Editorial

What would be of the history of the humanity without the revolutionaries? Those stubborn beings that, for an ideal, facing everything and everyone, swimming against the current, being called crazy, until the day that they prove, in practice, his theories and, from crazy, they begin to be recognized as geniuses. We could say hundreds of examples in history, in politics and in science, but, as our focus here is the martial arts, we will stick to three men: Mayeda, Gracie and Machida.

At the beginning of last century, when the great majority of Jiu-Jitsu practitioners in Japan emphasized the "sportization" of the modality, started with the Judô of Jigoro Kano, his student, Koma Mitsuyo Mayeda, decided to win the world tracking the most difficult way, by doing challenges and showing the efficiency of the most complete Japanese art in real combats.

After participating of hundreds of challenges in Europe and in Americas, Mitsuyo finally reached Belém do Pará, where he met, in 1916, another revolutionary stubborn: Carlos Gracie, who, with the help of his brother Helio, transformed and spread the teachings of the Japanese to the world, through the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and Vale-Tudo, on this that is considered the biggest revolution in the history of Martial Arts: The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), created by Rorion Gracie, in 1993.

In 1968, when the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was already recognized for its efficiency in Brazil and already began to be exported, another Japanese, Yoshizo Machida, crossed the world and began another silent revolution, coincidentally also in Belém, the same fertile soil, where Koma planted his seed.

With 21 years old and only two seedlings of clothing in the luggage, Yoshizo reached Pará where, not only established his Caratê, as fixed residence in the city, getting married with a Brazilian, with who he had four children. Through one of them, Lyoto, the Machida are foisting to the MMA world in 2009, a revolution similar to the one that Royce Gracie made in 1993, at the UFC. The difference is that the Gracie made his opponents look like children, with the Jiu-Jitsu, on the ground, while Lyoto is doing the same in the standing fight, with the Caratê, having won the most coveted belt of the UFC after knockout the unbeaten Rashad Evans, in his 15th consecutive victory. To try to better understand the Machida revolution, we went to Belém to meet the protagonists of this story. The result you follow from page 14.

Good reading and until next month.

Marcelo Alonso

alonso@tatame.com.br