 jujitsu, jujitsu, jujitsu, jujitsu, jujitsu, jujitsu, jujitsu. When it comes to spelling the art, one of these things is not like the others. Okay, so there are all these different ways to spell jujitsu, but which one of them is correct? Is it jujitsu or jujitsu or jujitsu? Is there a correct way to spell it? Is there really a difference? Yes, but no, but also yes. The short answer is technically the correct way to spell the word is jujitsu. Technically all the other ways to spell it are variations and they all mean the same thing. However, the more interesting topic to grapple with is why we have so many spellings and in the form of a cultural point of view, how they might relate to different arts. So the first issue we come across is this. For all of our viewers who don't know how to read Japanese, what does this say? Now, this is the first hurdle in the process and I'm willing to bet a significant amount of us cannot read Japanese and those of you who know where I'm going with this have probably already guessed that this is the Japanese kanji for jujitsu, but you'd be wrong. This is the Japanese kanji for jujitsu. This means nose water. Now this is a little attempt at levity and may seem irrelevant, but I assure you it's not. So the first obstacle we come across is translation. English and other languages like French, Spanish, Italian use Roman or Latin alphabet characters. It's one of the most widely used character sets in the world, so the conversion between languages often, well, translates. But when it comes to a language such as Japanese or Chinese that uses kanji in the visual characters, it could be a little tougher. There needs to be a bridge between the languages. That's where Romaji comes in. Romaji is a system of romanticized spelling used to transliterate Japanese, so we can then read words that sound like Japanese, but they use a Roman alphabet. Jujitsu is a traditional way to spell the art. Juu translates to gentle and jitsu translates to technique or art. So the term jujitsu generally means gentle technique or gentle art. Even Jagaro Kano, the founder of Judo, referred to the spelling originally in a document called Jujitsu and the origins of Judo. Now on a side note, dou means way. So when Kano was thriving his art from Jujitsu, he called it Judo, as in gentle way. Several arts have been through the same shift, Aikido vs Aikijitsu, Kendo vs Kenjitsu, Karate dou vs Karate jitsu, but that is the topic for a different discussion altogether. So why all the different versions? Well, first of all, there was a couple of different Romanization methods that were used in different periods of time, so converting a graphical language into one using Roman characters is bound to have a few variations. Then there's also mispronunciations and alterations in how sounds are interpreted, especially with differences in culture. In English, we call large tropical cyclones hurricanes, but the original Spanish or Taino word is Urakhan. Through translation, accents, and time, different spellings of the word can't emerge. Jujitsu is no exception. If you can imagine the word jutsu being said, especially as it migrated over to the west, it can sound like jitsu, and this spelling is often used instead. Now in Brazil where Jujitsu was introduced, they didn't have the same Romaji so that their spelling of the word was J-I-U for Juu, which is almost exclusively seen regarding Brazilian jujitsu. Fun fact though, since we're talking about translating kanji, while jutsu means technique, jutsu actually translates to truth or reality. So technically, jujitsu and jujitsu are two different words. One means gentle technique, and the other means gentle truth. Now when it comes to using the hyphen or not, that's honestly up to preference. Jujitsu is a compound word anyway so when translated into English, either way can be considered correct. So with all this taken into consideration, we can now see why there are so many variations of the spelling, and a lot of it came down to how the forefathers use them. And speaking of forefathers, Art of Wondojo aims to honor the legacy of the martial arts. In this effort, we have released our forefather series, featuring newly remastered portraits and philosophies of some of history's most iconic grandmasters. Visit us at artofwondojo.com and help us continue to build the martial arts community and to commemorate those who laid the foundation before us. So now that we've established that, technically jujitsu is the official way to spell it, but in reality there are multiple options to use and the question becomes well how do you determine which one to use? Culturally speaking, there is a little bit more of a divide, albeit with blurred lines. With arts spreading from Japan into the Americas and Europe, different spellings became unofficially associated with these cultural lines. Generally, using the term jujitsu refers to the older, more formal Japanese system focused on traditions and combat techniques. Jujitsu generally refers to the westernized versions of the arts, which often have differences that transcend just the spelling. Traditional Japanese jujitsu is often more structured and serious, focusing primarily on self-defense and combat. Uniforms are clean, white, and patchless and school etiquette is more prominent. Western jujitsu schools tend to lean more to the relaxed environments with focus on both self-defense and competition. Patches are worn on uniforms and t-shirts or rash guards are usually worn under the doki. Brazilian jujitsu schools tend to be different altogether. While there is a lot of overlap in some of the material, it emphasizes more ground fighting and while useful in self-defense tends to be more focused on competition. So, generally speaking, jujitsu is officially the correct spelling, but other variations are often seen and can be used interchangeably due to different translation differences, except for BDJ in that that's almost always exclusively spelled J-I-U as in jujitsu. Now, it's not really that big of a deal overall, but sometimes these little details fascinate me and it's fun to know some of the history. Now, for an additional little fun fact, this misspelling is almost exclusive to jujitsu. You don't see the jutsu-jutsu variation in other arts. We don't see aki-jutsu, karate-jutsu, nin-jutsu, ken-jutsu, etc. It's almost always jutsu. So, in the end, it doesn't really matter how we spell it, just as long as jujitsu and ajutsu, we all do jutsu. Now, let's talk about why jujitsu of any kind is the most important art that you can add to your training regimen.