My father was a bricklayer, and my mother was a housewife. It was complicated, obviously, because of our humble origin, but thank God we were all focused.

I wanted to train jiu-jitsu instead of capoeira because the mat was soft. It was better than training capoeira on the hard floor. I started reading jiu-jitsu magazines, reading about the world champions, and becoming one of them became my goal.

I was really close to my father since I was young. He always told me that I had to work in order to become a man, so I had to stay with him when my mother left. He always took me to work to help him as a bricklayer. I was just a kid, so I did what I could do to help him.

Jose Aldo Quotes