Brazilian jiu-jitsu, or BJJ, is a martial art focusing heavily on ground grappling. Instead of emphasizing striking, a number of joint locks and chokes are used to create what are known as submission holds or "subs", so called because a fighter caught in one must submit by tapping the canvas repeatedly or face getting choked unconscious or having a limb broken or dislocated. Strikes are not practiced in the style by itself, although many MMA fighters integrate striking with the groundwork from BJJ to create a strategy known as "ground and pound".
All techniques follow a few underlying simple concepts and principles like positional dominance leading into submissions ("position before submission"), transitions through momentum and leverage as they are offered rather than large uses of energy ("flow with the go"), as well as submissions achieved by attacking with superior leverage and full-body strength against the opponent's isolated limbs (no strength against strength).
BJJ's roots lie in judo and Fusen-ryu jiu-jitsu (which eventually was adopted into the Kodokan teachings). Judo practitioners will recognize many of the techniques from newaza practice or watching Kosen judo competitions.
One of BJJ's strengths, just like its historical predecessor, lies in the ability of practitioners to practice with lots and lots of resistance against non-compliant training partners with a negligible amount of risk. Although this might not seem like much, it's terribly important considering some arts think they train well just by doing forms and patterns (*glares at wing chun*) or compliant drills (*glares at aikido*).
BJJ came into its own in the US in the 90s, when the UFC (which the Gracie family, the founders of the art helped found) came into being. When Royce Gracie, a BJJ black belt, took the championship belt home, BJJ began to be noticed in the US. (Japan and other countries had already begun to adopt BJJ in MMA competitions due to its success in Vale Tudo, Pankration, and other foreign MMA tournaments.) Since then, BJJ practitioners have continued to dominate the UFC and other international MMA circuits, and has gained acceptance in the MMA and martial arts worlds as a legitimate and serious force to be reckoned with.
Oh, and for those of you who don't know...."tap, snap or nap" is a saying used among BJJ fighters. One can choose to "tap out", or submit and lose the fight, "snap", or have one's limb dislocated or broken, or "nap", get choked unconscious.
7 Comments
psychovisionsays...those are some great takedowns
obscenesimiansays...I still wonder what are the fundamental differences between BJJ and Jiu Jitsu. Is not the reason BJJ is more often referred to when discussing the sport because the fighters and schools from Brazil have been so successful?
I am in no way denigrating what we know as BJJ, but is it not just Jiu Jitsu practiced and taught by brazilians? I say this because I think the Japanese fighters in the clip would be more likely to call what they are doing Jiu Jitsu.
This of course leaves out what the brazilian schools may have added to the judo and jiu jitsu taught to brazilians by Esai Maeda, as there has been a long interval of development in Brazil..
shaiSakuraba vs Newton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5ii_ILIEyI
rembarI've heard that Carlos Gracie once said something along the lines of, "Judo and BJJ should in theory be the same, but the Japanese forgot how to do submissions and the Brazilians are too lazy to practice their throws."
In terms of BJJ vs. JJ/judo, I believe BJJ is referred to because the ruleset, terminology, goals, and overall culture changed after the Gracies took what Maeda taught them and changed it.
Generally people call what they're doing BJJ because JJ could mean a huge number of ryus for Japanese JJ or even something broader like American JJ, all of which have different sets of techniques and methods of training, so the distinction of particular styles of JJ is important when describing what one trains. In a large part, there's a huge respect if one were to have a black belt in BJJ because that is a known constant in terms of dedication, knowledge, and ability to tap fools out. But if one were to say they train just JJ, nobody would know exactly what that means and what their actual fighting ability is. So I believe many Japanese fighters would say what they're doing when they're fighting is jiu-jitsu, but the martial art/style they train is BJJ. Make sense?
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