The Sport will evolve through an Influx of revised old Techniques and newly formed Techniques (or Variants of older Ones) that come out in Training.
Right now 90% of everyone is striking the same, doing Singles and Doubles and the occasional Bodylock and Trip, and the Armbar, Triangle, Chicken Wing.
Everything evolves.
We are just seeing the tip of the iceberg.
Rule changes alone may be key to a ton of evolution. What about every possible type of elbow and knee on the ground? What about headbutts? Kidney kicks from guard? Tactics would change in a *hurry* if any of those techniques were legal. Same as if fights dropped from 5 5-minute rounds to 3 4-minute rounds, or if it went in the other direction to 10 3-minute rounds, or to 2 10 minute rounds, etc. Or if that bizarre plexiglass cage idea ever comes to pass.
"If we stop producing experts in speciific martial arts, what I call training at the extreme edges, then we lose knowledge. Volumes of information will be lost with the loss of the specialist coach or master"
Aslong as the sports from which the martial art originates remains strong, the knowledge and evolution will not be lost.as long as BJJ is a sport there will always be BJJ specialists to pull from
I think the basic techniques, styles and training methods will stay pretty much the same, but the competition level will continue to grow.
"Rule changes alone may be key to a ton of evolution. "
IMO, it wasn't the time limits or even stand ups that hurt the BJJ player in
MMA. It was outlawing strikes to the back of the head and body. That
brought the Turtle position into play. As we old timers know, the Turtle
was despised and I say, proven ineffective in early competitions between
BJJ and Judo players. Now, the prototypical BJJ strategy, including the use
of the mount, is technically questionable because of the restrictions of
striking the back.