Carlos Gracie (September 14, 1902October 7, 1994) was a Brazilian martial artist who is credited with being one of the primary developers of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Along with his younger brother Hélio Gracie and fellow students Luis França and Oswaldo Fadda, he helped develop Brazilian jiu-jitsu based on the teachings of famed Japanese judōka, Mitsuyo Maeda in Kano Jujitsu (Judo) and is widely considered to be the martial-arts patriarch of the Gracie family. He purportedly acquired his initial knowledge of Jujitsu by studying in Belem under Maeda and his students. As he taught the techniques to his brothers, he created a martial arts family with Hélio and with other members of the Gracie family who provided key contributions to the style and development, eventually creating their own self defence system named Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is distinct from its indirect predescessor jujutsu, focusing primarily on the grappling techniques while downplaying the striking elements common among older schools of Japanese jujitsu. Biography Early career Carlos was born in Belém in 1902, the first of eight children. He was a mischievous, aggressive child, prone to getting involved in brawls and getting expelled from schools. When Carlos was 15 years old, hoping to find a way for him to vent his aggression, his father Gastão took him to a professional wrestling challenge hosted in the circus he owned, where Carlos witnessed how the judoka Mitsuyo Maeda defeated a much bigger man. Impressed by the feat, he allegedly started taking classes under Maeda and his assistant Jacyntho Ferro, albeit for a short time, as his family moved to Rio de Janeiro for economic reasons. There, Gracie started working as a bouncer in his father's casino until a falling out between them, and after some other jobs he became a pupil of Donato Pires dos Reis, a police hand-to-hand instructor and apprentice to Maeda. Under him, Carlos had his first formal training, learning especially self-defense-oriented techniques. He started his career on the rings by challenging judoka Geo Omori in São Paulo in 1929, although he was initially rejected due to Carlos's lack of training and experience. They eventually faced off in two exhibitions (non-competitive matches) of "jiu-jitsu" (judo and jiu-jitsu were terms used interchangeably at the time in Brazil) staged as a favor to Carlos's father for the Municipal Guard in January 1930. Afterwards, Carlos and his brother George founded a small school in the city's