Today we’d like to introduce you to Valerio Mori Ubaldini.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Valerio. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My story started back in 2008 when I was 14 years old in my hometown Livorno, in Italy. At that time, I was already a black belt in Japanese Ju-Jitsu. After assisting one of the first videos of the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), I saw how effective Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was in combat. At that time is not like nowadays where every athlete trains Boxing, Muay Thai, Wrestling, Judo and can be considered complete. At that time was a style vs. style; Boxe vs. Karate, Judo vs. Muay Thai. The goal was to find which martial art was the most effective. And a brazilian guy, Royce Gracie, even if he was one the lightest athlete in the tournament, was able to win two editions of the UFC submitting every opponent demonstrating how effective Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was. So after I watched it, I signed for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes in my hometown!
I started from zero wearing my white belt again: at the beginning, I was training three times a week. I was only 14 years old and I was the only teenager in the class. I used to be the youngest and lighter person in a group of adults. After one month I decided to test my self in a real competition! At that time, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu wasn’t a big movement or a sport as known as today, especially in Italy. In a competition of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, you register in a division of your weight, belt and age: at that time, the only age division available was the adult one. My will to test myself was so high that I decided to register anyway, to be able to experience and feel the vibes to enter the arena, be surrounded by a crowd and fight against a person that you never met before. A Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournament is not a single fight. As you register, you ate going to be part of a bracket of 3,5,10 athletes. It’s all about how many people are going to register under your same age group, belt and weight class.
So, on the day of the tournament, I was nervous. My mind was blank; it was like if everything I learned was just disappeared! But as I stepped on the mat, my mind and my body worked like remotely, like activated an automatic pilot. I won 2 matches by points and won the final by a submission called armbar from a position named Closed Guard. To do an armbar, you have to hyperextend the arm of your opponent using the extension of your hips and the pressure of your legs against the opponent arm: when you receive a submission like this one, to don’t risk to break your joint, you have to tap. When a tap is happening, the one person applying the submission needs to suspend the pressure and relief the submission. well, my opponent of the final match refused to tap: so the most I was extending my legs, more was the noise from his elbow: I won the match by breaking my opponent’s arm. At 14 years old, I was able to win in Rome my very first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competition in the adult division. After my first experience competing, from just train three times a week, I started to train every day but there was just one little and important detail. I still was a full time student in High School. In the beginning, I was able to complete my study and homework before going to train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the gym: the more I trained and the more I desired to compete, so I started to compete more and more. After demonstrating that I was ready for a new step, eight months after I started, I received the blue belt. In 2009 I participated in the IBJJF European Championship in Lisbon, Portugal. IBJJF (International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation) is the most important federation in the world of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and I was about to test my self in a high level tournament this time in the juvenile division. In this event, I took second place losing only by 2 points in the final against an athlete from Russia. This loss marked my career as an athlete forever: I was able to see the difference of style, technical and physical preparation of one country and others. So when I came back home, I started to train not only Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but also add to my schedule also some weight lifting training. In Italy I was still competing: win some and lose some matches, but in my mind, I had clear that on the next European Championship I would win and step on the podium on the first place and win the gold medal: The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary, I knew that: I worked harder and the next year I participated to that tournament. After four tough matches, I was able to accomplish my goal and be on top of Europe. I won the gold medal.
After some more competitions, I received my purple belt, I was 17 years old and I was just thinking about competing. I almost finished High School, only two years to graduate. I will never forget how one day my father after school, a few years left to finish school, asked me what I would like to do and become after graduating. Observation: my father studied all his life and he was a doctor and owned two studios, so he was looking to pass his torch to me one day and he was hoping to hear me answer “a doctor “. Well, my answer instead has been the following: “I want to become a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Champion “. That day I received so many hits on my head that not even to a drum!! The months from this event passed and I won 2 times the FILA Grappling Italian National Championship, I was showing to my father that I could have the right passion, dedication and skills to become a top athlete. I was becoming already well known in Italy due for my sport but the only thing that was blocking me to do more or to become more was the difficulty of my High School: for more I was studying and more bad notes I was achieving, I was giving my best at school too but I wasn’t getting positive results. The FILA Grappling World Championship in Croatia was getting closed and I decided, with the approval of my family, to burn and fail at school to follow my dream. So I had about four months after this decision to train for the World Championship and I had more time to dedicate to my training, free time that I never had because. I started to train for this event 3/4 times a day, every day adding train of Judo, Wrestling and running: I remember how my friends were inviting me to party, drink or smoke with them but I always said “NO.” With the Italian National Team, I travel to Croatia and I competed with and without the uniform, two days event. After sacrificing everything in my life for four months, I became World Champion in both styles, winning a total of eight matches with an athlete from all over the world. This event has been so important for me because I had the chance to show my parents and especially my dad how hard I worked to accomplish what I was dreaming. After it, I started taking classes to a new High School doing two academic years in one and then complete a year later with a full positive note. I was 18/19 years old and I felt I wanted to accomplish more, so I decided to leave my local team to start travel to England to learn from a famous world class athlete and then decided to train where the movement of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu started: in Brazil. I lived in Barra da Tijuca, Brazil for three years- from my purple to my black belt. I have been assaulted two times with guns and knives, I lived myself without my family and I was able to spend time with my girlfriend only ten days every three months when she was able to travel from Italy when her job gave her the possibility of vacations. In these three years, I was able to train and teach Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at the highest levels, doing everything I was dreaming: I was able to leave and breathe the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu lifestyle. I trained for three years 3/4 times a day, teaching classes for kids and adult in the very first Gracie Barra founded in 1986 by Carlos Gracie Jr, son of one of the founder of this sport; I was competing every weekend and being able to become until today the only Italian ever to win a Brazilian National Championship in Brazil.
After receiving my black belt, I moved back to Europe and opened my gym in Canary Island: I was able to leave close to my parents and start a new life with at that time my girlfriend, the one who waited for me so many years. At 23 years old, I married her and had a son with her. In the same period of time, I was aware of the position of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Head Instructor in the US, so I tried and applied online. My goal was to give my family a brighter and safer future, so after passing three tests in the videoconference, I have been approved to become part of the Gracie Barra Team in Texas thanks to my partner/employer Tim Thompson. I had to work on my visa first and thanks to God, I have been able, due for my successful titles and Palmares, to be approved with an athlete visa. I started to teach in a two years old school in Tyler and then start from the beginning in Carrollton. As a Head Instructor in Carrollton, I was so blessed to form a really good team, create a great environment to let everyone try and train Jiu-Jitsu, create an environment not only for athletes and who want to compete but really for everyone. I am nowadays still happily married to my wife and we have three total children together and we recently moved to Overland Park in Kansas to open the very first Gracie Barra school in the state. I am ready to begin the process all over again and start positively changing people’s lives.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Yes, I believed that God gives the hardest challenges to the bravest warriors. I struggle a lot during my High School formation, during the training the gym, convince my family of the future I was trying to build for me, so many loss in competition, the difficulty to travel in England and then Brazil and the necessity to learn a new language and live in different cultures. But I always thanks God for every obstacle He brought in front of my way. I always thanks Him for everything he gave me and everything He took me away. I know for sure that without this obstacle that I lived and the challenges that I faced, I would not be the same person I am today.
Please tell us about the business.
We are the number one team in the world. In Gracie Barra, we believe in spreading Jiu-Jitsu for Everyone and we believe that if everyone trained, the world would become a better place. I am so blessed to change people life’s for the better: people with low self-esteem, kids who suffered bullying at school, people who were looking to lose weight or get in better shape or women who have been abused. If you want to join because you want to become a champion, you have the opportunity to accomplish your goal: or if you want to join because you want to make more friends, you can do it too!
We have more than 800 schools open in the world, close to 400 in the US: if you are part of one school, you are part of all. The facility is very spacious. Classes are offers from the morning to the evening six days a week. Every instructor has to be certified: every year, Gracie Barra creates through an online platform a certification program for instructors (ICP). Is an online course with pages to read and understand with the final text at the end of any course. To be able to be certified, you also have to pass a drug screen background: this part becomes really important, especially because the instructor has to teach class not only for adults but also for kids. Our method to teach the class is different too: we work on 16 weeks curriculum program and it’s all written and explained framed in the school. Every 800 hundred schools in the world will be able to works the same techniques during the same week of training: this is important because if a student for any reason let’s say he will have to travel to Spain for business if he finds a Gracie Barra school, he will be able to train for free, and learn the same techniques that he would learn in his school – but this with a different instructor and different training partners. In Gracie Barra, we focus more on the detail: we divide our groups of classes in the fundamental, advanced and black belt. Per week we practice about six techniques; there are a different team or even martial arts that every day teaches ten different techniques from ten different positions. It can sound cool at the beginning, but I bet that a student when he’ll come back home if he tries to remember what was a step of the third technique, he will not be able to answer it. So our methods are well designed. Everyone wears the same color of uniform (white or blue). This gives us a sense of unity and brotherhood: there are different expansion teams where everybody wears a different color of uniform (red, yellow, grey, etc.).
I formed 2 Novice World Champion! They started with me and with my training they were able to win the gold medal 2 years in a row during the IBJJF World a Championship Masters in Las Vegas.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
When I was a child, it has been tough for me to find the correct sport or activity to do. I first start at five years old taking a class of swimming: I was like a lead, so heavy in the water that I could not stay afloat!! I tried soccer too, but my feet were not being made to kick a ball and I wasn’t coordinated. After watching a movie of Bruce Lee, even if I was so young, I understood what I wanted to do: martial arts! So I started with karate first, but I was so embarrassed screaming during the kata forms, so I only took three classes. But when I started Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, I knew that from there, my life would never be the same. From my childhood, I learn some very important life lessons through martial arts: I learn to be calm and focus, being patient, respect others, serve and help, being comfortable in uncomfortable situations.
Pricing:
- First lesson free
- $146/month for kids
- $156/month for adults
Contact Info:
- Address: 2812 Trinity Square Dr #106, Carrollton, TX 75006
- Website: https://gbcarrollton.com/
- Phone: (469) 744-0806
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gbcarrollton/
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/gbcarrollton/
- Yelp: https://m.yelp.com/biz/gracie-barra-carrollton-brazilian-jiu-jitsu-and-self-defense-dallas
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/valeriomoriubaldini/?hl=it
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