I actually train both, but my focus is on self-defense. I have two instructors. My sport instructor, who I’ve been with since day 1, is a black belt who has recently committed to emphasizing more self-defense in his classes, in no small part from Rickson’s speech when he received his red belt recently. He recognized his own shortcomings in the self-defense department and is now working to address that.
My other instructor, who I’ve been with for maybe 6 months now, is a four-stripe brown belt under the man you see in that video. None of the stuff I learn from my black belt instructor is throw-away at all and I absolutely value my training time there. For my training priorities, I’d rather be at my brown belt instructor’s school full-time, but that’s not a realistic option for me due to its distance. Luckily I have many opportunities to train with my brown belt friend locally, and I value that time as well. I get a few hours in with each instructor each week.
Yes I do disagree because I’ve experienced the opposite. Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you have exactly zero hours of sparring with BJJ students of any belt color? I’ve got months of experience with hard sparring upper belts from both types of schools. I do this multiple times a week. I’m a big strong white belt routinely tapping sport purples or just dominating them positionally, not to mention taking them down with ease. You can point to a number of factors for this, but the most obvious answer is that not all schools thoroughly prepare their students to handle a big strong goon with a modicum of skill.
I’ve tapped “self-defense” blues before too, but there is a clear difference. Anyone - ANYONE - who has a blue belt from that man’s school will be a handful in a fight, even for a big strong guy like me. They are hard to take down, hard to defend against their takedowns, conscientious of punches, weapons and their environment, in addition to being very skilled grapplers (who do very well in competition). They get shark-tanked before they get the belt promotion. They are all tough motherfuckers before their instructor promotes them. Man or woman, this is a school that produces fighters. The purples and browns might as well be Jedi knights to me, no matter their size. My only prayer would be staying on my feet and winning with strikes, and my money wouldn’t be on me.
That is absolutely not the case with everyone who receives a colored belt in brazilian jiu jitsu. Not at all. They are almost all good grapplers, as are all of the Judokas I’ve rolled with, but that’s not the same as being good in a fight. Plenty of the guys I’ve tapped have done quite well in competition against people in their weight class, but getting dominated or tapped out by a big strong guy with a few months of training doesn’t really speak well to the efficacy of their techniques in a real life situation.
Again, I’ve experienced this first hand with a sample size in the dozens of people and roughly six different schools. I mostly roll with upper belts, and I am lucky enough to train with people from several different schools. I’m not really sure where your argument is coming from, unless you are trying to push Judo on @Benanything or trying to say that all BJJ schools are teaching the same curriculum to white belts. They most definitely do not. You said you don’t know anything about BJJ, and you are right.
If @Benanything wants to be the kind of blue belt who has the best chance of winning (or even remaining unharmed) in a street fight with no rules, no weight classes and no gender divisions, he should pick a school that trains for this situation and produces blue belts who meet that standard.
If @Benanything doesn’t prioritize this sort of skill set, he should train wherever he feels is best. Some places will basically hand you a blue belt if you’ve stuck around long enough, which is totally fine. If you stick around long enough you’ll definitely improve your grappling and instructors always have the right to promote on whatever criteria they see fit. As far as street applicability, you won’t get worse in a fight if you’re rolling all the time. Quite the opposite.
Again, I’m not saying this to insult you, but you really do not know what you are talking about. There are qualitative differences in curriculum from one school to the next, and it is best that new white belts are aware of this before they commit too long to one path or the other. This is the information I’m trying to impart and I’m having a hard time understanding why you’d mount an argument saying otherwise when you’ve never trained at a BJJ school.
Have you tried bringing your center of balance down as you move? This is something you should be doing anyways- leading with your lower body and keeping the upper and lower body independent from one another. This is why dan-grade Judo guys are hard to throw- you can move their arm and upper body as much as you want, but they have firm control over their actual weight, and thus balance. Very difficult to throw someone if you haven’t achieved kuzushi one way or another.