The funny thing about beliefs

An important factor to consider is that most BJJ instructors aren't that good at takedowns or teaching them. And if they are, it was usually because they did Judo or wrestled at some point so they tend to teach the way they were taught, and both those arts (in the US at least) are taught in a very smash-mouth, tough-it-out way. When I taught standup specifically for BJJ, I don't know that I every had anyone get hurt because most of what I was doing didn't involve any more impact than getting swept. I mean, if you're teaching BJJ folks who aren't very good at falling big hip throws like you learn in Judo, you're doing it wrong. An ankle pick is a lot better for BJJ competition, and the fall from an ankle pick is nothing. If I am teaching higher impact throws like osoto or kosoto (about the highest impact throws I teach BJJ people), I try to use a crash pad. You simply don't need to have the intensity of a college wrestling practice nor the high impact repertoire of Judo to teach effective TDs for self defense or BJJ competition.
I agree, though I do think you underestimate the quality of coaching that exists around the US. You have very very technical coaches who are very good at development, they just for whatever reason choose to stay at a local high school or just help out at a club or would rather be the assistant coach at a good program than head coach at an inner city or rural school and deal with paperwork.

The other thing not accounted for when talking about American coaching is that a lot of the wrestling programs are at public high schools, as in the same teaching methods needed or used to teach and manage a group of 30-50 kids of vastly different ability and intelligence, and who may or may not want to be there in the classroom or practice and may or may not be motivated, are not the same teaching methods used in a club or high level gym or college room with generally higher level, higher motivation, and incentive. I personally know several coaches who make me and much better coaches than me feel like we don't know anything about technique sometimes who coach club or summer practice completely difference than in-season for those reasons (you also have to consider amount of individual attention in each)
 
Takedowns:
Blame the instructors but the students as well.


At my gym, any reason to not start on the feet is good. Injury is a more than ok reason but fatigue is also a reason down here. Also most of the higher belts don't bother to even get up, they just lie down, let the white belts and blue belts take almost half guard and then they just dominate them. Only a couple of guys really care about it. We rarely drill them.
 
At my gym, any reason to not start on the feet is good. Injury is a more than ok reason but fatigue is also a reason down here. Also most of the higher belts don't bother to even get up, they just lie down, let the white belts and blue belts take almost half guard and then they just dominate them. Only a couple of guys really care about it. We rarely drill them.

At my bjj club, we do 10 minutes of uchikomi if you already your throws, otherwise you go learn a throw for 10 minutes.

We have 3 rounds of tachiwaza but I can tell lot of students don't like doing it.

We can attend another 4 judo classes per week.

We usually have 4 judo black belts and 1 brown belt on the mats.
 
At my bjj club, we do 10 minutes of uchikomi if you already your throws, otherwise you go learn a throw for 10 minutes.

We have 3 rounds of tachiwaza but I can tell lot of students don't like doing it.

We can attend another 4 judo classes per week.

We usually have 4 judo black belts and 1 brown belt on the mats.

Seems to be a really interesting way to introduce takedowns. I think that your place is really judo oriented (more than the majority of the other places I've seen or heard about) If I understand you do about 20-25 minutes of throws every classes. At my gym we must have about 10% of techniques about throws and like 2 six minutes rounds takedowns a week. We do about 30-60 minutes of sparring each class and that includes about 4 or 5 real takedowns a class.

You guys must have a real edge in competition with all those takedowns drills
 
See.. that's the part I find amusing more than anything, terms like "true martial" artist, and "no one I know has ego issues
People with confidence issues often mock those who are comfortable in their own skin because they don't believe they are at piece and not trying to portray something that is just ok with being what it is. So maybe this thread for you will open the door to being comfortable with who you are for what ever you lack that you are seeking.

Good luck
 
People with confidence issues often mock those who are comfortable in their own skin because they don't believe they are at piece and not trying to portray something that is just ok with being what it is. So maybe this thread for you will open the door to being comfortable with who you are for what ever you lack that you are seeking.

Good luck
Or I could simply find it amusing for a host of reasons. Including but not exclusive to, the fact that such people use those fancy eastern martial arts terms like "true martial artist" or "no ego" or "family" are used instead of saying it normally because fetishisizing it under eastern terms makes it more special and supposedly immune to criticism
 
Or I could simply find it amusing for a host of reasons. Including but not exclusive to, the fact that such people use those fancy eastern martial arts terms like "true martial artist" or "no ego" or "family" are used instead of saying it normally because fetishisizing it under eastern terms makes it more special and supposedly immune to criticism
Keep searching. It's a long journey but the at the end you will be happy in your own skin and it's worth all of this huffing and puffing you are doing now.

Safe travels
 
Keep searching. It's a long journey but the at the end you will be happy in your own skin and it's worth all of this huffing and puffing you are doing now.

Safe travels
In what way is expressing amusement at the way certain terms are fetishisized "huffing and puffing", or do I need to use them to scam people and get them to bow to be properly enlightened? I'm actually asking. Especially since you are making vast assumptions about me
 
In what way is expressing amusement at the way certain terms are fetishisized "huffing and puffing", or do I need to use them to scam people and get them to bow to be properly enlightened? I'm actually asking. Especially since you are making vast assumptions about me
You mad bro? All that anger should be channeled to grow and develop your spiritual inner being.
 
I agree, though I do think you underestimate the quality of coaching that exists around the US. You have very very technical coaches who are very good at development, they just for whatever reason choose to stay at a local high school or just help out at a club or would rather be the assistant coach at a good program than head coach at an inner city or rural school and deal with paperwork.

The other thing not accounted for when talking about American coaching is that a lot of the wrestling programs are at public high schools, as in the same teaching methods needed or used to teach and manage a group of 30-50 kids of vastly different ability and intelligence, and who may or may not want to be there in the classroom or practice and may or may not be motivated, are not the same teaching methods used in a club or high level gym or college room with generally higher level, higher motivation, and incentive. I personally know several coaches who make me and much better coaches than me feel like we don't know anything about technique sometimes who coach club or summer practice completely difference than in-season for those reasons (you also have to consider amount of individual attention in each)

I was referring specifically to BJJ instructors teaching standup. I'm sure there are a lot of good wrestling coaches in the US; there are a few good Judo coaches but it's a pretty limited number from what I've seen.
 
^ word. i'm not OTC-level good, never was, never will be, but for all the money people throw at USA Judo, the only coach to produce medal-caliber athletes in the past two decades has been Jimmy Pedro.
 
^ word. i'm not OTC-level good, never was, never will be, but for all the money people throw at USA Judo, the only coach to produce medal-caliber athletes in the past two decades has been Jimmy Pedro.

In terms of really good coaches in the US, I'd say Pedro, Jason Morris, Mike Swain, Ed Liddie, and maybe Doug Tono, Gokor, and the Cohens are about all you have. I'm sure there are some guys who are very good that I've never heard of, but it's a short list of clubs that produce national champions and international contenders. Pedro is clearly head and shoulders above the rest just on the basis of results, only Swain and Morris would even be in the conversation (Liddie is a bit of a special case since the guys he trains at the OTC come to him already being high level athletes, mostly from places like Morris, Pedro, and SJSU). Even Swain doesn't really build people from the ground up since to get on the SJSU team you have to have already been pretty successful (I guess when discussing SJSU I should mention Yosh Uchida too, though I'm not sure how active he is as a coach these days; he's pretty old). Does Pat Burris still produce anyone of note out of USA Stars? I don't really follow Judo as closely as I used to.

American Judo is just too political and full of stubborn old people to ever really compete internationally. There's very little innovation in training methods, precious little cross training between elite clubs, and without those two things you're not going to produce international caliber players very often. If we were smart we'd be spending our money sending coaches to France, Georgia, etc. to try and learn how they develop highly technical athletes so consistently, instead we fly bureaucrats first class to watch the Pan Ams in Brazil. It's bullshit.
 
it really does suck being cognizant of the cultural and financial problems impeding the development of 'murican Judo. it's not like Judoka from other countries are living on silk robes caviar, but many of them at least have financial support beyond pittance stipends or unpaid medal bounties. you and i know plenty of people trying to train on top of full-time jobs.

access is a huge problem too. it makes sense that you'd have a lot of your points tournaments in larger cities, but literally all of the points tournaments worth going to are on the edge of the map. the closest opportunity around here is at Cohen's in October, and even that's just an E-level tournament.

even to climb the ref ladder, most of those folks have to move to Europe just to afford travel and get a look at decent competition.
 
Its odd the Mauy Thai coaches at my BJJ/ Mauy Thai gym encourage people to run and jump rope but the BJJ coaches do not for the most part.
 
Its odd the Mauy Thai coaches at my BJJ/ Mauy Thai gym encourage people to run and jump rope but the BJJ coaches do not for the most part.
Mainly because martial arts that are also "sports" like Muay Thai and wrestling accept the fact that supplementary training is a matter of course, not something that dimishes the "purity"
 
I think one thing missing from the take down discussion is that a lot of time isn't spent teaching people break falls in bjj (at least from what I have seen). I've been to a few bjj schools over the years and the most I've seen is some rolls as part of the warm ups. New students are not taught much about these important basics and then they are shown things like hip throws and shoulder throws. One of the schools I was at, we would start standing every Tuesday. Usually someone was missing from the next class because something got hurt Tuesday. If you don't know how to take a fall you are going to be scared doing take downs. I think this is just natural. If more time is spent on teaching people to fall I think we would see more take downs.

My first martial art I practiced was a traditional karate and we spent more time on break falls and conditioning exercises than in the bjj schools I have seen. Many of the stand up only traditional martial arts I practiced spent more time on these things than the bjj schools I have trained at or visited. However, we were all very clueless once we were on the floor.
 
Seems to be a really interesting way to introduce takedowns. I think that your place is really judo oriented (more than the majority of the other places I've seen or heard about) If I understand you do about 20-25 minutes of throws every classes. At my gym we must have about 10% of techniques about throws and like 2 six minutes rounds takedowns a week. We do about 30-60 minutes of sparring each class and that includes about 4 or 5 real takedowns a class.

You guys must have a real edge in competition with all those takedowns drills

We teach Bjj in a judo dojo on Tuesday and Thursday nights when they don't have classes. It is our sister club and everyone can attend each classes.
The judo sensei is 7 Dan and he is straight up kosen judo. I know there is lot of conversation about kosen judo is not real but I am not gonna argue with the fact that he is around 76 years old and if he wants to call it kosen judo. So be it.
 
Given how most judo guys I know are limping by the age of 30, and fat by 40, I look elsewhere for advice on how to stay healthy and keep training longer.
That comment is offensive!....LOL!
That's not true in every country. Definitely true in America, because we train Judo like barbarians. But it's pretty routine to see older sensei still on the mat in Japan and Korea, as well as the former Easter Bloc. Even in Europe it's not quite as bad as it is here.
Sanity returns to the universe!....
I never said they weren't flexible or mobile. Are you saying physiotherapists and injury specialists across the country are prescribing squats, cleans, snatches, deadlifts and bench presses when somene comes to them with muscle imbalances or injuries?
No they're not! Ask a Pro football player, crossfiter or weightlifter to put his forehead to his shin and brace yourself for the chicken stares of incomprehension disbelief...
 
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