Placido Santos, one of the most well-known ukes in the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu community, has just been promoted to brown belt by John Danaher.
Santos has spent years training under Danaher, gaining recognition as the demonstration partner for many of his instructionals.Beyond his role as an uke, he has developed into a highly skilled grappler in his own right – regularly competing at a high level, despite balancing Jiu-Jitsu with other responsibilities in his life.
At 32 years old, Santos has remained active in competition, entering several ADCC Trials events.And his promotion to brown belt comes on the heels of an impressive competitive performance, where he won double gold at the IBJJF Austin Winter Open as a purple belt.
Santos shared the news of his promotion in a post on his official Instagram account:
John Danaher also acknowledged the achievement with the following statement:
Placido Santos, the world’s most famous uke got a well deserved brown belt after his double gold performance at The Austin Open.
Placido is a fine example of balancing family life with jiu jitsu. Most of my well known professional athletes train full time with very few distractions.However, most people live their Jiu Jitsu lives under very different circumstances, seeking to train while prioritizing family and work, training when they can and doing their best to juggle their other responsibilities with their training time.
I’m always greatly impressed by people who do this.
Over the years I’ve had many students who reached a very impressive level while holding down very difficult jobs and raising children.Placido is a great example of this.
Many of the professional athletes will tell you that some of their best and toughest training partners when getting ready for international competition are people who come in before or after working a full day at work and who will be going home to raising their family.That’s an achievement every bit as impressive as a full time athlete getting to the top of the competitive field.
Well done Placido! Keep up the good work!
Sloth Jiu-Jitsu: you can be slow and unathletic and still kick butt in Jiu-Jitsu.
