How Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Gained Its Fame

Brazilian jiu jitsu schools can trace their roots to the early 1920s when the Gracie family began to learn jiu jitsu from a master visiting from Japan. Gracie Jiu-jitsu developed from the teaching Helio Gracie and his brothers received into a discipline that would allow a smaller fighter to best a bigger and stronger one. Helio continued to adapt the martial art techniques so that they became even more efficient and soon he was earning the respect of those around him.

As he became more proficient, Helio introduced the world to the initial stages of Gracie Jiu-jitsu in a series of high profile competitions. Despite not necessarily being triumphant in these bouts, Helio won acclaim for lasting far longer than anyone thought he would have the ability to against more powerful and more skilled opponents. In 1951 he took on Masahiko Kimura, then seen as the best jiu jitsu fighter in the world. Kimura claimed that if the competition continued more than three minutes, then Helio should be proclaimed the champ; Helio lasted for thirteen. In 1955, the longest match in the world occurred when Helio held off a fighter twenty years his junior and forty pounds heavier for three hours and forty minutes.

When Rorion Gracie, Helio’s son, departed Brazil to bring Gracie Jiu-jitsu to the United States, he intended to continue his father’s legacy. The Gracies intended to create jiu-jitsu institutes to share the martial art techniques that they had adapted after decades of concentrated study with the rest of the world, and the United States was the perfect place to do so. Though Rorion at first faced many problems in founding his Brazilian Jiu jitsu school, he gained increasingly larger numbers of students primarily by issuing the Gracie challenge. This was a call to any combatant of any discipline to meet him in hand-to-hand combat so as to see whose discipline was stronger.

World-wide recognition would come in the 90s. Gracie Jiu-jitsu was represented by Royce Gracie at a soon to be famous mixed martial arts tournament called the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Defeating opponents much larger and stronger than he was, Gracie made it to the top spot by forcing the other fighters to tap out after he used various submission techniques to subdue them. If this was not enough, he did it two more times, winning not only the championships but the hearts of those involved in the martial arts world.

As a result of these steps over the years, of hard work and a willingness to commit entirely to the martial art, Gracie Jiu-jitsu has earned the spot as the most famous and one of the most respected disciplines in the world. Who knew that when Mitsuyo Maeda came to Brazil to share his master’s teachings in 1914 that he would be setting off a chain of events that would lead to jiu jitsu gracing the top of the martial arts world less than one hundred years later?

Brazilian jiu-jitsu is gaining in popularity these days. With its ground tactics as well as its holds, it is a favorite martial art of many of the UFC fighters.

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Technorati Tags: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Gracie jiu-jitsu, Jiu Jitsu, martial arts, sports

Tags: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Gracie jiu-jitsu, Jiu Jitsu, martial arts, sports

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