What a cool piece of history!

We just had a fun little trip down memory lane on a Danish BJJ Facebook group, trying to figure out when the first academies opened and it seems like it was around 2003. Many were submission grappling before that, definitely since 1997-1999 (where I started myself) but we didn't really know about BJJ per se. I hosted a competition in 2001 with a gi division as well, but nobody really knew what they were doing, except for some Judo/Ju-Jutsu guys.

Sweden were definitely ahead of the game and some purple belts came to Copenhagen to introduce it around 2001-2002, I believe (Peter Blackwell and Bobby Sundell).

Tbh, I still don't know if there were many non-Scandinavian BJJ academies to contact in Europe in 1998. Perhaps some one can fill me in there?

In Sweden, the first black belt led seminar was in 1996, which is generally viewed as the birth of Swedish BJJ. Before that, there was of course some "BJJ inspired" training at some places, in the wake of the early UFC and the Gracies in action videos. Practitioners of other martial arts dissecting what they saw and putting pieces together. Some even searching out instructors abroad (earliest notion is from 1993).

My own first BJJ instructor (the white belt with blue gi top on the poster above) visited Academia Strike in Rio de Janeiro before the "birth seminar" in Sweden and started instructing us when he got home, so that's when I got my own start.

Linked article is on the European "dirty dozen" (first 12 BB:s): https://www.bjjee.com/art[...]ack-belts/ . The article claims the first European BJJ academy was Le Cercle Tissier in Paris. That was in 1995 according to this article: https://www.bjjee.com/art[...]opean-bjj/

I think Finland was a year or so earlier than Sweden with BJJ, so they might be in a tie with the french on being first in Europe. Perhaps with Sweden as the third country.

The UK and Poland I believe were also quite early (late 90:s?)

BTW, I just saw in a letter about the 1998 European championship that there was both a Swedish and a European Brazilian Jiujitsu Federation in place when that was arranged, but it never really took flight after. I also read that the original plan was to arrange the first European Championship already in 1997 in Finland, but as that never happened, there was a Swedish initiative to co-arrange the championship in Sweden the year after instead.

I believe Robin Gracie opened up Gracie Barcelona in 1998, and that Sandro Bala opened 2 Brothers in Portugal around 1999. I know from my coaches stories that there were people teaching some bjj in Portugal earlier than that but I think it was more of a private setup, I could be wrong though.

There were clubs active in the UK in the late 1990s, but yeah, not many and I'm not sure they would have been at a level to send people to a tournament abroad by 1998. Maybe France, they were early? And of course Remco Pardoel in the Netherlands (who has posted here, I'd love to hear his thoughts if he sees this thread).

I didn't even know about it! I thought 2004 in Lisbon was the first.

When did Scandinavian Open start? It's not THAT big now is it but for a while it was pretty big right? (2005-2015?)

Finland has had a strong Hokutoryu jiu-jitsu scene (an "European" jiujitsu style developed here by Auvo Niiniketo; obviously very different from BJJ) and thus a "jiujitsu" club in Helsinki since the late 70s. People training there were interested in other martial arts and types of jiujitsu as well. The Hokotoryu instructors started inviting BJJ people over in the mid 90s: the first Brazilians were Alexandre “Gigi” Paiva and Francisco Canepa for a seminar on 7th-8th December 1996, and their visits became a regular thing, along with other Alliance bosses like Fabio Gurgel. This can be considered the birth of BJJ in a bigger way in Finland, since these seminars were attended by a decent sized groups of people, who then kept practicing & passed the knowledge forward. But at least Rikard Andersson of Sweden (Hilti BJJ founder) had visited the club before the Brazilians to show some ground stuff.

So Finland has not been that much ahead of Sweden. For quite a long time, BJJ in Finland was practiced in an organized manner only in the Hokutoryu jiu-jitsu club premises (Helsingin Jujutsuklubi/Helsinki's Jiujitsu Club) at Kaapelitehdas, Helsinki, along with the main style. (The club still operates and teaches both jiujitsus.) So we had a club before the art arrived. :)

A bit earlier, around '93-'94, Markku Juntunen of Takado in Espoo (originally a karate gym founded in the '70s that later expanded to different styles of jiujitsu), who was a wrestler and Hokutoryu/"European" jiu-jitsu practioner, had started self-studying BJJ based on the Gracie vhs tapes after seeing the first UFCs, and teaching it. He also started traveling to the US to train and got his blue belt (as the first Finn) in May 1997 from Carlos Henrique Elias “Caique” at the Gracie Academy in L.A. The first Finnish purple belt was Tino Korpimäki in 1998, a bit before Juntunen. Korpimäki had spent an exchange study year in Brazil and earned a blue belt there in 1997 (a bit after Juntunen). Juntunen later became the first Finnish BJJ brown belt in May 2002 (under Alexandre Paiva) and the first Finnish BJJ black belt on June 17th 2004 (from Paiva); as far as I know as the second BJJ black belt in Scandinavia after Sweden's Peter Blackwell. (Rikard Andersson also got his black in 2004 but I believe after Juntunen.) Juntunen was also instrumental in founding the Finnish Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Federation in 2000.

It would be cool to know of any Finns competing in the tournament 25 years ago!

Jorgen, Scandinavian Open seems to have started in 2003 and in 2004, they claimed to be the biggest competition in Europe. https://web.archive.org/w[...]/index.htm

Tatu, you've really read up on Finnish BJJ history! Really good overview. I'm quite sure Daniela Paiva (Alexandres wife and a brown belt at the time) was in Finland too in 1996. I think Canepa only visited once, ie not after 1996. I have to find some more documentation of my own to really make sure if they were to Finland or Sweden first, although I'm quite sure it was the weekend before in Sweden (it would be really odd to put a seminar on the Lucia holiday in Sweden and end of november rings a bell). Very clear that Finland and Sweden went hand in hand into the world of BJJ. Finlands sak är vår and vice versa! :-)

From the 1998 European championship, I remember Jari Ilkka (-73kg, bronze medal in open division) and Markku Juntunen (+73kg) from Finland. Might very well have been only them.

I communicated with Markku over FB a few days ago and he started bjj-dedicated training classes already in 1992, based on instructional videos etc. Pre UFC, so that's crazy early to see the light! He also mentioned a Jacaré seminar in Paris which he attended before the first one in Finland, although after the Rickson seminar in Paris. And in 1997, he met Helio Gracie too. I think I met Markku for the first time the year after, when he was in Sweden for seminars and the championship. I was also at the seminar when Alexandre Paiva promoted him to black belt, 10 years before I got my own (also from Alexandre at a seminar in Finland). I hope to return many times, if you'll have me (I don't think I've disputed any Finnish belts on Beltchecker so far : -).

Read is correct... this is well before my time :) although I have had convos with many of the original people involved. This is the first time I hear that there were already BJJ classes here as early as 1992!

The Paiva & Canepa seminar on 7-8th Dec 1996 should be a correct date (I am actually quoting Jari Anttila, who is a BJJ black belt and also here on Beltchecker, writing to Finnish-language potku.net forum in 2006, citing Helsingin Jujutsuklubi's Jari Pere, who was known as Jari Sivula at the time, as the source). Also a later seminar by Paiva & Miranda on June 1st 1997 gets a mention.

Most of the OG coaches in the capital area got their start in the training sessions at Kaapeli, including mine (Sammy Hämäläinen of GB Gym).

Jari Ilkka is a Finnish MMA pioneer and I believe he participated in the mentioned European Championship without ever having trained BJJ in the gi, so bronze in open weight is quite a nice result! :D He also won the Finnish MMA Nationals (Wasafight 1) in 1999.

A black belt from my gym is in the process of writing a book about the history of jiujitsu/submission wrestling in Finland (in Finnish), which hopefully will enlighten lot of stuff. It will include all kinds of jiujitsu and submission grappling though, not just our beloved Brazilian variant. He has been studying a lot and conducting a good amount of interviews for it.

There was no open weight division, it was open as in open for non-Europeans to participate. In 1998, Jari was already known for starting Finnfight, where some early Swedish BJJ practitioners also fought. I think that was the first ever full contact Scandinavian MMA competition (usually called NHB back then).

Roberto "Rouba" Miranda was in Sweden for several months, from spring (maybe even mid or late winter) to a little past midsummer in 1997, holding regular classes as well as at least one seminar. So the visit to Finland should have been during that stay. I'm not totally sure if Paiva (or even Canepa) visited while Rouba was here, but it's not impossible.

Petty I won't be able to read the upcoming book. Sounds like a really interesting project!

Ah, I misread your post, sorry!

Very cool tidbits of early Scandinavian BJJ/MMA history!

Since I like statistics, here's the number of new BJJ black belts in Finland each year since the first one, during the formative years:

2004: 1
2005-2007: -
2008: 3
2009: 1
2010: 6
2011: 4
2012: 4
2013: 16
2014: 21
...and then at some point it gets quite high.

A certain Swede not included in those 21? I was promoted at the same Alliance Founders Seminar where a lot of Finns also got their BB.

At that time, there were around 100 BB:s in Sweden (not all born here).

Oh, btw, I noticed the belts on the seminar pic above. During the first years, in academies not exclusively training BJJ, it was not uncommon to wear your non-BJJ belt to BJJ training (even seminars with the Brazilians). Basically no one was promoted in BJJ anyways and no one expected you to be, no matter what belt you were wearing. Nowadays, you would probably be treated with tar and feathers if you did the same thing. Perhaps I should dust off my old karate belt and see what happens if I wear it to BJJ :-)

Sorry, you don't count. :) I believe it's either Finnish people (also those who have gotten their belts while abroad) and people who have settled to live in Finland and have trained here... FBJJF keeps an up-to-date list: https://bjjliitto.fi/info[...]hp?lang=en (FBJJF INFO -> HIGHEST BELT GRADES).

And the winners were...

Ladies: Caren Pacull (Stockholm Jujutsu Dojo)
Ladies open division (non-Europeans allowed): Daniela Paiva Figuredo (Alliance team, Brazil)
Men -73kg: Anders Cardell (Rikards jiujitsu academy)
Men -73kg open division: Crosley Gracie (Carlson Gracie team, Brazil)
Men +73kg: Henrik Rådström (Rikards jiujitsu academy)
Men +73kg open division: Victor Vianna (Alliance team, Brazil)

(listed in the Swedish Tidningen Kampsport magazine - some spelling errors corrected, but there might be more)

Some rules of 1998 (from the European open championship, March 14-15), quickly translated by me:

Points: As today
Penalties/warnings: Second warning gives opponent 2 points, third gives disqualification
Time: 8 minutes, but increased to 10 minutes in the open division (open for non-Europeans).

List of forbidden techniques etc:
-Escaping the mat
-Trying to flee from the opponent or runt out of the oppoonents reach
-Grabbing the belt with both hands for more than three seconds
-Talking to the referee
-Techniques such as punches, kicks, headbutting, grabbing the groin or other similar attacks which can hurt the opponent.
-Grabbing the opponents fingers, ears or hair.
-Screaming or calling the opponent or referee nasty things.
-Heel hooks or ancle locks.
-Other unsportsmanlike behaviour.

I wonder if kneebars were legal... or slamming.

This also reminds me of what I think was Rasperryape's podcast episode with one of the UK scene's OG's, who was talking about the weird rules of the very first UK BJJ tournaments: for example a submission didn't end a match, you just got points and the match was restarted. :D

Probably having the Alliance folk and other Brazilians at this tourney helped with the ruleset make more sense.

Also interesting concept to have the "true" European divisions + the opens (for the Brazilians to win...). IBJJF's Euros have been Open from the start.

I was just thinking the same. Perhaps slamming and supplex would go under "similar attacks which can hurt the opponent". I can't recall seeing any (or any knee bars or banana splits or twisters etc.) in the tournament though.

When I think of it, another thing odd by today's standards was referees adjusting uniforms of contestants quite a lot without stopping the match, while they would continue wrestling each other. And referees just making a very short stop and then quickly and unceremoniously dragging the contestants back in towards the center of the mat (unclear whether the clock was paused).

I asked Alexandre when I was at his camp at Takado in Espoo (Finland) last weekend and he confirmed that they went to Sweden before they went to Finland.

He could also confirm that Fabio and Jacaré went to Denmark to compete in (non Brazilian) jiu-jitsu already in 1993 and also recall that they might have been invited over by Remco (only Fabio went?) after, so it points towards Holland actually being first in Europe with a black belt led BJJ seminar, before Rickson in Paris. Although he also recalled Remco not being a black belt at the mundials in 1996, but he wasn't part of arranging it, so he didn't know why Remco was allowed into the BB division.

Can’t believe there was a competition in Denmark when I was 11 years old, damn I wish I had seen that, would definitely have gotten me out of Taekwondo earlier 😄

Christian, you're in luck! The competition was actually filmed and chosen parts have been uploaded to youtube (https://www.youtube.com/w[...]oWxjP0hoG8).

I'm actually not very sure about the rules. If it's some kind of knock down karate equivalent standing up, they're not very good at it. If it's not and they're not supposed to hurt each other, they're even worse at it :-)

There's actually a couple of really nice judo style throws, perhaps aided by differences in level and weight.

The ground game is surprisingly non impressive and I have to say the Brazilians don't stand out as I thought they would, even though there are some very well known names there. Do we overestimate the BJJ level of that time and underestimate the comparative grappling level that could be found outside of Brazil already then? Or is it the rules and other circumstances of this particular competition at play?

A very interesting watch, as there is not that much available pre UFC material with BJJ to watch which has not been cherry picked.

On Fernando Yamasaki's page on BJJheroes (https://www.bjjheroes.com[...]o-yamasaki), the competition is mentioned where it says that "in 1992 Fernando was introduced to yet another style of combat, commonly referenced as ‘Sport Ju Jutsu’ in Europe. One that adds strikes to grappling. He decided to study the art and its rules, bringing it to Brazil and forming the first Brazilian national team for this discipline’s World Cup in Copenhagen, Denmark (1992) [error, should be 1993] – at which Brazil took 2nd Place [did they? see podium shots in film]. His involvement with this sport and its federation – International Ju-Jutsu Federation (JJIF) earned him the title of “Brazilian jiu jitsu’s traitor” by both Carlos Gracie Jr and Nahum Rabay, who voiced their outrage publicly. This quarrel was short lived and the relationships re-established.". I wonder if equally harsh words were also aimed at the other Brazilian participants and coaches of the world cup at this time. Now in very good standing with IBJJF though.

Ah yes, Sport Ju Jutsu was kind of big in Europe maybe 20 years ago. It's basically just point Karate and Judo. I think it's still relatively big in Germany and France?

Bad Boy cup in gothenburg 2001 😊