Women Fighters as Agents of Change: A Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Case Study from Finland

Abstract

Brazilian jiu jitsu (BJJ), a grappling system of combat, evolved from the teachings of a Japanese judoka who moved to Brazil in the 1920s. Focusing on ground fighting, BJJ is rapidly evolving into a combat sport with competitions taking place worldwide (Hogeveen and Hardes, 2014; Spencer, 2014). Unique to the BJJ culture is the way that the ‘secrets’ of the sport are transferred from expert to novice and from one club to the other. Clubs are organised into international ‘teams’, shaping global communities of practitioners that share techniques and philosophies. Unlike many other martial arts that insist on the traditional way of passing knowledge from one teacher to many students behind the closed doors of the dojo (martial arts school), BJJ is open to innovation (Hogeveen and Hardes, 2014) and its techniques are conveyed from ‘many masters to many students’ via the Internet and expert seminars (Spencer, 2014). As students improve their technical knowledge and skills, their progress is defined according to a coloured system of belts. In most cases, the journey from white to black belt is extremely difficult compared to other martial arts due to the strict promotion criteria of BJJ (Spencer, 2014).