Tucum and Baiana Santos: Partners in Life, Partners on the Mats

This adapted story is proudly presented in collaboration with Choke Clinch Crank Combat, a coffee table book that tells the stories of 25 fighters in Singapore.

Silvano ‘Tucum’ Santos and ‘Baiana’ Santos are partners in many senses of the word — alongside being partners in life, they are also training partners.

Hailing from Bahia, Tucum is the founder of Flow Artes, a studio that aims to share a little piece of Brazil through the Brazilian art of capoeira and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ).

Baiana was a capoeira enthusiast from an early age, performing her first roundhouse kick in her childhood home in Bedok.

They are both, at the time of writing, purple belts under legendary BJJ masters Ricardo Vieira and Alexsandro ‘Leke’ Machado of Checkmat.

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Just as Baiana supports Tucum in achieving his dreams, Tucum supports Baiana in hers. In 2012, they took up Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu on her suggestion. On top of being life partners, he is also her training partner.

As Tucum puts it, “Everything is about her in the class. She wants to learn the technique and she drills — I’m just there. So that’s my way of supporting. And it’s more obvious later on, at a stage where she starts to compete. Because I’m supposed to be competing as well!

But to me it was like, ‘Never mind.’ I’ll be the one training, supporting her in training. Whatever plans and strategies she needs, I’ll be there. I’ll stay back, and she’ll do the travelling.” Baiana has gone on to clinch championships at both regional and international BJJ competitions. 

Sacrifice is difficult in any relationship, not just for the one doing the sacrificing. As Baiana puts it, ‘It’s funny though, I’m always pushing him, like, ‘Hey, you need to travel, you need to go out, do your capoeira stuff. You cannot be hidden in a shell, let me plan things for you! We can work things out.’

We need to get these experiences, collect all these adventures. I feel bad! Leaving him behind whenever I go for all those trips on my own.”

But as Tucum puts it, “I want to be able to do things. But it is also important to me to support. When I want to do something, she also gives me that support. You know, we always exchange. She helps me in everything, but she also wants to be able to go out and explore and everything.

And to me it’s ok, to let her go, get her dose of adventure, she comes back and it’s all great because she achieves, not just on the martial arts side, like winning, but also the experiences, visiting our friends.

I tell my closest students and Baiana this, ‘When you guys travel, I see the world through your eyes.’ And we played, we did everything basically. So I’m okay with staying here, having one of us to travel. I’ll be the one, on the back. Because at the end of the day, if they achieve, I achieve as well.’”

It is on the mats that Tucum and Baiana can share their dreams and experiences. The dynamics of their relationship also plays out on the mats.

“I love training with him (Tucum), but there are always ups and downs! The best thing about training with him is that he can see things that I can’t.  So I really love the fact that he can see that and guide me. Those are the best parts.

The difficult part about training with him sometimes is when he knows your potential, and he knows you can do it, but your stubbornness says you can’t, he will push you. Then I’ll start making faces at him, stop talking to him, and go 300 percent.”

• Copy: Andrea Yew
• Photograhy: Khairul Selamat

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