Total MMA (eBook)

THE BIRTH OF BRAZILIAN JIU-JITSU Rio de Janeiro is known as 'A Cidade Maravilhosa,' the marvelous city. It's a tropical paradise, with some of the world's most beautiful beaches. Millions of tourists visit every year, drinking chope from a Botequim and having a good time in their Speedos or string bikinis. But Rio is also one of the world's most dangerous cities. Today the violence often leads to murder, but in the 1980s scores were settled with fists. And the most dangerous gang in Rio was the Gracies, a family with an obsession for proving its toughness that extended through the generations. The toughest of them all was Rickson Gracie, a muscular street fighter with a hair-trigger temper and an unquenchable thirst for violence. For years the Gracies had been defending the honor of the family in rings, dojos, nightclubs, and in the streets. In 1988, Rickson was continuing the family tradition and gave beach goers a shock when he and a passel of his students, family, and friends descended on noted tough guy Hugo Duarte at Praia do Pepe beach. 'When our group arrived at the beach, Rickson was there with a group of more than 50 guys,' future Gracie conqueror Eugenio Tadeu said. Duarte offered to shake hands with Rickson, who would have none of it. Rickson Gracie was there to prove a point a nd slapped Duarte in the face with an open palm-the ultimate insult, and for years an act that necessitated a duel to the death. 'Before Rickson moved to the United States, he heard Hugo Duarte wanted to fight him, that Denilson Maia wanted to fight him, and Rickson went to the beach one day and fought that fight where he slapped Hugo,' Royler Gracie said. 'Rickson said, 'Let's go,' and Hugo said, 'Dude, I'm not ready.' So Rickson slapped him across the face and said, 'Now you have to,' so they had it out. On the beach, Renzo [Gracie] and Eugenio also had an altercation, but the crowd split it up.' Duarte would get off lightly. Surrounded by jeering jiu-jitsu students kicking sand and taunting, Duarte was videotaped being pummeled by Rickson. 'I tried to help Hugo, making a circle and not allowing jiu-jitsu people to attack him, throwing sand in his eyes like they were doing,' Tadeu said. 'It was not fair. They were planning to get us in this trap for a long time.' The tape would be edited to make it appear Rickson dominated the fight: Duarte's knees to Rickson's body were removed, and the times he had the advantage on the ground. Then the tape was used to sell the Gracie brand of 'self-defense.' Welcome to the world of the Gracie family and Gracie jiu-jitsu, where unprovoked thuggery is commendable and promoting the family name paramount. But this story more properly begins in Tokyo during the late 1800s, where a 5'2', 90-pound jujutsu expert named Jigoro Kano realized he needed to train smarter instead of harder. The Gentle Way Jigoro Kano was a little guy, picked on by bullies and desperate to defend himself. The solution to that problem in 19th-century Japan was jujutsu, an ancient Japanese fighting system that had roots in feudal Japan and the time of the samurai. Originally the 'gentle art' focused on everything - punches, kicks, throws, arm locks, strangles - and was truly martial in nature. It was one of more than a dozen martial arts a samurai would study during his life, but the only one that focused on weaponless combat. The samurai were a dying breed. Commodore Matthew Perry had opened the islands up to the world, and Japanese society was experiencing severe culture shock.What was once a focus, the budo spirit of the samurai, suddenly seemed antiquated and dangerous. Jujutsu was dying.