History UsefulNotes / BrazilianJiuJitsu

* DoesNotLikeShoes: BJJ is traditionally practiced barefoot, and shoes are usually not allowed at the mats. There are a few no-gi gyms that classify themselves as "submission grappling" allow people to wear wrestling shoes, or most famously the ADCC (Abu Dhabi Combat Club) doesn't have a dress code, so wrestling shoes are allowed.[[note]]Some contestants also fight barechest and even with t-shirts instead of the rashguards seen in no-gi training, and even more interesting, the traditional Gi is allowed! Even though is never worn as the fighter with gis will be in a disavantage. The ADCC is "Submission Wrestling", so all kinds of grappling based Martial Arts compete, such as Catch Wrestling, Luta Livre, Judo and Sambo.[[/note]]

-->''"The Jiu Jitsu I created was designed to give the weak ones a chance to face the heavy and strong."'' -- '''Hélio Gracie'''

* TheChessmaster: BJJ guys like to describe the sport as "human chess", as you always have to forsee what the next steps your opponent and you will take and how to react to them. Thus, high-level practitioners could be described as human chessmasters.

** The Kimura lock (aka ''gyaku ude-garami'') was named after judo legend Masahiko Kimura, who submitted Helio Gracie with this technique.

--->''"The Jiu Jitsu I created was designed to give the weak ones a chance to face the heavy and strong."'' -- '''Hélio Gracie'''

** The De La Riva guard (originally called the "pudding/jello guard") was popularized after Ricardo de la Riva made it his SignatureMove and won against then-undefeated Royler Gracie in in 1986.

** With practitioners of the UsefulNotes/CatchWrestling-based ''Luta Livre'', as they featured opposite combat philosophies and taught different social demographics (BJJ was the martial art of the high class and Brazilian elite, while LL dojos were cheaper and friendlier to lower classes and poor people). With the success of the UsefulNotes/UltimateFightingChampionship, BJJ became internationally famous and spread throughout Brazil, while LL fell in popularity and became a shadow of itself, with it's schools limited to Rio de Janeiro and [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff Germany]].

* StartMyOwn: BJJ was this to Judo, although initially unintentionally -- Hélio and Carlos affirmed they didn't heard the term "Judo" until the 1950s and thought they were doing the same "Jiu-Jitsu" that was begin done in Japan -- however, they decided to "split" and not adopt the Kodokan rules when they were introduced in Brazil as they were incompatible with their ground-based game, and in 1967 they (along with other 4 schools of Alvaro Barreto, Joao Alberto Barreto, Hélcio Leal Binda, and Oswaldo Fadda) founded the Jiu-Jitsu Federation of Guanabara with their own ruleset. The term "Jiu-Jitsu" served to differentiate it from Judo.

* WeakButSkilled: The general priciple behind Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is to rely on skill over strength, anyone can punch or take a punch but it's impossible to defend from a grappler if you aren't skilled on it yourself. While this is true for other styles of grappling as well (Wrestling, Judo, Sambo, etc), BJJ's focus on groundfighting gives more emphasis on technique over pure strength. The Gracies used this principle to promote their own martial art win several of the early UFC and other NHB/Vale Tudo tournaments despite being generally smaller, lighter and weaker than many of their muscular powerhouse opponents through proper application of techniques with which the other fighters were unfamiliar, and in fact Royce Gracie was chosen to represent the family in the early UFC for this reason -- as opposed to a larger relative[[note]]there is some controversy on that matter though. Some claim that the true reason was that Royce was more loyal then Rickson, the first option, which also wanted a lot of money (some point out that Royler Gracie was even more skilled and smaller then Royce). In any case, Royce's smaller frame and experience in Vale Tudo fighting helped Rorion to choose him as the family's representative.[[/note]]

* ''Film/SherlockHolmes2009'': The director Creator/GuyRitchie incorporated some BJJ (being a practitioner himself) most notably in the final battle when [[spoiler: Holmes and Watson manage to take down [[TheBrute Dredger]] with an arm-bar and a modified rear naked choke]]. It should be noted that in the books, Holmes was trained in "Baritsu", a mispelling of Bartitsu, a real hybrid martial art created in Britain that combined boxing, jiu-jitsu, Savate and cane-fighting.

* BadassFamily: The Gracie family, an entire family dedicated to a martial art, sounds coming straight from a kung fu movie or anime. The late Helio and Carlos Gracie essentially created Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and the entire family family worked to develop and spread BJJ as much as they could, getting involved in crazy stunts to promote Jiu-Jitsu, from making bogus claims to challenging other martial artists to street fights, and most famously and sucessfully: the founding of the UFC.

** With practioners of the UsefulNotes/CatchWrestling-based ''Luta Livre'', as they featured opposite combat philosophies and taught different social demographies (BJJ was the martial art of the high class and Brazilian elite, while LL dojos were cheaper and friendlier to lower classes and poor people). With the success of the UsefulNotes/UltimateFightingChampionship, BJJ became internationally famous and spread throughout Brazil, while LL fell in popularity and became a shadow of itself, with it's schools limited to Rio de Janeiro and [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff Germany]].

** Within the Gracies themselves, Hélio and Carlson Gracie's schools were rivals due to their different approaches to grappling: Carlson defended a very physical, aggresive and top-heavy game with a lot of pressure, and was a proponent of cross-training to other martial arts like Judo and Wrestling to better one's game, while Hélio's branch had a more orthodox, defensive guard-based Jiu-jitsu, and insisted in pure BJJ. This rivalry was exemplified by a match between Carlson's student Wallid Ismail and Hélio's son, Royce Gracie: After defending Ismail's relentless pressure for four minutes, Royce rolled into turtle position as Ismail was trying to pass the guard, Carlson's student seized the opportunity and grabbed Royce's gi sleeve and performed a ''Relógio'' (Clock choke) and left Royce unconscious on the mat.

* WeakButSkilled: The general priciple behind Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is to rely on skill over strenght, anyone can punch or take a punch but it's impossible to defend from a grappler if you aren't skilled on it yourself. While this is true for other styles of grappling as well (Wrestling, Judo, Sambo, etc), BJJ's focus on groundfighting gives more emphasis on technique over pure strenght. The Gracies used this principle to promote their own martial art win several of the early UFC and other NHB/Vale Tudo tournaments despite being generally smaller, lighter and weaker than many of their muscular powerhouse opponents through proper application of techniques with which the other fighters were unfamiliar, and in fact Royce Gracie was chosen to represent the family in the early UFC for this reason -- as opposed to a larger relative[[note]]there is some controversy on that matter though. Some claim that the true reason was that Royce was more loyal then Rickson, the first option, which also wanted a lot of money (some point out that Royler Gracie was even more skilled and smaller then Royce). In any case, Royce's smaller frame and experience in Vale Tudo fighting helped Rorion to choose him as the family's representative.[[/note]]

** Hélio Gracie claimed that at a child he was weak and frail, suffering from ashtma. Supposedly creating BJJ as a way for people with weaker stature like him to rely more on technique over strenght. However, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that he was actually a healthy talented athlete, which trained and competed in rowing and swimming since his childhood, as well as Catch Wrestling under Orlando Americo "Dudú" da Silva.

* NamesTheSame: Confusingly, the "Jiu-Jitsu" developed in Brazil had no relation with the Japanese martial art(s) of jiu-jitsu in Japan except for a parentage through Judo. When it arrived in the United States, the Gracies used the term "Gracie" or "Brazilian" Jiu-Jitsu to differentiate from tradional Japanese Jiu-Jitsu. "Jiu-Jitsu" is actually an older transliteration [[note]]Under this transliteration, "Judo" would be "Jiu-do"[[/note]], the modern transliteration is "Jujutsu", which has been since adopted by traditional JJ schools to differentiate from BJJ.

* ''Film/FlashPoint'': Creator/DonnieYen uses mixed martial arts for his choreography, with multiple scenes having BJJ grappling.

* ''Film/TheIncredibleHulk'': Rickson Gracie himself appears in a cameo as Bruce Banner's martial arts instructor, while he's credited as... "''[[ArtisticLicenseMartialArts Aikido]]'' instructor"

* Within the Gracies themselves, Hélio and Carlson Gracie's schools were rivals due to their different approaches to grappling: Carlson defended a very physical, aggresive and top-heavy game with a lot of pressure, and was a proponent of cross-training to other martial arts like Judo and Wrestling to better one's game, while Hélio's branch had a more orthodox, defensive guard-based Jiu-jitsu, and insisted in pure BJJ. This rivalry was exemplified by a match between Carlson's student Wallid Ismail and Hélio's son, Royce Gracie: After defending Ismail's relentless pressure for four minutes, Royce rolled into turtle position as Ismail was trying to pass the guard, Carlson's student seized the opportunity and grabbed Royce's gi sleeve and performed a ''Relógio'' (Clock choke) and left Royce unconscious on the mat.

* StartMyOwn: BJJ was this to Judo, although initially unintentionally -- Hélio and Carlos affirmed they didn't heard the term "Judo" until the 1950s and thought they were doing the same "Jiu-Jitsu" that was begin done in Japan -- however, they decided to "split" and not adopt the Kodokan rules when they were introduced in Brazil, and in 1967 they (along with other 4 schools of Alvaro Barreto, Joao Alberto Barreto, Hélcio Leal Binda, and Oswaldo Fadda) founded the Jiu-Jitsu Federation of Guanabara with their own ruleset. The term "Jiu-Jitsu" served to differentiate it from Judo.

* WeakButSkilled: The Gracie family used Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with this principle to promote their own martial art win several of the early UFC and other NHB/Vale Tudo tournaments despite being generally smaller, lighter and weaker than many of their muscular powerhouse opponents through proper application of techniques with which the other fighters were unfamiliar, and in fact Royce Gracie was chosen to represent the family in the early UFC for this reason -- as opposed to a larger relative[[note]]there is some controversy on that matter though. Some claim that the true reason was that Royce was more loyal then Rickson, the first option, which also wanted a lot of money (some point out that Royler Gracie was even more skilled and smaller then Royce). In any case, Royce's smaller frame and experience in Vale Tudo fighting helped Rorion to choose as the family's representative.[[/note]] When the rest of the world became familiar with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu the advantage disappeared.
->''"The Jiu Jitsu I created was designed to give the weak ones a chance to face the heavy and strong."''
-->-- '''Hélio Gracie'''

** Hélio Gracie claimed that at a child he was weak and frail, suffering from ashtma. Supposedly creating BJJ as a way for people with weaker stature like him to rely more on technique over strenght. There's a lot of evidence to suggest that he was actually a healthy talented athlete, which trained and competed in rowing and swimming since his childhood, as well as Catch Wrestling under Orlando Americo "Dudú" da Silva.

* BadassFamily: The Gracie family, an entire family dedicated to a martial art, sounds coming straight from a kung fu movie or anime. The late Helio and Carlos Gracie essentially created Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and the entire family is involved with the art. The Gracie family worked to develop and spread BJJ as much as they could, getting involved in crazy stunts to promote Jiu-Jitsu, from making bogus claims to challenging other martial artists to street fights, and most famously and sucessfully: the founding of the UFC.

* ''Film/LethalWeapon'': CowboyCop Martin Riggs ends [[FisticuffsBoss Mr. Joshua]] by putting him in a triangle choke. One of the first movies to feature BJJ (and before BJJ was big), this was a result of technical advisor Cedric Adams wanting to show how deadly Riggs was by "having mastery of a form of martial arts never before seen onscreen." As by this time Rorion Gracie was slowly building his Hollywood connections by appearing as an extra in movies and promoting BJJ in magazines, he ended up as one of the movie's choreographers, and would make a cameo in ''Lethal Weapon 3'' as a random Main/{{Mook}}. UsefulNotes/{{Capoeira}} and Jailhouse Rock[[note]]a self-defense system supposedly developed in American prisons[[/note]] were also used.

* ''Film/SherlockHolmes2009'': The director Creator/GuyRitchie incorporated some BJJ (being a practitioner himself) most notably in the final battle when [[spoiler: Holmes and Watson manage to take down [[TheBrute Dredger]] with an arm-bar and a modified rear naked choke]].

* StartMyOwn: BJJ was this to Judo, although initially unintentionally -- Hélio and Carlos affirmed they didn't heard the term "Judo" until the 1950s and thought they were doing the same "Jiu-Jitsu" that was begin done in Japan -- however, they decided to "split" and not adopt the Kodokan rules when they were introduced in Brazil, and in 1967 they (along with other 4 schools of Alvaro Barreto, Joao Alberto Barreto, Hélcio Leal Binda, and Oswaldo Fadda) founded the Jiu-Jitsu Federation of Guanabara with their own ruleset. The term "Jiu-Jitsu" served to differentiate it from Judo.

* ''Film/FlashPoint'': Creator/DonnieYen uses mixed martial arts for his coreography, with multiple scenes having BJJ grappling.

* ''Film/TheIncredibleHulk'': Rickson Gracie himself appears in a cameo as Bruce Banner's martial arts instructor, while he's credited as... "''[[ArtisticLicenseMartialArts Aikido]]'' instructor"
* ''Film/TheArtOfSelfDefense'': While the movie is centered around a UsefulNotes/{{Karate}} dojo, during the fight between Anne and Thomas, she tackles Thomas and transitions from a Berimbolo into a Rear Naked Choke. The creator Riley Stearns is a purple belt BJJ but decided to use Karate instead because "[[SmallReferencePools that's what everyone is more familiar with]]".
* ''Film/{{Redbelt}}'': The movie was created a BJJ practioner and has some accurate grappling. However, as pointed in the movie's page. There's some ArtisticLicenseMartialArts for some grappling moves and gets MMA completely wrong.

** Leglocks are traditionally viewed as this, as they tend to be injury prone. The Gracies also disliked them because they were less skilled at it than other schools like the Fadda academy and the luta livre practitioners.

* ChokeHolds: BJJ's bread and butter, there's a huge number of choke techniques that are used. The most famous of all it the Rear Naked Choke, or how it's called in Portuguese, ''Mata Leão'' ([[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast "The Lion Killer"]]).

* DavidVsGoliath: Many of the early challenges in Brazil went this way, one of the most famous was Rickson Gracie vs Rei Zulu. Many BJJ competitions also have an "absolute" weight category which is open to all.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Very popular in the United States, even more then in Brazil, as the Gracies took it to the US as a way to expand the popularity of the art.

* SeriousBusiness: Some practitioners go to the extent to describe BJJ not as a martial art or a combat sport, but an entire way to live.

* ''Film/Redbelt'': The movie was created a BJJ practioner and has some accurate grappling. However, as pointed in the movie's page. There's some ''ArtisticLicenseMartialArts'' for some grappling moves and gets UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts completely wrong.

* ''Manga/AllRounderMeguru'': Mostly a MMA manga, but there are scenes of Jiu-Jitsu training. It's the speciality of Judoka Momoko (which started BJJ after her school's Judo club closed) and both her and Meguru join a BJJ tournament.

* ChokeHolds: BJJ's bread and butter, the most famous of all it the Rear Naked Choke, or how it's called in Portuguese, ''Mata Leão'' ([[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast "The Lion Killer"]]).

* ''Manga/AllRounderMeguru'': Mostly a MMA manga, but there are scenes of Jiu-Jitsu training. In a scene Meguru rolls with Mokomo [[note]]Who is 48.5 kg! (or 108 pounds)[[/note]] it ends on a CurbStompBattle for Meguru.

* GradualGrinder: The Gracies's oldest strategy against other grapplers used to be to hold them in guard and wait for them to tire, sometimes while hitting them from the bottom with palm strikes and from behind with heel shoots to the kidneys (an action called "sinapismo").

->''"[[BadassBoast The ground is my ocean, I'm the shark, and most people don't even know how to swim.]]"''

Those battles had place in what would become the ''Vale Tudo'' competition circuit, in which everything goes (actually not, but almost) and which gave birth to UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts in United States when the Gracies decided to export the format to expand commercially, a venture they called UsefulNotes/UltimateFightingChampionship. Although UFC started as merely a style vs. style pamphlet designed to sell BJJ, the latter would prove instrumental in the worldwide expansion of MMA, either by endorsing it or by moving other martial currents to try to grab a piece of the cake. Its techniques are still part of the basic instruction of mixed martial arts in every country that is not Japan, where catch wrestling often occupies its place, or the former Soviet bloc, where sambo and Japanese influences used to be the norm, to the point that all MMA groundfighting is often nominally piled together on it.

Spotting Brazilian jiu-jitsu in media can be tricky, as most of the its central curriculum of techniques comes directly from judo and has been adopted by mixed martial arts, meaning there is a huge amount of overlap between the three. It doesn’t help that many famous BJJ practitioners typically practice one of the other two too.

* ''Manga/KenganAshura'' goes into lenghts to show semi-realistic BJJ-inspired grappling on it's fights. The primary style of Cosmo Imai, a small 19-year old boy genius who uses chokes and joint lock to defeat opppnents double his size, and MMA fighter Okubo Naoya uses extensive BJJ grappling, mixing with his extensive striking abilities in his fight against Kanoh Agito. Later, fighter [[WorldsStrongestMan Wakatsuki Takeshi]] is shown training BJJ to complement his powerful full-contact Karate striking.

* ''Manga/KenganAshura'' goes into lenghts to show semi-realistic BJJ-inspired grappling on it's fights. The primary style of Cosmo Imai, a small 19-year old boy genius who uses chokes and joint lock to defeat opppnents double his size, and MMA fighter Okubo Naoya uses extensive BJJ grappling, mixing with his extensive striking abilities in his fight against Kanoh Agito. Later, fighter [[WorldsStrongestMan Wakatsuki Takeshi]] is shown training BJJ to complement his power full-contact Karate striking.

* ''Film/LethalWeapon'': CowboyCop Martin Riggs ends FisticuffsBoss Mr. Joshua by putting him in a triangle choke. One of the first movies to feature BJJ (and before BJJ was big), this was a result of technical advisor Cedric Adams wanting to show how deadly Riggs was by "having mastery of a form of martial arts never before seen onscreen." As by this time Rorion Gracie was slowly building his Hollywood connections by appearing as an extra in movies and promoting BJJ in magazines, he ended up as one of the movie's choreographers, and would make an appearance in ''Lethal Weapon 3''. UsefulNotes/{{Capoeira}} and Jailhouse Rock[[note]]a self-defense system supposedly developed in American prisons[[/note]] were also used.