Helio Gracie is perhaps one of the most famous people in the world of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. There’s a couple of reasons for this. The first is that he is seen as the founder of BJJ and established the system after being inspired by Judo. Obviously, being a founder of BJJ comes with a certain status, and rightly so. The second reason is due to his surname.
Unless you’ve lived under a rock, you will know that the Gracie name is synonymous with BJJ. Basically, the Gracie family has gone on to do wonderful things within the BJJ world and are filled with interesting and colorful characters. So, if you’d like to learn more about the man that started it all then read on.
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Who defeated Helio Gracie?
Helio Gracie famously fought the Japanese Judoka Masahiko Kimura in 1951 in Rio de Janeiro. This infamous fight can actually be seen online as there was thankfully a black and white video recording of it at the time which has survived throughout history.
During this fight, Helio was vastly outweighed by Kimura who was a physical brute and had incredible strength. Several minutes into the fight after pinning Helio, Kimura managed to break his arm with a figure four shoulder lock. This became so synonymous with the Japanese Judoka that the move was then named after him, The Kimura.
Is Helio Gracie still alive?
Helio Gracie passed away on January 29th, 2009 in Brazil. Staggeringly, he was 95 years old when he died and was still training BJJ just weeks before his death. This may have been down to his active lifestyle, or the fact he was a vegetarian. His cause of death was pneumonia. As you can imagine, when he died the Gracie family was devastated by his loss due to his continuous contributions to BJJ over his lifetime.
How many sons did Helio Gracie have?
Helio Gracie had a total of 7 sons during his life, as well as two daughters. As you may have figured, the Gracie family were and still are quite an unusual bunch. Furthermore, all of his kids names began with the letter R, which seems to be a trend in the Gracie family.
Rickson, Rorion and Relson were all born from the same mother, whereas Royler, Rolker, Royce and Robin were from a different mother. You may have noticed that the likes of Rickson and Royce have since gone on to make their own BJJ history.
You may think that a total of 9 kids is quite a high number, however this is nothing compared to his brother Carlos. During his life, Carlos Gracie fathered 21 kids – of which 13 have gone on to become BJJ black belts.
Why did Helio Gracie invent BJJ?
Helio Gracie is known for inventing BJJ. He did this in Brazil and was taught by Mitsuyo Maeda. Like Kimura, Maeda was a fearsome grappler that hailed from Japan but eventually got naturalized as a Brazilian. As many people will know, BJJ directly descended from Judo. In short, Helio Gracie managed to adapt Maeda’s Judo moves and apply them from the ground.
For instance, the armbar (juji gatame) has been used in Judo since its creation. Helio then used this submission and others by doing them from bottom positions. Before then, the emphasis of grappling was to dominate top positions. Now, Helio Gracie had found a way to apply these concepts from off your back which was a game changer.
How much did Helio Gracie weigh?
Helio Gracie was said to weigh around 65KG. If you look at him, even during his physical prime he was always a slight and small man. This is perhaps where the idea of BJJ being used to defeat a much bigger opponent comes from. Apparently, Kimura weighed around 85KG which means if they did compete at these weights then Helio was far smaller than his opponent.
Obviously, Kimura used his physical attributes to his advantage and proved his combination of strength and technique was too much for Helio. Since this superfight, lots of people have contested the weight disparity, with others claiming that Helio weighed far less than Kimura at the time. This may have been the case, but unfortunately we will never know the true weight difference.
Did Helio Gracie compete?
Helio Gracie was known as a natural competitor and had been a keen swimmer in his childhood. In terms of BJJ, he obviously fought Kimura too which was a massively hyped superfight at the time. Remember though, this took place in the early 50s and although prize fighting was a thing back then, organized BJJ competitions weren’t around at that point.
Even MMA as we know it today wasn’t done until decades later. Because of this, Helio wasn’t a competitor by modern standards but he certainly was within the era he lived in. Anyone who gets their arm broken during a grappling match can surely be labeled as a true competitor.
Why did Helio wear a blue belt?
Helio Gracie famously wore a blue belt in his older years. The reason for this was due to being disillusioned with the direction that BJJ was going. In short, he didn’t like certain aspects of competitions and thought that they moved too far away from his original vision which was based on self defense.
At the time of changing to wear a blue belt, he was actually a 10th degree red belt which is literally the highest rank in BJJ. However, he felt the belt had also been watered down by people that wore the red belt without his consent.
Remember, Helio had trained for most of his life, so by the 1990s BJJ would have changed drastically compared to his younger years. In short, the blue belt represented a move away from modern BJJ and what it stood for. It makes you wonder what Helio would think about the current format that BJJ has since evolved into!
If you’d like to learn more about Helio Gracie, then check out his book here.
