The Gracie jiu-jitsu story

What a fantastically designed and executed site! I love the attention to detail all the way across the responsive sizes. Great work.

Fascinating history. It's strange to see what the various jujitsu-descended arts choose as their comfort level with injury. The traditional jujitsu ryu had lots of maming / killing techniques, which have been taken out and readded depending on the art:

Judo focused on making a very safe art that could be applied full-intensity in a sporting context. Aikido focussed on making a purely defensive art.

Then Gracie jujitsu decided to re-brutalize judo. And now we have MMA that is a sport that tolerates fairly severe injury of combatants. I can't say I like the direction MMA has gone here. Every time I see it, I kind of get a sick feeling like I'm watching some kind of Roman spectacle.

I trained for a while in a style that taught techniques designed to kill. And, as a pacifist, I was okay with that because they were taught as forms, and the art is not practiced in competition. Clearly MMA had to decide on a tolerable level of violence between "no competition" and "fight to the death." I just wonder how that point of acceptable violence came to be what it is--from the article, broken eye sockets and arms aren't enough to call a fight. I think I know the answer: maximum injury that won't result in death / legal problems. And I find that a bit troubling.

Cagefighting came into existence as a way to test the efficacy of traditional martial arts. So much of what is taught is complete rubbish ("lethal techniques" that only ever practised against compliant opponents, etc.). All the beautiful movements and choreographed dancing of traditional martial arts fly out of the window when you face a skilled fighter that is trying to hurt you.

The fighters know exactly what they sign up for, and probably would not want it any other way. They are consenting adults having fun. :)

Regarding the brutalization of judo: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was born in the favelas, any martial art that was not brutal would be of no use there. Thinking that a martial art should not be brutal reveals a special kind of first-world thinking.

The rules of MMA have become fairly well defined in recent years. With the goal of minimizing the chance of life changing injury (remember injury and potential death is possible with many popular sports). Which make it quiet different from a Roman spectacle.

A fight can be stopped by a referee if the fighter is deemed to be unable to protect themselves effectively in order to prevent excessive injury. A fighter can stop the fight at any time if he is not comfortable with the pain.

I think the distinction between sports violence and criminal violence is that both parties are well informed, consenting and aware of what is happening and that its happening in a controlled environment where the risks are minimized with doctors on hand.

Whether or not sanctioned informed violence is personally to your taste or good for society is a different question.

"Fascinating history. It's strange to see what the various jujitsu-descended arts choose as their comfort level with injury."

I think is not strange. This oscillation is normal. There is a tension in all the martial arts that serious practicants are very aware of.

If you practice only the form, where you can practice everything, you are not really practicing, because you are not used to what means a real fight. In the other hand is impossible to practice in a total realistic way because is dangerous and not healthy.

The same tension translate to competition. When you start making rules it stop being a real combat, but without rules is impossible to have competition.

In the Brazilian Jujitsu combats, for instance, there are a lot of things that are forbidden and you never train for (attack the eyes, break fingers..) but you would find in a "street fight"

As the bio mechanics are the same for all the martial arts, we are all humans after all, I think that one of the more important things that determine a martial art "shape" is how it solve this tension between form and combat. The other more important being where your focus is (for instance stand up vs. floor, or grappling vs. punching).

What you describe is the natural movement in those axis.