evolving judo?

[Manny]

Brazilian Jujitsu is gaining more and more adepts everyday and is growing world wide because of UFC,MMA,etc,etc. Would brazilian jujitsu become in a furure a olimpic sport? It cuold be but frankly maybe the IOC would say that we already have JUDO and but are not the same but comparable. However maybe this can be used to modernize a little teh olimpic judo to make it more eye apealing with a lot more of ground game, I mean, maybe in the feature judo matches could be win with a submision for example.

Maybe I am a little crazy and I apologize if I wrote stupid things but I wanted to share and ask the judo experets over all the ones that do judo competition.

Manny

 

[Dirty Dog]

I think it's an excellent thought, Manny.
Personally, I'm disappointed in how combat arts are done in the Olympics, and would very much like to see something that allows the use of a more complete use of the arts people train in, and something that isn't limited to just ONE art.

 

[Steve]

Over the last 40 years, the IOC has been "tweaking" the rules of Judo to make it more spectator friendly by specifically limiting the amount of groundfighting it contains. I don't think that they will ever add it back into the ruleset. Judo has wide participation, but other sports like Greco Roman Wrestling are being slowly eliminated from the Olympics, which is a shame.

To answer your question, though, BJJ will not be an Olympic Sport, at least not any time soon. It doesn't meet the criteria. First of all, there is no international sanctioning body for BJJ. Second, there would need to be a significant number of countries with National sanctioning bodies for the sport. Third, there would need to be a specific number of athletes who compete at the elite level in the sport. BJJ is great, and I love it. But the numbers and interest just aren't there.

Think about Olympic trials. Do enough countries have enough black belts to actually hold an Olympic trial, much less field a competitive team? I don't think so.

Add to this that the interest in BJJ and Submission Wrestling is what is referred to as vertical, meaning that the fans and spectators of the sport are made up almost entirely of people who are in some way associated with the sport.

If the IBJJF continues to spread the good word about BJJ, and continues to organize events throughout the world, promoting participation and training in enough countries, AND countries begin putting together national sanctioning bodies governing the sport of BJJ and/or submission wrestling, it may have a chance provided some country introduces it as an exhibition sport (the way the USA did with beach volleyball). But I just don't think it's there yet. Maybe in another 20 years. I'm not even sure if the USA has a national sanctioning body. If there is one, I don't belong to it.

And this is all independent of the conversation about whether BJJ would benefit in any way from inclusion in the Olympics. We've all seen the conversations in the TKD section lamenting the damage to the "art" that Olympic participation has had.

 

[Gentle Fist]

The ground game without strikes is not eye appealing to the masses. As someone who practices both Judo and BJJ, I don't see it (BJJ) becoming an Olympic sport, since they already have wrestling. Also as stated earlier Olympic Judo is focused around the big throws and awe factor, grappling is slow and boring for people who are not practitioners of the art. If you watch local judo tournaments you will see grappling during matches since the refs are not so inclined to stand up the fighters.

I practice traditional Judo which focuses on throwing and grappling 50/50, so the type of Judo you speak of (Manny) is already alive and well.

PS: I do enjoy watching Olympic Judo though and think the rules are fine the way they are.