Mythbusting

The Gracie's are the founders of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. There are a lot of misconceptions about their story; some minor, and some major.

It is often stated that back in the 1920s, Carlos and Helio Gracie learned Jiu-Jitsu from Mitsuyo Maeda.

Almost, but not exactly. Mitsuyo Maeda was a direct student of Jigoro Kano. Kano was the founder of Judo, which he formed out of old Japanese Jujitsu. Maedo held high Judo rank and would continue to do so for the rest of his life. I don't know why it is claimed he taught the Gracies Jiu-Jitsu. By whatever label, it was Judo.

He taught a 14 or 15 year old Carlos Gracie for about three years. He did not teach Helio at all, who was 11 years younger than his brother. He only taught Carlos. Carlos went on to open his own school, and was his brother's instructor.

It is usually stated that Helio could not make the existing techniques work for him as he was so very small. His height is always listed as 1.7 meters; which converts to 5' 6.92”. I'm going to call that 5' 7”. The weight quoted for him varies greatly, but is usually someplace around 140 lbs.

Interestingly, the current women's UFC Champion is about that size. She is also a student of Judo, and nobody could ever say she can't make it work due to her size.

This is about the same size as his Helio's brother, Carlos. It is never stated that he had trouble with the technique. The current average height of adult males in Brazil is 5' 8.5”. In the 1920's it was most likely less. It would seem that Helio wasn't particularly small.

There is absolutely no question that Helio and Carlos totally reworked what they knew into an incredibly efficient martial art. Most likely this had nothing to do with the art Maeda had given Carlos being unsuited to small persons. Maeda's art, or Judo, was created and developed by Jigoro Kano, who was 5' 2” and very slightly built. Judo has never been considered a “large man's” art.

The Gracies' discontent with what Carlos had learned most likely came from the very short time that Carlos was Maeda's student. This learning period was only three years long. In three years of study it is possible to learn any martial art at only a most basic and superficial level. Ironically, if the family had remained able to train under Maeda, they probably would never have developed Gracie Jiu-Jitsu at all.

This is supported by the famous fight between Helio Gracie and the Japanese Judo player Masahiko Kimura. Gracie was defeated by Kimura applying the Judo move called gyaku ude-garami, which Helio had never seen before. They later adopted it, and in their parlance named it after the man who'd beaten Helio, calling it the Kimura. If they'd been longer as students of Maeda, he would eventually have taught it to them.

Anyhow, that's my two cents for today.