|
MAURICAO
While on the way back from one of Mauricao's seminars in Mansfield, we got talking about his life in Brazil and his love for Jiu Jitsu. As Mauricao began talking, we quickly realised that the stuff he was saying, had never really been touched on in previous interviews and could be of great interest to others. With this in mind, we switched on the tape recorder and decided to do a 5 way kind of interview between all present - Mauricao, his son Roger Gracie, John Donelly, Chas from Choke and myself. As he spoke, we all pretty much sat quiet and listened transfixed. I hope that you too, find it as interesting as we did.
Chas: When did you first start training? Mauricao: My father used to take me to the academy when I was like, 3 or 4 years old. I trained and gave up for a little while. It wasn't until I was 17 or 18 that I really got into it properly. Been doing it ever since. <Laughs> Chas: It's been well documented about the legendary Rolls Gracie's death. When was that exactly? Mauricao: Oh boy, that was in 1982. Chas: Must have been terrible for you? Mauricao: Oh it was really bad. We were a real family. We all used to eat at his house, go out together to the movies, travelling etc. My sons mother.......the whole family........we were really tight with him. He kept everybody together. Paul: Really? Mauricao: Oh yeah, because at that time Rolls was a myth. Everybody used to go to him to talk, for advice or to discuss this or that, and to train with him. So everybody had something to do with him in some way. Chas: What kind of person was he? Mauricao: He was a very special person. That's why I think he died young. He completed his passage here before others. He was somebody..........talking from my view, a very special figure in my life in the things that he taught me and his whole way of being. He influenced me very much. It was a great great loss. I speak like this, but even though it was so many years ago.........It's nearly 20 years that he died already, but it seems like yesterday. I can still sometimes picture him training or yelling at us when we were doing things wrong, or yelling at us in championships to do the right things <Laughs>. John: Are his sons very much like him? Mauricao: No. I love them very much like they were my own sons, and I can see Rolls in them physically. They are very much alike. The boys I like very very much but they are different to their father. They were too young to really know his way. When he died, I picked them up and put them in the back of my car................... It was very very sad. Chas: When the accident happened, did the academy shut down? Mauricao: It was on a Sunday, 6th of June 1982 and nobody really knew what to do. We were all like a big family and all of a sudden, this principle figure that had held us all together was gone. But at the same time, all of us loved what we were doing.........the Jiu Jitsu. Even though we were all very sad, none of wanted to let that thing go. So Carlinhos who was the older brother, used to help with the academy. There was a desire to move out of there, as at this time it was based in Copa Cabana, which was not a very nice place and it's even worse now. But Carson still has the same academy now in exactly the same place. Carlinhos moved to Barra, which is another area of Rio and he created the Gracie Barra academy. John: Do you still keep in contact with the other 4 Black belts that were promoted along with yourself by Rolls? Mauricao: One of them I stay in contact with by email. He has given me some contacts in Europe to look up. One of them is the owner of Gracie sports clothing in Brazil. The other guys I think stopped training. Actually, I heard that one of them got hurt real bad in his back from a take down, and was in a wheelchair. I think he can walk now, but I don't know how he is, I never saw him again. Paul: Do you still have a love for Jiu Jitsu today? Mauricao: <laughs> You stop me doing Jiu Jitsu and it'd be like you cutting off my arms and legs. It's something that gives me great pleasure. It's in the blood and in the mind. John: Do you mind teaching new students, or would you rather have an established academy with lots of top fighters? Mauricao: I think in order to teach top fighters, you need to be a top fighter youself. The older you get, ok you might have more experience in some things, but you tend to want to create people, and teach people the experiences that you had so their beginning can be as good as yours. You know what I mean? John: Yeah. Mauricao: I prefer to teach this kind of student than to go and teach a proper fighter, who will already know almost exactly what I know. Ok I might be able to show him a thing here or a thing there. You see, once you get to a certain level as a fighter, you learn one technique here and one there and you develop your own methods for each one. You don't need a teacher any more. Look at my son Roger, soon he won't need a teacher any more. What he needs is training, hard training, more hard training and then more hard training. That's what he needs. Like doing running, bicycle, weight lifting and swimming............That completes the other part. If it was a group going for a competition, they might need a coach for unity. You look at the two months I have been here in the UK, teaching at the club Kensington. I see people already getting better. Like Colin and like Daniel Zola, the owner of the gym, he's getting a lot better. You should have seen him in training the other day, going for arms and passing the guard. It's cool <laughs>. Paul: How about your son Roger? Mauricao: I see in him one of the big names of the future........In the near future. He has everything that someone needs to get there. Everything! Chas: So how do you feel when you have Roger come to train with you, and he's picked up something that you don't quite agree with from another instructor. Mauricao: No, he trains at an academy where whenever I am in Rio, I train there all the time too. Things that he learns there, are the things that I also go to learn when I return to recycle myself. It's just a very big pleasure having him by my side whenever he comes over. I know that he's getting older, and in a while he will have his own life doing whatever. We might not get the chance to see each other so often. For instance, he will be returning to Brazil, where he will be training for competitions for several months. At the same time I'll be working here in a job that might not allow me to be absent for that competition period. Chas: That will be really difficult won't it? Mauricao: Oh very difficult. I would very much like to see Roger fight in the Mundials. John: I think everyone at the Academy wants to go over to see that. Mauricao: <laughs> We might have to close down the academy for that period then? Chas: Going back to to when you moved to Barra, how long did you stay there? Mauricao: Actually, I didn't move to Barra. It's a long way from where I lived at the time. Because of Rolls' death, I kind of got into other areas of work. Chas: Did you stop training? Mauricao: No never. But at that time, Renzo Gracie was teaching at a place near my house, so I used to train there. After a while he left to go to New York. Paul: How old is Renzo? Mauricao: He must be about 33 or 34 years old now? John: He has established a really good academy in New York where all the students love him. Mauricao: Oh yeah, he's very very good. I like him a lot. Paul: When you return to Gracie Barra for your recycling period, do you return as a student or do you help out with teaching? Mauricao: No no no.......There is a head teacher there already. I don't go back as a student. I'm 45 years old now, so I go back and train with the guys I know and all that. I always try to learn and get together with them. It's very cool, a great atmosphere there. We've all known each other for a very long time. John: When you go back over and see the younger fighters there, do you see their gains being as well developed as it was when you were their age training under Rolls? Mauricao: Jiu Jitsu has changed a lot. There are many many new things. It got better in some ways and worse in others. Just my opinion. The main thing you miss when you get older, is that gas that you used to have that you no longer have any more <laughs> You think you still have it, but it's now gone. The age thing is in the mind sometimes, because you don't feel the age. You only notice it when you look in the mirror or at a photograph, or you need your body to do something, but it just won't go, that's when you notice <laughs>. It's like driving an old car down a street and seeing a fast car overtake you. You think, right I'm gonna go after you. You put your foot on the gas and...........nothing. Time to pull over. <laughs> But hey, they all treat me with a lot of respect over there in Barra. Sometimes I surprise them with what I show them. John: The basics always work huh? Mauricao: Oh yeah, always.....always! John: Maybe today, the basics are not really focused on due to all the cross training? Mauricao: With the older teachers, they teach the basics. I mean, we were always taught that way. Basics first, and again, and again, and again. I'm not saying that the new system is wrong. I'm just saying that sometimes I see............Take Roger for example. He has won this championship and that championship, yet he doesn't even know self defense. He was never taught that. In these days you sometimes get a class where you've got a kick boxing expert or a black belt in karate. They didn't come to learn self defense. They want to learn how to fight on the ground. So the self defense aspect gets forgotten. John: Didn't you go to train in Japan? Mauricao: Yeah, I was asked to help a guy set up an academy in Tokyo. The guy was Japanese but born in Brazil, so he spoke Portuguese. The plan was for me to go there and teach for two months and then come back to Brazil. I went over there in Sept 97. The guy turned out to be a complete fake. He wanted to use the name Gracie Japan to open the academy. He was a blue belt that had awarded himself a brown belt. So I arrived there and looked at the guy and thought woah, this is going to be very difficult, as the Japanese people are very determined. So I sparred with the guy and he was worse than John's uncle! <laughs> and then I said oh my God, this guy is really bad. At this time Gracie Jiu Jitsu was becoming very popular all over, so we decided that we wanted to open the Gracie Barra academy in Japan. This guy didn't want for us to do that. Even though he never said it, he really wanted to keep everything all to himself. He thought that if we did as planned, people would discover that he was nothing and would just vanish. So any contact we had started to make, he would go behind our backs and finish it off....Bring it down. After setting our thing up, we found that everything we did, would go down stream. In the end we found out that this guy was responsible for everything, so we began to argue. In the end he turned himself to Rickson to associate himself there and not lose the Gracie Japan name for his own academy. Rickson never sent a teacher there for him, so he lost all of his blue belts. Now the academy is going down,down down. Pretty soon it'll be finished. When I was in Japan, I had 280 students in only two months. Nobody cares about that other guy any more. Chas: So what made you come to England then? Mauricao: I met this guy who wanted to open an academy in Birmingham. I opened the academy but we were supposed to build it together, I ended up doing everything on my own. Things didn't work out as planned. I moved away and then I met John Donelly, who offered me an opportunity to work in a gym that his company are opening. Through that I got a new work permit. The academy in Birmingham is still going strong. They have about 30 students who still train there and it's running very well. Chas: Is it run by the same guy you first opened it with? Mauricao: No, another guy. Chas: What happened to him then? Mauricao: I don't know? I never spoke to him again. I think he's in Japan? Paul: Do you have plans on getting a competition team together? Mauricao: Oh yeah, it'll take time. I hope to have students that I can send over to Brazil to train, and also to Renzo Gracie's academy. I want to bring Brazilian fighters over too, so we can exchange knowledge with each other. It depends on my students and how quickly they learn.
As the tape was still rolling, we saw a service station and the the thought of food took over the conversation. Needless to say, a pit stop was called for and all fight chat was put on hold.
FANCY TRAINING WITH MAURICAO? Club
Kensington 201-207
High Street Kensington Kensington London W8
6BA Times: Friday
8:15pm - 9:45pm Saturday
3:30pm - 5:00pm Sunday
6:00pm - 7:30pm OR Seymour Leisure Center, Seymour Place ,London W1.
For more information please call : +44 20 7808 8584 (outside UK) 020 78088584 (within the UK).
| ||||
