What is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) is a grappling based martial art. Jiu-Jitsu uses leverage based mechanics that exponentially increase your strength. This mechanical advantage allows you to defeat a much larger, and stronger opponent.
Your opponents are more powerful when they can use their legs against you. In Jiu-Jitsu you will learn to take your opponents to the ground, get past their legs, and then find the control that leads to submission.
You will learn to overcome greater size, strength, and aggression. Renzo Gracie Ponce classes teach you to use superior leverage, grip, and position upon resisting opponents. You will gain a deep understanding of what your body is capable of.
The path to this knowledge will be physically and mentally demanding. You will experience increased physical fitness, problem-solving ability, and self-knowledge of your body & mind. The social benefit of working with a group of like-minded students that you will learn, grow, and have fun with is priceless.
Jiu-Jitsu in MMA Competition
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu technique is prominent in MMA competition due to its proven combat-efficiency. In the past, Jiu-Jitsu athletes often competed against different martial arts disciplines. This was the miracle marketing of Jiu-Jitsu. The efficiency of Jiu-jitsu against a resisting opponent was superior. In the modern sport of MMA, all athletes practice Jiu-Jitsu at least to understand the basics.
The practice of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as a sport is not MMA. Your classes here at Renzo Gracie Ponce do not feature kicking or punching.
You will focus on safe grappling technique that you can perform on a daily basis with no more fear of injury than any other sport. Most of your fellow students will choose to practice Jiu-Jitsu as a hobby. Some of them will choose to pursue Jiu-Jitsu competition. Some will be studying for MMA competition. Whatever path you take is up to you. We'll teach you strong Jiu-Jitsu that will work in any setting.
Jiu-Jitsu is a demanding workout with a strong cerebral aspect and a sense of purpose and skill that will capture your imagination. Come down to the academy. Come take a look at a class or better yet, take one of the introductory classes.
We are confident that Jiu-Jitsu will become one of the most cherished and enjoyable aspects of your life. It will give you confidence, knowledge, body-dexterity, and fitness that few people will ever know.
A Brief History of Jiu-Jitsu
In the last days of the 19th century, some Jiu-Jitsu masters emigrated from Japan to other continents, teaching the martial arts as well as taking part in fights and competitions. Mitsuyo Maeda was one such master. Maeda arrived in Brazil in 1915, and settled in Belem do Para, where he met a man named Gastao Gracie.
The father of eight children, among them five boys and three girls, Gastao became a Jiu-Jitsu enthusiast and brought his oldest son, Carlos, to learn from the Japanese master.
For a naturally frail fifteen-year old Carlos Gracie, Jiu-Jitsu became a method not simply for fighting, but for personal improvement. At nineteen, he moved to Rio de Janeiro with his family and began teaching and fighting. In his travels, Carlos would teach classes, and also proved the efficiency of the art by beating opponents who were physically stronger. In 1925, he returned to Rio and opened the first school, known as the “Academia Gracie de Jiu-Jitsu.”
Jiu-Jitsu promotes the concept that a smaller, weaker person can successfully defend against a bigger, stronger assailant by using leverage and proper technique.
A Message from the Founder of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Carlos Gracie
Jiu-Jitsu constitutes the natural defense the weak person disposes of against the strong person. It is a sort of leveling process through which brute force, confronted and dominated by the wise application of rational mechanics, is led to admitting that the human being, usually taken as a body endowed with a soul, should actually be deemed a soul that happens to reside in a body. This, however, no matter what our philosophical or religious orientation is, must never mean disregard or lack of attention towards the body we use in this world. We don’t understand, really, how, in order to reach wisdom, love, or in order to adore and serve God, respecting His laws, it can be necessary or possible to harm one of His most beautiful and perfect creatures.
If it is true that the disharmony in our thoughts and feelings can generate physical harm, it is no less true that the care we take with our body reflects not only on that body, but also on the mental health we all need to achieve a harmonious, happy life.
Of course, one doesn’t need special abilities to master certain resources of Jiu-Jitsu, which allow us to defend efficiently. Let us not forget, notwithstanding, that, no matter what we look forward to, we will always have better chances of reaching it if we use our greatest spiritual and physical possibilities. Jiu-Jitsu, which cannot escape that peremptory rule, is nothing but its application in self-defense. Being, further, a sport, and indeed one of the most complete, how could it possibly turn its back on physical preparation?
Without health, in its whole meaning, there can be no complete happiness. Very often, however, instead of studying the laws we must respect in order to avoid diseases, we are more concerned about what is the proper medicine or process for repairing the consequences of our ignorance or conscious infractions.
It is illogical for man, who is the most perfect being to inhabit Earth, to have a shorter life than that of other animals. We are among those who fiercely believe we should live more than any irrational being. Therefore, if we compare the current average duration of the human life to that of the parrot’s, we don’t understand why, when one of us decides to live a hundred years, it is something so extraordinary. Imagine if, like an elephant or turtle, one of us happened to live until the age of two hundred!
However, as we see it, all that would be very normal if, throughout generations, with strange perseverance, we hadn’t been driving away from the natural laws.
Among other explanations, for instance, is nutrition. What do we really know about how, when, how much and what to eat in harmony with natural laws?
But let us stop here before, my dear reader, your tolerance goes away completely and you, with justifiable irony, ask: “And, by the way, what about Jiu-Jitsu?”
You are partially right. Due to the fact that it is, however, a difficult – if not impossible – task, in its amplitude, we won’t neglect our duty of warning you that hoping to learn, exclusively by means of reading, the secrets of this traditional art of defense and attack is as efficient as studying singing by mail.
To you, friend and reader, my sincere thanks, and we’ll see each other again. If I didn’t succeed in pleasing you, at least I hope I didn’t totally disappoint you.
~ Carlos Gracie
Founder of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu