ko, Gracie certified schools cannot charge more than $50 a month? Hahahahaha. Any school affiliated with Torrance (Royce & Rorion) charges an arm and a leg - usually way overpriced for what you get. As much as I respect Royce (can’t say the same for Rorion) there are usually much better places to train at for cheaper.
Al, Judo is a great art for self-defense even though it is sport based. In the end most bjj schools are sport based as well - how many people think jumping to guard is good for a bar fight? The key is both arts will teach you grappling techniques - judo more throws while bjj more submissions. There are judo schools that are excellent at teaching submissions. In North America they are few and far between but they do exist. Find a school that fits your personality - if it doesn’t fit then you won’t keep training.
Andy, that no talking stuff is bs. I train with a number of pro nhb fighters and we talk all class long. We also train 10x as hard as most any dojo you could find. Good training in vale tudo usually reflects a amateur wrestling practice - lots and lots of full contact drills. Not some guy walking around with a black belt on yelling at you. And fear for the teacher - my instructor can hand me my ass is under a minute. He’s also become one of my best friends. I have no fear of him at all and never should. You may disagree but our results speak for themselves - 2 current Canadian nhb champs, 1 former Cdn. champ and 1 former world champ in nhb.
geoff: You’re doing exactly what I said most martial artists would do: Vehemently discount all other options and purport their style as the stye. Take a good hard look around you - there are MANY, COUNTLESS MA schools with a variety of backgrounds. There are the “black belt factories”, traditional MA, hybrid and the infamous “head banger” schools. What it will boil down to is what Al and others looking for a place to train in MA will find that fits “their needs” - “their goals”, “their objectives” as well as their “pocketbooks” and “schedules”.
Ko was providing a objective opinion. He has real experience and a thorough knowledge of the history of the MA. As well as a deep love and respect for all aspects of the MA.
The one suggestion that has been maintained over and over again and will probably be maintained, ad nauseum is to *observe* various schools. Go to several classes/sessions in one school to get a good idea of the type of students as well as instructors. A good school will allow you to observe - don't trust the ones that won't.
I believe it was Robert W. Smith (martial artist and author, along with the late Donn Draeger on asian fighting arts)who said, “If you’re going into a bad part of town and you have a choice of taking with you a karetaka,a kung fu man or a judoka , take the judo man”. I agree with master Lee (and others) you have to view fighting in it’s totallity and work to be proficient in all ranges.
Re-read my paragraph and I think you’ll find that I was strictly talking about vale tudo schools - if not, bad communication on my part(and if you can tell me how to cut my one huge paragraph into chunks I would be enternally grateful). It was in response to Andy’s assertion that a school must have the no talking type of atmosphere to be a serious school. In my experience that usually means one of two things 1) a hard core traditonal sensei - someone I can respect but I don’t think necessarily has the “one” right way and 2) McDojo’s who sensei’s don’t fight and just look angry and try too hard on the whole discipline thing. In fact most martial arts schools that fall under the second category also fit very well into the definition of a cult. That type of school is also guilty of not teaching students how to fight and instead filling them with immmense amounts of overconfidence.
I am a big supporter of a number of arts I do not practice - judo, Muay Thai, wrestling, San Shou (sp?) etc. I base my reccomendations on exactly what you are saying - personal goals. If Al says he wants efficacy I am more than willing to debate the various qualities of many martial arts - I have no qualms slagging an “art” if it’s on the level of bs you find at a George Dillman seminar but I strive to remain open to new ideas. Case in point - most people like me (bjj people) think Karate is a joke. 95% of Karate schools are IMO - but that doesn’t mean there aren’t great Karate schools out there that teach highly effective skills. Kyokushin-kai and it’s offshoots are great Karate styles. I will also say that the 95% figure only holds true for North America - there are many hardcore Karate schools throught Europe and Japan from which numerous top fighters have emerged (Rutten, Hug etc).
Ko was just wrong on his Gracie affiliates comment. He seems like a nice guy and I’ve paid attention to things he’s written in other posts. But he was wrong. Torrance Academy (Royce’s school) and their affiliates are well known for overcharging and teaching only a small part of the system. In other words holding back info so people will keep coming thus more $$ for the academy. A good altenative to Royce, if you need the “pure water” GJJ is Caquie who just started his own association as has had a fairly large number of Torrance affiliates jump over to him.
Patricia - your last paragraph was dead on.
One other thing - experience in martial arts often means dick. When I taught I had numerous students with black belts in other arts while I didn’t even have one black belt - we all understood that having a blackbelt or having lots of experience doing kata doesn’t teach you anything about fighting. What opened their eyes were full-contact fights - if your school doesn’t fight then your students probably can’t either. I, just like ko, have lots of experience and love martial arts. I even know a bit of history - enough to know that bjj actually came from judo rather than jujutsu.
I hope I don’t sound like a pompous ass - I’m not too good at communicating on a discussion board and I mean for these points to make more discussion.
Yeah, I have to agree with Geoff about the Kyokushinkai-kan. When I took taekwondo (kooki-wan cert), they barely spent any contact time. When I took Kenpo (tracy system – though debatable only looks good on paper), same deal concerning time spent “fighting”. But when I took Japanese Kyokushin, my family members actually insisted that I quit because of the tremendous amount of bruises I obtained after every training session. Even with pads, someone’s heel is definitely going to leave a mark. But that’s how you learn: get your ass kicked in a controlled environment.
Hey, it’s all cool! I gotcha. BTW: paragraphs can be done like this: at the start of any new paragraph, put a “<” p “>” - just like that, (minus the quote marks). That’s it.
The Karate dojo I would love to train at *someday* is Kyokushin Kaikan / Karate. We can all dream, right? However, Ko has studied Gracie JiuJitsu from a certified instructor/school up here in Oregon. He can explain more about that.
Thanks for the pointers, I’m about to see if it works;). I know a lot of kyokushin practicioners - tough dudes! All that style needs is some hand work and face punching defense and it’s right up there with Muay Thai (and even now it’s just as tough). I assume your training in Karate now?
I’d be interested in hearing ko’s comments about the Caquie/Torrance split as well as his experiences in the Gracie TA’s as I’ve never really dealt with that side of the bjj world. In case ko’s interested I’m with Prof. Sylvio Behring for bjj and Shah Franco for vale tudo. Hooray for martial arts!
I’m going by the paper I signed when I started training. You are correct when you say they charge an arm and a leg, but it is usually for one on one training. As for BJJ coming Judo, some schools maybe but not the Graice’s. But as you probably know Judo originated from Jiu jitsu, so its a moot point anyways. I think Judo is great if you do not have access to a good jiu jitsu school, but I feel that Jiu jitsu is superior in the street. Kyokushin, is great for a Karate style, lots of contact, in fact my Tae Kwon Do instructor studied with Oyama sensei, and we actually trained kyokushin style bare knuckle fighting.
Ahhh, but the jiujitsu teacher (Maeda) the Gracie’s learned from was a Kodokan trained judoka representing the Kodokan until he got in trouble for challenge matches - he merely changed the name of his art from judo to jiujitsu so as not to get in trouble with Kano. Joe Moreira (bjj 6th degree bb) has stated he’s seen judoka in Japan that had groundwork identical to what you would find in a bjj academy in Brazil.
I agree that bjj is generally better for the street but it really depends on the dojo. Some of the best ground fighters I’ve ever trained with were judo players. Finding one of them in the US is highly unlikely so your generalization rings true. I just find that judo gets little respect from us bjj guys when sometimes the judoka is a great groundfighter in their own right. In brazil you will find that most top bjj competitors cross train in judo constantly - most have blackbelts and have comepeted in judo at some point. In fact some of the top bjj players (Sperry, Leite - former judo bronze med. at PanAms) came from judo. The moral of the story IMO is that crosstraining should be a given. My bjj instructor actually demands that we cross-train in judo. Enough ranting… ko, how long did you train at the Gracie TA? Do you like it there?
ko, forgot about the $$. That’s really interesting that they put the $50 limit into the contract. That’s not the way it works in Canada. Many instructors under the Gracies charge well over $50 and even surpass $100 a month. Of course, $100 Cdn. is like $25 American so …
I agree that the judo players have good ground game, however, like I said it derived from jiu jitsu so it is only natural. The reason their are so many good judo guys that are now in Jiu Jitsu, is that Jiu jistu banned in Japan for many years, and almost completely forgotten, until it was reintroduced to train the Japanese police. And lets face it, if it was not for UFC, and the Gracies, it would still be an obscure style. I used to train with a guy who trained in Joe Lewis’ American freestye karate, and we did ssome ground work, and my old Tae Kwon Do instructor now s a certified Gracie instructor. I started training a year ago, but have not had the time to train lately. Also the school is in my home town, so its a 1 1/2 commute on way. It is only 25 bucks a month though, and he goes down to Califonia every month to train with the Royce. When time and finances permit, I intend to start training at Straight Blast Gym here in Portland. Randy Corture trained there, and they sem to know there stuff.
Judo was not meant to be a sport, in fact the exact opposite was true.
Professor Jigoro Kano developed judo in 1882 from the techniques of Jujitsu. Kano felt that Jujitsu was too violent and eliminated or altered its techniques where necessary to fulfil his ideal of “mutual benefit” of the practitioner and society as a whole, one of the two concepts central to Judo. The other founding concept of Judo is that of “maximum efficiency from minimum effort” which allows the practitioner to defeat a stronger opponent by turning his strength against him, and thus can be seen in Judo’s main physical elements. Judo emphasizes grappling techniques, especially those that upset the enemy’s balance, in particular- gaining leverage, throws, clothes grabbing, joint locks, and strangle holds. Advanced students also learn to strike vital areas. In most schools, after students have learned the basic techniques, they spend most of their time free sparring, a one-on-one exercise under the same rules as a competition. One aspect of Judo is rare in the world of martial arts, in that there are no different “schools” of Judo- wherever it is studied around the world the student will learn the same techniques, unlike most styles of martial art which can have dozens of schools, each with its own particular brand of the style. Ironically, although Kano discouraged competition, Judo has become a very popular sport, gaining Olympic status in 1964.
From my readings, Judo was not actually taught for self defense, until WW2, where it was taught to special forces. The dangerous techniques of Jiu Jitsu, were removed so that it would be more conducive to sport ,less chance of injury. But we could argue about this all day.
ko, the bjj players I mentioned who were succesful judo/bjj players are all Brazilian - the reason there are so many of them is because in Brazil crosstraining between judo and jiujitsu is commonplace - it’s only in North America that bjj is being sold as a stand alone product. All the top Brazilian teams cross train - for sport the train judo, for vale tudo it’s wrestling, boxing and thai. I have always found it interesting that judo is actually more popular in Brazil than is jiujitsu - jiujitsu people are seen as thugs and the parents don’t want they’re kids training with bad people so… The jujustu you are describing being banned in Japan, generally had very little ground work and was mostly standing locks, very different that the “GJJ” you were doing.
If you go to the Straight Blast gym you will see huge improvements in your game - those guys are top notch and won’t hold anything back. It’s also a great place to train if you are interested in fighting vale tudo.
Bobby, you will find different schools of judo - they are just very hard to find. The police dojo’s in Japan are good examples of this (hard core newaza on the level of many bjj players). There are also a number of styles which have judo as the base (i.e. Wajutsu - if anyone knows Uno, he’s a great example of the system) although it’s not judo anymore.
Al, bjj (Brazilian JJ) is focused mostly on ground positioning and large joint manipulation (i.e. arm bar or choke) while jjj (Japanese JJ) is mostly about standing locks (i.e. wrist locks). IMO the less micro joint manipulation of a technique the easier it is to pull off thus bjj tends to be a little more effective. Regardless, bjj takes much less time to become proficient at for self defense than does most JJJ. This is a gross generalization about Jjj as it has many different sub sets.
Bjj is mostly the same in quality - at least reasonable quality wherever you go and you’ll be sure to learn something that is applicable on the streets. Jjj varies a great deal in quality. I trained at one dojo for almost a year where a typical street fighter would have handed the sensei his butt. Of course there are wonderful Japanese dojo’s out there but if you wanted to go that angle I’d go for the judo instead - just personal preference on my part.
You will also find the culture at bjj dojo’s far different from what your used to. At your typical brazilian academy in the States (or Canada/Europe) you will find a very relaxed atmosphere - indeed smoking weed is often a strong component of bjj culture:). There isn’t a lot of bowing (if any) and you will generally find slapping hands (i.e. high five) as a substitute for bowing.
Traditional Jiu Jitsu developed as a defense for the unarmed samurai. It was meant to defend primarily against the sword(eapon of choice amoung the samurai) therefore the need for small joint lock manipulation to disarm the attacker, then the throw, larger joint locks, and chokes to subdue, or kill. Modern Jiu Jitsu or Brazillian Jiu Jitsu is more concerned t with hand to hand combat, rather than a weapon. It concentrates more on the take downs, larger locks, and chokes. It is a little more complex than Judo, with more emphasis on the submissions rather than the throws. Gracie Jiu Jitsu is more of a tradtional style, but they also teach a simpler form which is easier to learn.