What makes Jiujitsu work so well against bigger opponents?

The question of which martial art or combat sport was best has been around a long time.

For some is was answered when UFC 1 happened and Royce Gracie showed the world the mostly unheard of art of Brazilian Jiujitsu, an evolved style of traditional jujitsu and Judo.

In that event and the 4 that followed he went undefeated before leaving the organisation, he was hand picked for his weak unassuming look vs literally bigger, muscular and far more athletic opponents.

An argument was made that his brother who ran the organisation had hand picked his fights but no matter what he would meet such standards as 2 time NCAA division 1 wrestler in Dan "the beast" Severn at UFC 4. For me this proved the power of Jiujitsu, being pinned under a wrestler in a no holds barred fight for close to quarter of an hour, not only surviving against the far bigger grappler using a guard position, but defeating him with a triangle choke from underneath him to win his 3rd UFC tournament.

It was also noted at this time his brother Rickson (who Royce said was ten times better than him) was collecting an 11-0 undefeated streak aswell over in Japan, winning 2 Vale Tudo tournaments and Pride FC fights.

The feat had answered the question, this new systematic art of carefully closing distance, grabbing and grounding the fight, followed by getting a position of control from top or bottom and submitting was proving unstoppable. It didn't seem to matter who was placed Infront of them.

Later the term MMA was coined as all fighters now realised that this new art was a must have in your arsenal, if even to just understand how to defend it.

Unified rules introduced gloves, weight classes, rounds and stand ups for inactivity on the ground in an effort to make the sport more appealing and arguably to restrict Jiujitsu's sheer dominance.

So what makes it work so well? If it wasn't fitness or strength, or bodyweight then what? We've all seen the chi flow masters claim to have some sort of power and be proved wrong each time.

Ex Navy SEAL commander Jocko Willink says Jiujitsu is a superpower!

So what is this power we use that almost all other arts don't use or at least don't as much as jiujitsu?

That power isn't chi but...

LEVERAGE!

Let's get nerdy!

A Jiujitsu black belt is an expert at creating levers, and uses tourqe or leverage to bend or twist the human body against the way it was designed.

It amplifies strength(Or effort) massively to leave even the biggest person helplessly overpowered. Think of an arm wrestle but you are allowed use both hands, a jiujitsu person isolates limbs in positions where they have more body parts available to attack than they do, leaving 2 hands free to attack one. But that's not enough, what if the person is 4 times your strength? A fulcrum is made to prevent momentum so that their strength never gets to be used. The effort is applied at a distance from the fulcrum (making them into as big a lever as possible) allowing maximum leverage to be used meaning the minimum of effort needed to overpower their resistance can be found and used to win. The bigger the lever created the easier it is to use leverage to overcome them.

Boxing is nicknamed the sweet science, I once heard a quote that "if boxing is the sweet science, jiujitsu would be quantum physics," although we aren't operating at a quantum level, jiujitsu is definitely an extremely scientific and nerdy art! Which makes it attract some of the smartest of fighters!

Those of which can see past the lengthy times between belts and stick it out long-term instead of looking for or needing constant rewards. Its massive worldwide+90% drop out rate and constant evolving style has kept it reserved for the few and keeps it, what I call the most effective martial art in the world!