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I am currently a Yellow Belt at the Concord Youth Judo Club in Northern California. I train under Sensei Howard Nam, a 4th degree black belt and Sensei Jacobson, a 2nd degree black belt.
What is Judo?
Judo is many things to different people. It is a fun sport, an art, a discipline, a recreational or social activity, a fitness program, a means of self-defense or combat, and a way of life. It is all of these and more.
Judo comes to us from the fighting system of feudal Japan. It was founded in 1882 by Dr. Jigoro Kano and is a refinement of the ancient martial art of Jujutsu. Dr. Kano, President of the University of Education, Tokyo, studied these ancient forms and integrated what he considered to be the best of their techniques into what is now the modern sport of Judo.
Judo was introduced into the Olympic Games in 1964 and is practiced by millions of people throughout the world today. People practice Judo to excel in competition, to stay in shape, to develop self-confidence, and for many other reasons. But most of all, people do Judo just for the fun of it.
- copied from an article in judoinfo.com
I started training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at the Ralph Gracie Academy in Antioch, California in November, 2003. I've had 5 lessons to-date.
The head instructor is Ricardo Barros, a 27-year old black belt from Brazil. Sometimes, Kurt Osiander, another black belt and the San Francisco head instructor, visits our academy and trains us.
What is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?
In the 1800s in Japan, there were a large number of styles of jujutsu (spelled "jiujitsu" in the USA). Techniques varied between ryus, but generally included all manner of unarmed combat and occasionally, some weapons. One young, skilled master of a number of jujutsu styles, Jigoro Kano, founded his own ryu and created the martial art Kodokan Judo in 1882. One of Kano's primary insights was to include "Randori" - all-out practice against resisting, competent opponents, rather than solely relying on the partner practice that was much more common at the time.
One of Kano's students was Mitsuyo Maeda, who was also known as Konde Koma (Count of Combat, the name he got in Spain). Maeda emigrated to Brazil in 1914. He was helped a great deal by the Brazilian politician Gastão Gracie, whose father George Gracie had emigrated to Brazil himself from Scotland. In gratitude for the help, Maeda taught Kodokan Judo to Gastao's son, Carlos. Carlos in turn taught his brothers Osvaldo, Gastão Jr, Jorge, and Helio. Back then Judo was also commonly called Jiu-Jitsu (Westernized form of Jujutsu)
In 1925, Carlos and his brothers opened their first academy, and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was born in Brazil.
At this point, the base of techniques in BJJ was similar to Kodokan Judo. As the years progressed, however, the brothers (notably Carlos and Helio) and their students focused their art on newaza (grappling techniques) and continued the legacy of challenge matches of Judo's Maeda via brutal no-rules fights, both in public challenges and on the street. Particularly notable was their willingness to fight outside of weight categories, as popularized by Maeda, permitting a skilled, small fighter to attempt to defeat a much larger opponent.
They began to concentrate more and more on submission ground fighting, especially utilizing the guard position. This allowed a weaker man to defend against a stronger one, bide his time, and eventually emerge victorious.
- from bjj.org with some revisions
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