Gracie Jiu-jitsu is From Brazil
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 Hélio Gracie and his brothers received into a discipline that would allow a smaller fighter to best a bigger and stronger one. Hélio 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 grew more competent, Hélio introduced the world to the beginnings of Gracie Jiu-jitsu in a series of high profile matches. Despite not necessarily winning these matches, Hélio won acclaim for lasting far longer than anyone thought he would be able to against stronger and more experienced opponents. In 1951 he fought Masahiko Kimura, then considered to be the greatest jiu jitsu fighter in the world. Kimura claimed that should the match last longer than three minutes, then Hélio should be considered the winner; Hélio lasted for thirteen. In 1955, the longest fight in the world occurred when Hélio held off a fighter twenty years his junior and forty pounds heavier for three hours and forty minutes.
When Rorion Gracie, Hélio’s son, left Brazil to bring Gracie Jiu-jitsu to America, he intended to carry on his father’s legacy. The Gracies wanted to create jiu-jitsu academies to share the martial art techniques that they had adapted after decades of intense study with the rest of the world, and the United States was the perfect place to do so. Though Rorion initially struggled in setting up his Brazilian Jiu jitsu academy, he won increasingly larger numbers of students mainly by issuing the Gracie challenge. This was a call to any fighter of any discipline to meet him in hand-to-hand combat in order to see whose discipline was stronger.
All of this was creating an awareness of Gracie Jiu-jitsu in the martial arts world, but it was soon going to become practically a household name. Mixed martial arts tournaments were gathering a lot of interest in the late 80s and early 90s, as the quest to determine which martial art was the best was in full force. The Ultimate Fighting Championship was born out of this interest and in 1993 the first of many tournaments was held. Royce Gracie proved that jiu jitsu was a force to be reckoned with when he won that championship, and then did it again and again.
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?
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