Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
Taking Fights to the Ground
Jiu Jitsu is one of the oldest martial arts. It is spelled several ways, including jiu jitsu, jujitsu, jiujitsu and jujutsu. Jujitsu is the father of Judo, Aikido and some Karate styles.
The Development of Jiu-Jitsu
* All ancient cultures had some form of grappling and unarmed fighting techniques.
* The Greek culture gave its fighters the greatest financial and social rewards. The ancient Greeks conquered quite a bit of territory during the time of Alexander the Great, including the area that Jiu-Jitsu's techniques were said to have come from.
* Wrestling did exist in China and Mongolia before Jiu-Jitsu did in Japan, and it is interesting to note that this is where Native American wrestling most likely came from by way of migration over the Alaskan Ice Bridge.
* The pinning and throwing techniques of Jiu-Jitsu are very similar to, and in some cases, the same as those of Greco Roman Wrestling.
Jiu-Jitsu itself was developed in Japan during the Feudal period. It was originally an art designed for warfare, but after the abolition of the Feudal system in Japan, certain modifications needed to be made to the art in order to make it suitable for practice. During Feudal times, Jiu-Jitsu was also known as Yawara, Hakuda, Kogusoko, and an assortment of other names. The earliest recorded use of the word "jiu-jitsu" happens in 1532 and is coined by the Takenouchi Ryu (school). The history of the art during this time is uncertain because teachers kept everything secret to give their art a feeling of importance and then would change the stories of their art to suit their own needs.
Jiu-Jitsu in Brazil
Eventually, in Japan many different variations of the art (Jiu-Jitsu) took shape, including Karate, Aikido, and Judo. But these arts were missing essential pieces of what the complete art of Jiu-Jitsu originally held. Soon the day of the Samurai came to an end, the gun replaced the sword, and new sportive ways to practice martial arts were developed. This lack of reality created years of confusion in the martial arts community, a confusion that legendary Bruce Lee would later refer to as the 'classical mess'. The 'sport arts', such as Judo and Kendo were wonderful in the way of offering their practitioners a safe way to realistically train the techniques of their system, but often limited their practitioners with too many rules to maintain effectiveness as a combative style. The more traditional combat schools were simply practicing techniques no longer suitable for modern day combat, and with no way to safely test them, practicing these arts became like swimming without water. It wasn't until the sport art of Judo and the combat art of Jiu-Jitsu were introduced to the Gracie family in Brazil that the real art of Jiu-Jitsu would be brought to life again. Japanese Jiu-Jitsu (practiced as Judo) was introduced to the Gracie family in Brazil (@ 1915) by Esai Maeda, who is also known as Conde Koma. This name came about when Maeda was in Spain (1908). While in Spain, Maeda, having some financial troubles, used the Japanese verb "komaru", meaning to be in trouble, to describe himself. Maeda decided this didn't sound right, so he dropped the last syllable and changed it to "koma." The word "conde" comes from the Spanish language, meaning "Count." Later in his life, Maeda would be given the Brazilian title of "Conte Comte," or Count Combat.
Maeda was a champion of Judo and a direct student of its founder, Jigoro Kano, at the Kodokan in Japan. He was born in 1878, and became a student of Judo in 1897. In 1904 Maeda was given the opportunity to travel to the United States with one of his teachers, Tsunejiro Tomita. While in the U.S. they demonstrated the art of Judo for Theodore Roosevelt at the White House, and for cadets at the West Point Military Academy.
Maeda eventually parted ways with Tomita, and settled in Brazil. Maeda was staying in Sao Palo City to help establish a Japanese Immigration colony. At this time Brazil held the largest population of Japanese people outside Japan. He was aided in Brazil by Gastao Gracie, a Brazilian of Scottish decent, who's first experience with Jiu-Jitsu was most likely through managing an Italian boxer named Alfredi Leconti, who fought a friend of Maeda in November of 1916.
For some time in Japan, Judo and Jiu-Jitsu were almost synonymous. Judo was known as Kano's Jiu-Jitsu. Regardless, this answers the question, "why do they call it Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and not Brazilian Judo?" Because they were essentially the same thing at the time, remember, the Gracie family was learning Jiu-Jitsu and Judo while Kano was still struggling to show the difference between the two and popularize his art. In the early 1900's there was very little difference between the two. In fact, Judo was merely a collection of Jiu-jitsu styles, whose strongest points were put together to make what then became Judo. The Gracie family was introduced to Judo at a time when the Kodokan had recently suffered a great defeat to the grappling style of the Fusen Ryu. This can be compared to the Ultimate Fighting Championship of the early 1990's, when most martial artists were attempting to fight Royce Gracie standing. They would all eventually find themselves on the ground, where they were at a loss as to what to do. Consequently, grappling became very popular over the next ten years and many styles began to incorporate grappling techniques into their curriculum. Royce Gracie was simply doing what had already been done in the early 1900's by the Fusen Ryu to Judo practitioners of the Kodokan, so we can easily draw the conclusion from the experience in our own time that when Meada arrived in Brazil, he was a student of a Kodokan that was adding "new" grappling techniques to its system.
To show gratitude to Gracie for his help in the colonization, Maeda taught Gastao's son Carlos the basic techniques of Jiu-Jitsu. Carlos Gracie then taught his brothers Oswaldo, Jorge, Gastao, and Helio. In 1925 the brothers opened their first school, and Jiu-Jitsu was cultivated into a more effective martial art and sport known as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. What made this version of Jiu-Jitsu more effective was the constant exposure of its practitioners to real situations. Between their own schools, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu players would compete in a sportive way to keep the techniques of their art sharp. The Gracie family would issue a challenge to all others to fight without rules. In these no rules or 'vale tudo' fights, the Gracie family and their students would evaluate the techniques of their fighting art.
"If you want to get your face beaten and well smashed, your ___ kicked, and your arms broken, Contact Carlos Gracie at this address..."
-- Brazilian newspaper ad, circa 1920s
Through the last fifty years, many Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu schools have opened and broken away from the original members of the Gracie family, making subtle differences in styles within Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, Machado Jiu-Jitsu, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu are all different schools of the same art. The Gracie family itself has hundreds of members who do not all associate with one another.
The formal teaching of Jiu-Jitsu to Brazilians by the Gracie family began in 1940 when Helio opened an academy in Rio. Over the next 18 years, if you wanted to learn Jiu-Jitsu from the Gracie family in Brazil, you had a choice of four academies, all of which were located in Rio. The Gracie's were not the only one's teaching Judo and Jiu-Jitsu in Brazil, but they were certainly the most popular, teaching over 2000 students in that 18 year period. A good example of this is Mehdi, a Judo master who came to Brazil from France in 1949, and still teaches there now. There have been Judo schools in Brazil since the early 1900's and Sao Paulo still has a very large Japanese population. Mehdi's list of students include Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belts Mario Sperry, Rickson Gracie, and Sylvio Behring, just to name a few. This is another example of Judo's influence on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and that Helio Gracie did not invent it. The Gracie family developed the art of Judo into a more effective rules-free style. While in Brazil, I learned about a Grand Master named "Fadda," who learned Jiu-Jitsu from a man named Luis Franca. Like Carlos Gracie, Franca also learned Jiu-Jitsu (Judo) from Meada. Fadda took the Jiu-Jitsu he learned from Franca and started his own school of Jiu-Jitsu in Brazil. His popularity is not as great as the Gracie family, but nonetheless, he is an example of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu being refined and practiced outside the Gracie family. His students compete in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournaments and consider their art separate from both Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and the older styles of Jiu-Jitsu in Japan. This stands as evidence that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is not the same thing.
In 1967, the first federation of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was created by Helio Gracie, and the system of belts as we know it was developed (white, blue, purple, brown, and black). Around the time the Carlson Gracie team was born in the early 1970's, the Gracie family made their first split. Carlson Gracie was the son of Carlos and a very reputable Vale Tudo fighter. He claimed many victories while defending the Gracie family name, including avenging one of Helio's very few losses. There were now two sides of the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Family, students under Helio and students under Carlson. Helio's side would argue that Carlson's style of Jiu-Jitsu involved too much strength and that it was Helio who developed the technique further due to the fact that he was much smaller than his brother Carlos, who taught it to him. The fact remains that it is basically the same Jiu-Jitsu with a few natural variations in teaching methods in the actual application of techniques. Robson Gracie created a new federation in 1988 and Carlos Gracie Jr. created the Confederacao Brasiliera in 1993. Carlos Jr.'s federation is the most active one worldwide and is responsible for the development of the World Championships. The idea of the Mundial (World's) is to attract foreign competitors in hopes of making Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu an Olympic sport. This was all done around the time Royce was winning the first UFC (early 1990's) and giving America its first prominent taste of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Members of the Gracie family are not the only ones to operate federations and associations of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu who may organize tournaments or give rank within the art. In an interview with Andre Pederneiras, a fifth degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and founder of the Nova Uniao team, he was asked about his involvement in the promotion of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and organization of the art's first tournament. He stated that he had organized the first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournament in 1993, then the following questions were asked:
"You are one of the few Black Belts from Rolls Gracie, what was it like learning from him?"
"It was spectacular, Rolls as the best of his time, besides being a great instructor he was also an incredible person. I trained with him from '74 until '82 when he died. He died on June 6th, '82 and I had received my Black Belt in February. He would teach a lot of self defense, stand up, and ground fighting, with and without gi. It was a very complete class. He had started to do wrestling, so he added a lot of the wrestling attacks, single leg and double legs takedowns. So Rolls revolutionized the Jiu-Jitsu with his new positions. As a matter of fact, the "Triangle" was invented by one of his students, Sergio Dorileo, Sergio had been studying a Japanese book of positions and invented the Triangle. At that time everybody would pass the Guard the traditional way with one hand on the biceps and the other hand between the legs and low, so all of a sudden, if you would try to pass Dorileo's guard you'd end up in a triangle. What was considered the right way didn't work anymore. Can you imagine!!! Everybody had to go back and rethink a lot. It was an incredible experience, I learned so much from Rolls, even the way he warm up the class was special. It was one of the greatest losses in my life and it took me years to get over. I still get choked up, to this day, when I reminisce."
Helio Gracie: "I didn't invent the martial art. I adapted it to my necessity-what I needed for my weight and lack of strength. I learned jujutsu, but some of the moves required a lot of strength, so I could not use them. I couldn't get out from some of the positions I learned from my brother because of my lack of strength and weight. So I developed other ways out."
No matter where you live or what style of Jiu-Jitsu you practice, we all owe some degree of respect to the Gracie Family for introducing us to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The Gracie family is responsible for a large part of the modern advancement or improvement of Jiu-Jitsu. The term Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is used to describe the difference between the 'old' Jiu-Jitsu (jujutsu/jujitsu), and the Gracie family's advancement of the art through the 1900's. Now that 'Gracie Jiu-Jitsu' has spread all over Brazil and to the United States, many champions of the art are being born that are not Gracie Family members. These champions are contributing to the art's progression by improving on techniques and developing new ones. The bulk of basic movements may still be Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, but as the art develops, the term 'Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu' becomes more appropriate. As more and more innovators contribute to the art outside of Brazil, it eventually may be appropriate to simply call the art 'Jiu-Jitsu'.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was introduced to the United States in the 1970's, but was not made popular until 1993, when Royce Gracie defeated opponents from other martial arts in a contest called the Ultimate Fighting Championship. This type of fighting was known in Brazil as Vale Tudo (anything goes) and would later become known as NHB (No Holds Barred) here in the United States. The effectiveness of the art form over so many others made Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu known to the martial arts community and the world. This was America's first look at Mixed Martial Arts fighting. Unlike many other martial arts, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gained its reputation and popularity through effective fighting, not Hollywood movies.
In November of 1993, a large number of Americans would get their first look at Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu ... it wasn't pretty. For years in the United States, the Martial Arts community had been plagued by the mystique and misconception created by Hollywood. I can remember getting into street fights as a kid and having my opponent say "OK, no Kung fu stuff!" thinking that if the other guy knew Kung fu, something terribly deadly would happen. This couldn't be farther from the truth, and in 1993 we would all find that out. To make a long and over-told story short, Royce Grace, a thin Brazilian, was pitted against champions of Kung Fu, Karate, Boxing, Kickboxing, Wrestling and a variety of other Martial arts in a contest called the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Unlike the American No Holes Barred contests of today, Royce had to fight up to 4 times in each tournament. There were no weight classes and Royce was usually the lightest, sometimes being outweighed by 80 lbs. or more. There were very few rules: no eye gouging, no biting, and no time limits. Although this would be The United State's first look at Brazilian Jiu-jitsu vs. other styles of Martial Arts, it was not the first time a ground fighting style would have the opportunity to show the superiority of Grappling vs. Striking alone.
Differences between Traditional and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
The first and most important reason can be found in the art's history and is primary to all others discussed afterward. When you research the history of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, you will understand that it came from "Judo" in its time of renaissance. In the early 1900's, Judo was being developed from a variety of Jiu-jitsu styles in order to make it the most complete and effective martial art in the world. Some older Jiu-jitsu schools only focused on one area of fighting (some practiced primarily standing techniques) and had been left without a realistic battlefield testing ground for hundreds of years. If you recall the history of Judo's beginning, you know that it was made up of mostly standing techniques at first, from Kito Ryu Jiu-jitsu and a few other styles. This alone was not enough, so the groundwork of Fusen Ryu was added, making it more complete. When you say "traditional" or "Japanese" Jiu-jitsu, you are referring to only one of these Jiu-jitsu styles, which is incomplete alone. When you say Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, you are referring to the best techniques from a wide variety of styles.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu focuses on techniques that are easy to learn in a very short period of time. The techniques taught in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu are also effective and have been tested on knowledgeable martial artists who are not cooperating. A small amount of simple but high percentage techniques makes the difference. If all you do is practice five or six techniques, you will be very good at them in a year or so, but if you have to divide your time between a hundred or more techniques, you will most likely be a jack of all trades and a master of none in a year's time.
The differences in the two styles of Jiu-Jitsu are not necessarily in the technique, but in the practice and application. First of all, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has a very sophisticated ground-game, where Japanese Jiu-Jitsu places importance on standing techniques, as does Judo. Judo as a sport does not allow leg locks, where Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu does. Sport rules for Judo dictate that if a player has been pinned by his/her opponent for twenty-five seconds, he or she will lose the match. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has no time restraints on ground positions and stalling most often occurs while standing. Older styles of Jiu-Jitsu (often spelled jujutsu or jujitsu) are usually preceded with their style name or Ryu (the Japanese word for "style"). These Ryu of Jiu-Jitsu were developed long ago and have no sport application to allow them to develop technically. The lack of realistic practice is what makes some styles ineffective or obsolete.
To really understand the differences between Brazilian and Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, one must research the history of both arts. In particular the birthing of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu by Carlos Gracie, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu's founder, who was an avid boxer. Most Japanese Jiu-Jitsu fighters were studying traditional Karate strikes, which are much different from that of a boxer. Maeda, the man who introduced Gracie to Jiu-Jitsu, was also a student of Judo, which at the time was considered an updated version of Jiu-Jitsu, or Kano 's Jiu-Jitsu. As discussed previously, the Judo that the Gracie family was introduced to was a Judo whose focus had turned to ground fighting in recent years. This ground fighting came from only one style of Jiu-jitsu (Fusen Ryu), the other styles that made up Judo had not focused on ground work, so as their practice continued, they stayed to their traditional roots, which considered mainly of standing techniques. While older styles of Jiu-jitsu stuck to their core curriculums, Judo soon forgot about experience and turned its attention to gaining world wide exposure as an Olympic sport, which would eventually restrict the once great art and cause it to focus once again on primarily standing techniques. Maeda was also exposed to western wrestling, as he had encountered one wrestler in particular at the West Point Military Academy in New York, and had more experience fighting throughout Europe and the Americas than any other Japanese fighter of that time.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a progressive style of Jiu-Jitsu; once a technique is developed and used in competition, other Jiu-Jitsu players begin to design counters to that technique, and counters to those counters, which allows Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to evolve freely. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu players do not prepare for the untrained opponent; they assume that their opponent may be more technical.
The problem with some 'older' styles of Jiu-Jitsu is the same problem with old cars, or anything that has not been updated or modified. I earned a black belt in Japanese Jiu-Jitsu and now that I am at an advanced level of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I notice the similarities and differences. Some of the self-defense movements are identical; it is typically in the groundwork (ne waza) where the Judo or Japanese Jiu-Jitsu practitioner lacks ability. It is for that reason I started training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
Comparing "old" Jiu-Jitsu to "new" Jiu-Jitsu is like comparing old cars to new. Both a Ford Model-T and a Ferrari will do the same job, but a Ferrari will do it more efficiently. The ability of Jiu-Jitsu teachers can be compared to the mechanics certified to work on these cars; if you take a mechanic from 1910 and show him a Ferrari, some things would look familiar, but he would not understand the new design and complexity of the modern variation without proper training.
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