Gracie Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and WordPress. What these two have in common?

I am a huge enthusiast of Gracie Jiu Jitsu. Even thou I haven’t practiced much lately, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a lot more than just a martial art to me. It’s truly way of life.  My dad was a great chess player, won many championships and introduced me first to Judo when I was 7 years old. Then, later on, one of his chess friend’s son, started teaching classes of Jiu Jitsu. I was about 14 years old when I had my first contact with the “Arte Suave” (Gentle Technique, Jiu Jitsu in english). My first instructor/master was Luiz Filho in Fortaleza, Brazil. Then, I felt in love with it. I was amused by how, me, a 15 years old boy, could submit a much stronger and bigger opponents by just using the right technique.

In 2005, I had my first contact with WordPress. I have to admit, I wasn’t impressed by it. My first reaction was “I can do that myself, just need to create a database table for this and that, query it and it’s done”. By that time I already had 12 years experience doing websites, majority of them coded from scratch or using a framework.

Then, in 2011, one of my clients requested a proposal, and pointed out 4 of theirs competitors. As usual, I took notes and went back to my office to analyze theirs competition.  To my surprise all of them were using WordPress. I questioned myself: “How come a blog tool been used to create corporate/real estate sites?”.

I realized that WordPress had then evolved a lot. I’ve made a big mistake of ignoring it. WordPress is the best Free Website Builder tool and now, I try to make up for lost time. I’ve read many books on the subject, if you want really go to the next level, I recommend these two (aff. links).

WordPress Books I recommend:

• Chris Lema;
• Pippin Williamson;
• Syed Balkhi;
• And many others WordPress Enthusiasts, Companies and Consultants.

95% of the people and companies mentioned above I’ve met first time by going to WordPress Meetups and WordCamps. If you are a blogger, web designer, developer, agency, has any relationship or interest in WordPress, I highly recommend you going to these events. It positively surprises me every time I go, either by meeting super interesting, inspiring people, like  Kimberly Castleberry (who runs an amazing online learning community), or by learning something new and fascinating about WordPress, or just because you can network and talk to people that are very successful and are willing to give back to the WordPress community.

So, what’s the relationship between Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and WordPress?

Last week, Master Gui Valente from Gracie Miami Academy, told me they upgraded theirs site from a custom made CMS to WordPress. I was very glad, since I now advocate and I am also a huge WP enthusiast. I’ve told him many times how he, the academy and his students could benefit from using WordPress. Then, I told him: “WordPress is the Jiu-Jitsu of World Wide Web“.

Here are some WordPress Examples sites I have done:

• http://healthydogtreats.com/
• http://www.stylehausdesign.com/
• http://www.sweepstakeauthority.com/
• http://www.ediceiofamerica.com/

How I feel now when I use WordPress:

• It’s so flexible and customizable, you can use to anything, any industry, any subject, any situation like Jiu Jitsu;
• It’s so scalable, you can use to small blog sites, to big corporate companies, to very famous people blogs with millions of visits per day, it’s so effective just like Jiu Jitsu;
• Has an amazing ecosystem and community with enthusiasts from all over the world, just lke Jiu Jitsu;
• The more I learn WordPress, and it’s capabilities, I feel like “standing on the shoulders of giants”, just like Jiu Jitsu;
• WordPress had a predecessor, b2/cafelog, just like Gracie Brazilian Jiu Jitsu come from Kodokan Judo;
• The quote above, from Grand Master Helio Gracie, “The Jiu Jitsu I created was designed to give the weak ones a chance to face the heavy and strong”, could easily be translated to “WordPress was created to give the small, non-technical users a chance to easily write and face the big internet players”.

I understand that if you do not practice Jiu Jitsu and are not an WordPress enthusiast will be very hard to understand this relationship. I invite you to try both and welcome to my world, you will be delighted! 🙂

Do you practice Brazilian Jiu Jitsu? Do you use WordPress? I would love to read your comments and feedback.