Luciana Mota Castelo Branco - Female BJJ Black Belt

Luciana Mota is a rising star Black Belt BJJ Champion. She started BJJ in 2015. She is the world champion under the coaching of Diego Castelo Branco, who later became her husband. Luciana represented Alliance Jiu-Jitsu Academy internationally and continues to earn Kudos. She started her martial art career in bodybuilding and weightlifting. But she changed her interest in BJJ. 

Luciana Mota was born in May 1990 in Manaus, the capital of the Amazonas state of Brazil. From her early childhood, she was interested in martial arts. After persistent requests, her parents enrolled her in a judo club at the age of 9. 

Luciana was unable to continue her Judo training at that club due to the absence of any other girl in the club. She once expressed:

“The gym didn’t have any other girls and my mom wasn’t comfortable with me training only with boys. This was the reason why I ended up leaving after 1 year.” 

After leaving her judo club, she continued her martial art journey in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.  

In 2012 during her weightlifting and bodybuilding, she met a BJJ Black Belt, Diego Castelo Branco. Both developed good chemistry based on mutual respect and a common passion for Jiu-Jitsu. Later down the line, Diego invited Luciana to a Jiu-Jitsu Class. Luciana considered his invitation in 2015 and started visiting Jiu-Jitsu classes and later decided to pursue her career in BJJ.

Luciana started Jiu-Jitsu training but at that time was not a regular BJJ practitioner. Instead, she started BJJ training as a hobby and continued her weightlifting practices. She was also working as an accountant at that time.           

Diego Castelo observed the hidden potential in Luciana to become a great Jiu-Jitsu fighter.

With time, effort, and persistence in training, she developed elite grappling capabilities. After the request and motivation of Diego, Luciana resigned from her job and decided to join grappling martial art BJJ as a full-time career.

After professionally joining the BJJ, Luciana started attending regular BJJ sessions and actively participating in sparring. After continuous training in Jiu-Jitsu, Luciana took part in the Amazonense tournament. She stood second in this tournament and derived immense confidence from that win.  

Luciana proved herself as she took only 11 months to achieve a Blue Belt and started competing in national-level BJJ championships. 

Soon, Luciana became one of the national champions of BJJ in the colored Belt category and was promoted to Purple Belt in 2018.

Luciana and Diego moved to the USA in 2017. She got her Black Belt after joining Alliance and started training under Faria and Diego Branco.

This bout was between Luciana Mota of Alliance and Sara Apodaca. This was the final match of the Phoenix Open 2022.

At the start, Sara tried to take down Luciana but Luciana overcame with full guard positions. Within two minutes, Luciana Mota changed the situation by putting her opponent in a turtle position.  

At the end of the match, Alliance’s competitor submitted Sara Apodaca with a kneebar and took gold home. 

Luciana Mota v Sara Apodaca / Phoenix Open 2022

Ana Carolina v Luciana Mota / World Championship 2022

Photo credit: @lucianamota