Donald Trump’s grandchildren have just earned their grey belts in BJJ, the first full-color belt in the sport’s ranking system. The promotion was awarded by Marcelo Cohen and the legendary Carlson Gracie Jr, and it marks a big step for the young grapplers. A belt promotion is an important moment for anyone, but even moreso for children in the sport. It’s intended to signify a marked improvement in their grappling ability and if they choose to compete, it allows them to come up against a tougher level of opponent. There are plenty more steps on the ladder ahead of them of course, but the first few are always the hardest.
Surprisingly, this isn’t even the first time that Trump’s family have been publicly connected to the Jiu-Jitsu world. His daughter Ivanka Trump previously announced that her entire family was actively training BJJ when making an appearance on a podcast, so quite a lot of his grandchildren are now involved in the sport. The two young children who were just promoted to grey belt by Cohen and Carlson are actually Trump’s grandchildren through his son Eric and his wife Lara. Trump himself has also been spotted in attendance at UFC events and has had a friendly relationship with the promotion’s CEO Dana White.
Martial arts is not something that’s ever really come close to the presidency in the United States in the modern era and you’d have to go all the way back to Theodore Roosevelt to find a president who had anything to do with Jiu-Jitsu. That was the more traditional Japanese version of Jiu-Jitsu of course, with Roosevelt learning from one of Judo founder Jigoro Kano’s students; Yamashita Yoshitsugu. After his trip to spread the art to the US, Mitsuyo Maeda made that famous trip to Brazil that led to him teaching the Gracie family and beginning the rise of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
Marcelo Cohen announced the news that Donald Trump’s grandchildren had been promoted to grey belt in BJJ in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
