The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - From Ancient Grappling to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) | PPP2

Episode Date: February 1, 2020

My 'Brief History of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu' sharing the origins from ancient grappling to Japan on to Brazil and the art I know and love today.

April 9th, 1904. My right ankle and my left wrist and one thumb and both great toes are swollen sufficiently to more or less impair their usefulness, and I am well modeled with bruises everywhere. Still, I have made good progress, and since you left, they have taught me three new throws that are perfect corkers. That's a quote from President Theodore Roosevelt in a letter to his son, Teddy. And it encapsulates what it is like to be a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, particularly if you're like me, Kevin Pinnell, host of this podcast, 45-year-old Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner for about 15 or 16 months now, been bruised, had surgery, tore things. But here's a sentiment I agree with even more from President Roosevelt. The art of jiu-jitsu is worth more in every way than all of our athletics combined.

Pretty strong opinion, right? So President Roosevelt was a tough guy. He was a rough rider. He wrestled, and he knew even that early in the early 1900s, which is a little bit before, if you're familiar, not a lot of folks are. There's a lot of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu history out there. Some folks only know it from the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and we'll get into how all those came to be. What I thought was very interesting, and particularly as a student of the art, is what's the way back history? What are the people that made this happen? What are the processes they went through to evolve Jiu-Jitsu?

Or as we'll talk about, the different arts that it actually came from. And what progress did they make and how did they do it? And what could we learn from that to apply today? So on this episode, we're going to look at the history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu from 2000 BC to today. Hey everybody, still here. Thanks again for listening to this second episode of People Process Progress Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Pinnell. I was the host of the Between the Slides Podcast, where we focus on primarily incident command system and some project management.

We'll still touch on that here, as I mentioned. But today I want to focus on, again, people, process, and progress of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And let's jump back into the way back machine. And before I do that, let's just say there is no definitive. Every single name is down. Every path is drawn out. History of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And for me, again, a pretty new practitioner, still a white belt.

But, you know, as someone that's got some life experience and work experience at 45 years old, I thought, you know what? I want to dig into what is the history of this. And I knew a bit of it from being, you know, kind of a good student of the sport. And I think for anything you do, anything you're passionate about, whether it's a hobby or your job, find out the background. How did this come about? How did it change? How could I be someone that helps change it? I certainly don't plan to change jiu-jitsu, but think about how that translates to other

things, project management, incident management, how you work on the street in EMS, whatever it is. And I mention those because that's things I'm familiar with and things that I've done. So let's jump back into that time machine. And I've got a bunch of different sources, a bunch of Google searches and different things I've looked at. And so I've drawn together the best thing I can say. And again, there is no 100% definitive history that I have seen because every site I looked at, every source had a little bit of variation. So this is me pulling as much together as I could.

So 2000 BC, Buddhist monks in India. And this was a cross thread in a lot of different sites I looked at. And some big sites, Gracie Mag, Gracie Berra, BJJ Heroes, Jujutsu Tantra. So a lot of different websites. So trace it back to these Buddhist monks in India who wanted to defend themselves with no weapons because their oath involved you can't have weapons. So they had to have this open hand technique. So they grappling, right? So jiu-jitsu is a grappling art.

There's some, you know, kicks and things. But Brazilian jiu-jitsu for sure is a grappling art. That means you use leverage and things or throws and you grapple. For most folks that don't practice Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, grappling is more equivalent to wrestling, what you see in high school or the Olympics. And we'll certainly touch on tons of that because there's influence there. So these Buddhist monks thought about something, you know, some kind of grappling.

How can I use open hands? I can't use weapons to be able to fight. So they started developing this fighting system. And thoughts are some of those techniques were spread by alexander the great right um between 356 and 323 bc of course the olympians the olympics wrestling very popular um and the the wrestling art or one of the wrestling arts uh i apologize for the buddhist monks was called Kushti. It's the traditional wrestling art that they invented or that's been around for a long time. Alexander the Great, the Olympians, the Greeks, Greco-Roman.

Greco-Roman wrestling, that's still around today. It's in youth leagues and high schools and colleges, middle schools even, in the Olympics. And another more kind of combat, very UFC-like, was called pancreation. So in pancreation, you had a lot of grappling. You also had strikes. You just couldn't gouge eyes and things. So that is a huge contributor, particularly today when you have the Ultimate Fighting Championship that's enormous. And we'll touch on how that came about. So pancreation from from the ancient greeks and so spread across the continent because alexander the great remember conquered just tons

of uh europe and asia in that whole area and so you know some of that grappling and the various styles started to mix together another source says around 200 bc chinese wrestlers practiced chikura karube so again these are all grappling arts, and there's American Indian wrestling, and there's all these different types of wrestling. These three in particular seem to come up a lot and seem to be credited as contributing or possible direct contributors. And again, the direct contribution this far back from 2000 BC to even the 1100s after that, and we'll touch on the 1100s, is a far stretch

because the traditional history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu that folks know of is like in the 1880s to now, right? Or the actual Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu from the 20s to now, so not as old at all. So those are some of the ancient influence, some of the ancient peoples. And again, there's a few names associated there, but not a lot more kind of culturally looked at and time periods looked at. But that's kind of the ancient history descendants or foundations of what we now know as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. So that stuff all starts somewhere. From the 1100s to the 1800s that's the next time period and this is really going to focus on jiu-jitsu itself and jiu-jitsu for everyone means the ju or the jiu ju means gentleness and jitsu means art or technique so the literal term of jiu-jitsu is

the gentle art now again if you've ever been a practitioner of jiu-jitsu is the gentle art. Now again, if you've ever been a practitioner of jiu-jitsu or on the receiving end of a bow and arrow choke, it's not so gentle feeling. But the thought being you're not doing real hard strikes and kind of hard moves. You're actually using an opponent's body to leverage limbs where they don't need to go or choke them. And again, you're not sitting there trying to pummel them with your fists or your feet or your knees or your elbows. You're using their own body against them and your body against them. It's, again, pretty amazing. I'm just scratching the surface, but that's part of the focus and the origin of the gentle art focus there. So from the 1100s to the 1800s seems to be the big chunk of time that a lot of the Japanese Jiu-Jitsu or the samurai version really,

because they really helped make this good. And the first Jiu-Jitsu school actually from Master Takanuchi Hisomori, and I'm probably going to kill some of these names, is credited as opening in 1532, the first official kind of Ryu Jiu-Jitsu school. And so, again, these are the schools that taught the samurai primarily as a combat art so what if you are on the field and you forgot your sword that day or it got knocked out of your hands or something happened right and you don't have any weapon in your hand and now someone's coming at you with one or you're just going at it hand to hand you know hand in combat no weapons

boom jiu-jitsu japanese jiu-jitsu so how that went about you know samurai are-to-hand combat, no weapons, boom, jiu-jitsu, Japanese jiu-jitsu. So how that went about, you know, samurai are fighting. At some period, it also developed further. There's a period called the Edo period in Japan from 1603 to 1868, where only samurai could have swords. So imagine you're in this, you know, feudal land, there's these different shogun-leading different families or houses of the samurai, and they're all fighting for power. Or there's one shogun in charge, but you don't have a sword and you can't have the good weapons. And sometimes, I would dare say, that probably led to people abusing their power. So unarmed techniques became popular in Japan, and so that built on the already existing combat-focused jiu-jitsu, where other folks developed it so they could defend themselves against the samurai or

against other folks that could have swords when they could not. That, however, would start to come to an end as, in the 1860s, the shogun was replaced by an emperor. So a shogun is the head samurai of all the different samurai clans. If they were united or not, or the head of a clan, and depending on how that goes, to an emperor, right? So the one that is, you know,

ordained to be in charge of Japan and probably the best equivalent of this that I'm familiar with, I'm a movie guy, right? It's the last samurai. Around that time period, the samurai are still very traditional. And by the 1870s, they were actually banned, right, and that's really when they show, there's that one scene where the young

samurai is walking with Tom Cruise, the, you know, the army officer there to consult, and he has his hair cut off, and they're fighting, and they charge at the end, right, so that's kind of that time period in the 1870s when the samurai are actually outlawed. And so need to make a change again to the art because now there's not hand-to-hand combat going on between samurai. Um, the unarmed techniques have become more popular for the populace. And so if you're an unemployed samurai, but you have really good hand-to-hand combat skills, you could make some money teaching other people unarmed combat skills, right? And so that's a big change for jiu-jitsu there.

And shortly after this, and this next chunk of time is going to be the 1800s to the present, and this is going to focus on judo or kano jiu-jitsu. And I'll have this. I have a graphic I should put together that's shaped like a pyramid. So the base being those really ancient techniques, then jiu-jitsu, then judo or kano jiu-jitsu, and then Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And I'll share this on the peopleprocessprogress.com website. So you can take a look at it. Give me your opinion. Let me know on Facebook at the same name, People Process Progress, Twitter or Instagram at PenelopeG. So love to hear from you or email me at PeopleProcessProgress at gmail.com. So now we're going from those late 1800s to the 1880s again, so the 1870s to the 1880s. So there was a judo master or Jugo Okano that helped develop Jiu-Jitsu into Judo,

because Jiu-Jitsu, as I said, was a combat art. Some folks learned it from combat, but it just wasn't as popular, right? So he recognized that and changed the art into what we know as Judo. And Judo is, I would say, well more mainstream known. It has been known for longer than Jiu-Jitsu or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And it's interesting to me, one thing I talked to my wife about the other day, and I'd, again, love to hear y'all's feedback, is I am a jiu-jitsu practitioner, so I feel like everyone knows about it because I read about it a lot. I go to it three, four days a week.

You know what I mean? So I'm ingrained in it. So in my mind, everyone knows about it, but it's funny if, and there's jokes and memes about jujitsu people wanting to talk to other people about jujitsu, and it's pretty true, but most people don't know what it is. They have no idea. But if you're in this world, if you're like I am, like we are as practitioners of it, you feel like everyone knows about it. Probably because the folks that you hang out with or that you train with all know about it, right? So Kano changes Jiu-Jitsu into Judo, recognizes the need.

It's more mainstream. It can be kind of more of a sport. And so that's a huge change, right? So Judo, that hitting people with the planet kind of thing where you're doing a lot of throws. There's still some ground game in there, but it's those really big, nice throws and trips and takedowns. And it's pretty amazing. So that's a huge, again, process of change for the sport, which is pretty awesome. And so one of Kano's great students that becomes one of his instructors is Mitsuyo Maeda. So again, if you are a follower

of jiu-jitsu or if you've read any history, you absolutely know the names Kano and Maeda. So again, if you are a follower of Jiu-Jitsu or if you've read any history, you absolutely know the names Kano and Maeda, right? This is some of the first lineage that is in most every Jiu-Jitsu history that I've read in a magazine or online or anywhere. And so Maeda is going to have a huge influence on the world that we love if you're a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner or if you like the UFC because he is going to go to Brazil in 1921 or the 1920s. And again, there's some variation in these dates depending on what you look at, but 1920, 1921 is what I've seen there really. And so Maeda goes to Brazil and we'll get into that whole lineage because that's kind of the big path there that

we'll jump into. But the other person I want to talk about is Yamashita Yoshiaki. And so Yamashita Yoshiaki is the one that went to America or was in the United States from 1903 to 1906. And that quote I read earlier from Theodore Roosevelt from the early 1900s is because that's who taught Roosevelt. So Yoshiaki had the opportunity to train Theodore Roosevelt. So, you know, the thought that, you know, jujitsu wasn't as popular until, you know, the 20s and then the 80s and 90s and then mainstream, absolutely it was not. But it's amazing that one of our U.S. presidents was already kind of plugged into jujitsu in the early 1900s and pretty awesome. And hats off to him again because he's a rough and tumble, was rough and tumble kind of guy so it's pretty cool

to hear about and interestingly enough too in the research there was a city of london police officer or sergeant named george wielden who had learned jiu-jitsu and i wasn't able to find where that was so again if you all know where george wielden learned his jiu-jitsu and I wasn't able to find where that was. So again, if you all know where George Wielden learned his jujitsu, uh, or decided to combine it with Cumberland and Cornish wrestling. So he helped develop the self-defense and the prisoner handling and the, you know, uh, unarmed combat for the city of London police in 1906. So if you, if you know about that, please let me know, particularly on Facebook when we post this or Instagram or email me at peopleprocessprogress at gmail.com. Would love to know that. But that's a huge thing too. So it was going to Brazil, went to America and London. So jujitsu is getting out there, right? And again,

remember between the 1800s to these early 1900s, trade routes were open. We have a pretty good relationship actually with Japan so we're getting a lot of exposure to this so the process of jiu-jitsu changing driven a lot by trade and by global expansion and you know different powers coming up and so pretty cool to look at how this proliferates how this knowledge spreads throughout the world it's still going down the road particularly for jud judo, is in 1964, judo was first in the Olympics. And judo, again, if you see the folks that wear, it's called a gi. Most folks know it probably as a karate uniform, but you know, it's the kind of pajama looking

with the belt. And we joke in jujitsu about pajama fighting too, so it's not really derogatory. But just going down the path for judo, 64 in the Olympics. And then women, and that was only male judokas or judo practitioners. And women then in 1988, that was the first time that women judokas were in the Olympics. So that was pretty interesting, I think. Another term for the judo, so Kano developed judo from jiu-jitsu from a need. And some folks, some sources refer to the judo as Kano Jiu-Jitsu, right? So really it's his name in particular stamped on Jiu-Jitsu and not necessarily completely changed to Judo.

So kind of an interesting take there. But again, we've gone from the ancient grappling arts with similar fighting styles and one article I read from grapplearts.com and it was a bit of a different I think name where they actually used diamond plated knuckle dusters fighting but also grappling in India in a very old art there's a picture of someone doing what's what's almost exactly like a modern omoplata and so if you're not a jiu-jitsu practitioner or you just happen to not have that done to you yet like I have or read about it, that's pretty much an arm lock using your legs, which seems unfeasible. But again, that's kind of the magic of jiu-jitsu where people get you positions or you see it and think, oh, that's not possible. I would just do this or that, and you can't.

It's amazing. So that's kind of a cool connection. Then we've gone to the feudal japan period the changes in jiu-jitsu for the samurai and the public and then it was banned and then now we've got judo kano jiu-jitsu as some folks refer to it refer to the spread of that to brazil and america and england so now let's move into the most well-known period in history and people and processes involved in the development of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. So in the 1820s, George Gracie immigrated from Scotland to Brazil. And so here's the Gracie name.

Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, the Gracie family is for sure credited with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu's development. There are other families that also develop Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or parts of it. The Gr's for sure by and large attributed with with developing it and spreading it and i'll go through and actually share uh lineage for the two schools i've gone to kind of at the end of this too which is which is pretty awesome to again you should know where you where you come from in a given sport or hobby or something like that i think so we'll touch on that as well. But so George Gracie comes from Scotland to Brazil in the 1820s. His son, Gastel Gracie, is there, is a businessman, has a youngster named Carlos Gracie,

the next big name that most folks know about in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu circles. And again, different dates varied. Some things said 1914 1914 some said 1920 but essentially carlos gracie needed some help focusing his energy gastel gracie had a relationship with mitsuyo maeda if you remember 1921 came to brazil said hey can you teach this youngster some some judo some jujitsu and he agreed and then it started right so that is kind of the major flagpole that was planted the major milestone in the process if you will to really develop and start brazilian jiu-jitsu probably the first one i guess if we go back would be george gracie coming to coming to brazil from

scotland and then being there when maeda you know happened to come through brazil and they made that connection which again you know the process of networking which I'll touch on later and relationships seems to have worked out pretty well for those of us that are practitioners and really the world who like the UFC so Carlos Gracie becomes very proficient starts teaching there were nine brothers I think in the Gracie family and so he starts teaching his brothers he has that one younger brother named helio or helio gracie and so he was sickly he was frail he was much thinner than his other brothers so he didn't get as much training and then carlos recognized that helio was actually pretty proficient and a huge thing that he that helio did or helio did is he adapted it to fit his needs, right?

So he looked at the process of jiu-jitsu as it existed and realized this benefits bigger, stronger folks that can do strong movements and throws and things like that and said, you know, I need to develop this for me because I'm not as big and strong as those folks. And he did and just made amazing progress using leverage and I mean just technique which which can make a huge difference against people that are much bigger than you and so Elio really refined it to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in that a smaller person

can use their technique and skills and and smarts and toughness and endurance because all that goes together. But really use that leverage and those techniques to defeat a larger person. So he became the champion at this time too. Martial arts and wrestlers, particularly a thing called Vale Tudo, which was actually kind of no holds bar fighting. This Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu developing, judo, karate, all these different things. They would fight each other, plus Brazil was a pretty rough place. And so, you know, Helio fight fought a lot. He was the family's champion.

And then as he got older, Carlson Gracie, Helio's nephew, became very proficient. And then he took up the mantle as the family's champion. So they actually had kind of champions that would do the challenges, do the fights. And so what Carlson contributed and what he looked at through this process, and this was in the 1950s, was to add valet to dough elements, right? And add sport Brazilian jiu-jitsu and help develop it. So it wasn't just for fighting.

It wasn't just for combat. It was also sport jiu-jitsu. And if you look at jiu-jitsu today, there's tournaments all over the place, and in matches, you can win by points, which means I get all these different positions on you, and, you know, if I hold them for three seconds, I get points, so whoever has the most points at the end wins, or you can do submission, which means I make you quit by choking you or making a joint go some way it shouldn't, so that sport jiu-jitsu has really ramped up, and there's huge tournaments and organizations

and we'll touch on that as well. But the next big influencer is Carlson's younger brother, Holes Gracie or Roles, R-O-L-O-S. And so many believe that he was the greatest Gracie. He took over as the head instructor. Him and Hicks and Gracie are kind of the two you know folks that folks put up there now Hodger Gracie so um but we'll touch on on Hicks in particular later so holes Gracie as far as the development the process of developing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu became very good at it also realized you know what I need to mix in other things which like

anyone that tries to change a process that's been going on for a while, didn't get 100% agreement, right? Some folks thought, nope, leave it pure as the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu we developed. Other folks believed in it. And so what he did was look at Sambo, which is a Russian grappling style that has very similar locks and things um and they actually have a sport combat sambo so um that's a lot what if you know who khabib nurmagomedov is he is the current ufc lightweight champion that defeated conor mcgregor for the title and he came up as a combat sambo national champion so still alive today very popular sport, particularly in Russia again. So in addition to Sambo wrestling, like Rokoron wrestling,

and you'll see if you practice Jiu-Jitsu today or if you're a wrestler, it's a great base. You'll see elements of wrestling and then, of course, Judo. So there's still throws, takedowns, very closely tied to traditional Judo. So Holes Gracie saw that and recognized that he could make his game better, be a better champion for the family and head instructor by pulling those in. So he did. So he considered the feedback from everybody, looked at, hey, don't change it.

It's this Gracie jiu-jitsu. And he said, yep, but we also need these things to keep making it better. So he did. So thank you, Holes, for doing that. I mean, thank everybody, all the Graces for doing it, but that's a, that's a great change and a great addition. I think they're, um, Carlos Jr. Who's holds younger brother. This is kind of the official development.

The international Brazilian jujitsu federation was actually developed in 94. And that's what Carlos Jr. Did. Um, holes Gracie died unfortunately, um, before his time. And so Carlos Jr. Took over as the head instructor. And then he and Hicks and Gracie, Helio Gracie's son, taught in California. Hicks and Gracie, and this was in, they started teaching in the 1980s. But Hicks and Gracie, by most folks, is kind of the name when someone says, who's the greatest ever? Hicks and Gracie is it. He did a lot of fighting in Japan, doing Vale Tudo, using Jiu-Jitsu, submitting and defeating his opponents.

Never lost there. The kind of myth is that he had 400 fights and never lost, and I don't say that derogatorily. It's just there's no, again, kind of the history is there. But in his Vale Tudo and his matches, undefeated, just amazing. He fought people that were huge with good jiu-jitsu. Hickson, in addition to just being a tough-looking guy, super athletic, he incorporated it on his own and speaks to a lot of this yoga and health and wellness, eating rightism gymnastics right so that aspect into

brazilian jiu-jitsu and these breathing techniques um where he really moves his stomach around and so again he helped spread brazilian jiu-jitsu uh to japan which is interesting right so jiu-jitsu came from japan was developed into judo or kano Jiu-Jitsu, got to Brazil, was developed by the Gracies, then Hickson took it back over there and used it against folks in Vale do Judo that were either wrestlers or, you know, other fighters and showed them Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. So it's kind of a full circle. There is a great documentary that I highly recommend to anyone, not just Jiu-Jitsu practitioners, called Choke on Hickson Gracie for about one of his big Valley Tudor matches. So it covers a lot of their background.

It's pretty cool. It's a little bit older. I think it's from the 80s, but worth the watch. And so Hickson, huge influence, particularly in the 80s and the 90s, doing his big fights there. And well beyond that as a great practitioner and spokesman for the sport and a lot of great stuff going on there. So early 90s, this is the big milestone a lot of folks are probably familiar with. The first Ultimate Fighting Championship is helped put together by Horry and Gracie.

And that's when everybody realized, what is this smaller guy in this gi doing, fighting these huge karate people and sumo wrestlers and shoot fighters and just all these different people that are way bigger than him. And he looked pretty serious. And if you knew who Horace Gracie was, you would understand he's a killer, like he could take you out. But he didn't look like it to other fighters, and that was the point. So they chose Horace Gracie, not Hickson, because hickson was an athletic looking dude that that looked strong so he looked like a typical fighter the point being we're going to show the world brazilian jiu-jitsu can work

against all these other arts against bigger people bigger fighters and he did he won the first four ultimate fighting championships which is a pretty big deal because he had to win 11 matches to win four ufcs and so for folks that pick up on watching the ufc in more recent years the original one was whatever style against whatever weight class you can wear pretty much what you want you just couldn't do like groin shots eye gouges so it was a lot like that old school pancreation we talked about. But it was bring your own style. And that wasn't an accident.

So the process of marketing the martial art was genius from a great practitioner of it. But that's why there were so many matches because you also fought the same night. So if you won, you fought again and you fought again and you fought again until you got to the final. So talk about a super hard endeavor. I mean, UFC is hard enough today as athletic and powerful and highly trained as folks are. The original ones were just wild, man. It was pretty wild. And so huge, huge game changer when Horace Gracie won UFC 1, and it opened the eyes, and you can listen to Jocko's podcast or Joe Rogan's experience and other high-level folks that have been in the jiu-jitsu game for a long time.

And a lot of folks credit them looking at, wait, what is that that just happened? And then they got into it 20 years ago or more. So shortly after that, in 1996, Henzo Gracie, who is Elia Gracie's grandnephew, opened what is known as Henzo Gracie in New York, but what is called the Blue Basement. So the basement's literally blue with blue pads and things. And so a key influence to the process and evolution of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu that I found and have heard about is just who this gym has trained just so many world

champions of today, of earlier UFC's Matt Serra, John Danner, who's considered one of the best Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu coaches in the world, and my head professor, Tim Manon, which is pretty awesome at Team Manon Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Blacksburg Virginia so pretty cool lineage there but Henzo recognized you know the opportunity with the UFC and opened the gym and has just done things he was also a very successful Valley Judo fighter in Japan fought in the UFC and so you know really made a huge impact like other you know Gracie family folks on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and helped grow the sport and recognize that. But the Blue Basement, the current, you know, what folks consider the GOAT greatest of all time, or one of them, Gordon Ryan, is from Henzo Gracie's Academy.

So pretty, pretty awesome to see that. And there's been many others. Other folks kind of bringing us up to today, and again, there are other very well-known and influential Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu contributors. So really, for me, looking at kind of milestone changes, and even the folks I mentioned would probably credit many other people, and they have in different things. And another documentary is called Legacy, and that one is focused on henzo gracie also very good he's a pretty funny guy uh i mean amazing in jujitsu obviously but also quite a character if you watch that you'll see and watching legend is what exposed me for the first time to the man in the arena that the speech that's written by theodore roosevelt and if you haven And if you haven't read that, look it up.

I read it on a previous Between the Slides podcast, but I'll read it to you now. It speaks a lot. I actually have it now framed in my office. So here's The Man in the Arena. It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming,

but who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt, great guy. It's kind of the Theodore Roosevelt quote, isn't it? But watching Legacy, though, is how I found out about that. So, again, watch Choke, watch Legacy, very good stuff. Bringing us up to modern times or more modern, some folks that saw this process of jiu-jitsu schools

and folks going to schools or having to find them and said, hey, let's push this jiu-jitsu schools and folks going to schools or having to find them and said hey let's push this jiu-jitsu out to folks taking advantage of the infrastructure are hiron and henner gracie these are ilio gracie's grandsons and in 2008 they started gracie university online they have a huge grace university schools and things but they put together a curriculum including this Gracie combative so again remember there's tons of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu sport the base of it is self-defense and combat stuff but the Heron and Henner put together Gracie University online so that they could push Jiu Jitsu to folks that maybe didn't have access to schools couldn't get there because

of transportation couldn't afford it for whatever reason. But I think that's a pretty awesome adaptation of the traditional way of people having to go find somewhere to go is put it online. And, you know, it's not free, but it's just a great thing. They also are very big users of YouTube and Gracie Breakdown when there's, you know, visions of fights or things or how you could utilize jiu-jitsu. So pretty awesome, pretty influential folks.

Again, definitely check out the research. Check out the graphic. There are other strands of Gracies and other families that have big influence on jiu-jitsu. But from ancient times, Japanese jiu-jitsu to judo or Kano Jiu-Jitsu to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, those are kind of the common people and processes they use and evaluations they did to change this art, to change themselves, to change the influence of this on the world. And so when I look at that as a 45-year-old IT project manager with some public safety and medical experience and kind of a new practitioner, I think, okay, so what? So what for the podcast, right? That's the thing for any speech, any discussion, any presentation. So what, so what do I, what do I need to know? What's the value? All this history lesson is cool, but how does it have to do with me? I don't train. I'm not going to train. My, my thought is this, the progress portion, that networking focus and dedication to an ancient art and the acceptance

and ability to adapt it to fit the practical needs of his practitioners right so ancient traditions or old traditions whether they are an anciently you know started martial art or does that even make sense basically martial art from a long time ago. Or a practice that your organization has done for a long time, right? We've always done it this way. For Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the Gracie saw this and adapted it and then adapted it again and kept adapting it and then kept mixing things in. And that's like an iterative process, right? That's like an iterative process for project management. You know, and I'll get into this on a project management focus, one we focus on kind of from the pyramids

to the project management body of knowledge. But the old, you have to do this, this, this, and this period waterfall that's called doesn't cut it for software. It doesn't cut it for manufacturing. That's where Agile and Lean and Six Sigma came from because you look at something that's good at its core, good for its time, good for some things still,

but at some point you have to change them and you have to adapt it to fit your needs. And so for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, people did that. They did it because of their physicality. They did it because they saw pieces they wanted from other stuff. And so, you know, that's why there's also a blend called WAJL, Waterfall and Agile, right? Let's line things up traditionally, but let's understand we're going to do this and validate it and do this and validate it, whereas we try and do some of that up front with other things. Some key contributors, I think, that everyone, you know, or all the groups of people, or particularly the Gracie family and other folks did, was that they networked with others, right, inside and outside of their profession. so for us individually for us and whatever arena

we're in if we network with others both in our own departments with for some folks is a big challenge right some folks don't get up go around the cubicle and talk to folks and then when they have a meeting about it in a few days say oh i never heard that or i couldn't talk to him or i sent the email get up go talk to people, right? Inside your department, that's easy. Then outside your department or your profession, right? There's knowledge to be had everywhere and you can take pieces of someone else's process and talk to their people and help you make progress. Even in social circles, right? It can yield positive results that can't be fully planned for. You know, the Gracies had family tragedy and they had folks whose physical stature made them change the way things were done. And so you can't plan for that. And then you adjust and then

you change things. And that happens with projects and incident management and whatever else, right? Something happens and we have to adapt and we have to adjust or we have to try to either, you know, hopefully for the better. The other thing is if you focus on a topic that you love or you're naturally proficient at, you'll keep it alive, you'll help it grow, and it'll benefit others, right? So part of my hope for the Between the Slides podcast I did, then continuing with this one, is I love teaching. I love sharing knowledge that I have, experiences I have. One, it's cool to do this, but the other thing is, so if someone hears one thing and it helps them avoid a problem that I had or it helps them plan a special event better

or do a project more efficiently and save the organization money, that's awesome, and I think that's one of the best benefits we can have in this electronic medium, in this world we live in today on social media, is push it out, and Gary Vaynerchuk's great with this. Push out positive and just let it out there, right? Don't necessarily track and look at all the likes and this or that. I mean, I look at them.

It's, you know, everybody does. But the point being really, if you get good at something, if you're passionate about something, share it, right? It'll make you better. It'll make other people better. And that's what we're really all here for. My last kind of thought on this whole you know history lesson we went through but really looking at people process

and progress for today is dedication with an open mind meaning not staying too rigid helps an idea that started with a more narrow focus grow into a global phenomenon that changes people's lives and i mentioned you know i'm I'm into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, so I'm well aware of it. A lot of people are not. But most people are aware of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and that would not have been as big as it is today if Hoist Gracie wasn't chosen to represent Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

in Ultimate Fighting Championship number one and defeat the folks that he did multiple times, right? And boom, then people took notice and then it kept growing and then UFC got bigger and it had some controversy, but it grew and grew and grew and so did Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and kind of the big growth from that and particularly in the 80s and 90s a lot of folks in the early 90s the highest level kind of black belts in america started then and from there there's there's you can find a brazilian jiu-jitsu gym pretty much everywhere which is fantastic but it also changes

people's lives right so they didn't hoard this knowledge they didn't you know say no it's only for these kind of folks and and now you go into a bra go into a Brazilian jujitsu gym and you have folks like me, you know, a mid forties working dad, married guy, father of three. Um, you have young college students, you have, uh, PhDs, you have college wrestlers. I mean, it's such a mix of people, uh, and it's, and it's fantastic and it is life changing. And again, if you don't train, go to an intro class somewhere. Go watch a class somewhere. Just kind of learn about it. You'll get in shape.

So there's a whole thing, don't get in shape. And I won't go down the whole kind of selling this to you, but I'll say just go check out a class. Go try it. I highly encourage it. Two places I can recommend because I've been there for sure are Revolution Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Richmond, Virginia. It's fantastic.

They have an intro program. Great people there. And Team Man in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, if you're in the Blacksburg area, it's outstanding. Both places are very welcoming. You will be sore. You will be tired. You will freak out sometime, but you will learn great skills and meet great people. Thank you, great people, for listening to this episode of the People, Process, and Progress podcast. I hope we will

stay in touch again. Peopleprocessprogress.com, Facebook, same name. Find the show wherever podcasts are played, also now on iHeartRadio. And remember, take care of your people, keep them together in one common process, and everybody will make progress together. Thank you very much. Godspeed.