A practical use for blockchain technology for jiu-jitsu
I’ve been practicing jiu-jitsu since 2015 and I really should be better at it by now. I’m a hobbyist and don’t train to be a champion, but it’s an artful practice that I take pride in. For those that are unfamiliar with jiu-jitsu, the martial art can be an intimate practice that requires around a decade or more to get to the blackbelt level, so the work one puts into the practice is taken very seriously. This is why practitioners can take great pride in their lineage as well as a gauge of the legitimacy of their jiu-jitsu.
Whom people trained under is almost as important as how long one has trained. I’d imagine other serious disciplines have similar concerns of lineage; musicians, martial artists, and dancers seem to revere the concept of lineage as a common value.
As the art expands, lineage may become more difficult to track, but technologies like the blockchain may be able to solve some of these issues of a growing community that values their lineage and integrity.
Martial arts has a long history of fakes and frauds.
As jiu-jitsu grows in popularity our community is seeing it’s share of frauds claiming to be black belts and opening schools, which is very dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing but also incredibly disrespectful to those who have dedicated so much of their time and energy to the practice.
At the same time, there’s no broad central accreditation for jiu-jitsu. IBJJF.com provides black belt accreditation and registration, but one can perform a search for a famous black belt like John Danaher and see that they are not in the database. We all know of great instructors that likely aren’t registered and with the explosive growth of jiu-jitsu, the legitimacy of one’s practice may be more difficult to authenticate over time.
The Blockchain is built for trust and integrity
Integrity and lineage are core to blockchain technology; a block is very good at tracking ownership.
Bitcoin is the most well-known application of blockchain technology, but one can look at it entirely differently; as a trusted, distributed record of lineage or ownership.
For those that would rather watch a video of how it works:
Blockchain works by providing every member of a network with a copy of every transaction that occurs on the network. If a fraudulent transaction is attempted, it will cause all further transactions to fail. The video explains it much better than I could, but it basically provides a trusted record of transactions that are transparent for every person on the network.
At scale, it’s difficult to store large amounts of data on the network since it requires every member to keep a record, so the data stored tends to be pretty sparse but great for recording transactional data such as:
- From:
- To:
- Amount:
If we were to take this same technology but take the money part out of it and replace it with achievements relevant to an art, a jiu-jitsu block might look something like this:
- From:
- To:
- Belt Rank Increment Amount:
Once users receive these tokens, they can display proof that they have trained under a particular instructor and have received a rank from them. Each school could have its own network, or there may be an opportunity for multi-school networks.
Having a digital identity that verifies lineage and rank would be useful for things like tournament registrations, content authorship, or other forms of online activity that require authentication or proof of lineage.
I see similar opportunities with hula as the practice grows and distributes itself across the world.
Living in Hawaiʻi, I have a deep respect for hula and can see similarities to jiu-jitsu in the reverence of lineage and authenticity. As our lives are documented online with greater frequency, I can see the popularity of hula exploding, and the need for authenticity growing in kind.
These solutions would be relatively simple to set up and could be run either by a large organization or at the academy level. Or both. The technology is only limited by the governance that humans are willing to put in.
Culture and Lineage
As blockchain-based cryptocurrencies surge in early 2021, I think it’s important to note that these technologies can serve values beyond capital. Blockchain has the power to provide trust, integrity, and a sustainable network to track ownership or authorship of the constructs that compose our arts and culture.
I’d love to hear from others in regards to what other opportunities are available with blockchain technology beyond business and commerce.
