Helio Gracie

From OTMWiki

Hélio Gracie (October 1 1913 - January 29 2009) is the founder of "Gracie Jiu-Jitsu," also known as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or BJJ. He is a master of the discipline and is widely considered as one of the first sports heroes in Brazilian history; he was named Black Belt Magazine's Man of the Year in 1997. He is the father of the world-renowned fighters Rickson Gracie, Royler Gracie, Royce Gracie and UFC co-founder Rorion Gracie.

1 Early history
2 Beginnings of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu
3 Fight career
4 Career highlights

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Early history

Hélio Gracie was born in Belém, Brazil on October 1 1913, the youngest son of Gastão and Cesalina Gracie's eight children. He was always a frail child, prone to fainting spells after physical exertion. After the completion of second grade, he convinced his mother to let him opt out of school. After the family's move to Rio, some of the children moved in with various relatives due to financial hardships. It was during this time, he found work as a coxswain for a local rowing team, eventually moving in to the team dorms. A few years later, when he was 13 years old, he moved into a house shared by his older brothers, who taught jiu-jitsu. Due to Hélio's frail health, Hélio was recommended by doctors to refrain from excessive physical activity. Instead he spent his time watching his brothers (especially Carlos) teach. From the age of thirteen to sixteen, Hélio learned and memorized all the moves and instructions his brothers gave.

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Beginnings of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu

When Gracie was 16 years old, he found the opportunity to teach a Jiu-Jitsu class, and this experience led him to develop Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The Director of the Bank of Brazil, Dr. Mario arrived for class as scheduled. The instructor Carlos was running late and was not present. Hélio offered to begin the class with the man. When the tardy Carlos arrived offering his apologies, the student assured him it was no problem, and actually requested that he be allowed to continue learning with Hélio instead. Carlos agreed to this and Hélio began as an instructor. Hélio realized however, even though he knew the techniques theoretically, in actuality, the moves were much harder to execute. Due to his smaller size, he realized many of the jiu-jitsu moves required brute strength that his physical nature did not allow. He began adapting the moves for his particular physical attributes, and through trial and error learned to maximize leverage, thus minimizing the force that needed to be exerted to execute the move. From these experiments, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, formally Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, was created. Using these new techniques, smaller and weaker opponents gained the capability to defend themselves and even defeat much larger opponents.

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Fight career

Hélio began his fight career by participating in the Gracie challenge. He submitted professional boxer Antonio Portugal in 30 seconds in 1932. In 1934 Hélio fought Wladak Zbyszko, who was being billed as a "world champion", for three 10 minute rounds. That match was declared a draw.

Hélio Gracie went on to fight leading judoka, Masahiko Kimura. The match resulted in a clear victory for Kimura via bent armlock.

He holds the world record for longest match, a feat achieved when he spent 3 hours 40 minutes fighting his former student Valdemar Santana (also known as Adema Santa), losing by knockout from a kick to the head. At the age of 44 in 1957, Hélio Gracie attempted a comeback only to be stopped again by Adema Santa due to knee strikes to the stomach.

The Gracie Academy Personal Helio interview

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