IBJJF & ADCC

Created by Master Carlos Gracie Jnr, the International Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Federation (IBJJF) is the official body representing the sport of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, with the purpose of promoting, organising and regulating it. It pioneered the official competition rules of BJJ — the standardised ruleset followed by practitioners all over the world.

The IBJJF also forms the criteria on which practitioners grade their students, preserving the integrity of the martial art and ensuring instructors have clear guidelines to measure technical evolution. It organises competitions including its annual Jiu Jitsu World Championship, which attracts the best fighters alive from countries such as the United States, Japan, South Africa, Australia, Portugal, Sweden and France.

The ADCC (Abu Dhabi Combat Club) is the submission-fighting world federation. After being inspired by the first UFC, Sheik Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan — son of then U.A.E. leader Sheik Zayed — became inspired by mixed martial arts and the different forms of grappling.

Sheik Tahnoon set out to build his own measure of ground-fighting martial arts, hiring instructors from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, Wrestling, Sambo and more, and giving them world-class facilities. Given the multitude of rulesets, he created a new competition with a set of 'neutral' rules allowing practitioners of various martial arts to compete — without the brutality of strikes — to prove which grappling style was most effective. Thus, in 1998, the first ADCC World Submission Fighting Championships was created.