Spreading...

Understanding the widespread growth and spread of jiu jitsu throughout the world was a driving motivation for my study. Through the window that burgeoning class size and increasing number of black belts outside of Brazil provide, we are well aware that the numbers of individuals taking up the sport/art has grown considerably over the last decade. But, by how much? Given the relatively recent diffusion of BJJ from Brazil, the dearth of academic attention to the art, and the lack of coordination and sometimes hostility between schools, at this time no detailed records or accounting exists to determine the exact number of practitioners. I would be reticent to even hazard a rough estimate.

But it is growing. People are taking up the art at an unprecedented rate. Rarely does a week go by without at least a couple of new white belts taking their place amongst the ranks.

What appeal does jiu jitsu have for the average person? and, just how many people worldwide are doing BJJ? I hope my study will shed some light on these questions. In the meantime, if you have some insight please let me know.

Bryan

bjjstudy@gmail.com

If you build it...will they come?

After carefully selecting questions to appear on the survey, I then had to figure out how to recruit people to take the survey. A survey without respondents is no longer a survey, but an interesting hypothetical list of queries. A survey, by definition, requires contributions from others who did not create the survey. But how was I to go about recruiting participants? Especially concerning was the relative size of the BJJ community in and around Edmonton, I could not confine my search to this geographical region. Narrowing my focus to this smallish community would certainly not yield the kind of pith and nuance I'm looking for; especially given that my intention is to detail and examine experience among BJJ players from around the world. 

I initially thought about recruiting participants from among posters on various message boards (i.e. Sherdog and the Underground). However, I quickly settled on contacting Caleb at the Fightworks podcast. First, because I'm a huge fan of the show. Second, because his show reaches a relatively wide base (the "might 600,000"). I resolved to email Caleb with my idea. He responded quickly and we set up a time to chat about the project. Our phone conversation went well and he scheduled me to be on the show that week. 

The response to my call for participants has been overwhelming. Over 250 people have taken the survey. Thank you to all of you.

I'm still looking for people to interview over the phone. In my experience we can go into much more detail this way. If you are interested, please email me at bjjstudy@gmail.com