Although they are closely related there are quite a few subtle differences between the Brazilian style of Jujitsu and traditional Japanese Jujutsu. What most people have come to associate with Japanese Jujutsu are actually only partial or incomplete systems taken from the Koryu or old style Jujutsu as was developed before the Meji restoration of feudal Japan. The popular styles of “Small Circle” and other modern styles of Americanized Jujutsu for the most part focus on small joint manipulation, joint locking and throws. Most of the submissions are chokes or submissions that can easily be escaped by intermediate level grappling as opposed to the throws that do not allow proper Ukemi or breakfalling and the weapons based systems of Koryu Bujutsu or Traditional Japanese Jujutsu.

Japanese Jujutsu for the most part is based around the use of battle field weapons such as the sword, spear and clave. Any holds were generally for the sake of restraining someone long enough to take out your sword or knife to kill them or to tie them up so as to capture them, where Brazilian Jujitsu submissions are to demonstrate the ability to dislocate a joint , choke unconscious, or control an opponent for the sake of winning a contest. Now that is not to say Brazilian Jujitsu is not effective as a martial art but rather the main purpose that it is practiced today is as a sport.

Because of these differences in design the postures of Japanese grappling tend to look very much like one is carrying a sword and so it is rare to see a practitioner rolling around on the ground where they would be unable to defend themselves from multiple attackers or draw their sword. As an example let us look at a simple guard pass from closed guard. In beginner to intermediate level BJJ the guard is first broken with the person who is attempting to escape keeping their head down to avoid any submission attempts until able to posture up, split guard and get into either side control or full mount. In more advanced grappling they may go straight to a submission attempt instead of passing first. Because Japanese Jujutsu was designed with multiple attackers in mind you would instead see a more erect posture as soon as possible to better see what is going on around you. This is certainly not the optimal position for someone that does not want to get punched, kicked or submitted from the person who was holding them in their guard but would allow them to more easily see another possible attack, stand quickly and draw weapon. As you can see there are several challenges for the practitioner of traditional Japanese Jujutsu to modify their posture and technique in order to be competitive with even a beginner in BJJ or modern grappling.

When I first started teaching competitive grappling about 10 years ago the competition was generally at a novice level and we could get away with bad posture and poor submissions. Now because of the wide spread instruction from books, video, and the internet as well as qualified instructors in Brazilian Jujitsu it is no longer possible to hope to be competitive as a grappler without modifying technique to the state of the art in advanced guard positions, sweeps, counters, posture, submissions and escapes. I have taken the best of my traditional training in Japanese Jujutsu such as the use of pressure points, sticking with and controlling an opponent by multiple contact points, proper base, creating and controlling space and the strategy of leading your opponent into a trap as well as the other soft skills of any fighting system and combined them with everything I could learn from my friends who train in BJJ, and Western Style Wrestling. It now seems that I have come full circle. By utilizing some of the variations on technique of the Japanese Jujutsu practitioners of BJJ have a harder time neutralizing or countering some of our submissions.