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.
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.
Of all the martial art disciplines out there, Gracie Jiu-jitsu is probably the most well known. It was a long hard road, going from Japan to Brazil, then to California and finally the rest of America and the world. Jiu-jitsu academies all over the world have students who have signed up based on watching what Royce Gracie did in the Ultimate Fighting Championships, and then from learning about what his ancestors accomplished.
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