The lineage
Eighteen 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 eighteen 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 eighteen
Every black belt below was promoted at Carlson Gracie Amsterdam, in order of promotion. Dates are the date of promotion. Where the rank reads simply Black Belt, the degree is not recorded here — not that the person holds no degrees.
| # | Name | Rank | Promoted |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Daniël Bertina | 3rd Degree Black Belt | 10 November 2013 |
| 2 | Desmond van den Berg | 3rd Degree Black Belt | 7 October 2014 |
| 3 | Olga Lyashevska | 3rd Degree Black Belt | 2015 |
| 4 | Milovan "Misha" Janjic | 2nd Degree Black Belt | 4 November 2018 |
| 5 | Thijmen Gomperts | 1st Degree Black Belt | 23 September 2021 |
| 6 | Malte Meinken | 1st Degree Black Belt | 23 September 2021 |
| 7 | Danny Koopman | Black Belt | 11 October 2023 |
| 8 | Vitor Augusto Gorla | Black Belt | 21 March 2024 |
| 9 | Aleksa Lazovic | Black Belt | 15 June 2024 |
| 10 | Dusan Janjic | Black Belt | 15 June 2024 |
| 11 | Vitor Colombini | Black Belt | 31 October 2024 |
| 12 | Nikola Vasić | Black Belt | 3 May 2025 |
| 13 | Yannick de Meijere | Black Belt | 5 October 2025 |
| 14 | Hans-Willem Alblas | Black Belt | 5 October 2025 |
| 15 | Frank Alphen | Black Belt | 5 October 2025 |
| 16 | Mauri Harris | Black Belt | date to be confirmed |
| 17 | Laszlo La Ferrara | Black Belt | 17 October 2026 |
| 18 | Clarence Thompson | Black Belt | 17 October 2026 |
17 October 2026
Master Carlson Gracie Junior taught a seminar at Carlson Gracie Amsterdam on 17 October 2026. Three black belts were awarded that day.
Laszlo La Ferrara and Clarence Thompson were promoted at the academy. They are numbers 17 and 18 on the list above.
Firoze Singh was promoted by Professor Olga Lyashevska — the first black belt she has awarded. He is listed apart from the eighteen above: the same Carlson Gracie line, one generation further along it, through a black belt who was herself promoted at this academy in 2015.
Promotions to brown, purple and blue belt were awarded on the same day.
What the dates show
2013 · 2014 · 2015 · 2018 · 2021 · 2021 · 2023 · 2024 · 2024 · 2024 · 2024 · 2025 · 2025 · 2025 · 2025 · 2026 · 2026
Ten of the seventeen dated promotions fall in the last three years.
Two dates are needed to read that list. Marcos Flexa has taught Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Amsterdam since 2004. The current academy opened in 2010. The earliest black belts here come out of that longer history, not only from the years since 2010.
The recent cluster is not a change of standard. It is what happens when the students who started at the beginning arrive at the end of the road — roughly a decade each, at their own pace. For years the black belts came one at a time. The rest are the same patience, arriving together.
Registered with the IBJJF
Carlson Gracie Amsterdam is an academy registered with the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation, under IBJJF Academy Number 3398. IBJJF registration runs by calendar year; the certificate shown here is the registration for 2025, signed by IBJJF President Carlos Gracie Jr.
The professors named on it are:
- Marcos Neves Mello — Head Professor
- Olga Lyashevska — Additional Professor
- Desmond Jason Ferdinand Van Den Berg — Additional Professor
- Milovan Janjic — Additional Professor
Train here
The eighteen 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.