The Marra Journey Continues…
My name is Leonel Marra; I was born in Brazil and moved to the U.S. almost three years ago. To immigrate to a new country is something interesting. You kind of lose your past, nobody knows your family, the school or church you grew up in, the College you graduated from, your personal achievements, the jokes you tell, the Brazilian music you like, the food you eat. Even with your driving license, you have to take it out again.
I’m now 40 years old, and I run my Brazilian jiu-jitsu School in Texas. I’ve been training and competing in jiu-jitsu for the last 22 years. Jiu-jitsu is my passion, and it opened many doors for me. I met many good people, visited many different places, and got a college scholarship because of BJJ.
Despite the fact that BJJ is my passion, I always have to work full time while finishing College and my post-graduation in the Science of Sports area. After, I started my own business, got married, had my son, and always conciliating a “regular” life with training, coaching, and competing.
I had a good life in Brazil, but things started to change when my wife got sick. It was a very hard period, perhaps the most difficult in our lives so far. After almost three long years of treatment, she was fine and healthy again, but she got retired at 32 years old.
We decided to take a sabbatical year to put our minds in order again. We saved money, rented our home, organized our business, and left our Country with our son for a round-the-world trip that should last for one year.
Instead of visiting the 5 Continents, as we have originally planned, we spent the year of 2018 driving by 29 American States and crossing Canada from Coast to Coast. We visited amazing places, trained in many different BJJ schools, I taught in BJJ seminars, and we set up a YouTube channel to show a little bit of this trip. When the moment to leave America and go to Europe arrived, we decided to stop the travel because it was a good time to immigrate to the U.S. and open our own BJJ school. So we started our Green Card process.
For my immigration process, I had to research my entire life, look to my personal journey, and gather documents and evidence of who I really am.
I am 24/7 involved with Jiu-jitsu. I'm either training, or teaching, or coaching, or hanging out with my training partners or students. However, it’s certainly not jiu-jitsu that write or designed my journey. It’s just part of it.
I believe that having a journey is something deeper than having a history. To have a journey is learning from your own mistakes, it’s assuming some risks, respecting principles. It’s seek knowledge and get stronger, and when I look back, BJJ is a big part of it, but it’s not even the most important.
I had a very solid Christian upbringing from my parents. My mother was a very serious and sweet woman, and my father was always very serious and righteous. I believe that to have a journey, you need to be truthful to your own principles and what really matters for you.
One day, I told my story to a friend at the end of training and he looked at me and smiled and said “you will not have problems growing your gym fast in the U.S. because you are genuine, and people can see it”. It touched me.
We need to have values that guide us to exceed our own limits. It takes more than shaping our character, it is necessary to forge something inside yourself that makes you be GENUINE. You cannot be genuine just for a moment, but during all your journey in any circumstance of life. Be genuine while you build your own journey, it worth it.
Today, I have a jiu-jitsu school in Fort Worth TX, and I can say it’s been successful. My goal as a person is to be a genuine man of God, father, husband, coach. It is to be someone who can teach more than jiu-jitsu but teach values, respect. Give my best to inspire people to be GENUINE.