Mastering Jujitsu, by Renzo Gracie and John Danaher

hings are not always what meets the eye, that's for sure! In English you have this expression: "judging a book by the cover", and that's precisely the point here. From looking at the cover of this book, it is easy to draw the conclusion that this is written by fighters, for fighters - "rolling with the boyz".

But, lo and behold, this is not the case! The book is indeed more than "just" grappling. It is varied, balanced and comprehensive. It takes on the origin of the art, the development of Brazilian jujitsu as a distinctive form, as well as the traditional, versus the modern view on fighting, competition and self-defense in budo and ju jitsu.

In the preface the autors points out that the division between traditional ju jitsu and the Brazilian variety is not all together a good thing. They state that both sides have something to lern from one another. In other words, there is an openness and a broadmindedness in the authors that is refreshing, to say the least.

From a historical point of view, there is some really interesting material here. Amongst other things this covers the Kodokan judo, Fusen ryu ju jitsu, and Yukio Tani (read more about Yukio Tani by clicking here). There is also lots of things here about Mitsuyo Maeda who moved to Brazil prior to World War 1, and who taught Carlos Gracie for a longer period of time. Maeda's backgrond was from Tenshin Shinyo ryu ju jitsu and Kodokan judo. He did a number of fights with boxers and wrestlers from various styles, many from "catch-as-catch-can" wrestling.

The book is a good comparison of more traditional, Japanese ju jitsu and the Brazilian variety - from a methodical as well as strategical point of view. Naturally you will find lots of techniques too. These are shown without a traditional uniform (gi), and all the techniques are easy to understand from the photo's and the explanatory text..

All and all this book is very easy to recommend. It serves to understand the arts better, as well as to get a better "hold" on your grappling methods (pun intended.. :)

Back to the page: books (click here)