The Reactionary Politics of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
Why do all the podcast bros wrestle in pyjamas?
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a very reactionary space with little political analysis offered about it. There is little written about the sport in general. Most of the media concerning BJJ is found on YouTube or on podcasts. Joe Rogan is most famously a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, as well as his competences in other Martial Arts like Taekwondo. He uses those skills in his side job as a commentator for the UFC prize fights. Beyond Rogan, there are many others on the right wing podcast zone who practice Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. As well, there are many folks, men especially, drawn to jujitsu for politically correlated reasons. There are also many women drawn to Brazilian jiujitsu, less for political reasons than for the traditional pathways of self-defense.
There's nothing inherently reactionary about BJJ itself. Some might consider every form of martial art reactionary, which is an untenable position. Boxing famously allowed for the radical politics of Muhammad Ali to be outspoken in the midst of the Vietnam War.
BJJ is a marginal activity to the public eye. It is not an Olympic sport. With that, it is not a marginal activity to right-wing culture in the United States and around the world.
This information gap is the origin of this piece, a modest attempt to articulate a little bit about the history of BJJ and some of the more prominent figures in the sport in order to better understand our current political climate.
History
Jiu Jitsu means gentle art in Japanese. Before the creation of Judo by Jigorō Kanō at the end of the 19th century, Jiu Jitsu described a number of different martial practices.
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. started about a hundred years ago in Brazil in the north of the country with the Gracie family. The Gracie family were Scottish immigrants to Brazil who were connected, at this point, to shipping to shipping in Bélem.
Through those connections, they came in contact with Count Maeda, who was a Japanese disciple of Kano, founder of Judo. Maeda travelled around the world, challenging people to fight. He traveled widely across the United States as well, but in Brazil he took on a few students who made an enormous impact to combat sports. Carlos Gracie became a student of Maeda used the techniques at his father’s casino as a bouncer. After a dispute with his father, Carlos and his brother George started there own Martial Arts school where they took on all challengers. Carlos was a skilled fighter and teacher, but it was his younger brother, Helio Gracie, who is of slighter stature, where the name really took off, as well as the discipline of BJJ. Helio was able to defeat fighters much taller, stronger, heavier than he was through these specific techniques.
What is BJJ?
BJJ has changed over the years, especially over the last decade with the proliferation of leg-locks, but a basic definition is as follows.
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a martial art that focuses on control position and submissions via chokes (e.g., rear nakeds, arm triangles, triangles, darces, anacondas, guillotines) or joint locks (e.g., arm bars, heel hooks, straight ankle locks, kimuras, american locks). It is designed around the absence of striking, so there's no punching in Brazilian jiujitsu, but there is different systems of off balancing and physical domination leading to a total concession of victory via a tap or someone going unconscious or having their arm broken or their knee broken via joint lock
Because it doesn't end, because it doesn't include striking. After a match ends, you can go again very quickly without much long-term damage. This provides space for professionals to participate in it without getting black eyes or without the different traumatic danger of a striking art like kickboxing or boxing.
The techniques are quite devastating against the untrained. Aggressive people are used to punches being thrown at them. They are not used to a seated opponent knocking them down without hitting them, and chocking them out before they are aware that anything is happening.
More history
If we go back to the history, after the Gracies started their school, others began to seek them out in order to train with the brothers. They eventually moved down to Rio de Janeiro, opened a school there which trained many of the top leaders in Brazil, including throughout the different dictatorships and military rulers of the country. There was a connection between the Gracie's and the military rulers of Brazil. There was also an ideology of Chauvinism in the way that Helio and Carlos Sr, had many wives in order to breed sons to be fighters.1 The fathers would raise the sons to fight anyone who came and send them off to Vale Tudo, or no holds barred tournaments throughout Brazil and soon, around the world. There weren't any Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournaments at this time; the rule set for competition came much later.
In the 70s, Carlos came to the US. In 1978, Rorion Grace and the next generation of Gracie's came as well. Many went to California. Chuck Norris pretty quickly found the system, studied it, and mastered it. Rorion would later help found the UFC in 1993.
Gracie’s also went to Japan for the great fighting tournaments there. Rickson Gracie (pronounced Hickson), one of Helio's sons, was famously very successful in Japan, going undefeated and winning nearly every match by a rear naked choke. Rickson was also in the Incredible Hulkmovie, teaching Bruce Banner how to breathe.
The birth of the UFC in 1993 by Rorion and Art Dave was in part to showcase the techniques of Jiu Jitsu and the superiority of Brazilian jiujitsu over other martial art forms. A Gracie won first two events. He wasn’t even the best one.
Royce Gracie won of the first two UFCs defeating men almost twice his size, even fighting in a Gi, which is a severe disadvantage if the other person doesn't have a Gi.
Royce’s victory in 1993 was a watershed moment in the history of Brazilian Jiujitsu. Many of the early American practitioners point to that moment.
Some traveled to Brazil to train. As well, many Brazilians traveled to the United States in order to teach. A few years later, the IBJJF, the International Brazilian Jiujitsu Federation was founded by some of the Gracie's, and this led to a codification of rule-sets which allowed for safe tournaments around the world.
The First World Championships were held in Brazil, but within a decade they had moved to the United States and they have stayed there since then.
Soon after the founding of the IBJJF, the son of the founder of Abu Dhabi, Sheik Tahnoun Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, decided to start a tournament that would be hosted every two years, which would showcase grappling arts around the world, like BJJ, wrestling, Sambo, and others. It would allow these disciplines to compete with each other to see which is the best.
This was called the ADCC, the Abu Dhabi Combat Club. It started off very small, but soon was able to grow and allow for a showcase of the Nogi variety of BJJ, which is much more fast-paced, visually appealing, and comparable to MMA.
It also was the way that Eddie Bravo, a comedian in LA, was able to showcase some of his innovations to Jiujitsu. Eddie Bravo is the man who gave Joe Rogan his black belt. Eddie Bravo is also a proponent of many conspiracy theories, including that 9/11 was an inside job. Eddie got to the semifinals of ADCC in 2003, after which he started his own school called 10th Planet, which aims to be a parallel universe to regular BJJ, focusing only on Nogi BJJ, with many of its own techniques. ADCC eventually became the place where Gordon Ryan and others rose to prominence.
In the early two thousands, BJJ was no longer conquering the UFC. It was mostly wrestlers and strikers. And then this guy from Hawaii, BJ Penn came along. Penn had received his black belt in BJJ faster than anyone at that time. As a late replacement, Penn was able to defeat the reigning champion Matt Hughes with a submission in the first round, which also brought a renewal to the sport.
Many UFC fighters were huge Trump supporters. Dana White, who is also A BJJ Black Belt, spoke at the Republican National Convention. The UFC main event broadcasts always give a lot of attention to Trump entering during the event.
The podcast host Lex Freedman, is also a BJJ Black Belt. He has consistently offered platforms to many of the luminaries of the right wing manosphere with his disarming faux-reasonableness and MIT CV, giving credit to their political views.
The politics of BJJ, though, is not just about the United States, it's about the world. While the Gracie family split into many different schools, most were united in their support of Bolsonaro and the rightwing of Brazil. Other Brazilians living in the United States, like Robert Abreu, who is known as Cyborg, were also huge supporter of Bolsonaro.
Gordon Ryan, the most successful Nogi fighter of all time, is a prominent right-wing voice on Instagram and supporter of Donald Trump, as is Tim Kennedy, a former UFC fighter and Special Forces soldier. The list of all of them would be long and very boring.
There isn't a genetic reason why reactionaries are drawn to Brazilian jiujitsu, but they are there prominently. This is a place where many reactionaries are being formed and shaped and given justification for their positions. There is a seeming meritocracy to jiujitsu. Every match has a winner and loser.
Someone could have a black belt, but I could kick their ass with my blue belt. All that matters is what happens on the mat. The truth is found the mat. And in this way it, BJJ can undergird a lot of right wing ideology, which has this assumption of meritocracy, this assumption that the weak ones have taken control and the strong ones need to take it back. In this way, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu ideologically serves the right wing of this country and around the world by giving people evidence that might makes right. If I can beat up a random divorce dad on a Saturday morning, therefore my politics are right.
It is ideology more than politics. Yet it is in that way that it is political. The Palestinian Belal Muhammad, who has excellent grappling skills, recently won a UFC belt. None of the commentators in sport spoke to how his victory signifies Palestinian rights or future freedom from the yoke of Israel. But Bo Nickal, a former Penn State Wrestling National Champion turned UfC contender, can compare his victory in the ring to Trump’s in November because it fits within the ideology.
BJJ is fun to do. It is not entirely right-wing, especially with the women in the sport. Ffion Davies donated part of her prize from winning at the Craig Jones Invitational to a Palestinian organization. I have practices BJJ for almost three years and I haven’t gotten into a political conversation during that time.
The political history of BJJ is atrocious and it should be unmasked from top to bottom so that those outside the sport can better understand the political influence this space has and will have in the future.
Many of these details are found in Rickson Gracie’s autobiography, Breathe. ↩︎