BJJ or JUDO?
Im turning 16 next month, 5'5 and quite stocky with leaner arms and thicker legs and terrible physical perfomance and recovery due to alot of traumatic stuff going on causing a very sedentary lifestyle (joints a little weak but not a huge issue, some back pain, bit of fat, terrible cardio all probably caused by still going on issues of sleepless nights) Im super lost between Judo and BJJ. I was going to pick wrestling (since its like the most elite grappling sport ever) but with distance (1 hour 20 minutes distance) and £85 for 2 sessions a week it wasnt gonna happen. I have fitness/physique improvement dreams, confidence goals, trying to become better looking, be good at self defense because my area is really rough, and maybe become an mma fighter with a grappling heavy style.
Anyways I came here because I literally do not know what to pick, at all. It seems pros and cons are absolutely equals.
For what I even want to do, I want to learn alot of takedowns (which i was pointed to judo) but THEN I absolutely despise gi (pointed to no gi) but I hated ground fighting and scrambles and rolls and guard ect (again back to judo) but I wanted leg attacks (back to no gi) but then im also managing really bad acne and being shoved into the floor with my face scraping everything around it isnt fun + eczema on the elbows (back to judo), but I want a good mma base (BJJ) but then I heard i shouldn't do bjj because the stocky build is a downfall especially as someone who isnt a gifted grappler/athletic/has a base in something like wrestling, but still like submissions (so back to judo) then I heard it super sucks translating all your gi moves to anything no gi (so back to bjj) but i have super slow recovery and the schedule of judo classes are much more spread apart (so judo again), however for self defense both show to be greatly good at that. also wearing glasses and taking them on and off is for demonstrations, then practising, then back on for demonstrations and then off for sparring is very annoying but manageable (which i know is fine in bjj but also fine in judo I heard) also both have painfully long learning curves in both their ways which is something ill adapt to depending on whichever one turns out to be the better choice, id also be willing to try and adapt my weak mental health to it since im gonna have to do something one way or the other
Ontop of this, both Judo and BJJ are in the same area and heavily accessible so its not like id pick one over the other for "distance because thats the one you can train often) however pricing is interesting. BJJ offers 2x two hour sessions a week (Wednesday friday) for a flat out £55 which is no gi which here and there a wrestler will come and teach us double and single leg takedowns, and various different positions which i thought is really cool. Judo is a flat out £45 for about 1 hour session 2x a week monday thursday (way cheaper which is good living in a poor family in east london) - the catch is a decent gi is pretty annoying to get price wise (£65 the cheapest I found) and needing TWO for both sessions + I heard theres some sort of liscense i need to pay for which was around £30. So thats QUITE alot of money to go on the first month for Judo (which is something I could probably afford, but wouldnt be too happy about)
Its probably worth mentioning I've never done judo before, but ive done BJJ since late 2025 (around October, but taking weirdly terrible chunks of time off due to mental health so not good at it at all) I enjoy some things like learning pummeling and its transitions to the back leading to takedowns, learning doubles and singles, learning easy escapes from bottom side control (super easy escapes only really) but I feel lost doing pretty much anything else
I was tired of getting advice from AI telling me just whatever I wanted to hear at the time and changing the answer with each factor being brought into equation. I have until my bday (July 22) to actually really decide what to lock into, whether to stick it out or bjj, or make the jump to judo? All advice welcome🫶 please no try both out and see what you like because I actually dont know what I like, both look awesome and also technically in some ways bad and im just trying to figure out what would be BEST