The Internet is full of haters. Chairborne warriors who grasp one or two principles and use them to shield their weak self esteem by bashing every chance they get. An area of the martial arts under constant attack these days is traditional martial arts.

The criticisms of traditional martial arts tend to fall into a few camps:

1. Modern commando wannabes who  claim that old-school martial arts won’t work on “the street”
2. UFC fan testosterone junkies who think that winning sports matches proves a specific style of martial arts is superior to all others
3. The misinformed who read stuff on Internet forums, grasp onto it, and believe it

All of theses stances are fundamentally flawed.

Even though I no longer train in traditional martial arts, I like to keep my mind open and learn as much as I can before opening my mouth or hitting the keyboard. I may not be the most educated person on the planet, but I have 30 years of martial arts study, which is more education than any doctor, lawyer, or professor. There are many people who can school me, but if you fall into one of the categories above – you are not one of them.

Here’s my take:

1. Most traditional styles come from hundreds or thousands of years of battlefield experience. While many of them have transformed into something more spiritual, the principles and concepts are still there.
2. Being tough, or a good martial artist has almost nothing to do with style and almost everything to do with the individual and the way they train. Good MMA people are good because they train hard and they train smart. Teach BJJ to somebody who isn’t going to work hard at it and they are going to suck. Your style is not going to do the work for you.
3. If you want to train for self defense you train for self defense. You do not train for sport, or spiritual enlightenment. There is nothing wrong for training for sport or enlightenment, but it’s difficult to be all you can be with 3 disparate goals.
4. “The Street” sounds really dangerous. Please tell me where this street is so I can avoid it. (I stole that expression from Raymond Desmarais). Seriously, self defense is not “street fighting”. Street fighting is brutal, but if you agree to fight with someone it’s a sport. Self defense is not about fighting and winning, it’s about surviving and escaping. If you don’t understand the difference, you’re not training for self-defense.
5. If the only toolbox you have is a set of lethal skills, I hope you have a good lawyer on retainer. Training in killer commando techniques only doesn’t sit well in jurisdictions which allow for “reasonable force”. If some drunk guy throws a punch at you in a bar and you collapse his windpipe, you may go to the gray bar hotel for the rest of your natural life. Options are good.

I hear a lot of complaints from people watching skill demonstrations or attribute training that go something like:

• That won’t work against somebody who’s resisting
• That won’t work against someone on PCP
• blah blah blah

This is just ignorance. When was the last time you saw someone in the middle of a round in the UFC pickup a jump rope and start skipping, or drop and do pushups, or start hitting a speed bag? Are you going to  lift weights out on “the street”?

I have been in combat commando type classes where the instructor had rank beginners “pressure test” what we were working on and people got hurt. A friend of mine broke his wrist. Why? Because the people didn’t know what the heck they were doing, hadn’t developed control, and their technique was sloppy as hell. Under pressure everything they learned went out the window and it turned into a slug fest. It takes training a long time to get past this point, there are no short-cuts no matter how tough you act.

I hope we can move past the meat-head, energy drink pounding, tribal t-shirt wearing, gladiatorial age that we’re in now. And let’s be clear, I mean no disrespect to any art, including MMA. I do not like the culture of disrespect that is present in so many these days. Someday I hope things change.

Let me start by saying that nothing here is meant to denigrate BJJ or MMA in any way. As a rule, I do not criticize other systems. The BJJ guys I know are amazing martial artists and great athletes. My issue with the name Brazilian Jiujitsu (or Jiu-Jitsu) is a personal hangup, but bear me out here.

As a practitioner of jujutsu (the way we happen to spell the same word), when people hear what I do, they frequently assume I do something else. “Oh, you do that rolling around on the ground stuff right?” I get that all the time. Recently a fellow student of my teacher who has just started teaching complained about the same thing.

With the popularity of the UFC, and the BJJ domination of that sport, it is easy to understand that most people’s exposure to jujutsu has been nearly 100%. Koryu and gendai styles (like Ketsugo Jujutsu) are not generally used for sport and you don’t see them on TV very much.

The basic historical background of BJJ si that it is derived from Kodokan Judo. However, at that time, Judo was sometimes still referred to as Kano Jiu-Jitsu after Jigoro Kano, the father of Judo. It was 1914 when Mitsuyo Maeda brought Judo to Brazil, and it wasn’t until 1925 when the Japanese government declared that the art be called Judo. The Gracie family studied under Maeda in Brazil, and continued to refine and spread their art up to today.

So, there is indeed a historic reason, not that they need one, to call their art Jiu-Jitsu.

For us, ground fighting is not something we choose to do. It usually means you are about to lose your life. So, to be confused with a system that has become synonymous with ground-fighting sometimes takes us back a bit. We practice ground-fighting, but not for sport, and we use tactics which would be illegal in any sport competition (unless you believe the movie Bloodsport was a true story).

So, my personal wish was that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was called Brazilian Judo, or something different. I’m lazy and I’d have less explaining to do. In the end, labels are just that. After all, the name “Ketsugo Jujutsu” (also spelled jujitsu) was created by an American in the 20th century, and it is an eclectic art.

Japanese is an interesting language in that many terms have no direct translation into English. Single sounds can carry worlds of conotation and, when combined with other sounds, produce rich meanings beyond direct translation.

In Japanese, there are 3 almost interchangeable terms which are used to mean “martial arts” – Budo, Bugei, and Bujutsu. Understanding the subtle differences can lend insight into the arts themselves.

First, the character for Bu (武) means war, or military (martial), or having to do with warfare. Bujin, for example, combines the symbols for war and man to mean “warrior”.

Bugei – 武芸, is probably the best literal translation for the term “martial arts.” Budo – 武道 can be translated as the martial way, or path. Bujutsu – 武術 can’t be literally translated, but basically means, “martial science”.

The interesting distinction here is between the characters which are pronounced “do” and “jutsu”. “Do,” meaning path or way, holds the implication of a way of life or path for personal and spiritual perfection. “Jutsu,” in contrast, carries the connotation of a battlefield art.

In Japanese martial arts, there are “do” arts and “jutsu” arts. The do arts place less emphasis on battlefield preparation and more emphasis on personal development. From jujutsu, judo was developed as a way to train the mind and body of young men. From Aikijujutsu, Aikido was developed as a way of pursuing peace through martial arts. From Kenjutsu, Kendo was developed as a method of personal development. These are very simplified distinctions, but they hold truth.

I actually believe it is unfortunate that the Gracies call their art Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, it should probably be called Brazilian Judo. It’s origin is from Kodokan Judo. Nowadays, because of the UFC, every time I tell someone I practice jujutsu, they think I focus on mat wrestling. This is not to denigrate Brazilian Jui-jitsu, it’s  just not what I do.