MMA101 - Judo

At MMATraining.com we bring you news on the sport, offer you a chance to buy your favorite MMA products in our store and provide training tips and programs from the elite athletes competing in the sport today. As a new feature we are producing a set of “101″ overview reports on the disciplines that make up mixed martial arts. We hope you enjoy them and find it useful for the beginner piecing together all that goes into these amazing athletes that compete in professional mixed martial arts.

Judo

Judo is a Japanese martial art that involves taking down opponents via throws or rolls and then follow up with ground fighting to pin an opponent or submit an opponent via joint -locks or chokeholds. Quite similar to Jui Jitsu given their common origins, the main difference is that in Judo for the fight to move to the ground, an opponent must be taken down, whereas Jui Jitsu fighters can voluntarily go to the mat at any time. Some popular Judo practitioners are Karo Parisyan and Thierry Sokoudjou.

Rules

The traditional rules of judo are intended to avoid injuries to the participants and ensure proper etiquette. Some later additions to the rules were motivated by a desire to make the sport more interesting to observers.

Penalties may be given for being inactive during the match, or for using illegal techniques. Fighting must be stopped if a participant is outside the designated area on the mat (tatami). If the referee and judges need to discuss something during groundwork, the referee will call sonomama (which means “do not move”) and both fighters must stop in the position they are in. When they are done, the referee says yoshi and the match continues.

All scores and penalties are given by the referee. The judges can make a decision that changes the score or penalty given by the referee.

To Learn More

To learn more about Judo in the United States Please visit http://www.usjudo.org/

To learn more about Judo in Canada please visit http://www.judocanada.org/