In my free time I have been enjoying watching Judo lately. It is an exciting sport with a lot of similarities and some big differences to BJJ. I started watching it to study techniques that I could add to my takedown game. Then I kept watching matches because I found them really entertaining.
Watching Judo I learned about the rules. Each player is trying to “Ippon” the other one. This means they are trying to throw them and get their back flat on the mat. If one player throws the other on their side with partial back to the mat they score a “waza-ari”. Two of those are equal to an Ippon. The matches are four minutes and pretty fast paced. Stalling is called very quickly by the refs for lack of action, which I’m a fan of. Once the match is on the ground one player can win by pin or submission but the ref will stand both players up pretty quickly if the action stops. Most Judo players don’t engage very much on the ground based on the matches I watched. I think the length of the matches in Judo help make it an exciting sport, I probably have an unpopular opinion about this but I think BJJ should copy that. There are so many black belt Jiu Jitsu matches that are a very slow eight minutes with a two minute sprint at the end. I could be missing some rules but this is what I have learned so far.
My favorite athlete to watch and study so far is Shohei Ono. He is an athlete from Japan. He has won three world titles and two Olympic gold medals. His matches are very exciting and he is known for doing a double sleeve grip throw (I don’t know the name of the technique). I will continue to watch and study this sport and hopefully be able to add some cool throws to my stand up.
Coach Danny
Sam started jiujitsu with the invitation from his friend, and you will find them challenging each other, laughing, learning, and growing into the mat as a martial artist. Friendship on the mat is an incredible experience. Your friend becomes a person you want to beat, a person who will encourage you, and someone you will respect more each and every day you train.
Jamie won gold in the intermediate blue belt division and was called up to compete in the expert division for purple belts and above. Overall she made some impressive improvements from her last competition, and challenged herself to play outside of her comfort zone.
Danny and Ricky competed in the men’s division of the NAGA championships. Ricky fell short in his first match. Danny pulled through to the finals and finished with a Silver medal. He also made some impressive improvements from his last tournament experience at the Grappling X in Elk Grove, CA in November.
The ADCC North American Trials featured some of the best grapplers in North America. Eliot had three bouts to secure his invitation. In his first, he won by referee decision after no points in overtime. In his semi final match, he won by 2 points in the overtime round. In the final match, he won by 2 points in the regulation round. His bouts can be found on flograppling.com
“It’s never easy to travel all the way across the country and compete, but I was able to qualify and make it to the championships. There’s plenty of time to prepare so I’m getting together my coaches from EDH Jiu Jitsu, One Body Pain & Performance, and Apex Wrestling now to represent our community and the United States!” 