Anyone familiar with Jitsu foundation in the UK? and would extra training at one of their clubs be at all beneficial to a judoka?

They are a "modern" jujitsu group operating mostly from universities in the Uk, the vast majority of Jujitsu in the UK is a mixture of self defence techniques based in varying degrees on karate aikido and judo. There are very few if any traditional Japanese schools operating. Jutsu syllabus is similar to the World Jujitsu Federation. They run annual judo and kumite competitions. Their training sessions from my experience are energetic and fun. Their organisation, from a judokas developmental point of view lacks the depth of experience you would find in the BJA or the BJC and training with them would not in my opinion bring yoiur judo on to any great degree. On the other hand if you want to learn what passes for jujitsu in the UK,or get fit in a friendly and safe environment then their clubs have a good reputation on the whole. They have a website - look them up and try a few lessons. I have to say a good MMA class in my experience would give you a better work out and more practical fighting skills if that's what you are after.


Geoff

I dabble with TJF clubs. Visit a local one occasionally.

It wont do your Judo any harm, indeed I have taken some ideas away to play with in my Judo.

I actually have to disagree slightly, I was part of TJF before I joined Judo and picked up a couple of "bad" (different maybe a better word) habits from it such as over rotating and looking away from where I am throwing someone, being way to compliant when someone trys to throw me in competition and refusing to ever follow an opponent to the ground as part of a throw.

I've heard (word on the street, naming no names, reliable source) that competence in Judo will let you mop the floor with a 'Jitsu' practitioner. I've also heard that they'll ban you from entering tournaments if you're a judoka unless you gain a certain amount of grades in their system.

Not exactly true, or at least it wasn't as of a few years back. TJF nationals was your chance to randori and the idea was that you would compete against people approximately your level, Judo guys had to be members of TJF to compete and if they did they competed at a level one up from their Judo grade because they trained for Judo randori full time whereas TJF does cover Judo randori but it's one of about seven areas so obviously they aren't going to be as good at it (Nor do they pretend to be).

Having said that though, I would have to say that the overall fighting ability of a person will increase more in Judo than it will in TJF, but then again, that might in part be down to the type of people drawn to Judo and TJF.