Keenan Cornelius recently broke down the history of American Jiu-Jitsu, a phrase that’s actually been the source of controversy in the Jiu-Jitsu community in recent years. Cornelius isn’t alone in referring to American Jiu-Jitsu and in fact, there are many high-profile figures in the grappling world today who also use the phrase. It’s not hard to see why either, because many top competitors in the United States today actually have little to no connection to Brazil. On top of that, the way that they grapple and the techniques that they use might not share all that much incommon with more traditional BJJ as well.
There are many American competitors now who have learned how to grapple from an American coach, who also learnt from an American coach before him, and all of them might have a background in wrestling. This is particularly evident in the modern no gi grappling scene, at most academies in the 10th Planet affiliation and Cornelius’ own Legion Jiu-Jitsu among many others. Although that alone should be more than enough justification or the term ‘American Jiu-Jitsu’, Cornelius also explained that the phrase is not actually a new invention at all. He started out by going all the way back to the days of Mitsuyo Maeda:
“He went to America, 1904. He introduced Teddy Roosevelt, the f***ing president of the United States, to Jiu-Jitsu. Thedore Roosevelt has many quotes talking about how Jiu-Jitsu is so awesome. He institutionalised Jiu-Jitsu from like 1905 to the 1920s to Stanford University Jiu-Jitsu program. The entire American police force was being taught American Jiu-Jitsu through (Mitsuyo) Maeda and Yamashita (Yoshitsugu) and then all of their students that they trained in America.”
Because of just how long ago that the term American Jiu-Jitsu first started being used, Keenan Cornelius explained that this would predate BJJ by quite some time:
“If you search for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the word doesn’t show up until the ‘80s. Everything prior to the ‘80s and ‘90s, if you search it’s actually called Jiu-Jitsu or American Jiu-Jitsu. You can actually find, as early as 1905 or ‘06 I believe, you can find American Jiu-Jitsu in the newspaper articles.”
Obviously we know today that this isn’t how the sport continued, so Cornelius explained that Maeda and Yamashita went their separate ways:
“Maeda eventually leaves America, Yamashita stays… Maeda goes to Brazil, gets in with the Gracie Family, that whole thread happens. In America it’s like becoming popular, everyone’s training it.”
Although Jiu-Jitsu was gaining popularity at the time in America, it was virtually non-existent by the time that the Gracie family created the UFC and Royce Gracie won the inaugural tournament. Cornelius also explained what happened between those two moments:
“The American wrestling culture was still here so there was all sorts of fights between the Judo guys, the Jiu-Jitsu guys, the catch wrestlers… What ended up happening was like a melding of the techniques. Catch wrestling kinda became the American version of Jiu-Jitsu, they still called it Jiu-Jitsu but it was kinda like ‘we wanna have our own thing’. Then Pearl Harbour happened. So Pearl Harbour created a lot of Japanese xenophobia and all of their cultural impact that had made so much ground was basically erased because of the propaganda from the state. They feminised it, they were like ‘oh it’s for girls, Jiu-Jitsu is for women’. So after World War II it became like a self-defense for women thing.”
Although Jiu-Jitsu quickly fell out of favor, catch wrestling was still somewhat popular at the time. In fact, although it isn’t as popular today, it did spawn one of the most valuable sports entertainment businesses in the world:
“The catch wrestling aspect converged to pro wrestling. That’s why you see submission holds. They realised it’s incredibly boring to watch and it’s like ‘how do we make this exciting?’ We’ve got to hype it up, it’s got to be a show, and now we’re reliving that cycle today.”
To his credit, Keenan Cornelius was also very clear that the discussion of the origins of American Jiu-Jitsu wasn’t meant as any kind of slight against BJJ:
“I’m not saying Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu doesn’t exist, it does. I’m just saying American Jiu-Jitsu did exist, literally it’s there. The word American Jiu-Jitsu all throughout like 30 years from 1900 to 1930. I’m just reviving it.”
The full first episode of the Dojo Storm podcast with Keenan Cornelius where he breaks down the origins of American Jiu-Jitsu was uploaded to the podcast’s official YouTube channel:
