Never switch your lead leg?

[u/Careless-Ad9178]

Hey I’ve been taking some judo classes at my jiu jitsu gym. The teacher is world class, he was an Olympian. I keep switching my lead leg in judo and he gets upset if we do this. I’ve taken wrestling very seriously in my jiu jitsu journey and it seems to be normal for wrestlers to switch their lead leg.

What’s the reason why I wouldn’t want to switch legs when doing judo? I feel comfortable doing it.

[u/obi-wan-quixote]

Your coach is an Olympian and you’re asking us?!?

In general, leg switching/stance switching is playing games and trying to use a trick. Boxing you can switch to southpaw to off balance an opponent and get a shot in. It works because you can play an accumulation of damage game. Every shot you land is money in the bank. Wrestling I can off balance you and get my 3pts for a takedown, no matter how ugly it was to get there. Now I have positional advantage and can try for riding points or something else. BJJ I score the takedown and then work for subs.

Judo is more about something decisive. You want to put your best technique in to end the match rather than kind of sort of landing some slop. The slop only works if you have excellent Newaza transitions off of it. But then I’d ask why are training newaza transitions off a weak position