"Gentle Art" is the translation of "Jiu-Jitsu" from Portuguese, as in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It's quite often misunderstood or just completely ignored, but yet it is the core of everything that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is and should be. It doesn't, in fact, refer to the idea that we're just people who are folding each other in clothing while agreeing to be gentle and not hit each other.

It actually refers to the idea of "Ju" in Judo, which is the idea of non-resistance, gentleness, or softness, and the skill of applying it martially. This means that even if an opponent tries to resist your efforts, by the application of skill of non-resistance, you neutralize any of their resistance by and during your technique so as to still succeed regardless. So if you tried to hit your opponent, and they tried to block you (a form of resistance), you can actually use the principle of "Ju", or gentleness, to hit through their block anyway.

Gentleness or "Ju", has a number of related concepts that teach how to apply it, such as "push when pulled, pull when pushed," with the ultimate goal of not allowing the opponent's resistance to matter.

Reality is, unfortunately messy, so resistance happens, but gentleness is the aspiration we have to overcome resistance not by fighting it, but rather by subverting or neutralizing it.

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