My mma gym offers both bjj and judo twice a week, as well as dutch kickboxing, but over the last 15 years ive never really gotten into/progressed with any sort of grappling. Conversely im a pretty good kickboxer, ie if i had a curriculum to follow id be comfortable running my own gym.
My mma gym that i primarily box at is a 45 minute drive, the guy hooks me up with a 50 percent off discount. So its affordable not really a HUGE deal for me to keep it, but i make it out once or twice a week to box if im lucky. I love the thai coaches there, i just really vibe with them and dig their coaching style. An mma gym with a world class judo program is opening up down the street from my house. I really want to give judo a shot because it looks fun, ive never done it and i think im built for it.
The issue:
Its hard to justify a 250/month judo membership while i barely make it out to the mma gym membership that i already have and dont want to give up due to the thai coaches
Anyone here ever do judo? Find it more effective/comparable to bjj, wrestling/catch?
I cross-trained at a judo school pretty much full time for a couple years while still training BJJ at my regular place. This was after I stopped training MMA and was a purple belt in BJJ.
I absolutely loved it, shit ton of fun. It certainly helped with some of my takedowns from the clinch especially my balance and leg trips. I was able to incorporate a lot of it into no-gi as well.
The only downside was the higher chance of getting hurt. I hurt my knee pretty good when someone tossed me, fortunately not long-term. Some other minor stuff but I felt like it was rougher and higher risk than BJJ with all the flying around and leg entanglements going on.
Judo is awesome I did it a lot as a youngster and broke my toes several times lol. If you love kickboxing and want a good curriculum, look into becoming a Bang Muay Thai affiliate. They have a very solid curriculum that attracts paying customers and keeps them coming back and it’s legit.
You can find Judo regularly that’s actually pretty good at a rec level for damn near free in most major metropolitan cities.
