Helio Gracie 1913-2009



The legendary patriarch of jiu-jitsu's first family, Helio Gracie, has passed away at the age of 95. The father of nine children, including UFC Hall of Famer Royce, the master of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was revered throughout the world for his gentle manner off the mat and his amazing skill and technique on it. He will be sorely missed. The UFC sends its sincerest condolences to the family and friends of Helio Gracie. -

Every bit of the legend was earned. RIP, and condolences to his extended family.

RIP

This is very sad news. Grandmaster Helio was one of the greatest and most influential martial artists of the Twentieth Century.

Did you ever meet him Tim?
Brian busted out photos, and had some stories to tell tonight. At 7 we observed a moment of silence via request of the Gracie's, then turned and bowed out one last time to Prof. Gracie.
Brian told us about the one time he went to Torrance and trained for a week with the Gracie family years ago. All the son's had separate offices just off the mats, and when they broke for lunch all the sons would go into their respective offices with Professor Royce, Prof. Rickson etc. signs on each door. Helio would walk down to the dressing room where all the white, blue, and purple belts would change and clean up. Helio did not have an office, nor a fancy name plate on anything. He would hang his gi on the locker door just like everyone else, and then rest his 10th dan Red Belt on top, again, just like the white belts. Brian said Helio had the attitude of just another student training even though he was teaching everyone one by one!
Just an interesting story I thought I would share.

Cheers
Jake

Tim has a signed copy of Helio's book.

There's a brown belt in El Paso who would sleep on Helio's couch and train jiu-jitsu for months on end when he would go to Brasil. He saw Helio just last month. Now he's got some stories...