Breathe Quotes

“If you push kids too hard, too young, they will quit forever. Parents should never burden their kids with their unfulfilled ambitions, frustrations, anxiety, or any other form of emotional baggage. The parents’ support must be consistent. The most important thing is that the child gets the experience—win, lose, or draw—without judgment.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“Nothing can be a hundred percent positive or a hundred percent negative.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“My spirituality is based on things that I cannot explain but nonetheless believe. Americans tend to be hyperrational: everything must fit into the right box, and all of the dots must connect. When I moved to the US, it was much harder for me to express myself spiritually and to capture the energy that transcends the rational. People here live according to what they can prove and explain. If they can’t explain something, they deem it unacceptable and unbelievable. However, rationality has its limits; not everything can be explained on paper. Just look into the sky on a clear night. Where does the universe begin? Where does it end? Are we the only form of life in it? Is there life after death? Simple questions without easy answers.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“Emotions are contagious. Hélio used to say that you had to break the emotional wave before it broke on you.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“I eventually learned that the capacity to accept anything, especially death, was the key to my physical, mental, and spiritual growth. All three of these elements must be balanced, because sometimes you don’t break physically but emotionally. Sometimes you have the physicality and the emotional control but are spiritually unprepared. Without a spiritual connection to both life and death, you can’t reach the next level of performance.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“Happiness is not a static thing. You have to work at it by confronting and overcoming challenges.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“ichi-go ichi-e, which roughly translates to “once in a lifetime.” It could refer to a gathering of friends, a special meal, an epic day of surf, but the idea is to savor that occasion, because it will never come again.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“My biggest personal breakthrough came after realizing that my life was less important than my mission.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“I can resist any physical pain if there is a reason.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“There are so many wonderful things that are impossible to experience on a screen: jumping into a cold river, making the drop on a big wave, and walking in the rain are just a few.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“A father must accept his children for who they are, not who he would like them to be.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“My dad believed that if your mind and will are not strong, you’ll spend your entire life getting carried away by your desires and weaknesses. You’ll spend your whole life paying for things you don’t want.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“The principles of Jiu Jitsu can be applied to every endeavor in life. You have stay calm when you are in bad situations. You need to cover and conceal your intent with other maneuvers. You need to utilize the simplest and most efficient methods. You need to prioritize your focus of effort. You need to train until you trust yourself to move intuitively, without having to think. You need to move at the right time. You have to defend critical areas. You should not attack your enemy’s strongpoints. You must utilize leverage. You cannot let your emotions drive your decisions. You have to establish a good base foundation to build upon. You cannot be overly aggressive, but you can’t just allow things to happen. When you make a move, you have to believe in what you are doing. You have to be mentally strong. You have to keep an open mind. You have to continuously learn new techniques while always reinforcing the fundamentals. You have to adapt your plan if circumstances change.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“Many years later, I realized that things mean more if you earn them, but when I was young and wanted to give him a present, I didn’t think twice.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“For young kids, Jiu Jitsu should be nothing more than a fun form of recreation that introduces them to the movements through games and structured play. As they get older, you can introduce more Jiu Jitsu, but it should be playful.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“Although the rules make the UFC more entertaining for fans, ironically, they also make it more violent and less strategic and technical.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“Today, 98 percent of MMA fans have never stepped into the cage, or even onto the mat, much less felt their noses break or tendons pop. Their relationship with violence is virtual. MMA is just something else to watch on a screen.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“Children alter the course of a relationship because the focus is no longer on the two partners.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“To me, vale tudo is different from MMA because there are many more possibilities, both good and bad. Until an opportunity presents itself, one has to fight defensively, as Royce did against Dan Severn in UFC 4. Severn weighed 260 pounds and was on top of my brother for sixteen minutes before Royce caught him in a triangle choke from his back. According to today's rules, Royce could never have own that fight. The ref would have stood them up again after five minutes on the ground.

MMA is a game; vale tudo is a war.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“Shattering disappointments require you to be radically honest with yourself, a process that can be painful but is absolutely necessary.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“In the beginning, the UFC was promoting real vale tudo fights. Once American politicans began to criticize it, the UFC modified their rules to shorten the rounds and create weight divisions, turning a martial arts contest into a sport. Having only five minutes in a round to capitalize on an opportunity fundamentally changes the nature of a fight. Although the rules make the UFC more entertaining for fans, ironically, they also make it more violent and less strategic and technical. The UFC was transforming vale tudo into something more brutal.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“If I'm fighting for money, I'll stop hitting you when you or the referee asks me to. If we are fighting for honor, I'll stop hitting you when I feel like it.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“Today, 98 percent of MMA fans have never stepped into the cage, or even onto the mat, much less felt their noses break or tendons pop. Their relationship with violence is virtual. MMA is just something else to watch on a screen. Perhaps this is why the UFC's Octagon is now the equivalent of the Roman Colosseum. Bloody, violent, and explosive.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“Carlos [Gracie Jr.] deserves much of the credit for creating sport Jiu Jitsu, but with it came a problem. it transformed our martial art and created a lot of paper tigers who would never step into the ring to carry the flag of Gracie Jiu Jitsu. My father didn't like the sport version because he thought it was watering down our martial art. Hélio [Gracie] used to say, "This is not my Jiu Jitsu, because competitive Jiu Jitsu is not a martial art. The Jiu Jitsu I created is a martial art so a person can defend themselves on the street without getting beaten up.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“Today, it is possible to get a Jiu Jitsu black belt without knowing self-defense or even getting into a real fight. This was impossible during the 1970s and 1980s. Because my father and uncle loudly proclaimed their style 'the world's most effective form of self-defense,' every young Gracie knew that at some point he would be called upon to represent our family in the ring or in the street. Your first official vale tudo fight was like losing your virginity; it was a rite of passage.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“The initial Gracie Jiu Jitsu curriculum consisted of forty self-defense classes that focused on empowering students. The goal was to prepare them mentally, physically, and psychologically for a physical confrontation and to build a foundation of confidence that would give them peace of mind. My dad's handpicked instructors taught a hundred private lessons a day to Brazil's business leaders and politicians. The tuition was expensive, most of the lessons were private, and Hélio kept his instructors on a very short leash. Not only did they have to follow a strict self-defense curriculum, but they were fined for every minute they were late.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“My dad later said he got his samurai spirit from Kimura and named the bent-arm lock (ude garami in Judo) the kimura.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“Gracies would eat one starch, one protein, and then a salad. I would never eat rice and beans at the same time. Meals were spaced five hours apart to allow the body to absorb the nutrients from the food.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“Maeda opened a martial arts school in Belém, where he and an assistant taught my uncles Carlos, Oswaldo, George, Gastão Jr., and a handful of others his modified style of Jiu Jitsu. After Gastão Gracie went bankrupt in the 1920s, the brothers moved to Rio and opened their first Jiu Jitsu academy. They were confident enough in their abilities to invite fighters from any style to test their skills in a match against Jiu Jitsu. A “Gracie challenge” could be a sporting match that a tap on the ground could end at any time, but my uncles also fought vale tudo matches.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow

“Traditional Japanese Jiu Jitsu was developed for armed combat on the battlefield, but Judo was created in the late 1880s by Jigarō Kanō as a safer, more sporting, weaponless alternative.”
― Rickson Gracie, Breathe: A Life in Flow