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JackG has pretty much covered this, but I'll add what I've gleaned from my own reading: BJJ originally comes from judo, however, at the time (early 20th century) 'judo' was not the only term in use. Indeed, some still referred to it as 'Kano ju-jitsu' at the time, given that it was still a comparatively new style (founded in 1880 something, I think).
Gast*ão Gracie was a Brazilian diplomat, who helped out a Japanese individual name Mitsuyo Maeda, who was looking to establish a Japanese colony in Brazil. To show his gratitude, Maeda - who also happened to be an experienced judoka - offered to teach Gracie's son, Carlos. Maeda also had a background in various jujitsu styles, and as mentioned, the terms 'judo' and 'ju-jitsu' were not yet clearly delineated.
Carlos studied under Maeda for several years (there seems to be some debate about just how long, but in The Gracie Way, it states it was from the age of fifteen to twenty-one), before Maeda left the area. Carlos had learned enough that he felt ready to open his own academy in 1925, where he taught what he called 'jiu-jitsu' (Maeda most likely still referred to his judo as ju-jitsu, so that's unsurprising).
Another thing worth noting is that when Maeda came to study under Kano, judo was undergoing a focus on groundwork (or newaza, if you prefer), due to the school's first major loss in competition against the Fusen-ryu style (groundwork specialists). That meant that Maeda too concentrated on groundwork, which would have influenced what he taught Carlos.
Carlos' younger brother, Helio - as mentioned above - was a frail child, meaning that he did not take part in classes at first, simply watching instead. At the time, the system was all private lessons, and one day Carlos was a little late, so the student asked Helio if he wanted to 'play'. Once Carlos arrived and apologised, the student told him that from then on, he wished to learn from Helio instead.
As Helio was much smaller and weaker than his older brother, he couldn't perform the techniques in quite the same way. So, he modified them, preferring leverage instead of strength. Those techniques were further changed after the Gracie Challenge was issued: first Carlos took on various opponents from a number of styles, after which he gradually delegated to Helio (Carlos moved to administrating the academy and developing his nutritional theories, which would eventually lead to the famed 'Gracie Diet'). Techniques were pressure tested in this competition, meaning that anything which didn't work in the challenge matches was either thrown out or modified until it did.
Since then, BJJ has continued to develop, due to involvement in 'vale tudo' ('anything goes', which was the term concocted for the challenge matches), as well as figures like Rolls Gracie, who cross-trained in numerous styles (such as sambo and wrestling). Judo, on the other hand, focused more on throws due to changes in competitive rules, meaning that over time the styles diverged (though its worth noting that the division between stand up, or tachiwaza, and groundwork varies from school to school. There are plenty of judo clubs with excellent groundwork, and others which prefer to work more heavily on throws). Japanese jiu-jitsu was even more varied, as that did not have the same competitive influence to modify the style, though I'd assume it depends on the particular substyle.
If people are looking for further reading on this, I can recommend The Gracie Way and the introductions to Mastering Jujitsu and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Theory and Technique. There's also some discussion in No Holds Barred, and if you can read Portuguese, several books from Brazil.
Once I've got enough reading under my belt, I'll be writing something up on my blog. I love history, as you can probably tell, so enjoy doing that kind of thing.
Oh, and there is some stand-up in BJJ, but like judo, it depends where you go. For example, where I train, class almost always starts with a few throws, or in no-gi, double and single legs.
Japanese jiu-jitsu is mainly stand up although does include a fair amount of groundwork but also teaches throws locks and some strikes.But the groundwork is only 20-30% of what is tradiontal taught, throws locks and break falling are the majority. Japanese Jiu jitsu is very much a close quarters art , all our techniques when defending against strikes result in us being close enough to throw locks etc unlike tae kwon do where having distance is good thing.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Came from Japanese Jiu Jitsu it was taught to the gracie sons by japanese martial artist whom was helped by helio gracie. BJJ is 80-90% groundwork with some taekdowns not throws i.e the kind you see in Judo which also orginated for Japanese Jiu -Jitsu.
a Common mistake is Brazilain Jiu-Jitsu did not orginate from Japanese Jiu-Jitsu the Main Diffrence is the lack of stand up fighting in BJJ although Japanese Jiu jitsu has groundwork depending on thw school it is not the focus nor should be (traditonaly) most Japanese Jiu Jitsu Fighter consider themselves standup fight ad some have had very succesfull MMA carrers.
And in terms of spelling Im no 100% sure but I use Jiu-Jitsu
Please ask me any questions!!!!
Who are the Jujutsu fighters that were successful in MMA? Just curious.
Once I've got enough reading under my belt, I'll be writing something up on my blog. I love history, as you can probably tell, so enjoy doing that kind of thing.
Who are the Jujutsu fighters that were successful in MMA? Just curious.
In terms of Brazilian jiu jitsu, lots (kicked off with Royce and Rickson, after which pure BJJ was no longer enough, so its more difficult to talk about a 'BJJ fighter' in MMA), but I assume you mean Japanese JJ, as per JackG?
Not many come to mind: there's Carlos Newton, who did a Canadian derivative of JJJ. Remco Pardoel was a traditional JJ guy (although after the UFC, he moved to BJJ and is now a BJJ black belt, which tells you something ), but much less impressive achievements in MMA than Newton.
there is a lot of controversy about the origins and development of BJJ and GJJ, with different sides of the Gracie family taking up different camps on who gets credit. In order to get a realistic view, it's important to know both sides of the story and then try to gleam what might be reality out of that on your own.
__________________ And who knows, he might could tap me. BUT I have enough confidence in my game to say he can't.
- Jade Dragon
there is a lot of controversy about the origins and development of BJJ and GJJ, with different sides of the Gracie family taking up different camps on who gets credit. In order to get a realistic view, it's important to know both sides of the story and then try to gleam what might be reality out of that on your own.
Yep, hence why I've tried to be as balanced as possible in the history post. I've got some thoughts on the differences between BJJ and GJJ on my BJJ Beginner FAQ.
However, I'm currently missing one major part of the story, which is Reyla Gracie's book on her father Carlos. Unfortunately, its only available in Portuguese at the moment, so I'm still waiting on an English translation.
Always interested in more sources, so if you've got any to add, please let me know. Along with general reading, these are the main ones I've used so far:
Having not read through the whole thing, I would just recommend that you investigate as much on Carlson Gracie and his impact on the sport aspect of BJJ and MMA as well as his son and the formation of the CBJJ.
__________________ And who knows, he might could tap me. BUT I have enough confidence in my game to say he can't.
- Jade Dragon
This is what I've got on Carlson at the moment, but I don't know too much about his son, beyond his fight in Extreme Fighting and the video series he did back in the day. Would love to get hold of that: the certification course is especially interesting, particularly given Helio's reaction on the bonus tape in Gracie Jiu Jitsu Advanced, where he says of Carlson Jr's course "Is there a bigger con artist than this?" Of course it was in his business interests to put down competitors to Rorion, but still interesting to see politics rear its ugly head in the early days of the US BJJ scene.
In term of CBJJ/IBJJF, I've got a little bit on Carlinhos here, but that's pretty much straight out of a very biased source, The Gracie Way.
Speaking of back in the day, have you been training a long time? I'm getting together another post on the original Gracie Jiu Jitsu tape series, so would love to hear from people who watched that when it first came out, particularly how well they think its stood the test of time, and any anecdotes they might have related to first encountering the series.
Finally, I see you train at a Yamasaki school: is there a good source for the history of those clubs? Only thing I've heard is a Fightworks Podcast interview with Mario Yamasaki from a few years ago.
This is what I've got on Carlson at the moment, but I don't know too much about his son, beyond his fight in Extreme Fighting and the video series he did back in the day. Would love to get hold of that: the certification course is especially interesting, particularly given Helio's reaction on the bonus tape in Gracie Jiu Jitsu Advanced, where he says of Carlson Jr's course "Is there a bigger con artist than this?" Of course it was in his business interests to put down competitors to Rorion, but still interesting to see politics rear its ugly head in the early days of the US BJJ scene.
In term of CBJJ/IBJJF, I've got a little bit on Carlinhos here, but that's pretty much straight out of a very biased source, The Gracie Way.
Speaking of back in the day, have you been training a long time? I'm getting together another post on the original Gracie Jiu Jitsu tape series, so would love to hear from people who watched that when it first came out, particularly how well they think its stood the test of time, and any anecdotes they might have related to first encountering the series.
Finally, I see you train at a Yamasaki school: is there a good source for the history of those clubs? Only thing I've heard is a Fightworks Podcast interview with Mario Yamasaki from a few years ago.
Slideyfoot,
I have been training Brazilian Jiujitsu and submission grappling with the Yamasaki Academy about 10.5 years now. The school was originally founded by Mario, but the primary instruction in the past 7 years or so hase come from Fransisco Neto and Fernando Yamasaki. Info on them can be found here:
The original Gracies in Action tapes were very important in the history of brazilian jiujitsu in America and it's rise to popularity. While looking back now you can see and hear the obvious propaganda which has NOT stood up well in my opinion over time, they were instrumental in getting people to look at fighting and self defense in a different way. We lived and breathed by these tapes in the beginning and looked to their instructionals, especially the early Renzo/Kukuk series as the gold standard.
__________________ And who knows, he might could tap me. BUT I have enough confidence in my game to say he can't.
- Jade Dragon
I have been training Brazilian Jiujitsu and submission grappling with the Yamasaki Academy about 10.5 years now. The school was originally founded by Mario, but the primary instruction in the past 7 years or so hase come from Fransisco Neto and Fernando Yamasaki. Info on them can be found here:
Cheers! I'll check those out, and see if I can add something about Yamasaki to the history.
Quote:
The original Gracies in Action tapes were very important in the history of brazilian jiujitsu in America and it's rise to popularity. While looking back now you can see and hear the obvious propaganda which has NOT stood up well in my opinion over time, they were instrumental in getting people to look at fighting and self defense in a different way. We lived and breathed by these tapes in the beginning and looked to their instructionals, especially the early Renzo/Kukuk series as the gold standard.
I'd be interested in seeing the Renzo/Kukuk tapes, as they often crop up when people talk about early training. Did Kukuk have some kind of falling out with Renzo later on? Seem to vaguely remember reading that somewhere.
The review of Gracie Jiu Jitsu Basics is now up, here. I'm tempted to put up a thread on NHBGear asking for their memories of GJJ Basics, given that there are so many veterans on there from the early days. Or maybe Grapplers Guide? Will have a look around.
Cheers! I'll check those out, and see if I can add something about Yamasaki to the history.
I'd be interested in seeing the Renzo/Kukuk tapes, as they often crop up when people talk about early training. Did Kukuk have some kind of falling out with Renzo later on? Seem to vaguely remember reading that somewhere.
The review of Gracie Jiu Jitsu Basics is now up, here. I'm tempted to put up a thread on NHBGear asking for their memories of GJJ Basics, given that there are so many veterans on there from the early days. Or maybe Grapplers Guide? Will have a look around.
Slideyfoot,
I am one of the moderators on NHBGear.com's forum, actually. Sam, the owner of NHBGear and I go back nearly 20 years, he is the one who got me training BJJ in the first place. That place can be brutal, so don't expect the same kinds of nice, respectful posts you are getting here. But you are right, there are countless numbers of black belts on that forum including some of the more famous ones like Robert Drysdale.
If you post there let me know and I will do my best to keep the wolves off of you and let you know when you're getting real answers and not just being messed with.
__________________ And who knows, he might could tap me. BUT I have enough confidence in my game to say he can't.
- Jade Dragon
If you post there let me know and I will do my best to keep the wolves off of you and let you know when you're getting real answers and not just being messed with.
Finally finished off my reviews, and stuck up a thread on NHB Gear. Will be interesting to see if that gets any useful replies.
Jujitsu and Jujutsu are both considered correct renditions of the Japanese characters. However when, jujitsu first came to the west it was given a variety of {mistaken} spellings, as people grappled with the problem of translation and adquate representation of the Japanese language. The most common early representation of jujitsu was jiu jitsu . Since the Gracies began jujitsu training when jiu jitsu was the most common spelling of the term , they naturally wrote down there art as Jiu jitsu. Having created a tradtion the Brazilians stuck with the old style Jiu jitsu spelling.
What are the differences??
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