BJJ Database
Lineages
Jiu-jitsu passes teacher to student. These pages map the sport's family tree by one rule: who awarded whom their black belt — from today's competitors back to Maeda.
1,922 people mapped
152 verified links
3 founding roots
The major lines
Mitsuyo Maeda lineage
Mitsuyo Maeda, the judoka who brought his art to Brazil in 1914, sits at the root of most recorded Brazilian jiu-jitsu lineages. His stud...
1,872 athletes in line
Carlos Gracie lineage
Carlos Gracie learned from Mitsuyo Maeda and founded the first Gracie academy in 1925 with his brothers. The majority of recorded lineage...
1,762 athletes in line
Rolls Gracie lineage
Rolls Gracie blended jiu-jitsu with wrestling, judo, and sambo in the 1970s and is widely credited as the prototype of the modern competi...
609 athletes in line
Helio Gracie lineage
Helio Gracie adapted his brother Carlos's teaching into the leverage-first system that became modern Brazilian jiu-jitsu. His line runs t...
518 athletes in line
Carlson Gracie lineage
Carlson Gracie built the sport's first great competition team in Rio's Copacabana. His academy produced a generation of fighters and coac...
436 athletes in line
Carlos Gracie Junior lineage
Carlos Gracie Jr founded Gracie Barra, one of the largest academy networks in the world, and created the IBJJF, the federation whose rule...
329 athletes in line
Romero Cavalcanti lineage
Romero "Jacare" Cavalcanti, the last black belt promoted by Rolls Gracie, founded Alliance, one of the winningest competition teams in th...
277 athletes in line
Rickson Gracie lineage
Rickson Gracie, widely regarded as the finest fighter of his generation, carried the family system undefeated through the vale tudo era. ...
239 athletes in line
Reylson Gracie lineage
29 athletes in line
Marcelo Behring lineage
139 athletes in line
Osvaldo Alves lineage
119 athletes in line
Luiz França lineage
Luiz França learned from Mitsuyo Maeda alongside Carlos Gracie and passed the art to Oswaldo Fadda, seeding the sport's most important no...
116 athletes in line
Oswaldo Fadda lineage
Oswaldo Fadda ran the great non-Gracie line of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, teaching working-class students in Rio's suburbs and famously special...
115 athletes in line
Waldomiro Perez Junior lineage
106 athletes in line
André Pederneiras lineage
104 athletes in line
Royler Gracie lineage
129 athletes in line
How we map lineage
A lineage here means one thing: the chain of black-belt promotions. Your line runs through the instructor who awarded your black belt, theirs through whoever awarded it to them, back to the sport's roots. Athletes train under many coaches across a career and switch schools at colored belts — none of that changes the line, though we note it where it matters.
Links start as estimates assembled from recorded chains and public trees, then get checked against sources like promotion announcements, team pages, and Wikipedia. Either way, treat these as honest best-effort maps for exploring, not certificates.
For active competitors who aren't black belts yet, we show their current primary instructor and mark the link provisional.
