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Rickson On JJGF’s Difficult Last 2 Years & New Goals For 2016

Rickson On JJGF’s Difficult Last 2 Years & New Goals For 2016

 

One of the biggest names in the history of Jiu-Jitsu and MMA, Rickson Gracie , about two years ago, founded the Jiu-Jitsu Global Federation (JJGF), an organization created in order to unite the various Jiu-Jitsu teams under a global federation. Rickson’s initial plans however, did not go as expected, and today JJGF undergoes a “reformulation of ideas” to leverage and disseminate their goals.

In an exclusive interview with TATAME, which BJJEE translated from Portuguese, the legendary fighter and representative today commented on his organization’s plans to learn from these past two years and the changes made in the proposal for a new attempt to implement their ideas.

 

– Creation of JJGF and path during those two years

It has been a long journey, in which we have worked hard to develop the possibilities of Jiu-Jitsu, the sports part, education and business. The Federation has been open for two years, and so far my position was being in an attempt to create a league with the promoters of events, which are responsible for making the flow in the sport, are in the business of Jiu-Jitsu. But the idea did not work.

– Change in the initial idea

This attempt to unite the events, create something global, turned out to be disappointing. Although all have enjoyed the idea, most wanted a certain exclusivity to work with me, excluding the other promoters. That, to me, is something that goes away from the original idea. In fact, we do not need more championships, but a unity among the events so that Jiu-Jitsu may have a movement more or less as we have in the Surf industry, with brands doing all this business work, but all of them belonging to the same circuit. Every unit is around this circuit, unifying and strengthening it.

 

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– New proposal for unification of the global Jiu-Jitsu

Based on this response, although very disappointed, we saw that the strategy would have to change. Now we recreate the strategy focused on the teams, as they are who really are interested in our culture. United, we can make a move that will benefit our community, our sport as a whole. So that brought us the creation of Jiu-Jitsu Global Conference (JJGC), which will be the first attempt to bring together stakeholders and discuss the proposal. It is something open (the JJGC) for all teams, federations and events where, through it, with regard to the sport, we will give Carlos and Hélio Awards awards – in honor of the “fathers” of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu – to the most successful in our community.

 

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– Goal of Jiu-Jitsu Federation Global today

Our goal is to create a great drive for the community, with the formation of committees for the sport itself, business and education, which will be made by the successful members of our community in each of these areas. This move will bring Jiu-Jitsu to be able to cover an empty space today, because no one works for the community as a whole, and that is where we want to act.

– Proposal to benefit the sport BJJ community

No doubt it is something that matters a lot to the whole community of the sport. As previously, our environment is fragmented, with many federations and leagues in Brazil and in the world … More than 170 events per year that do not communicate, there is no middle ground for everyone, so the idea is that there is an organ that can unify and regulate all such tendencies, putting all within the same group of quality and professionalism, which can give rise to a growth that still we can not even imagine that Jiu-Jitsu may have, transforming it into something increasingly globalized and with evolving conditions.