Carlos Gracie

Biography Early career Carlos was born in Belém in 1902, the first of eight children. He was a mischievous, aggressive child, prone to getting involved in brawls and getting expelled from schools. When Carlos was 15 years old, hoping to find a way for him to vent his aggression, his father Gastão took him to a professional wrestling challenge hosted in the circus he owned, where Carlos witnessed how the judoka Mitsuyo Maeda defeated a much bigger man. Impressed by the feat, he allegedly started taking classes under Maeda and his assistant Jacyntho Ferro, albeit for a short time, as his family moved to Rio de Janeiro for economic reasons.

He started his career on the rings by challenging judoka Geo Omori in São Paulo in 1929, although he was initially rejected due to Carlos's lack of training and experience. They eventually faced off in two exhibitions (non-competitive matches) of "jiu-jitsu" (judo and jiu-jitsu were terms used interchangeably at the time in Brazil) staged as a favor to Carlos's father for the Municipal Guard in January 1930.

Association with Donato Pires During this time, aside from both teaching and learning jiu-jitsu under Pires, Gracie dedicated himself to participate in unsanctioned prizefights in small bars, to promote cockfighting, and to experiment on nutrition and dietary habits. He would claim in 1981 to have competed in amateur boxing with a 20-0 record during this time, while his daughter Reila Gracie cited him as a national middleweight champion, In June 1931, Pires moved to Santa Catarina due to his job in the Ministry of the Economy, leaving his academy in Gracie's hands. He also became a real estate investor.

In 1948, he published his book Introdução ao Jiu-jitsu, which was mostly a nutrition and philosophy manual despite its title.

This tradition of open challenge is a part of the heritage of Gracie style of Jiu Jitsu. After Carlos retired from the ring, he managed the fight careers of his brothers and sons, continuing to challenge fighters of all styles throughout the world. This tradition of open challenge is continued by his sons, grandsons, brothers, nephews, and students.

Gracie diet Carlos Gracie copied and adapted a nutritional regimen, from the Argentine-French naturist Juan Esteve Dulin, and is now marketed as the Gracie Diet. Following the Hippocratean maxim "Let your food be your remedy", Carlos aimed this diet to a system that would primarily prevent illness on days of competition. The basic principle of the Gracie Diet is to keep blood pH level neutral by consuming only compatible nutrients at each meal. The Gracie Diet is flexible but it definitely recommends a vegetarian diet and adopts abstinence from alcohol and tobacco and sugar. He also recommended the use of herbal infusions for various health conditions. 13 of whom earned the rank of black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. At the time of his death, Carlos Gracie had twenty-one children, one hundred and six grandchildren, and one hundred and twenty-eight great-grandchildren.

In 2009, Carlos's daughter Reila Gracie (mother of Roger Gracie) published a biography, Carlos Gracie – O Criador De Uma Dinastia; its English translation is titled Carlos Gracie: The Creator of a Dynasty.

Documentary

On July 6, 2023, it was announced that ESPN Films is producing a documentary series on the Gracie family directed by Chris Fuller and produced by Greg O'Connor and Guy Ritchie.

Instructor lineage Kanō Jigorō → Mitsuyo "Count Koma" Maeda Jaycentho Ferro → Donato Pires Dos Reis → Carlos Gracie Sr.