Rickson Gracie Reveals Parkinson’s Disease Diagnosis

Pride Fighting Championships pioneer Rickson
Gracie has revealed that he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s
Disease.

Considered to be one of the more revered names in the vaunted
Gracie family, Brazilian jiu-jitsu coral belt Rickson
Gracie revealed during Kyra
Gracie’s podcast on
Wednesday that he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease two years
ago. Now 63 years of age, the son of Helio Gracie said the disease,
a chronic degenerative disorder, affected his motor system, causing
tremors in his hands and decreasing his ability to move. Despite
this, Rickson made it clear that the diagnosis “wasn’t
traumatic.”

“Two years ago, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s,” Rickson
explained. “So, a lot of things that I would like to do physically,
I’m decreasing. For me, [the diagnosis] was nothing dramatic. I’m
ready for anything in my life. I accept my mistakes and my
victories. I accept my life well, so I’m happy today. But this
neurological disability opened my eyes to my age and my reality,
which hasn’t changed much since then, but I have a certain tremor
in my hand, a certain movement disability, which I didn’t have
before. It’s something that doesn’t bother me too much, because my
motivation to wake up tomorrow and work continues, so I see it as a
gift from God to see what I’m going to do. If I give you a lot of
money and you do bad things, it doesn’t do you any good, but if I
give you a lot of money and you do good things, I’m proud.”

Rickson continued, “God has now given me a situation that I have to
turn for good. And the most important reaction I have today in my
life is to express my gratitude for jiu-jitsu, to continue working
for jiu-jitsu to empower people and transform the way it is
practiced so that it is more accessible to the people who need it
most. So, I see that I’m swimming with armfuls in a perfect blue
ocean waiting for the next day without much worry.”

The main representative of the Gracie family since the death of
Rolls Gracie in a hang-gliding accident in 1982, Rickson has served
as an icon of jiu-jitsu for decades now. For the generation that is
used to defining the importance of fighters based on the level of
their opponents at Sherdog Fight Finder, it is difficult to
recognize the importance of a fighter who only has 11 official
fights in vale tudo and MMA, but Rickson played a fundamental role
in the growth and development of jiu-jitsu and vale tudo in Brazil.
Of note, Rickson was one of the first to publicly accept challenges
on the streets of Rio de Janeiro to represent his family, with
multiple historical episodes like the
two fights with Hugo Duarte,
the
battle of wills with Marco Ruas and
the whole luta livre team inside their Boqueirao headquarters, the
answer to
Hawaiian Byron Amona after breaking his friend’s surfboard and
the
two vale tudo matches against “King Zulu” Casemiro
Nascimento Martins in 1980 and 1984.

Concerning the current MMA generation, if Royce Gracie
is considered the catalyst of the popularization of the sport in
America, after his 11 submissions in the UFC, in Japan the
equivalent would be Rickson’s six victories in the Japan Open
tournament that led the Japanese to create PRIDE, which resulted in
Rickson confronting idol Nobuhiko
Takada and facing him at Prides 1 and 4 – the former long
thought to be a turning point in MMA. While competing in jiu-jitsu
in the 1980s, Rickson submitted his opponent in all of his fights,
and is still considered the sport’s greatest reference in the 1980s
and 1990s.