Carlos “Carlinhos” Gracie, Jr. is a 7th degree Red and Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), founder of the Gracie Barra Academy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and is head of the Gracie Barra Jiu-Jitsu associations.

Carlos Jr. is the creator of the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation and Confederação Brasileira de Jiu-jitsu which run multiple Jiu-Jitsu tournaments in the world including the Mundials, Pan American Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championship and European Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Championships.

Carlos Jr. is also the creator and director of Gracie Magazine, a monthly Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu publication.

He recently gave his opinion on the very controversial Self Defense vs Sport Jiu-Jitsu debate.

For Carlos Jr, self defense is the first basic stage of learning Jiu-Jitsu when you are learning how to defeat someone that is ignorant to Jiu-Jitsu. Once you have learned it, you need to focus on the next stage, defending against someone who knows Jiu-Jitsu.

In an interview in Portuguese for Gracie Mag, he said:

When a person walks into a gym, and they have no ideas of jiu jitsu, they will begin by learning how to defend a hypothetical attack in the street. They will learn how to defend a set of positions, possibly more common in the street, people like to call this self defence. Someone called it self defence, maybe to give more emphasis [to the street side of the positions].

In self defence, you learn how to mount a layman, he does not know how to defend the mount, but a knowledgeable fighter, a coloured jiu jitsu belt, he will know the defense. He won’t let you, so you need to perfect your technique, to mount him. This is a perfected form of self defence.

(see the transcription to English from BJJ Heroes)

Watch the video in Portuguese: