‘Letters to My Father’

By Marcelo Alonso

What would you do if your father and idol died unexpectedly when you were just 6 years old? Rayron Gracie decided that writing letters to his father was the best way to deal with such an unexpected loss. He did so from the first time he walked through the doors of his dojo until he won a Brazilian jiu-jitsu world championship as a blue belt. For 13 years, he wrote to his father about every important moment he wanted to share with him.

This beautiful and moving history was chronicled by Allen Alcantara in the documentary “Letters to My Father,” available on YouTube.

“I was too young to realize that I would never see my father again,” said Rayron, who teaches at the Renzo Gracie Academy in New York, “so I started to write letters to him to share all my new experiences.”

Rayron found Alcantara on Instagram.

“The original idea for the project was actually not supposed to be a documentary but a quick video for Rayron showcasing his many accomplishments so far in his career,” Alcantara said. “Throughout our meetings, he started sharing many of the stories he had with his dad, one of them being these amazing letters he would write growing up. When he started reading me these beautiful letters, I knew this was a story we had to share.”

Considered one of the strongest characters in the Gracie family history, Ryan was the younger brother of Renzo Gracie and Ralph Gracie. He spent his entire mixed martial arts career in Pride Fighting Championships, where he went 5-2 in seven appearances between 2000 and 2004. Ryan got involved with drugs and was arrested in December 2007 before being found dead a few days later in his jail cell in Sao Paulo, Brazil. A toxicological examination was conducted at the Medical Legal Institute, and the psychiatrist who had been treating Ryan was later accused of negligence for allegedly overprescribing medication that led to his death.

Alcantara wanted to remain sensitive to the parties involved and chose to tell the story of a son who follows in his father’s footsteps, even though he cannot share those moments with him face to face. The filmmaker plans to carry the story in the future.

“We want to continue getting the word out about ‘Letters to My Father’ for a long time to come,” Alcantara said. “It’s such an amazing story that reaches far outside of the world of jiu-jitsu. Just in the past few days since it has been released, we’ve seen how much it has touched people, even those who have never stepped foot on the mats.”