Way of Yawara

系譜 · lineage

The jiu-jitsu family tree

One art, carried by many hands. This is how jiu-jitsu reached Brazil and became a family name, drawn from the sourced history and honest about what the record cannot settle.

  1. Japan, the source

    柔術 Jūjutsu

    Hundreds of Edo-period schools (ryūha): Takenouchi-ryū from 1532, Kitō-ryū, Tenjin Shin'yō-ryū.

    Jigorō Kanō

    Drew the old schools into one method, Kōdōkan judo, in 1882.

  2. Belém, the disputed handoff

    Mitsuyo Maeda 前田光世 Conde Koma

    Kōdōkan judoka turned prizefighter. Carried the art across the world and settled in Belém, Brazil, by 1914.

    More than one teacher

    Soshihiro Satake

    Fought beside Maeda for years, then settled upriver in Manaus and taught there.

    Jacyntho Ferro

    Maeda's student, and by the newspaper record the man who likely ran Carlos's day-to-day lessons.

    Donato Pires dos Reis

    A credentialed teacher of the Belém school who, in 1931, publicly disputed the Gracie direct-apprentice account.

    Gastão Gracie

    A Belém businessman in Maeda's circle of promoters. He sent his teenage son Carlos to learn.

    disputed

    The family says Carlos was Maeda's direct pupil. Historians read the record differently: his teacher was more likely Ferro, or Pires dos Reis. No document settles it, so the tree leaves this line dotted.

Rio, the making of a name

Carlos Gracie

Moved to Rio and opened an academy around 1925. Whoever taught him, he was the one who built an institution.

Hélio Gracie

Carlos's younger brother, born 1913, who insisted the art work for the smaller, weaker person.

and the other Gracie brothers

1951, Rio: Hélio Gracie lost to Masahiko Kimura before twenty thousand people. The family named the arm lock after the man who beat him. It is still called the Kimura.

Out of Brazil, to the world

Gracie jiu-jitsu → USA

A later generation carried the art to the United States, where the Gracie challenge began again.

UFC 1, 1993

In 1993, Royce Gracie proved the art to the world at the first UFC.

The other branch

Luiz França

The root of Brazil's other lineage, the one the Gracie story left out. The usual account has him learning from Maeda's circle; some historians find no hard evidence, but the line from him to Fadda is firm.

Oswaldo Fadda

Luiz França's student, who kept the art open to working-class Rio, beyond the Gracie academy.