GRACIE GLOBAL - Key Persons
Carlos Gracie establishes the first Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Carlos and his brothers taught Japanese Jiu-Jitsu techniques that Carlos learned from Esai Maeda, a Japanese immigrant. Helio Gracie, the youngest of Carlos' brothers, was restricted from practicing due to his small size and weak body. As a result, Helio spent most of his time observing the lessons taught by his older brothers.
Carlos Gracie is late for a private lesson, so Helio offers to teach the class in his brother's absence. Although he had never practiced the techniques, he had memorized them after years of patient observation. Helio quickly realized that he was not strong enough to successfully apply the Japanese techniques against a larger opponent. Never one to quit, Helio sought ways to make the techniques work using leverage, timing, and natural body movements instead of strength, speed, and coordination.
Job Titles:
- Instructor
- Instructor of the Women Empowered Self - Defense Program at Gracie University Headquarters
- Women Empowered Chief Instructor
Eve Torres Gracie is the head instructor of the Women Empowered self-defense program at Gracie University Headquarters. Many know her from her successful career in WWE where she was 3-time champion and performed weekly on Raw and SmackDown. After transitioning into film and television, Eve worked on some amazing projects, including Skiptrace with Jackie Chan, and CW's Supergirl. Realizing that her truest passion is sharing jiu-jitsu, she committed herself fully to refining and developing the Women Empowered program. Through her efforts, the program is now empowering women all over the world. When Eve isn't teaching or training, she is spending fun time with her husband Rener, her sons Raeven & Renson, and her Australian Sheppard, Tioki.
On June 6, Helio Gracie publicly challenges world heavyweight boxing champion, Joe Louis, to a no-holds-barred fight to refute an article published in Reader's Digest arguing for the superiority of boxing over jiu-jitsu. Joe Louis' manager declines the invitation. Even though the fight never took place, Helio's challenge confirmed that he was willing to fight anyone, anytime, anywhere, in order to prove his system's effectiveness.
Grand Master Helio Gracie was introduced to the Japanese art of jiu-jitsu by his brother, Carlos, at such a young age that, as time passed, he no longer remembered many of the techniques in their original form. However, he vividly recalls experiencing great difficulty when he attempted to use the techniques on a larger opponent and, as a result, had to modify nearly everything he had learned to accommodate his frail physique. He points out that, despite the overall effectiveness and value of the Japanese techniques, nearly all of them had one or more limitations that prevented them from being fully useful to him. In most cases, he attributed the limitations to: 1) inapplicability against a striking opponent in a real fight, 2) over-reliance on strength or speed, and/or 3) dependence on body movements that were awkward or uncomfortable for him. Accordingly, he began modifying the art to ensure that every technique was fully street applicable, energy efficient, and based on natural body movements. Using these principles as a guide, he spent several years developing a complete system of self-defense consisting only of techniques that he could successfully apply against larger opponents. Confident in his adaptations, he spent the next thirty years of his life proving his system's effectiveness by using it to defeat numerous challengers, including several opponents who outweighed him by as much as 100 pounds.
After nearly a century of testing in a wide variety of settings, Grand Master Helio Gracie's system of self-defense remains fundamentally sound and intact. To be sure, three generations of Gracie family members and other equally committed practitioners of the art have evolved the original techniques and added to the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu arsenal. All of these changes, however, strictly adhere to the Grand Master's requirements for street applicability, energy efficiency, and natural body movement. Today, we call these requirements the "Gracie Guidelines."
On your path towards Gracie Jiu-Jitsu mastery, your knowledge of the Gracie Guidelines will serve you in two important ways. First, it will enable you to solve problems on your own by modifying techniques in accordance with the guidelines, and second, it will enable you to recognize the multitude of impure techniques that are being developed by instructors who do not know, or choose not to adhere to the founding principles of the art.
Pedro Sauer was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where from an early age, he began training in the martial arts. At age five, he began boxing and later took up judo and taekwondo. At age 15, however, his friend Rickson Gracie, invited him to train jiu-jitsu with his younger brother, Royler, who at the time was only nine years old. The outcome of this experience convinced him that jiu-jitsu was the most effective of all the martial arts, and he began training the very next day.
His training under both Helio and Rickson took place during a time when jiu-jitsu was making its crucial transition as an obscure Brazilian art to a worldwide martial arts phenomenon. Pedro worked towards a double major (Economics and Business Administration) in college, and took post graduation courses at Fundacao Getulio Vargas. He worked in Brazil as a stockbroker for eleven years before deciding to move to the United States and pursue a career teaching jiu-jitsu.
With Rorion Gracie leading the exodus in 1990, Pedro was part of the first generation of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructors and fighters that moved to the United States to reveal the art of BJJ to the world. He lived in California with Rickson Gracie and trained daily with the Gracie brothers (Rickson, Rorion, and Royce), their father, Helio Gracie, their cousin, Renzo Gracie and the Machado Brothers, as well as many others. In December of that same year, he moved to Utah where he began pioneering Gracie jiu-jitsu in the American southwest and eventually started the Pedro Sauer Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Association, which is now one of the largest and most respected Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Associations in the world today with well over 100 academies under his guidance.
Ryron and Rener Gracie are the eldest grandsons of Grand Master Helio Gracie, the creator of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Their father is Rorion Gracie, one of the world's foremost experts in self-defense. In 1993, Rorion created the Ultimate Fighting Championship to showcase the supremacy of the family's self-defense system in a realistic "no holds barred" confrontation against all comers. Rorion's younger brother, Royce, won 3 of the first 4 UFC tournaments proving that the leverage-based techniques of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu provided the most reliable way to defeat a larger, more athletic opponent. Ryron and Rener were born into this family tradition of testing the art against all challengers.
Rorion introduced his sons to the art as soon as they could walk. As children, they watched him teach private classes in their garage in Southern California. But, it wasn't until they observed their father and uncles - Royce, Rickson, and Royler - easily winning challenge matches that they began to comprehend fully the effectiveness of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Even more important, Ryron and Rener recognized the profound impact the family's art had on all who studied it. The life changing transformations of Gracie University students motivated the brothers to teach the art. While constantly perfecting their physical techniques, they worked equally hard to master the powerfully effective instruction methods developed by their forbearers. In 2003, Grand Master Helio Gracie awarded Ryron and Rener black belts in recognition of their mastery of his unique techniques and teaching methodologies.
Shortly afterwards, Ryron and Rener became the head instructors at Gracie University responsible for supervising all aspects of training and program development. The brothers completely revamped pre-existing Gracie University programs developed by their father and created several new ones to facilitate the export of their instruction through distance education and cadre training. Collectively known as the Gracie Global Training Program, Ryron and Rener's initiatives have reached beyond resident training at the World Headquarters to include a global network of Certified Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Training Centers, extension training through the web-based Gracie University and DVDs, popularization of the Gracie art and Gracie lifestyle via YouTube videos, and hands-on instruction through year-round seminars conducted worldwide.
The Global Training Program is meeting the enormous demand for Gracie Jiu-Jitsu instruction driven by the art's proven effectiveness and simplicity. The program preserves and perpetuates the techniques in their purest, most effective form with strict adherence to the founding principles of street applicability, energy efficiency, and natural body movements. Several proprietary courses comprise the training program - Gracie Combatives for entry level students, multiple advanced courses under the Master Cycle, Women Empowered for women's self-defense, Gracie Bullyproof for children, Gracie Survival Tactics for law enforcement and military personnel, and the Gracie University Instructor Certification Program (ICP) to ensure that students who wish to teach the art in a Certified Training Center meet the family's stringent requirements for quality instruction. Gracie University is the crown jewel of the training program offering online access to nearly all courses to over 100,000 students from 196 countries.
Job Titles:
- Instructor
- Women Empowered Instructor