Interview by: Dave Contreras    Photos by: Mike Poeschl

Gracie Barra is one of the top schools in all of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and their alumni includes a list of who’s who in the world of BJJ and MMA including Renato “Babalu” Sobral, Ricardo Almeida, and of course the Gracies themselves. Bringing their legendary techniques to Southern CA in 2004, Gracie Barra set up shop in Irvine (located 40miles south east of Los Angeles) with the help of Marcio Feitosa, Marco Joca, and Flavio Almeida (Ricardo’s brother) and quickly established that school as the premiere location for all Gracie Barra academies within the US.  In the following interview head instructor, and multiple time world BJJ champion Marcio Feitosa gives us a rare glimpse into what sets the Gracie schools apart from the rest.

You’ve been in the US for the past three or four years now. Can you talk to us about what it’s been like for you since you first arrived?

I taught BJJ classes in Brazil when I was very young. Carlos (Gracie Jr.) had a vision about spreading Jiu-Jitsu all over the world. When I was traveling I noticed that there was a lot of room for improvement in a lot of schools. MMA started to get bigger, and a lot of the students started making the transition from BJJ into full time MMA. Jiu-Jitsu was become really big in the US, and Carlos told me that it was the right time to bring our techniques because outside of Brazil, BJJ was growing the most in America. He asked me to come to the US and I said “Let’s do it. I would love to go.”  After a couple of years we got bigger, and bigger and Marco (Joca) moved to the US. Flavio (Almeida) was still not on board though because he was back in Brazil focusing on his career as an economist. Finally a year ago Flavio got on board and came to the US. Since then we’ve continued to grow, and people in Brazil started to hear about all the improvements we’ve made to our schools, and how fast we’ve been able to do it in the US. Within four years we’ve managed to open ten associated Gracie Barra schools just in Orange County alone.

Previously it was known that the school in Rio de Janeiro was the headquarters, but is it safe to say that now the school in Irvine, CA is the new official headquarters of Gracie Barra?

It’s hard to say because so much of our history and our culture is in that school in Rio. Whenever I need to recharge my batteries I go to that school and just breathe in that air, or tap on those mats and I automatically feel better. The reality of it is, that it’s hard to continue to do something you love without the financial aspect, and without work being done constantly, and here (Irvine, CA) is where all of that is happening. The school in Rio will always be our home, but if you’re looking to train for a tournament, or to meet the black belts who are currently winning tournaments then you would come to the Irvine school.

When you think about the people that are still in Brazil, and haven’t had the opportunity to come to the US how do you think it makes them feel to see how much Gracie Barra has grown?

When we decided to come over here it was a very tough decision. It meant that there was going to be a lot of change, and a lot of growth but a lot of people didn’t react to the news so well in the first place. Some people decided to leave Gracie Barra because they felt that if Carlos left, they didn’t want to be a part of it anymore. The move to the US was a good one for Gracie Barra, and a good move for the people of Brazil. Whenever we get the opportunity to go back and visit, we go, we teach, we support and we try to give back to the people. Now that the people have seen how much Gracie Barra has grown in the four years we’ve been here, they are starting to believe it was the right decision to make.

Over the past few years Gracie Barra has developed a stricter curriculum and more dojo rules. What do you think was the reason for incorporating these additions?

I came from a very strict family. My mother was very disciplined, so growing up it was never hard for me to do my chores, and get things completed. I never missed classes in school, or training sessions, so it was not hard to transfer that mentality into being an athlete. There BJJ schools that were around when I was a kid were a mess, and I always felt that there was much room for improvement. During my travels I saw that other arts were more organized and more disciplined on the mats, and I really started to like it. I asked the instructors to teach me their methods, and help me understand why they do the things they do. When I came to the US I started to ask the instructors why they couldn’t have stricter rules and the would always tell me it was because they have so many students. I have a lot of students at my school, and I have no problem changing things up because I keep a very open line of communication with my students. I always tell my students that we are trying to build the biggest, and the best school for them so I am open to suggestions.

Would you say that you are the one that developed all of these new rules and standards?

Not at all. People always ask me what the secret behind Gracie Barra is, and I always tell them there’s no secret to what we do, we just have our own way of doing things, and Carlos is the one who started that. He grew up in a house with twenty-something kids, so he truly believes in the group mentality. Gracie Barra is a family, and it’s because of that family that everything has happened, and continued to happen the way it has.

So then Carlos is still very much involved in the day-to-day operations?

Very much so. He’s not the type of guy that likes sitting in an office, so he’s in here teaching classes every day. He’s the visionary behind all of this, and he still has final say over everything that goes down around here.

One thing that’s very interesting about Gracie Barra is that your team is very family oriented. How does someone come in and start to feel comfortable around you guys?

That’s actually something that is on my mind every day, and I worry about it all the time. When we first started and all I had was white belts or blue belts, I would always tell them that one day they would be the leaders of the schools. I told them I wouldn’t be able to take care of all of the groups, so they would take care of the next group, and they would take care of the group after them, etc. If we did not have the higher belts helping out I don’t know what we’d do. Whenever I see a white belt I always try to get feedback from them, and one thing I’ve never heard them complain about was them feeling threatened or feeling that someone was not willing to help them. We count a lot on the higher belts to help out and make sure people feel welcomed and accepted. I think we’ve managed to be very successful  with that, but it’s something I always think about.

What if you had a scenario where you had a student who still wanted to be part of the team, but didn’t want to follow the rules, and even broke rules. What form of discipline would you exercise in a scenario like that?

There’s actually two different scenarios right there. There’s a difference in a guy that doesn’t want to follow the rules, and a guy who goes and breaks the rules. Everything we do here, we try to go back to the roots of Jiu-Jitsu because we all have great respect for the first generation of the Gracie family. We believe that they were visionaries, and that their curriculum was the foundation of BJJ. The way we handle promotion and attendance is the same way they did it in the very first Gracie Barra school back in Brazil. Everything I do is in an attempt to imitate what they did before me. If someone were to break rules we would never kick him out. We would hold him accountable for his mistakes, and we would have a very open and honest conversation with him. He would still be part of our team though. Carlos has kicked a few people out of the academy in the twenty years I’ve been there, but that is only after they’ve done something that was absolutely unacceptable.

As far as the guy who doesn’t want to follow the rules, there is no room for people like that. People have to come in with an understanding of what we are about, and he will always have room to bring in his own ideas and input but any changes have to be a group decision.

GB is known for doing well in tournaments. Does the new curriculum focus more on competition in sports, or self defense, or both?

I think the thing that has always made Gracie Barra so great is that we’re able to teach people good self defense, good skills for competition, and even those people who are just looking to learn BJJ for fitness. We are always prepared to teach them anything they want to take away from their training. We’ve always had people like Roger Gracie training on the same mats as doctors. Guys like Roger always come in very sensitive to other people’s rights on the mats. He could never come in acting selfish, or like he’s better than anyone. He would come in and help show the other students different things, and help them take away something from their training. What our curriculum is about is taking all of those things that people like Carlos were doing in Brazil, and transferring it into a formula. Carlos is older now, and can’t travel all over the world and teach people his technique so what we’ve attempted to do is take his wisdom and turn it into a formula so that even the people who aren’t super athletes would feel comfortable competing if they wanted to.

Recently you had your first Gracie Barra event at Irvine Valley College. How would you gauge the success of that event?

I would say it was very successful because of the amount of positive feedback we received. We had over three hundred people there. We came up with standards that were different than all of the other tournaments, and I was not sure how people would welcome that idea. For instance, they did not compete bare chest. I went through so many debates with other school owners, but for me it was a simple decision. My school has a lot more women and children than their schools, so I told them that in our tournament contestants would compete with a t-shirt underneath their Gi, and I wasn’t sure how it would go over, but everyone seemed to be very receptive to it. We had a few minor issues, but we are still learning, and I think it will continue to get better as the years go by.

How different are your rules than the typical CBJJ tournament rules?

We did several things different. One of the main differences as that they had to compete with their rash guards underneath. Also, we combined divisions, and I really wasn’t sure how people would react to that. When I decided to combine divisions it was because I wanted to make sure that everyone fought at least twice. A few people lost to bigger opponents, but they all told me that they would rather come here and lose to a bigger opponent than to be given a medal for nothing at all. We also allowed instructors inside the competition area which worked out because everyone came in with a great attitude and showed a lot of sportsmanship. The only problem that we had was our computer system that we wanted to use to change the brackets of the fights. We couldn’t get it to work, but it was still a minor problem.

What can you tell us about the future of Gracie Barra?

Right now we are concentrating a lot on the new guys that will eventually become the leadership of Gracie Barra. Right now Carlos is 52 years old, and he’s still able to pass on his knowledge and wisdom, but we still have to wonder when he will want to slow down and not be on the mats all the time. We’re putting out a lot of energy preparing people like myself, Flavio, Marco and all of the higher belts for when the time comes and Carlos wants to take time to himself. People ask me if I miss competing, and I do, but right now I need to dedicate my time to learning as much as I can from Carlos because now more than ever we want to structure everything and make sure his philosophy and mentality will live on forever.

Tags: Interviews

Tags: BJJ, Gracie Barra, Marcio Feitosa

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