Jiujitsu in the Olympics?

     I just recently ran across a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Training online discussion board talking about students training at multiple schools at the same time. (click here for the thread) I'm not going to talk much about the article. Instead, I'm going to relate some of the comments on the thread if BJJ were to become an Olympic Sport. I think it's really interesting that there is this BIG push by people to introduce Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or Grappling, who knows what it will be called, into the Olympics. Basically, the thread says that the more traditional types believe that it's one school or nothing, and other instructors are happy as long as their students are doing jiujitsu as a positive addition to their healthy lifestyle.
     Competing in the Olympics has been a childhood dream of mine, and I would love the opportunity to make a run for a spot on the Olympic Team and compete for the Olympic Gold. However, I have a feeling introducing BJJ as an Olympic Sport would could only come about with some serous changes in the way people approach training.
     First of all, the idea of only training with your team would disappear. It would be longer about the team, it would be about getting the medal, and putting yourself in a room with the best training partners to become an Olympic champion. Representing your county is now the team you need to train with. That means getting the best guys in your country together to train. This leads me to my second point, unless your academy is in the same country you are a citizen of, you are now potentially training and teaching someone to compete against your own country. Technically, for those traditional thinkers... You are betraying your country. Finally, the World Championships or Mundials wouldn't tally 'team' points but instead tally 'country' points. People would have to enter as a representative of their country and not their team. The World Championships we speak of at the moment is more of a World 'Team' Championships than anything else.
     Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of training with the team and competing as a member of the team, but there will have to be some serious changes if we are going to see jiujitsu in the Olympics in the near future.

Eliot Kelly

EDH Grappling

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