Marcelo Garcia has just announced that he is opening a brand new academy in Hawaii and will now be taking on students for the Kailua, Oahu location in November 2024. Garcia’s original academy in New York City, New York has become a hotspot for incredible talent. Not only has he developed several seriously talented competitors over the years that he’s been living there but he’s also attracted some more established ones too. As with any high-level training rooms, there’s a constant stream of drop-ins from some of the best grapplers in the world and other experienced black belts when they’re in the area.
The new academy in Hawaii be a fantastic opportunity for anyone living in the state, as Marcelo Garcia is one of the greatest competitors in the history of the sport. Having the chance to learn from a mind like his has had a massive impact on their careers of a huge number of young grapplers. In fact, several incredible competitors over the last decade have come up under Garcia as colored belts and even received their black belts from him. Gianni Grippo and Matheus Diniz are two of the biggest names in grappling to reach the highest level under Garcia but there are over a hundred other black belts under Garcia too.
Garcia has undoubtedly been pivotal to the development of Jiu-Jitsu in New York and America as a whole, so it’ll be interesting to see what effect his influence has in Hawaii. The academy isn’t opening for two months yet and obviously Garcia will be essentially starting from scratch in the new location, so it’ll likely take at least a few years for any impact to be felt. Hawaii has always had a strong presence in Jiu-Jitsu anyway of course, from with the legendary BJ Penn to Keenan Cornelius and the Ruotolo brothers more recently.
Marcelo Garcia announced the news that he was opening his new academy in Hawaii in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
