RIckson Gracie is finally able to exhale, and is hoping others can let out a deep breath as well.
At age 62, after decades of forcing opponents to tap out, the Brazilian jiujitsu icon now spends his mornings tapping into a mindfulness ritual of meditation and yoga, followed by surfing the Pacific waves. As injuries have caused him to scale back his own practice, Gracie proudly takes on the role as teacher and global ambassador. He passes down his expertise of rear-naked chokes and other tap-out classics — moves made famous during his reign as arguably BJJ’s greatest athlete — to his legions of students through his online academy.
Through the experience he chronicles in his recently released New York Times best seller Breathe: A Life in Flow, a new generation can learn the art of becoming comfortable during uncomfortable moments.
“Breathing had always become my invisible edge, whether it be fighting, surfing heavy waves, enduring cold water or to resolve my matters,” he says.
Today, Gracie admits to also spending more time in the kitchen these days — he says he can whip up a chicken casserole or a variety of desserts made from the recipes his mother used cooking for he and his brothers growing up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Back in his prime, Gracie would be whipping the doubters lining up to test him and the legacy of Gracie jiujitsu, created by his father Hélio. With each challenge came the same result: Gracie would submit each foe with brutal precision.
This applied to his professional career as well. Seven of Gracie’s 11 professional MMA wins, mostly fought in Japan during the ‘90s, ended with submissions via rear-naked choke — the other four were by armbar and punches to the face.
But even for BJJ’s best, as his hand was always raised in victory, the pit of his stomach was filled with anxiety and doubt during his early bouts. But when learning how to “breathe,” from an instructor, things began to slowly click. His first was a three 10-minute-round bout against an unbeaten, gigantic opponent — “King Zulu,” who was 50 pounds heavier and more than a decade older than the 19-year-old Gracie.
“I was dead tired,” he recalls. “I asked my dad to stop the fight because I was completely exhausted. He didn’t even listen to me. He told me that [Zulu] was exhausted and now was my time to beat him. Then, just before the bell rings, my brother throws a bucket filled with ice water over my head. Within three minutes, I finished him with a rear-naked choke.”
Courtesy of Rickson Gracie
A theme to his teachings is that through a combination of mindset and breathwork, it’s possible to fight through most types of uncomfortable moments, no matter the size of the situation or opponent: “My worst enemy was my own brain telling me to quit. From that point on I decided to never let my mind work against me.”
His memoir (co-authored by Peter Maguire) shares the roots of Gracie jiujitsu, the battles he incurred by protecting the honor of the Gracie family name, along with the high points and low moments — including the tragic death of his son — of being a jiujitsu icon helped shape and reshape him today.
Gracie shares in this week’s Winning Strategy how a deep breath can help you fight through anxiety, sharing your knowledge with the next generation, evolving your mind at all ages.
”People can relate to obstacles and ways to escape and work toward happiness,” Gracie says. “Of course, I feel a little naked because everybody knows about my intimacy, but on the other hand, I hope I can share with people some examples of what I did through some tough situations to reinvent myself and survive under uncomfortable situations.”
Martial arts can be applied to life. So now my motivation is to help others become more comfortable in uncomfortable situations through jiujitsu. Explaining these concepts can allow the practitioner to connect better with their own problems in life — anxiety, panic attacks, any kind of emotional disturbance.
I was 12 when I had my first really uncomfortable situation. At the time, I was training with bigger guys at the gym, which was normal. Of course, they weren’t trying to beat me up, but eventually I got caught in a headlock. I was still a kid, and he was bigger and older. I began having panic attacks, I became claustrophobic, and I couldn’t breathe well — and then I quit.
After I quit, I became so upset with myself for quitting from that type of technique. I wanted to learn quickly how to breathe and get comfortable in those types of situations. So I went home and asked my brother Rolls to roll me up in a carpet very tight. It was a hot summer day in Rio de Janeiro. For the first minute I was completely claustrophobic, then I started thinking about the ocean, the seagulls. Eventually, I was able to get through that nightmare. I did that four more times that same year and eventually became comfortable enough to breathe from the first moment to the end. I’m glad I discovered that situation, but I wouldn’t recommend that technique for others.
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Courtesy of Rickson Gracie
2. Share your greatness with others
The process of resetting yourself from practitioner to coach to mentor is based on the inspiration to make someone better than you. This only makes your legacy stronger —you’re helping plant better roots to build a bigger tree.
I’m proud and happy to be part of a revolutionary process — not just in the art of jiujitsu, but I’m also proud of the individual who’s devoting his energy to become better than me. This has always been the process of jiujitsu: I was always trying to be better than my father and my brothers. You cannot set limits on the learning process or your accomplishments. I’m proud and happy to be a part of his process.
It’s just part of the Gracie creation, we share our ideas with each other. We’re on the same team, the same clan, the same family. When I see a cousin or nephew in a tournament, for me it’s a celebration of our legacy.
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Courtesy of Rickson Gracie
3. Fatherly advice
I never really went to school because I never wanted to become a lawyer or a doctor or an engineer — I wanted to teach jiujitsu. I once asked my father how I could become a good teacher.
He gave me the greatest advice to this day: “If you want to be a good teacher, you have to learn how to do an armlock and then show your students how to do the armlock with precision so they can execute it with perfection. But if you want to be an excellent teacher, you have to understand your student and teach what he needs to learn. With that piece of advice, I became not only a professor of jiujitsu, but also a psychologist. If there’s one agitated person in class, I will teach the entire class for the entire hour how to be calm, to breathe and relax. When you’re in class there are no problems. You’re safe. I will bring an attitude for that particular class based on what they need that day.
If I’m gonna teach someone who’s lazy and slow, I’ll be all over him: “Lift your hands,” “Keep your guard up.” I will bring in different elements into the same idea for class.
My father’s words kind of opened my heart and my eyes to the possibilities I could achieve with jiujitsu. It provides knowledge for not just for the art, but for life itself.
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Courtesy of Rickson Gracie
4. Continue to evolve and grow — like a white belt
As humans we have to evolve throughout our lives, not just in jiujitsu. Your mind is like a parachute — it works when it’s open. For example, when I was helping my nephew Neiman for his most recent fight, we had to deal with certain problems that may come up with certain styles of fighters. I could help him with theories and angles from my experience, but in the end, he has to put his reality into practice. Every fighter will need to evolve because his opponents are evolving as well.
For me, the process never ends whether it’s fighting, seeking happiness, or emotional control each day. My jiujitsu is still in an effort to be sharper to help resolve my daily problems.
In 2000, I was offered to fight Kazushi Sakuraba in the Tokyo Dome in front of 70,000 fans and for money that was unbelievable at the time. It was going to be the best fight of my life.
I was on the top of my game at the time, but during that time I lost my son, Rockson, at the age of 18. That pulled me down to the worst position of my life. My career basically ended at that point. It was devastating for my entire family, but it became a moment of learning about myself — spiritually, physically, mentally. I was reborn.
Of course, the loss of my son will always be painful, but somehow I had to make that a positive — there may not be a tomorrow for any of us. When my son would ask me for something, I would say, “OK, let’s do tomorrow.” But after my son’s departure, I felt like tomorrow may never happen and it’s better to do the best you can do today. And even though I’m still feeling sadness, I feel like the lessons I learned from him energize me to seek happiness. I’ve become much more precise and put in more effort to do the best for myself and others. It’s been the biggest transformation of my life.
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Courtesy of Rickson Gracie
5. Breathe
My breathing was my greatest advantage as a fighter. With my focus on breathing properly, I could not only manage my own physicality and my capacity to be at a high performance at a longer time, I could also understand when my opponents would panic or get tired and need more time to regroup. At that point I could not let them recoup because I would keep the pressure and make him feel claustrophobic till they give me something.
You can find breathing techniques for diving, yoga, singing. You have to breathe through your diaphragm. From the moment we were slapped on the butt as babies, we’ve been taught to breathe high through our chests, close to the heart, and that’s wrong. You become more claustrophobic when you accelerate your breathing on your chest, you become much more emotional than when you lower your breathing into your belly. We have to move our bellies like animals do. But instead we lock the belly and breathe through our chests. Think of it as breathing into your lower back. The biggest part of your lungs isn’t in your chest, but above your lower spine. In order for you to move your rib cage, you have to effectively use the diaphragm. It’s not something you learned when you were born. So it’s not easy.
