Master Jiu-Jitsu

By Roberto Pedreira

Rio de Janeiro is divided into three sections: Zona Norte (North Zone, Centro (Central), and Zona Sul (South Zone). Copacabana, Ipanema, Leblon, and Barra da Tijuca are in the Zona Sul, and cariocas (residents of Rio) who can afford to live where they want to, live here.

It wouldn’t really be accurate to say that there is a jiu-jitsu academy on every city block in the Zona Sul. Some blocks have more than one academy.

The first one I noticed, in Ipanema, was Master Jiu-Jitsu. The faded red sign out front proclaimed that Fabio Gurgel and Romero Cavalcanti taught within. I knew of Fabio from his fights with Jerry Bohlander and Mark Kerr. Romero Cavalcanti I had never heard of. I went in.

The workout was just starting. The large guy at the reception counter, with his arm in a sling (he waited too long to tap, he explained), invited me to watch.

There were about twenty guys on the mat, or tatame, as the Brazilians call it. Most of them had on blue belts. There were a few with white, a few more with purple, and one or two with brown belts. There was just one with a black belt. He was the “professor”, Sergio Malibu.

Everyone calls him Malibu, but his real name is Sergio Jardim. He was visiting one of his many Brazilian friends in Southern California one time, saw Malibu Beach, liked it, and decided to adopt the name. Most jiu-jitsuists would feel naked without a nickname. It’s not uncommon for guys to know each other for years and not know each other’s real names. 　

I introduced myself. I felt it would suffice to say I was interested in jiu-jitsu, thus explaining my presence, and that I was an American (accounting for my limited Portuguese, although I did manage to say it in Portuguese: eu sou Americano e gostaria conhecer o jiu-jitsu).

Malibu was friendly enough—like most Brazilians—but basically wanted to know two things. First, had I trained before, and second, did I want to train now? In fact, I had, just barely, no more than about two or three months in Los Angeles. I knew the basic positions (mount, guard, and cem kilos) and a handful of simple submissions. I understood the ranking system (white, blue, purple, brown, and black belts), and I had a general feel for how the style differed from others, such as Karate, Muay Thai, Kali, and Hapkido. That was about all. But it was enough. Malibu invited me to train. I decided to watch a class first. I wanted to see how they trained in Brazil.

It turned out that they trained the way they train in Los Angeles, except a bit more so. The classes were more Brazilian--longer and looser, more relaxed, but also more intense. Classes last either one or one and a half hours. The longer classes have longer warm-ups, but otherwise the structure of a class is the same. Sometimes the class formally “begins”, but more often it just gradually happens. It essentially depends on who is in the class. If there are a large number of white and blue belts, and younger guys, the class is more likely to have a formal beginning and a longer warm-up (which can be intense). If the guys are older and more experienced, especially brown belt and above, they do their own kind of warm-up at their own pace. At some point, the professor will get everyone’s attention and demonstrate a technique. Typically, three or four techniques would be demonstrated, usually connected, but sometimes not. Depending on the composition of the class, the techniques might be basic or they might be advanced, or they might be a mix of the two. There were not many iniciantes (beginners) in Malibu’s class. The techniques he demonstrated were way above my head.

The warm-up and “positions” (as they call the explicitly instructional segment of the class) take about 30-45 minutes, leaving 30-45 minutes for “rolling”, or free wrestling. Sometimes they refer to this part of the class as “training”. Rolling is usually timed (but sometimes not), usually 6 minutes, but sometimes more or less, depending on one thing or another. After rolling with one guy, they switch partners. Anyone is free to rest any time and for as long as he wants. Few do.

They can rest later, Malibu said. "Rolling is how we get better". To learn a new position, you need a partner who will comply. But to get good at it, you need a partner who will resist. Until you can do it on a resisting opponent, you can’t do it. It’s the reason the only guys who can challenge us are wrestlers—if they are 20-30 kilos heavier. Wrestlers train a lot like this, I commented. If so, he replied, that’s why they’re good at their kind of fight.

What was the movement he taught earlier called in Portuguese? It didn’t have a name, he answered. It was just one of the countless variations of raspagems (sweeps, reversals, and inversions). In Portuguese, raspagem means to shave or to scrape. In practice, a raspagem is a movement whereby you begin in legs around bottom position (guard) and end up in legs around top position (mount). Your position is not bad to start with, because even though you are on the bottom, you can still defend and even attack effectively, mainly because you have the use of your legs to move your opponent’s weight. If however you had begun in bad position, say on the bottom but without legs around, and had ended up in a better position, that would be a saida (an exit, i.e., an escape). Now of course, he conceded, it may not be easy to reverse or exit with one move. It may require a series of moves. Subsequent moves depend on the success of prior moves, and none are assured. It depends on how good your opponent is.

The next day I arrived ready to train. Malibu’s assistant Eduardo Luna conducted the warm-up while Malibu put on his kimono, or quimono, as the word is also spelled. (A quimono is basically a judo-gi, but more sturdily stitched together, and with tighter sleeves.) His was covered with colorful patches and logos. Jiu-jitsu professors don’t have a teaching plan as such. They teach whatever they decide to teach when they start the class and see who’s there and what they need. Malibu decided on basics, since there were only three others in class with me and we were all white belts (there was also Raphael, a big 14 year old with a green belt). First, he taught how to defend against a kick and how to throw a kick, jiu-jitsu style, where the objective isn’t to hurt the opponent but rather to create an opening to clinch. Next we went to the tatame, where Malibu taught two guard techniques, first a sweep using one foot as a “hook” to lift and turn, followed up with a chave de braço (arm lock).

Malibu called me to roll. He had to attempt his arm lock twice rather than merely once to finish me with it. I didn’t feel too bad about it. In addition to having an advantage of 30 lbs. and 20 years experience, Malibu was a consistent winner on the competition trail. He earned gold medals in the 1996 Pan-Americana and the 1996 and 1997 Campeonato Carioca, among other tournaments.

I had several other chances to roll with Malibu. It didn’t surprise me that none of my attacks ever succeeded. I never expected to “tap” (finish, submit) a black belt when other white belts even smaller than myself gave me all I could handle. But it did make me wonder how the basic attacks, such as arm lock and shoulder locks, ever succeeded. Yet they did, more often in fact than the so-called “advanced” techniques.

The key is the set-up, Malibu explained. The defenses against the basic attacks are also basic. Everyone knows them. What you have to do, and what requires skill, is to maneuver your opponent into a position where he can’t do what he knows he should do. This won’t be easy, if your opponent is good, because he will be doing the same thing to you. Each move he makes creates an opening that you can potentially exploit. Yet each move you make, including the one to exploit the one he made, creates an opening that he can exploit. The possibilities are limitless.

Why was Raphael’s belt green? Was it higher or lower than blue? Neither, Malibu explained. The kids (infantils and juvenils) have a different ranking system. Green is the highest rank a kid gets. If he feels like it, he can train with adults. Many classes are highly mixed with regard to age and rank (I participated in several classes that had 10 year old children training alongside adults who had just won gold medals in the Mundial in the brown and black belt divisions! This wasn’t typical, but it wasn’t rare either. The point is that there isn’t much segregation in a jiu-jitsu academy. Jiu-jitsu is very democratic, as Mario Sperry told me, three years later). When the kid acquires some size, strength, and maturity—in other words, when it appears that he is hanging in with the adults—he is promoted to blue belt. Sometimes he has everything he needs to train as a blue belt except a few kilos. He may get overwhelmed by large white belts. No one sympathizes with him. Deal with it, they tell him. Jiu-jitsu was designed to enable smaller guys with more skills to beat bigger guys with less skills. No excuses. Of course, the big guys in this case also know jiu-jitsu. If your opponent knows what you are going to do, it’s usually harder to do it. This makes training highly competitive on the level of technique. Everyone gets better precisely because everyone else is getting better.

One day a young kid, maybe 16 years old, with about 55 kilos, and a blue belt was rolling with an adult white belt with at least 20 kilos more than him. The kid made a mistake and got choked out with a mata leão (rear naked choke). No one said, “oh well, your opponent outweighed you by 40 lbs. and probably knew about as much jiu-jitsu as you”. Instead, they mocked him. Even Malibu said, “how did you let such a thing happen?” It’s a fact of life that blue belts occasionally get “tapped” by bigger, stronger white belts (usually white belts who are on the verge of blue). The meaningfulness of the belt ranking system depends on it not happening more than occasionally. Fear of being tapped by a white belt is what makes some new blue belts ambivalent about their promotion, and just after being promoted to blue is when it is most likely to happen. (Being especially reluctant to tap during the first several weeks subsequent to going blue, is probably what accounts for the blue belt “jinx”, which results in a higher than normal rate of injuries). But it also provides strong incentives for getting better.

Jiu-jitsu belts mean something. A purple belt knows more and is better than a blue belt. There are occasional exceptions, guys who learn at an extraordinarily rapid pace, or started young and have been blue belts for 10 years, or had an extensive judo background, or all three. One day I was observing the afternoon class, taught by Fernando Magrão—Fabio Gurgel’s older brother. A tall gangly young blue belt was rolling with a shorter older brown belt. The blue belt choked the brown belt out not once, not twice, but three times. The brown belt, needless to say, looked surprised the first time, stunned the second, and devastated the third. This was one of those anomalous occurrences. Less than two years later the blue belt was wearing a black belt (Otatame magazine described his new belt as “ cai bem” –fitting well), and, competing on the 1999 Mundial, defeated two of the very best (Mario Sperry and Roberto Magalhães) to win the absolute division gold medal).

Anything can happen in a fight, but the one who knows more and is better, should, ceteris paribus, win. If he doesn’t, the solution is more and better training. It also happens that people simply quit. Their belt doesn’t “fit well”. Or maybe there are other reasons. Maybe getting a blue belt was their entire objective. In any case, the ranking system constitutes a kind of filter that makes the outcome of a match highly (though not totally) predictable based on belt colors. (Obviously, competitions between the best of the best, are intended as tests of skill, not size, so there are multiple divisions based on rank, weight, and age, as well as gender).

Malibu had plenty to say about this and almost everything else. He liked to talk and had a lot to talk about. After all, he had been studying jiu-jitsu for over twenty years in the heartland of jiu-jitsu with the legends of jiu-jitsu. Malibu started with Rolls Gracie, son of Carlos, nephew of Helio, cousin of Royce, Rorion, and Rickson. When Rolls died in 1982, in a delta wing accident, Malibu began training with his friend and age-mate Rickson, who had by that time become the family’s best, until Rickson moved to the US in 1989. Malibu then trained with one of Rolls’ top students, one of only five to receive black belts from him. He was Jacare, a legend in his own right. I had a few confusing moments until I realized that Jacare was the apelido (nickname) of Romero Cavalcanti—the founder and co-owner of the academy Master Jiu-jitsu.

During those early years, Malibu trained with most of the younger Gracies, Royce, Royler, Renzo, Ralph, and their cousins the Machados. The Gracies were “born in kimonos”, Malibu said. It wasn’t a complete exaggeration. There is 8mm film of Rorion and his brothers practicing throws and takedowns on a mat. They appear to be barely out of diapers.

Did Malibu ever think jiu-jitsu would become what it has become? “Never”, he said. “It was our life. We lived for jiu-jitsu. It was our work, our family. The academy was our home”. We didn’t think about it like a fish doesn’t think about water”.

Big American wrestlers seemed to be on everyone’s minds. These are the guys to beat, they were saying. If they are huge enough, they can give us problems, Malibu said. A white belt listening in said, “Mark Kerr’s arm is bigger than my leg”. That was a more or less accurate description of Kerr’s arm. Kerr had recently fought Malibu’s friend Fabio Gurgel. “ I was there,” he said. “I didn’t like seeing Fabio get spanked”. (Espancar means to beat up on; Brazilians often translate it as “spank” which seems to fit). The judges gave Kerr the decision. Kerr didn’t make Fabio tap. “How can a guy who has 30 kilos more be better if he doesn’t make him tap?” Fabio didn’t win, Malibu admitted, but how can you say Kerr did (actually, Fabio conceded that Kerr “won the fight”). The problem was the rules. The wrestlers are not even trying to pass the guard. In that case, especially since they aren’t wearing a kimono, there aren’t many attacks you can do.

That was true. Wrestlers weren’t playing the same game. Wrestlers don’t wrestle in kimonos. The vale tudo context was to their advantage. Jiu-jitsu was designed for self-defense against bigger, stronger adversaries, but to defeat an Olympic wrestler with a 30-kilo weight advantage and an “unnatural“ degree of strength (as someone added), without even clothes to provide leverage, was maybe asking too much.

It seemed to me that merely to walk away in one piece against such an opponent would be a pretty good example of self-defense.

To see real jiu-jitsu (as opposed to vale tudo and auto-defesa), you need to watch a jiu-jitsu tournament. In fact, there was a big team competition coming up. There would be an inter-Alliance competition at the academy on the weekend to select members to represent the Alliance team. Master Jiu-jitsu is a member of the Alliance, a network of schools run by Jacare’s most successful students. Fabio Gurgel would be coming up from São Paulo, where he had established a new school. Fabio wasn’t competing but brought his top student Leozinho (little lion), just recently promoted to black belt. Leozinho looked like he would be more at home in front of a computer terminal than on a tatame—like a somewhat pudgy nerd. He squared off against Ratinho (little mouse), who though small, looked like a fighter, muscular and ripped. But you can’t judge a book by its cover. Leozinho went through Ratinho like a knife through warm butter.

The gangly young blue belt was there too, and earned his place on the team without working up much of a sweat.

The tournament was held at Gama Filho University, a school that specializes in martial arts education, although it is a real university as well. I went with Malibu in his rickety VW bug, and sat with him and Jorge Guimaeres (a black belt and producer of the TV program Passando a Guarda), and several other Alliance fighters, including Leo Branco and Robert Traven. Malibu explained the rules, which were simple in theory but left a lot of room for the referee’s discretion, which resulted in more than a few controversies. The matches begin from stand-up (like judo and wrestling). Two points are awarded for a throw or take-down (queda). Once on the ground, two points are awarded for pinning the opponent with your knee on his belly (joelho na barriga) or for sweeping or inverting him (raspagem and inversão da guarda); three points for passing his guard (passagem da guarda), and four points for mounting or taking his back (montada and costa). Points are also awarded for almost doing something (vantagem), and these are necessary in very close matches. Penalty points (punicão) are deducted for rule violations, the most common of which is “stalling”.

A black belt match lasts 10 minutes. Brown belt matches are 8 minutes, and purple, blue and white belt matches are 7, 6, and 5 minutes respectively. The fighter with the most points at the end of the match, wins, unless one is sufficiently superior that he can force the other to submit due to a choke or lock. This doesn’t happen often. It may be because the fighters lack technique. This is what Rickson thinks. It may be because jiu-jitsu defensive techniques are highly effective. Or it may be because the fighters are very evenly matched. Whatever the reason, those exceptional guys who can with a fair degree of regularity submit their opponents are highly admired as finalizadors (finishers).

There weren’t many finalizadors in this competition. Most of the time, nothing seemed to be happening, but the spectators were attentive. Undoubtedly, they were knowledgeable about the various positions and the significance of subtle movements. The matches with the least apparent action generated the most excitement. The fact that nothing was happening only meant that something was going to happen, and the anticipation drove the crowd into a frenzy. The hands-down most thrilling match was between two black belts. The match began, like most matches, with one fighter jumping up and locking his legs around the other’s waist. All but a few fighters prefer this position, since it gives them the chance both to score points by sweeping and also to attempt chokes and armlocks, while the fighter on top can only score points by passing the guard. For 9 1/2 minutes the fighters vied for positional advantage, the one on top trying to pass, the one on bottom trying to sweep, neither succeeding. But something was up. From my vantage point I could see the bottom fighter talking with his coaches, who were, I guessed, updating him on his opponent’s weight shifts. With mere seconds remaining, he sweeped his opponent for two points, the match, and the title.

The match was atypical in being so subtle—so “technical” as the Brazilians say. But it was very typical in a different way. It was decided by a small point margin. There were few blowouts and the sound of one hand tapping could seldom be heard.

Malibu, Eduardo, and I sped back to Ipanema in Malibu's rickety VW bug. "What do those red lights mean?" I asked Malibu, pointing to the traffic signals. "They mean the same what they mean in America", he said, looking puzzled as to why I was asking. "Just curious", I replied, "in America, they mean to stop". "That's what they mean in Brazil too", he answered. My sense of wit was too oblique. Malibu had driven through every red light we had come to. Actually, I was not sure I was going to survive the trip. Eduardo wasn't fazed though. He seemed used to it.

Back at the academy the next day, I watched a tall, lanky, wiry blue belt, a state champion, rolling with a slightly smaller white belt who seemed to know enough to provide resistance but not enough to be able to threaten. At one point, they flipped and the white belt grabbed the blue belt’s head and held him down in a headlock, or what the Japanese call a kesa gatame (scarf hold). This is a very uncommon position in Brazil, Malibu said. Why, I wondered, because it looked like a position I had seen a hundred or a thousand times in schoolyard fights growing up on the mean streets of America. One guy swings wide, the other instinctively throws his arm up to block and finds it wrapped around the attacker's head. Instant and accidental headlock. Taking it beyond that would require skill, which no one had, but if you are already on the mat, it would seem to be a pretty useful tool to have, just for immobilizing an opponent.

No, Malibu said. Too easy to exit and reverse. But it didn’t seem easy for the blue belt, who was squirming and struggling ineffectually. Finally, he managed to roll his opponent over using sheer grossuro (as the Brazilians say, power without technique). The reality was that the exit and reversals would have been easy to execute if he had known and practiced them. But because they were supposedly so easy, he hadn’t, hence couldn’t do them when he needed to.

This illustrates a variation on the paradox of preparation. If you are well prepared to defend and especially to counter an attack, the opponent won’t attempt it, the probability of success being too low, the cost accordingly too high. Since he won’t attack, you no longer need the defense, whereupon it suddenly becomes attractive for him to attack after all. So having the defense prepared is what prevents the attack from happening. The preparation is the defense. Conversely, threatening the attack forces the opponent to commit resources to preparing a defense, which diverts them from other applications, including his own attacks. Thus attack is a form of defense, as the old saw has it.

There was a little more to it though. Like most martial arts, jiu-jitsu started out as a form of self-defense. As a matter of historical fact, standardized, formal, organized competitions such as we see today, are extremely recent developments. 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. It struck me that possibly the Brazilians weren’t practicing headlock (or kesa gatame) defenses, not because they weren't useful against headlocks and not because they weren’t effective (they were unquestionably effective). They weren’t practicing them because they didn’t score points in jiu-jitsu matches. You can’t score points by pinning your opponent (unlike in judo and wrestling). More specifically, you can’t attack your opponent from the headlock position (the only available attack would be a shoulder-lock applied with the legs). For this reason no one uses headlocks and therefore no one practices defending them.

As cheap as it is to live and train in Rio, you can’t stay forever without money, and without a proper visa, you can’t make any money (although, as many people told me, there are a lot of things in Brazil that you can’t do that everybody does). Malibu advised me to keep training. “You are about half way to faixa azul “ (blue belt). But I was going to Japan. I’d be a white belt forever. Unless a miracle happened. Or I came back to Brazil.

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Revised May 19, 2009