Nationalism, Immigration and Identity: The Gracies and the M

[GrahamB]

Interesting article:

https://mas.cardiffuniversitypress.org/ ... 3/mas.105/

Nationalism, Immigration and Identity: The Gracies and the Making of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, 1934–1943

[aamc]

Interesting counterpoint to the above doc

[GrahamB]

Interesting that Carlos Gracie was learning from a Rosecrucian.

Reminds me a lot of Aikido. i.e. the martial art was created as a vehicle for something else. Either nationalism or a strange cult-like religion, or whatever. Then at some point all the key people get too old and fade away and the martial art continues and takes on a life of its own but there are still echoes of the thing that started it. They are just very faint.

[GrahamB]

Or maybe it had nothing to do with any of that and it was just about fighting for money. Who knows?

[yeniseri]

Brazil was going through changes of all kinds and around that time capoeira was being re-invented to ignore it ancestral African and indigenous roots overwhelmed and homogenized as a reflection of racial and sociopolitical upheavals of the day!
Japanese immigration, arrival of immigrants (yes, the Gracies from Scotland, of all places ) forged a new face on the modern Brazil.

[everything]

I think their teacher Maeda was a "fighter for money" as well so some of that aspect is in the very origins of the art, I guess.

Luckily the Kano education aspect isn't totally lost (or is it?).

These things aren't really different from other sports, though, are they?

[yeniseri]

I read alot about the history but the Japanese were like the other immigrants i/e/ seeking a better place for themselves. Many were burakumin (Japanese untouchables). I came across few storeis of japanese who were born in Brazil but who went back in the mid 1960s thinking they could fit in but many returned to Brazil because they did not fit in. Japanese society required conformity!

There were 2 strains of judo! One being the throwing aspect which grabbed attention due to US forces in Japan in WW2 and the other, the ground game newaza, which complemented throwing, but was left out since it was considered dirty and filthy based on the society at the time. Maeda taught the 'older method' strain that invigorated the art to the extent that the Gracie dynasty incorporated it into what we know today as BJJ. Based on what I have read and understood, Maeda never imagined that what he taught was going to be the apple pie that it is today!

[Ian C. Kuzushi]

I read alot about the history but the Japanese were like the other immigrants i/e/ seeking a better place for themselves. Many were burakumin (Japanese untouchables). I came across few storeis of japanese who were born in Brazil but who went back in the mid 1960s thinking they could fit in but many returned to Brazil because they did not fit in. Japanese society required conformity!

There were 2 strains of judo! One being the throwing aspect which grabbed attention due to US forces in Japan in WW2 and the other, the ground game newaza, which complemented throwing, but was left out since it was considered dirty and filthy based on the society at the time. Maeda taught the 'older method' strain that invigorated the art to the extent that the Gracie dynasty incorporated it into what we know today as BJJ. Based on what I have read and understood, Maeda never imagined that what he taught was going to be the apple pie that it is today!

There is an extensive thread about Kosen Judo somewhere on this board (search function is giving me a lot of trouble for some reason). There are many misunderstandings and oversimplifications about kosen judo. Judo is judo, there weren't really two strains. From the outset, judo allowed newaza. Newaza did become very popular in the inter-school competitions (the kosen competitions) as the young students could learn how to win very quickly without needing to spend the time required to learn all that throws and falls entailed. This led to a specialization, but not really a separate thread of judo. It is true, however, that Kano thought that this was a shame, and that judo should be 70% tachiwaza and 30% newaza. Rules were instituted at the Kodokan and most dojo followed suit, although the Kosen continued. Maeda learned at the Kodokan, and never participated in the Kosen school tournaments. He didn't do kosen. Maeda learned judo as it was taught by Kano, as Maeda's own teacher was Kano's first student and one of the four "heavenly kings" of the Kodokan (although the worst of the four at fighting, he was still very good). Maeda went on to be the best of the second generation crop of judo-ka. The social distaste for ground fighting is much more of a Chinese than Japanese tendency. So, Maeda didn't teach one of two strains of judo, he didn't even teach kosen judo. He taught and practiced standard Kodokan Judo as it was taught when he was there.