The research begins with a contextual analysis of jiu jitsu examining the historical works of Jigoro Kano (1860-1938), the founding father of modern judo, and I consider his philosophy and practice as forming a pedagogy to inspire practitioners to become more skilled, intellectual, and of good moral character. To complement this, I also engaged the work of Helio Gracie (1913-2009) who reconceptualised Kano’s judo and fashioned it into what is more popularly known as Brazilian jiu jitsu (BJJ). Like Kano, Gracie also desired to perpetuate the practice of jiu jitsu (self-defence) as a way of life for civic virtue. Yet, as I examined the work of Kano and Gracie under the general term jiu jitsu, I realised that their theoretical propositions were never realised from the perspective of embodied practice nor intellectualised as an embodied study.

This research analyses the effects of the lived body through the practice of jiu jitsu, the Brazilian influence of Jigoro Kano’s judo. I discovered the lived body concept through the three embodiments of self-location, body ownership, and agency (Roth and Latoschik, 2020, p. 3). This work attempts to develop an aesthetic perspective of jiu jitsu through the lived body concept and uses a phenomenological interpretation of practice that departs from a mere instrumentalization of the body. The lived body concept is central to embodiment theory, and I argue that the essence of jiu jitsu is as much “art” as it is “martial”. The thesis argues that jiu jitsu is not a straightforward purposefulness of movement towards self-defence or competition. Just as dance and music could be composed separately in time spans, the arc between self-defence and competition possesses an aliveness of space where time is used by a number of conscious bodies in different ways for different reasons. The stream of consciousness of alive bodies becomes a fusion of abstractions, imagination, agential engagement, and exerting power which reveals the drama of the lived body. When put together, the formation of group dynamics creates a “simultaneity of happenings” and an overlapping of the use of time (Fraleigh, 1996, p. xxvii).

Jiu jitsu is a composition of diverse beings who express themselves in ways beyond elite athleticism and combat. While self-defence and sport create a vitality of practice that most can enjoy, the research looked beyond these to understand how the formation of jiu jitsuans creates a rich tapestry of aesthetic perspective that helps to unlock the mysteries of self. The broader practice of jiu jitsu must consider the breadth of space that it occupies in a community of practice. The research argues that for jiu jitsu to effect change within the practitioner’s life, cannot be discovered from afar, it must be found within, not as a practice that merely instrumentalises the body for competing objectives. The aesthetic perspective acknowledges human sensitivity and creativity as key to understanding the animated existence of the body at work in jiu jitsu. Thus, jiu jitsu as seen through a lived body is a body consciousness that is not just a mere means to an end, it is a body in the midst of a shared humanity. The lived body is our essential corporealness that cannot be fully objectified, it is also perceived, known, construed, and owned. This is a pivotal move away from body violability, instrumentalization, and the mere reduction of body. The research suggests that jiu jitsu is a bodily experience and process of human body-to-effort pedagogy that reveals knowledge through experience and the vitality of expression. 

In my experience, jiu jitsu is more than a weaponization of my body, it is an expression of who I am and how I animate my presence onto the world. This prompted me to research the embodiment (aesthetic perspectives) of jiu jitsu as a compositional work of the artist at work in the dojo (studio). Thus, seeing jiu jitsu as something more than the effects of my body as an instrument. Herein lies a gap in the knowledge of practice, that a unified and cohesive practice of mind, body, and soul is the embodied narrative of the jiu jitsuan. This thesis makes a valuable contribution to the embodied practice of jiu jitsu and helps to intellectualise the practice in martial arts studies. To achieve this outcome, I investigated how me and nine of my students live the experience of jiu jitsu in the moment, in a small rural community, how we imagine ourselves “being” and “becoming”, and to understand our similarities and shared humanity of the lived-body. 

This work uses a non-probability qualitative approach to sampling data to rediscover the “artist” in martial arts. It illumines a paradigmatic shift from a two-dimensional perspective of the body as object and instrument, to reveal that the embodied practice of jiu jitsu is never separate from body consciousness. The research data were analysed using a thematic and content analysis as my students reflected upon practice as actively engaged participants of the research. The research specifically makes use of Participatory Action Research, along with Grounded Theory, and reveals that the body is not merely a vessel for the acquisition and applications of jiu jitsu. The research indicates that the body is a subject known that discovers through jiu jitsu practice a way of contributing to agency, self-improvement, self-efficacy, and forming group connections. This is something that most are seldom aware of because jiu jitsu is generally perceived as a divisible product separate from the self. Yet, in the dojo community, thoughts are brought into presence through the conscious exchange of bodies moving together to reveal somatic expression and transformation and where jiu jitsu assumes an indivisible unity of mind, body, and soul. I anticipate that this work will contribute to the intellectual contribution to the theoretical knowledge of embodied practice and martial arts studies.