Daniel Gracie
Through Jiu-Jitsu, people are able to transform their own lives and the lives of their families. This is thanks to the pioneering of several members of the Gracie family, including Daniel Gracie.
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Daniel Gracie has built a life full of achievements within the sport – whether in Jiu-Jitsu tournaments and competitions or in MMA events around the globe.
Like every Gracie, the first gift Daniel received was a kimono and personal history became intertwined with that of Jiu-Jitsu. From the beginning, he was encouraged by his father, Carlos Alberto Vieira, who was not a black belt, but trained Jiu-Jitsu with Grand Master Helio Gracie. Daniel was experiencing the Jiu-Jitsu dojo routine from a very early age. With playful games and a methodology aimed at children, Gracie had his first Jiu-Jitsu experiences at the family academy located in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, which at the time was led by Rolls Gracie. After Rolls passed in a hang gliding accident in 1982, the academy was led by Rolls brothers Carlos Gracie Jr. and Carlson Gracie.
At that moment, accompanied by cousins Ralph, Ryan and Renzo, who had move from Teresopolis with their mother Vera (Daniel’s aunt) the training began to be more frequent.
In 1986, when Carlinhos Gracie Jr moved to the then new neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Barra da Tijuca, Daniel’s connection with Jiu-Jitsu created unbreakable ties. From that moment on, he did not stop training a day and was part of the story, being one of the first students of Gracie Barra. In that period, a competition team was created that dominated and collected several titles in the main Jiu-Jitsu competitions.
Daniel Gracie was still a yellow belt when he began training consistently and followed carefully the advice of Carlinhos Gracie Jr. Carlinhos led the team, but in daily training, he had his family as teachers as well, especially Renzo, Rigan and Jean Jacques Machado. The conviviality and Jiu-Jitsu lessons alongside his cousins went beyond the gym at Olegário Maciel – which was one block from his home. Daniel, Renzo, Ralph and Ryan and their brothers and sister lived in the same house, so the training continued after school, as the living room became a dojo as well.
Despite training intensely with the move of the team from Copacabana to Barra, Daniel, who was still a teenager, only thought about evolving. Until the blue belt, competitions were scarcer and the focus was all on learning and practicing thoroughly. Then, in the purple belt, the story began to change. The competitions became a common commitment on weekends and the Yacht Club Jardim Guanabara, site of the Brazilian championship became a destination for Gracie who collected numerous titles.
In the brown belt, Gracie earned his first World Title, Daniel was Vice Champion on his weight division and champion on the absolute division. Rio de Janeiro, which was the great center of Jiu-Jitsu, knew that another valuable name would come to represent the Gracie family in the main competitions.
The success as a brown belt at the Jiu-Jitsu World Championships at tijuca tennis club in 1996 showed the entire Gentle Art community that it was only a matter of time before Daniel Gracie became a black belt. And, unlike what many imagine, the graduation came from the hands of his cousin in São Paulo. After a workout, Ryan took the black belt and tied it around Daniel’s waist – who was surprised and thrilled by the award, which was endorsed by Carlinhos Gracie Jr.
Thrilled, honored and happy, Daniel was also in great desire to show his game in the sport’s elite, among the lions in the black belt division. With a refined technique and always seeking the completion, Gracie soon competed in his first Brazilian Championship as a black belt won in 1996. The achievements in the national tournament did not stop and he won five more golds.
The year 1999 was special for Daniel. After securing his third Brazilian title (Daniel has 5 on the black belt) he beat Robert Traven at the “Oscar of Jiu-Jitsu” this competition was a invitational only, and the competitors were chosen by their performance at the World Championship. Daniel won a package with everything paid to compete in the Pan American Championship in the United States, where he also won the gold medal.
At the Jiu-Jitsu World Championship, Daniel was champion in 2001 after three runners-up. The silver medals were in finals against Saulo Ribeiro, Fábio Gurgel and Fernando Boi.
With a consolidated career in Jiu-Jitsu, Daniel Gracie had the desire to fight MMA in the early 2000’s – which at the time was also called Vale-Tudo. At the age of 30, he wanted to test himself in the sport that was beginning to gain a lot of notoriety after the boom of the first editions of the UFC, where Royce Gracie charmed the world with his Jiu-Jitsu.
Daniel talked to Renzo and decided to spend a season in New York to train and prepare in the best way at Renzo’s Jiu-Jitsu academy. Training intensely and not knowing when his long-awaited debut would be, Daniel received the following information from his cousin: “You will fight in a month at Pride”.
The premiere couldn’t be more iconic. On June 23, 2002, at the mythical Saitama Super Arena in Japan, Daniel faced Takashi Sugiura and won by split decision in front of an audience of more than 60,000 people. On this card, in the 21st edition of Pride, were the icons Don Frye, Fedor Emelianenko, Anderson Silva, Bob Sapp and Renzo himself.
The second fight didn’t take long to happen. Six months after his debut on December 31, 2002, Daniel was back in Japan to finish Shinsuke Nakamura triumphantly with an armlock in the second round. In 2003, Gracie fought twice more at Pride with a setback for Kazuhiro Nakamura and a submission victory over Wataru Sakata.
Daniel Gracie’s MMA career took six more battles, where he accumulated a record of five wins, four losses and a draw – as well as stints with Bellator and IFL. But the Jiu-Jitsu black belt did not focus on building the same in Jiu-Jitsu in the sport of MMA. The goal was to experience something new and learn other skills that served as the basis for one of his greatest victories today: being a top level coach of MMA and Jiu-Jitsu.
To cite Daniel Gracie’s work as one of the best MMA coaches in the world, you need to go back in time and talk about how you learned how to teach the techniques you master so much. The carioca, already as a purple belt, taught Jiu-Jitsu classes and was gaining confidence and didactics to teach what he knew. With the understanding of the needs of each student and willing to pass on all his knowledge, Daniel was also standing out as a teacher and trainer of champions.
This process also began with Carlinhos Gracie Jr, who forced his students to learn how to teach. Older, Daniel lived in São Paulo and had the opportunity to live on a daily life with Marcelo Behring. In addition, he absorbed as much as he could from other iconic figures that have gone along in his path.
When Behring decided to leave São Paulo and return to Rio de Janeiro in 1990, Daniel alongside Ryan, Ralph and Russo decided to create a team. The team, named Gracie São Paulo and competing under the Gracie Barra banner, quickly gained acclaim and began to form names that beat fighters from Rio de Janeiro. Because of the academy, in fact, gave rise to the rivalry between Rio and São Paulo – famous in the 1990s.
Shortly after, in search of his own space and thinking about the expansion of the brand, Daniel opened a branch of the team in ABC Paulista and continued training champion athletes in important tournaments. The team was successful, but Gracie – especially for MMA fights – needed to spend seasons in the United States with Renzo’s team in New York and decided to stay in the country for good.
With the move, Daniel went on to teach at his cousin’s academy and stayed there for seven years. On some occasions, he even tried to return to Brazil, but decided he would stay in America and in 2013, when he moved to Philadelphia, the black belt opened his own gym. It was another milestone in the life and career of this Gracie family pathfinder.
With over 40 years of experience in jiujitsu and mma , Gracie’s academy did not take long to achieve results and success. The academy offers Jiu-Jitsu for every type of person – whether only for physical activity, or for competition. In addition, the MMA team has become a major world power. With more than 50 competitors, Daniel has six athletes in the UFC – the world’s leading event – with a record of 17 wins and only two losses. With the performance of his pupils, the carioca is considered by the specialized media as one of the main coaches of 2022.
In addition to the academy in Philadelphia, the black belt also wants to make the Jiu-Jitsu team a world power and compete equally with the world’s top teams.
Since he was a boy, in Barra da Tijuca, Daniel Gracie has always had a love relationship with the sea and surfing. The connection, moreover, of Jiu-Jitsu with surfing has always been close and has created a brotherhood between the practitioners of both modalities. When he left Rio de Janeiro and went to the United States, the carioca did not live in coastal cities in America. However, three times a year, during camps in Costa Rica, he takes time to surf and remember the old days of The Wonderful City.
In Brazil, training without the kimono, to really improve the technical aspects was more difficult. When he went to New York to train for his MMA debut, Daniel Gracie had a real discovery of the refined Jiu-Jitsu techniques and training without the kimono at Renzo’s gym. Learning the whole process quickly, the Carioca did not take long to adapt to the game without the kimono and even tested himself in the ADCC, where he stopped only in Fabrício Werdum – who would later conquer the competition and become UFC champion.