Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a martial arts discipline which focuses on a ground attack. It teaches techniques to take down, gain a favourable position and then defeat your opponent by applying either a joint lock (leveraging a part of their body, bending it to hyperextension) or a choke hold, to force your opponent to submit or fall into unconsciousness.

Its origin comes from the judo teachings of Mitsuyo Maeda, a Japanese expert who immigrated to Brazil in 1914. Maeda was assisted by a local businessman/politician named Gastao Gracie, and was so grateful he taught his knowledge to his son Carlos. Some classical jujitsu techniques are included in the discipline but Maeda called it Jiu-Jitsu instead of judo because of the no-holds barred matches they were fighting at the time, which were outside of judo rules.

Carlos Gracie taught it to his brothers who in turn taught it to their sons. Helio Gracie refined the art to work for his smaller size, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu became the dominant fighting technique for no-holds barred matches. The Gracie family continued to promote their discipline, and in the early 1990’s were instrumental in the creation of the Ultimate Fighting Championships. Royce Gracie was the family member chosen to represent the fighting style in the event. Royce was able to defeat all comers from all disciplines and win UFC 1, 2, and 4. The UFC was a display table for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the early 1990’s because most of the opponents were striker-style fighters or wrestlers.

Training consists of sparring with a non-resistant partner, isolation technique drills against full resistance, and full-on sparring against an opponent. Belts are earned by improvement in sparring and the amount of technical knowledge one demonstrates. Belts for adults ascend from white-blue-purple-brown-black-red (red being the final two degrees of black).
Royce’s success led to a flood of young fighters learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The Gracie Academy in California is one of the largest in the country. The Gracie family now calls it Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, but the two are the same. Its early dominance in no-holds barred areas created the modern mixed martial arts fighter.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is not as dominant as it was in the 90’s but continues to be one of the top disciplines in the world. Today’s fighters need to learn the discipline or at least learn how to defend against it.