In 1978, Rorion Gracie, Helio’s eldest son, left Brazil and came to the United States to share his father’s techniques with the rest of the world. Upon his arrival, he immediately noticed that most Americans had no appreciation for jiu-jitsu’s effectiveness. Even those with knowledge of martial arts confused his family’s system with the traditional Japanese Jiu-Jitsu that had been in America since the 1950s. In order to emphasize the distinction between the two disciplines, Rorion trademarked the name “Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.”
Rorion spent several years teaching out of his garage while leading a one-man campaign to open the eyes of American martial artists to Gracie Jiu-Jitsu’s simplicity and effectiveness and concluded that, despite his tireless and constant efforts, he needed a more powerful and visible way to demonstrate the superiority of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu over all other martial arts. To accomplish this, he created the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). This pay-per-view television spectacle shocked the martial arts world as his brother Royce used the simple techniques of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu to repeatedly defeat larger, more athletic opponents armed with a wide variety of martial arts skills.
The success of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in the UFC spurred many sport jiu-jitsu practitioners to leave Brazil in order to capitalize on the increased demand for Gracie Jiu-Jitsu instruction. Due to legal restrictions on the use of the trademarked name “Gracie Jiu-Jitsu,” these instructors began using the name “Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu” as an alternative.
The influx of sport jiu-jitsu instructors, many of whom were members of the very large extended Gracie family, led to the establishment of numerous jiu-jitsu schools all across the United States. Nearly all of these schools claimed to teach the same jiu-jitsu that Grand Master Helio Gracie had created and Royce employed in the UFC. In fact, most of them were teaching a version of the art modified specifically for sport competition. Students hoping to acquire the realistic self-defense skills they saw in the UFC flocked to these schools and often trained for several years before they came to the disappointing realization that what they were learning had very limited street applicability.
The worldwide demand for Gracie or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instruction continues to grow at a phenomenal rate – without regulation. As a result, many jiu-jitsu practitioners with widely varying skill levels have opened schools to capitalize on this demand. At best, these self-proclaimed instructors are competent sport jiu-jitsu practitioners. At worst, they are marginally skilled, lack depth of knowledge, or are simply poor instructors. To counter this disturbing trend, the Gracie Academy has launched the Global Training Program aimed at perpetuating the techniques and principles of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in their purest form – as a method of self-defense.
