Deluxe Martial Arts Forums - View Single Post - Whats the dif between BJJ and just reg Jujutsu?

RobertG · 07-26-2003, 01:37 PM

I'm guessing no one answered for a few reasons. One was that you posted on Friday night and a lot of people actually go out on Friday night and don't post on message boards.

My second guess is that there probably are a number of threads on this issue already; people hate rehashing questions that have been answered over and over.

That said, I'll take a shot at this one. Brazilian jujistsu is actually derived from judo. More specifically its derived from judo groundwork, having largely abandoned a lot of the standing throws and sweeps. BJJ is largely a groundwork oriented art. Japanese jujitsu is much broader technique wise, having been the base for contemporary judo. JJJ includes striking techniques, throws, and some groundwork. While it'd be fair to call JJJ at grappling art (the strikes is does have are used to make the throws/submissions easier), I don't think that their emphasis is fighting on the ground in most styles. JJJ developed on the battlefield. If you went to the ground around a bunch of samurai, chances are someone would hack you to bits with their sword while you were working to win on the ground with someone else. Also, I've never done it, but I can't imagine that rolling around in armor is much fun. The idea is to get the other guy on the ground while keeping yourself standing (so you can use a weapon to kill him). Learning JJJ alone is actually something of a historical fallacy--it may not seem as effective today because it evolved as a supplement to guys who were going to be wearing armor and carrying several weapons on them all the time. It'd be pretty rare for a samurai to be caught without a blade of some sort on their person. And so there is little point in trying to choke someone out when you can just throw them, pull a blade and cut their throat. BJJ evolved in a largely weapons free environment. This is obvious, because you don't go to the ground in an environment where people with bladed weapons are likely to cut you up while you roll around with your first opponent.

The same goes for Aikido; although the history of Daito-Ryu (aikido's predecessor) is a little murky, granting that Aikijutsu dates back to the samurai days, it has the same problem as contemporary JJJ. Aikijutsu would have been used by people who had weapons on them. They would have used aiki-techniques when they had temporarily lost a weapon to buy time to pull a second weapon. So a lot of aikido techniques don't make much sense in the abscence of weapons. Yeah, aikido folk do study swords sometimes. But I've never seen them use small blades in conjuction with their unarmed techniques. Daito-Ryu at least still incorporates more weapons training.

So this is what is boils down too IMO: Judo/BJJ are modern arts, tested under modern conditions (e.g. sparring against resisting opponents without weapons). You can possibly include Tomiki Aikido in this since they do randori. Aikido and JJJ are now, I think, largely exercises in history divorced from their appropriate context. Neither has a lot of emphasis in sparring, techniques are maintained for historical reasons, without recognizing that the people who would have used those techniques were armed and often armored.

07-26-2003, 01:37 PM	#3 (permalink)
RobertG Registered User Join Date: May 2003 Location: Houston Posts: 369 Groans: 0 Groaned at 0 Times in 0 Posts	I'm guessing no one answered for a few reasons. One was that you posted on Friday night and a lot of people actually go out on Friday night and don't post on message boards. My second guess is that there probably are a number of threads on this issue already; people hate rehashing questions that have been answered over and over. That said, I'll take a shot at this one. Brazilian jujistsu is actually derived from judo. More specifically its derived from judo groundwork, having largely abandoned a lot of the standing throws and sweeps. BJJ is largely a groundwork oriented art. Japanese jujitsu is much broader technique wise, having been the base for contemporary judo. JJJ includes striking techniques, throws, and some groundwork. While it'd be fair to call JJJ at grappling art (the strikes is does have are used to make the throws/submissions easier), I don't think that their emphasis is fighting on the ground in most styles. JJJ developed on the battlefield. If you went to the ground around a bunch of samurai, chances are someone would hack you to bits with their sword while you were working to win on the ground with someone else. Also, I've never done it, but I can't imagine that rolling around in armor is much fun. The idea is to get the other guy on the ground while keeping yourself standing (so you can use a weapon to kill him). Learning JJJ alone is actually something of a historical fallacy--it may not seem as effective today because it evolved as a supplement to guys who were going to be wearing armor and carrying several weapons on them all the time. It'd be pretty rare for a samurai to be caught without a blade of some sort on their person. And so there is little point in trying to choke someone out when you can just throw them, pull a blade and cut their throat. BJJ evolved in a largely weapons free environment. This is obvious, because you don't go to the ground in an environment where people with bladed weapons are likely to cut you up while you roll around with your first opponent. The same goes for Aikido; although the history of Daito-Ryu (aikido's predecessor) is a little murky, granting that Aikijutsu dates back to the samurai days, it has the same problem as contemporary JJJ. Aikijutsu would have been used by people who had weapons on them. They would have used aiki-techniques when they had temporarily lost a weapon to buy time to pull a second weapon. So a lot of aikido techniques don't make much sense in the abscence of weapons. Yeah, aikido folk do study swords sometimes. But I've never seen them use small blades in conjuction with their unarmed techniques. Daito-Ryu at least still incorporates more weapons training. So this is what is boils down too IMO: Judo/BJJ are modern arts, tested under modern conditions (e.g. sparring against resisting opponents without weapons). You can possibly include Tomiki Aikido in this since they do randori. Aikido and JJJ are now, I think, largely exercises in history divorced from their appropriate context. Neither has a lot of emphasis in sparring, techniques are maintained for historical reasons, without recognizing that the people who would have used those techniques were armed and often armored.