Our GMAs Guilherme, Pedro and Joaquim Valente / Photo: personal archive
Under the title “The brothers who teach FBI agents”, our GMAs the Valente brothers were featured in “Veja Rio” magazine during the Brazilian carnaval festivities.
“They could have followed in the footsteps of their father, plastic surgeon Pedro Valente, a former municipal and state secretary of health. However, Pedro, 35, Guilherme, 30, and Joaquim, 23, opted to ply a different trade, in the United States. They head the Miami-based Valente Brothers, a Jiu-Jitsu academy with 700 students and five branches in other American cities,” says the article in one of the most-read magazines in the city of Rio de Janeiro.
“Among their students are FBI agents and local police, to whom they teach for free. Receiving their Jiu-Jitsu background from Hélio Gracie (1913-2009), the patriarch of a clan that is a martial arts brand, the black belt brothers follow the lessons of the master to the tee. ‘Our slant is towards self-defense, rather than focusing on competition,’ says Guilherme. With their rising popularity, the trio is negotiating with a TV network to shoot a reality show on day-to-day events in and out of the academy.”