Judo is a martial art. most school only teach a sports version of judo. There are some that teach judo for self defense. Some might only teach the self defense after you become an advanced student of brown or black belt. You actually are taught weapon disarms in judo. Normally it is at black belt, but each school is different.
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It amazing how some people will say what will or won't work and they have never been in those situations to say what does or doesn't work. I have person experiences. I know plenty of others with personal experiences. Techniques taught for knife and gun disarms do work. I have done it against a knife and a gun. I know others that have taken knives. Sure there are schools that are teaching garbage. That is true of any style or any sport. But that is the instructors fault. They don't know or were never taught correctly. If someone believes that everything in karate is static they have never been in a good karate school. If someone trains in a sport and believe they are learning self defense they are deceiving themselves. There is a big difference between knife fighting and disarming a knife. There is a huge difference in fully resistant and working with a partner that is pretending to resist. Another form of self deception is believing you are practicing against fully resistant partners.
I can introduce anyone to some martial arts students that can tell you how at every test someone always left with something broken. There has not been one test where at least one bone wasn't broken. That is not happening in the sports where people believe the lie that they are fully resistant...lol You can't do self defense full contact or fully resistant with something broken and or injured. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that. It is common sense. in a sport you train and learn tactics to win a game. In self defense there are no winners. You train to survive and to be able to get away and you and leave so that your attacker can't follow and harm you. In other worst they must be maim or not breathing. It's not a fight over ego. It not about someone disrespect your girl or bumped you with saying excuse me. There is no round too or no rematch. You haven't studied the tendencies of your opponent because you don't know the opponent or expect the attack.
Don't look for a style. Look for a good instructor. Look for the one that will help you reach your goals.
Most armed people don't carry bludgeons, knives, or chains. They carry guns. If you happen to have your Escrima sticks with you at the time of a violent encounter, you will probably be shot, so your best defense against a weapons-based attack would be a gun.
You can't blame the BJJ instructor for not giving you a satisfactory answer with regard to how to handle a weapons attack. Most top ranked MMA fighters in the world would be at a disadvantage against an armed attacker. Judo isn't going to make you any better prepared for an attack from a guy with a knife or a baseball bat than BJJ would, so don't think that you're going to be better off studying Judo than BJJ.
You plan on getting into stick fights with people? No. They're not a common weapon in street fights. And a knife fight isn't something you can really train for. People train to have unrealistic expectations when it comes to knife fighting, and think there are fancy blocks and disarms and the fact is, knife fighting or any form of fighting is never clean cut like most styles practice them to be. That's why BJJ and Judo are both good arts in dealing with a realistic opponent because you train against resisting opponents, not dead, static ones like you do in Karate and Kung Fu.
Stick with BJJ and add Judo to your arsenal.
On a general consensus, Judo is considered a very good martial art. As always though, it depends mostly on the fighter rather than the style. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was mostly influenced by Kodokan Judo, and BJJ is among the most popular style in professional MMA.
Is it a practical martial art?
I currently practice Eskrima and I want to supplement what I know with another art.
I saw a place that teaches Brazillian Jiu Jitsu, but I am worried if the instructor is competent. While grappling demonstrations, I asked him what happens if the opponent is armed with a knife or stick.
He told me, "Well if it's a stick, a good block and then charge will be enough to combat that. If it's a knife, unless it's a stab wound you can still fight on. With most knife slashes, the knife will not cut deep enough to cause major damage and you can still force him to the ground to submit.
That just did not sit well with me so I respectfully declined.
A club at my university teaches Judo, but I don't know anything about Judo. I want to know if it is truly a martial art I can defend myself with, and not something that is ceremonial.
I saw some videos and the throws are impressive.
