The stories few people know
Almost everything you read about the history of jiu-jitsu comes from the people who won that history. That does not make it false: it means you have to read it knowing as much.
BJJ Square · Updated on 08/11/2026
The history of Brazilian jiu-jitsu has a problem the history of other sports does not: it was written almost entirely by one side. The version you read everywhere — the Japanese master, the boy from Belém, the family that carries jiu-jitsu around the world — was born in the Eighties as promotional material, before it was ever a historical account.
That is not an accusation and it does not make it false. It is something we know because the protagonists said so: that account was there to sell a school, and it was built well. The point is a different one — a source with an interest in the outcome has to be set against something else, and for decades that something else did not exist.
A concrete, checkable example
In 1992 “Gracies in Action” comes out, the videotape that takes the family challenges around the world and that will shortly give rise to the UFC. In that video the weights of two Japanese opponents of Hélio Gracie are stated as 18 and 36 kilos higher than they really were. Later research corrected those figures, and today the correction is settled.
There is no need to think badly of anyone: whoever cut that video was doing his job, which was to make a real difference look spectacular. But it is the reason why, when a number sounds too good, it is worth asking where it came from.
For some years now the other column has existed too
Two people started reading the Brazilian newspapers of the period instead of the books already written.
- Roberto Pedreira, with the three volumes of *Choque*, went systematically through the Rio press from 1856 onwards, cross-checking it against Japanese sources.
- Robert Drysdale — an ADCC champion turned researcher — works on period press and interviews with survivors, and has published a documentary and two books.
They do not agree on everything, not even with each other. But they have one thing the traditional version lacks: they say where every claim comes from.
How these pages are written
- We add, we do not tear down. None of these stories is here to take anything away from anybody. The Gracie family carried jiu-jitsu around the world, and nobody questions that — not even the people correcting its dates.
- Where the sources diverge, we say so. With the names of who claims what, instead of quietly picking the most convenient version.
- What we do not know stays written down. Every page has a “what we do not know” section. On these subjects the hole is often more honest than the answer.
- No scandal headlines. If a story needs “the truth they never told you” to be interesting, it probably is not.
Note We too work on sources we can reach: specialist sites, digital archives, published testimony. Where something reaches us second-hand — because it sits in a book we have not read — we write that on the page.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is the history of jiu-jitsu so uncertain?
- Because for decades it was told almost only by the Gracie family, in a promotional context, and because most of the events happened without press or neutral referees. Independent archival research is recent.
- Is the traditional version false?
- No. It is partisan, which is a different thing. Many facts hold up; others are scaled down by research into the newspapers of the period. The difference shows up case by case, not wholesale.
- Who are Roberto Pedreira and Robert Drysdale?
- Two researchers who reread the history of BJJ using period sources. Pedreira wrote the three volumes of “Choque”; Drysdale, the 2007 ADCC champion, has published a documentary and two books on the origin of Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
- What was wrong with “Gracies in Action”?
- Among other things, the weights of two Japanese opponents of Hélio Gracie were inflated by 18 and 36 kilos. The video worked all the same: the size difference was real, only smaller.
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