First involved in continental governance in 2014, Al Shamsi was part of a group tasked with re-shaping the JJAU, who had approximately "12 or 13" members under its belt.

Now with 33 active members, the general secretary has theorised that this quick uptake is partly due to Asian countries' love for martial arts.

"This reputation of ju-jitsu in Asia has come because we have good spirit, we have this unity and commitment as well as the motivation to take part in competition like the Asian Games," Al Shamsi said, speaking to insidethegames.

"There were around 12 or 13 members in 2014 - now we have 33 active members.

"We are active, but still our goal is to have all the countries to have members.

"At the Jakarta 2018 Asian Games, the number of countries there was 27 nations which was one of the highest for a sport at the Asian Games.

"This showed that ju-jitsu is everywhere in Asia.

"In Asia, we are moving in a good way - there is good infrastructure for sport.

"There's a good progress in quality of events, athletes, coaches and referees."

Al Shamsi played his part in putting the pieces back together for the JJAU, claiming that before there was "a lack of communication and lack of organisation".

"Since 2014, I think we have found the way to communicate with people and bring more people in," added Al Shamsi.

"That is when we started our plan to have more Asian countries and more activity.

"We started with the Asian Beach Games in Phuket.

"We then built up a nice relationship with the Olympic Council of Asia."

The general secretary stressed the importance of putting the focus on the athletes too, hoping deals can be struck to increase the ju-jitsu's visibility.

"One of the requirements of hosting these Asian Championships is to have it covered," the Emirati official added.

"If you go to see our coverage in general - we always try to focus on the athletes.

"We use our relation with the media companies to give a guarantee to the players to let them see them as the stars.

"This is one of the reasons for the interest of the sport in Asia, it's not only TV, we are looking at digital too.

"We stream most of the events and most of the mats, we are trying to use all digital tools to reach the people, to give the athletes the spotlight."

The Asian Ju-Jitsu Championships concluded today, with Thailand finishing top of the medals table on 16 golds.