Ninten Do - How could Rolls discover the Triangle in a book in the 1970s, yet it was known by Judo in Brazil long before then?
Perhaps they knew of the triangle, but nobody had perfected it until Rolls saw some details in a book to really flesh out their use of it. Rolls then didn't discover the move itself, but he would have thus been credited with popularizing the move, or advancing the move. Or showing that the move works with the BJJ game when it may have been dismissed before.
It was not only (I suppose) known by Judoka in Brazil, but Rolls trained in one of the most notoriously newaza heavy Judo schools around. Though I guess Rolls might have had his student discover the triangle before he attended.
I guess what I am really trying to say is: who cares? BJJ in the grand scheme of grappling arts was in the stone age until the last few decades.
Historically significant changes in BJJ? When BJJ finally started advancing beyond Judo and Sambo in areas like various open guards and guard passes (though the most commonly used ones have shockingly been around for waaaaaayyyy too long, check out Sensei Oda's videos), the popularization of no gi submission wrestling, the success in MMA, ect.
If what I read was true, the Ezekiel choke (Sode Guruma Jime) was named after a Brazilian judoka who used it against his training partners while practicing BJJ.
BenJay - Too bad the only people who really KNOW (because they were there) all have a different recollection of the event.
LOL, that seems to be a large part of the problem here. The 50's video was AWESOME, thanks for digging that up! Exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for. It even showed the Achilles Hold a few times, and leglocks are another thing early GJJ supposedly lacked.
I've heard the story of the Ezekiel, too; any other stories of specific move introductions to the GJJ stream?
Koga - Chris Haueter is a great competitor and instructor, not much of a historian appearently LOL.
The Gracies did not live on Dr Evil's island cut off from the rest of the world except for surfing to Copacabana beach to street fight once a day. Sankaku-jime (triangle chokes) and ude garami (word for all variations of bent arm locks incl "americana" and "kimura") have always been common in judo since the earliest days.
The Gracies did not only start by learning judo from Meada, they live(d) in Brazil where judo was very, very popular with the general population but also with the Gracie family itself, most of the well known bjj legends were black belts in judo.
Maybe judo in Brazil developed in isolation from the rest of the world and some techniques were somehow lost? Not likely given that Brazil had the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan and the fact that Brazilians were competing and training internationally since the mid-1950s.
At the end of the day, more power to the Gracies for realizing that it is not enough for something to be good to be marketable, you have to convince people that it is unique and that only you can sell the real secrets (Helio's "pure water" and whatnot). Too bad credit is not given where its due to Kano's revolutionary approach to martial arts at the turn of the century because of $ in 2009. - Koga!
There's the recovered film clip commercial of GJJ by Rorion on Youtube. George Mehdi is introduced as one of their advanced students. You can see the Americana submission used from the mount. The mounted practitioner gets the Americana for the tap. So I wonder exactly what Bob Anderson showed or was playing around with Rolls Gracie as he was interviewed on the Fightpod cast and he talked about Rolls and mentioned he introduced that submission to Rolls.
On the subject of the triangle, one argument was that the triangle didn't exist until a student or classmate of Rolls who liked to collect and read Judo books found the technique in a Judo book and showed it to Rolls. Rolls started to work on the triangle.
George Mehdi in Roberto P.'s interview referred to the Gracies as liars, etc. but in one interview, one Gracie member stated George was requested to fight in a challenge match and he chickened out.
Helio sometimes comes off as trying to separate Judo from "Jiu-Jitsu," yet there's a picture of him in a suit at a Judo competition as a spectactor.
There's some claims that George Mehdi taught BJJ practitioners which is true but did he truly introduce more newaza techniques into BJJ when he came from from Japan after training Judo there? This claim wouldn't pan out if he taught guys like Mario Sperry and not Rolls' generation.
Grizzly Gym - Exactly, Shen. I'm a little confused as to how moves like that could be left out. I hadn't heard about the Americana, though; when is that reputed to have been added, and how?
What was Helio's game like, exactly?
In 'The Gracie Way' Kid Peligro reports that Rol's learn't 'The Americana' from Bob Anderson who was in Brazil coaching the national wrestling team.Roll's was on the team and excdhanged techniques with him.
I believe the truth is probably that Mr Anderson used 'The Chicken Wing' as his main submission (probably been passed to him from catch wrestlers) and due to his liking for it Rolls probably started calling 'the americana' in honour of him as a friendly joke.
There is NO WAY that Maeda didn't teach that technique.Maeda studied Judo AND catch wrestling (when he was in the UK Before he went to Brazil) and Ude Grami/Chicken Wing/keylock/Americana is a staple of both systems.
HoldYerGround - The triangle was discovered by judoka after Maeda left Japan. And please drop the "kosen judoka have been..." because Kosen Judo was also formed after Maeda left.
That's not actually true; Kosen Judo was around (and the predominant style of judo) for decades prior to the introduction of modern Kodokan rules in 1925. Maeda didn't get to Brazil until 1915.
My feeling (no evidence) is that certain techniques fell out of favor because at the time they were low percentage moves for the Gracie's then after they learned to make them higher percentage they came back in to favor.
I said this when I saw this video earlier, but the Americana (and nearly all the other techniques) that Carlos does are exaggerated and sloppy. I realize that this may be for demonstration purposes, but it may also be that Helio did in fact "clean up" many of the "traditional" techniques.
HoldYerGround - The triangle was discovered by judoka after Maeda left Japan. And please drop the "kosen judoka have been..." because Kosen Judo was also formed after Maeda left.
That's not actually true; Kosen Judo was around (and the predominant style of judo) for decades prior to the introduction of modern Kodokan rules in 1925. Maeda didn't get to Brazil until 1915.
No.
Kosen Judo was a different rule set of Judo used by highschools. It actually it wasn't even a style, but just a rule set. Find youreself a translation of what Kosen means please.
Now, did Maeda leave Japan and go RIGHT to Brazil? Or did he leave sometime sooner...
Do your homework. Maeda never even heard the term Kosen Judo before he got to Brazil.
Koga - George Mehdi in Roberto P.'s interview referred to the Gracies as liars, etc. but in one interview, one Gracie member stated George was requested to fight in a challenge match and he chickened out.
...don't see your logic.
Koga - Helio sometimes comes off as trying to separate Judo from "Jiu-Jitsu," yet there's a picture of him in a suit at a Judo competition as a spectactor.
...don't see your logic.
Koga - There's some claims that George Mehdi taught BJJ practitioners which is true but did he truly introduce more newaza techniques into BJJ when he came from from Japan after training Judo there? This claim wouldn't pan out if he taught guys like Mario Sperry and not Rolls' generation.
He taught Roll's generation (and Rickson, ect.) AND Sperry's/Wallid's generation. After training at Tenri University for 5 years under Masahiko Kimura, and Isao Okano. If you found Newaza in a Japanese-English dictionary somewhere you will find their picture.
HoldYerGround - Do your homework. Maeda never even heard the term Kosen Judo before he got to Brazil.
Source?
I know that Kosen means "school" or somesuch, BTW, and that it was a specific set of rules for competition. Now can I see your homework on how you can say Maeda definitively never trained with this sort of intensive ne-waza?
Ninten Do - Stories can get exaggerated and reinterpreted over the years, especially when you are translating from another language.
The story of the Americana can be true AND they could have known about submission from the beginning. How?
Perhaps when someone asks R_____ Gracie "where did the americana come from?" perhaps R____ Gracie misunderstood and answered where the NAME americana comes from. It is quite possible that the American wrestler mentioned showed them some variations or setups that they didn't know, and they named it after him. Perhaps there was a whole game developed around his moves - the americana game, and eventually the sub itself took on that name. Perhaps they liked the guy so much they just started call it Americana after him.
How could Rolls discover the Triangle in a book in the 1970s, yet it was known by Judo in Brazil long before then?
Perhaps they knew of the triangle, but nobody had perfected it until Rolls saw some details in a book to really flesh out their use of it. Rolls then didn't discover the move itself, but he would have thus been credited with popularizing the move, or advancing the move. Or showing that the move works with the BJJ game when it may have been dismissed before.
The possibilities are endless and plausible when dealing with a language barrier and decades of time. We have to take all these stories just like you do any time some old guy talks. "We landed at Normandy and advanced 30 miles south to French city X." Just because French City X is 50 miles south doesn't mean that the veteran wasn't at Normandy killin' nazis, it just means that he's old and mistaken.
Get out of here with your rational reasoning!
No, I agree there is probably truth to that.
Subtleties usually don't survive time, and translation well.
It's like playing the children's game "Telephone" over generations in multiple languages.
"IF Maeda didn't teach the Gracie's the Triangle Choke nor the Americana as are both sometimes claimed, then what exactly DID he teach them...?"
I also read that the triangle choke was implemented later as a counter to a guard pass....Dave Camarillo said in his interview that he seen the triangle in judo but didnt know it was an offensive move until he came to BJJ. Maybe it was shown but it was Rolls who used it with frequency and made it a offensive staple for BJJ.
"What was Helio's game like, exactly?"
According to Relsons interview Helios style is a closed guard game with no holding of the sleeves
According to Reners interview, Helios "GJJ" style is more of a philosophy then a set of techniques....which is a passive style where a smaller more frail opponent will over come a larger opponent after the larger opponent tires out (or something like that).......BJJ (not GJJ) is to offensive in nature,unrealistic in a selfdefense situation and not well suited for women and older people as a means of self defense.
So basically the claim now is, Helio created the self defense aspect of what Maeda taught Carlos which is a style based purely on leverage. Seems what the Japanes taught was brute strength techniques that needed modification and leverage points (what those leverage points are I still havent gotten a definitive answer).
Heres a interview from Royce that gives his definitions of Helios style:
HoldYerGround - Do your homework. Maeda never even heard the term Kosen Judo before he got to Brazil.
Source?
I know that Kosen means "school" or somesuch, BTW, and that it was a specific set of rules for competition. Now can I see your homework on how you can say Maeda definitively never trained with this sort of intensive ne-waza?
shen - No, I agree there is probably truth to that.
Subtleties usually don't survive time, and translation well.
It's like playing the children's game "Telephone" over generations in multiple languages.
A good observation. This factor almost definitely played a role is shaping the history of BJJ. I don't think people were writing this stuff down and recording it into a book at those times. It was word of mouth bed time stories to little ---- Gracie over generations.
The Japanese, however, have a tendency to record their history with a Nazi like precision to detail. In fact, it is almost a certainty that they used IBM hardware to record the data while wearing gi's covered in Hoelzer Reich patches.
Slysir09 - "IF Maeda didn't teach the Gracie's the Triangle Choke nor the Americana as are both sometimes claimed, then what exactly DID he teach them...?"
I also read that the triangle choke was implemented later as a counter to a guard pass....Dave Camarillo said in his interview that he seen the triangle in judo but didnt know it was an offensive move until he came to BJJ. Maybe it was shown but it was Rolls who used it with frequency and made it a offensive staple for BJJ.
"What was Helio's game like, exactly?"
According to Relsons interview Helios style is a closed guard game with no holding of the sleeves
According to Reners interview, Helios "GJJ" style is more of a philosophy then a set of techniques....which is a passive style where a smaller more frail opponent will over come a larger opponent after the larger opponent tires out (or something like that).......BJJ (not GJJ) is to offensive in nature,unrealistic in a selfdefense situation and not well suited for women and older people as a means of self defense.
So basically the claim now is, Helio created the self defense aspect of what Maeda taught Carlos which is a style based purely on leverage. Seems what the Japanes taught was brute strength techniques that needed modification and leverage points (what those leverage points are I still havent gotten a definitive answer).
Heres a interview from Royce that gives his definitions of Helios style:
I think what we can do here is step back and look at Judo for a minute.
Now by all accounts, Judo had leg locks in the beginning. At some point they were taken out and stopped being practiced. Certain other techniques such as scissor takedowns were also taken out. At this point it seems that only certain arm locks are allowed too. So we can clearly see in a style quite similar to BJJ that techniques that were originally part of the curriculum at some point left.
Now imagine the same thing happening with BJJ. Triangle is originally there, but for whatever reason gets dropped. Then at some point in the 70s gets rediscovered. It's quite plausible. You're even seeing this with Judo now with Judoka, due to BJJ, working more on Newaza than they did before, and of course the techniques were in Judo before, but they were just not practiced for a long time.
Slysir09 - I also read that the triangle choke was implemented later as a counter to a guard pass....Dave Camarillo said in his interview that he seen the triangle in judo but didnt know it was an offensive move until he came to BJJ. Maybe it was shown but it was Rolls who used it with frequency and made it a offensive staple for BJJ.
I could buy this. I've found against less experienced guys I can use it offensively, but more experienced guys know it's coming and are prepared for it, so I only catch them with it when they try the guard pass.