Since its founding, the Gracie Barra community has thrived as a unified team focused on one mission: Jiu-Jitsu for Everyone.
Master Carlos Gracie Jr. has always maintained the belief that Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) professors must keep an open mind to best learn from others. When you remain a student always, you always become a better teacher.
To a large extent, the success of Gracie Barra over the years can be attributed to this leadership approach by Master Carlos Gracie Jr. His approach was influenced by the three major figures in Brazilian jiu-jitsu history: his father Carlos Sr., his Uncle Helio, and his brother Rolls.
Here is what those figures stood for that inspired and influenced Master Carlos Jr., and what we as BJJ students can use to apply to our own practice today.
Master Carlos Jr. explains that his father was a very positive man. He says Grand Master Carlos Sr. was open-minded to many perspectives, and this inspired him to utilize the influences around him. Master Carlos Jr. says his father saw BJJ as something that can benefit humanity, and this was a reflection of his viewpoint on both life and jiu-jitsu.
Master Carlos Jr. stated that his own view on life and BJJ is thanks to his father. He says, “My father philosophically opened my mind about having no limits to where you can go.”
Master Carlos Jr. says his Uncle Helio used to coordinate the teaching curriculum and directly guided every technique at the original school. As Master Carlos Jr. saw it, Helio had the mindset of a samurai and expected others to maintain the same mindset.
He was disciplined and unwaveringly dedicated to the principles of martial arts. While that made him successful at BJJ, he wasn’t always open to outside influences, unlike his brother Grand Master Carlos Sr. Master Carlos Jr. recalls that, although Helio was small in stature, he trained every day with intense dedication and achieved impressive goals.
Master Carlos Jr. said, “My uncle taught that you need to train hard, be determined, and focused on that, on your ability, and the more you dedicate yourself, the more focus you have, you end up being unbeatable.”
Master Carlos Jr. was closely connected to his brother, recalling that Rolls had great influence over those who he taught. Rolls was intently focused on BJJ strategy and defense. However, as Rolls was also influenced by their father, Carlos Gracie Sr., he maintained an open-minded view of the world.
Therefore, Rolls sought out and learned other martial arts to optimize his learning.
He was always looking for new and different ways to enrich his BJJ practice. As Master Carlos Jr. said, “Rolls brought that learning experience on which if you can enrich your game with external things that could work well with it, you will always improve yourself.’
From these influences, Master Carlos Jr. developed his own way of teaching at the Gracie Barra school, which he founded in 1986. He took the principles he learned to teach every student as well as the team as a whole.
Master Carlos says his jiu-jitsu style was a unification of the three concepts. “With my way of understanding, I followed this path and created a teaching method in my school with all these rich elements that I received from those three professors.”
By marrying the concepts he gleaned from each of his mentors, Master Carlos Jr. developed a common theme among them: “Jiu-Jitsu is a mechanism for helping others.” The foundations of Gracie Barra’s curriculum are rooted in his father’s view that BJJ can benefit humanity, his uncle’s emphasis on dedication and focus, and his brother’s approach to gain BJJ skills from a broad array of sources.
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