PETALING JAYA: Author Elena Gomez once described Brazilian Jiu-jitsu (BJJ) as ‘a soul-destroying, ego-clipping sport’.
Her description wasn’t wrong. With minimal use of striking, BJJ only uses grappling techniques to force opponents into a choke or joint locks. Nevertheless, you can take the hardest and toughest person you’ve ever known, throw him into a mat with a decently trained white belt, and Mr. Tough Guy may end up in a headlock within two minutes gasping for air.
Abang Dzulqarnaen, 26, took the BJJ challenge 10-and-a-half-years ago and is now the youngest BJJ black belt holder in Malaysia.
“The first 6 months is the hardest. If you go into BJJ thinking you’re gonna be Bruce Lee, you’ll be very wrong because the first thing you learn is how fragile the human body is and how weak you are, it’s not an ego-building sport,” Abang told theSun.
Abang isn’t just the youngest black belt in the country, but he’s a member of a very small community given that Malaysia only has about 20 black belts holders, with Malaysians forming an even smaller proportion of that number.
BJJ started out when Japanese martial artists taught Judo to locals in Brazil. But one man named Helio Gracie noticed that the moves may only favour a bigger and stronger fighter, leaving someone smaller like him at a major disadvantage. Noticing this, Helio made changes to the martial art, modifying it so that someone with his smaller stature can easily overpower a bigger opponent - starting the phenomenon of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
Abang too explained that he was a weak kid in school and started his BJJ journey in the middle of secondary school.
“I was bullied in school. BJJ gave me the means to defend myself. There were a lot of delinquents in my school,” he said.
And while many may know terms like BJJ and MMA (mixed martial arts) now, it took some time for the phenomenon to gain traction in Malaysia. BJJ hit the limelight in the western world in 1993 during UFC 1 - where many saw the tiny Royce Gracie ram through heavily muscled fighters like Ken Shamrock with ease, using only BJJ techniques.
But according to Abang, the sport only started getting popular in Malaysia around 2012.
“When I was young there wasn’t much MMA or BJJ events. Somewhere in 2012, when ONE Championship was created it became more popular through Chatri Sityodong’s events in Malaysia and Singapore,” Abang explained.
Now given that there’s an abundance of BJJ competitions in Malaysia, Abang was training for his post-black belt competition, but he told us that Covid-19 pandemic came in the way of his training and postponed the tournament.
And when Abang isn’t training under his coach Professor Pedro Falbo, he’s coaching BJJ to students at Muayfit where he’s potentially creating a new breed of young fighters.
“I hope to expand BJJ in Malaysia and empower youths aged 13-17 in the sport. In addition to that, I hope to reach out to college kids as well because depression is a problem among them and while BJJ isn’t a cure it could help students get back to a better mindset,” Abang said.
If you’re thinking Abang has his hands full with both training and coaching, he told us he works full-time running a vertical farming business called Babylon Vertical Farms.
“My other passion is fighting world hunger, which is why I got into vertical farming. We hope to increase food security in Malaysia and the world one day,” he said.
According to their website, Babylon counters the problem of shortage of farming space by allowing vegetables to grow in bustling cities with minimal space and minimal water usage.
