Brazil jiu-jitsu

Grand Master Carlos Gracie

Grand Master Carlos Gracie

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a martial art and combat sport system that focuses on grappling nd especially ground fighting. BJJ promotes the concept that a smaller, weaker person can successfully defend themselves or another against a bigger, stronger, heavier assailant by using proper technique, leverage, and most notably, taking the fight to the ground, and then applying joint locks and chokeholds to defeat the opponent.

BJJ is most strongly differentiated from other martial arts by its greater emphasis on ground fighting. Commonly, striking-based styles spend almost no time on groundwork. Even other grappling martial arts tend to spend much more time on the standing phase. It is helpful to contrast its rules with Olympic judo’s greater emphasis on throws, due to both its radically different point-scoring system, and the absence of most of the judo rules that cause the competitors to have to recommence in a standing position. This has led to greater time dedicated to training on the ground similar to that of Kosen Judo, resulting in enhancement and new research of groundwork techniques by BJJ practitioners.

Grand Master Helio Gracie

Grand Master Helio Gracie

Along with BJJ’s strengths on the ground comes its relative underemphasis of standing techniques, such as striking. To remedy this comparative lack, there is an emphasis on take-downs and cross-training between BJJ, wrestling, judo, and sambo, as well as striking based arts such as boxing, karate, taekwondo, Muay Thai, and kickboxing.