SLIGHTLY more than a year ago, Alaa Hasan participated in her first international jiu jitsu competition. Now, she has six gold and two silver medals and has her sights set on becoming the first female black belt world champion from Bahrain.
The 23-year-old, who graduated from Bahrain Polytechnic with a degree in marketing last January, currently has a blue belt and, with her studies done for the time being, is a full-time coach at globe-trotting Bahraini jiu jitsu superstar Ali Monfaradi’s academy.
“It’s been an intense but immensely fruitful year and a bit,” Hasan told the GDN in an exclusive interview. “But these have all been baby steps towards my ultimate goal: to be the first Bahraini woman to become a black belt jiu jitsu world champion!”
The second of four sisters, Hasan first developed an interest in judo while at school and started formally practising the sport when she was a teenager.
“I was always an athlete, always into sports while I was at school,” she said. “And judo always interested me, so, in 2018, when I was about 18, I started practising it.”
Hasan’s first judo coach was a cousin who supervised her first few months in the sport. By then, the teenager had also developed a liking for jiu jitsu and thought she would give it a shot.
“I used to do a lot of cross-training as part of my fitness routine for judo,” Hasan explained. “Actually, I still do cross-training – and all three of my sisters do crossfit.
“And I’d been watching and reading a lot about jiu jitsu so I thought I’d give it a try. The logical thing to do, then, was to try and learn it from someone who was the best in Bahrain.”
So Hasan joined Monfaradi’s jiu jitsu academy in the summer of 2019.
“It was a no-brainer, really,” she laughed. “I mean, Ali has more than 200 medals from competitions around the world now. Even four years ago, I think he had close to a hundred.
“And he was someone I instantly looked up to. I really didn’t have any famous international judo or jiu jitsu idols as such because I don’t believe in being star-struck; or being a blind fan.
“But Ali ended up not just being my coach and my mentor – and, also, eventually, my employer – he also became someone I admired and respected immensely for his work ethic and his dedication to his craft. So I hope to emulate that.”
Once Hasan got into the swing of jiu jitsu, things were going smoothly until the coronavirus pandemic hit the world in early 2020.
“I was training for a local jiu jitsu competition when Covid-19 reared its head,” she said. “And we all know what happened then. Gyms were also closed down, along with everything else, so, in order to keep myself in fighting trim, I went back to practising judo under my cousin’s supervision because we didn’t really need a gym to do that.”
More than a year later, when restrictions finally started to ease, Hasan went back to the academy and resumed her jiu jitsu training. And, in March 2022, she found herself selected as one of only two girls in the Bahrain team for the Asian Championship which was held in the kingdom.
“It was a huge, absolutely massive deal for me!” Hasan exclaimed. “Ali selected me, of course, even though I had only a white belt by then. But he must have seen some potential in me so, I think, that might have put a little subconscious pressure on me to try and live up to that faith in my abilities.”
Unfortunately, Hasan lost her bout. But she had won something else: a newfound passion for jiu jitsu and she was determined now to prove that she belonged on the international stage.
“It’s hard to explain but that tournament made me understand that I didn’t just ‘like’ the sport – I was truly passionate about it and totally committed to it,” she said. “And there was something else: I had discovered that I didn’t just want to become the best jiu jitsu exponent possible, I also wanted to become a coach.”
Hasan focused, first, on trying to improve her skills as a jiu jitsu athlete and, in July 2022, she took part in her first-ever AJP Tour event in Fujaira in the UAE.
“I was a blue belt by then,” she remembered. “And I was pretty confident going into my first fight. But I lost, unfortunately.”
But that was only a minor setback for the determined young athlete because, just two weeks later, she stood on the winner’s podium at an event organised by the Saudi Jiu Jitsu Federation in Riyadh, clasping her first gold medal.
“It was an incredible feeling,” Hasan said. “But, more incredible was the reaction of my parents and sisters: they were absolutely ecstatic!”
A month later, in another Saudi event in Dammam, Hasan won her second gold medal and even the sky didn’t seem to be the limit for the young, focused athlete.
“But I had to rein myself in,” she said. “My final semester at university was coming up and I needed to focus on my studies and all the graduation projects I had to do.”
Soon after she graduated last January, Hasan found herself en route to the 2023 European Jiu-Jitsu IBJFF Championship organised by the International Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Federation (IBJJF).
“Sadly, I lost my bout,” she said. “But I was super-driven after that and, at the AJP Tour event in Abu Dhabi just a month and a bit later, in March, I won my first ever AJP Tour silver medal!”
After a small break, Hasan came into her own in two successive AJP Tour events in Qatar and Istanbul in May, winning golds in both the GI and No GI categories in the first tournament and repeating the feat in the second.
And, for good measure, she added a silver to her impressive haul at another AJP Tour event in Dubai the next month.
With more competitions coming up over the next few months, Hasan has focused on her training as much as she can. But she has also added another feather to her cap by beginning to coach adults – she’s already been coaching young children for a year – at Monfaradi’s academy.
“It’s all so much fun,” Hasan said. “And it’s all leading up to something I really want.
“I am working toward getting my black belt. But I know that it’s a long process, that it might take, maybe, five or six years. I’m fine with that. I’m all about learning, about understanding a concept or, in this case, a sport.
“So I want to really ‘earn’ my black belt by understanding the sport totally, by understanding my role in relation to it, by understanding my potential and by understanding how far I can really go in it.
“And, of course, once I’ve earned my black belt, I want to make my country proud by becoming the first woman from Bahrain to be a black belt jiu jitsu world champion!”
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