After about a decade of jiu jitsu, I have had the opportunity to practice some limited wrestling as well as some great judo techniques. My teacher Marcelo Carvalho always taught me that neither one was better than the other, just that some people studied one or the other but that we should always respect any style that somebody trained so hard to learn as they were all effective in their own right. After watching lots of UFC and many a jiu jitsu tournament though my thought process tended to lean more wrestling as a favorable style of the two. That is to say in a pure grappling contest I might would give the wrestling trained jiu jitsu fighter a 60/40 advantage over the judoka styled jiu jitsu fighter. Of course neither of these mean too much when so many tournament fighters pull guard as quickly as they do.Recently we have added a muay thai kickboxing program to the Global Jiu Jitsu Academy list of classes. The kickboxing has been awesome to train and it is always good as a martial artist that has studied grappling so much to be reminded of the fact that punches and kicks do exist in the world and that they don't feel particularly pleasant. Its funny though, that on top of the obvious advantages to learning an effective striking art to add to my repertoire, kickboxing has also made me constantly think of something else besides punches and kicks...Its put judo again front and center in my mind.Now all at once judo makes so much more sense to me again as a martial art rather than just a way to get somebody to the mat for 2 points. While it may make sense to use a low hunched over stance ready to shoot and/or defend a low single or a double leg in a tournament, the minute knees and kicks come in to play this posture seems far less than ideal. Now more than ever it makes clear sense to me the advantages of being able to close the gap, clinch and flip somebody or catch them with a nice leg trip.I am very proud to be a jiu jitsu black belt and very confident in my ability to defend myself should God forbid I ever have to, but I am also a martial artist. As a martial artist I believe that I will likely be on a life long quest to improve and grow my skill set as a complete fighter not just a bjj fighter.We do offer a great judo based class every Saturday at Global Jiu Jitsu taught by a truly well rounded martial artist. I am pleased to have had the opportunity to train with Greg for many years now and feel so privileged to have him on our team. We do hope to see each of our students always working to improve themselves in any way they can. Saturday morning Judo classes are a great opportunity to grow to enhance your overall grappling skills. I hope to see you all there.
