First, I'll show you how to roll on a mat. We'll put this hand behind your back. I'll turn you to the left and you can block me. My name is Fernando Araujo, I have a fourth degree black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I became acquainted with martial arts when I was about 11 years old. I was influenced by my father, he was also a wrestler. So I started playing sports too. In the 1990s, mixed martial arts were popular, such as taekwondo, karate, and my friends practiced jiu-jitsu.
It caught me. I went to the first training and I wanted to do it more and more. Next thing I remember is that I stopped doing everything but jiu-jitsu. I currently live and teach in the Czech Republic. It really had a big impact on my life. It taught me how to deal with problem situations and I really believe that it made me a better person. Jiu-jitsu comes from the original judo, from the Japanese, who got as far as Brazil and started practicing it there. One of these Japanese opened a school in northern Brazil. At the beginning he had only 2 brothers who trained and learned in this school. Brothers Carlos Gracie and Osvaldo Gracie. Later, due to their family situation, they had to move to Rio de Janeiro. They started training their other brothers there, so in the end we have a family of five brothers, all of whom trained and really improved. They studied and trained more and more, until eventually the idea came to expand this art further. The problem was that people didn't know this new martial art.
They had to prove that it was effective, so they had to fight with other fighters who used different martial arts. In those days, at the beginning of the 20th century, capoeira was a highly regarded art in Brazil. They called it national sport, national art and national martial art. But she also had a reputation that it was really only for strong, capable guys. It also gave martial arts a very bad name. The Gracio brothers wanted to clear the name, so they organized capoeira vs. jiu-jitsu. The first big match was in the 1930s. Right after that, there was another match, where jiu-jitsu won again and it helped, the world immediately started to recognize him.
People started looking for this martial art. Today, the whole world trains him, but it really started with the five brothers who believed in it and learned all the styles of Judo. They had the advantage of being small. No other martial art teaches you how to fight, defend yourself if you are lying on your back. It was an aspect ignored in all martial arts. If you did it and got better, you really didn't have a problem with any opponent. It's all about training. Even today, new things appear in jiu-jitsu every day, it is an endless process. It came from Judo and evolved into its own martial art, which is practiced all over the world..
