The origins of Jiu-Jitsu and other grappling arts

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People often mistake the oldest known documentation of something for the origin of something.

The oldest skeletons classified as Homo sapiens are estimated 200.000 years old. It is also estimated that Homo sapiens came to China 40.000 years ago. (Sorce: Wiki)

I'm fairly certain somebody has figured out joint locks in the 160.000 years beteween.

Also gracieacademy.com is not a reference you want to make when discussing history, given the whole family has a somewhat shady reputation.
 
Wow, Alexander the Great.... so what came first? The spanakopita or the samosa?
 
I am sure that humans have been grappling since before the species came down from the trees, so to mark the origin point of that is probably impossible.

In terms of a documented system of martial arts, the oldest example I can think of is Beni Hasan in Egypt, a series of wrestling murals depicting different techniques that dates back to around 1950BCE:

Beni_Hassan_tomb_15_wrestling_detail.jpg


I'm sure wrestling was around before that too. For example, there are limestone plaques and bronze jars, both depicting wrestlers, from the Nintu Temple VI archaeoligcal site (in what used to be Sumeria, located in modern-day Iraq). They date from as far back as 3000 BCE. You can probably find similar relics showing representations of boxing.
 
"The general idea embraced by most historians is that systemized martial arts techniques came from India along with Buddhism (Dharma). The concept here is that the Shaolin temple was built in the center of China and this is where Dharma introduced Buddhism and Boxing. Buddhist Monks in northern India are said to have greatly contributed to the early development of Jiu-Jitsu. Bandits constantly assaulted the monks during their long journeys through the interior of India. Buddhist religious and moral values did not encourage the use of weapons so they were forced to develop an empty hand system of self-defense."

"
There is so much historically wrong in that paragraph.
 
Two very serious misconceptions are going on here.

1) Grappling is practically instinctual. A primal thing. Puppies grapple. We were grappling and wrestling each other since before we were homo sapiens. Forms of wrestling have spontaneously evolved in nearly every documented culture on the planet. There is no single origin of grappling.

2) The story that martial arts started with Da Mo at Shaolin is HEAVILY misintrepreted. The original story merely explains that Da Mo, or Bodhidharma, found the buddhist monks at Shaolin to be very weak and frail from excessive sitting meditation and insufficient food and exercise. What he taught them was not martial arts. It was actually much closer to what we'd call yoga or hard qigong these days. Da Mo is credited with creating Shaolin Gongfu, but he wasn't a martial artist and never taught martial arts. He taught exercise, strength training, posture, body mechanics, and meditation through physical labor and activity in addition to static passive meditation.

Where this changed is that some of Da Mo's students, as well as many disciples at the temple over the centuries, were military veterans who were devoting the second half of their lives to monastic pursuits. These guys took the exercise (yoga) regimen that Da Mo taught, and combined it with unarmed and armed fighting drills that they utilized during their military time. This is what evolved into Shaolin Gongfu.
 
Came across this article dicussing the origins of Jiu-Jitu and other grappling arts and would like to know if any of you have any other good reads that you can recommend on the origins of Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling or other grappling arts. Thanks.

The Beginning
"Where did it all begin?"

I don't think anyone can answer this question with certainty, but there are plenty of good hypotheses. Every culture has some form of hand to hand combat in its history. Combat without weapons usually appears in the form of wrestling and sometimes boxing. Looking at the history timeline, one good hypothesis is that the wrestling techniques of Jiu-Jitsu could very well have come from Ancient Greece. Olympic games were one of the Greek's strongest traditions. It is most likely that along with Greek ideas, came one of its most popular sports, Pankration. Pankration was a sport that involved both boxing and wrestling techniques and became more popular to the Greeks than either of those sports individually. Pankration would later be overshadowed by the Roman Gladiators, and then banned from the Olympics by Christian leaders of the Roman Empire. Even though new rulers would come and go, Greek customs and ideas still reached India, where Jiu-Jitsu's foundation was likely to have been born. During Alexander the Great's conquests (356 - 323 B.C.), he brought the Greek culture to the areas he conquered. His conquests stretched all the way to India, where he introduced the customs and ideals of Greek culture to the people of that area. Jiu-Jitsu wasn't being formally taught in Japan for over one thousand years after this. Many say that the Greek influence in India led to the development of Kung Fu or more appropriately, Wu Shu (martial arts) in China.

The Chinese have a great deal of stories to support the history of their martial arts. The general idea embraced by most historians is that systemized martial arts techniques came from India along with Buddhism (Bodhi Dharma). The concept here is that the Shaolin temple was built in the center of China and this is where Bodhi Dharma introduced Buddhism and Boxing (senzuikyo). (ref. Aikido and Chinese Martial Arts, Sugawara and Xing) The story that supports the idea of Jiu-Jitsu coming from China takes place around the time of the fall of the Ming Dynasty. It states that a man named Chingempin came from Japan to live in Tokyo at a Buddhist temple where he met three Ronin (masterless Samurai) named Fukuno, Isogai, and Miura. Chingempin told the Ronin of a grappling art he had seen in China. The Ronin became particularly interested in pursuing the study of this art, so he then began teaching in Japan, and this art became Jiu-Jitsu.

The next theory is that there was many forms of wrestling that had developed in China. One of the most notable is Horn Wrestling, called Jiaodixi. This form of wrestling was practiced by the Mongolians and later evolved into Jiaoli, which was wrestling without the horns. This form of wrestling can be seen in Native American cultures (evident in the typical Native American Buffalo head wear) and most likely arrived there by way of Mongolians migrating through now modern Alaska. Jiaoli evolved and became Xiangpu and it is said that this form of wrestling became Sumo in Japan. Another theory says that there were practitioners of Chikura Karube, a wrestling sport developed around 200 B.C. It is said that Chikura Karube later became Jiu-Jitsu in Japan.

The last story mentioned here is that Jiu-Jitsu is Japanese and from Japan. This story follows the same basic idea but differs in that Chingempin introduced an early form of Jiu-Jitsu (not yet called Jiu-Jitsu) called Kempo in Japan, which consisted mostly of strikes and very little grappling. From there, the Japanese developed it into a more effective grappling art. One thing is certain about these stories, and that is that the Japanese were responsible for refining a grappling art into a very sophisticated grappling system called Jiu-Jitsu.

Click the link to continue...

Source:
http://www.jiu-jitsu.net/history.shtml

Who is the ring girl in your avatar? Pretty cool.

So many cultures have wrestling. Africa has a few wrestling arts and you can search
Youtube. The Mongols have a wrestling art. Japan was influenced by China but jiujitsu has its origins in Sumo and grappling in armour. Even sword arts, you can see they went to an more upright stance after the Warring State era of clans vying for supremacy. I know two arts that mention the transition to a more upright stance instead of a deeper stance where you're torso is not facing your opponent which minimizes your torso to spears, arrows, and sword attacks. I don't believe Jiujitsu came from India via China. The Japanese may have adopted grapping from the Chinese. This page has a picture of Tang wrestlers and looks somewhat similar to Sumo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuai_jiao

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shuai_jiao_wrestling.JPG

If it did, there is a Chinese standing grappling art called Shuai jiao.

You can check Youtube and find demonstrations of jiujitsu styles which are relatively new compared to older Japanese martial traditions.
 
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Hi all, new here to the group. Unable to create my own thread yet. So I need to hijack this one momentarily. I am considering taking either Dentokan Aiki jiu jitsu or Sosuishi-ryu jiu Jitsu, which both dojos are near me. I am going from a Judo background into either one of these disciplines and I was wondering if anyone can provide some insight on what exactly are the differences between these 2 JJJ styles. What does one do that the other does and vice versa. Yes, I also tried googling this and it wasn't very informative in regards to that question. Google only gives a lot of history about where they came from and stuff like that.

Thank You
 
Hi all, new here to the group. Unable to create my own thread yet. So I need to hijack this one momentarily. I am considering taking either Dentokan Aiki jiu jitsu or Sosuishi-ryu jiu Jitsu, which both dojos are near me. I am going from a Judo background into either one of these disciplines and I was wondering if anyone can provide some insight on what exactly are the differences between these 2 JJJ styles. What does one do that the other does and vice versa. Yes, I also tried googling this and it wasn't very informative in regards to that question. Google only gives a lot of history about where they came from and stuff like that.

Thank You
Which ever takes hard Ukemi and does Koshi....

If it's out of shape fat dudes in skirts avoid!

A Judo buddy back east is a Judo and Aikido Shodan and his technique is super slick and can take neck breaking Ukemi, so if you see them taking Judo hard breakfalls, throwing with reaps and hips, there's probably some good technical detail to learn.
 
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