This Texas Teenager Is One of the World’s Most Feared Fighters. Don’t Expect Her to Talk About It.

“Some people are quiet because they’re afraid of things,” John Danaher, Helena Crevar’s Brazilian jiu jitsu coach, says. “She was quiet because she was industrious.” At 18, Crevar’s diligence and ferocity have made her a formidable opponent, a fighter who has won 98 percent of her matches, many against higher-ranking opponents. In Laura Mallonee’s profile, the same qualities make Crevar a corrective to those in the jiu jitsu world who fixate on the sport as a last bastion for “masculinity.”

Watching Helena’s fights reveals something beyond aggression. Her body shifts between rigidity and fluidity, contorting into knots that dissolve almost as quickly as they form. Dressed in a tiger-striped suit at the Craig Jones Invitational 2, held last year in Las Vegas, she spun like a top across the mat; her knees flew over her head and nearly slapped the ground behind her, thighs still clenched around her opponent. “It’s a rough sport—a fighting sport,” she says, “but maybe not masculine—girls can do it as well.”