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I recently finished reading Choque: The Untold Story of Jiu-Jitsu in Brazil 1856-1949 (Volume 1).

http://www.amazon.com/Choque-Untold-Jiu-Jitsu-Brazil-1856-1949/dp/1491226366

First of all, WTF is Choque? The word has nothing to do with choke. It's a Portuguese word that was used to refer to sporting competitions.

Second, the book isn't your normal book. It's a library of translated Brazilian newspaper articles from 1856-1949 in chronological order (one chapter per year with a few exceptions) with some terse commentary by the author interspersed. Basically, the author searched the newspaper archives for all the Brazilian newspapers for every single reference ever made to jiu jitsu, vale tudo, the Gracies, etc. and then pieced it all together.

I'm not going to write a full on summary or review of the book here. My memory sucks and I've already forgotten a bunch of shit, I probably should have taken notes as I went. Oh well. I'll stick to just providing some of the key points, particularly the ones I found new and interesting. I'll add to the thread if I remember more stuff later.

- Mitsuyo Maeda (Conde Koma) did not introduce jiu jitsu to Brazil. Maeda arrived around 1915. Mario Aleixo had been teaching jiu jitsu in Brazil since 1913 and Sada Miyako had been teaching since 1909. Those are probably the first two legit instructors. A number of people had been teaching "jiu jitsu" since around 1904 based on what they learned from Irving Hancock's books and Yukio Tani's book, but lacked real qualifications.

- Carlos Gracie never really studied under Maeda. It's possible he took 1 or 2 private lessons from Maeda but that's it. He studied for a couple of months under Jacyntho Ferro, then he studied for 2-3 years under Donato Pires dos Reis, who apparently was the only person Maeda ever authorized to teach. It was Donato Pires whom the Gracies learned from not Maeda. Pires ran the academy that Maeda established and then left. Then apparently when Pires was out of town on business once, Carlos and his brothers essentially hijacked the school. When he returned, they kicked him out and renamed Pires's academy to the Gracie Academy. Crazy shit. Also, it appears that what the Gracies actually learned from Pires over that 2-3 year period was a half dozen judo throws plus the usual traditional self defense techniques, not the BJJ that most people know today, that came later.

- Helio Gracie learned from Carlos. The story about Helio being frail and fainting all the time and learning by watching was nonsense as everyone knows now. While Carlos was learning jiu jitsu from Donato Pires, Helio was a few towns over competing in swimming and rowing events, where he was quite successful.

- George Gracie was the real fighter of the Gracie family. He had more fights than all of his brothers put together and was far more successful than they were. Unfortunately, Carlos and Helio later wrote him out of the story they created. Carlos wasn't much of a fighter at all. He had 1 professional fight, against Manoel Rufino do Santos, and he lost it. Apparently the two fighters started falling out of the ring, the ref ordered them to break, there was a dispute, and Carlos refused to fight when ordered to continue and left the arena, so the ref awarded it to Manoel. He had one amateur fight prior to that, against a person George described as completely unskilled and not knowing anything about fighting, that ended in a draw. So Carlos retired from fighting with a record of 0-1-1. After that, he would challenge people to fights and then after they accepted he'd tell them to fight Helio instead. Helio had a dozen or so fights during the 1930's. It is important to realize that the vast majority of these "fights" and all other "fights" during this period were actually more akin to submission grappling matches - no striking allowed in most of them, unless the fight was against a boxer in which case the boxer was allowed to punch while standing but no strikes on the ground or against a capoeira person in which case only kicks were permitted and only while standing. Remember, these were circus acts, right alongside the bearded ladies and wolf boys, not what we normally think of as sports. Most of Helio's early matches ended as draws, which is misleading because in some of them he was literally thrown dozens of times and then manhandled on the mat, but the time limits would expire before anyone gave up.

- Oswaldo Gracie had a handful of fights, but was more interested in teaching. Gastao Jr didn't fight, taught somewhat, but wasn't really that interested in jiu jitsu.

- Wrestling preceded jiu jitsu in Brazil by a good bit. Starting back in 1856, they'd have luta romana matches at these circuses. Essentially greco roman type rules (no leg attacks) with matches won by throws with no groundwork allowed. Luta livre or catch wrestling started becoming popular around 1909. Unlike luta romana, leg attacks were allowed, and matches were won by pin or submission. Mixed jiu jitsu and luta livre matches started becoming popular around this time as well. Rules were negotiated for each bout. Sometimes a pin would count as a victory, sometimes not. Sometimes the matches were in gis, sometimes not. It was common to have a gi match (which the jiu jitsu guy would usually win) followed by an almost immediate rematch without a gi, which the catch/luta livre guy would usually win, and then both could claim to be "undefeated in ______" where ______ was jiu jitsu or luta livre.

- Helio and George both trained with luta livre/catch wrestlers around this time.

- Boxing never really took off in Brazil at this time. There were a few matches but little public interest.

- By the mid 1930's most luta livre/catch matches were fakes. The public lost interest in boring "real" fights and ticket sales declined. However, worked matches were very popular with the public and people went with the flow, plus contestants found it a safer and easier way to make money. George started participating in these worked matches. That's what caused the rift between him and Helio/Carlos. Helio retired in 1937 as a result, refusing to participate in works.

- WWII happened and the circus matches were put on hold for awhile.

- Most of the jiu jitsu guys in Brazil after WWII started switching over to judo or at least started calling what they were doing judo and participating in judo events. Helio came out of retirement a little while later.

Getting tired of typing, will continue the brain dump tomorrow.
 
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I recently finished reading Choque: The Untold Story of Jiu-Jitsu in Brazil 1856-1949 (Volume 1).

http://www.amazon.com/Choque-Untold-Jiu-Jitsu-Brazil-1856-1949/dp/1491226366

First of all, WTF is Choque? The word has nothing to do with choke. It's a Portuguese word that was used to refer to sporting competitions.

Second, the book isn't your normal book. It's a library of translated Brazilian newspaper articles from 1856-1949 in chronological order (one chapter per year with a few exceptions) with some terse commentary by the author interspersed. Basically, the author searched the newspaper archives for all the Brazilian newspapers for every single reference ever made to jiu jitsu, vale tudo, the Gracies, etc. and then pieced it all together.

I'm not going to write a full on summary or review of the book here. My memory sucks and I've already forgotten a bunch of shit, I probably should have taken notes as I went. Oh well. I'll stick to just providing some of the key points, particularly the ones I found new and interesting. I'll add to the thread if I remember more stuff later.

- Mitsuyo Maeda (Conde Koma) did not introduce jiu jitsu to Brazil. Maeda arrived around 1915. Mario Aleixo had been teaching jiu jitsu in Brazil since 1913 and Sada Miyako had been teaching since 1909. Those are probably the first two legit instructors. A number of people had been teaching "jiu jitsu" since around 1904 based on what they learned from Irving Hancock's books and Yukio Tani's book, but lacked real qualifications.

- Carlos Gracie never really studied under Maeda. It's possible he took 1 or 2 private lessons from Maeda but that's it. He studied for a couple of months under Jacyntho Ferro, then he studied for 2-3 years under Donato Pires dos Reis, who apparently was the only person Maeda ever authorized to teach. It was Donato Pires whom the Gracies learned from not Maeda. Pires ran the academy that Maeda established and then left. Then apparently when Pires was out of town on business once, Carlos and his brothers essentially hijacked the school. When he returned, they kicked him out and renamed Pires's academy to the Gracie Academy. Crazy shit. Also, it appears that what the Gracies actually learned from Pires over that 2-3 year period was a half dozen judo throws plus the usual traditional self defense techniques, not the BJJ that most people know today, that came later.

- Helio Gracie learned from Carlos. The story about Helio being frail and fainting all the time and learning by watching was nonsense as everyone knows now. While Carlos was learning jiu jitsu from Donato Pires, Helio was a few towns over competing in swimming and rowing events, where he was quite successful.

- George Gracie was the real fighter of the Gracie family. He had more fights than all of his brothers put together and was far more successful than they were. Unfortunately, Carlos and Helio later wrote him out of the story they created. Carlos wasn't much of a fighter at all. He had 1 professional fight, against Manoel Rufino do Santos, and he lost it. He was getting his ass kicked so bad that he literally ran out of the ring, refused to continue, and ran away. He had one amateur fight prior to that, against a person George described as completely unskilled and not knowing anything about fighting, that ended in a draw. So Carlos retired from fighting with a record of 0-1-1. After that, he would challenge people to fights and then after they accepted he'd tell them to fight Helio instead. Helio had a dozen or so fights during the 1930's. It is important to realize that the vast majority of these "fights" and all other "fights" during this period were actually more akin to submission grappling matches - no striking allowed in most of them, unless the fight was against a boxer in which case the boxer was allowed to punch while standing but no strikes on the ground or against a capoeira person in which case only kicks were permitted and only while standing. Remember, these were circus acts, right alongside the bearded ladies and wolf boys, not what we normally think of as sports. Most of Helio's early matches ended as draws, which is misleading because in some of them he was literally thrown dozens of times and then manhandled on the mat, but the time limits would expire before anyone gave up.

- Oswaldo Gracie had a handful of fights, but was more interested in teaching. Gastao Jr didn't fight, taught somewhat, but wasn't really that interested in jiu jitsu.

- Wrestling preceded jiu jitsu in Brazil by a good bit. Starting back in 1856, they'd have luta romana matches at these circuses. Essentially greco roman type rules (no leg attacks) with matches won by throws with no groundwork allowed. Luta livre or catch wrestling started becoming popular around 1909. Unlike luta romana, leg attacks were allowed, and matches were won by pin or submission. Mixed jiu jitsu and luta livre matches started becoming popular around this time as well. Rules were negotiated for each bout. Sometimes a pin would count as a victory, sometimes not. Sometimes the matches were in gis, sometimes not. It was common to have a gi match (which the jiu jitsu guy would usually win) followed by an almost immediate rematch without a gi, which the catch/luta livre guy would usually win, and then both could claim to be "undefeated in ______" where ______ was jiu jitsu or luta livre.

- Helio and George both trained with luta livre/catch wrestlers around this time.

- Boxing never really took off in Brazil at this time. There were a few matches but little public interest.

- By the mid 1930's most luta livre/catch matches were fakes. The public lost interest in boring "real" fights and ticket sales declined. However, worked matches were very popular with the public and people went with the flow, plus contestants found it a safer and easier way to make money. George started participating in these worked matches. That's what caused the rift between him and Helio/Carlos. Helio retired in 1937 as a result, refusing to participate in works.

- WWII happened and the circus matches were put on hold for awhile.

- Most of the jiu jitsu guys in Brazil after WWII started switching over to judo or at least started calling what they were doing judo and participating in judo events. Helio came out of retirement a little while later.

Getting tired of typing, will continue the brain dump tomorrow.

Awesome dude thanks for typing this up!
 
Carlos wasn't much of a fighter at all. He had 1 professional fight, against Manoel Rufino do Santos, and he lost it. He was getting his ass kicked so bad that he literally ran out of the ring, refused to continue

if you read that from the book and you are literally describing what the book says, then I have to say that the translator of the book doenst know much about Portuguese, our you are putting your own words on that. The extract of the book came from an old portuguese article, which I discussed with a fellow LL sherdoger, when he put the same type of biased opinion into it and everyone was OOHHHH WOWOW GRACIES MOTHERFUCKERS... what the article says is that carlos was fighting rufino, and carlos did some "illegal"move (the article doesnt say which was it, but I find it hard to believe there were many rules back in those days) carlos then proceeded to choke out rufino, but the ref called the fighters back to the center for the prior foul carlos made, then Carlos refused to go back to the center of the ring and LEFT, the ref proclaimed rufino as the winner by walkover.. he didnt leave the ring because he was getting his ass beaten.

This is not me talking, this is what the artilce said literally.
 
Haven't finished it yet, it's tough. One of the worst structures for a book I have ever seen.
I'll look for my notes but one thing I do remember - central to the Gracie myth is the idea that Helio was a total wimp. Not true- he was a successful competitive swimmer and rower before taking up the fight game.

Also, NUMEROUS instances of the Gracie brothers literally beating dudes heads in on the street. Triple team, bashing heads with metal boxes and such.
 
Also, NUMEROUS instances of the Gracie brothers literally beating dudes heads in on the street. Triple team, bashing heads with metal boxes and such.

The Gentle Art in action. Always knew Renzo didn't fall far from the apple tree.

Thanks for the write up, I'm going to have to look for this or order it online. My current gym is pretty gracie heavy biased while I'm over here like "Ya know, Royce really wasnt really that good right?" ...so it'd be nice to be like "Heeeeey yooou guuuuuise!"
 
if you read that from the book and you are literally describing what the book says, then I have to say that the translator of the book doenst know much about Portuguese, our you are putting your own words on that. The extract of the book came from an old portuguese article, which I discussed with a fellow LL sherdoger, when he put the same type of biased opinion into it and everyone was OOHHHH WOWOW GRACIES MOTHERFUCKERS... what the article says is that carlos was fighting rufino, and carlos did some "illegal"move (the article doesnt say which was it, but I find it hard to believe there were many rules back in those days) carlos then proceeded to choke out rufino, but the ref called the fighters back to the center for the prior foul carlos made, then Carlos refused to go back to the center of the ring and LEFT, the ref proclaimed rufino as the winner by walkover.. he didnt leave the ring because he was getting his ass beaten.

This is not me talking, this is what the artilce said literally.

That was the one where Carlos, Helio, and George then ambushed him outside a gym and Helio and George beat him with a metal box while Carlos held other people back, right? The one where they went to jail?
 
That was the one where Carlos, Helio, and George then ambushed him outside a gym and Helio and George beat him with a metal box while Carlos held other people back, right? The one where they went to jail?

I think I remember reading something about that, not quite sure, didnt pay much attention to that part, I did however read very carefully what the article said about the fight between carlos and rufino and why rufino was declared the winner. For some reason, LL revisionist love to bring the fact that rufino beat carlos in his only pro figth, but they dont like to bring how the fight went.
 
If I remember right, Helio was supposed to do mad jail time for that but eventually appealed it all the way to some court where the Machado's grandfather (could have the relation wrong there) was the judge and he let him off the hook.
 
Sounds like Carlos had a Palhares moment.

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if you read that from the book and you are literally describing what the book says, then I have to say that the translator of the book doenst know much about Portuguese, our you are putting your own words on that. The extract of the book came from an old portuguese article, which I discussed with a fellow LL sherdoger, when he put the same type of biased opinion into it and everyone was OOHHHH WOWOW GRACIES MOTHERFUCKERS... what the article says is that carlos was fighting rufino, and carlos did some "illegal"move (the article doesnt say which was it, but I find it hard to believe there were many rules back in those days) carlos then proceeded to choke out rufino, but the ref called the fighters back to the center for the prior foul carlos made, then Carlos refused to go back to the center of the ring and LEFT, the ref proclaimed rufino as the winner by walkover.. he didnt leave the ring because he was getting his ass beaten.

This is not me talking, this is what the artilce said literally.

I'll have to go back later today and find the exact section of the book that describes this. It's entirely possible I'm misremembering it and if so I'll correct my OP. But I do remember that the referee ordered Carlos back into the ring to continue to fight and he refused and promptly let the arena.

As for your statement that you "find it hard to believe there were many rules back in those days" this is completely incorrect. As I stated in my post, during the 1930's the vast majority of these matches were grappling-only, no striking. There were tons of rules, the whole "no rules back in the day, it was brutal" thing is a myth. In fact, virtually every match had it's own set of pre-negotiated rules. It was however, very common for people to break the rules that they had agreed to and this led to a lot of disputes, and referees were often clueless. For example, there were several matches between jiu jitsu guys and luta livre guys where it was agreed that win was by submission only, the luta livre guy would then proceed to pin the jiu jitsu guy and then stand up and claim that he won by pin. Remember, like I said, these were part of circus/carnival acts and were often more of a sideshow than anything.
 
Ok, I have edited my OP. I went back and re-read that section. There are 4 separate newspaper account translations of the fight in Choque. All seem to agree that Manoel won the first 2 rounds. Late in the third round is where the story changes and accounts vary somewhat. It seems that the fighters were up against the ropes. One article states they actually fell outside of the ring another states that they were up against the ropes and about to fall outside the ring but not yet outside the ring. 3 of the 4 articles state that Manoel had some sort of hold on Gracie at the time (it doesn't say which), that the referee ordered the fighters to separate and return to the center of the ring, that Manoel released his hold, and that Gracie immediately took advantage to apply a Gravata (headlock or choke) before they even started moving back to the center which is what caused the dispute. The ref ordered a time out which apparently lasted over an hour, Carlos left during this time but then returned, the ref ordered the fight to re start at this point, Carlos refused and left.

An article written a couple of days after the fight indicated that neither fighter showed much offense and didn't appear to really know what they were doing. Manoel attempted holds on Carlos which had no effect, Carlos used the scissors (guard) on Manoel but couldn't make anything happen either.

In the following weeks, Manoel started claiming that he beat Carlos up (this is probably what I was originally remembering) and that Carlos was a coward, and this is what then led to the metal box incident.

If I can figure out how to get text off my Kindle, I'll post the original translations.
 
Haven't finished it yet, it's tough. One of the worst structures for a book I have ever seen.

I'll echo this sentiment. There's a lot of fascinating information in this book, but it's an absolute slog to read.
 
Ok, I have edited my OP. I went back and re-read that section. There are 4 separate newspaper account translations of the fight in Choque. All seem to agree that Manoel won the first 2 rounds. Late in the third round is where the story changes and accounts vary somewhat. It seems that the fighters were up against the ropes. One article states they actually fell outside of the ring another states that they were up against the ropes and about to fall outside the ring but not yet outside the ring. 3 of the 4 articles state that Manoel had some sort of hold on Gracie at the time (it doesn't say which), that the referee ordered the fighters to separate and return to the center of the ring, that Manoel released his hold, and that Gracie immediately took advantage to apply a Gravata (headlock or choke) before they even started moving back to the center which is what caused the dispute. The ref ordered a time out which apparently lasted over an hour, Carlos left during this time but then returned, the ref ordered the fight to re start at this point, Carlos refused and left.

An article written a couple of days after the fight indicated that neither fighter showed much offense and didn't appear to really know what they were doing. Manoel attempted holds on Carlos which had no effect, Carlos used the scissors (guard) on Manoel but couldn't make anything happen either.

In the following weeks, Manoel started claiming that he beat Carlos up (this is probably what I was originally remembering) and that Carlos was a coward, and this is what then led to the metal box incident.

If I can figure out how to get text off my Kindle, I'll post the original translations.

the only article Ive read about was the one that was posted originally in a brazilian news paper of the time, the was a thread about it. would be great to read other articles about it, if you can, please post a link or something...
 
It's somewhat disillusioning to hear a lot of this, but at the same time it also makes it even more amazing that the Gracies (and others) were able to build Jiu Jitsu in Brazil into what it became worldwide.
 
It's somewhat disillusioning to hear a lot of this, but at the same time it also makes it even more amazing that the Gracies (and others) were able to build Jiu Jitsu in Brazil into what it became worldwide.

that's exactly what I like about the book. it takes the shine off of the Gracie version of events (which is very much defined by the Rorion marketing machine) and sets the record straight. what we now call BJJ was not a unique creation of Helio, or any other Gracie. It was an organic evolution of japanese jujitsu (what is now often called judo) as it came to Brazil. It was influenced by what was already happening there, and it took a somewhat different shape there, much as judo as it's played in eastern europe now is heavily influenced by the wrestling culture there,

not only do the other Brazilians that were important to this evolution get credit (Donato Pires for example) but it reconnects it to the lineage from Japan. The Gracie version makes it seem like Maeda gave them some basic ideas and disappeared, and they just invented BJJ out of that. the real story of all the exhibition fights indicates that the judo guys that came over were great submission fighters already.
 
that's exactly what I like about the book. it takes the shine off of the Gracie version of events (which is very much defined by the Rorion marketing machine) and sets the record straight. what we now call BJJ was not a unique creation of Helio, or any other Gracie. It was an organic evolution of japanese jujitsu (what is now often called judo) as it came to Brazil. It was influenced by what was already happening there, and it took a somewhat different shape there, much as judo as it's played in eastern europe now is heavily influenced by the wrestling culture there,

not only do the other Brazilians that were important to this evolution get credit (Donato Pires for example) but it reconnects it to the lineage from Japan. The Gracie version makes it seem like Maeda gave them some basic ideas and disappeared, and they just invented BJJ out of that. the real story of all the exhibition fights indicates that the judo guys that came over were great submission fighters already.

Barnett on his podcast with Ralek as a guest got into this a little bit, how the Japanese Judoka and others in Brazil at the turn of the 20th century were equally exposed to catch wrestling and other arts.

I mean, this really is amazing to me. This is all happening in the time before the internet, video instructionals, with MAYBE a poorly designed book or two for instruction. Then some people take 2-3 years max of lessons not always under black belt supervision, compete with some catch wrestlers, get in (start) lots of fights, and eventually this incredibly robust grappling art develops.
 
It's somewhat disillusioning to hear a lot of this, but at the same time it also makes it even more amazing that the Gracies (and others) were able to build Jiu Jitsu in Brazil into what it became worldwide.

Wait until you read about the root of Jiu Jitsu in China and India. It's all very interesting to read and research on. History is fascinating indeed.
 
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