Gracie Jiu Jitsu Quotes

“Gracie jiu-jitsu remained a Brazilian secret until the early 90s, not by design, but because no one outside of Brazil cared.”
― Roberto Pedreira, Jiu-Jitsu in the South Zone, 1997-2008

“Rorion did for a generation of Brazilians what 30 years previously Brian Epstein did for a generation of English pop musicians, stimulating seemingly limitless demand for a product where none had existed before (Gould, 2007). But Rorion did it to an even greater degree, conceding that his system was basically judo. Helio felt the same way. In one of his last interviews, with Ana Missa on Sensei SporTV in 2009 (February 14), he explained that because he wasn’t physically suited for judo, he “modified jiu-jitsu so that a weak citizen like himself could fight” [pelo meu porte físico eu não podia ser judoka, então eu adaptei o jiu-jitsu para que até um cidadão fraco como eu pudesse lutar]. So there we have it. Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is pre-Olympic judo, taught by Helio’s method, whatever that is, and modified so that weak citizens can fight (apparently Helio felt that judo required too much strength, which is odd, because many of his promotional pictures and demonstrations involved judo throws). That doesn’t mean Gracie products and services aren’t worth what they cost. If judo people were teaching this material, people wouldn’t be paying Brazilians to do it. Rorion didn’t invent anything. What he did was to make it valuable.”
― Roberto Pedreira, Jiu-Jitsu in the South Zone, 1997-2008

“I didn’t know enough about jiu-jitsu history to ask detailed questions. I simply picked up whatever anyone said, and tried to casually follow up on it. My interest was not academic. I was not there to debunk myths, if that’s what they were. I was moderately skeptical about the Gracie myth (having been raised on a diet of Bertrand Russell books), but I was not skeptical about the effectiveness of their grappling system.”
― Roberto Pedreira, Jiu-Jitsu in the South Zone, 1997-2008

“The initial Gracie Jiu Jitsu curriculum consisted of forty self-defense classes that focused on empowering students. The goal was to prepare them mentally, physically, and psychologically for a physical confrontation and to build a foundation of confidence that would give them peace of mind. My dad's handpicked instructors taught a hundred private lessons a day to Brazil's business leaders and politicians. The tuition was expensive, most of the lessons were private, and Hélio kept his instructors on a very short leash. Not only did they have to follow a strict self-defense curriculum, but they were fined for every minute they were late.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“Today, it is possible to get a Jiu Jitsu black belt without knowing self-defense or even getting into a real fight. This was impossible during the 1970s and 1980s. Because my father and uncle loudly proclaimed their style 'the world's most effective form of self-defense,' every young Gracie knew that at some point he would be called upon to represent our family in the ring or in the street. Your first official vale tudo fight was like losing your virginity; it was a rite of passage.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“Carlos [Gracie Jr.] deserves much of the credit for creating sport Jiu Jitsu, but with it came a problem. it transformed our martial art and created a lot of paper tigers who would never step into the ring to carry the flag of Gracie Jiu Jitsu. My father didn't like the sport version because he thought it was watering down our martial art. Hélio [Gracie] used to say, "This is not my Jiu Jitsu, because competitive Jiu Jitsu is not a martial art. The Jiu Jitsu I created is a martial art so a person can defend themselves on the street without getting beaten up.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“The strategy of the Gracies' style of Jiu-Jitsu is based around the idea that if you can stay calm and protect yourself without draining your energy—if you can weather the initial storm you face against a bigger and stronger opponent—then eventually that opponent will run out of gas, make a mistake, and you'll have your chance.”
― Richard Bresler, Worth Defending: How Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Saved My Life

“Rorion had filed trademarks for both the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu triangle logo and the name itself. Which isn't really a problem in and of itself, and isn't even that odd a move: the idea with a trademark is to be able to control who gets to represent your brand and to corner any revenue that interest in the brand generates. It's standard business practice and, given what Rorion was trying to build, it would have been a mistake not to do it. Without an enforceable trademark there would have been nothing to stop anyone from hanging out a shingle and claiming that they taught "Gracie Jiu-Jitsu," or selling a teeshirt with the Gracie logo. The problem was that in the mid-'90s he started aggressively enforcing the trademark... against members of his own family.”
― Richard Bresler, Worth Defending: How Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Saved My Life

“One of the things that Rorion used to say was, "You don't need Jiu-Jitsu if your opponents are small.”
― Richard Bresler, Worth Defending: How Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Saved My Life

“People forget that modern MMA has weight classes and time limits and the guys are wearing gloves. Take those things away and you'll realize very quickly why the art is the way it is.”
― Richard Bresler, Worth Defending: How Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Saved My Life

“Look at Royce's fight with Kimo. You see the pace of that fight and you can watch Royce get drawn in and exhausted. And then you look at Royce's fight against Dan Severn in the next event, and you see a very different Royce. You see a very different approach, in terms of how he dealt with a big, powerful guy who's on top and who's not wearing the gi. You see the classical tactical deployment of patience as a strategy. And that's the thing: that's what Jiu-Jitsu is. That's what it's supposed to be.”
― Richard Bresler, Worth Defending: How Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Saved My Life

“It's funny. When you're coming up and you're striving for your black belt it seems so, so important. I've been a black belt for over twenty years, now. I've been a black belt for longer than it took me to get to black belt: longer than it took me to get through all the other belts combined. At some point in all of that you start to realize that the belt don't actually matter. You start to realize that what matters is being on the mat. What matters is the time you get to spend with this art. The rest of it is just window dressing.”
― Richard Bresler, Worth Defending: How Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Saved My Life

“I got my blue belt after forty half-hour private classes. When Rorion promoted me he said, "OK, you're not a beginner anymore. Now your Jiu-Jitsu journey has begun." Now at the Gracie University it's much more than forty classes to get a blue belt.”
― Richard Bresler, Worth Defending: How Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Saved My Life

“For ten years, from 1979 to 1989, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in America pretty much meant you were rolling around on the floor in a garage in Southern California. Think about keeping that little fire lit for ten years, when it's not catching. Ten years is longer than most people last in Jiu-Jitsu. It's a long haul.”
― Richard Bresler, Worth Defending: How Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Saved My Life