Hélio Gracie 

Hélio Gracie (October 1, 1913 – January 29, 2009) was regarded as the creator of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, also known as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ). Until his death, Gracie was the only living 10th degree master of the discipline and is widely considered as one of the first sports heroes in Brazilian history; he was named Black Belt Magazine's Man of the Year in 1997. He was the father of the world-renowned fighters Rickson Gracie, Royler Gracie, Royce Gracie, Relson Gracie and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) founder Rorion Gracie. Gracie was also a 6th dan in judo.

Biography

Early life & career

When Gracie was 16 years old, he found the opportunity to teach a Judo (at that time Judo was commonly referred to as Kano Jiu-Jitsu or simply Jiu-Jitsu) class, and this experience led him along with his brother Carlos to develop Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The Director of the Bank of Brazil, Dr. Mario arrived for class as scheduled. The instructor Carlos was running late and was not present. Gracie offered to begin the class with the man. When the tardy Carlos arrived offering his apologies, the student assured him it was no problem, and actually requested that he be allowed to continue learning with Helio Gracie instead. Carlos agreed to this and Helio Gracie began as an instructor. Gracie realized, however, even though he knew the techniques theoretically, in fact, the moves were much harder to execute. Due to his smaller size, he realized many of the judo moves required brute strength that his diminutive stature did not allow. He began adapting the moves for his particular physical attributes, and through trial and error learned to maximize leverage, thus minimizing the force that needed to be exerted to execute the move. From these experiments, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, formally Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, was created. Using these new techniques, smaller and weaker opponents gained the capability to defend themselves and even defeat much larger opponents.

Arrest

Gracie was involved in an attack on Luta-Livre teacher Manoel Rufino dos Santos in 1932, at the age of 19. In an interview for Playboy Magazine he regretted that act with this statement:
“    It was 66 years ago that I was involved in my biggest trouble. A famous fighter in Brazil [a former luta livre champion] Manoel Rufino dos Santos. said that he was going to show the world that we Gracies were nothing. It was at the Tijuca Tennis Club of Rio that I gave my answer to him. I arrived and said "I came to answer the declaration that you made." He throw a punch and I took him to the ground, with two fractures of his head, and a broken clavicle, and blood spurting out. But it was a foolish act that I did. Today I would never repeat such a thing.    ”

Gracie was prosecuted and sentenced to two and a half years in jail. An appeal was made to the Supreme Court by Gracie's lawyer Romero Neto and the sentence was upheld, as the court said "Today it was with Manoel Rufini dos Santos. Tomorrow it will be us." A couple of hours after that decision Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas pardoned Gracie. According to Gracie, one of his students had a brother who was an ambassador and was very close to Getúlio, and he intervened in favor of Gracie. Gracie and Getúlio subsequently met many times and Gracie eventually taught Getúlio's son Maneco.

Fight career

Gracie had 18 professional fights in his carreer. He began his fighting career when he submitted professional boxer Antonio Portugal in 30 seconds in 1932. Also in 1932 he fought American professional wrestler Fred Ebert for fourteen 10 minute rounds. The event was stopped because Brazilian law did not allow any public events to continue after 2 AM. Fred Ebert sustained a severe beating throughout the fight. After the fight Ebert was rushed to the hospital and Helio went home with black and blue elbows resulting from hitting Ebert's face.

In 1934 Gracie fought professional wrestler Wladek Zbyszko, who was a former world champion, for three 10 minute rounds. Even though the wrestler was almost twice Helio's weight he could not defeat him and the match ended in a draw. After regulation time expired Helio proposed an immediate extra round to be fought and the bigger wrestler refused. Hélio defeated Taro Miyake, a Japanese professional wrestler and judoka who had an extesive professional fighting record and worked for Ed "Strangler" Lewis in the U.S.

Hélio also fought several Japanese judoka under submission rules. In 1932 he fought Japanese judoka Namiki. Helio defeated Japanese heavyweight judoka and sumo wrestler via armlock. The fight ended in a draw, but according to the Gracies the bell rang just seconds before Namiki would have tapped out. Gracie had two fights with Japanese judoka Yasuichi Ono after Ono choked out Hélio's brother George Gracie in a match. Both fights ended in a draw. Gracie fought another Japanese judoka Kato twice. The first time was at Maracanã stadium and they went to a draw. Afterwards, Gracie asked for a rematch. The rematch was held at Ibirapuera Stadium in São Paulo and Gracie won by front choke from the guard.

Kimura vs. Hélio Gracie
Kimura vs Gracie –
his winning "Kimura lock."
The headline reads:
"(moral) Victory for Helio Gracie."

In 1955, Kimura, at 38 years old, participated in a match in which he defeated Gracie of the famous Gracie Jiu Jitsu family in a submission judo match held in Brazil. During the fight, Kimura threw Gracie repeatedly with Ippon Seoinage (one arm shoulder throw), Osoto Gari (major outer reap) *Kimura's signature throw. He threw Gracie 3 times with Osoto Gari.*, Ouchi Gari (major inner reap), Uchimata (inner thigh throw), and Harai Goshi (sweeping hip throw). Kimura reportedly threw Gracie repeatedly in an effort to knock him unconscious. However, the floor of the fighting area was apparently too soft to allow this to happen. Kimura also inflicted painful, suffocating grappling techniques on Gracie such as kuzure-kamishiho-gatame (modified upper four corner hold), kesa-gatame (scarf hold), and sankaku-jime (triangle choke). Finally, thirteen minutes into the bout, Kimura positioned himself to apply a reverse ude-garami (arm entanglement, a shoulderlock). Gracie refused to submit,. forcing Kimura to continue the lock on Gracie's broken arm. At this point, Carlos Gracie, Gracie's older brother, threw in the towel to end the match to protect his brother's health. In 1994, Gracie admitted in an interview that he had in fact been choked unconscious earlier in the match, but had revived when Kimura released the choke.

As a tribute to Kimura's victory, the reverse ude-garami technique has since been commonly referred to as the Kimura lock, or simply the Kimura, in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and, more recently, mixed martial arts circles.

Kimura describes the event as follows:

"20,000 people came to see the bout including President of Brazil. Helio was 180cm and 80 kg. When I entered the stadium, I found a coffin. I asked what it was. I was told, "This is for Kimura. Helio brought this in." It was so funny that I almost burst into laughter. As I approached the ring, raw eggs were thrown at me. The gong rang. Helio grabbed me in both lapels, and attacked me with O-soto-gari and Kouchi-gari. But they did not move me at all. Now it's my turn. I blew him away up in the air by O-uchi-gari, Harai-goshi, Uchimata, Ippon-seoi. At about 10 minute mark, I threw him by O-soto-gari. I intended to cause a concussion. But since the mat was so soft that it did not have much impact on him. While continuing to throw him, I was thinking of a finishing method. I threw him by O-soto-gari again. As soon as Helio fell, I pinned him by Kuzure-kami-shiho-gatame. I held still for 2 or 3 minutes, and then tried to smother him by belly. Helio shook his head trying to breathe. He could not take it any longer, and tried to push up my body extending his left arm. That moment, I grabbed his left wrist with my right hand, and twisted up his arm. I applied Udegarami. I thought he would surrender immediately. But Helio would not tap the mat. I had no choice but keep on twisting the arm. The stadium became quiet. The bone of his arm was coming close to the breaking point. Finally, the sound of bone breaking echoed throughout the stadium. Helio still did not surrender. His left arm was already powerless. Under this rule, I had no choice but twist the arm again. There was plenty of time left. I twisted the left arm again. Another bone was broken. Helio still did not tap. When I tried to twist the arm once more, a white towel was thrown in. I won by TKO. My hand was raised high. Japanese Brazilians rushed into the ring and tossed me up in the air. On the other hand, Helio let his left arm hang and looked very sad withstanding the pain."

In May 1955 at the YMCA in Rio de Janeiro, Gracie participated in a 3 hour 42 minute fight against his former student Valdemar Santana, with Gracie losing by technical knockout due to exhaustion. This is fight is the longest uninterrupted MMA fight in history.

Death

Gracie died on the morning of January 29, 2009 in his sleep in Itaipava, Rio de Janeiro. The cause of death, reported by the family, was natural causes. "I created a flag from the art's dignity. I oversee the name of my family with affection and nerves of blood," were his last words.