Márcio de Deus

Joferson Márcio Souza de Deus, known as Márcio de Deus, is the coach behind one of the best-known stories in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. An Infight black belt, he leads TMD House, a social project based in Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro, where Gabrieli Pessanha started training at 11. He was the first coach of the athlete who would become the most decorated champion in the sport’s history.

TMD House develops athletes from white belt to black belt. “TMD House is a grassroots school. Black belts like Gabi Pessanha, Maria Cláudia, Vitor Matheus and Luciano Alex, who make a living from jiu-jitsu today, came up through the team’s youth divisions,” he told VF Comunica in 2024. That year the team took 99 kids to the Brazilian Kids Nationals, won 12 medals with 12 students at the Pan Kids, five of them gold, and repeated that record at the Kids Europeans in Lisbon. To pay for the trips, the team relied on sponsors and sold raffle tickets, cakes and sweets.

As a competitor, Márcio built his career at ultra heavyweight. As a brown belt he took bronze at the 2013 World Master Championship and silver at that year’s Brazilian No-Gi Nationals. At black belt he was South American master runner-up in 2014 and took bronze in the adult division at the 2015 Brazilian No-Gi Nationals, and he still competes in the master divisions.

His work has also reached big stages off the mat. In 2024 he and Gabi taught a seminar at Jiu-Jitsu Con in Las Vegas. “We come from a very humble, very simple background, and being able to teach a seminar in Las Vegas, at the biggest jiu-jitsu event in the world, with the largest number of participants ever, next to big names in the sport is very rewarding. The work is paying off,” he said. Márcio is also the author of “Pensando na Vitória” (Thinking About Victory), a handbook of advice for athletes published in Portuguese and English.

Humility is the subject he says he repeats at the academy. After one of Gabi’s world titles, he told VF Comunica what he said to her beside the mat: “Daughter, never forget that the most important thing is to be humble.”