Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, otherwise known as BJJ, is a fairly young martial art that has surged in popularity in the Western world as a cousin of the older Japanese art of Jiu-Jitsu ground fighting. Gyms and competitions all over the world attract people of various cultures and nationalities. The Gracie family is well-known and credited for developing the art of BJJ, but was this process done to appreciate or appropriate? 

Jose Cairus, a PhD in Modern Latin American History, was raised by a Lebanese-Brazilian family that practiced Kodokan Judo, another cousin of the Jiu-Jitsu arts, and one of his articles explores the nationalism and anti-immigration sentiment that fostered and promoted BJJ in Brazil. The Gracie family adopted the techniques of Japanese Jiu-Jitsu from Japanese soldiers in WWI and introduced their version to Getúlio Vargas’ Special Police force in the 1920s to restore their social status after economic hardship [1]. This allowed the Gracies to have security throughout Vargas’ regime and set up their own practices near the government palace, as opposed to the hubs of Japanese immigration (where other instructors taught). 

The Gracies would also take challengers in public fights, fighting Brazilians as a display of social power and Japanese people as a display of ethnic superiority, since in the 1930s, Japanese instructors were being recruited to teach their form of Jiu-Jitsu to the Brazilian Navy. One of these instructors was Yano Tokeo, whom Gracie fought for superiority [1]. Yano threw Gracie 26 times, but the fight was deemed a draw. These fights led the Gracies to focus their art entirely on the ground, since the Japanese had superior standing techniques. Another match that filled a stadium and brought honor back to the Gracies led directly to the popularization of the sport in mainstream Brazil, compared to football as a part of national identity under a regime that was officially a dictatorship in 1937 [1,2]. Headlines like the one below show BJJ being used as a model for the regime to promote masculinity and strength as virtues, reading “Sporting Evening at Gracie Academy with the Best Individuals of Our Society” [3].

“Sporting Evening at Gracie Academy with the Best Individuals of our Society.” Adapted from [3].

“Sporting Evening at Gracie Academy with the Best Individuals of our Society.” Adapted from [3].

BJJ was also part of a government program, partially based in eugenics, to regulate combat sports and develop physically strong Brazilian men, which was seen as the ideal of manhood. Helio and Carlos, the brothers best known for BJJ, took advantage of this program to make their own local style, sometimes by breaking government requirements for the state-sanctioned sport, yet their objections do not represent a stance against the more racist parts of the regime. Helio was also found to be part of Integralism, an off-shoot fascist party promoting church and state as one, which Vargas despised [1].

As time moved on through and past WWII, Carlos became very esoteric, but this spirituality is put into question based upon some of his practices. He also heralded the Gracie Diet, a vegetarian diet still used today, and he created more spiritual pillars of Jiu-Jitsu that still hold today. 

Today, the art of BJJ can seem very removed from the xenophobia rampant in the environment it flourished in, since the art is practiced by so many cultures around the world. However, we must acknowledge its xenophobic origins in order to get a full picture of how the art developed.

References

  1. Cairus, J. Nationalism, Immigration and Identity: The Gracies and the Making of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, 1934–1943. Martial Arts Stud. 2020, 0 (9), 28.

  2. Lesser, J. Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil; Duke University Press: Durham, NC, 1999.

  3. Torneio de jiu-jitsu reúne os melhores indivíduos de nossa sociedade. Jornal dos Sports [Print], June 15, 1936.

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