Choque: The Untold Story of Jiu-Jitsu in Brazil 1856-1949 (Volume 1)

by Roberto Pedreira

  Not only literate adults, but children too were interested in jiu-jitsu. After writing about “football” in his regular magazine column “As Liccões de Vôvô” [“Grandfather’s Lessons”], the writer, Vôvô [Grandfather] was deluged with requests from his “grandchildren [netinhos] to explain other sports. Four readers wanted to know about luta romana, seven wanted to know about “box francez”, and 12 wanted to learn about “jiu-jitsu”.

  In June 1920, responding to his readers’ wishes, Vôvô wrote a half-page article with three illustrations explaining the principles of jiu-jitsu, exemplifying them with three self-defense techniques. One was “O cutelo ou golpe de talho” [a chop or slice]. This could be aimed at the assailant’s neck [pescoço], arm [braço], shoulder [hombro], fore-arm [ante-braço] wrist [pulso], thigh [coxa], shin [canella], jaw [maxilla], or chin [queixo]. The second technique was “Defesa contra a prisão de garganta” [defense against someone trying to throttle you from the front]. The defense consisted of bringing the elbow down on the assailant’s arm, then kicking him in the shin. The third was a technique for releasing a grab [desviandio o golpe].

  Vôvô explained that in jiu-jitsu, one uses the open hand, either the palm, or the side of the hand, as the situation requires. Vôvô emphasized that jiu-jitsu should only be used for self-defense [“precisem de saber o jiu-jitsu somente como recurso de defesa”].13

  Tex Rickard

  Despite not actually being a heavyweight, George Carpentier was the heavyweight boxing champion of France in 1919 (campeão de box, peso maximo).

  On Thursday December 4, in London, Carpentier become the heavyweight champion of Europe with a single right hand to the face of English champion Joe Beckett. It was shock for the British fans. Beckett was the betting favorite at 6 to 4, but many believed that the slick boxing skills of Carpentier (an ex-savateur)14 could defeat Beckett. They didn’t imagine that it would be so easy.15

  Carpentier’s purse was estimated at not less than $100,000, a substantial amount of money in 1919 for the 30 seconds it took to dispose of Beckett.16

  Immediately after Carpentier’s surprisingly easy victory, pressure began building for a show-down with American Jack Dempsey for the world heavyweight boxing title.17

  There was a problem. Carpentier was small. He had trounced the larger Beckett. But Jack Dempsey was another matter altogether. Promoting such a fight could be financially ruinous. There was only one man capable of handling it, Tex Rickard. But Rickard wasn’t interested. Dempsey’s manager Doc Kearns, bamboozled Rickard into taking the challenge on. Rickard transformed the gross mismatch into the “Battle of the Century” and incidentally, boxing into a socially acceptable form of high-brow entertainment. He did it by repackaging boxing, not as an athletic contest or display of controlled violence, but rather as a form of drama pitting hero (Carpentier) against a villain (Dempsey).18

  Rickard’s gamble and inspired promotion paid off. Dempsey versus Carpentier on July 4, 1921 was the first “million dollar gate”. It was also world news.

  It was as extensively covered in Rio as in other world capitals. One of the Brazilians who were engrossed in the fight was a young man named Carlos Gracie.19 Carlos couldn’t have avoided reading about Rickard. Every article of any length about the fight had a column or sidebar on Rickard, who was almost as prominently featured as the champion and Carpentier themselves. The vast sums of money involved were as much part of the story as the fight.20

  Rickard was the mastermind behind Jack Dempsey’s subsequent “million dollar gates,” all of which were news in Brazil. In addition to his interest in Jack Dempsey and boxing, Carlos Gracie was also interested in finding a way to make money without working hard at a conventional job.21 Tex Rickard showed him the way.22

  Carlos probably read about Rickard’s trial in 1922 for allegedly having illicit sexual relations with under-age girls. That was also news in Brazil.23 Carlos was neither as lucky nor as innocent in 1941 as Rickard was in 1922.

  The Art of Dempsey

  Brazilians thought of themselves as Europeans, and looked to France, Germany, and England, and from about 1889, the United States for approval and leadership.24 Boxing was the Anglo-American sport but anyone who wanted to partake was welcome to lace up the gloves. The fortunes that Rickard and Dempsey had proved could be earned made boxing seem attractive. In fact boxing was called the “arte de Dempsey” during his reign (1919-1926) and even after.

  Boxing had been a form of stage entertainment as early as 1909. Brazilians were interested in boxing but mostly as something that foreigners did. Not surprisingly they associated it with the lower layers of society, as everyone else did until Rickard and Dempsey refined it.25 The majority of boxers in Brazil were sojourners or immigrants.

  Historians of boxing in Brazil, as early as 1926, considered that authentic boxing, by which they meant fought according to international rules, and not staged, arrived in Brazil in 1921.26 One early program, but not the first, was the January 19, 1924, fight between the Rio de Janeiro lightweight champion Romeu Garcia and Brazilian lightweight champion Rodrigues Alves.27Other boxers on the program were Horacio Guimarães versus Newton Rager; Valentin Produno versus Annibal Arizaga, and Henri Fort versus the future jiu-jitsu professor Donato Pires dos Reis. Donato won the fight by “walk over” when Henri Ford [sic] failed to show up for the fight.28

  Immigrants either brought boxing with them, or took it up as a route to status and upward mobility. The first boxing gyms (or clubs) were probably the Internacional Boxing Club founded in 1921 by Adriano Malagrini (aka Fred Delauney) and the São Paulo Boxing Gym on avenida das Palmeiras.29

  By 1926 there were at least five amateur and professional boxing gyms (academias) in São Paulo and a number of clubs that offered boxing opportunities. They included: Brasil America Boxing, on rua do Seminario, Academia Dubois on caminho Choro Menino; Academia Paulista de Pugilismo, on avenida Rangel Pestana, Frontão do de Braz; Academia Central do Box, Jose on rua Progresso 20-A; Academia Delauney on rua Asdrubal Nascimento, 83, Escola de Pugilismo on avenida da Passos, n. 34, Associação Christa de Moços (YMCA), and Club de Regatas Tieté, among others.30

  Rio lagged behind São Paulo in boxing ardor, but not by much. In 1927, the Associação Metropolitana de Box was formed and granted official approval to control amateur boxing in Rio. That same year it made plans to hold two boxing tournaments, the Campeonato Carioca de Box in 1927 and 1928. At least two future jiu-jitsu legends signed up to fight in 1927. One showed up for the pesagem [weigh-in]. He was Donato Pires dos Reis. One did not. He was George Gracie.31

  The most established boxing club in Rio was the Club Nacional de Box, whose instructor was the Carioca champion Jayme Santos, also known as “Miquelina”. Clubs that were expected to enter fighters included Flamengo, Vasca da Gama, Fluminense, Internacional, Boqueiro do Passeio, Nacional de Box, Rio Box, Andarahy, Villa Isabel, and many more.32

  Some Boxing gyms offered luta livre and jiu-jitsu instruction at times, and some boxers became managers or promoters of “mixed” fighting. Kid Pratt (who taught at the Brasil America Boxing Club) became the manager of Roberto Ruhmann, whose popular appeal provided numerous jiu-jitsu fighters with paydays. Adriano Malagrini, under his ring name of Fred Delauney, operated a gym where George Gracie taught and trained in the late 1930’s. Jose Antonio Lage (who taught at Academia central do Box), became a boxing promoter who also included luta livre and jiu-jitsu in some of his shows. Yassuiti Ono taught at Club de Regatas Tieté. He, Takeo Yano, and Geo Omori all taught at Associação Christa de Moços. Some boxers took part in luta livre matches (Ervin Klausner, Ismail Haki, Traveres Crespo, among others) and many more played the publicity game of exchanging threats, insults, accusations, and challenges with representatives of rival styles. That was a net gain for jiu-jitsu. Boxers had no lack of international opponents. Jiu-jitsu representatives more often than not found themselves without anyone to fight and were eventually left with the choice of manufacturing opponents, or catc
h wrestling, or nothing. Even when they were not fighting and there was no possibility of a fight, jiu-jitsu professionals invariably found it worthwhile to challenge boxers.

  Some boxers taught jiu-jitsu men. One of Conde Koma’s students, said to be the only Brazilian with a diploma from the master himself, was Donato Pires dos Reis, who later taught Carlos and George Gracie. Donato had been a student, in 1924, of João Scherer, manager of Rio de Janeiro champion, Romeu Garcia, and owner of the Escola da Pugilismo.33

  Pain

  Boxing may have been scientific in its own way (sweet or otherwise), but no one pretended that it wasn’t likely to be painful. Boxing teacher João Scherer generously contributed an article to one newspaper in 1926. He explained how to avoid being punched in the face, which, he stressed, was important to know.34

  Jiu-jitsu however was quite the contrary. It was painless. It was easy. It was associated not with the lower layers of society, but with a sophisticated, exotic, and potent foreign culture. It also appealed to the masses. Average people knew that, by definition, they didn’t have the exceptional physical qualities needed to excel at boxing.35 But jiu-jitsu was explicitly for average people. Abnormal strength, flexibility, and agility were not required. A few lessons, perhaps 36 or so, would be enough to master the scientific principles of jiu-jitsu.

  A three page illustrated article in Eu Sei Tudo in 1922 featured Mario Aleixo teaching defenses against golpe de box [punch], cintura pela frente [bear hug from front], and two positions for controlling the opponent on the ground [dominado o adversario no chão]; cacetada [club attack], bofetada [slaps], facada [knife], and cintura por traz [bear hug from behind], and golpe de mão esquerda ao pieto [pushing victim’s chest with the left hand]. One technique, called “golpe pavilhão” was a combination of elbow lock with an ura nage back throw. Another technique, created by himself, called “guayamu” involved pushing the attacker’s face while lifting him from the crotch. The assailant will “fly”, Aleixo said.36

  At the end of the year “A Arte de se Defender,” by Paul Janet, explained and illustrated a variety of Mario Aleixo’s self-defense techniques. One was called golpe de pai Francisco.37 Most, or all, looked as though they could have been taken from Irving Hancock, Sadakazu Uyenish [Raku], John O’Brien, or other instructional books published in the first decade of the century.

  Jiu-jitsu stayed in the public mind. Everyone knew that it was the scientific Japanese art by which the weak could overcome the strong. They also knew that all Japanese people trained jiu-jitsu, even geishas and movie stars.

  Sessue Hayakawa was born in Japan and immigrated to America to make movies. He was a charming, handsome, and sexy leading man. He was also a jiu-jitsu champion [campeão de jiu-jitsu.] According to Correio da Manhã and O Imparcial, as a patriotic and legitimate Japanese, needless to say, he enthusiastically trained jiu-jitsu. He was so good that he could throw men much bigger and stronger than himself.38 His skills were useful in his screen work, he found. In fact, he used them in his latest movie “Onde as Luxos são Baixas” [“Where Lights are Low”], playing in Rio at the Parisiense Theater in October of 1923.

  Hayakawa was a major Hollywood star in the days before Japan’s image changed from quaint, cute, mysterious, deferential, and ultra-courteous, to the epitome of self-destructive ideological commitment and barbarous brutality exceeded only by Nazi Germany. It is likely that more than a few Brazilians rushed to see his latest movie. Even those who missed it probably read about it, thereby reinforcing their stereotypes about the powerful way of fighting [poderosa maneira de lutar] known as “jiu-jitsu”.

  If relatively few people were training it as a sport or learning it for self-defense, that was at least partly due the lack of qualified instructors. Unlike other combat sports and self-defense systems, Japan essentially had a monopoly on credible knowledge. Mario Aleixo may have been the only non-Japanese jiu-jitsu instructor in Brazil until 1930, whatever his qualifications might have been. Naïve beginners were no more capable of assessing an instructor’s qualifications in the 1920’s and 1930’s than they were at any other time and auto-didacts probably over-estimated their knowledge and skills. Many people undoubtedly learned from books. As immigration from Japan increased however, that changed. Japanese immigrants originally were recruited to work on coffee plantations. Most were not originally agricultural workers in Japan. Some had Kodokan judo experience. When their contracts were finished (or before) they left the jungles and plantations and moved to cities. São Paulo was the nearest, and most went there.39

  Former world jiu-jitsu champion Conde Koma (Maeda Mitsuyo) played more than a small part in getting the immigrants settled into jobs in the north of Brazil. He gave up fighting in 1920, or at least in his new home of Belém.40 (He fought at least once more, in Cuba, in 1922).

  But he did not give up jiu-jitsu, or more precisely, Kodokan judo, as that was the variety of jiu-jitsu that he knew best, the variety that he had learned in Japan, and probably the only variety that he ever needed in his work. (As far as we know, none of his fights in Brazil included striking).

  Koma had numerous students in Belém. The foremost among them was Jacyntho Ferro, already well-known as a bicyclist, pedestrian (competitive walker), weight-lifter, boxer, and luta romana wrestler. Ferro met Koma in 1915 and added jiu-jitsu to his list of activities. He never lost [nunca soffrera derrota].41 Ferro did not live long enough to generate his own “lineage”. But he was not the only ambitious sportsman in Belém at that time learning the mysteries of the Japanese game.

  Satake and Conde Koma had learned jiu-jitsu together in Tokyo from Sakujiro Yokoyama. They had traveled the world and presented many shows in Brazil. Now they went in their own directions. Conde Koma remained in Belém. Satake went 1,300 kilometers around the coast and up the river to Manaus.

  In Manaus, Satake kept his hand in the game. He refereed fights and fought himself. On Sunday August 1917 he referred a match between Rodolpho Corbiniano from Barbados, and Geraldo de Souza Silva, from São Paulo. After two inconclusive 3-minute rounds, Silva won by disqualification when Rodolpho punched him in the stomach.

  According to the local press account, Silva’s victory proved that Brazilians were superior to other races because they played by the rules. Satake refereed the match.43

  On Tuesday August 7, Geraldo was back in the ring, this time against Nagib in a “match de box”. Silva was 45 years old and weighed 60 kilos, of medium height. Nagib was Syrian, 40 years old, tall, and weighed 80 kilos. Geraldo did his best but had to withdraw after the first round due to pain in his shoulder incurred in an accident eight days earlier. The press report complained that because of the difference in weight and height the match lacked the characteristics of decent sport. It was more like a “lucta livre” and as such was without merit, and above all, dangerous. The paper urged the directors of Circo Alhambra not to permit such potentially fatal contests to be held in the future.

  A boxing match [match de box] between Nagib and Satake was not deemed to be too dangerous however. It was announced for the following Saturday, August 11.44

  On Sunday May 12, 1918, Satake participated in a festival to inaugurate the new União Sportiva Portugueza (sports center), with headquarters at praça Tenrerio Ara-nha n. 3. The festival started at 8:30 p.m. Satake’s demonstration of jiu-jitsu followed esgrima and gymnastics demonstrations and preceded a vocal duet by F. Carvalho and Coelho and a dance routine by two children, Amelio Silva and Arthur Grans.45

  Triangle

  Halfway around the world, now incorporated into “Kodokan” judo, jiu-jitsu continued to evolve. Innovation came from within the ranks and was not dictated from above. In 1922, Kanemitsu Yaichibei [金光弥一兵衛], building on the inspirations of two high school judokas named Ichinomiya Katsusaburo [一宮勝三郎] and Hayakawa Masaru [早川勝], introduced what later became known as the “front triangle choke” [前三角締め].46

  One of Kanemitsu’s students was Yassuiti Ono [小野安一], who immigr
ated to Brazil in 1929.47

  .Chapter 7 Notes

  Chapter 8

  1928

  The Queirolo Brother’s Circus (Circo Queirolo) arrived in the Brazilian port city of Santos on June 20, 1921 from Montevideo and points between on the steamship “Rio de Janeiro” to initiate a season of performances in the capital.1

  One of the featured acts was Prof. Conde Themistocles, demonstrating his technique of “Estrangulo Vivo” [living strangle], in which a volunteer would be painlessly rendered unconsciousness and then quickly resuscitated.

  The circus also periodically presented boxing2 and lucta romana (or luta Greco-romana). In 1926, the brothers presented two luctas Greco-romana. One was a match between the preto Dick and Su’Su.’ The other was between 10 year old Hugo Laterga and his 12 year old brother Paulo.3

  In 1928 a new attraction was added in the form of a Japanese champion of Greco-romana named Geo Omori. According to an article in Diario Nacional, Omori had been with the circus a matter of “weeks”.4 The circus invited anyone who wanted to test themselves against Omori to step up [desafiado os que quizessem lutar com o campeão japonez], promising a gold medal worth 30 dollars [medalha de ouro no valor de 30 dollares] to the winner.

  There was no mention of jiu-jitsu in the article. But Omori was a jiu-jitsu fighter. Specifically, as he later emphasized, he practiced the Kodokan style of jiu-jitsu, which was known in his own country as “jiu-do” (judo).