History of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Over four centuries ago in northern India, Buddhist monks were busy going about the dangerous work of trying to spread the word of ‘Buddha’ in a world that wasn’t always kind to roaming peoples. In order to defend themselves from attacks that happened along the way, they developed a form of grappling that allowed them to subdue opponents without killing them.
Eventually this style of fighting made its way to Japan where it was improved upon and called jujutsu or jiu- jitsu. Judo is a derivative of jiu– jitsu. Jiu-jitsu is known as more than just a system of fighting. Since its inception in 1882, its parent art of judo was separated from older systems of Japanese jujutsu by an important difference that was passed on to BJJ: it is not solely a martial art: it is also a sport; a method for promoting physical fitness and building character in young people; and, ultimately, a way of life.
Mitsuyo Maeda
Mitsuyo Maeda, a member of Kodokan, was one of five of Judo’s top groundwork experts that Judo’s founder Kano Jigoro sent overseas to demonstrate and spread his art to the world. Maeda had trained first in sumo as a teenager, and after the interest generated by stories about the success of judo at contests between judo and jujutsu that were occurring at the time, he changed from sumo to judo, becoming a student of Kano’s Kodokan judo. Maeda left Japan in 1904 and visited a number of countries giving “jiu-do” demonstrations and accepting challenges from wrestlers, boxers, savate fighters and various other martial artists before eventually arriving in Brazil on November 14, 1914. Outside Japan, however, this distinction was noted even less. Thus, when Maeda and Satake arrived in Brazil in 1914, every newspaper announced their art as being “jiu-jitsu” despite both men being Kodokan judoka.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu ( (BJJ) is a martial art, combat sport, and a self defence system that focuses on grappling and especially ground fighting. The art was derived from the Japanese martial art of Kodokan judo (which itself is derived from Japanese Jujutsu) in the early 20th century.
It teaches that a smaller, weaker person can successfully defend against a bigger, stronger assailant by using leverage and proper technique—most notably by applying joint-locks and chokeholds to defeat the other person. BJJ training can be used for sport grappling tournaments and mixed martial arts (MMA) competition or self defence. Sparring (commonly referred to as “rolling”) and live drilling play a major role in training, and a premium is placed on performance, especially in competition, in relation to progress and ascension through its ranking system.
Gastão Gracie was a business partner of the American Circus in Belém. In 1916, Italian Argentine circus Queirolo Brothers staged shows there and presented Maeda. In 1917, Carlos Gracie, the eldest son of Gastão Gracie, watched a demonstration by Maeda at the Da Paz Theatre and decided to learn judo. Maeda accepted Carlos as a student and Carlos learned for a few years, eventually passing his knowledge on to his brothers.
At age fourteen, Hélio Gracie, the youngest of the brothers, moved in with his older brothers who lived and taught Jiu-Jitsu in a house in Botafogo. Following a doctor’s recommendations, Hélio would spend the next few years being limited to watching his brothers teach as he was naturally frail. Over time, Hélio Gracie gradually developed Gracie Jiu Jitsu as an adaptation from Judo, as he was unable to perform many Judo moves. Hélio Gracie also held the rank of 6th dan in Judo.
When Maeda left Japan, judo was still often referred to as “Kano Jiu-Jitsu” or, even more generically, simply as “Jiu-Jitsu. Higashi, the co-author of “Kano Jiu-Jitsu wrote in the foreword:
“Some confusion has arisen over the employment of the term ‘jiudo’. To make the matter clear I will state that jiudo is the term selected by Professor Kano as describing his system more accurately than jiu-jitsu does. Professor Kano is one of the leading educators of Japan, and it is natural that he should cast about for the technical word that would most accurately describe his system. But the Japanese people generally still cling to the more popular nomenclature and call it jiu-jitsu.
It was not until 1925 that the Japanese government itself officially mandated that the correct name for the martial art taught in the Japanese public schools should be “judo” rather than “jujutsu.”]
In Brazil, the art is still called “Jiu-Jitsu”. When the Gracies went to the United States to spread their art, they used the terms “Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu” and “Gracie Jiu-Jitsu” to differentiate from the already present styles using similar-sounding names.
Hélio Gracie had competed in several submission-based competitions which mostly ended in him winning. One defeat (in Brazil in 1951) was by visiting Japanese judoka Masahiko Kimura, whose surname the Gracies gave to the arm lock used to defeat Hélio. The Gracie family continued to develop the system throughout the 20th century, often fighting full-contact matches (precursors to modern MMA), during which it increased its focus on ground fighting and refined its techniques]
Today, the main differences between the BJJ styles are between traditional Gracie Jiu-Jitsu’s emphasis on self-defence, and Sport Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu’s orientation towards competition. There is a large commonality of techniques between the two. Also, there is a wide variety of ideals in training in different schools in terms of the utilization of pure or yielding technique versus skilful application of pressure to overcome an opponent.
Renzo Gracie wrote in his book Mastering Jiu-jitsu:
“‘The classical jujutsu of old Japan appeared to have no common strategy to guide a combatant over the course of a fight. Indeed, this was one of Kano’s most fundamental and perceptive criticisms of the classical program.’ Maeda not only taught the art of judo to Carlos Gracie, but also taught a particular philosophy about the nature of combat developed by Kano, and further refined by Maeda based on his worldwide travels competing against fighters skilled in a wide variety of martial arts.”
The book details Maeda’s theory as arguing that physical combat could be broken down into distinct phases, such as the striking phase, the grappling phase, the ground phase, etc. Thus, it was a smart fighter’s task to keep the fight located in the phase of combat that best suited to his own strengths. Renzo Gracie stated that this was a fundamental influence on the Gracie approach to combat, these strategies were further developed over time by the Gracie’s and others, and became prominent in contemporary MMA.
Jiu-Jitsu came to international prominence in the martial arts community in the early 1990s, when Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu expert Royce Gracie won the first, second and fourth Ultimate Fighting Championships, which at the time were single elimination martial arts tournaments Royce fought against often much-larger opponents who were practicing other styles, including boxing, shoot-fighting, karate, judo and tae kwon do. It has since become a staple art for many MMA fighters and is largely credited for bringing widespread attention to the importance of ground fighting. Sport BJJ tournaments continue to grow in popularity worldwide and have given rise to no-gi submission grappling tournaments, such as the ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship.
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is gaining fast popularity in many parts of the world and is looking to be one of the most popular martial arts around.