Gracie Gym

The first Brazilian Jiu-jitsu gym was inaugurate in 1925 at Marques de Abrantes Street , after that was moved to Rio Branco Av. Were it became famous, passed thru Vasco da Gama club at Lagoon and moved to Padre Antonio Vieira School at Humaita Street 52, it is still there. Helio taught his son and nephew and many other students. Since 1925 the gym has as mission teaching the knowledge developed by the family to all that wish to learn the smooth art.

Jiu-jitsu history

Jiu-jitsu started many years ago in India at the time of Buddhist monks. Buddhists traveled were always looted and to avoid this, they invented a form of defense from which jiu-jitsu was born. The word Jiu-jiu means soft art and has three basic principles: the technique, the lever and the base. After India went to China and then to Japan.

Gracie Jiu-Jitsu

Mitsuyo Maeda, known as “Count Koma”, was a great practitioner of Judo and Jiu Jitsu in the early days of this. After traveling several countries with his group, he arrived in Brazil in 1914; an excursion of Japanese fighters arrived in Manaus to begin the mission led by Maeda, to disseminate judo in Brazil; one of the Japanese, Sanshiro “Black Belly” Satake, stayed in Manaus and opened the first Brazilian judo academy, Maeda went to Belém do Pará, where he settled, and still exists the Conde Koma academy. A year later, he met Gastão Gracie. Gastão was the father of eight children, five men, very enthusiastic about the martial art took his son Carlos Gracie to learn the Japanese fight. Gracies learned Jiu-Jitsu with Mitsuyo Maeda and after a few years moved to Rio de Janeiro to set up the first Brazilian jiu-jitsu academy.