In my experience judo is much easier on the body than BJJ.
Wow! Where are you training?!
I'm not trying to be a ****, I mean that seriously.... IME Judo is probably one of the hardest, bone crunching, joint-messing-up things out there.
Just really WOW.
Perhaps you just fall a hell of a lot better than me or something.
Re: the first question, it's really kind of a fallacious one.
There's good grappling and bad grappling. "Style" is really just shorthand for what you're going to get good at faster.
What unkokusai brings up about wrestling IS a valid point, but not so much in the sense that wrestling is inherently hard on the joints, any more than any other grappling style.... It's more that wrestlers in the United States are a tough crowd, more often than not preparing for competition, and the intensity level is usually extremely high. This, regardless of what you talk to the coach or other students about, is going to affect you. Ex wrestlers at BJJ class who haven't been doing BJJ for very long are extremely and effectively aggressive.
I tend to disagree about starting Judo now. You could definitely do that IF you pick the right place. If you find a recreational judo club, you would probably be fine. But Judo is absolutely not easy on the body. Falling hurts and when you do it wrong/don't have the opportunity to fall correctly cause it was a sweet throw, it will **** YOU UP. Just ask my surgically repaired left shoulder :P
Competition Judo is brutal and the training is correspondingly so.
BJJ tends to have far fewer jarring impacts, and injuries are usually genuine accidents as opposed to the consequences of the grappling. You are unlikely to learn any truly solid takedown skills, but that will depend on your instructor(s).
However, one often overlooked benefit of BJJ, is that you get to dictate whether or not the fight is going to STAY on the ground. I've got a brown belt in BJJ, and there are a very small number of people in this world who can keep me on the ground - not like I'm a badass, just that not many people train to KEEP you on the ground - not even Judoka, and I spend a lot of time learning how to escape. Escaping on the ground is a tremendously useful skill, and one that requires just as much practice as anything else.
That said, if you don't "want to roll around on the ground like a dog for ten minutes," then I'd say you aren't approaching this with an open mind, and kind of missing the point as well. No offense intended, but you might want to consider that.
Yeah, better grappling. Not empty marketing slogans.
May be the best post on this board in a long time.
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