JJ VS KARATE

The glory days of the Gracie Challenge, and school-vs-school events like this one, are now legendary.

Interestingly enough, though often associated with the Gracie Family and Brazil, it was events like this one that help to establish Kodokan Judo's prowess almost a hundred years earlier. 

It is interesting to consider whether, had representatives of Kano's Judo not prevailed in their pivotal 1886 contest against representatives of a local JuJutsu school, Judo would have continued on its rise to prominence, eventually spreading as far as Brazil! 

In our modern, litigious society, such contests seem to have fallen out of favor, with most BJJ practitioners competing against practitioners of their own style. It is interesting to note that this is the same condition which led to the practical decline of the martial prowess of many previously effective styles, from Karate to Judo.  A Karate or Tae Kwan Do practitioner gets used to sparring and competing against others with the same arsenal of techniques, goal, and strategy as himself, and over time fails to accumulate experience facing off against the pressures and methods he is likely to encounter in a no-rules contest or street fight. 

One might argue that modern MMA is the current - and superior - iteration of this same phenomenon. However, one would do well to consider the myriad pressures surrounding modern MMA which shape its imperatives and strategies. A modern fighter has to be not only successful but also exciting, dynamic, and aggressive, and must do his work in a relatively short time period. A free-form contest with limited rules and no (or long) time limits, matching opponents of different sizes, presents related but importantly different imperatives, and it is exactly these that contests such as the one commemorated in the above design reveal and reward.

School vs school and style vs style may be a bygone era, but its lessons should not be forgotten by those wishing to prepare themselves for "serious business" situations. It should be noted as well that the so-called "evolution" of modern sport MMA occurred largely after this era, and one would do well to consider whether it is only the dictated condition of the average sport match - and not an inherent evolution to the Jiu-Jitsu athlete or his or her mind - that has allowed these elements to proliferate. The question then becomes: Did the style and strategy remain largely unchanged not because of of the lack of creativity or prowess on the parts of the practitioners, but rather because such a style and strategy proved preferable and superior in no-rules conditions? 

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