By the Kamakura period the samurai were emerging as the elite warrior class and while they preferred to war with weapons, in the event of weapon loss or breakage they needed a set of battlefield-effective unarmed combat moves which resulted in what is loosely known as kumiuchi. Armor, along with the press of bodies on a battlefield, prevented the developed of a kicking and punching art and so grappling was emphasized. One of the principle stratagems was to take the opponent to the ground where a knife could be neatly inserted between the armor plates and the adversary killed.
For centuries the Japanese martial arts of all forms were necessarily brutally effective. It wasn't until the early 17th century that peace was established under the Tokugawa shogunate. For the next 250 years the arts stultified. While the rest of the world modernized and formed large armies of drilled conscripts, in Japan the samurai remained the elite without actually doing very much in the way of fighting.
The close of the sengoku jidai (civil war) period saw the establishment of formal ryu (schools). The first ju jutsu ryu to emerge was the Takenouchi ryu in 1532. Many others followed. This school, and those that followed, taught self-defense methods more than battlefield skills, a reflection of the political change that had taken hold of Japan.
Fast forward to the mid-nineteenth century and Japan's opening of its harbors to foreign trade and Western influence, it became obvious that the traditional fighting schools were redundant in the face of modern weaponry and tactics. Japan too began to modernize (reflected in part in the Tom Cruise movie The Last Samurai) and the traditional warrior class was disbanded. Ju jutsu went into decline until its savior arrived in the form of Jigoro Kano.
Jigoro Kano and the development of judo
Kano began his study of ju jutsu in the late 1870s as a way to combat people bullying him by building his strength and his fighting skill. Kano first studied under Fukuda sensei of the Tenjin-shinyo ryu for two years. Upon the passing of his teacher Kano continued under Mataemon sensei. His death forced Kano to switch to the Kito ryu under Tsunetoshi Ikubo where a great deal of the throwing techniques of judo were learned.
Throughout his study Kano took notes and considered the problems and limitations of ju jutsu. He decided to emphasize character development over pure fighting skill and introduced several innovations, one of the most famous of which was the practice of randori (sparring) which led to shiai (competitive matches). By making judo safer (though not ineffective) it was able to appeal to a wider audience and, the Gracie family would argue, more relevant to combat as techniques could be practiced with much more vigor owing to rules and the mutual agreement to end a match when one or the other taps (submits). Kano moved away from the theoretical deadliness of techniques that could not be practiced safely (such as eye jabs). The result, paradoxically, was to create a more combat-effective system as more rigorous training could be engaged in.
Kano also took the maxim of 'minimum effort, maximum effect' as the fundamental guiding principle of judo, a philosophy he was keen to see applied to other aspects of life outside the training hall.
Essentially Kano's great breakthrough was to educate the practitioner first over the techniques themselves.
Kano was vindicated in a famous tournament held in 1886, a mere four years after the Kodokan (the HQ for judo) had been opened. Kano attracted several top ju jutsu practitioners and his team defeated one challenger after another. Finally in 1886 the Tokyo police wished to determine which art was most suitable for recruits to be taught and held a competition to decide the matter. The Kodokan team won 13 of 15 matches, and drew the other two. This success catapulted Kano and his art to enormous popularity and growth. In turn judo entered the public school curriculum.
Fusen ryu
While today judo is best known for its throws and BJJ for its ground work, ultimately the origins of the ground techniques found in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu lie beyond judo in the little-known Fusen ryu school of ju jutsu.
Fusen ryu had been in existence for some 100 years before its head master, Mataemon Tanabe, issued an unexpected challenge to the Kodokan. Unlike other schools of ju jutsu, the Fusen ryu concentrated on grappling over throwing. This tradition had been continued in the Kodokan with the victories in other challenges being the result of superior throwing technique. In fact, at this time, the syllabus of judo does not appear to have incorporated any ground grappling.
Tanabe was aware of the weakness in judo and formulated a simple strategy for the challenge: he would take the match to the ground. He sought to win through submission rather than scoring a point with a throw.
The precise details and date are lost but the challenge took place in the early 20th century between the Kodokan and the Fusen ryu. What isn't in dispute is the result: for the first time the Kodokan was defeated. Easily...
Kano was shocked and realized immediately the weakness in judo and - displaying his typical desire for improvement - invited Tanabe to teach at his school.
The example Tanabe set provided a key factor in the development of BJJ. The challenge demonstrated the importance of taking an opponent out of his comfort zone and into the area of combat the protagonist was most proficient in. This strategy came to be known as phases of combat, with each phase representing a part of the overall fight. Judo had previously fought in the throwing phase of combat; Tanabe took the fight into the ground grappling phase and beat the Kodokan.
The result of Tanabe's teaching at the Kodokan was an explosion of interest in ne waza, or ground grappling, at the expense of the hitherto emphasis on throwing.
Mitsuyo Maeda
An important figure to emerge from the shift in training to ground grappling was Mitsuyo Maeda. A skilled ju jutsu practitioner, like many others, he mad the switch to judo. Maeda became one of the top students to emerge from the Kodokan and he was sent around the world by Kano to spread the art. He traveled around Europe before heading to Brazil prior to the outbreak of World War One. At the time Japan was looking to expand its program of overseas colonization and Maeda became involved, advocating Brazil as a great place for Japanese to live.
While performing his duties Maeda came to befriend a Brazilian by the name of Gastao Gracie, a man of Scottish descent. In return for political favors, Maeda taught Gastao's son, Carlos, for somewhere between two and four years. Thus the seed of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was planted.
Maeda was an accomplished street fighter and challenge-match fighter. His experiences in Brazil exposed him to different physiques and different styles that required him to modify his more traditional Japanese martial arts. There was no gi jacket and opponents tended to have a background in either wrestling or boxing, neither of which were seen in Japan at that time. To counter a boxer, Maeda would move into a tight clinch, take him to the ground and force a submission. While Maeda had never seen anything like boxing before, boxers had never seen anything like the ground work of judo.
Carlos Gracie and the beginnings of BJJ
As noted above, Carlos studied with Maeda for no more than four years and this would have included stints under Maeda's top students while the master was traveling. Following this tuition Carlos opened his own school in 1925 along with his brothers who he had been teaching. The Gracie brothers were known as excellent technicians, but more than this, they were known as fearless competitors in challenge matches. The family and the style went unbeaten.
This ongoing exposure to real combat created a feedback loop that was then honed in the gym among the brothers. With each fight came discussion and the honing of an evermore effective technique. The family tended towards the small size and so they often found themselves fighting from their backs, pinned by a larger opponent, and dealing with this situation became a key feature of BJJ that is still apparent today. Not only that, the Gracie's were engaged in challenge fights, not challenge grappling matches. In this environment is became clear that the pin was ineffective as it did not end the fight in and of itself.
The Gracies learned that two positions were more effective than any other: moving behind an opponent and taking his back and achieving the full mount position. This was the origin of the points system used in competitive BJJ which rewards contestants with ever-higher point scores as they achieve more difficult (and more dominating) positional control.
Continued development of BJJ
As the years passed and experience grew the theory of positional dominance grew and became of prime importance. Basically the theory recognized that the positions two fighters took with regard to one another could be graded, from the individual's perspective, as ranging from very good to very bad. For example, the mount position was, from the point of view of the person in the mount, very good; from the person trapped below the position was very bad. As such, the technique and strategy evolved to emphasize gaining a very good position in relation to your opponent and avoiding, escaping or reversing a very bad position. This emphasis on gaining positional advantage was reflected in the point system used in BJJ competition, which rewarded fighters who could force their adversary into a disadvantageous situation.
Differences between BJJ and traditional ju jutsu
While BJJ has its roots in classical Japanese ju jutsu, it has morphed into something that, certainly at the level at which fights are conceptualized, is different. In general, the techniques themselves tend to be inherited, but the guiding combative principles that govern the execution of those techniques have developed along different lines in BJJ.
- Positional Strategy
The most important difference is the revolutionary emphasis on gaining positional advantage. This overall guiding strategy in BJJ has its roots in the experiences gained by Gracie family members in real fights and subsequent training and honing of technique and the feedback loop this process created. Once positional dominance had been gained a submission could be much more easily applied as the opponent is less able to resist. The opponent may also be finished with a flurry of blows (usually palm strikes to save the knuckles from damage) from the mount.
- Training Method
Unlike classical ju jutsu BJJ makes continual and effective use of live training (randori) to teach, understand and practice positional dominance. This is an inheritance from Kano's introduction of sparring at the Kodokan. Although BJJ does make use of kata (forms) in the use of pre-determined drills, practice does not start and stop there as it does in the original ju jutsu schools.
The point of live training is for the opponent to actually resist the application of techniques against him, unlike in kata or drill practice where resistance is minimal to non-existent.
A criticism leveled at BJJ sometimes (and against those that spar 'safely' - according to rules) is that 'realistic' movements such as eye gouging and biting are not practiced. The standard answer is that experience has demonstrated that it is the superior grappler who will be better able to execute such techniques. My personal feelings are that such extreme attacks have little place in modern life with its legal constraints. Gouging another's eye had its place on the battlefield but nowadays the same technique can cause you to be the one convicted of a crime. As for a defense against such attacks, again, it is through the study and practice of positional advantage that prevents you suffering any damage. Taking someone's back effectively allows you to not only end the fight but puts you in a very safe position.
The benefit of this 'safe' approach to live training is that techniques can be practiced full out on a daily basis allowing for a rapid accumulation of skill (and related factors such as strength and endurance).
- Point System
The points system used in BJJ rewards a fighter each time he moves into a better (more dominant) position. Escaping from a bad position however is not rewarded. The rear position and mount score the maximum of four points each.
- Techniques Differences
Traditional ju jutsu styles utilize techniques that cannot be used safely in daily or competitive training, such as strikes to the eyes and genitals or biting and hair pulling. BJJ focuses on techniques that can be practiced full out against a resisting opponent.
The techniques of BJJ also make greater use of leverage owing to the smaller size of the early members of the Gracie family when compared to other Brazilians. The techniques also rely more on the use of gross motor movement, rather than fine motor movement. Those techniques reliant on fine motor movement, such as a finger lock, have been found to be difficult to apply in a real combat situation.
BJJ and MMA
Throughout much of the twentieth century the grappling arts, including BJJ, saw a decline in popularity when compared to the more dynamic and visually appealing striking and kicking arts such as karate and kung fu. Then, in the 1990s, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) competition began to gain popularity in North America and Japan. Initially the idea was to match up style vs style and fighters were nowhere near as well rounded as they are nowadays. Surprisingly the striking arts performed poorly, much to the shock of the general public and the average martial artist. One style emerged as being clearly more successful than others: BJJ. Even more shocking was that its champion, a young Royce Gracie, looked like anything but the archetypal sleek, muscle-bound champion that one would expect to dominate. More often than not Royce was outweighed and outmuscled yet he was able to pull off win after win. Other Gracie family members - Renzo, Ralph and Rickson - were similarly victorious in competitions other than the early UFC.
These early matches were much closer to full out fights than is allowed today in the UFC. There were no round time limits, no weight categories, no gloves and very few prohibited techniques. In this environment the Gracies and their BJJ were as close to being unbeatable and one could get.
BJJ and the Ultimate Fighting Championship
Rorion Gracie talks about the origins of BJJ, and the formulation of the original no-holds-barred Ultimate Fighting Championship (along with commentary from Ken Shamrock) which saw the emergence of Royce Gracie as the top fighter of his day and Gracie Jiu Jitsu as the pre-eminent fighting style.
