HISTORY
Much like Judo was a refinement of the ancient Japanese Juijutsu, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a refinement of Judo. Having learned Judo from one of Kano's original students, Carlos Gracie and his younger brother Helio, opened their own school in Brazil in 1925. Helio, much smaller and frailer than Carlos, was forced to alter the techniques that he learned by placing a greater emphasis on leverage and using an opponent's strength against him.
While the genius of Dr. Kano and his Judo was the revolutionary concept of daily competitive sparing against a resisting opponent, the Gracie's believed that Kano unnecessarily placed too many limitations on training. For example, competitive Judo only allows submissions to the elbow joint along with strangleholds. Pressure to the face is illegal. Judo students only train in the gi. Additionally, to make Judo a better spectator sport for the Olympics, the rules of Judo place a greater emphasis on aesthetically pleasing throws than on effective ground grappling. The Gracies, believing these limitations weakened Judo as a martial art, rejected them, and formed their own art, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
Through the alteration of Judo techniques in order to allow a smaller, less athletic man to defeat a much larger opponent, and through their changes to the rule-set of competition to allow a fight to proceed naturally, the Gracies developed their own, independent martial art, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
