What is American jiu-jitsu?
“If something works for you, adapt to it. If something does not work, reject it. But before you reject it, make sure you know why it does not work.”
--Bruce Lee
American jiu-jitsu is a compilation of Brazilan, Gracie and Japanese jiu-jitsu in a 8 month course taught with a lesson plan that makes sense. Most jiu-jitsu schools teach in a random fashion leaving each student to put the piece together by themselves. Just because you a re a great jiu- jitsu competitor does not make you a great teacher. With American jiu-jitsu we strive to not only be great at jiu-jitsu but to teach jiu-jitsu great as well. From a tournament competitor to some one looking for self defense American jiu-jitsu is the martial art of the future.
American jiu-jitsu is an 8 month course with a start and complete date. A students can join the class up to the 3rdmonth any student who joins after the course has began will be given additional lessons to catch up to classes progression. Classes consist of 3 classes a week with skill set, drills and review. Next course starts Thursday March 10th.
Bruce Lee followed his philosophy to create his revolutionary form of kung-fu: jeet kundo. Five Round Fitness adheres to the same essential philosophy, and followed the philosophy‘s main principle to create American jujitsu. We have taken real world techniques from BJJ (Brazilian jiu-jitsu), Muay Thai, wrestling, traditional Boxing, Sambo, and Japanese jiu- jitsu and combined them to create American jiujitsu. Our chief influence is the martial art discipline BJJ; that is why it is called American jiu-jitsu and not American striking or American grappling. At 5 Round Fitness we pride ourselves on learning and adapting to new knowledge and skills and expanding and fine-tuning our methods and techniques. Our certified personal trainers spend countless hours training with jiu-jitsu and striking practitioners such as: the Gracie family, the Pit Team and Ruff House Boxing. At Five Round Fitness we seek constant growth and improvement, and we apply that growth and improvement to our martial art theory, our athletic training and our training of athletes. In the spirit of Bruce Lee, we take what is effective and apply it; we recognize what is ineffective and remove it.
Five Round Fitness believes in training in reality. Our training is steeped in reality. Fight training based in reality means putting your training into practice. We train as if we are preparing for a real fight with a real opponent; we prepare by training for everything that could and does happen when in a real fight with a real opponent. And we put theory into practice by practicing with a real person as our “opponent”. We engage in rolling. We shark tank. We spar. Knowledge of theory only, gets a person only so far in a real fight. Theory and knowledge must become reflex and reaction. Kicking and punching bags only, will limit a person‘s level of training. That‘s why we spar at every practice. Theory is designed to prepare for reality and in reality there‘s an opponent, yet the study of theory doesn‘t practice with an opponent and doesn‘t put its theory into practice. There is nothing that can replace working with a live body. Too many “well trained” fighters get caught in the headlights of their first live action fight. Our training will prepare you for fighting an opponent. We know theory alone is not enough; a fighter must prepare for reality. 5 Round Fitness also knows there is no replacement for practice and repetition. We strengthen and improve our techniques through diligent practice and repetition. We are always testing our skills at practice, preparing for when we put our skills and practice to the test. We train with purpose and with a purpose: we train as a way of life and for the next tournament. We are affiliated with nage, fight resource and grappler‘s quest, and we work with many local tournaments.
American martial arts have become a “classical mess”.
Bruce Lee called kung fu a “classical mess” when the discipline became stuck in its ways. Bruce Lee was referring to kung-fu being closed minded to new adaptations.
Bruce Lee called kung fu a “classical mess” when the discipline became stuck in its ways. Bruce Lee was referring to kung-fu being closed minded to new adaptations, being unwilling to adapt and gain new insight, being interested in the practice of theory only and no longer interested in reality. American martial arts fell into this rut far, far too long ago.
“Respect tradition; do not allow it to stand in your way.”
American jujitsu, like mma, is part of the natural evolution of martial arts. We respect tradition but we will not allow it to stand in our way.
No one knows for sure the origins of jiu-jitsu, but it is widely known that all ancient cultures have, as part of their history and culture, participated in some form of grappling. One of the earliest forms of jiu-jitsu, Jiandidi, can be traced back to the Native Americans and Mongolians, and the roots of modern jiu-jitsu can be traced back to pankration. It is believed that circa 320 BC, Roman conquers brought pankration to India, and that from India, pankration made its way to China in the form of Wushu; and then Wushu started to be gradually developed into jujitsu around the fall of the Ming dynasty. Around the same time, during Japan‘s feudal period, jujitsu was being refined and mastered by Japan; however, Japan later took judo, itself a form of jiu-jitsu, as its nation‘s martial art.
Over the course of time in Japan Jiu-Jitsu was evolving. The Japanese shaped, molded and created many different variations of the art (Jiu-Jitsu) including: Karate, Aikido, and Judo. But these arts were not Jiu-Jitsu. They were missing essential pieces of what the complete art of Jiu-Jitsu originally held: they had lost the “battle mentality”. Rather than having the “battle mentality,” the new variations were based on the abstract theory of fighting as an art, and had lost, almost entirely, the spirit of the battle: one on one fighter versus fighter. When the day of the Samurai came to an end, the gun replaced the sword and new sportive ways to practice martial arts were developed, and thus, the “battle mentality” was pushed even further into the past. This lack of reality created years of confusion in the martial arts community, a confusion that the legendary Bruce Lee would later refer to as a “classical mess”.
Jiu-Jitsu as the world now knows it—real, true, genuine Jiu-Jitsu—lay dormant for many, many years, and what is now known as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu had not yet been created: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu had yet to be established by the Gracies. It wasn't until the sportive art of Judo and the combat art of Jiu-Jitsu were introduced to the Gracie family in Brazil that the real, true, genuine art of Jiu-Jitsu was brought back to life. Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, which was practiced as Judo, was introduced to the Gracie family in Brazil in 1915, by Esai Maeda, who is also known as Conde Koma.
Through the last fifty years, many Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu schools have opened and broken away from the original members of the Gracie family. Each school created slight changes to suit their needs, each change created subtle differences in styles within Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. There are many different schools that follow this same art, such as: Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, Machado Jiu-Jitsu and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The Gracie family itself has hundreds of members who practice Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu, and who do not all associate with one another.
Then along came 1990 when America was introduced to Brazilin or Gracie jujitsu. Americans watched a 170 lb man defeat fighters twice his size. The man was Royce Gracie, and he practiced BJJ. Americans flocked to Brazilin jujitsu. Twenty years later, Americans have adapted what they learned, what they deemed effective, and created their own jujitsu. American jiu-jitsu is one such American jiu-jitsu.
American jiu-jitsu is what works in combat. American jiu-jitsu transforms one dimensional fighters into champions. American jiu-jitsu incorporates striking, wrestling and boxing in order to construct well rounded, well versed and well prepared combatants, combatants that are highly skilled, tried, tested and ready: true combatants. American jiu-jitsu fighters have the ability to win any style or kind of fight: on their feet or off their feet, on top of an opponent or on their back and underneath an opponent. American jiu-jitsu is based in reality. Another advantage our fighters have over the other one dimensional “disciplines” is our belief in the reality of our training. Everyone trained in American jiu-jitsu routinely sharpens and hones his/her skills by sparring during training and practice. We simulate real world situations, punches, kicks, blocks, locks, grips, holds, escapes, chokes, ducks, dodges, strikes and counter strikes, arm bars, leg locks, tackles, take downs, sprawls, submissions, maneuvers to counter submission attempts, etc.
BJJ is the key martial art influence for American jujitsu, because BJJ is also steeped in reality. The main difference is American jiu-jitsu expanded the possibilities for defeating an opponent: American jiu-jitsu makes fighters that have the ability to win not only on their backs, but off their back and on their feet.
This is an excerpt from Roosevelt's letters to his children on wrestling and Jiu-jitsu (note the spelling is Jiu-jitsu, not Jujutsu due to the fact that it is before 1950):
White House, Feb. 24, 1905.
Darling Kermit: "... I still box with Grant, who has now become the champion middleweight wrestler of the United States. Yesterday afternoon we had Professor Yamashita (Yamashita was Roosevelt's Jiu-jitsu instructor before Meada and Tomita had arrived there in the U.S.) up here to wrestle with Grant. It was very interesting, but of course jiu jitsu and our wrestling are so far apart that it is difficult to make any comparison between them. Wrestling is simply a sport with rules almost as conventional as those of tennis, while jiu jitsu is really meant for practice in killing or disabling our adversary. In consequence, Grant did not know what to do except to put Yamashita on his back, and Yamashita was perfectly content to be on his back. Inside of a minute Yamashita had choked Grant, and inside of two minutes more he got an elbow hold on him that would have enabled him to break his arm; so that there is no question but that he could have put Grant out. So far this made it evident that the jiu jitsu man could handle the ordinary wrestler. But Grant, in the actual wrestling and throwing was about as good as the Japanese, and he was so much stronger that he evidently hurt and wore out the Japanese. With a little practice in the art I am sure that one of our big wrestlers or boxers, simply because of his greatly superior strength, would be able to kill any of those Japanese, who though very good men for their inches and pounds are altogether too small to hold their own against big, powerful, quick men who are as well trained."
