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Carlos Gracie in 1987

Roberto Pedreira

January 18, 2023

The general Japanese public heard about Gracie Jiu-Jitsu well ahead of UFC 1 and before anyone one in the United States other than a few hard-core martial arts enthusiasts did. A story appeared in the mass circulation Yomiuri Shimbun on February 2, 1987. This was about two weeks after the first Gracie Judo Invasion in Los Angeles and a year and a half before the second Gracie Judo Invasion in 1988. It was also six years before the entertaining but considerably misinformative Gracies in Action VHS tapes, Volume 1, and Volume 2, not to mention Pat Jordan's legendarily fluffy Playboy article about the baddest man on the planet, Rorion Gracie. 

The Yomiuri article was contributed by a special correspondent named 清本修身　(possibly pronounced as Kiyoshimoto Shuumi) and was titled "My Nippon: Mr. Carlos Gracie, the General Teacher of the Brazilian Jujutsu family ("私のニッポンーブラジル柔術一族の総師、カルロス・グラシエさん). The point of the article was not explained. It didn't seem to have a point. It was purely a general human interest space filler. Carlos was the elder patriarch of a huge family, actually more like a mafia than a normal family. Japanese would have been interested in that. Elders (老人) traditionally are respected in Japan. The connection to Japan was there. Carlos was a direct and beloved student of Mitsuyo Maeda, at least according to Carlos. Jiu-jitsu was the family's thriving business and all of the male offspring of Carlos's three wives (and unmentioned maids and girlfriends) were his successors. Immigration is a perennial topic of interest in Japan. The article had that.  

As historians have known for a long time and psychologists since 1974, human memory is notoriously fallible. Carlos may have been remembering things that he had talked about so much they he believed they really happened. Or he may have been reciting his nonsensical narrative so often that he no longer knew what was true anymore. In the cosmic scheme of things, it doesn't matter all that much. Martial arts and exaggeration go together like red beans and rice, chitlins and cornbread, barbeque ribs and hot sauce. You get the point.

Carlos 1: 

"私はわんぱく少年でした。コマ先生の柔道を見て、すっかりほれこみ、三年間弟子入りした。 先生には自分の息子のようにかわいがてもらった。"

”I was a naughty boy when I was young.　When I saw Prof. Maeda's judo, I was entranced. I became his apprentice for three years. He treated me like his own son." [Based on evidence, Carlos had a few lessons from one of Maeda's students, see here.]

"一度日系会社の代表選手と試合した時、相手は腕を折ったが、それでも引きさがらず向かってきた。日本人は何と不屈の魂持っているかと感動した。日本の戦後の成長も、たくましい精神力のたまものと思う."

The aforementioned association recruited other immigrants in São Paulo who remembered some of their skills (におぼえのある日本人移民ら), according to the author.  They were assigned the heavy responsibility of facing Carlos. He defeated "almost" all of them. [In historical fact, Carlos had three exhibitions with Geo Omori, but never fought any Japanese person].

Carlos rarely taught students in his own academy (in 1987) but concentrated on his research about natural food a health cures (自然食や薬草の研究に専念している), according to the author. 

"これも自然を大切にしてきた日本の伝統的精神文化を愛する結果です。”

”柔術を通しに日本に傾倒してきたが、ついに訪問する機会がなかったのは残念だ。”

”I have been interested ｉn Japan because of jiu-jitsu, but regrettably I haven't had an opportunity to go there."  

Carlos certainly must have used the word "jiu-jitsu." The author translates "jiu-jitsu" as either "judo (柔道) or jujutsu (柔術)　because, while it is possible to write jiu-jitsu in Japanese kanji (充実)  the result doesn't refer to a martial art.

The quality of popular historical writing in Japan on the subject of Maeda and the Gracies ranges from naive to highly misinformed. Astonishingly, many of these amateur historians cited Gracie marketing materials as "evidence." This 1987 Yomiuri article may have been the beginning of a disturbing trend. (See Myths about BJJ in Japan.) 

Carlos' address at that time was Rua Redentor 128, Ipanema、Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.