The lineage
Sixteen Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belts have been developed at Carlson Gracie Amsterdam. They are listed below, with the dates they were promoted.
The academy trains in the lineage of Master Carlson Gracie, through head instructor Marcos Flexa, who received every belt from blue to black from Carlson Gracie himself.
Where the lineage comes from
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu reached Brazil through Mitsuyo Maeda, who taught Carlos Gracie. Carlos's son, Carlson Gracie, became one of the most influential teachers the art has produced — known for a style built on pressure, conditioning and relentless top control, and for the competition team that carried his name through the 1980s and 1990s.
Marcos Flexa trained under Carlson Gracie in Rio de Janeiro and received his black belt from him on 18 November 1997. He was the first Carlson Gracie lineage black belt to come to the Netherlands.
Master Carlson Gracie died in 2006. The degrees Marcos Flexa has received at black belt were awarded by Master Carlson Gracie Junior, under IBJJF rules.
Mitsuyo Maeda → Carlos Gracie → Carlson Gracie → Marcos Flexa → the sixteen below.
What the Carlson Gracie lineage means on the mat
Carlson Gracie is remembered as a fighter. His larger mark was made as a coach.
He built a team, and that team produced generation after generation of champions — enough of them, for long enough, that the name became a reference well beyond Rio de Janeiro. What he changed was not only how people fought, but how a Jiu-Jitsu team could be built and held together.
The Jiu-Jitsu that came out of it has a recognisable shape:
Pressure. Constant, deliberate, top-position pressure. The kind that makes an opponent carry your weight while they try to think.
The basics, done properly. Not a large collection of techniques — a smaller set executed well enough to work on someone who knows exactly what is coming.
Grit. A willingness to stay in an uncomfortable position and keep working rather than scramble out of it.
Built for a real fight. Direct and efficient rather than decorative. The techniques are chosen because they hold up under resistance.
Team. This is the one people who trained under him mention first. The team trained as a team — not a room of individuals sharing a floor. Everyone's job was partly to make the person next to them better.
And no elitism. The Carlson Gracie academy was known for a door that opened to anyone willing to work, and for a sense of brotherhood among the people who came through it. That is as much a part of the inheritance as the pressure game.
This is the tradition Carlson Gracie Amsterdam trains in — passed from Carlson Gracie to Marcos Flexa directly, belt by belt, over the years he spent training under him in Rio de Janeiro.
The sixteen
Every black belt below was promoted at Carlson Gracie Amsterdam. Dates are the date of promotion. A dash in the Degree column means the degree is not recorded here — not that the person holds no degrees.
| # | Name | Degree | Promoted |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Olga Lyashevska | 3rd degree | 2015 |
| 2 | Milovan "Misha" Janjic | 2nd degree | 4 November 2018 |
| 3 | Thijmen Gomperts | — | 23 September 2021 |
| 4 | Malte Meinken | — | 23 September 2021 |
| 5 | Danny Koopman | — | 11 October 2023 |
| 6 | Vitor Augusto Gorla | — | 21 March 2024 |
| 7 | Aleksa Lazovic | — | 15 June 2024 |
| 8 | Dusan Janjic | — | 15 June 2024 |
| 9 | Vitor Colombini | — | 31 October 2024 |
| 10 | Nikola Vasić | — | 3 May 2025 |
| 11 | Yannick de Meijere | — | 5 October 2025 |
| 12 | Hans-Willem Alblas | — | 5 October 2025 |
| 13 | Frank Alphen | — | 5 October 2025 |
| 14 | Daniël Bertina | 3rd degree | date to be confirmed |
| 15 | Desmond van den Berg | 3rd degree | date to be confirmed |
| 16 | Mauri Harris | — | date to be confirmed |
What the dates show
2015 · 2018 · 2021 · 2021 · 2023 · 2024 · 2024 · 2024 · 2024 · 2025 · 2025 · 2025 · 2025 Nine of the thirteen dated promotions fall in the last three years. That is not a change of standard. It is what happens when an academy that opened in 2010 reaches the point where the students who started at the beginning arrive at the end of the road — roughly a decade each, at their own pace. The first black belt took years to arrive. The rest are the same patience, arriving together.
Train here
The sixteen above all started somewhere.
Never trained before? The Free Trial Class runs on Mondays at 08:00 and 18:00 — free, gi lent, no experience needed. The schedule shows which Mondays.