In this video, Professor Mike Martin, a third degree black belt and owner of Strong Heart Academy, discusses the differences between Judo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ). He shares his insights on how Judo and BJJ have evolved over the years, and how they differ in terms of grappling and scoring. He also provides a brief overview of BJJ rules and belt ranks, and how they vary based on age and competition level. If you're interested in learning more about the fundamentals of Judo and BJJ, this video is a must-watch.
Video Transcription
Hi, I'm Mike Martin professor under Caio Terra. He's a 12 time world champion. I'm a third degree black belt. I've been training for about 23 years now.
And I've had my academy strong hard academy since 2009. We are the longest running academy in the north valley Phoenix.
And it's been an honor to teach all these families and adults for the last, whatever 14 years now. Today I want to talk about the difference between judo and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
What’s Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?
Many times when people ask me what it is, what's Brazilian Jiu Jitsu? And I like to say it's similar to judo because judo is in the Olympics and maybe people have seen that to understand it.
You know, when I first started to do it, everyone would give you knife hands like karate and like, no, it's not karate, you know, Austin Powers just say judo chop.
There's no chops on judo. That's why it was even funnier. But judo starts standing and they used to do a lot of lot more stuff on the ground, which is called Ne waza.
Ne waza is the grappling part of judo. Now, because of the nature of bringing judo into the Olympics, they changed the rules to sport jujitsu.
There's much less grappling. You have a very short window of time to do something on the ground in judo. And jujitsu matches also start in sport jujitsu standing.
But it's only two points. If I take my opponent down, I get two points. In judo, if I take you down with speed and force, it's called e pon, which is one point.
The goal of judo is to score one point. Pin or let's see, or submission. Now, only at the black belt level do they allow most submissions.
Many submissions are also cut out of judo too. And just that kind of happens with with sports that join especially comments for us to join the Olympics that get to get to the tend to get watered down, I would say.
Judo Used to Have More Grappling
So you know, judo, like I said before judo used to have a lot more Ne waza, a lot more grappling, which would look very similar to Brazilian jujitsu.
So when Brazilian jujitsu, my goal is to submit my opponent in sport jujitsu, depending on the rule set. Whoever scores the most points when the timer goes off or gets a submission.
So if I'm losing 20 to zero, but I pull off a submission, I make you say tap. You say, you know, uncle basically, we say tap.
The matches over immediately and I would win the match no matter how many points you've racked up. So it's kind of cool.
Some of the wrestling if you're losing by quite a bit and I get, I can still get a pin and win the match.
Now in wrestling, they have tech where you can win by so many points above. They just the matches over you're beating them so much.
But I have seen matches in Brazilian jujitsu where the guy was losing by a significant amount and the other guy just got lazy or cocky or whatever.
And then the other person was able to get a submission before the timer goes out. Now in, excuse me, in jujitsu matches are based on time for different belt ranks.
Different Belt Levels and Divisions
So generally speaking, white belt is five blue belt, a six, purple belt is seven brown belt is eight and then black belt skips to nine or 10.
And these are for, I'm Jeff rules and the international Brazilian jujitsu. Federation rules plus depending on your age. So if once you're over 30, they call you masters division and every five years is another master's division.
So 32 34 is masters one. Masters two is 35 to 40. And then 40 to 45 is masters three and so on and so on and so on.
Match Length
So all those matches are going to be five minute no matter what belt you are. You can be white, black blue, purple, brown, black, it's all the same as five minutes.
And once you start doing jujitsu, you kind of appreciate that like when you're getting older, like man cuz right now I'm 43 and a 10 minute matches a lot to ask.
And if you're in a big tournament, you know, we might have six to eight matches. So, you know, can you do 80 to 90 minutes of as hard as you can 100%.
So if it's a normal level of, you know, you can do 70 minutes of. It's a class, that's not as bad in class, but when you're doing a competition, much more difficult.
Jujitsu matches are much shorter. I don't remember the exact amount of time. There's no periods. It's just a straight match just like jujitsu.
But again, in the end of the day, most matches are won by e-pawn, meaning you threw your opponent and they landed on their back with speed and force e-pawn one point.
Now you can do half, half point. I think you can afford a quarter point for if you land on your side or butt.
When you hit the ground, sometimes they give you a certain amount of time to try to get it to submission.
Now, they don't give you much time. I'm talking less than a minute. You've got to get a submission going. You need to be actively going for submission.
Now, the good news with this, I would say, is as far as watching a match, it's more exciting because it's a faster pace.
But in brazilians jujitsu, it takes time to set things up to go right to a submission. It's very difficult. In jujitsu, many people even do what's called pulling guards.
Guard Descriptions
There's no take down. I didn't take you down. I have to get a grip and then I sat and I tried to get a guard going, which is basically my legs between me and my opponent.
So, I'm sort of guard. Then, I'm going to get something to happen. I'm going to try to sweep you, meaning get you off your feet or off your base.
I end up on top of you in a more dominant position. Now, you're going to get points for more dominant positions.
So, a sweep is two points. Take down the two points. If I were to pass a guard, pass around someone's legs.
If the legs were between me and you, I get around them, pass the hip line. With control, I'm going to get three points.
If I mount its four points and if I take your back, it's four points. So, positional dominance is going to create more points structure.
You cannot come off a position and go back to try to get more points. You have to continually go forward.
So, once you go to mount, there's no where you can go other than taking the back and vice versa. You need to be going for submissions.
Now, at any point, you can go for submissions from guard. Almost all positions, you can go for submission. They're submissions everywhere.
So, and bad positions and good positions. Generally, you want to be on top if you can. And that's just not the case in judo.
Pins, Guard, Stances in Judo
Now, they do have pins in judo. You have to hold someone down for 25 seconds, I believe. And honestly, doing jujitsu is that's pretty simple.
Like, I can hold someone for 25 seconds. Not these, you know, in Olympics, these are Olympic athletes. It definitely would be way harder to hold Olympic athlete down for 25 seconds.
But the first thing I would have to get him to the ground. So, that would be a challenge. They'd all allow pulling guard in judo.
You have to stand up. You'd be disqualified. So, even the types of takedowns and stances are going to be a little bit different too.
So, in judo, you are required to stand straight. Now, they didn't always have this as a rule set. Rules have changed over time.
But they don't want you bent over. You need to make sure that you are straight. In Jujitsu, it's going to look more like wrestling or folks out wrestling where you're bent over and your hips are far away.
So, many throws are difficult to pull off because you can't get your hips close enough to your opponent. Or, you have to figure out ways to make that happen.
How can I get my hips to my opponent to apply a take-down? So, getting someone to go backwards versus forwards is a lot harder versus in judo where I'm required to stand up straight and erect.
Also, once I get a grip, I have to do something with it fairly quickly in judo or you're going to get called also.
Jujutsu, I have a lot more time. They will call you for stalling in judo, Jujutsu, but nothing like judo. Judo's matches are so quick.
It's not uncommon 30-second matches because again, I'm just trying to get a grip and throw you as fast as possible.
We'll get you off balance with a series of throws and breaking your balance or destroying one's balance, which is Kazushi, and taking you down off of that.
I love both. I started Jujutsu, well, first I started wrestling and then I went in to Brazilian Jujutsu and I just wanted to get some judo take-downs.
I already had wrestling take-downs. So I joined a judo club in the valley and they awarded me my brown belt.
I would say definitely Rusty compared to where I was. We do teach judo throws in my academy, but I'm not as sharp.
Judo is Great for Self-Defense
I would say as I used to be, but I do love judo. I think it's great for self-defense. Also, sport judo's cool.
I love judo too more because I have more options with submissions and just stances and less penalties and things like that.
I think it's more fun and the order you can't, you can go a little longer, I think, in judo two versus judo.
Taking those falls in judo, it's only falling and getting thrown hard. So it could beat you up a little bit more.
I think judo's a little bit more forgiving on the body. Like many schools will start on their knees, especially there's no room versus judo's always starting standing.
So that's some of the differences right there. I enjoyed my time in judo. I sometimes I want to go back and just take it in my black belt in judo, because I don't like things undone.
But it's been difficult as running a gym and family and things like that to go out and pursue that black belt again.
The judo's just why I attended only spoke Japanese. They were Americans that ran it, but the one guy lived in the Kota Khan in Japan.
They were white boys, but they spoke fluent Japanese, which is crazy. And they did not like you speak in English.
So when he's teaching, it's all in Japanese after class before you can speak English, but he's teaching in Japanese. All every move is in Japanese when he's teaching things, he's saying things in Japanese.
I still caught on no problem. I didn't really have a problem with it. Pronounciations were hard. I barely speak English, but I did appreciate trying to keep the name straight.
Because in jujitsu, some moves have multiple names. And wrestling has this issue too, where judo does and judo has that name.
And that's it. And they don't change really. Sometimes they have a set amount of throws. And there's just variations, but the set amount is the set amount.
There's no new ones. So, jujitsu is evolving all the time. Very few things are not like illegal. Certain knee reaping they call is illegal and many things.
And you can do double eggs and you're not allowed to do that in judo anymore, grabbing the legs. Which is goofy, but that's just kind of the rules.
Conclusion
But thank you for listening for me today about just going over the very basic differences of judo and jujitsu. But at strongheart we do do judo takedowns.
I like to start all my matches, start standing just to get used to it. And I do take the falls and do take downs myself as well.
But I mix up my wrestling and judo together. And then we teach one throw per month at my academy. So you have your curriculum, but we stick with one throw, one take down every month.
So every month you get a new take down, do you take down, do you take down, do you take down?
And then it rotates back through again. So we have a set amount of judo throws and set amount of wrestling throws plus pulling guard.
So hopefully that clarifies some differences between judo and jujitsu. And I hope you appreciate it. Thank you. Peace.