SYR: What have you been up to Tinguinha?


T: Basically I have been dedicating my entire time to the improvement of my school and also some schools I have affiliated with me. Thankfully my school has been growing a lot and to keep the quality and professionalism I need to dedicate a lot of time to it which I do with pleasure.

SYR: How long have you training jiu-jitsu?


T: I have been training Jiu-Jitsu for around 19 years.

SYR: How many different affiliate schools do you have and where?


T: I have around 5 schools affiliated with me, some in Central California, North Dakota and Thailand. Most of them are students of mine that after years of training with me for different reasons had to move away to places where there weren’t BJJ schools and with my full support they decided to open their own schools. I have been teaching jiu-jitsu for around 12 years now and with the experience I acquired all this years I try to pass all my knowledge to them and try to have them follow the same system I implemented in my own school that way we will all have an unity.

SYR: You are now representing yourself instead of being a Gracie Barra affiliate gym. Do you think this has helped you or hurt you?


T: Didn`t hurt me neither helped me. Nothing changed in my school. My philosophy of work is still the same; my way of teaching and my way of thinking are still the same. I NEVER used the Gracie Barra name as a business tool, not to promote myself, or the school. My intention was to promote the Gracie Barra name in the USA and by doing so I would be sharing everything I learned there and was thankful for and not in any way doing for self marketing.

SYR: There are rumors on the Internet that you were upset when Carlos Gracie Jr. and Marcio opened a school in an area where a large amount of students came from?


T: Upset? No, the only person who sometimes gets me upset is my wife. I was not upset, I was disappointed and really surprised by the way things were done. The fact is that half of my students came from that location- Lake Forest, not around, not close but directly from there, but what really made be disappointed and surprised was the way things were said and done. Business can be done in many different ways.

SYR: I’m also sure they give you a notice in advance that they were planning on opening a school in your neck of the woods?


T: There is where my surprise and disappointment comes from. The new GB USA school opening came to my knowledge through the Internet; a jiu-jitsu news forum had an ad for the new school all set to be opened. I saw it in December 2004 and the school would be opened in the next month. I was really surprised and what made me more amazed was that the person appointed to be the instructor of the new school was a person very close to me, who was always welcome into my house, my school, having taught seminars and privates in my school before. After all that I contacted them in Brazil and Marcio told me it was all an misunderstanding and lack of communication which is really hard to believe when we know how much of a traveled person he is, having all my contact information, also being that 3 months before all had taken place he had stayed at my house. I would never opposed myself to help them get settled here in any way if things would have been done differently, my question in all that is: being the US and even California so big of a place how would they find out that Lake Forest was a good place to open a school?

SYR: There are also rumors that you did the same exact thing in Brazil by opening a gym not very far from the head Gracie Barra gym in Rio?


T: Marcio uses that as an explanation to the situation he has created and uses it as an example, which is not true. When I was 18 years old and still a purple belt, I started to help a Gracie Barra Black Belt Joao " Big Head" Salgado who back in the day was a champion of his generation and who was so integrated with the Gracie Barra school that he created the Taz Mania Devil logo, he was also the main guy organizing tournaments with Carlos Gracie Jr., even having business outside of jiu-jitsu with carlinhos, at that time I, helped him teaching in his garage twice a week which was a great experience for me. His garage school was about 20 to 25 minutes from the Gracie Barra school and as far as know Carlinhos was really happy with their arrangement. That, is the Academy Marcio mentions I taught. Since we are on that topic I will take my time to talk about that matter. There are some Gracie Barra black belts who own schools close to the GB head school and they all should be given credit to all the success Gracie Barra has today. A lot of people do not know this but many champions came from those schools. Back in the day instructors like "Gordo", "Sonequinha", "Roleta", "Soca", " Draculino", " Mamazinho", " Big Head", " Gustavo Machado", "Leonardo Seixas"... they all taught in Barra ( place) near the GB school and many of the students coming from those schools that started to get some recognition were sent to the Gracie Barra main school and many of these guys are the Gracie Barra champions of today,that also happened in an older generation as well with Ralph Gracie, Jean Jaques Machado among others, they all had schools in Barra. They taught close by but they all contributed a lot to the growth of the Gracie Barra name as well.

SYR: You and Marcio are very close friends, how has this affected your relationship?


T: Yes, We know each other for a long time. In fact that is why it made me so disappointed. I am not here to judge anybody on why they do things. He made his decisions which I respect but in consequence of his decisions came my reaction and my own decisions which do not mean that I dislike him as a person. I was actually really worried with this whole situation with his school in Lake Forest. I heard serious stuff about conflicts with the law and everything and that all those matters are still not fully resolved, I know him for a long time and I know all his family and I wish he can resolve all those problems and get out of this situation.

SYR: