Is the success of Danaher’s top guys due to the fact that they’re training like pro athletes and literally three to four times more than the next most dedicated competitors? (8 hours a day versus 2 to 3 hours).
You may say, everyone is training that much - but is this really true? Even the next most dedicated competitors usually have full time jobs even if that’s teaching jiujitsu. I seriously doubt most competitors AVERAGE more than 2 to 3 hours of their own training time per day.
Anyone remember Lloyd Irvin’s guys who he had train like 8 hours a day? Mike Fowler was tapping everyone at blue belt was literally training like 4 times as much as the guys he was facing.
Or is it different with Danaher? Is he doing things objectively different than others and has a ton of techniques and “systems” as he said that no one else is doing?
Are Danaher’s guys outworking everyone or do they have a bunch of information advantages?
My career is that of a systems engineer. 20+ years doing that.
Danahers approach is not different to successful or effective outcomes in the general sense.. It’s just different in BJJ. He’s combined the two worlds.
I recently hosted John Danaher for a seminar at my gym and got to ask his opinions on several things before and after the seminar.
It is my understanding that his guys don't train particularly long hours. Maybe more than the average student or competitor but not excessively. I think a lot of it comes down to his teaching and structure. By this I mean that the average bjj student who has trained for ten years has probably wasted a lot of time ie. doing things that weren't optimal for their development or learning in an unstructured manner so that they have to go back and relearn things that they didn't understand the first time.
I get the impression that training full time with Danaher would result in not a single second of training time or instruction time ever being wasted.
I recently hosted John Danaher for a seminar at my gym and got to ask his opinions on several things before and after the seminar.
It is my understanding that his guys don't train particularly long hours. Maybe more than the average student or competitor but not excessively. I think a lot of it comes down to his teaching and structure. By this I mean that the average bjj student who has trained for ten years has probably wasted a lot of time ie. doing things that weren't optimal for their development or learning in an unstructured manner so that they have to go back and relearn things that they didn't understand the first time.
I get the impression that training full time with Danaher would result in not a single second of training time or instruction time ever being wasted.
Good point. Definitely tons of time wasted on my road to black belt and I’m sure others have similar experiences.
I recently hosted John Danaher for a seminar at my gym and got to ask his opinions on several things before and after the seminar.
It is my understanding that his guys don't train particularly long hours. Maybe more than the average student or competitor but not excessively. I think a lot of it comes down to his teaching and structure. By this I mean that the average bjj student who has trained for ten years has probably wasted a lot of time ie. doing things that weren't optimal for their development or learning in an unstructured manner so that they have to go back and relearn things that they didn't understand the first time.
I get the impression that training full time with Danaher would result in not a single second of training time or instruction time ever being wasted.
Gordon has detailed his training schedule quite a few times. He trains Alot.
“My Halloween- woke up at 545 to get to 745 class with danaher where we drilled and trained until 915. At 930 I did my MMA drills led by @danaherjohn until 1040 and then went to teach a private directly after from 1040 until 1140. Ate some food and showered. Rested from 1215 to 1230 where I then took John’s second class of drilling and training ending at around 230. Then I ate some food and got ready to watch @garrytonon spar in his last days of camp which ended around 330. I then ate more food and slept from 4-5 On the mats. At 5 I taught an hour long private then another hour long private from 6-7. I then did an interview from 7-730. At 730 I taught the night class @renzogracieacademy until 9 pm. Then I showered and went to lift weights from 930 until 11. After eating pizza I got on the subway to head home and it’s now 1130. I dont need to my crown today because with a work ethic like no one else the crown isnt a costume. I’m the fucking KING year round. Shout out to @heysonnyy for helping me all day long, being the uke for all the privates and feeding me all day long. Also for this photo. @hypnotik”
He’s got to be close to 8 hours training total. Could be why he’s the best there or arguably anywhere?
I think THE biggest difference is the systematic approach of the curriculum, and probably a quality approach of a drilling system.
For most of us old guys, we were basically technique collectors, and for a lot of us, our first few years there wasn’t even that many techs to collect, no information available to learn from, just the occasional seminar that we could go to.
Also we were taught by technique, not principles, and there was no “connection” of the techniques taught.
John is a trained educator, he brought that knowledge and ability to the mat, and we are seeing it’s outcome.
There are a lot of factors at play. Certainly no one can get good at being a full-time grappling athlete without training all the time with other sharks under a good coaching program.
All that being said. Danaher does have the best no-gi curriculum and systems out there. I wasn’t a believer at first because I find him annoying and pretentious. I’m not a big fan of his teaching style. But I have yet to see a video of his that I haven’t learned something new on. Usually I learn at least 1 or 2 details that are significantly better than what I’ve been doing for years.
Danaher spends as much time on teaching details for finishing submission holds as some coaches do entire sweeping or passing sequences. His methods for getting to submission holds and his mechanics for finishing them are just better and more powerful than what anyone else is doing.
He says that a good coach should be able to bring an athlete to high level competitive success in 5 years. That’s what he’s been able to do with some of his guys, and there are a lot on the come up that will be talked about soon. Even though Tonon is fighting MMA and Cummings is at Unity, there are a crew of killers besides Nicky Ryan that people will know about soon. And I believe when some legends retire from ADCC (Cobrinha, Lepri, JT, and other guys from that era) that athletes being able to get on the podium at both the Mundials and ADCC won’t be as common as they have been before.
There are other academies that have world class no-gi programs (Atos, MGA, etc.) I’ve only seen those curriculum online (MGinaction, Atosonline, AOJonline…) but Danaher’s approach to teaching no-gi is the best I’ve ever seen.
In one of Gordon's recent interviews he said something to the effect that his success is owed to John Danaher and without Danaher he wouldnt be where he is at skillwise. He could train long and hard anywhere else so thats not it in his opinion, it's Danaher .
Going through through the different systems has improved my submission skills dramatically.
i finish opponents I haven’t finished before and get many more submissions per training session than before.
This is after 10 years of training. So they’re is absolutely something to his system that I/we are not getting from the traditional approach.
Same here. I’m over a decade into training and am finishing more subs than ever.
In particular I’ve struggled with finishing the RNC unless I catch it as I’m taking the back or as they’re defending the 2nd hook. It’s frustrating because IMO you can’t be a brown or black belt and not have a decent RNC percentage. After watching his back attack set I think my RNC finishes have at least doubled. It has jumped from around 33% to 75%.
Going through through the different systems has improved my submission skills dramatically.
i finish opponents I haven’t finished before and get many more submissions per training session than before.
This is after 10 years of training. So they’re is absolutely something to his system that I/we are not getting from the traditional approach.
Same here. I’m over a decade into training and am finishing more subs than ever.
In particular I’ve struggled with finishing the RNC unless I catch it as I’m taking the back or as they’re defending the 2nd hook. It’s frustrating because IMO you can’t be a brown or black belt and not have a decent RNC percentage. After watching his back attack set I think my RNC finishes have at least doubled. It has jumped from around 33% to 75%.
My career is that of a systems engineer. 20+ years doing that.
Danahers approach is not different to successful or effective outcomes in the general sense.. It’s just different in BJJ. He’s combined the two worlds.
This is what I was going to say. I was with Shawn Williams until purple and he spoke with reverence about Danaher’s systematic approach everything. Shawn is an amazing teacher and I’m sure being Danager’s main teaching and training partner helped shape his attention to detail. He teaches concepts and a collection of techniques. I’m sure Danaher is somewhere on the spectrum which is why he is both able to breakdown complicated systems into simple flow charts AND wears rash guards to weddings.
I recently hosted John Danaher for a seminar at my gym and got to ask his opinions on several things before and after the seminar.
It is my understanding that his guys don't train particularly long hours. Maybe more than the average student or competitor but not excessively. I think a lot of it comes down to his teaching and structure. By this I mean that the average bjj student who has trained for ten years has probably wasted a lot of time ie. doing things that weren't optimal for their development or learning in an unstructured manner so that they have to go back and relearn things that they didn't understand the first time.
I get the impression that training full time with Danaher would result in not a single second of training time or instruction time ever being wasted.
Good point. Definitely tons of time wasted on my road to black belt and I’m sure others have similar experiences.
There are some really great points on this thread. The selection of moves to be taught is something I never thought of. We are taught thousands to techniques before black belt and we weed out the techniques that work for us and disregard the rest (more or less). What if, as a white belt, your instructor said these are the 15 or 20 moves and the dozens of variations you need to master - now go spend a thousand mat hours mastering them. How much better would you be than you are now.
I wasted months and months of mat time working on berimbolo, worm guard, DLR, collar and sleeve etc.which just delayed the development of my Lucas Leite style half guard sweep game. I understand that it need to be taught like this so everyone can find their own game but it does make everyone a little more mediocre. I think Danaher reaches his system and little else
John specifically goes out of his way to teach moves that he sees work at the highest level in competition. He's literally said that at the beginning of class.
