Is Judo dead?

BJJ_Rage said:
20 years? I think thats too much man, in 10 years, there will be much more bjj than judo in the states... if MMA keeps growing of course.
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In 10 years time, BJJ instructors will blame mma schools/popularity (the same way Judo is doing it to BJJ at the moment).
 
Man, gotta say I have contemplated this quite a bit. At my university judo club we are struggling a lot more than we did when I joined. I would be lying if the rule changes haven't had some influence. BJJ can claim less restrictive rules and No gi grappling while the rest of the martial arts sell themselves (rightfully or not) on being more dedicated self defense programs. Thirdly, a lot of people are put off by the injury rate.

We're too restrictive for some and not sexy enough or safe enough for the rest.
 
Been dead in Maine for a long time. With the way things are going as far as Olympic rules go, I hope it stays that way. Put it out of its misery.
 
Q mystic said:
More widely practiced? I am guessing that even if we included women and children and older fellas that it wouldn't be.

I see you are from Colorado but do you believe that there are more judoka in US/Canada than bjjers?

It's what I'm asking and I see it a 30:1 ratio for bjj over judo here in sw Ontario.
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In the DC area there are more BJJ gyms than there are Judoka imho
 
It's not dead, it's just called Brazilian Jiu Jitsu now.
 
When I first move to Philly a couple months ago, I considered doing Judo, as a cheap alternative to BJJ for a couple of months, until I can afford BJJ again.

It seems like all the Judo schools added BJJ instruction, MMA instruction, and some kind of Zumba class to keep their school afloat. So I would say Judo isn't so popular in the states. At least it isn't so popular in Philly.
 
lechien said:
In 10 years time, BJJ instructors will blame mma schools/popularity (the same way Judo is doing it to BJJ at the moment).
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I don't think that will ever happen, Bjj goes hand to hand with Mma, lots of Mma gyms have Bjj instructor as the ground game instructor, so even of you are not doing Bjj with the gi, you are still doing it no gi, basically or Bjj for Mma, which a long time was Bjj for vale tudo, something that always existed, would say as long as Mma popularity keeps growing, Bjj will, may be not sport Bjj, but I will even dispute that, not everyone wants to get punch in the face and Bjj, even the sportive side is close enough to fighting to make people feel secure about themself, plus is close related to Mma, so it has the Mma appeal too...
 
Few things to bear in mind.

You can start BJJ at pretty much any age, nothing required, just enough money to pay the fees.

You can start judo at an early age, but after around 30 yo, it's gonna be tough as hell.

You can practice BJJ relatively lightly.
You can't really go lightly in judo in my experience.


All in all : Judo is tougher, BJJ has better marketing in the English speaking world in general. Bjj is more popular, but so long as judo will be an olympic sport, it will stay.
 
FlexLuthor said:
Judo will die because the rules suck. I would much rather compete in a Bjj/sub grappling comp and try to throw in that setting.
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With the qualifier that you're talking about North America, that's pretty close. Locally all the judo clubs but two have become much smaller. Those two are mine and another guy who also teaches non-IJF judo. Though actually its IJF judo from the 60's in terms of rule set ... meaning lots of ne-waza (I trade coaching with a BJJ coach - I teach a throwing/takedown class at his club, he teaches a ne-waza class, including leg locks (was part of judo until 1925 :icon_twis) at mine, no illegal grips except holding onto the belt, the throw counts against you if you over rotate etc.

We also have quite a few folks coming from the BJJ club to cross train, and several from two local MMA clubs for the throws/takedowns, so if anything the BJJ/MMA popularity has helped our club. I doubt those folks would go to a IJF based club though.

All the clubs trying to follow the IJF rules are getting smaller, because its become so rule oriented that its no longer fun. Basically the IJF drained the fun (creativity etc) out of judo with all its rules. Which is inevitable - if you try to enforce a style, you take away options.
 
lechien said:
In 10 years time, BJJ instructors will blame mma schools/popularity (the same way Judo is doing it to BJJ at the moment).
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not sure about that, the opposite is more likely in my experience, I've seen a lot more people join the MMA classes and then switch over to BJJ almost completely once they get a taste of it, the BJJ guys who start doing MMA usually only add a small amount of classes just to compliment their BJJ game.
 
In the DC area at least, BJJ seems to be an order of magnitude more popular than Judo.
 
Uchi Mata said:
No, it's not. Judo is still much more widely practiced than BJJ, though that gap is closing. There are a lot more kids doing Judo than BJJ, a lot more older black belts who still go to practice in Judo than BJJ, I see a lot more women doing Judo than BJJ, probably the only demographic where BJJ wins out is 18-40 year old men, many of whom probably got into it from watching MMA. If you count MMA enthusiasts who do BJJ as part of their training the number is higher, but pure gi BJJ I highly doubt more people do than Judo in the US.

The other thing about Judo is that it can be very hard to find...it's almost always not for profit, and I know very few Judo clubs that do much advertising. But there are a lot of small clubs out there with a few black belts teaching a bunch of kids.
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I think the 18-40 year old male demographic is the most important one though. That's the one that lets you infer "Hey this shit probably works."

I mean TKD is still owning the 4-12 year old female demographic probably. That doesn't make it any less of a joke to us though.

If I walk into a school and the 18-40 male demographic is not present, that's a pretty big red flag for me. It means it is very unlikely that the martial art is actually going to be effective.
 
georgejjr said:
With the qualifier that you're talking about North America, that's pretty close. Locally all the judo clubs but two have become much smaller. Those two are mine and another guy who also teaches non-IJF judo. Though actually its IJF judo from the 60's in terms of rule set ... meaning lots of ne-waza (I trade coaching with a BJJ coach - I teach a throwing/takedown class at his club, he teaches a ne-waza class, including leg locks (was part of judo until 1925 :icon_twis) at mine, no illegal grips except holding onto the belt, the throw counts against you if you over rotate etc.

We also have quite a few folks coming from the BJJ club to cross train, and several from two local MMA clubs for the throws/takedowns, so if anything the BJJ/MMA popularity has helped our club. I doubt those folks would go to a IJF based club though.

All the clubs trying to follow the IJF rules are getting smaller, because its become so rule oriented that its no longer fun. Basically the IJF drained the fun (creativity etc) out of judo with all its rules. Which is inevitable - if you try to enforce a style, you take away options.
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great job... I really cant stand what IJF has done to Judo.
 
Balto said:
In the DC area at least, BJJ seems to be an order of magnitude more popular than Judo.
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Based on our club and what I've seen at tournaments it seems like almost half of the kids/adults in the area judo clubs are first or second-generation Americans coming from countries where they have already been very exposed to judo. There are probably a dozen different languages being spoken at the gym during judo practices. So in terms of popularity and marketing judo to the same demographic as BJJ gyms, its almost non-existant and most of the area BJJers probably don't even know where the local judo gyms are. We do get a fair amount of wrestlers looking for some cross-training in the offseason, but I'm not sure how viable that will continue to be with the judo rule changes.

The only reason I chose to get my son (and then me) into judo was because a friend had me try it out in Baltimore for a couple of months ten years ago and I remembered some random Bruce Lee quote about how he would have his kids train judo over any other martial art.
 
Balto said:
I think the 18-40 year old male demographic is the most important one though. That's the one that lets you infer "Hey this shit probably works."

I mean TKD is still owning the 4-12 year old female demographic probably. That doesn't make it any less of a joke to us though.

If I walk into a school and the 18-40 male demographic is not present, that's a pretty big red flag for me. It means it is very unlikely that the martial art is actually going to be effective.
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That's not what the thread was about. I'll agree with you that Judo is less effective these days than it used to be (though pure BJJ guys vastly underestimate the importance of TDs IMO), and in a submission grappling match where throws can't end the fight (by score) a BJJ guy will probably almost always beat a Judo guy, but comparing it to TKD is a little much. It's still a lot more effective than what your average TKD school teaches. But the thread was about popularity, so that's what I answered. Tai Chi Chuan is the most practiced art in the world, doesn't make it the best, but it would win a pure popularity contest.

For what it's worth though, most 18-35 age men who have done Judo for any period of time are usually pretty good grapplers. That may change as people rise up through the ranks under the newest set of restrictive IJF rules, but for the moment I think it's still true.
 
Uchi Mata said:
For what it's worth though, most 18-35 age men who have done Judo for any period of time are usually pretty good grapplers.
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i don't know about that... depends what you mean by 'pretty good' i guess. compared to the general population, sure. compared to bjj guys, or old judo guys,not so much. i've checked out 4+ judo dojos now, and i do pretty well against all the young (senior) brown and black belts, and i'm a pretty new blue belt in bjj. the old judo black belts however... those guys tend to be a lot a lot tougher (and trickier) on the ground than the young judo guys.
 
Uchi Mata said:
That's not what the thread was about. I'll agree with you that Judo is less effective these days than it used to be (though pure BJJ guys vastly underestimate the importance of TDs IMO), and in a submission grappling match where throws can't end the fight (by score) a BJJ guy will probably almost always beat a Judo guy, but comparing it to TKD is a little much. It's still a lot more effective than what your average TKD school teaches. But the thread was about popularity, so that's what I answered. Tai Chi Chuan is the most practiced art in the world, doesn't make it the best, but it would win a pure popularity contest.

For what it's worth though, most 18-35 age men who have done Judo for any period of time are usually pretty good grapplers. That may change as people rise up through the ranks under the newest set of restrictive IJF rules, but for the moment I think it's still true.
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I think you miss understood baltos point...
 
PoundSand said:
i don't know about that... depends what you mean by 'pretty good' i guess. compared to the general population, sure. compared to bjj guys, or old judo guys,not so much. i've checked out 4+ judo dojos now, and i do pretty well against all the young (senior) brown and black belts, and i'm a pretty new blue belt in bjj. the old judo black belts however... those guys tend to be a lot a lot tougher (and trickier) on the ground than the young judo guys.
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I didn't mean on the ground specifically. There's a lot more to grappling than groundwork, though BJJ guys often forget that fact.
 
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