Most students who begin the journey of studying Gracie/ Brazilian jiu jitsu hope never to be in a situation in which they have to use a jiu jitsu technique to injure another person. The reality however, is that many techniques empower students to be able to: render others unconscious, break joints, break bones, or slam a person to the ground with a great impact. Some jiu jitsu self-defense techniques are capable of inflicting death. Most Brazilian jiu jitsu schools do not educate students on use of force laws that define the boundaries of the lawful use of force in self-defense. Few schools offer even ethical and moral guidance on the use of the powerful techniques of jiu jitsu on other people. This is a dangerous flaw in the typical model for teaching jiu jitsu in the Lakewood and Denver area. The Jefferson county Sheriff’s Office has links to recommended laws...Read more

If you can recite the above statement truthfully, you are in the good company of thousands of people who have been disappointed with their first experience with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. For some, that disappointment was manifested as humiliation or injuries. This widespread pattern begs the question of how the “gentle art” became a venue for alpha male smash sessions. Gracie Jiu Jitsu came to the U.S. in 1978 with a single teacher- Rorion Gracie. Rorion taught Gracie Jiu Jitsu as it was designed by his father- for self defense. In 1993 the world was introduced to Gracie Jiu Jitsu on the grand stage of the UFC, when Royce Gracie used jiu jitsu to defeat larger opponents who were all trained fighters. The remarkable reality of how those fights unfolded was that Royce used Gracie self-defense strategies and techniques to win all of those fights. For some time before 1993, permutations...Read more

Your Jiu Jitsu Training Partners Are Not the Enemy We are all indebted to the partners with whom we train each night we get on the mats. It is important that we practice with our training partners using control and restraint when applying techniques. This is a basic respect will all owe each other. Most all of us have families to go home to and jobs we must go to the next day. No one should face the threat of having to go to work the next day with a busted lip, twisted neck, or jammed fingers due to an ego blinded training partner. The enemy is outside on the streets, not next to you at Lakewood Jiu Jitsu Academy. Your Jiu Jitsu Partners Are Not Your YouTube Dummies Lakewood Jiu Jitsu is not the place to practice fancy moves you’ve seen in a Youtube video or at some sport...Read more

Japanese jujitsu (traditional spelling) techniques were first used in the 1100s by the early samurai. The term “jujitsu” wasn’t even used to describe these techniques until the 1600s. Traditional jujitsu started fading into obscurity in Japan through the Edo period (1603-1868) as hundreds of years of civil war had ended and there was relative peace in Japan. The samurai slowly faded as the need for their combat prowess faded. A version of jujitsu reemerged in the late 1800s as Jigorno Kano rebranded jujitsu as “judo” from his Tokyo school called the Kodokan.    Some of the last holdout styles were training at the Budokukai in Kyoto. The Budokukai was an institute for Japanese warfare, whereas Kano’s Kodokan was a school for the much more sportive judo, which had many rules and had eliminated many of the more dangerous techniques of old jujitsu. In the late 1890s, Budokukai competitors were regularly defeating...Read more