Alessandro Bandeira

I started training when I was 14 years old. A group of friends and I went to visit a jiu-jitsu academy. I signed up, and I never stopped.

Honestly, I don’t remember much about what my life was like before I started training jiu-jitsu. My life became connected to it and was transformed in ways I can’t even explain. It made me more confident, stronger, more resilient, and inspired me to always strive to be a better person.

The philosophy of jiu-jitsu on the mats is directly connected to life off the mats. Throughout my journey as both a student and an instructor, I learned and taught that living under pressure, finding solutions to challenges, maintaining emotional balance, and becoming comfortable with discomfort would profoundly change the way I approached life.

This December (2026), I will celebrate 31 years as a black belt , 39 years doing jiu-jitsu, and I am incredibly proud to have witnessed lives being transformed and to have seen great champions emerge, both on and off the mats.

That is what makes jiu-jitsu such a magical martial art to me.