Strikes are taught in judo, but only at higher levels, and they are not allowed in competition or randori. Modern sport judo does rely too much on the opponent having a gi, but that’s because it has evolved pretty darn far from its roots and IMNSHO is dangerously close to an antithesis of Kano’s original conception. Most flavors of jujutsu are closer to realistic fighting than than judo, mostly because the practitioners are looking for that focus. They’re cousin arts, coming as they do from the same sources; one line went for sport competition while the other went for preserving tradition and practicability.
In my opinion, judo lost out to karate in the popularity contest because judo is too much like hard work and it’s not very kid friendly. Kid-friendliness is very important, as just about anyone who has struggled to make a martial arts gym their livelihood will attest to. You can teach kids right, without watering things down, but it takes dedication, time, and small class sizes so that you can keep on top of things. If you want to make enough money to be profitable, it’s very difficult to do it right.
Little Johnny learning how to spar with light contact is fun, with only a slight chance of a bloody nose, and it fits right in with Western sports like boxing. You know, how “real men” fight. Little Timmy learning how to throw people down is a nastier form of fighting. He rolls around on the mat getting sweaty, getting friction burns from the gi, and quite often forcibly gets put in uncomfortable positions until he gives up, and learns to do the same to other people. That’s what’s usually known as roughhousing and/or “not playing nice.”
Judo is not kid-friendly, and there’s a higher perceived (and probably actual) chance of injury than in most striking arts. Judo doesn’t work very well with “light contact” since you either have to do the throw properly, or your partner has to cheat and allow you to do it. You can teach striking with light contact (at the sacrifice o training correct neuro-muscular responses for real-world application) and still provide a facsimile of training. Plus, a lot of the time you can just do non-contact drills. Non-partnered kata are of extremely limited usefulness in judo.
There’s the same kind of dichotomy between an aerobics class and weightlifting. One is done by cute female gym bunnies and ridiculously fit men in spandex (who may or may not be interested in the gym bunnies); the other is done by steroid freaks and sweaty hairy contestants for World’s Strongest Man competitions, along with a few very odd women who wish they were men and occasionally take hormones that, along with the extremes of their training, make them look a lot like dudes with really small penises. [Note: the above are hyperbolic stereotypes of popular opinion.]
Weightlifting is less popular because — let’s face it — getting under heavy weights is highly unpleasant. It hurts even when you’re doing it right, and you can’t change your mind halfway through. Aerobics is a different kind of unpleasantness, and is pretty easy to moderate if you don’t like putting in even the slight amount of effort needed to get out of breath.
Aerobics, cardio-kickboxing, and similar friendly self-paced non-contact fitness options are way more attractive to most people than lifting heavy things and putting them down without herniating yourself. This is part of why weight machines became the default and free weights were relegated to the serious gym rat corner of the complex. Machines let you lift without having to actually learn how to do it right, they supposedly keep you from getting hurt, and if you do get in trouble halfway through you don’t have the startling prospect of a metal bar impacting your body under the influence of gravity to deal with.
I sound kind of snotty about karate and aerobics, but I’m not actually disparaging either. The most effective fitness regimes incorporate both weightlifting and aerobics, and the most effective martial artists do both striking and grappling. The problem I have is that anything that can’t be watered down to the lowest common denominator — and eventual ineffectuality — gets ignored.
Hard-style karate is damn effective. You won’t find anything resembling that taught in strip-mall McDojo. You might find it taught by a dedicated teacher and a small group of like-minded students who are willing to train hard and possibly get hurt. Kids are not usually going to be able to train due to liability concerns, and most of the whiny generation I’ve met would probably hate it anyway.
Effective aerobic workouts can be grueling. You wouldn’t have breath to chat to your girlfriends while doing them. Giving up halfway through would be like throwing away most of the first half of your workout. You might feel like puking afterwards. You won’t find many classes that ask you to push yourself that hard. Those that do don’t have many students.
d&r