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History of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Some historians of Jiu-Jitsu say that the origins of "the gentle art" can be traced back to India, and was practiced by Buddhist Monks. Concerned with self-defense, these monks created techniques based upon principles of balance and leverage, and a system of manipulating the body in a manner where one could avoid relying upon strength or weapons. With the expansion of Buddhism, Jiu-Jitsu spread from Southwest Asia to China, finally arriving in Japan where it developed and gained further popularity.

In the last days of the 19th century, some Jiu-Jitsu masters emigrated from Japan to other continents, teaching the martial arts, as well as competing in fights and competitions. Esai Maeda Koma, also known as "Conde Koma," was one such master. After travelling with a troupe which fought in various countries in Europe and the Americas, Koma arrived in Brazil in 1915, and settled in Belem do Para the next year, where he met a man named Gastao Gracie. The father of eight children, among them five boys and three girls, Gastao became a Jiu-Jitsu enthusiast and brought his oldest son, Carlos, to learn to fight from the Japanese master.

For a naturally frail fifteen-year old Carlos Gracie, Jiu-Jitsu became a method not simply for fighting, but for personal improvement. At nineteen, he moved to Rio de Janeiro with his family and began teaching and competing in the martial arts. In his travels, Carlos would teach classes, and also proved the efficiency of the art by beating adversaries in competitions that were physically stronger. In 1925, he returned to Rio and opened the first school, known as the "Academia Gracie de Jiu Jitsu." Since then, Carlos started to share his knowledge to his brothers, adapting and refining the techniques to the naturally weaker characteristics of his family. Also, Carlos taught them his philosophies of life as well as his concepts of natural nutrition. Eventually, Carlos became a pioneer in creating a special diet for athletes, "the Gracie diet," which transformed Jiu-Jitsu into a term synonymous with health.

Having created an efficient self defense system, Carlos Gracie saw in the art a way to become a man who was more tolerant, respectful, and self-confident. With a goal of proving Jiu-Jitsu's superiority as well as to build a family tradition, Carlos challenged the greatest fighters of his time, as well as managing the fighting careers of his brothers. Fighting opponents fifty or sixty pounds heavier, the Gracies quickly gained recognition and prestige.
Attracted to the new market which was opened around Jiu-Jitsu, many Japanese practitioners came to Rio, but none were able to establish schools as successful as the Gracies. This was due to the fact that the Japanese stylists were more focused on takedowns and throws, and the Jiu-Jitsu the Gracies practiced had more sophisticated ground fighting and submission techniques. Carlos and his brothers changed the techniques in such a way that it completely altered the complexion of the international Jiu-Jitsu principles. These techniques were so distinctive to Carlos and his brothers that the sport became attached to a national identity, and is now commonly known as "Brazilian Jiu Jitsu," practiced by martial artists all over the world, including Japan.

With the creation of an official body overseeing the administration of the sport, the rules and the ranking system started the era of sport Jiu-Jitsu competitions. Today, Jiu-Jitsu is much more organized, with an International and National Federation, founded by Carlos Gracie Jr. Through his work with the Confederation of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Carlos Gracie Jr. contributed to the growth of the sport by holding some of the first organized competitions. Currently, the Confederation holds competitions in Brazil, the United States, Europe, and Asia, realizing Carlos' original dream to spread Jiu-Jitsu around the world.
- By Steve "Sakuriba" Kim


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History of Count Koma

It is no novelty in the fighting milieu that a Japanese nicknamed Count Koma taught Carlos Gracie the art of Jiu-Jitsu in the beginning of the last century. What many don’t know is that Koma, whose real name was Mitsuyo Maeda, was the last great Japanese Jiu-Jitsu fighter, and maybe the greatest of all time. And that he went around the world proving his art to be superior to every other, at a time when, paradoxically, the art was disappearing, obfuscated by the explosion of younger sibling Judo. The history of the life of the Japanese myth is unique and fascinating, and is about to be told in detail.
Maeda was born in 1878 in a small town called Aomori, located north to the Japanese island of Honshu and known for its freezing winters. As poverty assailed the region at the end of the 19th century, many inhabitants would move to Tokyo or other cities to try and make money and escape the cold. This was not the case for young Maeda, who remained there till 1886, when he finally moved to the capital. While he resided in Aomori, he went to Hirosaki school, of the local elite, where he was known as the “sumo-kid,” because of his fascination for the art his father had taught him. And, of course, for the several fights he would win against school mates.

As he arrived in Tokyo, Maeda started going to one of the country’s most traditional schools and, later, entered a high-class university, nowadays called Waseda, and acknowledged as a great teaching centre. There he was taught the techniques of classical Jiu-Jitsu. Later on, he would knock on the door of Kodokan, a famous Judo academy that works to this day and at the time was already deemed the best martial arts centre in Japan. The eventual master and founder of the academy, Jigoro Kano, was a studious man who gathered many styles of ancient Jiu-Jitsu to create Judo, whose apex was reached in 1964, when it began to appear in the Olympic Games, in Tokyo. But that would happen long after Maeda’s day. At that time, Kano had just modified the art and left out the elements and techniques and striking inherited from the samurais, who used to learn fighting techniques for when their swords broke in the battlefields. An art, therefore, bereft of the rules which characterize today’s Judo – and Jiu-Jitsu.

In that period, fights were held every month at Kodokan. It is suspected that Maeda practiced hard for months before premiering in these competitions, for he didn’t want to risk doing badly in them. On December 25, 1898, he finally made his first (and amazing) demonstration at the academy. Wearing a white belt, he easily beat five or six opponents and was immediately promoted to purple-belt. That same day, while the westerns celebrated Christmas, Maeda would go on to defeat more and more adversaries until, after overcoming 15 fighters in a row, he was granted the first degree of the black belt. There began the trajectory of an incredible competitor.

A man of average build, measuring 5’6’’ and weighing 150lb, Maeda wasn’t quite what one would call intimidating. He loved drinking sake, singing, and wouldn’t back off whenever challenged to fight on the street. He wouldn’t take long to take or knock down the naïve challenger. Constantly evolving, he was promoted to the third degree in 1901 and became a Judo instructor at the universities of Tokyo, Waseda and Gakushuin.

In 1904, Master Jigoro Kano summoned prodigy-pupil Maeda to travel to the United States in order to propagate Judo. Before the “ambassador” left, he received the fourth degree by the hands of his professor.

Mitsuyo Maeda left the Yokohama port in November, arriving in San Francisco, California, soon before the end of the year. At the time, North-Americans already knew a bit about Japanese martial arts, since President Theodore Roosevelt, was a big fan of the Japanese people and its culture – he even had a Jiu-Jitsu tutor called Yamashita. In order to improve their self-defense, some American military men were already learning the art at their headquarters. But to demonstrate the efficacy of the “new” art created by Kano, Maeda and his mates were appointed to fight the Americans and prove the Japanese superiority. In the famous military school of New York, Maeda faced a football player who also practiced wrestling. After falling inside the guard, his back to the floor, which in wrestling rules would mean he lost, Maeda continued the move and ended it with an arm lock. The Americans didn’t accept the submission and proposed a new challenge, this time against Maeda’s mate, an experienced student of Kano’s called Tomita. The Yankees believed facing Tomita would be a greater honor, because he was a more experienced fighter (actually, Tomita was much more of a professor than a fighter).

Unfortunately, Tomita was embarrassingly defeated, for his opponent managed to transpose his legs and immobilize him. This was too much for Maeda, who decided to separate from Tomita and establish himself in New York, where he maintained himself by taking part in underground challenges. In the first of these, in front of a wrestler a foot taller and who liked to be called “The Butcher,” Maeda knocked the adversary down several times before finishing with an arm lock. Three fights and three wins later, Maeda decided to challenge the world heavyweight boxing champion, Jack Johnson, considered by some specialists to be the best boxer of all time. Thus the Japanese began the tradition that would be followed by the Gracies of challenging the boxing champion of their day (Helio challenged Joe Louis, whereas Rickson aimed at Mike Tyson). The boxers also created a tradition of their own: that of never responding to such challenges.

Three years later, in 1907, Maeda went to the United Kingdom, where he won 13 more fights, then heading to Belgium, where again he won. He went back to America, this time to Cuba. There he reigned undisputed. He achieved no less than 15 victories, plus four when he passed by Mexico. And this is only the fights with official records. If we count street challenges, in Cuba alone we are talking something like 400 bouts.

Since he parted from Tomita, in the USA, Maeda had become independent and, in his travels, he insisted on calling his art Jiu-Jitsu. This choice may have come from the fact that, before entering Kodokan, he was already familiar with classical Jiu-Jitsu, and probably used in his fights many of the moves Jigoro Kano had banned in creating Judo. Naturally, Kodokan’s strict principles wouldn’t approve of Maeda’s challenges, and this may have been another reason for the adoption of the name Jiu-Jitsu.
After travelling the world in 1910, Mitsuyo Maeda went to Santos, Brazil. He stayed for little time there, establishing himself in Belem, after travelling to the UK, New York and Cuba, where he at times used the name Yamoto Maeda (“Yamoto” is an ancient word for “Japan”). But it was only in Spain that he became known as Count Koma, name of the Jiu-Jitsu academy he founded in Belem. In his academy, Maeda would teach Jiu-Jitsu to immigrants, as a form of self-defense technique.

In the early 1920s the already famous count was involved in an attempt from the Japanese government of founding a colony in northern Brazil, where Koma met a man of great political influence called Gastao Gracie, whose forefathers had emigrated from Scotland. Their friendship grew, until one day Gastao asked Maeda to teach Jiu-Jitsu to his son Carlos.

Maeda died November 28th, 1941, aged 63. It is estimated he fought from one to two thousand combats, without losing a single one of them. Many Japanese immigrants and Brazilian friends attended his funeral and thanked the master. Maeda’s body was buried at Santa Isabel cemetery, in Belem, Para. Jiu-Jitsu, on its hand, more alive than it has ever been.

We have little and yet controversial information about the time Carlos Gracie was Koma’s pupil. Carlos learned from Maeda for more than two and less than five years. Koma taught Gracie things like using the opponent’s strength against them, as well as efficient techniques for beating anyone in mixed martial arts bouts. His main fighting method was using stomping and elbow strikes to get closer to the adversary, before taking them down. In the academy he developed “randori,” training created by Kano in substitution to katas (which featured no contact).

In 1925, Carlos opened his own academy. He taught his pupils the methods he developed himself throughout the years. Meanwhile, Maeda travelled the country and the planet, but Jiu-Jitsu’s survival was guaranteed, since the Gracies had taken on the task of developing Koma’s art.


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History of Carlos Gracie Sr.

The story of grandmaster Carlos Gracie, the first Gracie to ever learn Jiu-Jitsu:
The Gracies’ first archenemy was no Japanese, but one tough native. In the early 1900s, little Carlos, grandson of a Scottish immigrant who had set up his home in Para, Belem’s capital, didn’t think twice before challenging a wide-eyed, sharp-nailed opponent. One would often see the kid play catch with an alligator that lived in the river nearby. Gracie would always take the edge: curious and owner of a keen sense of observation, Carlos had noticed the reptile couldn’t see under water, only swam in a straight line, and had to stick its head out in order to make turns. By simply getting out of the direction of the animal’s teeth, Carlos would always win.

This and many stories were rescued by daughter Reyla Gracie and will for the first time appear on the book where she wishes to tell the story of the man born September 14th, 1902, and the first family member to make contact with the martial art that, in all of the blooming century, would be bound to the name Gracie. Jiu-Jitsu, thus, was Carlos’s life (and vice versa) ever since his father, Gastao, trying to canalize the energy of the boy who seemed limitless, made him learn a new fight style with a Japanese friend of his, Mitsuyo Maeda, a.k.a. Count Koma. At 14, thus, Carlos began a saga that, to the whole world’s surprise, would pervade academies and rings across the planet. Or could anyone guess? “Out of all pupils Koma taught, and they weren’t few, as he used to travel the world teaching, only one fully understood the grandeur of that knowledge, adopting Jiu-Jitsu as a profession. I believe my father had, since the very beginning, a good idea of the thing he was learning. No wonder he created a school that’s been lasting 80 years,” says Reyla, who has been working on the book since 1999 gathering interviews, press clippings, books and documents on the subject.

Indeed, when Carlos became acquainted with Count Koma’s techniques, in 1916, the young Gracie was still a developing personality, much like Belem, which worked as an entrance to Brazil, with influence of European and Japanese cultures, and on the other hand was nearly wild, with Indians, woods and rivers where the fearless would play. “Jiu-Jitsu gave my life a direction”, Carlos used to say. Dedicated to the trainings and interested in the techniques, it didn’t take long for Carlos to stand out among the students. “Once, Count Koma needed a volunteer to demonstrate a type of choke, and Carlos offered himself. The professor declined and asked for another pupil, and afterwards told dad: ‘You are going to be a champion, and are not here to be choked,’” says black-belt Rilion, one of the 21 children of the patriarch. Despite Maeda’s constant travels, Carlos kept his training rhythm stable, by beginning to practice with another one of the count’s students, local entrepreneur Jacinto Ferro. “The astonishing thing is neither Ferro nor Loma set up an academy there, no pupil kept it up, and Jiu-Jitsu pretty much vanished from the state of Para. The person who took it back there, decades later, was someone who had learned at the Gracies’ school in South-Eastern Brazil,” Reyla recalls. With the family’s increasingly hard economic situation, the father took Carlos, along with younger brothers Osvaldo, Gastao, Jorge and Helio (the latter, 11 years younger than Carlos), to try and make a living in Rio de Janeiro, then Sao Paulo and then Belo Horizonte.

At age 22, Carlos Gracie started to make a living out of Jiu-Jitsu. It was the time of challenges published on newspapers (“Want a broken rib? Look for Carlos Gracie,” one of them read), of the search for opponents, of the birth of mixed martial arts and of the suspicion by practitioners of other styles. “He didn’t look like a fighter, but like a chess player. He’d go to training in police academies. As they thought nothing of him, he had to demonstrate the efficiency of the art he believed in, that Jiu-Jitsu could do miracles and that he himself was a good fighter,” says Rilion. Sister Reyla adds: “Carlos was always against associating Jiu-Jitsu with violence. Of course, in the beginning Carlos would place the ads and challenge those huge stevedores because, in the 1930s, there was the need of establishing an identity. That was when such comments began: ‘The Gracies are invincible.’ ‘The Gracies settle businesses with their bare hands,’” she says amongst laughs. “But each historical moment is different. When, in the seventies, Jiu-Jitsu became a sport, there was no more need to prove anything. It’s like today, when fighting or not fighting MMA starts being a personal choice; there is no longer the need there was in the times of my father and Helio, when they had to prove Jiu-Jitsu’s efficiency in the ring,” she concludes.

The influence Carlos had over his children and siblings was, therefore, much greater than fans can imagine nowadays. The old Gracie was a teacher, a strategist, a promoter, an idealizer and the clan’s creator – which Reylar intends to show in her book. “There is the man and the work. My father’s work was Jiu-Jitsu, family and nutrition, intertwined by his life story. The family is also a legacy he idealized, a product of his mind. Simply because the very project of making Jiu-Jitsu what it is today depended on the family, so that it would be possible to perpetuate the art,” says Reyla.

To Rilion Gracie, the ten years without Carlos indeed left a few gaps and many heritages: “One of the greatest heritages he left was the power of discipline and will. I never saw my father go by a day without exercising, and once he spent six months going every day to see the sunrise at Cristo Redentor [the gigantic statue of Christ atop a hill in Rio de Janeiro], where he’d meditate. Every day, never missed it,” the son recollects. “He was the family’s reference point, the nucleus, and in the 80s, at the end of each tournament, everyone gathered to evaluate each person’s performance, the rights and wrongs. I felt when he died that changed a little. And he never hit a child, nor said ‘Go, motherf., kick his ass,’ in front of opponents. He only let good things through. That’s priceless,” he says.

Nothing, however, deserved the family’s gratitude more than the nutrition method elaborated by Carlos Gracie, for years, based on studies and thousand of experiments. After making his children, nephews and grandchildren listen to their bodies and eat exclusively what is beneficial to the organism, it’s no exaggeration today to say that the last half decade meant 50 years of success of the Gracie Diet, whose basic principle is to avoid the excessive acidity in the nutrition, which to its creator was the main cause of the organism’s deterioration and consequent malfunction of organs. Thus the diet endeavors to keep the meals’ PH as neutral as possible, balancing substances by using the right combination. Notwithstanding, reducing Carlos’ science to this would be disregarding much of his work – one of the things Reyla most worries about in preparing her father’s story: “He anticipated many of the much-divulged discoveries of today, like carotene’s beneficial role, a substance found in the papaya and the carrot, the concept of free radicals and orthomolecular medicine, not mentioning his pioneering role regarding the habit of consuming acai, watermelon juice, coconut water, vitamins,” she stresses. “And, when nobody spoke of nutrition, he noticed how useful it was to cut off red meat before Helio’s fights, since meat gives you explosion power, but not long term resistance. The proof of the efficient didn’t take long to ensue: didn’t uncle Helio fight a much younger Valdemar Santana for 3h40m in 1955?”

The interest for life and nutrition, like everything else in the descendant of Scottish, was not random. Together with growing suspicion toward traditional medicine, the specialist of the blooming art noticed the need to, with the diet, look after the main work tool, the body. Carlos Gracie, indeed, made four or five famous fights, the last of which against Rufino, in 1931, whose picture Reyla keeps with her life, and another one – pure vale tudo (or ‘no rules,’ if you will) – in Rio de Janeiro, against capoeira practitioner Samuel. “At one point Samuel saw himself with no choice but to grab dad’s testicles,” Rilion recollects. The most famous one, nevertheless, was another Japan vs. Brazil classic, held in Sao Paulo, in 1924. Against Geo Omori, self-proclaimed Japanese Jiu-Jitsu representative, Carlos made his most memorable fight. Nearing the end of the third three-minute round, Gracie gave the foe’s arm an inexorable lock and looked at the referee, who told him to go on. Carlos broke the opponent’s arm, but the latter paid no heed and gave an unfocused Carlos a takedown, before the end of the fight, which ended with a draw and mutual respect by the contenders, in a time when fighters only lost bouts by tapping or passing out.
Legend has it, however, that the most unforgettable scene was played by rooters from Sao Paulo, who threw their hats into the ring as soon as the Brazilian broke the foe’s limb. “He excelled at the armbar,” says a proud Rilion. “For one thing is to apply it when the other guy is unfocused, but Carlos would warn beforehand, ‘I’m going to beat you by armbar,’ and the opponent would shrink their arm. Then he developed a technique of getting to the arm when the adversary knew they were gonna be armbarred. The way I see it, that was the beginning of the perfecting of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, characterized by leading the foe to erring, where the weaker can defeat the stronger.”


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History of Carlos Gracie Jr.

I am Carlos Gracie Jr., the founder of the Gracie Barra academy, located in Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I want to share a few words about the early days of the school and how it was created. The history of Gracie Barra is directly related to my life, and as a result, the story of the school is also the story of my life, both past, present, and future.

The principal goal of my family of athletes and fighters, lead by my father Carlos Gracie, has always been to spread jiu jitsu, and to share the art which brings enormous benefits to one's life. My father was a naturalist and a very spiritual person, who had a great desire to pass on his knowledge to others, so that they could receive the benefits of jiu jitsu as well. Growing up in this environment, I learned the art of jiu jitsu is actually a method through which one strives for self-perfection.

My father's original academy was in the center of Rio de Janeiro, lead by my uncle Helio Gracie. It was there that I began my studies in jiu jitsu, becoming an instructor there, and finally, a professor. During this time, I worked alongside my brother Rolls and my cousin Rorion Gracie, who were also professors there.

Eventually, Rorion decided to live in the United States, and Rolls established a school in Copacabana together with my other older brother, Carlson Gracie. Thus, I was called upon to assume the responsibilities of running the academy together with my cousin Rickson. I was there for approximately two years, but during this time I went to study nutrition at a University and was living in Copacabana. During this time, I decided to work with Rolls. In the meantime, Carlson and Rolls had separated their schools but were still located in the same building, with the students training with either teacher on alternating days.

After working together for seven years, Rolls passed away in a hang-gliding accident. All of the students reunited and together with Rolls' wife, asked me to assume the responsibility of continuing the path that my brother Rolls began. We stayed in Copacabana for another four years, after which I decided to move to Barra da Tijuca, a promising newer neighborhood in the western part of the city which was growing. It was here that we became known as the "Gracies of Barra," and eventually, as we are called, simply, "Gracie Barra."
The first seeds of Gracie Barra were planted inside a small house almost twenty years ago. The first school had approximately 20 students, and grew to almost 200 hundred after just one year. We then moved the school to larger space inside of a gym, where we are still located today. Since establishing the school, we have consistently produced jiu jitsu instructors with high qualifications, as well as distinguishing ourselves in international competitions in Brazil and around the world. Today, Gracie Barra has the biggest jiu jitsu teams in the world.

Still, I feel very proud that my life's work has been to create an institution which is not focused just on building athletes or professors, but instead, in helping to build one's character.
Repeating the words which my father told me:
". . . each person who puts on the kimono and believes in jiu jitsu that myself and my family teaches is the realization of my life's work." - Carlos Gracie (1902-1994)


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History of Gracie Barra

Professor Carlos Gracie Jr. is the founder and head instructor of the Gracie Barra Academy, the largest Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school in the world, located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The son of Carlos Gracie, the pioneer of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Carlos Gracie Jr., has produced well over 200 black belts in his tenure, which today includes numerous world class instructors and athletes.

At the heart of the Gracie Barra mission statement is the goal of training both the body and spirit, going beyond the 'winning-losing' or 'contest' philosophy present in other martial arts. Instead, Professor Carlos Gracie Jr. emphasizes the fundamental principle of Jiu-Jitsu: "Minimum effort for maximum efficiency," a method of utilizing strength through gentleness, an expression exemplifying both the mental and physical aspects of Jiu-Jitsu. In Professor Carlos' mind, Jiu-Jitsu was in fact a method of education, which could be used to foster one's personal development. Professor Carlos considered the goals of Jiu-Jitsu to revolve around three aspects: physical education, personal achievement, and ethical growth. In other words, through the practice of Jiu-Jitsu, one would complete their personal development through the training of body and mind, becoming a person better able to contribute to society and the world. Recognizing the never-ending quest for self-perfection, even today Professor Carlos continues to study these techniques and principles with his students. The constant development of techniques demonstrates Professor Carlos' adherence to these principles, continuously striving for further progress and knowledge.

In spreading the values of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Professor Carlos is also the head of the IBJJF (International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation - www.ibjjf.org) the largest international organization for overseeing the growth of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The IBJJF is the organizer of the largest competition tournaments in the world including the World Championships of Jiu-Jitsu ("Mundials"), held in Rio every July, the Pan-American Championships held in Dominguez Hills, California, the European Championships held in Portugal, also held annually. This year also marks the first Asian Championships to be held in Japan.


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