Origins
ETYMOLOGY
Jūjutsu (n.)
The word 柔術 (jūjutsu) is composed of two kanji characters. 柔 (jū) “softness, gentleness” and 術 (jutsu) “art, skill”. It was first transliterated to roman characters around 1875. For phonetic reasons, the romanization of this japanse word was mistakenly done as jiu-jitsu instead of jūjutsu. This improper spelling became popular around the world and remains widely used.
THE ART OF THE SAMURAI
The period of Japanese history between the 8th and 16th centuries was one of constant civil war, and many systems of fighting were utilized, practiced, and perfected on the battlefield. Training was mostly focused on overcoming armored and armed opponents.
The history of the art during this time is uncertain because teachers kept everything secret in order not to give their enemies an advantage. However, the evolutionary process of jūjutsu at that time was highly realistic since the techniques were constantly tested and perfected in combat. The warrior caste clearly had a need for some empty-hand techniques because there was always the possibility of losing one’s weapon or being caught without one. Thus, even though empty-hand combat was a distinctly secondary skill to an armed warrior, some development of unarmed combative skill occurred in these old martial systems. This was the initial seed from which a complete approach to unarmed combat was born.
JIGORŌ KANŌ
With the profound cultural and social transformations of the Meiji era, there was an urgent need for associating the practice of jūjutsu with a positive way of life adapted to modern times. For this reason, Jigorō Kanō (1860-1938), a highly educated man, and a practitioner of jūjutsu, developed his own approach to teaching the art in the late 1800s, called Kano Jūjutsu and later, Kōdōkan Jūdō.
Due to the negative connotation that the word jūjutsu had developed, Jigoro Kano decided to use the term jūdō instead. By replacing the second character jutsu, which was widely associated with the antiquated japanese military arts (bujūtsu), with the character dō, which means way or doctrine, Kano attempted to give the art a deeper spiritual meaning. In this rebranding effort he did not coin a new word to describe his method because he recognized that he was not creating a different martial art but rather an innovative and modernized teaching methodology. The term jūdō had been used as early as 1724 by members of Jikishin Ryu.
In addition to a strict code of ethics, Kano’s method was based on kata (technical training) and randori (sparring). Kanos’s approach prioritized physical, moral and cultural education in a safe and positive training environment.
The Kōdōkan Jūdō teaching methodology eventually replaced the old jūjutsu methods. It was adopted in the public school system, military and law enforcement training.
Kano was responsible for jūjutsu/jūdō regaining its prestige in Japan. As an educated man he emphasized etiquette, discipline, respect and morality as part of training.
Kano’s pedagogy was based on three principal objectives: self defense education (shobuho), physical education (reshinho) and moral education (shushinho).
In the 1920s, Kano became increasingly concerned that the growth of competitions might lead to a retrograde form of contest jūdo, as jūjutsu was before the Kōdōkan was established. He worried that a “winning at any cost” mentality would overshadow the higher moral aims of jūdo. Moreover, he felt that an exaggerated focus on winning contests would take away from the combat effectiveness of the art. For this reason, Kano started, among other measures, to de-emphasize groundwork in Kōdōkan Jūdō. His belief was that even though grappling techniques were extremely useful in challenge matches, they were not as relevant for self defense, especially given the possibility of multiple opponents. He believed that throwing and striking techniques should be learned first and foremost. Grappling was to be mastered as well but not exclusively.
JŪJUTSU IN THE WEST
Jūjutsu arrived in the west in the latter part of the 19th century and quickly became a huge craze. Practitioners from all over Japan migrated to Europe and the Americas in order to meet the great demand that existed for jūjutsu instruction. From military units to law enforcement agencies, from businessmen to housewives, everybody wanted to learn the Japanese art of self defense. The popularity of jūjutsu was established through challenge matches and public fights. Jūjutsu representatives from Japan would face wrestlers and boxers to prove the superiority of the Japanese style. Japanese fighters, who were usually smaller than their opponents, lauded jūjutsu as a scientific fighting system that allowed a small person to overcome a bigger and stronger opponent by utilizing principles such as leverage and yielding flexibility. Jūjutsu experts like Yukio Tani, Sada Uyenishi, Taro Miyaki, Mitsuyo Maeda, Tokugoru Ito, Soshihiro Satake, Akitaro Ono and Geo Omori traveled the world to promote jūjutsu through prize fights and demonstrations that took place in theatres, stadiums, circuses and fairs located in almost every corner of the Western Hemisphere.
JŪJUTSU IN BRAZIL
Jūjutsu gained notoriety in Brazil around 1914 with the arrival of Mitsuyo Maeda, who was known by the ring name Conde Koma. Even though a few other Japanese teachers had taught in Brazil before, Maeda had the greatest impact. He was born in 1878 and started learning jūdō at the Kōdōkan in 1897. He trained at Jigoro Kano’s academy under the legendary Sakujiro Yokoyama. In the early 1900s, after being in the United States as an official representative of the Kodokan, he broke away and traveled the world participating in several challenge matches in many countries including England, Spain, United States, Cuba, Mexico and finally Brazil. During this time Maeda stopped using the term jūdo and reverted to the old generic name jūjutsu, spelled as jiu-jitsu. This occurred because the name jiu-jitsu was more popular outside of Japan at that time. In addition, he was fighting for money and even participating in worked matches, which was a serious breach of Jigorō Kano’s philosophy. Kano believed that challenge matches were only to be performed with the objective of demonstrating the effectiveness of jūdō and never for monetary gain.
IRMÃOS GRACIE
In order to prove the effectiveness of the Japanese art of jūjutsu, the original Gracie brothers, most notably George and Helio, participated in challenge fights against wrestlers, boxers and capoeiras in Brazil. Using the tried and true formula of their Japanese predecessors, their challenge fights were often against bigger and stronger opponents in order to prove that it was possible for a small person to defend against any attacker. They also faced Japanese judo/jūjutsu black belts to assert their technique as on par with the Japanese. George was a more aggressive and entertaining fighter while Hélio developed a more defensive style specifically designed to resist stronger and heavier opponents.
The Gracie brothers would eventually separate and seek different paths. Carlos and Helio, however, were inseparable. Helio saw Carlos, who was eleven years older, as a father figure and listened carefully to his every advice. They were both idealists and saw themselves, above all, as teachers of an art that could transform lives for the better. Their academy quickly became highly successful and well attended. George, on the other hand, became a professional fighter accepting matches throughout Brazil. Carlos and Helio did not like the emphasis that promoters were placing on entertainment and money. They refused to accept fights that were decided on subjective criteria such as points and judges decisions. They also strongly opposed fake fights with predetermined outcomes, which had become the norm. Staying true to their original ideals, they passionately dedicated themselves to teaching and preserving Jiu-Jitsu.
Meanwhile in Japan with the passing of Jigoro Kano and the lure of becoming an olympic sport, jūdō slowly shifted from being a complete fighting system to a competitive sport focusing on throws with limited ground grappling and almost no emphasis on striking techniques. New rules and regulations, designed to make matches more entertaining, eventually modified the way the art was taught.
Refusing to accept any imposition by Japanese authorities who seeked to convert all Jiu-Jitsu schools into jūdō, the Gracie brothers felt that the art should continue to be taught as a self defense method and not a sport. Carlos and Hélio believed at the time that the sport of jūdō was being promoted worldwide by the Japanese government with the purpose of hiding the complete nature of Jiu-Jitsu from foreigners. According to their theory, the increased immigration of westerners into Japan during the Meiji period caused nationalistic Jiu-Jitsu masters, who were very secretive with regard to their techniques, to worry about the possibility of foreigners, generally bigger and stronger than the Japanese, learning complete Jiu-Jitsu. However, the drastic mutation of jūdō into a pure sport rather than a complete self defense system most likely occurred as a natural consequence of practitioners exclusively focusing on the rules of the sport in order to excel in tournaments. Ironically, the same thing would take place in Brazil after the creation of the first BJJ federation in the 1960’s, originally known as “Federação de Jiu-Jitsu da Guanabara”.
In 1952, Carlos and Helio inaugurated a state of the art academy in downtown Rio. Located in the 17th and 18th floors of a high profile commercial building, the luxurious facility quickly became very successful. Under the mentorship of Carlos and Helio, a team of professors was formed to meet the great demand that existed. Carlson Gracie, João Alberto Barreto, Robson Gracie, Hélio Vígio and Armando Wriedt, together with Pedro Hemeterio who taught in São Paulo, formed the first group of practitioners to receive the navy belt and the coveted professor’s diploma. At the time the Gracie Brothers wore the navy belt in order to distinguish themselves from sport judo instructors who wore black belts.The downtown academy was the most well designed, organized and managed academy of its generation.
Carlos and Helio’s main objective was to demonstrate that a small person could neutralize superior strength and athleticism through the knowledge of Jiu-Jitsu. It is undeniable that Hélio, who weighed approximately 143 lbs, accomplished some astonishing feats in the ring against high profile opponents such as German American wrestler Fred Ebert (192 lbs.), world wrestling champion Wladek Zybsko, (234 lbs.) and heavyweight jūdō legend Masahiko Kimura (200 lbs.).Throughout his life, however, Hélio Gracie always repeated that he did not consider himself a professional fighter since he never fought with the objective of making money or proving himself. His greatest mission was to raise his students’ confidence in the techniques of Jiu-Jitsu. For this purpose, he continuously perfected a teaching method, which allowed for any person, even those not athletically gifted, to learn the fundamentals of self defense in 40 private lessons. His students included men, women, children from all walks of life. He also developed specialized programs for law enforcement and military personnel. Some of the most important people in the country became his students, including the governor of his state and a future president of Brazil.
Carlos and Hélio Gracie became legendary Jiu-Jitsu grandmasters whose lifetime dedication to the art positively impacted the lives of thousands of individuals from around the globe. With the creation of the original UFC by Helio’s oldest son in 1993, Carlos and Hélio gained international acclaim for their dedication to the preservation and promotion of Jiu-Jitsu.