Released in February 1999 Choke was directed by Robert Raphael Goodman who has directed two other minor documentaries. Written and produced by Larry Golin who has written ten other small documentaries. The sporting documentary has a niche following and was not made with a mainstream audience in mind and sadly never received any awards. It is hard to ascertain exactly who was the driving force behind its creation. Whether the producer and director had an interest in the emerging sport, if the Gracie family was trying to promote the family martial art they had developed over generations, if Vale-Tudo wanted to promote their tournament or if Rickson’s reputation for vanity is true and it was the star himself. 

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  Choke is a cult icon for fans of martial arts. The low budget film (estimated at $550,000) has been described as a “Historical document”(Worthington) and “ a staple for MMA docs”(Kaplowitz). Colloquially a talking point at every Brazilian Jiu Jitsu academy around the world. 

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  Mixed martial arts (MMA) has surpassed boxing as the most widely practiced hand-to-hand combat sports and has a much larger following in Western countries then the traditional martial arts. Every BJJ practitioner or someone considering starting, should definitely see how this martial art has gained notoriety in the last 30 years. As one visionary photojournalist from the film told Rickson Gracie “With you I’m watching history”

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    Choke has no narration but does have some bizarre music that almost sounds like an alien interpretation of traditional Chinese played throughout. It stars Rickson Gracie, Todd Hayes and Koichiro Kimura. It features their training leading up to the Vale-Tudo freestyle fight tournament in 1995 Japan where experts in their individual martial arts met to compete to find which martial art stands to the ultimate test in a “no holds barred” fight. 

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  The film starts in Gracie’s home and shows him play wrestling with his small children, it goes on to show his intense and unique and outlandish training regimen consisting of not just running and sparring (rolling) on the mats but details his yoga breathing sessions, sitting in freezing water and solo BJJ drills on the beach that could be described as a Vinyasa. Rickson’s father Hélio (one of the founders of the sport) has a small cameo. 

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  The Legend of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu also known as Gracie Jiu Jitsu started in 1914 when a Judo student (Judoka) named Maeda travelled from Japan to Brazil and met Gastão Gracie.  Gastão’s son Carlos was a troubled teen who Maeda began to teach Judo too. Carlos then taught his brothers, namely Hélio who was the smallest brother and had to develop the martial art to work against bigger and stronger opponents. The martial art is a family tradition, which has since spread around the world from the Gracie’s home in Brazil. It is taught in military and law enforcement academies all over the world as well as being available in most cities. 

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  The documenter introduces the audience to Todd Hays an American kickboxer and to Japanese Shoot fighter Koichiro Kimura. We meet some of their family and trainers with a small window into their lives leading up to the movie climax with the no holds barred tournament in Japan. 

A boxing match often draws with both fighters leaving the ring visibly battered, the winner is indecisive coming down to a judge's decision. Sometimes the winner beating his opponent with a lucky punch. Boxing requires an evenly matched body weight by both competitors to not offer an advantaged and requires athletic prowess, speed and timing to be proficient as well as the tenacity to keep standing while being punched in the face.  

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  BJJ has since emerged as a thinking man or woman’s sport. A chess match. It is an eclectic crowd that makes up a BJJ academy with not just law enforcement officers, military personnel and fire fighters but doctors, lawyers, college professors and IT experts. BJJ allows a proficient woman much smaller in stature than an her male attacker to kill or break his limb making the martial a corner stone in self defense. This was shown in the documentary when the 5’7’’ 154.lbs Yuki Nakai stopped the 6’1’’ 250.lbs with an arm bar (1:14). Because there is no punching or kicking, BJJ can be practiced to a much older age than the traditional martial arts. Drawing a more cerebral crowd BJJ academies are very approachable for people with little athletic prowess or history in hand to hand combat to take up the sport.

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  Fight night was not short of drama and suspense, with winners, losers, heroes and villains. There are some bloody battles, David vs. Goliath moments that took BJJ into the forefront of martial arts. A heartstring pulling moment captured was with one of Gracie’s defeated opponents weeping to a journalist, explaining ‘He was honored to have had the chance to fight Rickson’.

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  The movie shows the moment the martial art proved superior, when Rickson beat men much bigger than him, not by judges decision but putting the men in a position to break their arm if they did not accept defeat and forfeit immediately by the act of tapping on the mat or opponent. 

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  Choke is a must see relic for anyone that has trained in or is a fan of martial arts, it is an exciting window into the event that was the birth of a new era. It can be found on Youtube.