The quick bail by a lot of guys that have known him a long time is not good.
I don’t know Andre personally, but I do know a lot of guys who do. From what they tell me his character was suspect years ago, even when he was still in Brazil with Terere. And that wasn’t sex related shit.
I train here in SD. It was told to me years ago that he doesn’t let his students open up a gym near him. This actually checks out as so many guys move away after getting black belts from him. It’s not as cut and dry as other gyms. Neighborhood gyms usually retain their black belts. With Andre, a lot of his guys a pros and can make a living teaching. However, there have been guys who have moved away that I suspected were ready to get away from him. I think whatever happened with ATOS, is serious enough that people are leaving and/or were waiting for a reason to leave him. I’ve heard rumors of this being more than one girl, but I think only one confirmed that I know of. Also, I heard a rumor that there was a “report” filed. If that’s true, I wonder if charges will follow.
I’ve always had a problem when people call it “my jiujitsu family”. More so, students need to stop idolizing their coaches. It’s not good for anyone involved.
I want to kind of jump on BJJ because I think it has a special element to it these days and is extremely popular including with some annoying people.
But I recall seeing things at other gyms that contributed to me leaving.
Nothing on this scale and not even same area of concern but more about kids in an environment with people not qualified to be in a position of Influence with kids.
And I don’t mean sexual or abusive in anyway.
Just more like gym lug heads not able to control their party talk and stupid talk around kids going in and out of class.
I recall a young girl looking inside someone’s gym bag ( an instructor) and there was some drug related items in the bag.
Yea let me better explain and see if you then understand.
It was a young kid like I dunnow guessing maybe 6 or 7 years old hell I don’t know but a young kid of the age that will climb around and look at and in things.
But this instructor had his gym bag unzipped and the kid messing around on the floor opened the unzipped bag.
Whole thing is weird. I think there has to be more than what is being said. Several academies and athletes have left on allegations that Andre could easily refute…which is why I think there’s something more going on here. Or maybe Andre was a controlling tyrant and several people were looking for a reason to leave and this gave them the opportunity.
One of my theories is some of the ppl WANTED to leave the association because of the outrageous fees per month, and this is a perfect way to cut out and not having to pay anymore. I know tonnes of ppl who pay the association fees and do it out of loyalty or etc but the reality is, associations don’t really do anything for your business. It’s a lot of extra money plus money for their guaranteed seminars that really eats into a schools overhead.
I bet JT Torres was dying to find an easy out to get out of paying Galvao the monthly extortion fees.
BJJ is such a weird cuckold cult with its affiliations.
Have read multiple ex-Aros school owners proudly announcing theyre now giving their hard earned money to someone else to pretend they have some connection.