The female jiu-jitsu expert identified as Sabrina Leite, was reportedly in front of her house when two men on a motorbike came up to her. One of the 18-year-old robbers, reportedly walked up to the lady and told her to give him her mobile phone in the incident which occurred in Jorge Teixeira neighbourhood of Manaus, in Brazil.
“I could feel that they didn’t have anything (weapons), they just arrived scarily saying ‘pass the phone’. I saw they didn’t have anything and that’s why I reacted. If they had been armed I would never have reacted.”
The 22-year-old lady reportedly threw her phone into her house, and the suspect then reportedly got scared and tried to flee on the motorbike. However a neighbour drove into the suspect with his car.
She said: “He was running away. My neighbour went after him in the car and reached him.
Then I ran and immobilised him with a sleeper hold, I lay on the ground and put him in an arm lock.”
She told local news outlet G1 she learnt the arm lock through practising jiu-jitsu.
She added: “It’s all a question of technique. I have been training for four years, I’m still a white belt. Ranking and belts don’t matter to me.”
The thief who was arrested and will be charged to court for attempted robbery, spent 20 minutes on the ground after he was pinned down by the lady until the police arrived.