Hélio Gracie
A light man who built a fighting system on leverage
- Born
- October 1, 1913, Belém, Pará, Brazil
- Died
- January 29, 2009 (aged 95)
- Nationality
Brazil- Style
- Leverage-first guard fighter
- Weight
- Openweight
- Active
- 1932–1955
The record
Documented jiu-jitsu and vale tudo bouts, 1932-1955, per BJJ Heroes (7 submissions, 1 stoppage). Wikipedia's unreferenced fight table differs slightly (9 wins). record
The story
élio Gracie, the youngest of the Gracie brothers, took the judo his brother Carlos taught and reshaped it around leverage, timing and a patient guard, so that a light man could survive and beat heavier opponents. From 1932 he fought open-weight jiu-jitsu and vale tudo bouts in Brazil, drawing with the wrestler Wladek Zbyszko and choking Yukio Kato in 1951. Later that year he faced the judo great Masahiko Kimura and was stopped by the shoulder lock that now carries Kimura's name. In 1955, aged 41, he fought his former student Valdemar Santana, 16 years younger and far heavier, for roughly three hours and forty minutes before being knocked out. He spent the rest of a long life teaching, and his sons, among them Rickson, Royler and Royce, carried the family method around the world. In the 1930s he and his brothers had trouble with the law.
Tap a technique with an arrow to learn how it works.
- Co-founder of Gracie (Brazilian) jiu-jitsu
- Organised the first Rio de Janeiro state jiu-jitsu championship (1950)
- Red belt, 10th degree
- Black Belt magazine Man of the Year (1997)
- Martial Arts History Museum Hall of Fame (2001)
Defining matches
- 1932WINvs Antonio Portugal (submission in under a minute, first vale tudo bout)
- 1934DRAWvs Wladek Zbyszko
- 1951WINvs Yukio Kato (cross choke, rematch)
- 1951LOSSvs Masahiko Kimura (reverse ude-garami, the lock now called the kimura)
- 1955LOSSvs Valdemar Santana (knocked out after roughly 3 h 40 min)
Drill Hélio's favourite finish, the cross collar choke from closed guard: feed one hand deep into the collar, break the opponent's posture with your knees, slide the second hand in under the first and pull your elbows to the mat. It is leverage over strength in a single technique.
