In 1997, GTR founder
and CEO Roberto Pedreira went to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to learn jiu-jitsu. He had
already trained at Rickson's academy on Pico Street, in Los Angeles, since the fall of
1994. He wasn't much, if at all,
interested in martial arts history. He lived by Gene Lebell's philosophy (here
and here): It doesn't matter what you call it or
where it came from. What matters is whether it works and you can do it. And,
it should probably be added, whether you can learn it from the person
who is offering to teach you. But
Roberto was mildly intrigued as to why so little was known and so
many vague, implausible, and conflicting stories were told. After all, if Helio
Gracie really was a living legend in Brazil, wouldn't someone outside of a
Gracie affiliated jiu-jitsu academy have heard of him? The mystery was partially
solved in two steps, both in 1999 and both at the Corpo Quatro academy, then under the
supervision of Alvaro Barreto and Sylvio Behring. Alvaro had been a Gracie
student back in the day. He learned of my curiosity and lent
me a copy of a thesis written by three of his students at the Universidade
Federal do Rio de Janeiro, where he was a professor. The thesis described the history of
jiu-jitsu in Brazil, all in 45 pages. The students listed their sources as interviews with Alvaro
Barreto, Royler Gracie, and Carlson Gracie. The references went back to 1994
(with a few exceptions) and consisted of recent martial arts magazine articles and
jiu-jitsu academy websites. They also relied on marketing materials, in
particular, Gracies in Action. The references suggested that the field of enquiry did not go
back far. It fact, with the exception of three newspaper articles on the Kimura vs. Gracie
match in 1951, a 1990 article by a Gracie affiliated academy owner named Helcio
Leal Binda and two general histories of judo and wrestling, the earliest of the
source materials dated from the year after the first Ultimate Fighting
Championship (and of course, Gracies in Action.) Apparently, no one in Brazil
outside of a few academies was paying much attention to
jiu-jitsu until the UFC. The second significant event also occurred in 1999. Sylvio
Behring mentioned that he had studied judo with George Mehdi in Ipanema. He
suggested that I meet Mehdi. "Mehdi has been here forever, he knows
everything," Sylvio told me, or something to that effect. I found out that
that was true. And everyone knew Mehdi too. Carlson Gracie's son and many
of his top students
learned judo from Mehdi-sensei, who had been one of Brazil's best competitive
judokas during the 1960's. He had a perspective on jiu-jitsu history that
was considerably at variance with the one put forward by Rorion Gracie. Mehdi
certainly knew more about the subject than Rorion did. Mehdi was training, teaching,
fighting, and being exploited at two Gracie academies before Rorion put on his
first kimono. Oh, and one
other thing. Mehdi despised the Gracies. Or to be more precise, he hated Carlos
and Helio, and possibly Robson. He liked Carlson, obviously. He didn't seem to
have any issues with the Gracie kids. He had no beef against Gracie Academy
people in general. It was Helio more than anyone that he couldn't stand.
The feelings were mutual, by the way. Mehdi didn't name names, but since what
he hated was "lying and brawling," it was easy to figure out who he
was talking about. Mehdi didn't even mention that fateful day in April 1968 when
Helio Gracie "invaded" Mehdi's dojo in Ipanema (read Choque 3,
chp. 8, for the details.) Rorion's
jiu-jitsu narrative was basically bullshit. Mehdi said. The Gracies (by which he
primarily meant Carlos and Helio) were liars. (He didn't like them for other
reasons as well, and he had good cause to dislike them, but that is a different
story.) To put it more diplomatically, Carlos, Helio, Rorion were businessmen,
not historians. Perhaps taking a cue from psychologist/pragmaticist philosopher William
James, they seemed to feel that "the truth is whatever works."[2] Roberto's article about
George Kastriot Mehdi appeared on
The Global Training
Report in 2000. Immediately, GTR and Roberto were attacked for being
"anti-Gracie." What had Roberto done to merit this accusation? He had
dared to present a view that deviated from Gracies in Action. The offending view was Mehdi's own
lived personal
experience. Roberto had no way of knowing if it was true and did not say
that it was (although it later turned out to be true; for details about Mehdi
and his relationship with the Gracies, look here.) The lesson was clear.
Anyone who questions the historical accuracy of Gracies in Action is a
heretic. He must be "anti-Gracie." He might even be "pro-judo." Choque 1 appeared in 1914, the second and
revised second editions in 2015. Choque 2 and Choque 3 also appeared in 2015
(March and September, respectively.) All three Choque volumes were intended as
academic works of history, based on primary sources. Every statement in Choque
1-3 is backed up with fully cited sources that any researcher can verify, if
he/she wants to make the effort. Some of the verifiable facts are not
necessarily consistent with Gracie marketing, nor are they always flattering to
BJJ heroes and legends. The purpose of Choque was not to glorify
the Gracie family and promote its various business enterprises. Nor was
it to debunk myths. It was solely to ascertain what the historical
record said and to present the evidence to readers for their own
consideration and evaluation. (Incidentally, Reila Gracie pointed out
some of the
same facts in 2008, as you can see by clicking here
and here.) What is the truth?
Is Roberto
anti-Gracie and pro-judo? Is Choque anti-Gracie? Roberto
is pro-judo. That is a fact. He is also pro-BJJ. He is not anti-Gracie. Whatever Roberto thinks about individual members of the enormous and genetically
diverse Gracie family and their long histories of activities is irrelevant to Choque,
which is based on verifiable sources, with a bare minimum of
"interpretation" (occasional examples of speculation are clearly noted as
such.) Roberto respects various members of the Gracie family for their contribution,
along
with people like Geo Omori, Takeo Yano, Yassuiti Ono, Masahiko Kimura, Oswaldo
Fada, Oswaldo Alves, George Mehdi, the Behring family, and many others, to the awesome form of Kodokan judo now known as
BJJ. Choque however is not a valentine to the Gracie family, but rather an
academic work on a subject that they happen, not by accident, to be
highly identified with. Choque is about everyone who contributed to BJJ,
not just Carlos and Helio Gracie. Choque also strove to give proper
credit to George Gracie, who had more fights in his career than all four
of his brothers combined, and to Carlson Gracie for his major role in the development of the sport beginning with his
September 6, 1951 match with Ono Academy representative Tsunechik Sakai.
Contrary to what some people think, Choque is not about the Gracie
family. Choque went to the extreme to include anything of potential
relevance, regardless of whether it was positive or negative concerning the
Gracie family, or anyone else, as long as the sources were verifiable and
reliable, i.e., were not filtered through the narratives of Carlos Gracie, Helio
Gracie, Rorion Gracie and the latest in the lineage of family spokesmen, Rener
Gracie. To put it concretely, if we want to know
about Helio Gracie's fight with Antonio Portugal we can rely on Helio Gracie's
memory or Rorion Gracie's veracity. Or we can read contemporary reports from
1932 when the fight occurred (January 16, 1932), which is what Roberto did, and
anyone else can do if they are willing to make the effort. Individual readers
can decide for themselves who they want to trust. Or they can suspend judgment.
If anything, Choque downplayed negative evidence in order to avoid the
appearance of bias. It was hard to avoid negative reports because there were so
many of them. But as we know, newspapers print what sells and they know from
experience that scandals and arrests sell newspapers. But it wasn't all
negative. Positive stories were reported. None were ignored or suppressed. Choque was
not intended to be light
reading, full of entertaining stories about super-human martial arts masters, jealousy
guarded secret techniques, and adolescent street fights (although there are plenty of
drunken street fights, assaults, muggings, rapes and attempted rapes, murders, and
suicides in Choque 2 and Choque 3, all factual, regrettably.) Nor was it designed to be a
roadmap to black belt or any such similar inspirational how-to-do it manual. Choque 1 was primarily intended
for academic researchers. Choque 2 and Choque 3 are a little lighter, made possible by
greater availability of more recent source materials. Readers who prefer cool
stories may find Choque "dry." Readers who appreciate facts and
truth tend to find engagement with Choque rewarding, despite the effort
it may take effort to keep track of the details (which is why Choque has
multiple appendices.) Having said all
of this, Roberto understands why some people are disconcerted.
It's not fun to have your heroes revealed to be ordinary mortal men with plenty
of faults and flaws, and who actually lost fights or never won a fight. If
your academy depends on a lineage to Mitsuyo Maeda (Conde Koma) via
either Carlos or Helio Gracie for its viability, then your marketing
strategy needs to be updated. As
a wise man once said, "Truth
is the quality that moves us forward, expands our horizons, and
ultimately sets us free. We should never fear it. Those who do, do so
perhaps, because they have something to hide. Perhaps they worry that
the relentless light of truth may expose the inadequacies or worse, the
deliberate deceptions, in their own words."--Rorion Gracie (Gracies
in Action 2, 1992)
For more Myths and Misconceptions, see:
Four Questions
& Answers about BJJ History
The Backstory
Myths and
Misconceptions in Gracies in Action 1
Myths and Misconceptions about Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in Pat Jordan's 1989 Playboy
Article
Myths and Misconceptions in Gracies in Action 2
Myths and Misconceptions about Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in Japan
Myths about Mitsuyo Maeda (Conda Koma)
Myths and Misconceptions about Jiu-Jitsu and BJJ
Notes 1.
Quebra silêncio = breaks the silence, i.e., speaks after a period
of reticence. 2.
William James didn't express it
in quite these terms. This was Bertrand Russell's mocking characterization. James
insisted that what he meant was "useful in
understanding the world and reality." James was less interested in
what "truth" was than in what was "true."
(c)
2016, Roberto Pedreira. All rights reserved.
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