Luta Livre was created in the mid 20th Century in Rio de Janeiro. 
A few young men from a rowing club met and decided to dedicate their time to the art of fighting. 

The so called “ground fight” was always their priority because of the submissions and its importance in Vale Tudo matches.
In the 1970’s Luta Livre was strongly influenced by tedhnical experts like Robert Leitao. 

Leitao is a University professor for Engineering and has devoted many years to Judo, without Gi, and has trained in many camps. 

Since he was of smaller physical stature than most athletes from the rowing club, Leitao had to prevail with flawless technique; much like Royce Gracie did about 20 years earlier in the UFC.

Luta Livre evolved from generation to generation and was brought to Germany in 1995 by Professor Daniel D’ Dane. 

He taught Luta Livre to a handful of people in Colonge, Germany where he became a mentor to his star pupil Andreas Schmidt.
Andreas decided to take what he had learned to the next level and traveled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil so he could study the art in the place of its origin. 

In 2001, Andreas Schmidt called the “Andyconda” was awarded his Black Belt.

He returned to Germany to create and organize the European Luta Livre Organization or ELLO and began designing a structured Luta Livre curriculum.
His degree in Sports Science helped Andreas to structure the specific teaching methods and programms that make the techniques easy to learn and master. 

The Andyconda Luta Livre (ALL) as a fully structured fighting system started to develop. 

The success of ALL is due to the specifically designed curriculum which enables the student to quickly learn the foundation of this martial art.

I am a proffessional martial artist and Master of Physical Education of the German Sportsuniversity of Cologne, Germany.


I am the highest graduated Blackbelt in Luta Livre outside Brazil.




In 2001 I faught in Abu Dhabi at the famous ADCC Submission Wrestling Event. 

My last oponents were Dean Lister and Rudolfo Amaro in a Grapplingmatch that was called a draw after 75 minutes. 


Luta Livre is Portuguese meaning free fight. It is no way just a mixture of other martial arts and styles. Luta Livre is a complete martial art system which was designed in Rio de Janeiro. It is first and foremost a submission grappling style where competitors use joint locks and chokes to submit their opponent. The stand up component of Luta Livre, witch includes punching and kicking as well as elbow and knee strikes, was developed to complete the art. 

The art of Luta Livre enables a competitor to transition from stand up to the ground in an energy efficient and economical method

Because of the growing interest in the Andyconda Luta Livre, Andreas decided in 2007 to expand outside of Europe and formed the International Luta Livre Organization or ILLO. 

As the ILLO head coach, he travels all over the world to teach and instruct his Luta Livre.
info@lutalivre.net
LLO / ELLO Headquarter Sportschule Koeln Graditzer Str. 87 d 50735 Koeln Germany Fon: 0049 (0) 221 27 141 29 Fax: 0049 (0) 221 27 141 33 MP: 0049 (0) 173 430 77 53 Email: info@lutalivre.net www.lutalivre.net www.luta-livre.de www.sportschule-koeln.de