Does UK BJJ need the help of The British Judo Association?

On Monday January 12^th 2015, The British Judo Association (BJA) announced a “new affiliation with the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu UK Association.”  (BJJUKA) (http://www.britishjudo.org.uk/news/british-judo-announces-new-affiliation-with-the-brazilian-jiu-jitsu-uk-association)

As an active member of the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) community in the UK I was rather surprised by this as I had not before that day even heard of the BJJUKA.

As the secretary of the United Kingdom Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Association (UKBJJA) I was absolutely perplexed at this announcement.

The UKBJJA (not to be confused with the BJJUKA) is a not for profit organisation set up by three long-term members of the BJJ community, Richard Martin, Simon Hayes and myself. We are all BJJ black belts with a combined total of nearly 45 years of contributing to the growth and development of BJJ in the UK.

The objectives of the UKBJJA are:

1) To preserve and protect the integrity of BJJ as a performance based martial art

2) To promote BJJ and encourage wider participation in all areas of the sport

3) To provide a framework for national recognition of the sport

4) To preserve the integrity of the ranking system

5) To provide a framework for competitions and individual schools to follow to ensure minimum standards of safety and good practice

6) To represent all clubs and members in a democratic and transparent manner

The UKBJJA has been in existence for just under 18 months and currently has over 80 registered clubs and over 1000 members. It is currently working towards being recognised by Sport England as the official governing body for BJJ in the UK.

The website for the UKBJJA can be found here http://ukbjja.org/

Digging a little deeper into the announced affiliation by the BJA, I found the following document on the BJA website

http://www.britishjudo.org.uk/sites/default/files/aBoard24.6.14-BoardPRECISforweb.pdf

The document highlights the key discussions and decisions made at a BJA board meeting in June 2014, including the proposed affiliation between BJJUKA and the BJA.

I will now take direct quotes from that document and add my own thoughts below each section.

“Brazilian Ju Jitsu: Ray Stevens and Ed Semple from Brazilian Ju Jitsu attended the meeting.”

Besides the fact that Mr Stevens holds the rank of black belt in BJJ, trained for sometime with Roger Gracie and iirc may have been involved in establishing a BJJ club at the Budokwai, and Mr Semple co-authored a book on BJJ, I personally am not aware of any further links they have with the UK BJJ community. Additionally I am not aware of anything further that these two gentlemen have done during the past 15 years to contribute towards the growth and development of BJJ in the UK.

 
“BJJ competitions tend to be rather ad hoc in terms of structure and organization.” 

Says who? I am aware that Mr Stevens attended the Surrey BJJ Open, his feedback, that doesn't really tie in with the above, can be seen below. So which other BJJ events have Mr Stevens or Mr Semple attended to come to this conclusion?


I personally organise, or act as an advisor for many of the BJJ events in the UK, including The British Open and English Open.

During my time as a member of the BJA I organised and worked at many BJA events, and held several relevant BJA qualifications to do so. Many BJJ events in the UK are run using the exact same structure and with the same degree of organisation as any BJA event.


“Some BJJ techniques are allowed in BJJ competitions that are not permitted in Judo competitions and vice versa.”

As a former BJA referee and a current IBJJF qualified BJJ referee, I am struggling to think of any techniques that are allowed in Judo competitions that are not allowed in BJJ competitions. I have posted on several BJJ and Judo forums asking this question, there has been a healthy response but no one can think of any. If any of the readers of this blog know of any, please let me know.

“The BJJ British Championships is the largest annual competition with approximately 2000 competitors.” 

 
As a co-organiser of this event I can confirm that this approximation is good. The BJJ British Open has been achieving +1000 competitors for many years with closer to 2000 at our last event.

Let us now compare these competitor numbers to those of the BJA British Open.

Over recent years has the event even reached a few hundred competitors?

Despite looking on the BJA website, I've not yet found the exact competitor numbers for recent BJA British Opens. I do remember competing in the -78 kg category in the mid 80's at Crystal Palace and there were 100+ competitors in my category with many of these from overseas. Those heady days at Crystal Palace seem to be long gone.

When comparing the 2000 competitors at the BJJ British Open to the few hundred (approximately) at the BJA’s event, one could conclude that it is the BJA who need advice on how to put on an event, not the other way around.

“BJJ is keen to affiliate under the BJA umbrella . . . . .”

Besides Mr Stevens and Mr Semple, who have, to say the least, tenuous links to UK BJJ, there are few, if any, in the UK BJJ community who are ‘keen to affiliate’. When a link to the proposed affiliation was posted on The UKBJJ Underground (a Facebook group with nearly 7000 verified members) the group nearly imploded. Of the 259 post on the subject, I found only one person who had something positive to say about the proposed affiliation.

In the days following the posting of the link about the proposed affiliation, the UKBJJA actually saw a surge in membership applications.

“Although BJJ would wish to retain its independence it would work closely with the BJA and benefit from the recognition of the Association’s brand, professionalism, standards of coaching and officiating, technical standards, governance and infrastructure in terms of policies/procedures for clubs and membership.“

The UKBJJA already have much of the above in place.
As identified earlier, the BJJ British Open attracts 2000 competitors, compared to a few hundred for the BJA equivalent, seriously who needs the advice here?

Also as identified earlier regarding the rules, the BJJUKA 'committee' appear to lack an even basic undrstanding of BJJ contest rules, and they are claiming that BJJ would benefit from their standards of officiating?


Final thoughts:

The UKBJJA is a not for profit organisation run by members of the UK BJJ community for members of the UK BJJ community. Our members are encouraged to use the internet, social media etc to voice their opinions.

Recently several members of the BJJ community requested a change be made with regards to individual members joining the UKBJJA. Within days a proposal was made and the board of directors approved the change. The UKBJJA listens to and cares about the opinions of its members.

Now can the same be said of the BJA?

Let us consider the response of the BJA hierarchy when many of its paid up members voiced their dissatisfaction on the official BJA forum regarding the way the association was being run.

Did they address the concerns being raised?

The answer to this question is no. Their response initially was to delete any comments that did not follow the party line, and when the posts of dissatisfaction kept coming and coming, they removed the forum.

As a member of the BJA for over 40 years and a member of the UK BJJ community for over 15 years, my advice to the UK BJJ community is simple, do not to touch the BJA with the proverbial barge pole. The BJA have seen huge declines in their member numbers over the years and their only interest will be to boost their membership (to achieve funding targets) and subsequently increase revenue. Their flagship event, The British Open, has gone from a highly prestigious international event that attracted huge numbers, to an event that struggles to attract a few hundred. Members are leaving the BJA in their droves, according to the minutes from their board meeting in June 2014, their numbers had declined by 1065 members in the previous 12 months.


Where was the BJA 10-15 years ago when BJJ was in its infancy in the UK? Did they offer to get on board and help the fledgling sport that was not so dissimilar to itself, of course they didn't because there was no financial (or statistical) incentive for them to do so.

I'll tell you what I was doing 10-15 years ago, I was teaching BJJ to 4 or 5 students, I was making a regular 120 mile round trip to train with Braulio Estima. I was spending every spare penny that I possessed, and using up all of my holiday entitlement in order to travel to Brazil and train BJJ at Gracie Barra HQ.
I was also organising BJJ competitions for the few people who were practicing BJJ at the time in the UK. Most of these competitions were run at a financial loss, or if I was lucky, they broke even. I was also traveling around the country helping and advising others with their competitions. Again many of these were run at a loss, and I subsequently refused to take any payment, or claim any expenses from those who were also contributing to the growth and development of our art. 

The BJA can see the rapid growth in the popularity of BJJ as a way to boost their falling membership numbers and make a few £’s in the process.


Sorry BJA you are 15 years too late.