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Filmmaker Guy Ritchie Promoted to BJJ Black Belt by Renzo Gracie

Filmmaker Guy Ritchie Promoted to BJJ Black Belt by Renzo Gracie

 

 

The British filmmaker Guy Ritchie, 46, a long time practitioner of Jiu-Jitsu has just become a black belt under Renzo Gracie.

According to GracieMag, the ceremony happened this Monday, August 11th, when his current instructor Renzo Gracie surprised Ritchie at the launch party of his new movie, “The Man from UNCLE” in New York.

Ritchie is the director of movies such as Snatch, Sherlock Holmes, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Rockenrolla. He is also the ex husband of pop diva Madonna.

Madonna famously said that Ritchie was obessessed with Jiu-Jitsu and he would spend hours rolling in his home made mat area.

Guy Ritchie began training Jiu-Jitsu in England, with Maurição Gomes and then with his son Roger Gracie.

Ritchie started training with his good friend Jason Statham around the same time, the early 2000’s.

Ritchie was a brown belt for 7 years!

Statham holds a purple belt and told combatbear.com:

 

“How do you do you keep fit? Do you practise some sport or any kind of martial art?

-Yes, I love martial arts. I do some jiu jitsu and some kick boxing. Anything that can help me in my job. But if I wasn’t gonna do it for work, I would have done it anyway because I enjoy that.

I hear that you and Guy Ritchie are training jiu jitsu together. Who is better?

-He has better chances to achieve good results. We started training jiu jitsu many years ago. We first started out in a garage, where we parked our cars, then later we moved over to a gym. This was 10 years, no maybe 12 years ago. He works hard, he’s a good fighter

guy

Why exactly jiu jitsu? It’s a very specific form of martial art.

-Because there’s not too much contact with the face, so the face won’t get hurt and that’s very important in my profession. You know, one mistake during the sparring and it’s hard to be in front of the camera when you have bruises or any kind of damage, so you have to try and, you know, do something else.”