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
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.
- 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.
