BJJ in the United Kingdom, the Future is Bright

The UK has been one of the countries where brazilian jiu jitsu has been growing at an enormous pace. Looking at the history of jiu jitsu in the United Kingdom, clearly there were many people that made the sport as big as it is today but none were as important as perhaps Maurição Motta Gomes. A lot is said about bjj history in this country and the best article I have found is by Slidey, a very professionally written article as everyone I think would agree.

Today there the sport is still growing at an amazing rate and I think there are good reasons. One is I think the popularity of MMA in the UK is big. UFC is being shown on Sky Digital on the Setanta Sports channel and their are many fans there. Two of the top brazilian jiu jitsu champions Braulio Estima and Roger Gracie are based in the UK. Many new talented athletes are coming to train under them today.

Also the fact that the USA where brazilian jiu jitsu is already extremely popular is helping. Many english speaking players are coming over to the UK to train. The number of brown and black belt practitioners is growing as fighters get promoted and open their own academies.

You only need to take a look at the recent BJJ British Open to see how far the sport has gone. At 620 competitors on 8 mats, the event shows how popular bjj has become. I think there are few martial arts events in the UK that include so many competing practitioners already and I think in the years to come there will be even more people taking part.

I think we all will be looking forward to the Gracie Invitational 2010 competition. It will surely be the biggest event yet.

Russian Judo Comeback

Russia has always had strong judo traditions. Ever since Vasiliy Oshepkov, the grandfather of Russia Judo came over from Japan in 1914 having studied the art at the famous Kodokan school, the sport has been growing and entrenching in the ex-Soviet Union countries including Russia.

(Vasiliy Oshepkov pictured below)

Oshepkov was only the fourth foreigner and the first Russian to attain the degree of "Shodan" in Kodokan Judo at the time. Formidable in his physique, Oshepkov was nickname the "Russian bear" by the Japanese for his strong build. Mr. Oshepkov is said to have weighed approximately 220lb (100kg) at the time.


Oshepkov was also one of the founders of the Russian sport and self-defence system called Sambo which replaced judo during the 1930s when Judo became highly politicized by the Soviet government. Sadly, Vasiliy Oshepkov himself was accused of espionage and executed in 1937.

The students that Vasiliy taught together with other practitioners across USSR continued to practice the art however and by 1964, very soon after Judo became an Olympic sport, the Soviet Union took four bronze medals at the Tokyo Games.

This success was to continue until the fall of the Sovit Union with many famous Judokas taking medals in every tournament including the Olympic games but since then success has very much eluded Russia. Despite Russian judo players being ranked among the top in their weight classes, Russia could not gain a single medal in the Beijing Olympic games.

Today, a lot is being done to revive the Judo traditions. A new coach, Ezio Gamba has been hired to take the Judo world by storm, the man who took Olympic Gold back in Moscow in 1980 from Neil Adams in the final.

There are high hopes for 2012 London Games, support from the country's great Judo fan Vladimir Putin and I think after five golds at the recent European Championships, Russia will one day impress the world in this sport as it has done in wrestling in the past.

Russia is a country with great potential in both Judo and Sambo and the popularity of both sports is increasing with the emergence of mixed martial arts. Fedor Emelianenko is one man that has made an enormous contribution in this area and now many are choosing combat sambo as a result.

Judo in particular grew due to the character of Kano himself and his work to make Judo a mainstream sport. In this task he succeeded thanks to his ability to lobby for the sport in high echelons of the government and I think Judo has a chance to make a comeback in Russia as the same is happening in Russia.

Branches of Jiu Jitsu

Hi everyone,

today's post I would like to dedicate to branches of jiu jitsu. There are many of them but the ones that seem to be highlighted as the most popular are

Gracie Humaita, Gracie Barra, Alliance Jiu-Jitsu, and Carlson Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. All are said to trace back to Hélio Gracie and Mitsuyo Maeda.

There are however others that you keep seeing when you look at medalling competitor backgrounds. They include Brasa, Check Mat, Atos and Nova União among others. Nearly all are connected to their founder (s) and I would like to cover them at least a little bit hear. I don't have all the info, so if anyone has anything to contribute, i am more than happy to post it of course.

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Gracie Humaita

Gracie Humaita is probably the oldest branch of brazilian jiu jitsu. Founded by Helio Gracie himself, jiu jitsu is taught the way it was taught originally by master Helio. Today, Gracie Humaita is lead by Royler Gracie and Rolker Gracie. This is the old school where many of the famous Gracie's originally trained including Rickson Gracie and Royce Gracie, before they founded their own schools.
The Gracie Humaita team is strongly represented in competition by the Ribeiro brothers (Saulo and Xande), Kron Gracie and remains one of the strongest in the world today.

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Gracie Barra

The first Gracie Barra School was founded in 1983 by Carlos "Carlinhos" Gracie, Jr. and today has over 400 black belts and 200 academies around the world. This the largest brazilian jiu jitsu association today.

Gracie Barra has one of the strongest jiu jitsu teams including Roger Gracie, Braulio Estima and Romulo Barral. In addition, Gracie Barra has many notable MMA fighters in its ranks including Renzo Gracie and Renato "Babulu" Sobral.

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Alliance Jiu Jitsu

Alliance Jiu-Jitsu was created in 1991 by two prominent practitioners, Romero "Jacare" Cavalcanti. Some of his first black belts were Fabio Gurgel, Alexandre Paiva and Fernando Gurgel.

Later after Jacare moved to the USA (from Brazil) the team had a split and some of the best guys left founding the Team Master.

Alliance continued with Jacare and Fabio Gurgel and the other 2 original founders after some years the Team is stronger then ever wining 2 World Championshipis back to back in 08 and 09.

Today, many Alliance academies are located in the US and include jiu jitsu stars such as Chris Moriarty, Rubens "Cobrinha" Charles, Sergio Moraes and Marcelo Garcia.

Alliance headquarters are still located in Sao Paulo, Brazil and are run by Fabio Gurgel himself.

Alliance team has won the 2008 and 2009 mundials.

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Carlsons Gracie Jiu Jitsu

This branch of jiu jitsu was founded by the late Carlson Gracie Sr., the eldest son of Carlos Gracie. After leaving the Gracie academy in the mid-60s, Carlson focused on competitive jiu jitsu which his team was able to dominate for more than 30 years.

Carlson Gracie Jr., the only son of Carlson who trained with his father from the age of 3 and now heads Carlsons.

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Information is scare but clearly out of the four main branches, Alliance is the youngest. I wish that in the future, we bjj practitioners have the opportunity to learn more about the heritage of jiu jitsu, the main branches and teams, and about the people that created this magnificent art.