History of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

The great history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is much like the story of Christopher Columbus proving to the whole world that our world is sphere not flat. The truth of our world being round like the sun and moon was undisputable; it was a fact. To me, the story of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu shines the same undisputable truth on the martial arts world. To me, it shows how a fight should be handled correctly in any situation. When I was in Karate, I was smaller then any of my 3 older brothers. For five years I had been trained in karate, and not once was I able to spar and defeat any of them. Their size was too much of a factor, and my training was a joke when it came to their brute dominance. After leaning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu I gained the ability to defeat all of them, and I did it on the ground, where most people think of strength and weight making the biggest difference. This is the history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

In the early 1900’s of Pera Brazil, came a jiu-jitsu instructor by the name of Esai Maeda. There Esai encountered a very influential business man, Gastao Gracie. Gastao helped the Japanese immigrate and establish themselves there. Esai was so appreciative he offered to teach Gastao’s oldest son, Carlos Gracie, traditional Japanese jiu-jitsu.

From there Carlos Started his own jiu-jitsu school, and taught all his brothers the Japanese martial art. The story of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is not with Carlos, however; it is with Gastao’s youngest son, Helio Gracie.

Helio was the smallest, the slowest, and the weakest of all his brothers. He had terrible asthma, and found it hard to do most strenuous activities. He learned jiu-jitsu from Carlos, and became an instructor at his school. Struggling with his physically frain body, Helio found some of the moves to be very difficult to perform. Determined to make the martial art work for him, he began experimenting with the moves so that one could perform them with out all the physical advantages his brothers seemed to have over him. Thus the Brazilian style of jiu-jitsu began to form and evolve.

From there Helio began to beat all his brothers in friendly sparing matches with ease. His way of jiu-jitsu proved to be so effective that all his brothers began taking instructions their little brother, Helio.

Helio went on to show the whole country of Brazil the vast superiority of his style of jiu-jitsu. He fought in 17 professional fights including a match against the world wide wrestling champion, Wladek Zbyszko, and a fight against the second highest ranked jiu-jitsu fighter in the world, Kato. In this fight, Helio choked Kato to unconsciousness in the first 6 minutes of the fight, qualifying Helio to enter the ring with the world champion, Masahiko Kimura, who outweighed little Helio by more than 80lbs.

Helio continued with his son’s to perfect his new martial art into one of the greatest fighting styles the world has ever seen: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.