At a very young age, Helio Gracie learned traditional Japanese Jiu-Jitsu techniques from his older brother, Carlos. In the late 1920s, he began to modify these techniques to accommodate his frail physique with the objective of developing a system that would enable him to defend himself against larger opponents. After years of refinement, he proved his art’s effectiveness by routinely defeating larger and stronger opponents, some of whom outweighed him by as much as 100 pounds. As a result, Helio’s techniques quickly became the new expression of Jiu-Jitsu in Brazil and set the stage for a worldwide revolution in martial arts.

Since the creation of Gracie Jiu-jitsu over 85 years ago, numerous Gracie family members and their representatives have proven the effectiveness of this art time and time again, in the streets, dojo’s, and sporting arena’s all over the world. Today, the total street effectiveness of Gracie Jiu-jitsu is well known to people in all walks of life. These techniques and strategies have continued to evolve and be refined throughout the last century into the revolutionary teaching system that we are able to present to you today.

- Gracie Combatives: Although there are over 600 techniques in the Gracie curriculum, studies have shown that 36 primary techniques have been used more often, and with the most combat effectiveness, than all of the other techniques combined.

The Bushin Martial Arts Academy is a certified Gracie Jiu-jitsu Training Center. We offer the Gracie Combatives Jiu-jutsu course, which combines these 36 techniques into a revolutionary system that is designed to bring you from zero experience to real street effectiveness in self defense in the least amount of time possible. The Gracie Combatives Course is the starting point for all new and intermediate students, and the curriculum is presented exactly as it is at the Gracie Jiu-jitsu Academy headquarters in Torrance, California. Jiu-jitsu techniques focus more on leverage and timing rather than power and speed, making it an ideal art for a smaller person that wishes to be able to defend themselves against a larger, stronger opponent.

We offer this course in Jiu-jitsu study in conjunction with our other curriculums, and highly recommend that practitioners take advantage of multiple discipline studies in order to maximize their training and to become as well rounded a martial artist as possible.

- The Master Cycle: Beyond blue belt, Gracie-jiu-jitsu consists of hundreds of advanced techniques, which we have organized into a clearly defined, systematic curriculum called the Master Cycle. In order to streamline the learning process, we have divided all of the techniques in the Master Cycle in to seven Positional Chapters: Mount, Side Mount, Guard, Half Guard, Back Mount, Leg Locks, and Standing. For more detailed learning, we further divided each positional chapter into 2-4 subsections. The Master Cycle is available to students who have achieved their blue belt and above only.