Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

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The general theory of the centuries has been that in combat, a stronger, more aggressive foe will try to take you to the ground by throws, trips and other methods, get on top of you and pound on you. Grappling, in its many forms, seeks to solve this problem, particularly for a smaller, weaker defender by using body positioning, leverage and fulcrum to obtain a dominant position and submit your opponent through joint locks, cranks, chokes and other manipulations and in most cases without causing serious harm to the aggressor.

The submissions themselves work by utilizing the body’s range of motion against itself. The human body, no matter how flexible, has only a limited capacity for extension and rotation in its joints and bones. After that point tears, hyperextensions and breaks occur. In a grappling class you practice different submission holds from a variety of positions with a partner. Training is almost impossible without partners to practice the intricacies of each hold. Victory is achieved when your partner or opponent submits or “taps out” (a non-verbal way to end a fight by tapping your hand on your opponent or the ground) from a submission. In sport competition you may also win by a judge’s decision based on your control of position and your opponent, without having to win by submission.

All technique training is then followed by “live” sparring sessions or “rolling.” During a roll you and your fellow student help to train each other by actually competing against each other, giving resistance and trying to escape. This training happens at the end of every class and is essential to the student’s growth in the sport by not only training the body, but the mind as well against someone who is actively trying to beat you. It is in this way you are able to use your techniques and practice your strategies for setting them up. You also learn about your own defenses and escapes. Finally this session gives the student the opportunity to push the envelope and attempt techniques and strategies that may be too advanced at the time. You can never learn unless you try. No one “loses” during rolling, the student may submit but they gain knowledge either way and just move on to the next match. We all train each other. Victory comes in competition.

Many believe the source of all martial arts to be India. After all Kyrapliat (a rudimentary style of boxing and the founding system of what evolved into Kung Fu and later Karate, Tae Kwon Do, etc.) was originally developed and practiced in India and later spread by Buddhist monks throughout the world. Along side Kyrapliat, fighters practiced Punjab wrestling and Yoga for flexibility and strength. As with Kyrapliat, Punjab became the base system for wrestling styles in Asia such as Chou San Kung Fu and Jujitsu.

Around the same time these styles were spreading across Asia, the Mediterranean countries of Greece, Sparta and Crete were developing their own systems of combat for field warfare. The proving ground for these systems was the Olympic Games. The games were originally held to determine who the better soldier was with events that mimicked battlefield situations. Such events included spear throwing for distance (javelin), throwing heavy objects (hammer throw, discuss, shot put), racing, jumping for distance, marathons, sword fights, chariot races, races in field armor, archery and unarmed combat.

Unarmed combat was broken into three events, boxing, wrestling and pankration. In boxing, the fighters were only allowed to punch each other using fists covered in leather strips until one man could not stand anymore. No striking was allowed in wrestling, but the players could use any variety of clinches and takedowns, cross facing, choking techniques, cranks and pins to achieve victory. Pankration, the great grandfather of what is today Mixed Martial Arts competition (MMA) was an all out fight. Everything was legal, striking, kicks, gouging, joint locks, small joint manipulations (there was a famous fighter known as the “finger man” who would grab onto and bend back his opponents’ fingers until they submit) and chokes. The only way to win was to knock someone out or have him give up.

Through the conquering of the Greeks and the rise of the Roman Empire, these styles, with the later exception of

Pankration (because the ferocity of the sport often rendered its competitors disfigured) were eventually spread out over the Western world, each becoming more refined by its practitioners. There also came the rise of more “realistic” forms of fighting, mainly from men who had journeyed to the Orient and combined what they learned from practitioners there with their own knowledge of western style “Greco-Roman” wrestling.

One such style to emerge was catch-as-catch-can or “catch” wrestling which involved many of the rules of western style wrestling but added in submission holds such as joint hyperextensions, foot and leg locks and cranks with victory able to be achieved by pinning your opponent as well. Real catch wrestling did become, through fairground promotions and strongman contests what we know today as “pro wrestling” which retains the ideas and techniques of catch but presents them in “worked” matches. Catch wrestling was later (around the 1960’s) “brought back” to Japan by a former Olympic wrestler and wrestling scholar by the name of Karl Gotch.

Gotch, a Belgian who traveled the world after winning a gold medal in the 1948 Olympics in Greco-Roman wrestling, researched the history of wrestling and wrestling styles of many cultures, including catch, Punjab and jujitsu. This study brought him finally to Japan where he resided for almost twenty years making a living as a pro wrestler and teaching a hybrid style of submission wrestling distilled from his years of study. This style, which originally did not involve strikes or throws only takedowns and submissions, became known as shootwrestling or “shooto.” Its practitioners went on to create some of the largest early MMA events such as “Pancrase” which has brought the world such talents as Frank and Ken Shamrock and Bas Rutten.

In Japan around 1582 Hisamori Takenouchi was formalizing a very effective and deadly system of striking and throwing combined with ground grappling and submission holds. The system, designed more for the field rather than the ring also involved vital point strikes, gouging, hair pulling, strangulations, small joint manipulations and weapons training. This system, oddly enough, he named jujitsu or “gently art.” The name itself did not refer so much to the style as to the behavior and conduct of its practitioners. Jujitsu’s simple effectiveness made it too dangerous; however, to practice at full power or in more “live” combat situations except for the most advanced students. Because of this, the techniques were taught in “kata,” a series of prearranged situations (attacks) and responses (defenses) with partners. The training itself while vigorous, was quite static and mostly taught techniques and movements to be used in combat but provided no overall strategy or formula for their use.

Frustrated by the growing disinterests of the public and reaching his own limitations in the art, Jigiro Kano a gifted jujitsu artist of the late 19th Century, set out “reinvent” the practice of the art. Calling his system Judo or “soft way,” Kano broke with the traditional schools he had taught for and created his own school, the Kodokan in the early 1880’s. Within the Kodokan, judo players practiced Kano’s revolutionary style of teaching, the basis of which was moving kata to a more minor role in favor of randori.

Randori or “live” training is the essence of judo and the secret of its effectiveness. Randori involved all students actively sparring against each other every class at almost full power to practice their techniques in a realistic combat situation. Obviously though, with the regular practice of randori, many of the most dangerous techniques of jujitsu had to be removed or only introduced to these students with many years of training. In judo, Kano chose to focus mainly on throws and takedowns with some groundwork, pins and basic submissions. Simple chokes and arm locks were permitted but the cranks, leg locks and strikes found in traditional jujitsu were forbidden, or again not disclosed except to higher ranks.

For many years the success of Kano and the Kodokan were undisputed in Japan, almost eclipsing the study of all other arts. The concept and practice of randori made judo players almost unbeatable because their minds and reflexes were so used to a “live” opponent, not just a kata partner. With the rise of its popularity came the need for an even greater systemization and with more competitions and competitors every year, came more rules. Eventually, Kano achieved his dream of bringing judo to the world stage in the Olympics. Today judo is practiced all ever the world and is still recognized as one of the premiere martial and grappling arts. Without judo there would be no place for submission wrestling or MMA events. But its popularity came at the eventual cost of its battle tested effectiveness in a favor of international competition.

As judo spread to the western world, one of the harbingers was Mitsuyo Maeda, a top student of Kano’s sent to the Americas to demonstrate judo techniques at academies and schools. Frustrated by the seeming indifference of those in the U.S. to his demonstrations from their own backgrounds of Olympic style wrestling, Maeda took another route. Maeda began to compete in “challenge matches” against other athletes (boxers, wrestlers, etc.) to prove the superiority of his art. The problem was, however, that the strict moral codes of judo forbade competing for money or using jujitsu techniques that were forbidden in competition. Maeda renamed his style of judo blended with classical, more effective and dangerous jujitsu, “jiu-jitsu.”

Over the next few years, Maeda traveled North America competing with and demonstrating his “jiu-jitsu.” His travels eventually found him in South America and particularly Brazil as an ambassador for the colonization movement of Imperial Japan. Maeda befriended a man by the name of Carlos Gracie, who toured Maeda around Brazil in exchange for lessons in jiu-jitsu. With the departure of Maeda a few years later, Carlos continued his study and blended jiu-jitsu with his own knowledge of street fighting. The resulting form was a highly effective form of ground grappling later known as Gracie or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

At this time (around the 1950’s), the Soviets were exploring the creation of their own grappling system of “sambo.” Banning the practice of their indigenous martial art “systema” by those not in the military, the government sought to replace it with another national martial art. They concluded that the two most effective styles at the time were wrestling and jujitsu and set about creating a combined style that used the strengths of both systems. While a ground fighting art, sambo does include many throws, striking techniques and disarms. Sambo practitioners, in addition, are masters of leg submissions, which is perhaps the most useful and fascinating aspect of the art. Against through the Ultimate Fighting Championships, sambo was brought to the world stage by master Oleg Taktarov.

It wasn’t until years later that the Gracie family brought their art to the United States. Rorion Gracie, son of Helio Gracie, a great innovator and the father of modern Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), decided to bring the “vale tudo” to the North. Vale tudo in Portuguese means “anything goes” and is the ultimate proving ground for any martial arts: full contact competition with the little rules to determine who the best fighter was or who had the better fighting system. The Brazilians dominated this sport, originally founding the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC) and later in the world stage, handily in its early years and are still a threat in every competition.

These days, “ultimate fighting” itself has become its own sanctioned sport. With the introduction of more rules and fighters cross training in various styles such as wrestling, sambo, muay thai kick boxing and jiu-jitsu. MMA competition has also given birth to a new sport in the way of submission grappling, competition without striking only wrestling, which is slowly gaining popularity as well.

Grappling as one of the world’s oldest sports is now finally coming to its place in the upper echelon of the martial arts. In the past five years, grappling styles and schools have spread across the world at an alarming rate, its proven versatility and simple effectiveness has brought its inclusion to many of the “traditional” arts as well. Grappling and MMA competitions are poised to take over as the sport of the future.