I wanted to pick up Judo , BJJ and Muay Thai.

I like judo better than BJJ but I don’t know if learning two grappling arts when your new at the same time is a good idea.

I feel like in real life practice and for self defense judo is slightly better too but that’s because from what I understand BJJ doesn’t really teach much on takedowns or throws or really anything from the standing position.

There’s only a few gyms around me that supplement BJJ with wrestling and the occasional judo class so if I want to focus on judo as a base first I’d have to drive to two different gyms after work too.

After feeling each out I’d probably want to train 4-5x a week so I’m not sure if that’s enough time for 3 disciplines or if it’s even a good idea.

Just learn combat sambo. It’s essentially everything except boxing rolled into one.

No one teaches it in my area.

You develop the skill set in bjj that you want by live rolling it.

My gym almost always has several stand up rolls going on and plenty of people practicing takedowns both judo and wrestling during live rolls.

I developed my de la riva sweeps off YouTube and live rolls with no in class demos, maybe got a few tips from some of the upper belts where I would struggle connecting dots when trying to implement.

Just because your gym might not demo and drill takedowns doesn’t mean you can’t personally develop it, demos and instructions are great for exposing you to things you might enjoy and your coaches curriculum most likely flows well together. But as long as the gym encourages people finding the bjj that works for you and has a wide variety, I see no reason why takedowns can’t be a primary focus.


We normally start training takedowns in class a few months before pans or worlds or a local tourney and I imagine a lot of other gyms do something similar.

Just join an mma gym and take as many classes back to back homie. You’ll be way better than trying to split time between a judo gym, bjj gym, and Muay Thai gym.

Do whatever you want to do

For what you are looking for, just join an MMA gym. They will be focusing on no-gi submission grappling, which has much more applicable carryover than traditional gi specific BJJ or Judo.

As far as BJJ vs Judo, any and all decent BJJ school will teach standing techniques. Takedowns / takedown defense / distance management / striking defense / etc. Along with all the offensive and defensive ground techniques. And in both gi / no-gi.

While gorgeous and potentially devastating, Judo is very limited and not as applicable in real self defense scenarios.

Judo isn't great for MMA. Wrestling is better.

Although I think Judo would be better than BJJ, depndant on the gym.

I personally think Judo is better for self defense than BJJ

Care to explain?

While standing it’s basically all grip fighting since you can’t shoot or attack the lower body. Ippon based style is not effective in a self defense scenario. Then the back exposure for many throws is very risky. From a distance management standpoint, it is lacking and the obvious lack of lower body attacks is a huge hole.

Then once grounded it is not a comprehensive, nor effective fighting system from an offensive or defensive standpoint.

I train with a number of high level judo guys. Their game is relatively easy to defend / solve compared to other grappling arts. Judo is a beautiful sport, and has amazing highlights. But it is relatively specific, and there are more effective martial arts from a self defense standpoint.

But even then it’s only been what a decade since they stopped shooting low in order to differentiate for Olympics.

Fact is modern judo has just hobbled itself to service the Olympics. But go back a few decades and it’s a completely different story.

I understand, but doesn’t change how Judo is currently taught. Nor does it address obvious and glaring limitations once it hits the ground.

Judo and BJJ are very much alike in the same way that Greco and Freestyle wrestling are.

The problem with judo is the range of skills is very wide. I’ve grappled with judoka who are absolute killers, no doubt they would fare better in a street fight than bjj guys. I’ve also grappled and sparred judoka who were lame ducks. Like couldn’t move or punch for ****, couldn’t grapple for their lives. These are all black belts too.

Almost always the high level judo guys would be ones that compete, and also the ones who competed in high school. The club guys are really hit and miss.

OP would probably be the latter and judo would do him no good in a self defense situation