He then passed me a white belt and said I should wear that in the BJJ class. It was the right thing to do because I had at that point zero experience in BJJ. I didn't know the rules, I didn't know the moves, I was an absolute beginner.
The stark differences with judo became obvious to me very quickly. Firstly, the moves they taught (for getting an armlock or a strangle, for example) were really very elaborate and took a long time to achieve relative to judo moves. I thought to myself, "That might prove to be an effective move if you have the time but in judo, a matte would have been called long before that happens".
When it came time to randori, we started on the ground (there wasn't even a pretense to start standing up). As a judo player, my instinct was to turtle up. Later, I found out this was exactly what BJJ players would not do. They never like to give their backs to the opponent. Instead, they pull guard (and lie with their backs to the mat).
Back then, I didn't know any better so I happily turtled up shielded myself from armlocks and chokes. My training partner climbed on top of my back and clamped on but wasn't able to really do anything. After a while, I thought he would move to a different position and try something else but he seemed content to clamp onto my back. Later, when I chatted with him, he when he clamped onto my back like that, in BJJ it's a score.
After the session was over, I went over to another judo guy and asked him what he thought of the training. He said he does it because the coach asked him to but he doesn't particularly like it because it's quite different from judo, which was his focus. I felt the same way.
I know some people who favor cross training point to the fact that the Japanese national judo team does occasionally train with BJJ people. So, it must be a good idea.
What they don't realize is that the Japanese national team players train practically every day, at least twice a day. They do so much judo that it would really be overkill for them to do any more judo than they already do. So, they try other things like BJJ to complement their training.
It's sort of like how rugby players in the UK tried some judo to complement their rugby training. These are professional rugby players who train rugby full-time. They do so much rugby training, they can afford to do something a little bit different just to offer some variety to their training.
For the rest of us, we hardly have enough time to train in judo. How many among us actually do judo six days a week? In my club only one or two players do anything close to that. A small handful train three to four days a week. Most train once or twice a week.
When the frequency of training is like that, any spare time you have for training should be spent doing judo, not some other "similar" sport. If you train in judo so much (like the Japanese who train twice a day), yes, you can afford to do other sports to add some variety to your training. But when you're hardly getting enough training in judo itself, you should be doing more judo (if you want to improve in judo).
Think about it. If you're a badminton player who trains only a few times a week, if you want to improve your badminton, you should be spending your time playing more badminton, not playing tennis instead. Yes, both sports involve racquets and both sports involve hitting an object back and forth on a court but they are really not the same sport. Different rules, different skill sets required.
Judo and BJJ might seem similar but even the gis we wear are different (judogis are generally longer and looser). The rules are very different. The scoring system is different. The moves themselves are different. The style of play, the tactics, the emphasis -- all different.
If I'm a Japanese player up to my neck in judo training, maybe I would like to do some BJJ on the side. But I'm not. I don't get as much judo training as I'd like so if I have the time to do more training, I'd rather spend it doing judo.
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