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The following was written by Joe Svinth and is an entry to a martial arts encyclopedia. If any of you have experience (Bill and Jeff C. hint, hint), please offer anything which may be of help or facts not represented correctly. information which may be important, etc.
Remember, this is not to be an exact or complete history of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, or judo, for that matter, but more of a historic (current history as well) look at what this form of submission grappling is, or from where it came. In other words, it is more of a definition.
Thanks in advance for anything you may know on the subject.
Mark
BTW: Joe has been having browser problems, and although he didn't ask me to post this, I thought there may be some changes/corrections needed.
BRAZILIAN JIU-JITSU
Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a grappling system that maintains both sport and combat forms. The art was derived from Japanese antecedents in 20th century Brazil.
Brazilian jiu-jitsu is virtually synonymous with the Gracie family, through whose lineage the system was passed and whose members modified the original Japanese art into its present features. Currently, however, instructors are not necessarily members of the Gracie family. Therefore, a distinction exists between Brazilian jiu-jitsu in general and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu (a registered trademark).
The parent system of Brazilian jiu-jitsu is Kodokan Judo, and while he was not the first judoka in Brazil -- this was a man named Miura in 1908 -- he was certainly the first to be influential. Therefore some background is required.
Maeda was born in Aomori Prefecture, Japan, in November 1878. At age 17 he moved to Tokyo, where, on June 6, 1897, he joined the Kodokan, which was Japan’s most famous Judo school. There he was a direct student of Kodokan director Sakujiro Yokoyama, a former Tenjin Yoshin-ryu jujutsu practitioner famous for his participation in challenge matches and fights.
By 1903 Maeda was graded fourth dan (fourth degree black belt) in Judo. As the highest rank in those days was seventh dan, this suggests enormous talent. As a result, in 1904 he was invited to go to the United States with Tsunejiro Tomita, Judo founder Jigoro Kano’s original student; the idea was for Tomita to explain the theory of Judo while Maeda demonstrated its application. But in the United States, Tomita was challenged, accepted, and defeated. This embarrassed Maeda and so he went off on his own to become a professional wrestler.
From 1906 to 1908, Maeda wrestled in the United States, Britain, Belgium, and Spain, and it was in the latter country that he adopted his stage name of Conte Koma. The name was a pun: read one way, it meant Count of Combat while read another it meant Count of [Economic] Troubles.
From 1909 to 1913, Maeda wrestled in Mexico, Cuba, Costa Rica, and the Canal Zone, and he is said to have had only two defeats in over 2,000 matches. Unlike contemporary Brazilian jiu-jitsu stylists, who often attack with strikes, then follow up with groundwork, Maeda concentrated almost solely on chokes and joint-locks. In other words, he did orthodox Japanese newaza, or groundwork.
As a wrestler, Maeda was known for issuing challenges, including one to Jack Johnson, the world heavyweight boxing champion. Maeda’s student Carlos Gracie followed this example by advertising in Brazilian newspapers his willingness to take on all comers. In turn, Carlos’ younger brother, Hélio, challenged reigning world heavyweight champion Joe Louis while Hélio’s son Royce challenged Mike Tyson. In none of these cases did anything come of the challenges, however.
Maeda’s Judo has been described as more rough and tumble than modern Judo. However, some of this apparent roughness is owed to the venue -- professional wrestling takes place in music halls, circuses, and armories rather than high school gyms, and is done for the amusement of a paying crowd rather than judged on points.
There are differences in accounts of how Maeda met the Gracies. In the accounts generally given by the Gracie family, Carlos Gracie, one of five sons of Gastão Gracie, began his training with Maeda in 1914 (or 1915). Other sources maintain that in 1915, Maeda was a member of Japanese a wrestling troupe known as “the Four Kings”, and that he did not start working for the Queirollo Brother's American Circus until 1917. If so, then this was probably where and when he met the Gracie family, as in 1916 Gastão Gracie was reportedly managing an Italian boxer associated with the Queirollo circus. At any rate, during the mid-to-late 1910s Maeda began teaching the rudiments of Judo to Carlos Gracie.
Around 1922 Maeda left the circus to begin promoting Japanese immigration into Brazil. Three years later Gracie opened a wrestling gym in Rio de Janeiro and this latter event marks the official birth of the system known today as Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.
After Gracie quit training with Maeda, the core art underwent a process of modification. Many articles suggest that Gracie Jiu-Jitsu's emphasis on groundwork is due to Maeda and Carlos not having tatami on which to practice throws and so taking all fights to the ground. However, books by Carlos Gracie published during the 1940s showed very little groundwork, only some Judo throws. Therefore, it is possible that Gracie Jiu-Jitsu's modern emphasis on groundwork owes more to the innovations of Hélio Gracie.
A professional wrestler as an adult, as a boy Hélio Gracie was the youngest and least robust of five brothers. Because of this, he soon learned to rely on technique rather than strength. And, as he made his living wrestling all-comers in circuses, his focus was on submission wrestling. So, when Masahiko Kimura wrestled Hélio Gracie in October 1951, “What he saw reminded him of the earlier Judo methods that were rough and tumble. Prewar (prior to WWII) Judo had body locks, leg locks, unusual choking techniques that were discarded because they were not legal in contest Judo, which had evolved slowly over the years” (Wang).
During the 1980s, Hélio Gracie’s sons took the family art to California, and during the 1990s Rorion and Royce Gracie made Gracie Jiu-Jitsu internationally famous due to well-publicized victories in pay-per-view Ultimate Fighting Championship™ (UFC) events. In 1994, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu also was introduced into US Army Ranger training at Fort Benning, Georgia, though here the idea was more to teach self-confidence than to improve individual lethality in combat.
Although punches, kicks, and fighting from the standing position were added to Brazilian jiu-jitsu during the 1990s to keep it competitive in mixed-martial art/no-holds-barred competition, for their part the Gracies continue to emphasize maneuvering for opportunities in which to apply joint locks and chokes. The reason, they say, is that most one-on-one fights end up as grappling contests on the ground, and so one might as well get there as quickly as possible.
Toward this end, particular attention is paid to the ground positions labeled the “mount” and the “guard.” In the mounted position, the combatant straddles an upward-facing downed opponent, with the legs past the opponent’s hips. The goal is to set up a choke or a joint lock or to deliver strikes. A variation is the “side mount” in which the practitioner is on top of an opponent, chest to chest at a 90 degree angle. Meanwhile, the “guard” refers to the opposite position, where the opponent is on top of the practitioner. The standard Brazilian jiu-jitsu “guard” places the opponent between one’s legs, which encircle the attacker just above hips; an alternative is the “half-guard”, in which the defender uses the legs to trap one of the legs of the mounted opponent.
Although Rorion Gracie maintains that one can learn all the techniques of Brazilian jiu-jitsu after just forty classes, learning to apply these techniques against uncooperative opponents in combative contexts requires years of practice. So, toward showing relative standing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu utilizes a ranking system similar to that of Kodokan Judo. Rank is designated by a colored belt wrapped and tied at the waist of the uniform, which is also similar to the loose cotton trousers and jacket of Judo. Belt ranks for children run from white (for beginners) to yellow, orange, green, brown and black and for adults white, blue, purple, brown and black. Like the dan system of contemporary Japanese martial arts, the black belt progresses through various grades of ascending numbers (i.e., first degree, second degree, etc.).
During the 1990s, various organizations arose both in Brazil and abroad espousing variations of the core teachings of Maeda as modified by Carlos and Hélio Gracie. Thus “Gracie Jiu-Jitsu” has become a trademark used by various members of the Gracie family of Brazil whose schools are autonomous while other instructors such as the Machado brothers (nephews and students of Carlos Gracie), refer to their systems as Brazilian, as distinct from Gracie, jiu-jitsu.
Bibliography
Barbosa de Medeiros, Rildo Heros. "The History of Judo: The Arrival to Brazil: Count Koma," http://www.Judobrasil.com.br/komtr.htm.
Gorsuch, Mark. "Mitsuyo Maeda (Count Koma) Biography,"
http://bjj.org/interviews/maeda.html.
Harrison, E.J. The Fighting Spirit of Japan. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1982. 65-73.
Lima, Andre Alex. 1999, “Who’s Who in the Gracie Family,” Martial Arts Masters. Burbank, CA: C.F.W. Enterprises. 102-109.
Marushima, Takao. Maeda Mitsuyo: Conte Koma. Tokyo: Shimazu Shobo, 1997. (In Japanese)
Smith, Robert W. "Kimura", in Martial Musings: A Portrayal of Martial Arts in the 20th Century. Erie, PA: Via Media Publishing Co., 1999. 133-134.
Wang, George. "History of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu," http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/5389/maeda.html
Williams, James and Stanley A. Pranin, "Interview with Rorion Gracie," Aikido Journal, 105 (Fall 1995), http://www.aikidojournal.com/article...ws/Gracie.htm.
See also: http://webhost.avint.net/munjudo/kimura_gracie1.mpg
http://www.judoinfo.com/kimura2.htm
http://www.judoinfo.com/kimura.htm
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JUDO, MAEDA, BJJ, GJJ
JUDO, MAEDA, BJJ, GJJ
I was attempting to get some input in the original post.
