Do you like the olympics?...Do you like martial arts? If you answered yes to either of those questions I urge you to read this. Martial arts such as Taekwondo and Judo have been around for centuries. Most modern martial arts also have ancient roots in one form or another. The majority of these arts also have some form of competition associated with them too. Limited to local events, most of them have no competition at the olympic level.

Right now, the year is 2012. The olympics just passed this summer, and the topic isn't really on anybody's mind anymore, except for the athletes of course. They dedicate every moment of their lives to their sport of choice and for 2016, a whole new type of athlete is hoping to make their way on to the olympic scene. There's alot of debates going on right now about whether or not Brazilian jiu-jiutsui should be in the olympics or not because of how long it's been around, the rules and etc. I'm personally on the side saying that it shouldn't be.
I'm just a white belt in brazilian jui-jiutsui so I'm not that experienced yet, but I love the martial art. Honestly, I just want what's best for it. Right now the olympics would hurt jiu-jiutsui. The martial art has been around for a while now, but jiu-jiutsui competition is still in a beginning stage. Other olympic styles of grappling like wrestlling and judo have been around for centuries so they know what they're doing but jiu-jiutsui...not so much..

Brazilian jui-jiustui has it's roots in Judo,a japanese martial art that focuses on mainly grappling and throws. In 1914 a Japanese judo master named Mitsuyo Maeda came to Brazil and became friends with the gracie family and in exchange for food and help, he taught the Gracies judo. After a couple years of training, carlos Gracie opened a dojo. One day, Carlos was running late to a Judo class that he was teaching. The only person at the dojo was Carlos's brother Helio. Basically, since Helio was much smaller than the average man, he had to make changes to the old-school Judo techniques. He only weighed about 155 pounds at the peak of his life. Because of his size he found alot of the techniques in judo difficult to use since they're mostly strength-based techniques. What Helio did, was replace strength with leverage, and speed with timing. That made it possible for a man of any size, age and physical ability to defeat much larger opponents using pure technique since he basically used other peoples sizes against them. By doing that, him and his family basically revolutionized the way we think about fighting and martial arts.

The best jiu-jiutsui/submission grappling leagues around right now are the IBJJF(international brazilian jiu jiutsui federation), and the ADCC( Abu Dhabi combat club). Even with two major leagues around, there's no International sanctioning on the sport's rules, so rules are often inconsistent. It causes the quality of the competition goes down alot since athletes are always having to adapt to rule changes. That's why it needs some time to develop further, so it can have standardized rule books and policies.

There is hope though! The art is spreading quickly since the competitions have been gaining popularity. The skill levels of competitors are getting higher and higher as jiu-jiutsui athletes develop better technique. Each year more and more dedicated martial artists are earning black belts in Gracie jiujiutsui. Even though the majority of high level bjj competitors are either from Brazil or America, the art is reaching out world wide on every continent.

So is it b.j.j's time to be an olympic sport? I say no at the moment. Others might disagree with me but I still say the rules aren't clearly enough defined worldwide and the competition still isn't organized enough.That is just my opinion though.