Christian Derval belongs to the small group of French practitioners who brought Brazilian jiu-jitsu to Europe. He was present at Rickson Gracie's 1995 seminar at the Cercle Tissier in Paris, which is widely credited as the birth of French BJJ, and travelled with Guy Mialot and his son Aurelien Derval to a Rickson seminar in New York in 1996, returning as the first French blue belt. As Rickson's official French representative from 1997 to 2001 he was central to the discipline's early spread, and he worked to formalize the sport by helping establish the French Federation of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu around 2000. He was part of the first generation of French black belts (alongside Patrick Bittan, Alain Nagera and Thierry Rijvas) promoted in the early 2000s under the Cercle Tissier structure supervised by red belt Flavio Behring. His partnership with Guy Mialot later dissolved as the two pursued separate paths. He also authored an early French-language instructional book on the sport.