The literal meaning of the name is "the gentle art", however, since there can be many different translations of Japanese words, "Ju" can also mean soft, yielding, pliant and flexible, which are all important fundamental principles in this dangerous art "Jitsu" means art. Jujutsu operates on the notion that force should never be met with force. Instead, to avoid an incoming attack, Jujutsu teaches to redirect the energy created by the attack into a counter move, rather than working against the attacking force. Jujutsu techniques include throwing, breaking, joint locks, chokes, strikes, and grappling. Jujutsu is sometimes referred to as a complete and more rounded art. This is because it utilizes all aspects of different martial arts, combining both standing and ground fighting. Jujutsu, is the parent art for all the Japanese "Do" arts; Judo, Aikido, Kendo, Iado, and some forms of Karate-Do, etc. Do meaning "The Way" or the path to enlightenment.
The Edo period 1603 - 1868
The art of Jujutsu arose out of feudal Japan; a period lasting from the 11th to the 16th centuries of near-constant civil war. The prevalence of war led to the study and development of fighting techniques, and the art of Jujitsu found its beginnings as techniques to be used on the battlefield against armed opponents after one has lost his own weapons. Jujitsu covered both armed and unarmed fighting methods and included striking, grappling, chokes, joint locks, as well as weapons.
When civil war ended, Shogun Ieysu Tokugawa, the pivotal figure in Japanese history, rose to power. In 1603 he established the Tokugawa Shogunate, the military government which finally gained control of the whole country. This is known as the EDO period. It was not until the Edo period that jujutsu became a generic term used to describe this wide range of techniques. This period is considered the “Golden Age” of jujutsu, when the major schools flourished and technique was brought to its highest level. With the coming of the Tokugawa shogunate and its control of Japan, battlefield combat largely became a thing of the past. As the need for standing armies and the mobility required by war declined, many ryu (schools) began to reflect this change. As duels to the death were frowned on by the government, the severity of the techniques began to lessen and the ability to control or disable an opponent using non-lethal methods became respected and valued. Samurai were able to concentrate on one aspect of combat and attempt to master all aspects of it.
In an incredibly short period of time, Japanese society was re-engineered from chaos to rigid stability. Society was divided into four classes: samurai, artisans, peasants, and merchants. The activities of these classes were severely restricted. Only the Samurais were permitted to carry weapons. This gave social status to the samurai and made it much more difficult to raise an army in a hurry by conscripting peasants and farmers. As a further encouragement to this stability, contact with the outside world was stopped and foreigners expelled. Firearms virtually disappeared altogether. Samurai became the guardians of the new order, more of a police than a military. The way of the warrior continued to be esteemed as a tradition and way of life, and forms of combat continued to develop as part of duels and public competitions. Teaching and studying the martial arts were respectable activities in their own rights.Various schools of Jujitsu were formed and more than 725 official styles and thousands of schools (ryu) of Jujitsu had developed in 17th century Japan. But these social changes also began the slow death of the samurai.They were tied to military careers with less and less fighting to do. A general trend began to divert their energies into new channels.
This stability lasted for over two hundred years but could not last forever. With nothing to do, the military became weaker and the civilian government became stronger. In 1853 the American navy arrived and suddenly the world got bigger. Keiki, the last shogun, was defeated in a civil war. The powers of the shogunate were finally absorbed by the emperor. In 1868 and alliance of samurai and merchants frustrated by lack of advancement attempted to seize power and failed. This failure cost them dearly and Emperor Meiji Tenno began to dismantle the samurai class entirely. There were many more rebellions, but the loss of the right to wear swords and the formation of a modern national army proved too much. Eventually, the entire feudal system was abolished and Japan was opened up to the world. The samurai and everything associated with them had lost all power and respect. An imperial edict made it a criminal offense to practice the martial arts and they were brought to the point of extinction. Although Jujitsu was still being practiced and taught, the general public viewed it as a barbaric pratice in the modern civilized world and as something that only criminals or thugs practiced so that they could use it to prey on innocent people. Jujitsu was a dying art and in danger of becoming extinct.
Fortunately, a man named Jigoro Kano saw the value of Jujitsu and saved it's techniques by founding his own art based on the best techniques of Jujitsu in 1882 and he named it Kodokan Judo.
Judo literally translates as " the gentle way". It was founded in 1882 by Dr. Jigoro Kano. Kano formulated Judo, or more accurately, "Kodokan Judo" from styles of Jujutsu that he had studied. (the term Judo had been used to indicate another style of jujitsu before Kano founded his own style).
Kano changed the emphasis from purely physical to spiritual endeavors. Hence the change in name from "Jutsu" (art or technique) to "Do" (path or way); same as the Chinese word Tao. Kano meant Judo to be both physical training as well as a path towards building good moral character and spirituality (a reputation that Jujitsu did not have!). He wanted to appeal to the general public and part of Kano's vision for Judo was for it to be a guide in all aspects of life and lead to greater harmony. This is reflected in one saying from Judo, "maximum efficiency with minimum effort for the mutual welfare and benefit of all." Jujitsu, had a negative image so Kano named his art Judo. Kodokan Judo was often called "Kano Ry Jujutsu" and the terms Judo and Jujutsu were often used interchangeably to mean the same art.
The main problem that Kano saw with classical Jujutsu is the same problem that exists today in classical Jujutsu schools as well as a great majority of martial arts schools - and that is that many of the techniques could only be practiced slowly and with a cooperative partner because full speed application could cause serious injury. Because of this, Jujutsu practitioners never got the chance to spar or practice these techniques full force and the result was an unrealistic training scenario and poor skill development, so Kano eliminated these "dangerous" techniques and selected techniques that could be safely practiced full force to create a decisive victory with a reduced chance of injury. The popularity of Judo increased dramatically after a famous contest hosted by the Tokyo police in 1886 where the Kodokan Judo team defeated the most well-known Jujutsu school of the time. It then became a part of the Japanese physical education system and began its spread around the world. Today Judo is one of the most practiced sports in the world.
Judo was accepted into the Olympic games in 1964. "Atemi Waza", the striking aspect of Judo was practiced only in Kata form and is rarely seen today as most every school that teaches Judo teaches it for competition rather than self defense. (Competition revolves around the grappling aspects of Judo - no striking is allowed). However, being able to defend one's self is an obvious by-product of Judo practice. Sport training or not, the ability to throw, trip, sweep or otherwise smash someone on the ground and then choke them out, break an elbow joint, or otherwise control them on the ground is obviously an asset to have in a fight. Competitive Judo is a tough and demanding fighting sport that gives you excellant skills and reflexes that are easily applicable to self defense.
The premier ground-fighting martial art. Made famous by Royce Gracie in the early UFCs in the mid-1990's, it specializes in submission grappling when both fighters are on the ground. Techniques include positional control (especially the "guard" position), and submissions such as chokes, arm locks, leg locks, and other body locks...
One of Kano's students was Mitsuo Maeda, who was also known as Count Koma ("Count of Combat"). Maeda was a champion in Judo and Kano had sent Maeda around the world to spread the word of Judo. Maeda emigrated to Brazil in 1914. He was helped a great deal by the Brazilian politician Gastão Gracie, whose father George Gracie had emigrated to Brazil himself from Scotland. In gratitude for the assistance, Maeda taught the Japanese art to Gastao's son Carlos Gracie. Carlos in turn taught his brothers Osvaldo, Gastão Jr., Jorge, and Helio.
There is some blatantly false information being put out by some people in the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu community that Maeda was a Jiu-Jitsu champion. He was not! He only took Jiu-Jitsu for a short time as a child. He was a Judo champion and Kano's best student. There weren't even any Jujitsu competitions taking place at the time as Jujitsu fell out of favor with the Japanese government!
Both arts are great arts with Judo today focusing more on grappling while on your feet and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu focusing more on grappling while you are on the ground. Many people cross train in both to get the best grappling skill benefit and the two go hand in hand. The Gracies have done a tremendous service to the martial arts community and especially to the grappling arts community by showing the effectiveness of grappling as a method of fighting by taking boxers, kickboxers, Karateka and other striking fighters down and defeating them. Nowadays nearly every fighter in Mixed Martial Arts practices grappling arts techniques.
In the early 1990's, Rorion Gracie moved from Brazil to Los Angeles. He wished to show the world how well the Gracie art of jiu-jitsu worked. In Brazil, no-rules Mixed Martial Art (MMA) contests (known as "vale tudo") had been popular since Carlos Gracie first opened his academy in 1925, but in the world at large most martial arts competition was internal to a single style, using the specialized rules of that style's practice.
Rorion and Art Davie conceived of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. This was a series of pay-per-view television events in the United States that began in 1993. They pitted experts of different martial arts styles against each other in an environment with very few rules, in an attempt to see what techniques "really worked" when put under pressure. Rorion also entered his brother Royce Gracie, an expert in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, as one of the contestants.
Royce dominated the first years of the UFC against all comers, amassing eleven victories with no fighting losses. At one event he defeated four different fighters in one night. This, from a fighter that was smaller than most of the others (at 170 lbs, in an event with no weight classes), looked thin and scrawny, and used techniques that most observers, even experienced martial artists, didn't understand.
In hindsight, much of Royce's success was due to the fact that he understood very well (and had trained to defend against) the techniques that his opponents would use, whereas they often had no idea what he was doing to them. In addition, the ground fighting strategy and techniques of BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) are among the most sophisticated in the world. Besides the immediate impact of an explosion of interest in BJJ across the world (particularly in the US and Japan), the lasting impact of Royce's early UFC dominance is that almost every successful MMA fighter now includes BJJ as a significant portion of their training.
Jujutsu, jujitsu, jiu jitsu, jiu-jitsu - there's a wide range of spellings used to describe this Japanese martial art. The problem is that, in its native Japanese, none of these spellings are used. Instead the word is written using kanji, ideograms of Chinese origins. To translate these into the western alphabet used in the English language requires a series of somewhat arbitrary decisions.
The current standard for this translation provides us with jujutsu. But back in the first half of the twentieth centry, jiujitsu and then jujitsu were preferred. As this corresponded to a period of wider awareness of Japanese martial arts in the West, these earlier spellings have stuck in many places. Click here for more information from Mizukan Dojo.
