BY DANNY TEIGMAN
Nearly 10 years after it first opened, his studio, Rio Tae Jitsu Do Academy, at 95 Main Street in East Rockaway, has a membership of 130 students, and offers classes every days of the week. The academy attracted statewide attention on Sept. 18, when a nine-member team of Santos's students finished second at the state Brazil Jujitsu Tournament at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn.
Few trophies are on display in his neat, uncluttered studio, however. It is filled instead with the energy of children eager to learn. In between the collective "yes sirs," Santos imparts to his obedient charges instruction not only on throwing a solid punch, but on being good people as well.
"Every child that I have is a project," Santos said. "I treat them all the same, yet all different."
His students, who range in age from 4 to 14, learn a Brazilian form of jujitsu, where the focus is on taking advantage of an opponent's weaknesses rather than trying to dominate a confrontation with one's own strength. Students also learn what Santos calls the "five aims": respect, humility, perseverance, self-control, and honesty.
According to Santos, the five aims shape confident young people with high self-esteem. "Martial arts is not about fighting," he said. "You learn how to fight to enhance your body, to make your body healthy."
For Alfonso Figueroa, whose two sons, Jason, 8, and Kevin, 4, take classes once a week, for different reasons. Figueroa enrolled Jason at the studio to help improve his confidence and self-esteem, so he would become less shy. Kevin was just the opposite, and his father sought to rein in his excess energy.
"In the last three years I've seen a dramatic change," he said of Jason. "He plays football now -- he's more sure of himself. He'll stand up for himself now." Kevin has been with the program for only four months, but already his behavior has improved, and he looks forward to his class every day," his father said.
Building his own self-esteem helped Santos become a successful American, he said. He moved to North Elizabeth, N.J., in 1987, after leaving Rio de Janiero. With experience as both an electrical technician and a baker, Santos wanted to move to a country where job opportunities were more abundant, and he considered Australia as well as the U.S. before deciding on America.
His ultimate dream was to teaching martial arts. When he was 16, he had substituted for and eventually replaced a martial arts teacher and discovered that he related well with children. "When I was exposed to it for the first time, I knew it was something that I would love," he said of his first foray into martial arts instruction. "Back in my old country, martial arts was not a business. You could not make a living teaching it."
With $120 in his pocket, consumed with the need to learn English and assimilate a new culture, Santos rode the subways looking for work, settled for a job as a baker and put his dreams on hold. After nine months of saving money, he was able to bring his wife, Carla, to Queens. The couple, who have been married for 25 years, eventually moved to Oceanside.
By 1990, Santos was working as a baker at Not Just Bagels on Broadway in Lynbrook, teaching Brazilian jujitsu classes in his basement and offering classes in Lynbrook schools as well. When the crowd in his basement grew to 25 students in 1997, Santos decided to take a big financial risk, opening his own academy on the site of a former drug store and giving up his job at the bakery. He had only 18 days from the day he took over the space until his first rent check was due.
"It was a big decision," Santos said. "I had no money. The only thing I had that was worth something was a motorcycle." He sold his Harley Davidson to pay for the renovations. When the dust had settled, he had just enough money left for the rent.
Nine years later, he is a success, having learned the very lessons he imparts to his students these days: that one must be ambitious, and that hard work pays off.
"Do you know what a black belt is?" he asks them from time to time.
"A black belt is a white belt that never quits," they will respond in unison.
