Certified Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Training Centers^®

Free Gracie University Access
Upon enrolling at any Certified Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Training Center^®, you will receive a free subscription to GracieUniversity.com. You will have unlimited access to the online video course that mirrors the live training program you are participating in. With this subscription, you can log in to your Gracie University account from anywhere in the world to learn new techniques or to brush up on previously learned techniques from any computer or mobile device 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! In addition to free access to your specific curriculum of study, you will also receive 25% off any of the new subscription programs. To get access to the new Gracie-Narrated Sparring Videos and the Bonus Gracie Breakdowns libraries (new videos added every week!), simply select the subscription program that best suits you, and as an active CTC Family Member, you'll automatically get 25% off when you sign up! Click here to learn more about the new subscription programs.

Free Satellite CTC Training Privileges
As a CTC Family Member you are authorized to drop-in and train at any Certified Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Training Centers^®, including headquarters, free of charge (for up to 30 consecutive days per year). With established CTCs all over the world, training doesn’t have to stop when you leave your hometown. Anytime you need to travel for business or pleasure, simply log on and check to see if there are any accredited schools in your destination city. If so, simply give them a call and let them know when you will be stopping by. When you arrive, they will verify your identity and they log on to Gracie University to double check that you are an active CTC Family Member, and once that’s done, you’ll be allowed to jump into any class free of charge. The best part is that since the curriculum is the same at all Certified Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Training Centers^®, anytime you complete a class at a satellite school, you will receive attendance credit for that class on your attendance card back home!

The bottom line is, we have created a learning experience that is comparable to that of any institution of higher learning, where the student can take control of his/her progress with a combination of live training, remote learning, and online study. In our continuous effort to refine this learning experience, we welcome all comments, questions, and feedback. Here are some of the most common questions we’ve received so far:

What if I am a student at a CTC and my name doesn’t appear on the CTC Family Members list?
The CTC Family Membership lists are managed by the head instructors at each CTC. If you’re an active student, but your name is not listed under your CTC, speak to your instructor about adding your name to the list and unlocking these special privileges to you.

Am I allowed to share my Gracie University online access with other people?
No. If you are granted free access to the Gracie University curriculum as a CTC Family Member, the subscription is not to be shared with anyone else. There are systems in place to help us identify any suspicious activity from Gracie University accounts. If we notice that the same user profile is being logged into from multiple IP addresses simultaneously, the account will be flagged and is at risk of being terminated.

When I’m traveling, what’s the procedure I should follow if I want to visit a CTC?
Call or email the CTC in advance and to let them know you are coming. Bring a gi and a valid government issued photo ID when you check in. Let them know you are a CTC Family Member and the primary CTC at which you train. They’ll verify your CTC Family Membership status online, and once that’s clear, you’re good to go!

What is the best way to take advantage of my free online curriculum access?
Since the online curriculum mirrors exactly what is at all CTCs, and vice versa, it is any invaluable tool for any student who wants to progress more rapidly. From what we’ve gathered, the online viewing method used with the greatest success is the “sandwich method.” Let’s say you’re going to be learning the Triangle Choke on Tuesday night at the CTC. Sometime during the day on Tuesday, you would watch the Triangle Choke lesson online so you could familiarize yourself with most of the details before you get to practice the technique with a partner in classroom setting. The day after the class, you would re-watch the lesson online once again, only this time you would focus on internalizing details that you missed during the live class. From what we’ve seen, students who leverage their Gracie University access this way retain the information two or three times more effectively than those who just goes to class and don’t take advantage of the online lessons.

The Original Gracie Garage
Upon arriving in the United States in 1978, Rorion Gracie’s mission was to spread his family’s system of self-defense to the world.  He asked the head instructors at several martial arts schools if they would allow him to teach Gracie Jiu-Jitsu at their facility, but every one of them declined.  The world did not yet understand the critical importance of ground fighting, and individual instructors were unwilling to allow an unknown martial artist to teach at their school. 

Never one to quit, Rorion and a few of his friends rented a small house with a two-car garage in Hermosa Beach, California.  He lined the floor of the garage with grappling mats and began teaching private classes to anyone and everyone he met.  He offered one free private class to each new student, and the opportunity for every established student to earn an additional free class for every referral.  Solely by word of mouth, the number of students grew rapidly, and the demand necessitated additional instructors.  So, in 1985, Rorion invited his brother Royce to help teach in the garage.  By 1989, Rorion and Royce were instructing 130 active students in the garage and had 80 more wait-listed.  It was at this point that Rorion and Royce decided to open the very first Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy in the United States, based out of Torrance, California.

The Primary Objective and the Major Challenge
Our primary objective here at Gracie University is to share Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, in its purest form, with as many people as possible.  To accomplish this, we organized our 600+ techniques into a linear curriculum, standardized our teaching methodology, and trained a team of highly qualified instructors so that we could export the Gracie Academy learning experience through a network of Certified Training Centers.   While this approach significantly increased our ability to reach beyond the walls of the Gracie Academy, we still were not able to meet the demand for the art.  This inspired the creation of Gracie University.  Even though Gracie University provides students all over the world with access to our system, in the comfort of their own home, we still believe that the best way to learn and enjoy the life-changing experience of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is through group study – at the Academy, a Certified Training Center, or a “Gracie Garage.”

The New Gracie Garage
We created the Gracie Garage branch of our learning network to serve communities that lack a Certified Training Center.  Derived from the original garage concept, the new Gracie Garage is an unofficial training facility at which people gather to practice Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.  Since Gracie Garages have no certified instructors, we expect members to use the Gracie University curriculum or the instructional DVDs as their primary source of instruction.  And although they are unofficial establishments, we expect and demand that safety and teamwork remain the most important priorities of a Gracie Garage, just as they are here at the Gracie University HQ.