3x World Champion, Pan Am Champion, Brazilian National Champion, Founder of Unity Jiu Jitsu School in NYC, 1st degree blackbelt under Murilo Santana, teaching out of Searsport, Maine. 3x world champion and founder of the world-famous Unity Jiu Jitsu School in New York City, Ana has been involved in Jiu Jitsu for almost 20 years. A native Mainer, Jiu Jitsu didn’t have much of a presence in Maine at the time, so she first started training at the Yamasaki Academy in Rockville, MD. Once started, it quickly took over her life, and she ended up managing the gym, training at the gym, and even living in a crawl space above the gym locker rooms for a time. After getting second at Worlds at Blue Belt, Ana relocated to São Paulo, Brazil, in order to train and compete at the highest levels possible. After six years of relentless training and competition under Murilo Santana, and with Academia Barbosa and Cicero Costha PSLPB in Brazil, Ana was winning consistently at Brown Belt. Around this time, Murilo was disillusioned with his training situation, and teammates João and Paulo Miyao were making plans to relocate to the US. Ana convinced Murilo to dream out loud about his ideal training situation, and she wrote down what would became the business plan for Unity Jiu Jitsu School. They invited friends Leandro Lo, Paulo & Joao Miyao, Luiza Monteiro, and Yago De Souza to come along, and were soon joined also by Junny Ocasio, Devhonte Johnson, Rafael Babilonia, Jeferson Guaresi, Italo Azevedo, Levi Jones-Leary, and many others who would become well-known in the Jiu Jitsu world. Ana created a world-class kids program for Unity, a women’s program that was wildly successful due to being inclusive rather than segregated, an innovative introduction program that enabled Unity to have a full schedule of all-level classes instead of the usual beginners/advanced classes, and ran the business with as much integrity and heart as possible. Ana created a summer camp for the students and their families, to travel to Maine for camping, nature, and Jiu Jitsu training in her home state. Unity expanded into a new location, and again she built most of what was needed by hand. But as the years passed, the gym grew and her role became more administrative in order to maintain the standard of integrity she’d started with. Administrative work wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as creating programs and seeing the results, or as much as teaching and seeing students grow, so eventually Ana moved on from Unity, and away from NYC. She never liked living in cities, and had been away from Maine for way too long. In 2023, Ana had an opportunity to move to Searsport, and she jumped at the chance. Now with a 37-acre farm, and a doggy daycare business that’s endless fun, she’s in a position where she can start teaching and creating with Jiu Jitsu again. Come check it out, take a private lesson, and learn a little of this amazing martial art that’s taking over the world, from someone who traveled the world to learn it.
