More to the Story: the Rorion Gracie/Gracie Academy version of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu History
Rorion Gracie is the best marketer of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in North America. As a result, most Americans who've heard the history, heard his version of it. Some crucial details are missing.
The history of grappling is an oral tradition. The stories people tell on the mat and in the bar are a major source of information, especially for time before there was video and reliable reporting. One problem with depending on these stories is that every grappler (or their instructor) is the protagonist of his own story. There’s bias in the storytelling. People tend to exaggerate the accomplishments of their own lineage and instructors, and downplay the contribution of others.
The history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is full of revisionism. Depending on who’s telling the story, some characters get ignored; people have personal grudges that shape villains. People frame their fathers or instructors as the center of history. There are elements we can verify, based on contemporaneous public records or even video evidence. When I read and write about the history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I often split stories into different “versions” of the history. Different versions have different centers; some include exaggeration or omission, even when they’re mostly accurate. That’s not unusual; lots of historical work involves understanding the perspective of people telling the stories. It gets difficult when a particular perspective becomes dominant.
The most significant version of the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu history in the United States is what I call the “Rorion Gracie version,” after Hélio Gracie’s eldest son. Rorion was involved in creating the UFC and popularized Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in the United States. Even though Rorion’s name is not well known to MMA fans, his success in developing the brand of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is enormously influential. Rorion is the reason why Royce competed in the UFC; fans of MMA tend to remember fighters and not promoters, so Royce is well known and Rorion isn’t. The UFC itself uses the Rorion Gracie version of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu’s history in promotional materials, so the Rorion Gracie version of the history is adopted by lots of people. Here’s Gracie Academy head Rener Gracie’s telling of the Rorion Gracie version of the story. (Rorion is Rener’s dad, and Gracie Academy is the modern iteration of the organization Rorion founded.)
The Rorion Gracie version gets lots of things right. As an origin story of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in America, it covers many major moments, and explains how a central grouping of early Gracie Jiu-Jitsu schools in the United States were developed and managed. But the Rorion Gracie version includes some important omissions from the history.
I want to start with the central claims of the Rorion Gracie version. Every one of these points is true and can be verified independently.
Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is developed by the first generation of Gracie founders, with Carlos Gracie, Sr. teaching Helio.
Helio Gracie becomes the major figure in the martial art through his challenge fights in the 1930s.
Helio Gracie passes the art on to his sons and nephews. That second generation engages in many challenge fights.
Rorion Gracie, Helio’s eldest sons, gets the ambition to take Gracie Jiu-Jitsu to the United States after graduating from law school.
Rorion Gracie founds the Hermosa Beach garage school in 1978, and it becomes an enormous success.
Rorion Gracie promotes Gracie Jiu-Jitsu through the Gracie challenge fights and the creation of the “Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in Action” VHS tapes. The tapes use a combination of fights from Brazil and the United States.
The “Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in Action VHS” tapes provide the impetus for the creation of the UFC, which increases the national and global popularity of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.
There’s a lot missing from this story, but the basic contours are true. Rorion Gracie was the most effective influencer of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in North America during that initial period. Between founding the first academy, teaching, creating the VHS tapes and helping found the UFC, Rorion’s influence is enormous.
Sometimes, when the story gets told, people add details which aren’t accurate because they seem like they should be true. For example, some people claim Rorion was the first person to teach Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in the United States; he wasn’t. Some claim that he brought Gracie Jiu-Jitsu to the US branches of the armed force (as Rener does in this video), but that’s not true either.
I’m not faulting Rener for omissions. He’s the head of Gracie Academy and the Rorion Gracie version is central to that part of the family’s brand. The Gracie Academy is one current institutional center of the Rorion Gracie lineage. The Hermosa Beach garage developed into the Torrance academy and the southern California Gracie Jiu-Jitsu community. Gracie Academy is one central group in that movement. Let’s take a more critical look at the Rorion Gracie version of the story.
Early Gracie Jiu-Jitsu History, Errors and Omission
The first generation of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu consists of Gastaõ Gracie Sr.’s five sons: Carlos Sr., Oswaldo, Gastaõ Jr., George, and Hélio. Most of the children influential in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu are Carlos Sr. and Helio. Those two are (rightly) centered as the major figures in that generation. Carlos Sr. taught Hélio and some of the older practitioners in the ‘30s and ‘40s; by the early ‘50s, Hélio had taken over a lot of the instruction and was also a major force. Carlos and Hélio also had a lot of kids; those kids are the generation of the Gracie family who brought the art to the rest of the world.
There’s a central part of the Gracie founding myth that’s got some problems: Most versions claim that Carlos Gracie, Sr. learned from Mitsuyo Maeda. There’s some historical dispute about the training Carlos Sr. did with Maeda, and when. We know Carlos Sr. became interested in judo following the demonstration by Maeda in 1917. However, the extent to which Carlos Sr. and others trained directly with Maeda is more complicated, because Maeda traveled constantly. (If you’re interested in a post exploring that claim, let me know in a comment.)
The thing is, even if Carlos Sr. trained under Maeda directly from 1917-21, people don’t really learn entire styles from one instructor. Maeda built a judo community in Brazil, including bringing in instructors from Japan. Carlos Sr. learned from many different people. Hélio Gracie’s own telling the history is more candid. Hélio was open that he had a wide range of influences throughout his study of grappling.
Roberto Pedreira’s multi-volume collection Choque documents Hélio’s training wih Sumiyuki Kokutani and Chugo Sato. (Pedreira’s book is fascinating but hard to find, so hopefully someone can acquire the rights and reprint it.) Hélio himself acknowledged the influence of catch wrestler Dudú Da Silva; Rorion has also talked about it, because of the famous vale tudo fight between the two of them. There’s evidence Carlos Sr. and Hélio also trained with Donato Pires dos Reis, but conflicts with Pires mean he’s often written out. See Josh Simon’s write-up on Pires for background here.
There’s a mythology of how Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was developed and transformed… which gets spun out from this story. “Ah, they learned judo from Maeda and it was adapted to fit Hélio’s much smaller frame! That’s how we got Gracie Jiu-Jitsu!” No. That’s not how martial arts work.
I want to make this point because I think it’s important to understand how jiu-jitsu developed: There’s a mythology of how Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was developed and transformed (in particular, by Hélio) which gets spun out from this story. “Ah, they learned judo from Maeda and it was adapted to fit Hélio’s much smaller frame! That’s how we got Gracie Jiu-Jitsu!” No. That’s not how martial arts work.
Hélio trained with a lot of different people; he developed a style that suited him and included a strategy for dealing with larger wrestlers. That style was developed through years of practice, a wide range of different influences and training partners (which included wrestlers).
Rener mentions that Helio was sickly and discouraged from athletic competition. I’ve heard this detail many times, but there are conflicting historical records on this point. Helio was small, but records (in Pedreira’s book) show he was an avid swimmer and rower before taking up Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. It’s possible he had asthma, but this may be exaggeration. I think the detail about his background in rowing is interesting, since Hélio had an incredible front collar choke, and the front collar choke uses the same core muscles as rowing.
Hélio is often credited with developing the guard. We know the use of the guard position was essential to his fighting strategy. It’s discussed in reports on his fights. Hélio was undersized but had good endurance. On strategy he used was to hold opponents in the guard to wear them out and then go on the offense once they were tired. This didn’t always work; Hélio had many draws in his career against wrestlers who were able to fend off his attacks, including Fred Ebert and Wladek Zbyszko. However, Hélio’s ability to stay competitive with much larger opponents was a huge selling point for Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Zbyszko was 80-100 lbs larger than Hélio. The fact that Hélio stayed out of a submission for a half-hour in that situation is amazing.
Lots of people know the “Gracie v. Kimura” story, where Hélio fought the legendary judoka. Hélio eventually lost that fight, but put on a great showing of fortitude against a larger man with enormous skill. The fight was reported as a moral victory, with the famed headline “Vitória de Helio Gracie.”
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Rener mentions that Hélio became the champion of the Gracie family. There’s truth to this, but it’s not the whole truth. Helio was an avid fighter under a range of rulesets. He fought actively from age 19-25, took some time off, and then returned to competition in his late 30s. Hélio was great at promoting Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in those fights, because he frequently gave up a lot of size to his opponents. Zbyskzo and Kimura were both elite competitors; they were also much, much larger than Hélio. But Hélio wasn’t the only competitor in that first generation.
Carlos Gracie Sr. wasn’t a competitor; he fought only one documented challenge fight, a controversial bout with Manuel Rufino dos Santos.
The other major competitor in the family was George Gracie, the Red Cat. Neither has a formal record, because the nature of challenge fights meant the rules changed from fight to fight and we largely work with newspaper records of what happened. Some of the fights were grappling matches; some of the fights allowed strikes. Still, both Hélio and George had twenty well-documented fights each (and likely many more challenge fights that are lost to time).
George is largely forgotten in the early history of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, but recently some online resources on jiu-jitsu history have focused on George again. I especially recommend Josh Simon’s lengthy piece on George.
When Hélio first retired from competition (in 1937), George was the only active fighter in the Gracie family and competed actively during that period. One of the reasons George is rarely discussed is that George had serious conflicts throughout his life with both Carlos Sr. and Hélio. Most infamously, Hélio and George had a falling out when George used “Gracie Jiu-Jitsu” for his own academy; Hélio was protective of the branding, just as his son Rorion would be decades later.
Carlos Sr., George, and Hélio were all very close early in their lives and careers; they were arrested together in the fallout of Carlos Sr.’s fight with Rufino. This story is discussed in Reila Gracie’s biography of her father Carlos Sr., The Creator of a Fighting Dynasty. The details of the tension in the Gracie family are hard to assess. Rorion’s version of the story is sympathetic to Hélio and Reila’s version is sympathetic to Carlos Sr.; each prioritizes their father. Unfortunately, George doesn’t have his own representative in that historical writing.
Different Traditions Developed Different Styles
Hélio used a style of jiu-jitsu that focused more heavily on getting the fight safely to the ground, creating sturdy defenses with the guard (or the mount or back), and developing attacks from there. This is the development of the classic Gracie gameplan as understood by most American practitioners; if you’ve watched the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in Action tapes, then this is the version of the art that you probably think of when you think of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. It’s the style we saw from Royce in the early UFC events. It’s the version that forms the basis of the Gracie Combatives curriculum offered through the Gracie Academy.
But this is really Hélio’s style of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. George’s was significantly different, and included elements of wrestling and leglocks that were different.
I think understanding this history makes Hélio more impressive. It shows that Hélio really innovated his own approach to jiu-jitsu based on his body type, his physical advantages and disadvantages. He was doing something different than George and many of the other grapplers around him.
Hélio didn’t try to out-wrestle much stronger, bigger wrestlers. He instead used the guard as a tactical position that allowed him to protect himself using his legs, engage the attacks he was good at (like the collar choke), and wear down opponents to eventually defeat them. He developed a gameplan that worked for him.
It’s a mistake to omit the wrestlers with whom Hélio trained, because those were the guys who undoubtedly helped Hélio sharped his skills. Dudú da Silva, George, and other fighters who had a more conventional, wrestling-driven approach to grappling were essential training partners in developing this gameplan. They helped Hélio build the strength to maintain his guard control and develop techniques that worked against those stronger opponents. There’s no other explanation for Hélio developing a guard that could stave off a 235-pound Zbyszko to force a 30-minute draw.
A good contemporary jiu-jitsu gym should have a diversity of styles and skillsets. Every gym has people with wrestling skills, pressure in top control, fluid and flexible guards, and wacky tricks and traps. Building a good jiu-jitsu game requires being able to work against this range of techniques. That’s exactly what Hélio and others were doing during the formative period of jiu-jitsu.
The Second Generation Splits; where today’s versions start to coalesce
Carlos Sr. and Hélio are the founders of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Other people were involved in the founding and development of the art; some have better claims than others. Still, Carlos Sr. and Hélio are rightly acknowledge as the two major figures.
In the ‘70s, the dynamics of the Gracie family were changing. Carlos’s older sons (born in the ‘30s and ‘40s) were now adults involved in the family business. Carlos’s younger sons and Hélio’s oldest were reaching adulthood and starting to come into their own as competitors. This is where the Rorion Gracie version of the history gets trickier, because Rorion focuses on his own role, and his father’s, and often omits the influence of others. He often omits his cousins (Carlos’s sons). Here’s a useful shortlist of people who were major players in the ‘70s and into the ‘80s.
While I do this, I also note their approximate age in 1978, the year Rorion founded the Hermosa Beach garage academy.
Carlson Gracie (b. 1932, oldest son of Carlos Sr.) was trained by both Carlos and Hélio. He is often credited with integrating more wrestling and judo takedowns into jiu-jitsu, and the “warrior style.” He competed in challenge fights in vale tudo throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s. In 1978, he was 48 years old and teaching a younger generation of jiu-jitsu students. Many major MMA gyms trace their BJJ lineage through Carlson (Brazilian Top Team; American Top Team; Nova União; Black House; etc.).
I appreciate this video by the MMA fighter Allan Góes on contrast between Carlos, Hélio, and Carlson; Góes is a Carlson Gracie blackbelt and a founder of Brazilian top team.
Robson Gracie, Sr. (b. 1935, second son of Carlos Sr.) was trained by both Carlos and Hélio. He competed in challenge fights and vale tudo in the ‘50s and ‘60s. In 1978, he would have been 45 years old and teaching at his academy in Rio. He is the father of (among others) Renzo and Ralph Gracie.
It’s worth noting that because there are so many kids, the generations of the Gracie family are sometimes funky. While Renzo is only about 7 years younger than Rickson, he’s a generation younger, because his father (Robson) is older. Again, the family tree here is just tricky when it comes to thinking about time frames.
Rorion Gracie (b. 1952, oldest son of Helio Gracie) was trained primarily by Hélio Gracie. In 1978, he was 26 and moved to Hermosa Beach and opened his garage to students, creating the first Gracie Jiu-Jitsu academy in the United States. He also established the American trademark for the name “Gracie Jiu-Jitsu,” launched the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in Action tapes, and was a founder of the UFC.
Carley Gracie (b. early 1950s, son of Carlos Sr.) was trained by Hélio and later by Carlson Gracie. He was the first recorded member of Gracie family to teach jiu-jitsu in the United States and to the United States Marines, in Quantico, VA, 1972. In 1978, Carley was teaching around the United States without a formal academy; he set up an academy in northern California in 1979. In 1994, Carley sued Rorion over the trademark to “Gracie Jiu-Jitsu” on the grounds that he [Carley] had taught Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in the United States first; he won and Rorion’s trademark was voided.
Carley Gracie is often omitted from discussions on Hélio’s side of the family because he has extensive disagreements, including an alleged physical altercation with Hélio and the trademark dispute raised above.
Rolls Gracie (b. 1951, son of Carlos Sr.) was regarded as the best member of the Gracie family during the mid-to-late-‘70s, and traveled to the United States to teach and train. In 1978, age 27, he was living in Brazil and competing in jiu-jitsu and challenge fights. In 1979, he won Pan American gold medals in sambo (-68kg and absolute) and freestyle wrestling (-68kg). He died tragically in a hang-gliding accident in 1981. His academy was the launching point of Gracie Barra (after his death) in Brazil. His blackbelts included the founder of Gracie Barra UK (Mauricio Gomes) and the senior founder of Alliance (Romero “Jacare” Cavalcante).
This is a shortened list, because I’m focusing on the major influencers from the ‘50s through the ‘80s. Many of Hélio’s sons who are jiu-jitsu icons are younger; (e.g.) Rickson was born in 1958, meaning he was 20 when Rorion came to Hermosa Beach. He was active but hadn’t been around long enough to have the influence of those listed above. Rickson’s influence developed in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The same applies to Carlos Gracie Jr. (b. 1956).
Just because these are mostly Carlos’s kids doesn’t mean that they were trained by Carlos. By the late ‘50s, many of Carlos’s sons trained predominantly with Hélio. Rolls trained extensively with Hélio, as did Carlson.
As I note above, Carley was the first to bring Gracie Jiu-Jitsu to the United States, in 1972. Rolls was second. However, neither had a formal academy. Rorion did. The Hermosa Beach garage was the first Gracie Jiu-Jitsu school in the United States.
What’s especially noteworthy about Rorion Gracie was his effectiveness in trademarking and marketing Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Part of the reason the Rorion Gracie version of the history of jiu-jitsu is so widely accepted is because of Rorion’s involvement with the UFC. The Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in Action tapes were a major marketing strategy, as was the Gracie challenge itself. Did Rorion “bring” Gracie Jiu-Jitsu to the United States? No. Did he popularize it and turn it into a massive brand throughout the country? Yes, absolutely. He deserves more credit for the popularity of jiu-jitsu in the United States than any other single individual.
While Rener says that the US military branches became interested in jiu-jitsu following the first UFC, that’s an exaggeration. We know there was interest in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in the US marine corps in the early ‘70s, which was part of how Carley wound up in Quantico. This kind of omission and overstatement is characteristic of the Rorion Gracie version.
The Gracie Academy is a useful way of thinking about one lineage in the United States, and really the first one to entrench itself institutionally in the United States through the development of the southern California schools in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. This is where Rorion Gracie is especially important, because he built those institutions. However, other developments at the same time resulted in the formation of some of the other brands in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu during this period. Gracie Barra and the major jiu-jitsu driven MMA teams took shape independently.
There are two other influences in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu I want to highlight, because I think they provide important context to Rorion Gracie version, and show that lots of other things were going on elsewhere.
First, from the mid-50s into the 1970s, the most active and influential fighter in the Gracie family was Carlson Gracie. Helio Gracie retired from fighting in 1955 after a rough fight with Waldemar Santana (at this point, Helio was in his early 40s) in which he was knocked out by soccer kicks. Many other members of the family engaged in such fights, but Carlson was especially noteworthy. Carlson fought more than a dozen times in vale tudo (the “official” number is 18, but records are hard to verify) and was extremely successful. Carlson also had a large influence on developing a distinctive style of jiu-jitsu more focused on takedowns and the top game. This style was necessary to deal with the vale tudo fighters who knew enough jiu-jitsu to avoid the takedowns or submissions.
Carlson was also involved (along with Hélio) in developing the first generation of jiu-jitsu competitors outside of the Gracie family. Helio taught jiu-jitsu to his former opponent Waldemar Santana; Carlson competed against Santana. Conversely, Carlson taught Wallid Ismail, who famously competed against the Gracie family. This back-and-forth is pivotal to the development of jiu-jitsu, forming its dynamics and teams, and developing stylistic differences between the top-driven and guard-focused styles.
Second, the Rorion Gracie version of the story tends to focus on Rickson and Royce as the major champions of the art and the family. That’s obviously true when we look at the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. However, it overlooks a lot of the Gracie challenge fights in the late ‘70s through the ‘80s, precipitating the UFC. As I noted above, Carlson was fighting Santana and other vale tudo competitors throughout the ‘60s.
In the ‘70s, Rolls Gracie was the champion. There’s an apocryphal story that part of the reason Rolls ended his tours of the United States to return to Brazil was because he needed to engage in challenge matches in Brazil. Rolls probably has the most significant developmental influence on jiu-jitsu during the ‘70s. He’s cited as an influence by basically every player who trained in that period, including Rickson, and many credit him with creating key stylistic elements of jiu-jitsu. Rolls also laid the foundation for many of the major institutions in jiu-jitsu today, including the Gracie Barra lineage and Alliance team.
Rolls built up the academy in Barra da Tijuca. Rolls died tragically in a hang gliding accident in 1982, at age 31. After his death, the Barra de Tijuca academy was taken over by his brother Carlos Jr. The Barra de Tijuca academy is the foundation and namesake of the Gracie Barra lineage of jiu-jitsu, establish by Carlos Jr. in 1986.
Rolls promoted between six and ten blackbelts; accounts differ as to when and under whom the blackbelts were awarded. One of the cases that’s not clear is Carlos Gracie Jr. himself, who may have gotten his blackbelt either from Rolls or from their father. But among the blackbelts we know for sure are: Mauricio Gomes, who brought jiu-jitsu to the UK (his son is Roger Gracie); Romero “Jacare” Cavalcante, the elder founder of Alliance, one of the most successful jiu-jitsu teams ever; Marcio Stambowski, who is credited with refining the triangle choke as practiced today in jiu-jitsu. Rolls also had a large influence on Rickson Gracie and Rigan Machado. In terms of stylistic influence on jiu-jitsu, Rolls’s influence is comparable to Hélio.
The Rorion Gracie version of the story gives a pretty good account of how institutions in jiu-jitsu developed in the United States. It explains how the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in Action tapes and the UFC were used to promote the art, along with the challenge fights, and create a large student base. It doesn’t explain the diversity of teams and organizations outside of the Hélio Gracie wing of the family, or how those teams developed to create the range of modern styles and teams within jiu-jitsu today.
There are lots of other versions of the history of jiu-jitsu which are similarly incomplete. There’s a Gracie Barra version; there’s a Carlson Gracie version; there are several other versions that come from outside of the Gracie family. The Rorion Gracie version is just the most familiar in the United States, so I thought that would be a good place to start with this historical appraisal.
Styles Develop Out of History, Community
There’s a rising discussion in different areas of the Brazilian jiu-jitsu and grappling world about differences in style and philosophy. This discussion isn’t new. When I started learning jiu-jitsu, there was discussion about differentiating “sport jiu-jitsu” from “self-defense jiu-jitsu” and thinking of some techniques which were great in competition but not ideal on the street. This was during the early days of 10th Planet, when unorthodox approaches to jiu-jitsu were starting to develop.
The original version of that was the distinction between Carlson’s “warrior jiu-jitsu” program and Hélio Gracie’s more guard-focused style. The basic dispute at the time was the extent to which jiu-jitsu should focus on takedowns and top-game, rather than using the guard position as Hélio had.
But the truth of the development of style is more complicated and diverse. If we look at the development of top-positions and the incorporation of wrestling, there’s a large influence from Carlson and Rolls, but these environments also created dangerous guards. Carlson trained Ricardo De La Riva, one of the most iconic sport jiu-jitsu guard players of the ‘80s; Rolls trained Stambowsky, whose guard game was innovative and had a significant influence on the modern guard game.
Developing a gameplan, finding a style of jiu-jitsu that works, depends on a range of factors. Different people find techniques that work based on their body type and skills, even based on their personality. It’s important to remember that jiu-jitsu isn’t a single system, and isn’t just tied to the way a particular figure does it. Finding these historical figures as influences, and seeing the differences and developments, is important and valuable for all of us in finding our way through the journey.