Had there been no Mitsuyo Maedas, with the emphasis on the plural Maedas, jiu-jitsu would probably have been forgotten during the 20th century.<br/><br/>We owe the survival of the valuable and unique knowledge of this martial art to numerous masters who left their native Japan at a young age around the turn of the century before last for an uncertain future in the West. They all took an arduous journey, either to leave behind a rapidly changing Japan after the Meiji Restoration in 1868 and to create better prospects for their future lives, or because, like Maeda, they were expressly sent out into the wide world by their masters to spread the "gentle art".<br/><br/>This is my story of the Jiu-Jitsu that came from Japan to Europe, and to Brazil, to later spread throughout the world.<br/>-Franco Vacirca Garcia