
For those who don’t know him, Jason Chih is a young talent under the guidance of Vicente Júnior, the 5th degree black-belt in the De La Riva lineage. Jiu-Jitsu purple-belt and team partner of orange-belt Gabriel Silva, another promise of the sport, Chih told the VF Comunica team some details about his career, the evolution of his game and plans for the future.
A young athlete, turning 18 in 2023, Jason went through the difficult transition from juvenile to adult, an inevitable phase, although little talked about, for those who have dedicated themselves to competition since childhood. It was like that with Jason. “This year was my first year as an adult so adjusting to the division was challenging but I was able to finish the year winning. I think I evolved more strategically as the matches I lost were almost all by small margins and I began fighting with a better game plan.”, analyzes the adult purple-belt champion of the IBJJF Jiu-Jitsu Con this year.
From learning self-defense to an athlete’s lifestyle
When asked about how he started practicing Jiu-Jitsu, the athlete said that Jiu-Jitsu was his father’s choice because it taught self-defense in a very practical way. The father’s concern, who looked for ways for his son to learn to defend himself, became something more, transforming Chih into an athlete full of desire to always go further, committed to the training led by Vicente Júnior.
“Typically we work on specific positions that we feel we need to work on and improve, and then lots of sparring. (…) My style is more technical and more guard based but I’m also enjoying guard passing a lot more.”, reveals the guard expert, strictly following the idea that repetition leads to perfection.
Jason Chih wants to fight grappling in 2024
Attentive to tendencies that direct competitors towards more profitable and notoriety options, Jason Chih has already included grappling on his radar. According to him, Jiu-Jitsu will hardly match grappling in terms of growth, since it is in this modality that the public finds the expected entertainment.
“I plan on doing more No Gi next year as it seems like that’s where the sport is heading. I think it will be hard for Jiu-Jitsu to become a professional sport because unlike other sports, it’s a lot more complicated and people mainly watch for entertainment, which is difficult when the top competitors are usually evenly matched.”, he states, finishing the interview with enthusiasm by saying that the gold medals most sought after next year are those from the Worlds and the PanAms, two of the IBJJF’s biggest tournaments.