Gi Grappling Competition

Isn’t Gi Grappling just Judo?

Well yes and no. The rules of any game often determine the way you train and compete, that is why one of our mantras is “Compete to a ruleset, train to no mindset.” As you must understand that a competition has rules but that doesn’t always mean it’s the best way to fight..

After that little philiosphiocal tangent, back to the matter in question.

The Judo ruleset pushes you to focus on your standing game of throwing using the upper body to draw (pull/push) the person on to their back, as this is the biggest scoring point - an Ippon (one full score) - and you aren’t given much time on the ground.

With the Gi Grappling I intend to give a flavour of other grappling rulesets such as Brazilian JiuJitsu, wrestling etc. As you will be given longer on the ground, points for getting each hold when held for 3-5 seconds, sweeps on the ground as well as points for standing throws. By hold this will also include taking their back, as in Judo the Turtle position is encouraged to slow the person down and to then be stood up, here you could take their back and score points discouraging the mindset of just turtling up.

Another aspect which I believe will help is not losing to a single throw. As students will look to accumulate points rather than get one score. For instance the winner will be that who gets to 10 points and the biggest single scoring point will be 4 points. Therefore you can be positive with your actions and go in to try and throw your opponent knowing that if you miss and they throw you, its only 4 points at best. Whereas in Judo they could score an Ippon and that’s match over.

You will also be allowed to do takedowns which involve grabbing the opponents legs, which is now not allowed in Judo. These are all skills which I think are required to become an all round great grappler rather than just one who can only grapple using one ruleset. At the Traditional Warriors I look for students to be adaptable with their skills.

This is a working process but it will give students a chance to utilise their Judo skills in a grappling based manor, not just a Judo domain. I also think it will give some students a better chance of winning, as some prefer the groundwork over the throwing.

So let’s give it a go and see how we get on because….

Adaptability is a major key to life not just martial arts.