Ana Laura Cordeiro

Ana Laura Cordeiro grew up in Minas Gerais, Brazil, and first stepped onto the mats at 17 under circumstances far removed from the typical competitive origin story. Her motivation was practical rather than martial — she took up BJJ primarily to lose weight, with no ambition for titles or tournaments. What she discovered through training, however, quickly transcended any fitness goal.

Her early path demanded genuine resolve. Family opposition to her involvement in the sport required her to push through resistance at home, while the logistical demands of quality instruction added another layer of challenge. Cordeiro traveled to Brasília to train at the Gracie Barra academy, all while managing university studies and maintaining employment in parallel. That kind of schedule — commuting to train, studying, and working simultaneously — forged the work ethic and competitive mentality that would define her entire career. Those early sacrifices were not incidental to her success; they were the foundation of it.

Building a Perfect Record

What Ana Laura Cordeiro constructed across her colored belt years stands as one of the most remarkable competitive records in the history of women's Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. She compiled a perfect 65-0 record — a figure that speaks not just to raw talent, but to a sustained level of technical and competitive excellence that opponents could not crack at any belt level.

Cordeiro announced her arrival as an elite competitor at the 2006 IBJJF World Championship, claiming gold in the blue belt division. Rather than treating that title as a ceiling, she used it as a launchpad. She returned the following year to win gold again at purple belt, proving her dominance was not the product of a single favorable bracket, but a consistent output across belt levels. In 2008, she completed a historic three-consecutive-belt World Championship streak by winning gold at the 2008 IBJJF World Championship in the brown belt division — a feat that cemented her standing as the defining female competitor of her era.

Dominance Across Formats

Cordeiro's excellence extended well beyond the gi. Also in 2008, she won the IBJJF No-Gi World Championship in the combined brown/black division, demonstrating that her skill translated seamlessly across formats. That same year, she captured the IBJJF Pan American Championship in the combined brown/black division and repeated that title in 2009. It was not until 2009 that Carlos Gracie Junior formally promoted her to black belt — a recognition of the extraordinary body of competitive work she had produced on the way to that rank.

Five Years Away

At the peak of her powers, with an unblemished record and multiple world titles behind her, Ana Laura Cordeiro's competitive trajectory came to an abrupt halt. A severe back injury sustained in 2009 forced her away from competition for approximately five years, cutting short what had appeared to be an unstoppable run through the black belt ranks before it had truly begun.

Return to the Top

When Cordeiro returned to competition in 2014, she made an immediate statement — claiming gold at the IBJJF World Championship in her first major appearance back. Under any circumstances that result would have been noteworthy; under these, it was extraordinary. The title signaled that the intervening years had not diminished what made her exceptional.

Her 2015 campaign deepened that statement considerably. Cordeiro added another IBJJF World Championship title and won the IBJJF Pan American Championship, assembling a run of results that would have stood alone as a strong career for many competitors. The definitive punctuation mark came at ADCC 2015, where she claimed gold in the over 60kg division. The victory was widely celebrated as one of the great return stories in grappling — a competitor absent from elite competition for years, returning to claim one of the sport's most prestigious titles. The ADCC gold made it impossible to frame her comeback as sentimental; it was a clear demonstration that she remained among the very best in the world.

Ana Laura Cordeiro's transition from competitor to instructor began in 2009, when an invitation from Marcio Feitosa brought her to the United States to join the Gracie Barra organization as a coach. She established herself at Gracie Barra Upland in California, building a reputation as a knowledgeable, technically rigorous, and deeply committed instructor.

Cordeiro holds the rank of 3rd degree black belt — a reflection of both her competitive longevity and her sustained investment in the sport's teaching dimension. Her work at Gracie Barra Upland represents a direct continuation of the tradition under which she was trained, channeling the technical depth and competitive knowledge developed through her years at Gracie Barra in Brazil into the development of the next generation of practitioners. The same precision and discipline that produced a 65-0 career record informs her approach to coaching, making her one of the most respected instructor figures to emerge from her competitive generation.