Top BJJ competitor Lucas Pinheiro has just taken up a position teaching alongside Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza and Joao Vasconcelos at Jacare Martial Arts. During his time in the sport Pinheiro has established himself as one of the best grapplers in the light-featherweight division and he’s recently hit the peak of his career. He first started training as a child under Mestre Pina before eventually moving to Sao Paulo to train under Cicero Costha as a 17 year-old purple belt. He was already a regular competitor at this point, but this is when he really kicked things into high gear and started to take the sport seriously.
He reached the podium of the IBJJF World Championship as a brown belt before being offered a coaching position at Checkmat and changing gyms in order to take up the offer. He was promoted to black belt by Carlos Holanda in 2014 before eventually moving once again to train at ATOS instead. This led to Pinheiro winning multiple big IBJJF events over the next few years and even reaching the podium of the IBJJF World Championship both in the gi and in no gi.
Although Pinheiro was a permanent fixture at major events and a constant threat in the light-featherweight division, it wasn’t until 2022 that he reached the highest point of his career. This was when he finally managed to win a gold medal at the IBJJF No Gi World Championship, winning one of the two highest honors in no gi competition around the world. Pinheiro had clearly reached a new level on the mats, as he also managed to win his first IBJJF World Championship in the gi earlier this year as well.
Now after reaching the rank of third degree BJJ black belt under Andre Galvao at ATOS, Lucas Pinheiro has moved once again in order to take up a teaching role at Jacare Martial Arts. The head coach Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza is one of the most successful BJJ competitors of all time who also enjoyed a fantastic MMA career as well. Jacare retired from MMA in 2021 and hadn’t competed in grappling for some time before that, so he decided to spend his time focusing on teaching and opening his first gym instead. With Pinheiro and Joao Vasconcelos joining him as coaches, the future looks bright for the next generation training there!
Lucas Pinheiro announced the news that he was going to be teaching classes at Jacare Martial Arts in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
