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A Tribute to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
by James Swift
(formerly known as Jimbo)
jswift@student.highlands.edu
In the grand scheme of life, there are certain things that are
scientifically proven to be unequivocally awesome. Football, Code Red
Mountain Dew, Sega Genesis: these are chief among the greatest things
ever invented, and right near the peak of that list, above heavy metal
and right before the advent of third base, there’s jiu-jitsu.
There are many people out there that believe jiu-jitsu is an antiquated
art form, and that in the current arena of mixed martial arts, is an
obsolete practice. These people can shut up, that’s what they can do. If
not for the groundwork laid out by all 59 Gracies, there would be no UFC,
and thusly, no Mixed Martial Arts, at least resembling its modern
incarnation, to speak of.
That’s why, today, I am praising the art of jiu-jitsu for what it is:
the missing link between "Bloodsport" and mass market cable stardom. If
not for the ground-and-submission oriented styling of one Royce Gracie,
guys like Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture would just be muscular dudes
hanging out in front of the GNC in Venice Beach talking about quads and
stuff all day instead of being celebrated national sports heroes.
Let’s begin our jiu-jitsu honoring by examining the art form’s roots.
Although characterized by Brazilian influences, jiu-jitsu actually began
as a Japanese off shoot of Judo. Roughly translated from Japanese into
English, “jiu-jitsu” means “Hey, watch me hold this guy on the ground
for twenty minutes and then choke him out with his own arm”.
Jiu-jitsu was very much a forgotten art form throughout the 20th century
until Helio Gracie emerged from the jungles of Rio de Janeiro. Helio,
who was born in 1792, inserted his own joint-lock oriented offense into
the primarily choke hold and grappling centered discipline, and the rest
is history. Throughout his sparkling career, Helio had many classic
encounters with Brazil’s greatest fighters. In 1964, he fought Pele for
4 and a half hours, making the him tap out to a ferocious ankle lock
after a failed attempt at a back flip bicycle kick. Helio’s last
sanctioned fight occurred on January 24th, 1972, in which he defeated
rival Blanka via DQ (Electro- shocking your opponent is not allowed in
MMA).
Fall 1993: The first UFC event. All of the legends of the sport where
there: Ken Shamrock, a fat dude, another fat dude, some other guy. It’s
a veritable hall-of-fame crowd. However, above everyone else, there was
Royce.
At only 170, Royce looked like he could barely snap into a Slim Jim, let
alone defeat some 240 pound boxer. Gracie then went on to dazzle the
Denver crowd, utilizing the then-mysterious jiu-jitsu discipline to
propel him towards becoming the first true Ultimate Fighting Champion.
The classic line spoken by Jim Brown at the first UFC event was
“Fighting is not what we thought it was.” Jiu-jitsu, with its emphasis
on leverage above pure power and technique over speed and aggression,
became the predominant MMA discipline. As the sport evolved, more and
more fighters began to fuse jiu-jitsu with other fighting forms, and the
term “Ultimate Fighter” truly became just that. As the MMA world began
to shed its discipline-oriented structure, it looked as if jiu-jitsu was
on the cusp of extinction.
Royce Gracie made his triumphant return to the UFC world at UFC 60.
He then went on to get massacred by Matt Hughes in one of the most-
hilariously one-sided bouts in mixed martial arts history. That awful,
awful May night, Brazilian jiu-jitsu took it’s dying breath, picked a
burial plot, told Helio to get out of the coffin, and was finally laid
to rest as a legitimately effective martial art.
Or was it?
The answer is, yes. It was.
So what if it technically isn’t pertinent to the current mixed martial
arts scene and anybody that went in to battle today using a 100 percent
Brazilian jiu-jitsu strategy would most likely end up in a body bag?
Mixed Martial Arts, and to a greater extent, life in general, isn’t
about a win-loss record. It’s about going in there waving your team
colors, blasting some Sepultura and never passing up on the chance to
kick somebody’s backside, and in the end, that’s what it’s all about.
The influence of jiu-jitsu on the modern day MMA scene is about as vast
as one can imagine. Much like the totally irrelevant (yet still
respected) forward-pass-less yesterdays of football lore, the archaic
practice of choking a guy on the floor with your feet while trying to
pull his arm out of the socket simultaneously may be long gone, yet its
impact on the sport, and the fighters that compete in said sport, will
never be forgotten.
Much like the Phoenix, or the Phoenix Suns, jiu-jitsu will re-emerge… at
some point. Although currently dormant, it’s only a matter of time until
the next truly great practitioner of the Brazilian arts rears his head.
Maybe he’ll be a heavyweight like Gonzaga, only he won’t get his face
knocked off by Randy Couture. At this rate, 51 percent of the total
Brazilian population will be Gracie offspring by 2020, so chances are at
least one of them is going to be really good. Whoever the savior of
jiu-jitsu may be, he’ll have a mighty fine reputation to uphold, a
legacy to embody, and a Shamrock of some kind to beat up.
Thank you, Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Thanks for everything.
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