My experiences as a judoka in BJJ

so yeah, I attended my first "real" BJJ class last night. when I say "real" what I mean is that when I first started judo one of the students who was also a BJJ brown belt was offering a class once a week and I attended that while it lasted. also for a little while I was training with a buddy at the MMA school he attended, at which the first class of the day was the grappling class taught by a BJJ guy.

but last night was the first time I went to a class at an actual BJJ academy run by black belts. I gotta say I had a lot of fun.

I noticed a few things right away:

1. the class was huge. there were 30 people on the mat. now when I visit judo dojos in bigger cities that's not uncommon to see, but in my small town (which has 3 judo clubs) I've never seen more than 20 on the mat unless it was a clinic, with the average class size being around 10-14, usually either smaller than me, or my size but too old to train hard.

2. of those 30 people, most were young, athletic adult males, of which 10 were around my size. now let's let that sink in for a minute. never in my entire time in judo have I seen 3 people near my size in the same place at the same time. and here I found plenty. even if I never learn anything new, good training partners my size is a great reason to keep going.

3. all of the people I worked with had lots of questions about judo, namely the differences between it and BJJ. a few said that they thought judo was really cool and wanted to learn more about it. they were intrigued by my descriptions of the differences in rules, and one of the older folks on the mat mentioned that it sounded like a better

4. when I put my gi on there was an interesting conversation:
"that looks like a judo gi"
"it is one"
"your white belt looks brand new, but your collar is tattered, and you have way too much tape on your hands to be a beginner. what belt do you wear in judo?"
"black."
"ok, remind me not to start standing with you."

5. when class started the instructor said "remember that it's ____'s 3rd class, so don't try to kill him. but Jason over here is wearing a white belt, but he's a judo black belt, so it's game on." text does not convey tone very well so it's worth mentioning that he was speaking in jest.

6. everyone was extremely friendly, and everyone was very safe during the "rolls."

7. I got a lot of positive comments about how explosively yet safely I entered for arm locks while "rolling" that they didn't know they were in position for a second before it started. that IMHO is the staple of "proper" judo newaza. slow and deliberate gets you stood up, fast and explosive gets you an ippon.

8. I got a few comments about how I was "far better than they expected me to be" based on what they'd heard about the level of groundwork in judo.

9. during a drill where we'd start in side control and the guy on bottom was supposed to escape in under a minute and the guy on top was supposed to maintain position, they were impressed by the fact that I my kesa gatame was utterly inescapable, while I got out of their holds generally in under 10 seconds (to a judoka a minute on the bottom is an eternity). I was impressed by how quickly they passed from half guard, as compared to how long it took me to get out of the same position.

10. I enjoyed the level of detail involved in the instruction, I didn't enjoy the added steps involved in doing arm locks I was already familiar with, but when in rome... also those steps don't seem superfluous in this setting, as they're geared toward better control because under BJJ ruleset you aren't in a rush like you are on the ground in judo.

11. my wife was not pleased with the gi burns on my face and neck. she also doesn't enjoy the idea of me paying to train again, when I do judo for free. however I don't really care, because she pays more per month for her yoga and belly dancing classes than I'll be paying for BJJ. and gi burns fade in a day or two.

Ha sound slike you had fun. My experiences and observations are pretty similar - especially on the explosive/speed front.

Cool.

genetic judoka wrote:3. all of the people I worked with had lots of questions about judo, namely the differences between it and BJJ. a few said that they thought judo was really cool and wanted to learn more about it. they were intrigued by my descriptions of the differences in rules, and one of the older folks on the mat mentioned that it sounded like a better

Did you miss a word at the end there?

genetic judoka wrote:
11. my wife was not pleased with the gi burns on my face and neck. she also doesn't enjoy the idea of me paying to train again, when I do judo for free. however I don't really care, because she pays more per month for her yoga and belly dancing classes than I'll be paying for BJJ. and gi burns fade in a day or two.

I have been thinking about it for a while but the prohibitive cost in my city dissuades me. Besides that, I get the sense that there is a lot more 'face touching'. Was that your impression too? Sorry to sound like a pretty boy but that is another thing that dissuades me.

How did you get on in the rolls ? I tend to find they are really good at sangaku jimes when you're in their guards . Also a lot of them seem to be made of rubber and can turn themselves into ball shapes at will....
I think the biggest challenge for a Judoka going into BJJ is to fight from your back .

nomoremondays wrote:Cool.

genetic judoka wrote:3. all of the people I worked with had lots of questions about judo, namely the differences between it and BJJ. a few said that they thought judo was really cool and wanted to learn more about it. they were intrigued by my descriptions of the differences in rules, and one of the older folks on the mat mentioned that it sounded like a better

Did you miss a word at the end there?

yes I missed the rest of the sentence. this is what happens when you write posts while you're at the office and have to frequently minimize. he said that based on the rule differences I described, judo sounded like it would be a better fit given his set of injuries. however I did not want to give a sales pitch on my first day and piss off the owners so I changed the subject.

genetic judoka wrote:
11. my wife was not pleased with the gi burns on my face and neck. she also doesn't enjoy the idea of me paying to train again, when I do judo for free. however I don't really care, because she pays more per month for her yoga and belly dancing classes than I'll be paying for BJJ. and gi burns fade in a day or two.

I have been thinking about it for a while but the prohibitive cost in my city dissuades me. Besides that, I get the sense that there is a lot more 'face touching'. Was that your impression too? Sorry to sound like a pretty boy but that is another thing that dissuades me.[/quote]
the cost issue is one to consider. and yes there is more face contact, but gi burns usually fade pretty quickly.

Dew wrote:How did you get on in the rolls ? I tend to find they are really good at sangaku jimes when you're in their guards . Also a lot of them seem to be made of rubber and can turn themselves into ball shapes at will....
I think the biggest challenge for a Judoka going into BJJ is to fight from your back .

I know it's poor form to keep track of "wins vs losses" in the dojo and try to use it as a measure of performance, so I am not using it to brag but I do remember quite well how the rounds went. I landed a juji on a purple belt, a gi choke and a belly down juji on a 4 stripe blue belt, got caught in a juji by the same guy and got choked out by the same guy when we rolled near to the edge of the mat and I stopped fighting to reposition and he didn't realize I stopped so he jumped on my back and slapped on a RNC that I still feel today. I rolled with another blue belt and lost track of how many armbars I landed but I don't think too much of it because I had at least a 30 lb advantage.

frankly because of my long legs I've always had a strong preference for fighting from my back, so that was a non issue. what took the most focus for me was not giving up my back like I could safely do in judo, and keeping people's back when I got it instead of transitioning to something else like I would in judo because of shorter groundwork time.

and for the record, just because I had fun, that doesn't mean I'll be giving up my first love. by that I mean no I will not be quitting judo in favor of BJJ. nor will I be willing to miss judo practice to go to BJJ practice. and no that is not likely to ever change, throwing for ippon and being thrown is just too much fun!

Glad to hear you had fun, your experiences sound alot like mine when I started. The nice thing for me is my BJJ classes are on 2 different nights then my Judo classes, so I don't have to worry about missing one to go to another. Four days of rolling makes me very happy! Let us know how you do, my guess is you will get "belted up" pretty fast due to your skill set.

[quote="genetic judoka"]

nomoremondays wrote:Cool.



and for the record, just because I had fun, that doesn't mean I'll be giving up my first love. by that I mean no I will not be quitting judo in favor of BJJ. nor will I be willing to miss judo practice to go to BJJ practice. and no that is not likely to ever change, throwing for ippon and being thrown is just too much fun!

hahaha you sound like you've been caught cheating on Judo by having an affair with BJJ or something. I know what you mean though I enjoy standing far too much not to mention I've got so much out of Judo psychologically. Who knows the way things are going if Judo newaza times get any shorter BJJ might be a big help in keeping Judo Newaza alive an healthy - in fact I think it already is.....

Good to hear you had fun. I think you can learn a lot in BJJ that will be useful for Judo. The thing that was very apparent in the beginning for me was that no referee will safe you, so you will have to work on your escapes. Once you get those down, you will notice that by escaping the moves, you often end up in a favourable position. Which changes the dynamics of it all.

so I went back again last night. it was an even better class than last week. we worked on some sneaky armbar entries, one of which I'd never seen before (and it's fast enough to work in judo), so that was pretty cool. the teacher was apparently impressed with the way I did it (he corrected a lot of people, but my application was supposedly "perfect"), which was a nice little ego boost. that ego boost was short lived though as I was invited to roll with the head instructor (who is my exact same weight). you know, I am quite aware that I am far from the best in the world on the ground. in fact very far from it. but I always thought I was good enough that nobody could just play with me. boy was I wrong. he wasn't even trying! granted I wasn't going 100% either (you don't show up to a judo club and try to throw the instructor with harai makikomi your first randori session), but he was going at it a lot less intensely. we went for a 7 minute round, and in those 7 minutes he used the same exact guard pass 4 times and it wasn't until the 5th attempt that I figured out how to block it, at which point he used a different one. I got one good half guard sweep in the entire time, and almost got a baseball bat choke in, but that's it. apparently I impressed him a little bit though with my submission defense, his commentary immediately after was that I was "strong as an ox with really good balance and a lot of heart." I don't have a fragile ego by any means (as evidenced by my willingness to put up videos to be torn apart), I went there because I wanted to get better on the ground, and the only way to do that is to work with people who are really good on the ground. so I think this is gonna be a really good experience for me. I look forward to continuing there.

they are trying hard to talk me into showing up to their saturday stand up class. I'm considering it, but I have 2 reservations:

first, I "teach" a class on saturday (by that I mean I run people ragged with a long warmup and then oversee/participate in an even longer randori session, so it's not exactly "teaching"), and their class starts an hour after mine ends, and runs for a few hours. if I go in, I'll be so tired I'll be worthless to my wife by the end of the day.

second, their mats are thin. they have puzzle mats (at least it's the thicker ones), which I can take clean falls on all day long, but I'm not sure how clean of throws those guys will be doing. also I'm kinda well known locally for throwing really really hard (I was trained to throw for the 1970's definition of ippon), and I'm worried that I will suddenly become a lot less popular after I go in and bury people in the mat.

but at the same time, they know I'm a judo black belt, and compared to some of them I suck on the ground (at least under their ruleset), I feel like in order to be a good ambassador for judo I should show that I at least kinda know what I'm doing standing. and even still, I feel like thinking along those lines is evidence that I have more of an ego than I'd like to admit.

so what should I do? I kinda gotta figure this out by tomorrow morning.

I say if you don't go. you won't know!

genetic judoka wrote: I always thought I was good enough that nobody could just play with me

splat

so what should I do? I kinda gotta figure this out by tomorrow morning.

Very entertaining post I say go - they will I suspect mainly be trying leg grabs / jumping guard on you and they may not know how to fall very well so go easy - you don't want to hurt anyone who has crap ukemi on thin mats . It's unusual for a BJJ club to have a dedicated takedown session so they may be better than most. My expereience of BJJ clubs they are as eager to learn to improve their standing Judo as we are to improve our groundwork so they will probably be delighted to have you there. Im learning loads og great stuff and most of it works in Judo - you just have to speed it up - have fun

LOL I just hope that people realize that I'm just trying to describe my experiences, not trying to make myself look good somehow (hard to make myself look good by relating a story of being utterly destroyed but you never know what kind of perception people will have).

I think I'm gonna go. my wife is fine with it, because she wants me to lose the bit of a belly that I grew over our honeymoon, so she's in favor of me training more right now (sounds pretty shallow on her part huh? well it works out great for me). I already started working on getting hydrated, because I sweat like you wouldn't believe in that class, and sweat even more in the one I run, the two together in one day is probably gonna kill me. I look forward to finding out.

Love your original post, there, GJ. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.

Anyway, Travis Stevens just started a BJJ class out of the dojo we go to, and I've been toying with the idea of trying out a class, but I've had reservations. Firstly, like you, I don't really want another bill. (I go to judo classes for "free," in a manner of speaking: I pay for two kids, and the dojo policy [at least when we started--can't vouch for any changes since then that I'm not aware of] is that you don't pay for more than two family members to attend. Also, as a newbie-ish judoka, I still feel my time would be, er, "better spent" getting a firmer handle on the "judo stuff" (especially on the ground) before I go "branching out."

And also, frankly, I gotta say it's a bit intimidating. I know my mat work is still very weak, and in spite of the fact that that should be motivation to--of course--go and learn, I feel it steering me clear, instead. (I always tell folks: I know newaza words, but I can't put any meaningful sentences together).

streetmedic wrote:Love your original post, there, GJ. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.

Anyway, Travis Stevens just started a BJJ class out of the dojo we go to, and I've been toying with the idea of trying out a class, but I've had reservations. Firstly, like you, I don't really want another bill. (I go to judo classes for "free," in a manner of speaking: I pay for two kids, and the dojo policy [at least when we started--can't vouch for any changes since then that I'm not aware of] is that you don't pay for more than two family members to attend. Also, as a newbie-ish judoka, I still feel my time would be, er, "better spent" getting a firmer handle on the "judo stuff" (especially on the ground) before I go "branching out."

And also, frankly, I gotta say it's a bit intimidating. I know my mat work is still very weak, and in spite of the fact that that should be motivation to--of course--go and learn, I feel it steering me clear, instead. (I always tell folks: I know newaza words, but I can't put any meaningful sentences together).

Hmmm go if you can afford it - you'll learn a lot quickly thats useful to Judo - its not really branching out because they are so similar

So I went to the saturday class. turns out the guy who teaches the throws is out of country so we just did more ground work. it was an awesome class. maybe it was because I was already warm from the nightmare conditioning session I ran an hour before, but I found that I'm getting used to the pace of the training, and I'm not getting tired anymore. also I'm beginning to get accustomed to the stylistic differences in the way people move in BJJ as compared to judo, and I'm not feeling like a fish out of water in the "rolling" at the end of class anymore, in fact I'm beginning to get into the habit of setting up submissions, instead of just exploding into them when someone makes a mistake, judo style. the instructor is of the belief that I have a lot of potential, and he hopes I start competing. and I kinda want to.

also I spoke to the head instructor about putting together a group workout session and he really liked the idea. he and my sensei know each other from a few years back, and he asked me to invite my sensei to come in to watch a class and talk to him about it. I like this idea a lot, it would be awesome if the same brotherly relationship between judo clubs in my town could be shared with BJJ, which IMO is judo's South American cousin.

also I'm changing the title of this thread, as it is no longer about my first class.

genetic judoka wrote:So I went to the saturday class. turns out the guy who teaches the throws is out of country so we just did more ground work. it was an awesome class. maybe it was because I was already warm from the nightmare conditioning session I ran an hour before, but I found that I'm getting used to the pace of the training, and I'm not getting tired anymore. also I'm beginning to get accustomed to the stylistic differences in the way people move in BJJ as compared to judo, and I'm not feeling like a fish out of water in the "rolling" at the end of class anymore, in fact I'm beginning to get into the habit of setting up submissions, instead of just exploding into them when someone makes a mistake, judo style. the instructor is of the belief that I have a lot of potential, and he hopes I start competing. and I kinda want to.

also I spoke to the head instructor about putting together a group workout session and he really liked the idea. he and my sensei know each other from a few years back, and he asked me to invite my sensei to come in to watch a class and talk to him about it. I like this idea a lot, it would be awesome if the same brotherly relationship between judo clubs in my town could be shared with BJJ, which IMO is judo's South American cousin.

also I'm changing the title of this thread, as it is no longer about my first class.

Hi! First of all let me tell you i am real glad you decided to experience Bjj first hand, i am even more glad you are enjoying yourself. We have a black belt judoka training with us since last November, he found most of what we do on the floor confusing but he is catching up, he admitdly has poor ground skills but the will he shows to improve them is great, i am guessing that, although at a diferent level of skill, you are going trough the same. The will to compete is the first thing that comes, i think i had 6 months of training, tops, when i went to my first national championship. Enjoy yourself!

I guess this thread got resurrected.

as of last night I officially signed the contract, so I will be continuing to train there, for at least the next 6 months (I'm a firm believer in getting my money's worth). I don't believe this instructor is one of the ones that treats judoka poorly. he seems pretty excited to have me there. also I was told the instructor there got his black belt in judo when he was still in Brazil, and one of his brown belt assistant instructors is also a judoka. frankly I don't really care about the belts. if they offer me one I will wear it with pride, but I don't intend to ask about it. I'm there to learn, and my learning has nothing to do with what belt I'm wearing. I'm finding that when the technique being taught is a gi choke, I end up helping my partners get it right more often than they're helping me. but gi chokes are my thing.

I think I'm in the right place. last night my sensei came to watch the class, and the two of them have known each other for many years. he tried to talk my sensei into putting on a gi and teaching. part of what brought my sensei in was that the two of them wanted to discuss setting up some cross training days, which I think is a wonderful idea.

in terms of how I'm holding up in the 'rolls' I think that the guys I frequently get paired up with are getting used to what they call my "weird way of moving" and the matches are ending in stalemates more often than not, where we go for the whole 7 minute round and although positions change a lot, nobody is finishing submissions, though I did get armbarred last night by a really tall blue belt. what strikes me is how good most of them are at submission defense, and they're getting used to me exploding into belly down armbars with no warning.

also I find that although in judo I play off my back as often as possible, in BJJ it seems my training partners end up wanting to go to their back a lot, so I'm playing my top game a lot more than I ever have before, which is probably pretty good for me.

one thing that I'm finding out is playing to my disadvantage rolling at the end of class, is that I tend to subconsciously still follow judo rules on the ground. by that I mean I avoid doing any cross face stuff, I don't go for sleeve end grips, and I don't go after shoulder locks, or the chokes considered neck cranks under judo rules. also I find that when I have the opportunity to take someone's back I almost never go for it, because I'm used to that being a "get stood back up" position in judo. and I'm quickly realizing that the RNC is my least practiced technique, and I'm not terribly well practiced at defending it either.

they are trying to get me to compete in the NAGA tournament on the 16th. they all think I'm ready for the blue belt division. however there's a judo tournament that same day that I wanna enter. I think next time a BJJ event doesn't clash with a judo event I'm gonna do it. my only concern is leg locks. I have almost no experience defending them, and pretty much everyone at that school says the same thing: "I don't really do a lot of leg locks anyway." I should maybe talk to the instructor about getting a quick tutorial about how to defend them, and what things not to do. I've heard horror stories of people's attempts to escape only making it more damaging.

tell us a bit about the 'rolling' intensity/pace and number of rounds at that general pace. Will also be helpful to us in the peanut gallery if its possible to place it in comparison to strong level judo randori intensity/pace/duration. The reason I ask is often times I hear bjj'ers talk about rolling for hours on end which leaves me scratching my head a bit.
Thanks

nomoremondays wrote:tell us a bit about the 'rolling' intensity/pace and number of rounds at that general pace. Will also be helpful to us in the peanut gallery if its possible to place it in comparison to strong level judo randori intensity/pace/duration. The reason I ask is often times I hear bjj'ers talk about rolling for hours on end which leaves me scratching my head a bit.
Thanks

class starts at 6:30, before that time everyone is on the mat stretching. when class starts, we do a warmup for about a half hour (lots of running, jumping jacks, burpees, pushups, crunches, etc.). the warmup is pretty intense actually, for the first few days I barely made it thru the whole thing. we then do armbar drills and some shrimping for a few minutes followed by a water break. we then get about 20 minutes of instruction on different techniques, often with the clock running for 2 minute intervals. one person does as many reps as they can in 2 minutes, then it's the other guy's turn. this continues for a little while, and then at the end of the class there's generally three 7 minute rounds, sometimes four. the intensity is pretty high, we're really going at it. I can't speak for what it's like for every pair, but the people I get paired up with usually go at it hard, which I enjoy. it may just be because I tend to push the pace. however we certainly are not rolling for hours on end. maybe it's like that in other classes, but I only go on thursdays and saturdays. I find that nowadays I can do 3 rounds and not get out of breath anymore, which is nice.

every now and then the teacher will yell out "are you tired?" to which the correct answer is NEVER! apparently admitting you're tired will get burpees for the whole class. I'm not sure I agree with that practice but I've never actually seen it happen, so that could just be one of those idle threats to motivate people (I've threatened to get out the shinai during the classes I teach, something I'd never actually do, but it accomplishes the goal of motivating people, so I understand where this one is coming from).

their standup classes are all during my judo classes, so I have no idea what their standup intensity is like.

The are you tired thing is probably a joke. But even if its not, burpees never killed anyone

Excellent thread, GJ- PLEASE post more.

Seriously.

Leglocks are a subject in and of themselves. There's a positional component to them, although people will bypass that and think of them as a quick and easy solution to not trying to pass guard, which is dumb.

Here's what I think you're gonna have to remember here:

Most submissions, especially the hip heavy ones are positions in and of themselves. As a judoka, you've probably been taught a lot of finishing attacks in groundwork: how to hit a sub quickly, how to turn them over right into a pin. But subs in BJJ aren't usually like that. Most of them involve a miniature positional battle ending with uke gradually losing tactical options. You've probably bypassed this aspect entirely, like a business traveler over flyover country. But BJJ is the scenic route.

This is easiest to see in the omoplata: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgRKs2EK3a8

All of those guys put themselves in the omoplata "position" first before trying the omoplata submission itself and you can see that while all of them attacked succesfully, only one finished with the traditional omoplata submission.

How does this affect you? After all, you might say, while the world's round, the field I plow is still flat and an armbar's still heels in, hug the arm, lever over the hip. But it makes all the diference in the world to your training. Once you get the not-f***ing-up down (and it will take you longer than you think), try hanging out in these sub[mission]-positions. You'll find that if you don't rush towards the sub every time, you'll pullmore attacks because your finish will be less predictable. (So if you change your process from isolate arm--->swing hips--->grab belt and smash shoulder to isolate arm--->swing hips--->find best tactical option then your number of successes will increase).

genetic judoka wrote:so yeah, I attended my first "real" BJJ class last night. when I say "real" what I mean is that when I first started judo one of the students who was also a BJJ brown belt was offering a class once a week and I attended that while it lasted. also for a little while I was training with a buddy at the MMA school he attended, at which the first class of the day was the grappling class taught by a BJJ guy.

but last night was the first time I went to a class at an actual BJJ academy run by black belts. I gotta say I had a lot of fun.

I noticed a few things right away:

1. the class was huge. there were 30 people on the mat. now when I visit judo dojos in bigger cities that's not uncommon to see, but in my small town (which has 3 judo clubs) I've never seen more than 20 on the mat unless it was a clinic, with the average class size being around 10-14, usually either smaller than me, or my size but too old to train hard.

2. of those 30 people, most were young, athletic adult males, of which 10 were around my size. now let's let that sink in for a minute. never in my entire time in judo have I seen 3 people near my size in the same place at the same time. and here I found plenty. even if I never learn anything new, good training partners my size is a great reason to keep going.

3. all of the people I worked with had lots of questions about judo, namely the differences between it and BJJ. a few said that they thought judo was really cool and wanted to learn more about it. they were intrigued by my descriptions of the differences in rules, and one of the older folks on the mat mentioned that it sounded like a better

4. when I put my gi on there was an interesting conversation:
"that looks like a judo gi"
"it is one"
"your white belt looks brand new, but your collar is tattered, and you have way too much tape on your hands to be a beginner. what belt do you wear in judo?"
"black."
"ok, remind me not to start standing with you."

5. when class started the instructor said "remember that it's ____'s 3rd class, so don't try to kill him. but Jason over here is wearing a white belt, but he's a judo black belt, so it's game on." text does not convey tone very well so it's worth mentioning that he was speaking in jest.

6. everyone was extremely friendly, and everyone was very safe during the "rolls."

7. I got a lot of positive comments about how explosively yet safely I entered for arm locks while "rolling" that they didn't know they were in position for a second before it started. that IMHO is the staple of "proper" judo newaza. slow and deliberate gets you stood up, fast and explosive gets you an ippon.

8. I got a few comments about how I was "far better than they expected me to be" based on what they'd heard about the level of groundwork in judo.

9. during a drill where we'd start in side control and the guy on bottom was supposed to escape in under a minute and the guy on top was supposed to maintain position, they were impressed by the fact that I my kesa gatame was utterly inescapable, while I got out of their holds generally in under 10 seconds (to a judoka a minute on the bottom is an eternity). I was impressed by how quickly they passed from half guard, as compared to how long it took me to get out of the same position.

10. I enjoyed the level of detail involved in the instruction, I didn't enjoy the added steps involved in doing arm locks I was already familiar with, but when in rome... also those steps don't seem superfluous in this setting, as they're geared toward better control because under BJJ ruleset you aren't in a rush like you are on the ground in judo.

11. my wife was not pleased with the gi burns on my face and neck. she also doesn't enjoy the idea of me paying to train again, when I do judo for free. however I don't really care, because she pays more per month for her yoga and belly dancing classes than I'll be paying for BJJ. and gi burns fade in a day or two.

And bet you don't complain about her paying for Yoga or belly dancing, eh?

hedgehogey wrote:(....)
Most submissions, especially the hip heavy ones are positions in and of themselves. As a judoka, you've probably been taught a lot of finishing attacks in groundwork: how to hit a sub quickly, how to turn them over right into a pin. But subs in BJJ aren't usually like that. Most of them involve a miniature positional battle ending with uke gradually losing tactical options. You've probably bypassed this aspect entirely, like a business traveler over flyover country. But BJJ is the scenic route.
(...)

But here we find exactly the difference between top judo-instruction and the rest of the judo world. In publications we do not find very much explanations of the position game. The lack of common terminology in judo is an indicator for this. We also do not find very much about this in grading syllabi of the various organizations. But at elite level these things are in the center of interest, because they are important for success.

When watching BJJ contests and comparing them to judo, we see, that in judo there is much more time-pressure, because the refs do not allow extensive ground-work. That´s why in judo-competition we do not see very much of the position-game, but of course in daily randori-sessions, it is important and practiced. But this is limited to those positions, which are relevant to judo-competitions. For example ne-waza is judo is stopped, when the one, who lies on his back is lifted up, because the other could smash him down.

The reason why ne-waza time in judo-competition (not in judo!) is limited, is IMHO very logical and easy to understand. Ne-waza can be used spend a lot of time on the ground in a relative save position. So if you are in advantage you can finish the fight without risking too much. So there must be some rules to avoid fake-ne-waza. But not all refs see the difference between real ne-waza and fake-ne-waza....