#000453
Gracie: The Complete Instructional Manual
Cesar Gracie and Ralph Gracie
*Gracie: The Complete Instructional Manual* holds a small place in the history of Brazilian jiu-jitsu as, by its own billing, the first official Gracie instructional book ever published. Its authors, cousins Cesar and Ralph Gracie, were among the family members who carried the art to the United States, opening an influential academy in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1990s BJJ boom. The book walks the reader step by step through their approach to the ground game, illustrated with hundreds of photographs, and opens with a brief illustrated history of the famous fighting dynasty. As instruction it is very much of its moment—straightforward, foundational, less refined than the technical manuals that followed—but that early-days quality is part of its appeal. For collectors and students of BJJ's spread beyond Brazil, it's a genuinely interesting and now fairly scarce artifact.
more…less ▴
The authors
Cesar and Ralph Gracie are cousins within the sprawling Gracie family that developed and popularized Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Both were significant figures in bringing the art to North America, establishing a well-known academy in the San Francisco Bay Area and producing a generation of competitors during the sport's explosive 1990s growth.
The book
Billed as the first official Gracie instructional manual, the book takes the reader step by step through the family's fighting style, with hundreds of photographs documenting positions, submissions, and escapes, and includes a short illustrated history of the Gracie lineage. It captures the art at the moment it was first being systematized for an American audience.
How to read it
It is foundational rather than fine-grained—useful as a record of early Gracie instruction and as a historical document more than as a cutting-edge technical reference, given how far BJJ pedagogy has since advanced. That early-adopter character, and its relative scarcity, are much of what make it worth having.
For more context
It complements later, more detailed instructionals such as Renzo Gracie and John Danaher's Mastering Jujitsu and the many Gracie video courses.
Sources - Amazon listing - Internet Archive
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Cesar Gracie and Ralph Gracie
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Craft & How-to
- Location
- Colorado