Jiu-Jitsu rules

Maeda would collect tasty stories on Brazilian soil. After walking around the country, the Jiu-Jitsu black belt settled in Belém do Pará. One day, he faced the challenge of a capoeirista known as “Pelo de Bola”, about 1.90m and almost 100 kilos. Maeda did not beg and still let the bold rival carry a knife in the fight. The Japanese disarmed him, knocked him down and finished the Brazilian. Count Koma, as tradition became among Jiu-Jitsu professors, also pitched challenges for boxing’s famous rivals. That was what he did with the famous American boxer Jack Johnson, who never accepted the fight.

It was Koma who also promoted the country’s first Jiu-Jitsu championship – in fact, a festival of struggles and challenges to promote the unknown sport.

Researchers Luiz Otávio Laydner and Fabio Quio Takao found in the Gazeta de Notícias, March 11, 1915, the rules of the event scheduled for the Carlos Gomes Theater, in Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of the country. Koma announced the first rules of our Jiu-Jitsu, a regulation with ten simple laws:

1. Every fighter should appear decently, with his fingernails and feet perfectly cut;

2. You should wear a kimono costume, which Count Koma will give you;

3. It is not allowed to bite, scratch, catch with the head or the fist;

4. When you use your foot you will never do with the tip but with the curve;

5. He who has his shoulders [back] on the ground, even though he has fallen first, is not considered vanquished;

6. The one who considers himself defeated will demonstrate it by giving three patches on the padding or on the opponent’s body;

7. The judge shall consider as defeated what, as a result of the fight, it is not remembered that he must take three patches;

8. The matches will be divided into rounds or encounters of five minutes for two of rest. Having the field judge count the minutes aloud for greater public understanding;

9. If the fighters fall out of the carpet without any of them being warned, the Judge must force them to put themselves back in the center of the padding, standing face to face;

10. They will replace in their obligations to mr. Judge the srs. Juries Neither the company nor the fighter to win is responsible for the greatest evil that can happen to the loser, if by tenacity he does not want to give the agreed signal to end the fight and declare himself defeated.

* Medical doctors, local press representatives and physics and fencing teachers are invited to take part in the jury.

In 1917, a teenager named Carlos Gracie (1902-1994) saw for the first time in Bethlehem a presentation of the Japanese who was able to dominate and finalize the giants of the region. Friend of his father, Gastão Gracie, Maeda agreed to teach the restless boy the art of defending himself. In his classes, he taught Carlos and other Brazilians – like Luiz França, who later became master of Oswaldo Fadda – the concepts of his art: standing or ground, the strength of the opponent should be the weapon for victory; to approach the opponent, the use of low kicks and elbows should be the devices before taking him to the ground. For evolution in the trainings, he used the randori , the training in the summer with a companion.