Curious about the differences in judo\jjj and bjj.

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drop bear

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drop bear

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so when will you get there, by the time your 90 ?

your now at an age when things start to get worse rather than better

Then I would not be improving consistently.
 

Dirty Dog

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drop bear

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Studies that rely wholly on anecdotal evidence are considered rubbish. Studies with a sample size of one are as well.
When it's a sample size of one and purely anecdotal...

Not really the point.
 

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Not really the point.

Since you used it as an effort to support the claim that break dancing improved BJJ performance, it actually is the point. Because it does nothing to support the claim. At all. Not even a little.
 

drop bear

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Since you used it as an effort to support the claim that break dancing improved BJJ performance, it actually is the point. Because it does nothing to support the claim. At all. Not even a little.

Its not a study though. It is an example.

And I can appeal to authority if that is in the guys field of expertise.
 

Tony Dismukes

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So I'm looking to start training and to be honest I'm not overly fond of bjj and it's popularity. That's not to say anything about it's effectiveness at all but I'm just not all that interested really.

I trained in judo as a child and jjj as a teen at the Houston Budokan and would like to continue now...even though I'm a lot older (48).

I have to be honest though, as uninterested as I am in bjj I don't want to miss out on good technique either. As I remember it judo had a lot of ground work and it looks very similar to bjj in some ways. So I guess my question would be...is there really that much difference between the two and will I be missing things that would give a bjj practitioner the upper hand?

Thanks for any feedback.
Speaking as a BJJ instructor and intermediate Judo student, they are both great arts and do have a lot of overlap. However they have evolved in in some separate directions over the years, so you will find differences as well.

In BJJ, you will spend a lot more time on groundfighting (newaza), and the coverage of that aspect will be both broader and deeper than you will find in Judo.

In Judo, you will spend a lot more time on throws, and the coverage of that aspect will be both broader and deeper than you will find in BJJ.

That being said, you will find considerable variation among BJJ academies and also among Judo dojos.

In BJJ, the instructional quality and time spent on throws and takedowns can vary from pretty good to adequate to barely there. Traditionally you would also spend a reasonable amount of time on handling self-defense situations and dealing with strikes, but as more and more of the BJJ community becomes devoted to tournament competition the percentage of schools which devote a lot of time to those aspects has dropped off.

In Judo the instructional quality and time spent on groundwork (newaza) can range from very good to barely adequate. Even at the dojos where the newaza is excellent, you will generally cover a much narrower range of that aspect.

Either art would be a great choice to pursue. If I were you, I would look at the schools available in your area and see which one feels like a better fit for you.
 

Tony Dismukes

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No. You actually don't understand the concept.

Here is the relationship between break dancing and how it improves BJJ.

Two Cultures Collide: How Break Dancing Helped Improve My Jiu Jitsu Skills | Chris Ramos' Story

Doing two sports hasn't divided his focus. It has increased his depth.
I can totally believe that his breakdancing background made Mr. Ramos a better jiu-jiteiro, especially compared to someone who had spent that 8 years sitting on the couch playing video games instead. A relevant question might be: did that 8 years of breakdancing help his BJJ as much as if he had spent that same 8 years doing BJJ instead? I'm pretty certain it didn't.

There are general attributes (balance, coordination, kinesthetic awareness, strength, flexibility, discipline, knowing how to learn a physical skill, etc), which you can develop in any athletic endeavor (breakdancing, parkour, gymnastics, wrestling, karate, ballet, BJJ, rock climbing, etc) and those will carry over and help you in other athletic endeavors.

There are also sport-specific skills which do not carry over. The time needed for these specific skills is what makes it harder to excel in multiple arenas. I'm not saying that it can't be done, but it does take extra work and time.

I will allow that someone who devotes their available training time primarily to developing those general attributes is more likely to excel in multiple disciplines than someone who devotes their available training time primarily to the specific skills of one discipline and neglects their attributes.
 

drop bear

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I can totally believe that his breakdancing background made Mr. Ramos a better jiu-jiteiro, especially compared to someone who had spent that 8 years sitting on the couch playing video games instead. A relevant question might be: did that 8 years of breakdancing help his BJJ as much as if he had spent that same 8 years doing BJJ instead? I'm pretty certain it didn't.

There are general attributes (balance, coordination, kinesthetic awareness, strength, flexibility, discipline, knowing how to learn a physical skill, etc), which you can develop in any athletic endeavor (breakdancing, parkour, gymnastics, wrestling, karate, ballet, BJJ, rock climbing, etc) and those will carry over and help you in other athletic endeavors.

There are also sport-specific skills which do not carry over. The time needed for these specific skills is what makes it harder to excel in multiple arenas. I'm not saying that it can't be done, but it does take extra work and time.

I will allow that someone who devotes their available training time primarily to developing those general attributes is more likely to excel in multiple disciplines than someone who devotes their available training time primarily to the specific skills of one discipline and neglects their attributes.

Yeah. That is where it gets complicated.
 

drop bear

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Speaking as a BJJ instructor and intermediate Judo student, they are both great arts and do have a lot of overlap. However they have evolved in in some separate directions over the years, so you will find differences as well.

In BJJ, you will spend a lot more time on groundfighting (newaza), and the coverage of that aspect will be both broader and deeper than you will find in Judo.

In Judo, you will spend a lot more time on throws, and the coverage of that aspect will be both broader and deeper than you will find in BJJ.

That being said, you will find considerable variation among BJJ academies and also among Judo dojos.

In BJJ, the instructional quality and time spent on throws and takedowns can vary from pretty good to adequate to barely there. Traditionally you would also spend a reasonable amount of time on handling self-defense situations and dealing with strikes, but as more and more of the BJJ community becomes devoted to tournament competition the percentage of schools which devote a lot of time to those aspects has dropped off.

In Judo the instructional quality and time spent on groundwork (newaza) can range from very good to barely adequate. Even at the dojos where the newaza is excellent, you will generally cover a much narrower range of that aspect.

Either art would be a great choice to pursue. If I were you, I would look at the schools available in your area and see which one feels like a better fit for you.

Also technically we were talking about competing in multiple disciplines. But I used break dancing to push the boundaries of that concept.

So as to alleviate this issue.


"training for comps is generaly better than training for belts, if you want to be more than averagely proficient

but as soon as you do that you are limiting yourself to the rule set your training, youl get very good at what you train, and not at all at " good "techniques that are not applicable

you can send your self mad trying to fill all the holes that appear as soon as you say " but what if""


 
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Gerry Seymour

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But I used break dancing to push the boundaries of that concept.
You didn't so much push the boundaries as run off the rails. I know of nothing that can support your claim that preparing for multiple competition formats (with the same time limitation, overall) would yield better performance in those than if someone focused on only one of them.
 

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You didn't so much push the boundaries as run off the rails. I know of nothing that can support your claim that preparing for multiple competition formats (with the same time limitation, overall) would yield better performance in those than if someone focused on only one of them.
I agree! Last time I was really looking at this (admittedly about 10 years ago - so can't quote studies) there was pretty decent research that demonstrated that when it comes to high level skill development (not just getting the very basics of something) that for at least a small majority of people there was no measurable skill transfer between similar but different activities. So, counter-intuitive as it might seem, for most people, but probably not for most "natural athletes", there is effectively no skill transfer between an activity like skateboarding and surfing once you get beyond a very superficial baseline kind of level.

The research gets really complicated but the main take away is that if you want to be truly great at a given activity you need to train in that activity for purposes of skill development and not muddy the waters for your brain with similar but not identical activities. This still remains true even for the "natural athletes" who do experience skill transfer between similar activities, though they aren't punished by cross training so much as it is simply less efficient for them than focusing. Now if you want to be super effective at something really broad and unpredictable like "self defense" it's a lot harder to apply this research than if you want to be a world class boxer within the WBA rule set or something similar, but it's still worth keeping in mind even then.

This applies directly to skill development. There are similar principles when it comes to conditioning as your body's metabolic adaptations to activity are relatively specific. Training for a marathon isn't going to help you develop endurance for 3 minute rounds of combat sport unless you are extremely deconditioned and even then it's a very inefficient way to prepare. Strength training is great because being stronger is a general attribute that makes just about every form of physical activity easier. The only exceptions are very fringe examples like running marathons and the like where you need very little strength to accomplish the task and you need to expend as little energy as possible while performing it. Artificial and arbitrary rules like weight divisions might also make strength training less effective in some specific instances.
 

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You didn't so much push the boundaries as run off the rails. I know of nothing that can support your claim that preparing for multiple competition formats (with the same time limitation, overall) would yield better performance in those than if someone focused on only one of them.
Doesn't it depend on the competition formats? I mean, how are we defining success here? Is it relative to the individual, as in Person A's progress independent of anyone else's?

I'm a little late to this discussion, and I apologize if I'm rehashing anything previously covered. I think, though, that the idea of complimentary training is pretty mainstream and not all that controversial. Does yoga make you better at Jiu Jitsu? Well, it might not help you learn the timing of a technique, but some would argue that it's made all the difference in their performance, and that the better they get at Yoga (or breakdancing), the better they get at BJJ. I don't think it's too controversial to suggest that flexibility and strength gained from Yoga will help people become better at BJJ than if they just did BJJ alone.

there is a point of diminishing return on time. If the hangup here is that you have a finite amount of time, a few things come into play. First is the very idea of a learning curve. There's a reason it's referred to as a curve and not a learning slope. Generally speaking, the higher your skill level, the less steep the learning curve becomes. I don't think this is controversial, either. Right?

Getting to Tony's question, if someone does just BJJ for 8 years, is his BJJ going to be better than if he did 8 years splitting time between BJJ and Breakdancing? The answer is, I really don't know. It's impossible to say, but based on my experience, I would guess that, all other things being equal, if person A trained 15 hrs per week in Breakdancing and 15 hrs per week in BJJ, and person B trained 30 hrs in BJJ alone, after 8 years the difference in BJJ skill would be negligible, while Person A's breakdancing skill would be demonstrably better than Person B's. To be clear, this might not be true if you change Person A's ration to say, 4 hours of BJJ per week and 26 hours of breakdancing.

There is a point of diminishing return. That's what I'm getting at. It may not actually be 15 hours.. maybe 20/10 BJJ to breakdancing would be optimal. The key is that there would be a point where training more is not going to produce tangible results, and that engaging in a complimentary activity will actually improve performance in both activities.
 

Monkey Turned Wolf

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ting time between BJJ and Breakdancing? The answer is, I really don't know. It's impossible to say, but based on my experience, I would guess that, all other things being equal, if person A trained 15 hrs per week in Breakdancing and 15 hrs per week in BJJ, and person B trained 30 hrs in BJJ alone, after 8 years the difference in BJJ skill would be negligible, while Person A's breakdancing skill would be demonstrably better than Person B's. To be clear, this might not be true if you change Person A's ration to say, 4 hours of BJJ per week and 26 hours of breakdancing.

There is a point of diminishing return. That's what I'm getting at. It may not actually be 15 hours.. maybe 20/10 BJJ to breakdancing would be optimal. The key is that there would be a point where training more is not going to produce tangible results, and that engaging in a complimentary activity will actually improve performance in both activities.
If this were true, then NBA coaches would be encouraging their athletes to practice parkour during practice. But they don't even though I'm sure they practice enough to reach that point of diminishing return. And I would also be very surprised if they don't have people either researching, or looking into the research on that. They can definitely afford to have people research it, and they're looking for any edge they can get over their competition. Same is true for the other major sports.
 

drop bear

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You didn't so much push the boundaries as run off the rails. I know of nothing that can support your claim that preparing for multiple competition formats (with the same time limitation, overall) would yield better performance in those than if someone focused on only one of them.

Exept that a lot of very successful combat sports people do it?

I mean almost no MMA combat sportsmen do MMA exclusively. They all jits, box, wrestle, whatever.
 

Monkey Turned Wolf

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Exept that a lot of very successful combat sports people do it?

I mean almost no MMA combat sportsmen do MMA exclusively. They all jits, box, wrestle, whatever.
Typically though, they're not the best at those specific formats.

And MMA is a specific case, as each of those aren't a different skill, they're a subset of MMA (mostly). So boxing will make your MMA better since really you're just focusing on one aspect of MMA, which will improve your MMA game. MMA won't make you a better boxer than you would have been by devoting that time to just boxing, since you're spending time that you could be learning to box, learning to wrestle, throw, kick, elbow, etc. instead.
 

drop bear

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Typically though, they're not the best at those specific formats.

And MMA is a specific case, as each of those aren't a different skill, they're a subset of MMA (mostly). So boxing will make your MMA better since really you're just focusing on one aspect of MMA, which will improve your MMA game. MMA won't make you a better boxer than you would have been by devoting that time to just boxing, since you're spending time that you could be learning to box, learning to wrestle, throw, kick, elbow, etc. instead.

So you could compete in multiple formats to improve your core skill if it was well rounded enough to accommodate that.

Thus reducing the issue of training for too specific a purpose. If that is something you want to overcome.
 
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