Flavio Almeida
Address
Scottsdale, Arizona, United States
Phone
About Us
Flavio Almeida was born in 1979, being the younger brother of Ricardo Almeida.
Born in a family of Portuguese and German descent, Flavio was raised on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, playing soccer, surfing and living freely. Almeida started training martial arts when he was 12 years old, first through Karate. This Karate experience was short-lived and a year later Flavio decided to follow his brother’s footsteps and join the same Jiu-Jitsu academy where he was training. The Almeida family loved the idea of having both brothers practicing BJJ as Flavio’s grandfather was a great fan of Helio Gracie, having followed Helio’s fights in the 1930s and 1950s.
Being taught in the Gracie Barra family, he had the privilege of receiving coaching from many legends of the sport, such as Renzo Gracie, Marcio Feitosa and of course, Carlos Gracie Junior. This had a tremendous effect in Flavio Almeida’s competitive career, and in the late 1990’s he was already regarded as one of BJJ’s hottest prospects having won the Mundial on two occasions in the lower belt divisions (blue and brown).
After a very auspicious start with two bronze medals in his first World Championships as a black belt, losing to Margarida (a man he had defeated in the brown belt division) and Saulo Ribeiro, two legends of the sport, Cachorrinho decided to put a stop to his competitive career and drive his focus towards his degree in Economic Science at the UFRJ – Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.
He spent the next 5 years working and studying business, but the Jiu-Jitsu bug was still inside him, and in 2006 he decided to quit his job and move to New Jersey in the United States to teach at his brother’s academy. His time in New Jersey did not last as his Rio de Janeiro genes begged for some warmth, and so he moved to the warm California sun to teach at Marcio Feitosa’s gym. He stayed there for a while until he opened his own place, also in California, under the Gracie Barra franchise.
