> There's a lot of talk that Judo's bans have really watered the sport down, including things as fundamental as what sleeve grips are allowed, such as being unable to break an opponent's grip with two hands. It's becoming a point-fighting martial art in competition.

That's fair. To be honest, the competition aspects of judo are what ultimately made me give it up. I respect that Jigoro Kano was trying to find a place in the world for these techniques, and that sport was one way to carve that space out, however I'm not in martial arts for competition.

Truth be told, I'm not really in martial arts for self defense either. The reality is, that there will always be someone with the capacity to bring greater violence to a situation than I can defend against. Even if I'm really great, there are always knives, guns, car bombs, and nukes that I'm probably not going to walk away unscathed from.

On a related tangent, my Danzan Ryu sensei had a self-defense illustration that has stuck with me. Just about the time we felt pretty good with our tanto (wooden knife) takeaways, she'd have us practice our knife fighting with sharpie markers. Lesson learned: even if you're really good, you're going to get cut, and it's probably not going to be trivial injury. If someone flashes me a knife and asks for my wallet, my wallet is theirs. The only time I would consider a knife / gun takeaway would be if it was very clear that the person wielding said weapon was utterly intent on using it. I suppose if some random person were to try and beat me up on the street, my martial training would be somewhat useful in avoiding injury, but I'm most definitely not training for this scenario.

These days I train aikido, but do so for the fitness, the mental challenge, and the camaraderie of the dojo. Unlike judo or BJJ, I can imagine myself training into later life. That said, my first judo sensei was an old hippy who trained for many years in Korea and Japan and claims he never suffered anything worse than a sprained toe. So, maybe I'm just a nancy--a label I'm very happy to wear ;-)

> You can feel most joint locks, such as knee bars and arm bars, so it's safe to know when it's time to tap.

Arm bars, definitely. However, I've been told there is a significant percentage of the population that actually cannot properly feel a knee bar before the point of damage. When we trained them in DZR, we applied them very carefully, especially with people experiencing them the first time, in order to make sure we were dealing with someone who properly felt pain in advance of damage.

> Aikido does far more wrist locks. We don't train them in BJJ very often because they aren't very effective and are easy to get out of.

In terms of ground fighting, I'd reckon that's definitely true. Aikido doesn't do much of that, and so wrist bars are done more dynamically. My judo intuition about wrist bars makes me a very cautious aikidoka on these things. On the other hand, the vaulting throws from kote gaeshi sure are purdy! Like most things with aikido, I suspect it becomes reasonably "effective" after a decade or two of training.

> Most blood chokes, including arm and leg triangles, are easy to tap to and low risk. Sometimes someone may put on a choke that is a trachea choke, but the worst you have there is a sore throat. Neck cranks are also no-no's for lower belts.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. Same as judo. Even a blood choke that results in unconsciousness isn't crazy dangerous if the person isn't also falling. Blood chokes shut the flow of oxygenated blood to the brain, and restore it instantly, so the risk of brain damage is low compared to wind chokes that deoxygenate the blood. There are similar rank restrictions in judo competition for chokes (and arm bars).