The History of Jiu Jitsu

Since you are reading this I'm guessing you're interested in Brazillian Jiu Jitsu, at least a tiny bit. This article is going to go indepth about Jiu Jitsu and its history.

Jiu Jitsu was first created in Japan in the early 1900's as a Mixed Martial Art, but wasn't called Brazilian Jiu Jitsu yet. It was Judo which is mostly throws. But, back then it was called Kano Jiu Jitsu. Later Mitsyuo Maeda brought Kano Jiu Jitsu to Brazil and made changes to it that interested more people.

One of the biggest Jiu Jitsu gym industries are the Gracie gyms. The founder being George Gracie assisted Mitsyuo Maeda through his Jiu Jitsu journey of spreading Jiu Jitsu to the world. To return Gracie's favor, Maeda taught Jiu Jitsu to Gracie's son Carlos Gracie. Later, Carlos opened the first Jiu Jitsu gym in Brazil in 1925. Around 50 years later Rolls Gracie was refining Jiu Jitsu techniques and came up with a point system for all Jiu Jitsu competitions. This lead to Jiu Jitsu being even more popular in Brazil. Much later yet another Gracie names Rorian was the first to travel to Los Angeles and open the first Jiu Jitsu gym in the US. Rorian and a friend Art Davies created the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) because the US wasn't familiar with Jiu Jitsu. In 1993 the first UFC fight happened featuring Rorian's younger brother Royce who was much smaller than his four opponents. Because Royce knew Jiu Jitsu and knew how to grapple on the ground he came out on top and won all four matches. This spiked intrest in people wondering about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Now in the present Jiu Jitsu is the fastest growing Martial Art in the world and now has an international foundation called the International Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Foundation (IBJJF) and every year has a huge competition in Las Vegas as Nationals.