The Lion: Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt José Henrique Leão Teixeira & author Seymour Yang

José Henrique Leão Teixeira is a sixth degree Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) black belt who studied under one of the most legendary ‘Gracie’ brothers, Rolls Gracie. He later went on to help shape the future development of BJJ with the founding of the first Federation and several big tournaments. Seymour Yang went to meet the BJJ master when he came to conduct a seminar and grading at BJJ School in London.

Images by kind permission of Seymour Yang.

Seymour Yang: Hi Zé, thanks for taking the time for this interview.

José Henrique Leão Teixeira: It is my pleasure Seymour.

SY: For those that are maybe not aware of your background and achievements, please tell us a little about yourself?

LT: I am the owner of a BJJ academy in Rio called Escola de Jiu-Jitsu, which just means Jiu-Jitsu School in English and I have been training BJJ since I was 14 years old [Ed. Master Leão is now 52]. I first learned my jiu-jitsu from Master Rolls Gracie and then afterwards, I was training under Master Carlos Gracie Jr.

SY: Rolls Gracie was known as one of the most famous and legendary fighters of his generation. Tell me more about your time with him?

LT: Yes Rolls was a great teacher and amazing man. As you probably know, Rolls tragically died at a very young age and it was a big shock to everyone.
[Ed. Rolls Gracie was the son of BJJ founder Carlos Gracie. Rolls died in 1992 in a hang gliding accident at the age of 31. He was widely regarded as a pioneer and innovator of BJJ, introducing many new concepts and techniques to the sport.] Rolls Gracie meant a lot to us all, his contribution to the growing importance of jiu-jitsu cannot be denied. His discipline and determination in class made a deep impression on me and are values that I believe in until today. I have made them the mission of my school.

SY: What was it like to train BJJ in this amazing part of its history?

LT: Jiu-jitsu was not as popular as it is now. Today we have academies all over the world but when I began, there were only a few academies and I was training with all the Gracie brothers, like Rickson, Carlos, Crolin and the Machado brothers and many tough black belts. In fact many tough guys from other academies would also come to train with us.

SY: You mean guys from rival academies? This would never happen now?

LT: Yes, once a week every Friday, we and the students from Jacaré’s or Rickson’s academy would meet up to train. It was friendly and we just loved training. You have to understand my instructor and their instructors were all from the same family so there was no big rivalry at that time. You can imagine how much my own jiu-jitsu improved with all these amazing guys.

SY: Tell me about your training after Rolls passed away?

LT: After Rolls died, the academy was run by Carlos Gracie Jr [aka Carlinhos, son of BJJ founder Carlos Gracie] and after a time Carlinhos and his brothers changed the academy name to Gracie Barra – which is now a very famous team as you know – and I started to teach there, in particular the kids.

SY: Yes teaching kids is one of the many things that you are especially well known for; tell me why you enjoy this aspect of instruction?

LT: Oh well kids are a gift you know? I mean they are such amazing students, they learn fast and you see how they play with the jiu-jitsu just like they play with anything else in their lives, they really have fun. I just do not understand why some people say ‘I don’t like teaching kids’ because to me, if you are a teacher, a good teacher, you can teach jiu-jitsu to anyone, young or old. Not just the talented athletes, but to everyone.

SY: BJJ was expanding very fast at this time, tell me how you got involved in the setting up of the first BJJ Federation?

LT: Carlinhos, Jean Jacques Machado and I founded the Association of Jiu-Jitsu of Barra da Tijuca which was very successful and it inspired Carlinhos to found the Brazilian Confederation of Jiu-Jitsu [Ed. today known as the International Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Federation, IBJJF, and hosts the largest BJJ tournaments in the world]. Since the first Brazilian Championship event, I helped Carlinhos with seminars for referees, and continued to teach kids and young adults. Later I thought it was important to have an event for older athletes so I founded the International Masters and Seniors tournament. Today I am Vice President of the IBJJF.

SY: The International Masters and Seniors Championship is a very popular event, I know quite a few British based fighters who go each year.

LT: Yes it is a very big tournament now. In the beginning it was my idea to provide a championship to get the older stars out of retirement and give some motivation to come back and compete. I am so pleased with how it has grown so big now.

SY: Why did you leave and set up your own academy?

LT: I had been teaching and training at Carlinhos’ academy for over ten years and I felt it was a good time to do something new, so I asked Carlinhos if I could set up my own school? At first he was a bit shocked, asking me ‘why do you want your own academy?’ But I explained my vision of opening up a club just for kids. He was very supportive. 

So, in 1992 I set up Escola de Jiu-Jitsu and in only two years my academy grew to over 200 kids! I’m very proud that there are a lot of kids from my school who have become black belts and many have won World titles. Today I have three other academies, each run by my own students who have been with me since they were kids and now they are black belts. It was not my intention at all to expand, I am very happy with my own academy and family life that I have, but it is important to allow my students to continue to grow, so I let them open up new schools under my academy name.

SY: A lot of BJJ academies are very focused on competition, is this important to you too?

LT: Competition is of course a good thing. But it is just a result. It is only one part of jiu-jitsu. My school carries the legacy that was taught to us by Carlos Gracie and later on by his sons. This is that jiu-jitsu is there to help you in all your areas of your life, to improve yourself and make you a better person.

You see, we have many, many students at my academies and they are not all interested in competition. Of course, you do have some people who are born to fight – for example recently I had one kid, he had only two weeks of lessons and wanted to compete. We taught him just two techniques and he went on to win the whole division. Kids like him are born to fight, you don’t really need to teach him that. But most people are here to learn jiu-jitsu because jiu-jitsu is first of all a self defence, you do not need to have big athletic ability like high kicks of big punches, the moves are so simple. It is a healthy thing and most people just love the training. So my academy, and my philosophy is very much designed to encourage this.

SY: So you teach the self defence aspects too?

LT: Yes we teach everyone, especially the beginners, the self defence techniques of BJJ. I realize some students think this is just old-fashioned jiu-jitsu but it is very important. In fact I have some students who only train in this aspect.

SY: You are very well known for bringing BJJ to the favelas with your social projects, tell me about this?

LT: My academy was doing very well and I had a good comfortable life, but I was still thinking that maybe I could do something more. I wanted to help the poorer people in our city so I decided to teach jiu-jitsu in the favelas. [Ed. Favelas are notorious slum districts of Rio and other big Brazilian cities] It was very popular, but still I was not happy. Each week I would travel to the favelas and then go home to my comfortable life, it did not seem right. So I decided to make it a bigger project – I wanted to bring kids out of the favelas and into my academy so they would experience life outside their own place.

SY: How did your other students find this?

LT: It was a risk for me to do this. In my academy, we had the favela kids mixing with the kids from the richer neighbourhoods and I did not know if their parents would reject my idea and take away their kids – this was my business after all. But, and this is the most amazing thing, all the kids trained together so well and the parents really loved what was happening. It broke everyone’s fears or prejudices. They really supported me and now, since I began the project in 1994, my project, which is called Future Champions, is still going. Many of my early students have become black belts and are teaching and running academies now. And now I am so happy that Felipe de Souza (Heart of the Lion, MAI January 2010) has carried on with this project for the kids in London. Last week I saw how his Future Champions project has grown – there are so many kids now and they are really benefiting from learning jiu-jitsu.

SY: Do any of your Future Champions students carry on with their BJJ when they become adults?

LT: Oh yes many. I mean there are many that give up too, but we have many who have graduated to black belt. One example is a student called Vinicius who started training at the same time as Felipe and are about the same age, yet come from totally different backgrounds. Vinicius is now running one of my academies, and of course Felipe is here with BJJ School. But I like to think that my project really changed the life of Vinicius because in the favelas, the government does not care much about the people there, and there are very little choices for them.

SY: How do you organize the project?

LT: In the beginning it was my dream to help as many kids as possible. I invited as many to come train with me as possible – up to 100 at one point. But it was soon clear it was out of control -  that I could not save the whole world! I needed a system to limit the numbers and find students who really wanted to train because they loved jiu-jitsu. So now I conduct interviews with the kids and the parents and try to explain my ideas and goals to them. We now have 20-30 kids on the project, which is much more manageable.

SY: Why do you think you have this desire to help people with jiu-jitsu?

LT: I believe from my heart that if you receive a gift, it is your obligation to pass that gift on. Jiu-jitsu was the gift given to me by all the Gracie brothers and now I am passing that on.

SY: Finally, tell me how you see BJJ growing in the next few years?

LT: When I see how much jiu-jitsu has spread throughout the world, I am very happy to have been a part of this. The martial arts were born in India and then developed in China and of course in Japan, which is the source of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. But now, when you go to Japan and when I speak to Japanese students, when they talk about ‘jiu-jitsu’, they only mean Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu! This is how our art has changed the world!

SY: Professor Leao, it’s been a real pleasure – I could talk to you for hours! Thank you for your time today.

LT: Thank you very much my friend.

Seymour Yang is a BJJ purple belt and writer of the BJJ blog: www.meerkatsu.com

FURTHER INFORMATION:

1. BJJ School (UK) website: http://www.bjjschool.co.uk/
2. Escola De Jiu-Jitsu (Rio de Janeiro): http://www.escoladejiujitsu.com.br/
3. Future Champions: http://bjjschool.co.uk/future-champions/