March 6, 2017

Meet Marcus Vinicius Di Lucia of Beverly Hills Jiu Jitsu Club in West LA

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marcus Vinicius Di Lucia.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Marcus Vinicius. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I was born and grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where I first started training Judo at the age of 5. When I turned 18 I was still training Judo and started to learn Jiu Jitsu. I trained Jiu Jitsu at the Kioto Academy with Grand Master Mansor where I earned all of my belts. I am currently a 6th degree black belt. After a long successful career in Brazil, I decided to move to California in 1997 to start teaching at Beverly Hill Jiu Jitsu Club. My good friend Joe Morreira had a great opportunity for me to start my own Jiu Jitsu team and I took it. At BHJJC I started to train celebrities and professional fighters while creating my first Jiu Jitsu team in the US. After years of being the Jiu Jitsu instructor, I had the opportunity to take over the business and buy the gym for myself. We currently have been in business for 20 years where we continue to teach the local community the jiu jitsu sport and self-defense, building friendships, fighters and champions from all ages.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Everything that I have done I did it on my own and that was the hardest part. Ever since I bought the gym, I never had investors or business partners. I moved my gym 3 times in the past 20 years, improving our facility, and giving a better experience for my gym members. I was already expecting the difficulties of owning a business but the hardest part has been doing it by myself.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Our job is to teach Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for our community. That is the Jiu Jitsu sport and self-defense. What we do best is to take care of our students personally. If students want to compete, learn self-defense, get in shape, or just to pick up a new hobby we take care of their needs and help them achieve their goals. We work with beginners to pros from all skill levels. We have had the pleasure to teach a few celebrities the skill set for movies and tv shows, law enforcements for their job, and kids classes to build confidence, discipline, and more. What sets us apart from others is the fact that we are a dojo, a family gym. Our work is about teaching the jiu jitsu lifestyle and the martial arts philosophy. Our family environment is something that people feel as soon as they start training with us so students don’t feel like they enrolled into a gym but became one of our family members.

What were you like growing up?
I grew up in a beach city where I always liked beach sports such as surfing. My life was based off martial arts and this beach lifestyle that we were born with coming from Rio de Janeiro. Living in Rio for so long has helped me grow up with a lot of friends in my city where I was able to network with them all. I was always interested in grappling, competing and owning my own gym.

Contact Info: