Huanderson Pavão

Huanderson Pavão is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu 3rd degree black belt and Luta Livre master from the Grapple Fight Team (former Gama Filho). An important figure of the Grappling Fight Team roster, Pavao has a wealth of experience in many different branches of the fight game with wins in BJJ, Luta Livre and having fought at the bigger stages of MMA such as the Japanese organization, Shooto, where he fought Takanori Gomi.

Huanderson Pavao was born on the 31st of August, 1976 in Rio de Janeiro – Brazil. He started practicing martial arts with his cousin (famous MMA fighter Alexandre "Pequeno" Nogueira), and the martial art chosen was “Luta Livre Esportiva” a form of submission wrestling enrooted in Brazilian culture. His coach was the also famous Eugenio Tadeu.

The Luta Livre gym was far away from his house, and after a while the long commute was no longer something Pavao could live with. He started looking for alternatives, but no Luta Livre academies were available close to him. Due to his friendship with Jiu Jitsu fighters who trained close by in a gym at Méier (“Paulinho” and Eduardo “Escopeta“) Huanderson decided to give the gi work a try.

He then joined the Gama Filho team (today called GFTeam), and studied Jiu Jitsu under the legendary Mestre Julio César Pereira, Huanderson Pavao was 18 years old then. In 2000 (when Pavao as a purple belt) his cousin Alexandre “Pequeno” sent some video recordings of him fighting to a few fight promoters in Japan. The Japanese were amazed at this kid’s potential and invited Huanderson to premiere in their organization, Shooto. Pavao’s couldn’t have asked for a more difficult opponent for his MMA debut as he faced “The Fireball Kid” Takanori Gomi, then a rising star in the Land of the Rising Sun. Pavao lost the fight by decision but got many positive props for the challenge. Unfortunately (for MMA fans) Pavao got offered a scholarship at the University to study law, and chose to finish his course rather then a career as a cage fighter.

After receiving his black belt in December 2001, Pavao dedicated a lot of his life to his academic degree. After that he spent a while in Europe (coaching) before returning to Brazil to train and coach at his team GFTeam.

Source: BJ Heroes

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Julio Cesar Pereira

Master Julio Cesar Pereira is a highly regarded BJJ instructor and a 6 grau black belt (6th degree). Julio Cesar is also the founding member and main instructor of the world famous GF Team (Grappling Fight Team) formerly known as Gama Filho Jiu Jitsu academy. Julio Cesar has been directly involved with the development of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu champions such as Rodolfo Vieira, Vitor Henrique, Ricardo Evangelista, Igor Silva and many others.

Julio Cesar Pereira, also known as “Mestre Julio” (translated to Master Julio) was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on the 22nd of December 1964. Julio Cesar started training Jiu Jitsu under Monir Salomão’s tutelage in 1974, and continued training under the Oswaldo Fadda black belt until he received his black belt himself. Master Julio Cesar also reached the rank of black belt in Judo and trained extensively in Luta Livre (a form of Brazilian Submission Wrestling).

The Gama Filho academy was founded by Pedro Gama Filho and Paulo Jardim who coached at the famous University campus for a short while before handing the job in the capable hands of Master Júlio César, Marcus Bello and Alexandre Baraúna, this trio took the project from there on and turned the Gama Filho academy into one of the strongest in the state of Rio de Janeiro while Pedro Gama Filho and Jardim stayed behind the team giving financial support. After the passing of Pedro Gama Filho, the team’s position was weakened and when in 2007 some of Julio Cesar’s competitors transitioned to Mixed Martial Arts the University requested for the name change and to break the long time bound between the team and the Uni. This was Grappling Fight Team was created under the same roster as before.

The break with Gama Filho coincided with a the flourishing of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu which catapulted the team to world wide recognition, becoming one of the most prestigious BJJ academies out there with affiliates all over Brazil and the US.

Source: BJJ Hheroes

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Oswaldo Fadda

Master Fadda was born in Bento Ribeiro, a suburb in the north of Rio de Janeiro to a family of Italian immigrants. At the age of seventeen, while in the Brazilian Marines, he began to study jiu jitsu under Luis França and a black belt under Mitsuyo Maeda. Maeda was an expert judōka with direct lineage to the founder of judo, Kanō Jigorō, who had travelled around the world as a prize fighter while also teaching the locals his self-defence techniques. After settling in Belém in 1917, Maeda had continued to teach jiu jitsu to a select group of students (including França and Carlos Gracie).

By 1942, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was becoming well known in Brazil, although the price of tuition was too high for most residents of Rio. Master Fadda had received his own black belt from França and soon started teaching jiu jitsu free of charge in unorthodox locations such as public parks and beaches, often without the aid of crash mats, aiming to spread the art of jiu-jitsu to the poorer folk. Master Fadda also saw jiu-jitsu as a way to help people with physical or mental disabilities, especially the city's numerous polio victims. With no real income from his teaching he was forced to advertise in the obituary section of the local newspaper.

Despite being regarded by the Gracie family as an outcast, Master Fadda managed to open his own academy on the outskirts of Rio on January 27, 1950.[3] He and his students began specialising in the use of footlocks, an often ignored part of the jiu-jitsu curriculum. The next year, Master Fadda felt confident that his school was ready for the next step and issued a challenge to the Gracies through the media: "We wish to challenge the Gracies, we respect them as the formidable adversaries they are but we do not fear them. We have 20 pupils ready for the challenge".

Hélio Gracie accepted the challenge and the two teams fought at Gracie's academy. Master Fadda's team emerged victorious, making good use of their knowledge of footlocks, in which the opposition was lacking. José Guimarães, one of Master Fadda's pupils, choked Gracie's "Leonidas" unconscious. Oswaldo himself became the first man to beat Hélio in competition. After the challenge, Master Fadda gave an interview for the "Revista do Esporte" (sport magazine) "We put an end to the Gracie tabu". Also Hélio Gracie in an interview with the newspaper said "All you need is one Master Fadda to show that Jiu-Jitsu is not the Gracie's privilege". The Gracies had previously derided the holds as a "suburban technique" but were quick to applaud Master Fadda's win as a sign that jiu jitsu was for everyone, not just the well off. The result of the challenge was well publicised across Brazil and many new students arrived at Master Fadda's school seeking tuition. The added notoriety of the win also attracted local hard man who wanted to challenge Master Fadda themselves. This was such a regular occurrence that time was set aside every week specifically for this purpose. A long standing belief is that Master Fadda and his students never lost a fight.

Master Fadda died aged 84 on April 1st 2005 for a bacterial pneumonia aggravated from Alzheimer's. Unlike the Gracie's, Master Fadda did not transform his family into an army of fighters, but his legacy lives on in his students in various academies all over Brazil and the world in Japan, Europe, Australia and the United States to name a few. These include some legends and champions such as Jacare, Vitor "Shaolin" Ribeiro, BJ Penn, Robson Moura, Leonardo Santos, Jose Aldo and world champion Rodolfo Vieira. Master Fadda Jiu-Jitsu gave birth to new well known Academy's such as Nova Uniao, Grappling Figthing Team (GFT) and Master Wilson Academy.

Source: Wikipedia, Fadda Jiu-Jitsu

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The History of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Mitsuyo Maeda, was one of five of the Kodokan's top groundwork (Ne - Waza) experts that judo's founder Kano Jigoro sent overseas to demonstrate and spread his art to the world. Maeda had trained first in sumo as a teenager, and after the interest generated by stories about the success of Kodokan Judo at contests between Kodokan Judo and jujutsu that were occurring at the time, he changed from sumo to Judo, becoming a student of Jigoro Kano. Maeda left Japan in 1904 and visited a number of countries giving "jiu-do" demonstrations and accepting challenges from wrestlers, boxers, savate fighters and various other martial artists before eventually arriving in Brazil on November 14, 1914.

Gastão Gracie was a business partner of the American Circus in Belém. In 1916, Italian Argentine circus Queirolo Brothers staged shows there and presented Mayeda. In 1917, Carlos Gracie, the eldest son of Gastão Gracie, watched a demonstration by Maeda at the Da Paz Theatre and decided to learn judo. Maeda accepted Carlos as a student and Carlos learned for a few years, eventually passing his knowledge on to his brothers.

At age fourteen, Hélio Gracie, the youngest of the brothers, moved in with his older brothers who lived and taught traditional Japanese jiu-jitsu in a house in Botafogo. Following a doctor's recommendations, Hélio would spend the next few years being limited to watching his brothers teach as he was naturally frail. Over time, Hélio Gracie gradually developed Gracie Jiu Jitsu as a softer, pragmatic adaptation from Judo, as he was unable to perform many Judo moves, that required to oppose the opponent strength directly. Through the years Helio Gracie developed a system that focused on ground fighting, as opposed to Judo which enphasizes throwing techniques. Years later Helio Gracie Challenged Judo's legend Masahiko Kimura. According to Kimura in his book "My Judo", He thought of Hélio Gracie to be a 6th dan judo at the time of his fight with him in 1951 (http://www.judoinfo.com/kimura4.htm). However, there is no Kodokan record of Hélio Gracie having any dan grade in judo, but it is not unusual for a foreign judoka's actual grade to be higher than that officially granted and recorded by the Kodokan, as Kodokan ranks are maintained independently and have much more strict requirements.

Although Brazilian jiu-jitsu is largely identified with the Gracie family, there is also another prominent lineage from Maeda via another Brazilian disciple, Luis França. This lineage had been represented particularly by Oswaldo Fadda. Fadda and his students were famous for influential use of footlocks and the lineage still survives through Fadda's links with today's teams such as Nova União and Grappling Fight Team.

Source: Wikipedia

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GFTeam - The Movie

Das GFTeam, das vom Master Julio Cesar Pereira geleitet wird, gehört zu den renomiertesten Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Teams auf der Welt. Erste Erfolge des GFteams erzielte man seit 1990, damals unter dem Teamnamen Universidade Gama Filho auftretend, in Brasilien . Internationale Bekanntheit erlangte das GFTeam nach 2010 durch die erfolggekrönten BJJ Kämpfer wie Denilson Pimenta, Rodolfo Vieira, Ricardo Evangelista, Italo Lins, Vinicius Marinho und Huanderson Pavão, auf den bedeutendsten BJJ Turnieren der Welt.

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