And I know a hare-brained sports scheme when I see one, having inflicted several dozen on myself over the past 30-some years.

This one is crazy enough not even I would have done it in my youth. Probably not. Well, maybe not.

And it involves 48 kids from the ages of 10 to 16.

Check this out. See if this is anything but hare-brained.

Jiu-jitsu, the least aggressive/most zen of the martial arts, is becoming a sort of national preoccupation here.

One of the prominent sheikhs picked it up while attending college overseas (and I want to say it was in San Diego), and when he returned to the UAE to live he was fired up about getting people involved in jiu-jitsu.

Turns out, his brothers are several of the most powerful men in the country, so this jiu-jitsu thing began to pick up momentum.

Now, one of the two biggest JJ events in the world is held in Abu Dhabi annually, and the general secretary of the governing federation is an Emirati, and the UAE is pouring money into the sport.

Some of it makes a lot of sense.

Emiratis, the citizens here, must be among the least physically active people in the world. Basically, the idea is that if you want a workout, you pay someone to have it for you.

It’s brutally hot six months a year, nastily hot another two or three, so exercising outside is pretty much a non-starter. And, then, the culture has not reached a place yet where people realize, “Hey, our grandparents worked out all the time — it was called living in the desert! So maybe we ought to get the heart pumping for 30 minutes a day.”

And that is where jiu-jitsu comes in.

One aspect of it is that JJ has been instituted into the curriculum of all public schools. So every kid knows the basics of this now. Discipline, taking care of yourself, being able to defend yourself, get some exercise. So far, so good.

Now, they have dozens of age-group competitors they believe are pretty good, so the federation has decided to send them overseas to an international competition, the first overseas sports trip by a group of Emirati kids. History, that is.

In Long Beach, California.

Eleven time zones from the UAE.

Halfway around the world.

After flying on a 16-hour, 25-minute nonstop from Abu Dhabi (Yes, the one I wrote about not long ago) which seems to run about an hour late every day.

To compete in a two-day Kids Tournament in Long Beach.

And the whole of the trip lasts six days.

That’s the hare-brained part of it. The six-day thing going to and returning from the other side of the world.

Here is the itinerary.

–Today. The 48 kids (including seven girls) and their minders and keepers and coaches, all take Etihad flight 171, the 16-hour, 25-minute monstrosity I mentioned (linked, above). They were supposed to leave at 8:50 a.m. and arrive at LAX at 2:15 p.m. They then faced a rush-hour traffic buildup on their way down to Long Beach, via the 405 and 710 freeways. What could go wrong? Figure they got to the hotel on Ocean Boulevard no earlier than 5.

–Tomorrow. Up and at ’em early — well, they will be so jet-lagged, everyone will have been up all night, probably — to take a bus to Hollywood, and see the sign. And the sights. Here’s guessing most of the kids sleep all the way back to the hotel.

–Friday. They go over to the Long Beach Convention Center, venue for the competition, then spend the rest of the day “shopping”. (More likely, sleeping.) As a Long Beach native, I would have recommended the Aquarium of the Pacific — educational, low-stress, interesting, a few blocks from the hotel — but no one asked.

–Saturday and Sunday. Competition at the Convention Center. Which, if it runs from, say, 10 to 5 … is actually competition from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. UAE time, which the whole of the travel party will still be on, in terms of body clocks.

–Monday. Back to LAX and Etihad flight 170, departing at 4:40 p.m., the 8,390-mile flight, which is “only” about 16 hours, going east/north sted west/north.

They are scheduled to land in the UAE at 7:50 p.m. the next day, Tuesday.

So, six days total. Seven, if you count the day lost while in the air.

Two/three days given over to brutally long plane trips. Two to competition. One to going to Hollywood. One to hoping to get ready for the competition.

Ambition is great. And to get better, the local jiu-jitsu practitioners will need to go out of the country, eventually.

But this particular itinerary? Couldn’t they find something in, oh, Qatar?

Wow.

We hope to get some stories out of this, for The National, in the coming days.