Caption: Brunei representatives at the Masters Open in Las Vegas, USA last year.
Ak Fauzi Pg Salleh
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
THE grappling community in the country, especially of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), was buzzing when Jessa Khan of Cambodia won her country their first gold medal at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta.
Her victory over Mahra Al Hinaii of United Arab Emirates in the Newaza Ju-Jitsu under-49kg final meant that Cambodia was Southeast Asia's best performing country in the discipline.
They finished ahead of Singapore, who only managed a silver, while Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam all settled for a bronze apiece.
But why was there such a buzz?
Ahmad Faez Anuar, the driving force behind the rise of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Brunei, in one of his tournaments.
Newaza Ju-Jitsu, which is one of the three components in Sports Ju-Jitsu, is similar to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu where points are awarded for takedowns and control positions as well as winning fight via submission.
It debuted at the recent Asian Games in Indonesia, while, the Duo system (demonstration of pre-rehearsed self-defense techniques) was featured at the Asian Beach Games in 2014 (Phuket) and 2016 (Da Nang).
Earlier this year hosts Philippines announced that Ju-Jitsu will be among the 30 sports to be contested at the 30th edition of the SEA Games to be held in Manila in November next year.
The question now is can Ju-Jitsu find a foothold among the country's premier and core sports to eventually represent Brunei at multi-sport events such as the SEA Games?
Kids Class under kids BJJ coaches Zaim Zairi and Shahrul Hamizan.
Brunei BJJ practitioners are no strangers to regional and international success as they have been raking countless medals and titles for many years since debuting in 2011.
The closest the club got to competing at the multi-sport event was at the Southeast Asian Grappling and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Challenge in Singapore (SEA Games edition) in 2016 where the best representatives from the region converged at the two-day event.
Brunei surprised everyone at the tournament when their two representatives, Ahmad Faez Anuar and Hj Abdul Hadi Bakir, bagged a total of five gold, one silver and one bronze medals.
They did it by not just defeating their regional competitors but also invited competitors coming from as far as Russia and USA to finish at the top of the podium.
Ahmad Faez Anuar (C) stand on top of podium at the SEA Grappling and BJJ Championship.
It didn’t just end there for the duo as they continued their success by winning medals at premier tournaments such as the Pan Asian BJJ championship, Asian Open, Copa de Bangkok, Copa de Malaysia and a number of IBJJF tournaments across the world.
Based on these achievements and records, Brunei have a solid chance to actually medal at multi-sport evens including the Asian Games.
The duo of Rasimoon Adinin and Ng Wei Ting managed bronze medals in their respective weight categories at the Tokyo Asian Open in September.
But why haven’t we sent any athletes to compete?
Most, if not all of Brunei's athletes are registered under their parent clubs or as individuals when they compete in tournaments sanctioned by IBJJF and UAEJJF, few of the biggest governing bodies of the sport.
However, to be able to compete in multi-sport Games, the BJJ community needs to at least form a national association and eventually register under JJIF (Ju-Jitsu International Federation), the international governing body for Sports Ju-Jitsu.
Ahmad Faez Anuar bagged a title at Borneo Fight Fest in Sabah last year.
In 2016, now-defunct national newspaper The Brunei Times interviewed Ahmad Faez on the idea of representing Brunei at multi-sport events.
“If we have to form an association to be able to join multi-sport tournaments in the future, then why not? We can just form another association,” said Ahmad Faez.
“If there is the need to discuss something, we are really open for discussion.
“We can set something up and lay everything on the table, and we will see where we can go from there,” he added.
Under JJIF rule, athletes will represent their country, and not a team and competitors will be divided by weight class regardless of their belt rank.
Two years on and the country is in desperate need of an association.
Members of Khalifa MMA in a group photo with special guests.
The BJJ community in the Sultanate has constantly been growing over the years
The year 2016 marked a significant change to the Brunei BJJ scene with the scrapping of Busiido BJJ Club.
Most practitioners follow Brunei's highest belt ranked Ahmad Faez to his new club Khalifa Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), meanwhile, few others have opened their own clubs but are still affiliated with Khalifa MMA.
To date there are four notable BJJ clubs in the Sultanate. The others are The Refinery (Belait), Wolfpack Training Ground (Tutong) and Jits Irmao (Tutong).
The past years saw an increased initiative in grassroots programme in almost every club encouraging participation of kids from as young as five years old.
There has also been an increase in participation of female athletes in the sport.
Female Jiu Jitsu community in Brunei led by Dk Norfaziah Pg Abas.
So has the time arrived for Brunei to give this sport and athletes the attention they deserve?
Basing on Brunei’s past records in the multi-sport events such as Asian Games and SEA Games, our athletes tend to excel in combat sports such as wushu, karate and pencak silat.
We believe it would be no surprise to see Ju-Jitsu follow suit and become one of the country's premier sports given that they have already established a strong foundation at the club level with the right structure and development programme.
