Diary > BJJ- Sport or Martial Art?
01/17/2010
I´m often asked whether I teach ´sport´ jiu jitsu or self defence and the answer has always been easy, until now.
The competitive sport side of BJJ has grown in leaps and bounds as happens when large numbers of full time athletes sit down and try and figure out how to beat each other. There have been many weird and wonderful though not very practical evolutions in BJJ the last five years and at the moment yet another phase of limb and mind bending movements are developing.
Because I believe Jiu jitsu was designed to protect, my first priority goes to that, teaching people how to protect themselves and loved ones, and secondarily to compete and win Gold medals. Don´t get me wrong we win our share of State and International medals, in fact if points were divided the number of entrants we would probably have won every competition we ever went in, but it´s not my focus as it is in some academies.
Recently I decided that since there are many students wanting to compete who really don´t care about the self defence aspect of jiu jitsu that I would call some classes ´Competition BJJ´ and the others ´General´ so people wanting to specialise in competing can do so.
But how do we define whether were doing a sport or a martial art?
I define it this way - Does it take into account that anything could happen? Boxing for example is a sport as it prohibits kicking or grappling, Judo as well is a sport. Most martial arts tainted by the Olympics become sports as there is Government funding and promotion and many other financial benefits, but also strict rules and regulations to keep the pepsi buying publice happy at home on the sofa.
Even the UFC has suffered by it and now there are more and more rules competitiors have to follow so we at home don´t get bored and go back to watching boxing. Does anyone still watch it? Personally I think the popularity of the UFC has done wonders for all the martial arts not just BJJ, but there is a serious lack of regulation when it comes to MMA schools. Weekly I hear potential students say they do MMA, someone has done balanese boxing and aikido and once played soccer with a mate who new Rinando´s cousin... and calls it MMA.
True, it is Mixed Martial Arts, or is it mixed up martial arts? Just throwing a few things you learnt at a few schools because you could never commit to one long enough to get really good at it is not the basis for teaching or branding it MMA, or is it?
Plenty of young kids are being sucked in by wannbe MMA coaches eager to jump on the MMA cash cow but is anyone bothering to regulate these choo seuy cowboys? I´d love someone to , they may even make a buck doing it and not have to pretend they can fight like most of those guys.
I´m sure there are plenty of great martial artists out there, who don´t wrestle, do BJJ or thai box but who would be great in the octagon but I don´t know where they are. Maybe they should jump in one of the local MMA events, knock or choke out or death touch or whatever it is they do and then they can teach all the MMA they want. Time to run, literally.
