Jiu-Jitsu in the South Zone, 1997-2008 Quotes

“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

“If you are called to roll with a jiu-jitsu instructor, rolling means rolling. He may toy with you. He may decline to tap you. But he expects you to do your best to defend yourself and to attack him. When an instructor’s body can no longer do what his mind tells it to, then he does not roll with students in this way, but provides wisdom and leadership appropriate to his rank and age. Students also adjust their intensity level appropriately to the training context. It is not inconceivable that a strong young blue belt could tap Helio Gracie out in 1999. He would pay a high and painful price for the glory of doing it however. There is a reason for age, weight, belt, and gender categories in competitions.”
― Roberto Pedreira, Jiu-Jitsu in the South Zone, 1997-2008

“Everyone says it’s ok to tap, but at the same time, everyone does almost everything they can possibly do to avoid it. That is precisely the point and that is why tapping is a valuable training tool.”
― Roberto Pedreira, Jiu-Jitsu in the South Zone, 1997-2008

“Unlike Kodokan judo, jiu-jitsu does not have a “philosophy.” Jiu-jitsu can be whatever anyone wants it to be, which is the good news, and also the bad news.”
― Roberto Pedreira, Jiu-Jitsu in the South Zone, 1997-2008

“When a martial art exists in two forms, the original self-defense form and a sport/competition form with rules for determining “winners,” the boundaries tend to blur, and effectiveness in self-defense can be sacrificed to effectiveness in scoring points in a rule governed contest.”
― Roberto Pedreira, Jiu-Jitsu in the South Zone, 1997-2008

“Brazilian jiu-jitsu was originally self-defense [defesa pessoal, or auto-defesa], to which was added professional “wrestling” (grappling in a quimono, with rules, for money), which eventually morphed into vale tudo (add striking, subtract quimono). Finally, between 1967 and 1973 the type of sports jiu-jitsu that is now popular was created. Few practitioners engage in vale tudo fights, and most are apathetic about defesa pessoal, but everyone trains sports jiu-jitsu, because that is what almost every training session consist almost exclusively of.”
― Roberto Pedreira, Jiu-Jitsu in the South Zone, 1997-2008

“Better people don’t beat you with more “advanced” techniques. They just execute the basic techniques better.”
― Roberto Pedreira, Jiu-Jitsu in the South Zone, 1997-2008

“Jiu-Jitsu teachers differ in their assessment of how many lessons are required to acquire basic self-defense skills. Helio Gracie estimated that about 40 would suffice. Malibu thought 10 would be enough. After that, he said, training is designed to deal with other jiu-jitsu fighters.”
― Roberto Pedreira, Jiu-Jitsu in the South Zone, 1997-2008

“Twenty million Brazilians have crawled up out from poverty since Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva became president in 2003. Rorion did not save 20 million Brazilians, but his achievement should not be underestimated. There are a lot of Brazilians making a living from jiu-jitsu who would still be doing construction work (if any work at all), if it hadn’t been for Rorion.

And this book wouldn’t have been written.”
― 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

“The Brazilians didn't do what people in the North had come to expect martial artists to do. They didn’t shriek, growl, howl, sneer, or grimace. They didn't fly through the air to smash roofing tiles with their feet, or slice the tops off whiskey bottles with the sides of their hands. They didn't break bricks or blocks of ice with their heads. They didn't chop the horns off of bulls, extinguish candles with ki power, walk across floors covered with rice paper without tearing it, snatch pebbles from the fingers of blind monks, or meditate under mountainside waterfalls in winter. What the Brazilians did do was to easily subdue the martial artists who performed all these impressive but ultimately meaningless feats.”
― Roberto Pedreira, Jiu-Jitsu in the South Zone, 1997-2008

“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

“Sometime during the second decade of the twentieth century, a “touring Japanese master” taught the rudiments of a secret, ancient, and scientific system of fighting called “jiu-jitsu” to a sickly Brazilian adolescent named Carlos Gracie, who taught it to his younger brothers, with the possible exception of the youngest, Helio, who taught himself. Meanwhile, Japanese immigrants in Brazil were practicing and teaching a fake form of jiu-jitsu, called “jiu-do” [judo] in order to keep their scientific combat art hidden from foreigners, except for the Gracies, who had already learned real jiu-jitsu from the touring Japanese master and wanted to share their knowledge with other Brazilians. That is the story, at least. Some of it might be true. Some of it probably isn’t.”
― Roberto Pedreira, Jiu-Jitsu in the South Zone, 1997-2008