Would you like to see bjj as an olympic sport?

[judoguy]

We've seen it happen to Judo and TKD. Judo was so ultra effective during WWll that the allieds had to rethink their entire hand to hand curriculam because our soldiers were getting trashed by the japanese in hand to hand combat. Meanwhile TKD was helping the koreans drive out the japanese from their land, and was used in the korean war as well. All until they decided to become olympic sports. And now we have BJJ going down the same path but in a much shorter period of time. Becoming a bjj black belt nowadays isn't the same as becoming one 6 years ago because the art is being diluted with sport leakage much like judo before it. And lets say if it does become an olympic sport, there is no way that they can have the current rules that they have for bjj tourney's because no time limits for ground fighting ain't gonna' fly with the olympic commitee. What do you guy's make of this?

[Treebranch]

Why not? I think it should have time limits if they aren't working or moving.

[TJS]

double edged sword It would be great for the sport but as you said I wouldent want it to head down the path of TKD.

I dont thing BJJ is very diluted at this point. Sure there are some people who dont deserve the belts they werar but not many because It will become painfully obvious if someone isint the belt they claim to be when they roll with others of that rank or enter tournaments.

[WC-Strayder]

Don't do it! Then you end up with that mess of organizations TKD have, with bjj-itf, bjj-wtf, bjj,ttl, bjj-cmos and so on..... And I think any style is watered down when they comes to the olympiqe "grinder". They are just after the money they can earn from it and don't give a damm in the sport. No, stay out of it!

[y2_sub]

I suppose it won't be BJJ anymore , just like TKD and judo lost their spirit by becoming a part of the olympics , sure judo is effective but not as much as it was .

[judoguy]

I'm telling you I just don't like it. Helio has expressed concerns about the direction of BJJ as well. And as far as different organizations of bjj well basically there already are different ones. You have Gracie jiujitsu, machado jiu jitsu, and just bjj. You have the students of Rolls Gracie doing their thing, the students of carlos jr, doing their thing, You even have older judo masters in brazil who have their students in the mix. Helio's family wasn't the only family in brazil that Maeda introduced to judo. All bjj isn't the same, bjj is mearly a generic term for the art that was introduced to them by Maeda with different schools having different ways of doing the techniques. But the Gracies are by far the largest and most popular of the bjj players.

[TJS]

Helio's family wasn't the only family in brazil that Maeda introduced to judo.

could you elaborate on that. To my knowladge The Gracie children were taught as a favor and teaching foreigners was somethign rearely done and also illegal at the time.

[judoguy]

[could you elaborate on that. To my knowladge The Gracie children were taught as a favor and teaching foreigners was somethign rearely done and also illegal at the time.

Sure. Here is an excerpt form the history of BJJ. "While in Brazil, I learned about a Grand Master named "Fadda," who learned Jiu-Jitsu from a man named Luis Franca. Like Carlos Gracie, Franca also learned Jiu-Jitsu (Judo) from Meada. Fadda took the Jiu-Jitsu he learned from Franca and started his own school of Jiu-Jitsu in Brazil. His popularity is not as great as the Gracie family, but nonetheless, he is an example of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu being refined and practiced outside the Gracie family. His students compete in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournaments and consider their art separate from both Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and the older styles of Jiu-Jitsu in Japan. This stands as evidence that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is not the same thing".

Also you have to keep in mind that Maeda was calling what he was teaching the Gracies "jujitsu" and not "judo" for the very reasons that you mentioned.

[UseoForce]

This is a very interesting thread, and has certainly changed my opinion.

I think sport BJJ has already moved too far from what it used to be (Won't debate this here). The olympic higher-ups would probably make all sorts of changes for "safety" and "viewing pleasure." No, leave martial arts in the hands of martial artists.

[ninjanurse]

My gut tells me that the Olympics should stick to sports, otherwise you risk changing the nature of the art....and it could have negative effects on the art as a whole. Just look at TKD. Olympic Style is a sport but traditional TKD gets compared to it and it's reputation suffers. Personally, I don't care what peole say about the art but it can cause rather heated debates and incidences of bashing . On the other hand, I would love to see some high-end grappling that isn't associated with the UFC (or other NHB type scenario). I think it would be awesome!