LAKEWOOD
JIU-JITSU ACADEMY

The use of leverage and joint locks were a part of Japanese samurai fighting techniques since the 1100s. The term jiu jitsu (jujitsu/ jujutsu) however wasn't coined until the 1630s. "Jiu" is derived from the Chinese passage, "ju yoku sei go," which translates "Softness controls hardness well." Over the years this translation has been simplified into the English term, "gentle." The overarching idea is that being pliable and yielding can result in being able to control a forceful attack using less effort than the attacker. This is an ideal philosophy for someone defending themselves from a stronger attacker. The advantages of size and strength become a disadvantage when that stronger force can't fully impact the intended victim. The classic example is a willow tree bending in the wind, versus an unyielding oak tree that is uprooted by the same wind. "Jitsu" is a Japanese term for a collection of techniques or a catalog of moves. This has been simplified with the word "art." Jiu jitsu then is the collection of techniques that empower a weaker combatant to avoid being injured or controlled by an opponent, and to then control that opponent with minimal effort, even when that opponent is larger and stronger.               

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Jiu jitsu teachings started moving to the West from Japan in the early 1900s. By 1915 there were jiu jitsu schools in several western countries. Mitsuyo Maeda is credited for introducing Japanese jiu jitsu to Carlos Gracie in Brazil. Although Maeda originally departed Tokyo as an ambassador of judo from Tokyo's Kodokan, his style of jiu jitsu was much more like the combat oriented jiu jitsu that was being taught at the Butokukai in Kyoto. Mataemon Tanabe, one of the instructors at Kyoto's Butokukai, was extraordinarily skilled at ground fighting, and was training fighters who were consistently defeating the Kodokan's judo students in competitions.  This style of jiu jitsu was also being used successfully around the world by "no holds barred" fighters like Yukio Tani. Carlos and Helio Gracie refined Maeda's version of Japanese jiu jitsu into the beginnings of today's Brazilian jiu jitsu self-defense as taught at Gracie University by Grandmaster Hélio Gracie's grandsons, Ryron and Rener Gracie.