“If you spread love, it will produce millions of smiles, solidarity and friendship.”

Gracie Barra is always thrilled to receive news of noble causes and togetherness like this story. It’s very gratifying to know that the vision of Jiu-Jitsu for Everyone is becoming more and more represented by GB schools, leaders, and students.

This story happened in Gracie Barra Aracaju in Sergipe, Brazil. It is an example of friendship, consideration, fellowship and team spirit. Gabriel is a 3 year old with leukemia, and during this difficult time, the proper treatment and emotional support has meant a lot. When the GB team heard the news, they didn’t waste any time. All the members of the school decided to shave their head in support of little Gabriel.

Professor Paul Aquino, a member of the GB Aracaju family, is going to tell us the details.

We can say that Gabriel lives and breathes Jiu-Jitsu, his parents Sammyr Xavier and Prantik Pacheco are gentle art practitioners. The father is a black belt, the mother and sister purple and yellow belts. Since Gabriel was first born he was already frequenting the mats. Everyone loves to see little Gabriel train in his gi with the other kids.  Unfortunately, we were caught with some bad news a few weeks ago, when we heard that he was sick and would have to leave the mats and the academy for some time. Sadness took over the academy, but with the sadness came the support and motivation from friends and family of the students.

 

Unfortunately, the chemotherapy treatment has its side effects and one of them is hair loss, which is the trademark of Gabriel with the long blond locks of hair. So his parents decided not to let him see the hair loss and decided to cut them before this happened, but then came the problem. We all shaved our heads to encourage him to want to leave his head shaved.  The coolest part of the story was that this initiative was not only jiu-jitsu members, much of the academy joined this idea, and people who don’t train shaved their heads as well to show him that they were all cutting their hair.”

This attitude shows that they fought like a family regardless of the situation. That’s the real Gracie Barra family.