Fabio Clemente was born in 1965 and grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Fabio’s father was a football/soccer coach who also practiced jiu-jitsu, making competition a big part of the Clemente family. Fabio started his sporting activities from an early age, by practicing several disciplines such as judo (which he started at the age of 9) and rowing. Around 1983 through a conversation with a friend, who was at the time a BJJ brown belt, Clemente was convinced to try the Brazilian style of grappling. Fabio Clemente’s first class was at the Gracie Academy, the gym’s facilities were shared between Carlson Gracie and Carlos Gracie Junior. Fabio’s first coach was “Carlinhos” Gracie’s right-hand man, Rigan Machado. Fabio Clemente thoroughly enjoyed his jiu-jitsu class and kept at it, later moving with the team to Barra da Tijuca, in the birth of Gracie Barra, being mainly trained by Rigan Machado. After a few years of training with Rigan, Fabio moved to Paris with his wife, staying there for 4 years. As there was no jiu-jitsu in Paris in those days, Clemente went back to judo, trying to do as much randori (ground-work) as possible there. In California, Clemente had the chance to return to grappling, rejoining his old instructors, the Machado brothers. In 1995, Fabio moved to New York City where he finally settled and opened his own BJJ academy, during the same week when Renzo Gracie Academy opened its doors, making Fabio Clemente’s gym one of the oldest BJJ academies in the Big Apple. Fabio was a brown belt when he opened his academy; he would receive his black belt after two consecutive wins at the Pan American Championships in the brown belt adult division. Around 1998, Fabio Gurgel invited Clemente to become part of the Alliance Jiu-Jitsu Academy. The deal suited both parties, and Clemente jumped on board, making his gym the original Alliance headquarters in New York. In 2017, Clemente’s team switched affiliations to Team Checkmat, making it the major Checkmat affiliation on the East Coast. Now, Fabio Clemente teaches the Basics class every Sunday at 11:00 AM.