Good Books That Don't Suck: Breathe: A Life in Flow by Rickson Gracie, Peter Maguire
The full title of David Talbot’s deep dive narrative of San Francisco between the years of 1967 and 1982 is: Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love. I stumbled upon this book by pure accident and was drawn to solely because its title had me singing Donovan song in my head.
A SYNOPSIS
This book is a memoir about the Gracie family dynasty, the founding of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and specifically about Rickson Gracie who is hailed as “The Greatest Gracie” in his Jiu Jitsu practice. As Helio Gracie’s third son, Rickson speaks about his upbringing in the Brazilian favelas where fighting was more of a right of passage with his family, which paved the way for his prolific and successful career. Upon his promotion to black belt at 18, Rickson fought his first MMA match at 19 and the rest of the book is an inspirational story of a warrior’s journey through the modern world.
Le RECOMMANDATION
Without giving up any spoiler alerts, the one thing I can tell you is that Rickson’s dedication to his art will inspire just about anyone to take pride in their work and master their craft. So yes. One million times yes. Read this book. It made me put down my gloves, drop onto my back and get into platonically hetero positions with other men once again. And even if you don’t want to learn murder yoga, the fact that he used to just roll into other peoples’ gyms and destroy their best fighters like a traveling ninja from hell is pretty fucking entertaining.
