Gracie Barra Downers Grove
Founder
Gracie Barra Downers Grove is part of the global Gracie Barra family, founded by Master Carlos Gracie Jr., a pioneer in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Master Carlos dedicated his life to spreading the art of Jiu-Jitsu and creating a positive impact on people’s lives worldwide. His vision was to develop a supportive community where students could train, grow, and reach their full potential, both on and off the mats.
OUR FOUNDER
Carlos Gracie Jr. was born on January 17, 1956, and grew up deeply influenced by his family of fighters. Closely aligned with his father Carlos Gracie Sr.’s philosophy and teachings, Carlinhos, as he’s affectionately known, observed and learned from some of his family’s most influential figures: Carlos, Helio, and Rolls.
His most formative years, from childhood to early adolescence, were spent in the mountains of Rio de Janeiro at the legendary Teresópolis House. This sprawling ranch, with numerous rooms, was where many of Carlos and Helio’s sons lived and trained together for years. Here, Carlos Gracie Jr. learned the importance of community living, cooperation, and mutual learning—a dynamic that seems to have become an ideal for him. In many ways, Master Carlos replicates that communal setting on a larger scale today, mirroring the environment that nurtured his personal development at the old Teresópolis House. Many attribute his tremendous success in various fields to this philosophy.
He created a structure that could protect the Gracie Barra banner while supporting instructors and school owners to create career opportunities via certification programs and professional training. The schools aim to help their communities by providing jiu-jitsu for everyone.
Gracie Barra’s reputation drew international attention, and Master Carlos created opportunities for hundreds of people to travel abroad and begin international careers. In 2005, Carlos founded his own school outside Brazil, the Gracie Barra US headquarters, located in Irvine, California.
His goal now is to bring Jiu-Jitsu to everyone, and he will establish a school in every city worldwide.
With GB’s worldwide expansion, the need for high-quality wearable uniforms and consistency between schools became imperative. Moreover, Master Carlos Jr.’s teaching methods and philosophy had to be replicated, with the same training experience provided at each school. Without the wearables division, that could not happen. Creating a wearables division was a must in the grand scheme of Carlos’s plans, and 2002 in Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, the seeds of GB Wear were planted.
“At Gracie Barra, we believe that what we wear identifies us as a group and shows what we stand for”. Building on that assumption, Master Carlos Gracie Jr decided to recruit staff from within his school to take up a challenging project, entrusting his students to lead and manage the project. With central ideals and a cutting-edge concept, GB Wear started producing just 50 T-shirts packaged in plastic bags.
Also confident that how and when we wear it provides others with shorthand to subtly read what we are about, albeit superficially, GB Wear became an essential pillar in the GB Association’s Premium School project to accomplish Master Carlos Gracie Jr.’s vision of building one GB School in each city in the world. An important company milestone came when the innovative rash guard and the “uniform” concept was implemented in Gracie Barra in 2003, setting new standards for the entire Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu community.
Today, GB Wear has five international teams support schools, professors, students, and GB entities throughout producing and distributing high-quality gear and instructional products.
GB Wear has regional divisions representing North America, Central America, South America, Oceania, and Europe. Some of the students closest to Master Carlos live in these areas, managing the regional offices and working with local schools daily.
GB Wear constantly promotes and supports BJJ projects around the globe by donating gis and uniforms to outreach projects in Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, school projects in California, and surf projects in Guatemala.
OUR APPROACH TO JIU-JITSU COMPETITIONS
Carlos has created an entity devoted to organizing sport JJ events and providing opportunities for athletes training under the same curriculum and philosophy to compete together.
He decided to replicate what his father did in the 1920s when he promoted vale-tudo, the precursor to the mixed martial arts of today, competitions as a way of promoting and expanding Jiu-Jitsu.
The first GB COMPNET event was a small tournament held on 6/8/2008 at the Gracie Barra America School for kids only. A surprising number of young ones and their parents crowded the 6,500-square-foot facility, and emails from adults and students requesting a chance to compete poured into our email boxes. It was definitely time to take it seriously and take a professional approach to putting together our tournaments.
The Gracie Barra Competition Network is, at its core, a positive and tight-knit organization made up of athletes. GBCN tournaments are conducted with the highest integrity, camaraderie, and sportsmanship, with our athletes, staff, and officials always putting safety first.
Today GB Compnet global league promotes events exclusively to Gracie Barra members in Illinois, Arizona, Texas, Florida, California, Colorado, Brazil, UK, France, Portugal, Japan, Australia, and Paraguay.
Check here for our local events :
MASTER CARLOS’S ENTERPRISES OUTSIDE GRACIE BARRA
Besides his roles at Gracie Barra, Master Carlos is also the founder and president of the IBJJF, the most widespread Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu federation globally. In 1990, he also saw a need to develop a media presence to popularize his sport and competitions further, leading to the development of the “Gracie Newspaper” project, which later evolved into Gracie Magazine, today Jiu-Jitsu’s foremost publication.
With a busy schedule divided between his several occupations and daily Jiu-Jitsu training, Carlinhos takes weekly walks up Pedra da Gávea mountain in Rio de Janeiro, the dunes of Florianopolis, or even the stairs at the beaches of Laguna Niguel, depending on where he is at the moment. He adheres to a strict nutritional regimen based on the Gracie Diet and directs all his energy to deliver “Jiu-Jitsu for everyone.”
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