks! I've had a blast chatting with you and I know my readers will love reading about your ideas.
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To learn more about the Gracie Bullyproof at-home training DVDs please visit: http://www.graciebullyproof.com/

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮

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What to do about a stinky judo partner?

Recently I received an e-mail from a BJJ student with a question of a noxious nature...

...over 1/3 of the guys I roll with stink so bad the smell is just about enough to make me tap. I don’t think they wash their gi's. If they do, it is probably so infrequent that the stank has already fortified itself against single washes. The stank alone is almost enough to make me quit. To me, it’s not considerate of your partners or respectful to your art or you dojo/gym. The disregard for others and apparent lack of respect for themselves bothers me.

Boy, that's a problem that we've all grappled with, Dear Reader!  Grappling partners so incredibly nasty that you are tempted to turn them into Homeland Defense for domestic terrorism using chemical weapons of mass destruction!

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And you're right...  The stank does fortify itself after a while such that even if you do wash your gi, the stank goes stealth and hides until you put the gi back on and get hot and start to sweat again - then the heat-activated stank returns with a vengeance!

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So, what to do?

• First, Dear Reader,  I recommend not rolling with those guys any more.  Rolling around with someone who wears bacteria-laden rags to work out in is just not safe.  We are all constantly getting minor (and sometime severe) gi burns and mat burns and smearing infectious sweaty pitstank into your abrasions doesn't seem that great an idea.
• Second, tell them.  They might not even know because stank that bad kills brain cells.  Be direct.  Say something like, "Dude, you stink.  You are so repulsive that you make me want to puke.  I will not roll around in your disgusting crotch with you smelling like that."  Perhaps they will get the message if it is that forthright.
• Third, If someone tells you that your gi has been invaded by the stank, don't get defensive.  It happens to the best of us every so often.  Here's what you should do...  Wash... Your...Uniform!!!  In vinegar. Throw your gi in the wash with some washing soap and a cup of vinegar.  The acid will kill the growies that are infesting the cloth of your pits.    And a touch of DO for the BO before class won't hurt either.  Your grappling partners will thank you and you'll thank me.

P.S. ...and this is only marginally relevant to the topic.  Whenever you feel ill to the point that you think you might urp,  Do NOT say, "I'm nauseous."  This actually means, "I'm so disgustingly repulsive that I make other people feel like puking."  If you yourself are sick, then it is proper to say, "I am nauseated." Just sayin...

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(Photo courtesy of Parrhesiates)

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮 

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Explode early or ooze?

Photo courtesy of Simmr

For years now (nearly 20), one of my main ideas in newaza with respect to escaping hold-downs has been to see the hold coming and to explode into the proper escape technique just before the opponent got completely into it.  Of course, I could still do the technical, methodical, high-leverage, maximal-efficiency escapes, but I was taught and I have been teaching that the escapes happen best when you pull the trigger just before the holder gets set. And that's a pretty good way to teach escapes.

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But it's been working differently for me lately.  Lately I find more and more times when I don't see the hold coming and he's pretty well settled before I can pull the trigger on the escape.  In these instances I'm finding that my strength is not as explosive as it once was, so my age-old strategy has been getting me bogged down under people.

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But I've still been coming out on top a lot of the time - just not by exploding early.  I have found that I have been having good success controlling the top man's position so that I'm not taking as much punishment, and using that time to relax, take a breath, let it out, find the weakness in the hold, and start oozing or rolling or sliding toward that weakness.

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Different strategy for me - been having good success with it.

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮
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Dojime - keep this in mind

In my syllabus I refer to the BJJ guard as the Japanese Judo technique, dojime. In our BJJ-inspired descent into ever more technical guard-work it can be easy to forget about the sheer, gruesome, bone-rending vice that is the original intent of dojime.

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Make no mistake. This technique creates enough mechanical advantage to squeeze the oatmeal out of both ends of the victim, pushing rib bones and organs along for the ride. As such, dojime is illegal in randori and competition and you guys had better not try to play this thing at my dojo. But as a reminder of the intent and potential of this technique, while we practice the technical "guardwork," we call it dojime instead of "the guard." Whenever you hear me refer to the guard as dojime, stick a mental Post-It in your brain so you can remember that then the grits hit the fan, you might want to crush the ever-lovin' snot out of your enemy.

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Following are a couple of demonstrations of dojime (the body strangle) and a fundamental way to break dojime.

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮
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Who's controlling who?

Photo courtesy of The US Army

I don't think this is really a set rule in judo, but in my book, it's not really a hold-down if uke is also holding tori in place. If tori can't get up and get away quickly and easily, it's not really a hold-down but more of a tangle. There are a couple of common implications of this pseudo-rule:

• Leg entanglement ends a hold-down. If uke can get control of tori's leg then he can prevent tori from easily escaping. By playing newaza this way, we don't have to worry too much about leglocks because we're working on preventing or diffusing the positional pre-requisite for a leglock. If you're going to hold uke down, don't let him grab or entangle your leg. Thus, in judo, leglock is sort of assumed if you can get a leg entanglement.
• The guard doesn't count as a hold even if the top man is pressing the bottom man's shoulders down. With legs around, the bottom man is preventing much of top man's control, while positioning for various counters and escapes of his own. It is difficult to free yourself from uke's legs while retaining good control over his torso.
• What about holds in which uke is free to hug your head or torso? I say that those are still holds because it is usually trivial to use your body weight and leg strength to break uke's arm hold such that you can escape.

So, one way to improve your control of uke is to prevent him from controlling you. Try it. You might like playing it that way.

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282
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Suggested great books on aikido, judo, and strategy.
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Saulo Ribeiro vs. Roy Dean

Not really "versus" - but this wonderful short film popped up in my recommendations in YouTube today. Love it!

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282
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Easy lesson plans for judo

Photo courtesy of Notelse

Teaching in general, and lesson planning in particular, is a learned skill. Lesson planning is an art separate from the martial art, and in many ways lesson planning is the toughest part of teaching. Following is a handful of hints that might help you make lesson planning easier.

• Integrated classes - Plan your lessons so that you don't have to split up the class to work on different things. This will keep you from having to lesson plan for multiple groups. The way I did this was to define a set of techniques that absolutely everyone from white belt to black belt needs to repeat often - a set of kihon. Then work your way through this set of kihon with everyone working one technique per class.
• Softer ukemi - Teach and drill proper ukemi, and rethink your throwing practices so that the ukemi is softer. This lets newbies serve as uke for even the highest-level techniques. This expands your uke pool, lets everyone work with anyone else, and helps you to prevent having to split the class as above.
• Lighter randori - Your normal mode of randori for most classes should be very light, low-resistance randori. Almost a "trading throws" type of practice (nagekomi). On the ground, the randori should be a light, flowing roll with emphasis on position and transition over submission. What this does is allows your players to get much, much, MUCH more practice than if they were to resist every inch of the way.
• Lesson plan template - You'll want a template for a standard practice. The one I use is, "Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue." That is, we practice "something old" (kihon), "something new" (rank level material), "something borrowed" (something from BJJ or aikido or someone else's tokuiwaza, etc...), and "something blue" (something that the students are having problems with - Q&A)
• Chained techniques - Many instructors like to chain the techniques that they are going to work for a particular practice. For instance, you might work a certain gripping sequence into a clench followed by a throw from that clench going to the ground into a hold followed by an escape or submission. The transitions between all these individual skills are rich with information that can be lost if you just drill the individual techniques.

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282

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Suggested great books on aikido, judo, and strategy.

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The Polish Wizzer

There seems to be an endless number of cool rolls and attacks in judo.  Everybody you talk to seems to have one or two that you haven't seen before.  Check out this turtle attack.  Not only is it really cool, but it has a really cool name...

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Patrick Parker, is a Christian, husband, father, judo and aikido teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282
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Advice from a Judo World Champion

Judo advice from Dr. AnnMaria Demars:

... I think once every few months the instructors should schedule a 'no students' workout and get together. There should be 90 minutes of people just showing each other drills or new techniques that they have been thinking about. This should be followed by 90 minutes of beer-drinking and swapping lies about how good and good-looking we all used to be.

I'm all for this. We already do a version of this with our Aiki Buddies Gathering in the Fall of each year, but it's not always instructors-only. It's a doable concept on a lot of scales - you could do regional, state, or multi-state instructor hookups for judo, judo&BJJ, or even more diverse. The concept works best to improve the instructors if it is an informal thing with everyone contributing - and if everyone contributes, you have to limit the scope of the thing in order to give each instructor a few minutes to share and stay within the 90 (or 120) minute time limit (of course, if you did 120 minutes of judo, you'd have to expand the beer-drinking accordingly to maintain balance...)

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Anyway, any judo/BJJ aikido, etc... instructors in McComb, Hammond, Baton Rouge, Jackson, Hattiesburg, or points between interested in setting up this sort of thing? I'm busier than a one-legged guy in a butt-kicking contest but give me a call and we'll see what we can set up.

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Patrick Parker, is a Christian, husband, father, judo and aikido teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282

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Skin contact in no-gi grappling

Photo courtesy of Ronald DeVilla

A while back I posted an article comparing and contrasting gi vs. no-gi grappling.  An issue that I didn't address in that article is that skin-on-mat and skin-on-skin contact gives a different kind of friction than does gi-on-mat or gi-on-gi.

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Wearing shorts and a tee, you have a different sort of interface with the opponent and with the mat.  Sometimes the skin interface is stickier than cloth (as with skin-on-mat in a warm, humid room) and sometimes it is slicker (as in sweaty skin-on-skin).  I remember in college, grappling shirtless with my buddy, Steve, in the yard.  I caught him offbalance and sailed in for a hip throw that should have been a sure thing but I slipped off his sweaty arm and busted facefirst into the ground!  I had done a sweaty sukashi to myself!

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When doing no-gi grappling, you also have to move differently to avoid matburn.  Sometimes with a gi you can slide a leg or arm or shoulder across the mat to make a quick transition but often with direct skin contact, you have to pick the limb up off the mat in order to move it.

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Bottom line: play both gi and no-gi grappling.  You will learn different things under these two different conditions.

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Patrick Parker, is a Christian, husband, father, judo and aikido teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282

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Never, ever use the hand

Great quote RE: escaping the rear position in BJJ:

“You never, ever use your hand because the hand is the proof that your body is not in the right spot.” Saulo Ribeiro

Saulo Ribeiro is the most aiki-like, the most ideally judo-like of all the BJJ instructors that I've seen much of. Saulo is always preaching things like, “You don't want to fight against his strength,” and, “If he gets you in this position, accept it and go with it instead of fighting there.”

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I have thoroughly enjoyed watching and re-watching Saulo's Revolution DVDs that a friend loaned me. I would highly recommend this set for the BJJ or judo afficionado – or even for the aikido guys wanting to broaden their concept of what is real aiki.

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Patrick Parker, is a Christian, husband, father, judo and aikido teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282

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Ezekiel - or sode guruma jime

This is one of my favorite choking techniques. Extremely versatile. I like to put it into play from a side position with my legs around him - as if mounted on him but facing his side. The BJJ name is Ezekiel, while the judo name is sode guruma jime.

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Patrick Parker, is a Christian, husband, father, judo and aikido teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282

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Suwariwaza in amateur wrestling

Contrary to some folks' opinions, suwari does not suck! In fact, probably the most commonly used technique in BJJ matches (and pretty darn common in judo and amateur wrestling) is a suwariwaza technique - the shoot into the single leg pick!
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I can imagine all the aikido purists as well as all the hardcore BJJ guys out there grimacing in horror. Well, as a very basic example, check out the following video...





What? You don't think that counts as suwariwaza? It happens on the knees, there is movement on the knees (shikko or kyoshi) and an expression of principle. It just does not start with both parties in seiza drinking tea.
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Yippee, we're doing suwari!

Photo courtesy of Dokiai

A few days ago I was having an email discussion with an aikido guy whose opinion I respect a lot. We were talking about suwariwaza and he had this to say...

I hate the kneeling techniques. I don't really get a lot out of them and they always make my knees hurt.

At the time I didn't really think twice about this. I even half agreed. This is a pretty common sentiment - that suwari is a time-waster, is out-dated, is culturally irrelevent, and doesn't add anything to your practice. But the more I think about this, the more bothered I am by it. Not by his opinion (everyone has opinions), but by the situation behind it (aikido suwari sucks).

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Why does aikido suwari practice have to be terrible? People should be shouting, "Yippee, we're doing suwari!" when we work on it. Why is it such an onerous time-waster? People in BJJ don't moan, "Damn, it's time to do groundwork again!" Consider the following spectrum of martial arts practices arranged in close-and-tight to loose-and-far order...

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(close) judo newaza - BJJ - suwari - standing clench - aiki (far)

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If you buy into this ordering, then suwari becomes the missing link between close standing work and loose groundwork. Some BJJ guys call suwariwaza 'kneeling takedowns' and some old amateur wrestling books refer to these techniques as 'short takedowns.' Everybody does suwari as a link between ground and standing, so why does aikido suwari suck so much to have to practice?

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Newaza randori

Photo courtesy of Elise D. Parker

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The best RNC video ever!

This guy definitely gets extra points for style and humor...


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The rhythm of randori

In randori the pace waxes and wanes. There are inevitable spots when you or the other guy can take a moment to rest, or think, or ham it up for the camera, or...

Photo courtesy of Elise D. Parker

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Accidents happen

You know it's a sure sign that it's time to take a break when blood starts coming out of an eyeball. To be fair, this didn't happen at judo, it happened on the playground at the park and was self-inflicted (He swung a swing and didn't duck when it swung back). The next day it became a very fine shiner with the entire orbit of the eye a uniform blackish-purple color. Didn't slow him down, though.

Photo courtesy of Elise D. Parker

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Taking the back

Photo courtesy of Elise D. Parker

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