i watched a couple documentaries on youtube recently. one, about helio gracie's life. the other, about rorion gracie's life. in both documentaries, rorion was all about how helio, being sickly and frail, modified maeda's judo; and this is the real innovation of "gracie jiu jitsu". how much of this is marketing and how much of this is actual techniques? or is it just that helio was more able to apply the promise of judo than other people? i've read lots of kano's writing and he's pretty clear that meeting force with force is folly, and it's all about technique. many of the techniques in bjj are (seemingly) found in judo newaza. and before the rules changes, judo was much more ground-focused; plus, there's kosen judo, of which certainly maeda knew about. now don't misunderstand me, helio is my personal inspiration. i have a picture of him on my wall at home. is it just that bjj retained the ground focus, while judo became much more of a standup game because of the rules changes in 1925 (i believe, but i'll have to check the exact year)? is it things like armbar from guard that helio was able to exploit to his advantage? was it a focus on leverage? any thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Maeda didn't trust Helio with the full system of judo. Helio bastardized the art so that he could star in movies. Although interesting in its own right, Helio's BJJ does not possess the full strength of judo as Bruce never learned the grappling dummy form. What?
if anyone's ever watched these, fascinating... [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wldzW5FvjEI"]KOSEN JUDO: Vol. 1 - YouTube[/ame] there's a series of 4. starring kimura himself. you'd think he was doing brazilian jiu jitsu. there's even a knee-on-belly in the first video, about 9 and a half minutes in.
Ummm sorry but since Kimura and judo were there first... doesn't that sort of say to you that BJJ people are doing a purer form of newazza than many of today's judoka(rather than Kimura doing BJJ)? It all comes down to the rules that you play by... judo got rid of guard and guard slams at the same time. The emphasis of systems change. Kosen was just a bunch of regular judo people at the university that liked to do newazza competitions... never an off shoot in the way that BJJ has been. It is interesting to see the differences in how things work in the different jacket grappling systems. It is obvious that BJJ has done great things with ground work. I wonder if the things that are inherent in the judo scoring system have been lost to those outside judo. The scores reflect your relative position for being killed/maimed in battle rather than solely your ability to control a person while grappling.. these systems came from feudal arts where armed conflict between skilled grapplers occurred. Maybe today it is not so important but one does wonder whether BJJ would have stood up quite so well when your opponent had a dagger and was also skilled at in-fighting while being armed.... LFD
Saulo Ribeiro in his excellent book "BJJ University", states that Helio's art is based on survival first and foremost. Seems to makes sense, and goes some way to explaining some of the difference in style development we see.
maybe.. Guess it depends on how you see things... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosen_judo - ''Kosen (高専 kōsen?) The Ko in Kosen actually meant High School judo, and based around the Budokuden Martial Arts hall in central Kyoto. Schools started holding their own judo competitions from 1914.[2] The rules of a Kosen judo match were mainly Dai Nippon Butokukai and Kodokan rules prior to 1925 changes. They allowed direct transition to newaza, enabling scenarios where one less skilled judoka could drag down the other into newaza (a tactic now known as pulling-guard), and this was exploited by some teams that matched their less skilled students against the more skilled students of the rival teams, aiming at a draw in newaza.[3] To achieve victory under the judo rules of the time the judoka had to score ippon as there were no intermediate scores, or a draw was declared at the referee's discretion.[3]'' The sport has changed over time (some would argue not always for the better). Examples of where BJJ is more of an offshoot than kosen? Well kosen was a rule set used by high schools.. people who did regular judo but were happy to have comps under differing rules. Might be sort of like comparing wrestlers who fight both greco and freestyle. Most schools that I was around would do stuff from both but you would compete in one or another on the day. BJJ is great but from what I have seen/heard the rule set sort of eliminates any attempt at takedowns/throws for many competitors. If you allowed guard slams to (as was an allowable technique scored once you lifted an opponent past horizontal) then you would be seeing something more ''rounded'' from a judo perspective. If you have guard, you have guard slams ... There are other examples but really it's more about whether you enjoy one rule set or another... but if you look at the vids of Kimura you can see why many in the past said BJJ was Basically Just Judo (albeit a different rule set). If you liked what you saw with Kimura then you should LOVE this guy - I am sure that if you watch/read/listen to him you will see stuff that you see everyday in BJJ!! He was once known as the God of Judo- MIFUNE!! When he was 40, he was challenged by a 6' tall and 240 lb. sumo wrestler. Mifune, 5' 2" tall and 100 lb., finally slammed the wrestler with his trademark 'airplane' throw (kuki nage or uki otoshi).[5 [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlFJuYEw-Hw"]Mifune's Newaza (Ground Fighting) Techniques - YouTube[/ame] It's all good.. I admire anyone who does grappling!! No offence intended in any of my posts. I just think that people need to remember their past and sometimes it seems that doesn't happen. LFD
