“Unlike boxing, jiu-jitsu is about control: there’s no anger, no aggression”

ave, whom I’ve only known for a few minutes, is kneeling between my thighs as I lie with my back on the floor, his hands on my hips. This might seem compromising, but in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, this is “the guard”: an ostensibly defensive position that, in reality, presents an array of offensive options. It is also – as my first lesson at martial arts gym Fightzone in east London is teaching me – a great icebreaker.

From here, I can dislodge one of Dave’s hands and tug on the lapel of his gi while bringing him forward with my hips, so that his weight traps his arm against my chest. I can then reach around to grab his back, while getting hold of his trouser leg on the same side. From here, I can lift my own leg up as a lever and “sweep” him, so that I’m on top (“the mount”). Then I can grip his other lapel and, bringing my hands together like a pair of scissors, cut off his air supply. That is, if I can remember the sequence of moves that was demonstrated to our class moments before, never mind execute them.

“It’s like chess,” says Dave, a 26-yearold computer programmer who’s shorter and slighter than I am, but sweeps me with surprising ease. We’re not sparring or “rolling”; we’re just practising moves. He encourages me to choke him harder by pushing my wrist bone into his throat.

To paraphrase Tyler Durden, even if this is your first day at Fightzone, you have to fight. As we slap hands to signal that we’re ready, I’m apprehensive, even though Brazilian jiu-jitsu doesn’t involve much punching or kicking. I needn’t have worried. Dave and I spend most of our time locked in stalemate, barely moving but sweating buckets. The class tires me out in a way that even my twice-weekly fivea-side can’t match. It’s clearly a crushing workout. But that doesn’t explain why people are so fixated on being asphyxiated. So what else is getting them so gassed?

Brazilian jiu-jitsu descends from a martial art originally developed in feudal Japan, before being exported to Brazil on a wave of Japanese immigration around the turn of the 20th century. Jiu-jitsu roughly translates as “the gentle art”, which, to the uninitiated, might seem inappropriate. An alternative interpretation might be “yielding”, the idea being to redirect your opponent’s force, rather than to meet it head-on. It’s about taking your opponent down to the ground, where you can oblige them to submit with limb locks or chokes.

“Jiu-jitsu is learning how to control another person,” says Fightzone co-founder James Roach. “It’s not aggressive. There’s no anger. It’s not like boxing, where you’re trading punches, toe to toe. In a lot of ways, it’s worse than that. It’s like being attacked by a snake, and the snake is slowly moving up your leg, going up your torso, working its way towards your neck...”

Best of the Best

Roach greeted me with a warm smile when I finally girded myself and entered Fightzone. But that doesn’t make rolling with the 6ft 2in, 88kg brown belt – one below black – in my second lesson any less intimidating. I’m 5ft 10in, 80kg and currently beltless because Fightzone has run out of the white novice ones; my lack of a waistband feels emblematic of my ability. Roach manipulates me at will, like a child playing with an action figure. He sportingly lets me out of his guard, before pulling me back in with his hands and dexterous feet. Though I know I’m doomed, there is something compelling, even fun, about trying to delay the inevitable. It’s like a Rubik’s Cube of limbs.

In 2012, Roach opened Fightzone with Marco Canha, a Rio de Janeiroborn black belt and former British Open champion, running 34 classes a week. They’ve since expanded that to 120. Boasting “the busiest martial arts schedule in Europe”, Fightzone also teaches MMA, Muay Thai, wrestling and boxing. But Brazilian jiu-jitsu has always dominated, and its classes are the best attended.

Ten years ago, Roach was working as a surveyor on building sites and staying up with his mates to watch UFC. The first-ever event was won by Royce Gracie – a scion of a legendary dynasty that developed, then popularised, Brazilian jiu-jitsu – settling the debate about who’d win in a bracketstyle, single-elimination tournament out of a boxer, a kick-boxer, a karateka and a sumo wrestler. (Royce’s half-brother, Rickson Gracie, also choked out Chuck Norris on another occasion.) After meeting Canha at a Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament in Sweden, Roach sold his house to fund Fightzone and now lives in the gym in a space he’s converted upstairs. His girlfriend often works on the front desk, while Canha’s children attend the kids’ classes.

Brazilian jiu-jitsu has many passionate, often high-profile adherents, some of whom I’ve interviewed for this magazine: Jason Statham (who rolled with Guy Ritchie while on the press tour for Lock, Stock…), Henry Cavill and Kelly Slater. More recent converts include Justin Bieber, conscious, perhaps, of how many people want to strangle him, and Russell Brand, who interviewed Ryron and Rener Gracie for his Under the Skin podcast. It’s a club in which the first two rules (“You do not talk about Fight Club”) are regularly flouted. But, while celebrity endorsements may get members through the door, something else is locking them in.

Origin Stories

While, in most martial arts, there’s a natural hierarchy – stronger, fitter men tend to fare better – Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a great leveller. As Roach puts it: “There’s no fat or thin, rich or poor. Everyone’s the same on the mat. Everyone wears the same £60 gi.” That many of the men I roll with are a good few kilos heavier than me would matter far less, too, if I had even a modicum of technique, because Brazilian jiu-jitsu was devised to counteract just such imbalances.

Carlos Gracie is often regarded as the father of the martial art, having founded the first academy in Rio de Janeiro in the 1920s, but his younger brother Hélio should at least be considered its uncle. A frail child who was often excused from school on health grounds, Hélio adapted the techniques he had learned to compensate for his weakness, leveraging, well, leverage instead of strength.

The Gracie brothers earned renown in their native land with a series of “vale tudo” (“anything goes”) challenges. One of Hélio’s sons, Rorion, opened the first American Gracie Academy in LA, where – as the legend goes – he offered $100,000 to anyone who could beat him or his brothers. Recognising the first-ever UFC as a major marketing opportunity,