JRE MMA Show #11 with John Danaher

Joe sits down with Brazilian jiu-jitsu coach John Danaher.

Joe RoganhostJohn Danaherguest

Jan 15, 20182h 38mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

150 min read · 30,290 words

0:06 – 3:57
Fanny packs, internet outrage, and why comments get ugly
1. JRJoe Rogan
  And we're live. John Danaher, thank you very much, sir. Very nice to see you.
2. JDJohn Danaher
  It's my pleasure, Joe. Thank you for having me here.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Uh, nice to be with a fellow fanny pack proponent as well. And, uh, now you, you have one of the, the beautiful Higher Primate leather bags. I like that, huh?
4. JDJohn Danaher
  Joe Rogan has just given me one of the most beautiful fanny packs that I've ever seen in my life. Um, I, I wear a very cheap fanny pack and this, this is a thing of beauty. I was just telling Joe about, uh, my student, Gordon Ryan, was recently given a Gucci fanny pack.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
6. JDJohn Danaher
  It's literally the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. When he wears it around me, I get insanely jealous. And-
7. JRJoe Rogan
  But would you buy one of those?
8. JDJohn Danaher
  No.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  It's like a $800 fanny pack.
10. JDJohn Danaher
  Just on, just on principle, just on principle, I can't buy an $800 fanny pack. But I could definitely stab Gordon Ryan in the back with a knife and steal it from him-
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Wow.
12. JDJohn Danaher
  ... and blame it on Nicky Ryan. I could do that easily.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Blame it on his brother?
14. JDJohn Danaher
  Absolutely.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Wow.
16. JDJohn Danaher
  Make a great TV series.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs) The fanny pack is making a comeback. It's a slow comeback that a lot of people are reluctant to join. They're, they're scared. They, they worry about their position in the sexual food chain.
18. JDJohn Danaher
  (laughs)
19. JRJoe Rogan
  And-
20. JDJohn Danaher
  With, with good reason, by the way.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  I don't know why. I feel like anybody that won't fuck you 'cause you have a fanny pack, you don't wanna fuck them. They're too much work.
22. JDJohn Danaher
  Strong point. Strong point.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, it's just not worth it.
24. JDJohn Danaher
  Essentially it's always a battle of, uh, appearance versus function.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
26. JDJohn Danaher
  Um, fanny packs score very, very low on appearance, but very high on function.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  I feel like that one bucks the trend.
28. JDJohn Danaher
  I think (laughs) you're right.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Uh-
30. JDJohn Danaher
  Between this and the Gucci, we've got something going on here.
3:57 – 7:48
From philosophy PhD and bouncing to discovering grappling
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. So John, um, you are one of the most fascinating characters in the world of jujitsu and the world of martial arts. And for people who are, are not aware of your background, you started out, correct me if I'm wrong, you started out, um, a philosophy student.
2. JDJohn Danaher
  That's correct. Yes.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  And you were working as a bouncer. And you were jacked, right? You were a powerlifter at the time?
4. JDJohn Danaher
  Yes.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  And you wanted to figure out a way to defend yourself.
6. JDJohn Danaher
  Um, it wasn't really a question of, uh, wanting to figure out. It was, it was, it was, um, uh, a pretty simple desire that I had. When I grew up in New Zealand, martial arts was almost entirely based around, uh, striking prowess. Um, you'll back me up on this, Joe. Um, we're similar age. Uh, when we grew up, uh, the ... It's no exaggeration to say that the study of martial arts in, in English-speaking countries, North America, Western Europe, et cetera, was absolutely dominated by the striking arts. And, um, if you ask the average person, "Who was the best fighter in the world?" They would typically say whoever was the best boxer in the world. So in the 1980s, Mike Tyson wasn't just the best boxer in the world, he was the best fighter in the world. People always equated prowess in fighting with the ability to strike. Um, I grew up in that time period. And so, um, I grew up doing, uh, uh, studying kickboxing as a, as a teenager in New Zealand. I came to the United States and for the first time in our ... There's no wrestling culture in my country. New Zealand has no wrestling culture. It's one of the few countries where there's no indigenous wrestling culture. There's, or there, there were, but it was kind of lost in the, uh, sands of time. Um, when I grew up, wrestling was something I saw once every four years at the Olympics on TV. And, um, I didn't even associate it with fighting, to be honest with you. I just saw it as this strange sport where two guys tackled each other. And, um, so I came to the United States and I was working as a bouncer. Um, America has much, much more of a wrestling culture in it.... in, in New Zealand when I grew up, when you fought, you were expected to fight with fists and if it went to the ground, the two guys stood up and they resumed fighting. You stood up and you fought like a man. That was the idea. And, um, uh, in the United States, when I was bouncing, I was absolutely shocked and impressed by the prowess of judo players and wrestlers in street fighting, working as a bouncer. I worked alongside them, and I was massively impressed.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  What year was this?
8. JDJohn Danaher
  This is in the early 1990s. I arrived in the United States in 1991.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  (coughs)
10. JDJohn Danaher
  Um, so I started working late ni- uh, late 1991, um, in New York City. Um, New York was a very, (clears throat) very, very different city back then. It's, it's like a, um, it's almost like two different cities from what it used to be.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  It is amazing how much it's changed, right?
12. JDJohn Danaher
  The, the transformation is night and day.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  It's become like a giant TGI Fridays now.
14. JDJohn Danaher
  That's pretty much-
15. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
16. JDJohn Danaher
  ... what New York City is, yeah. Um, to, to give you, um, an example, uh, I used to live on West End Avenue on the Upper West Side. When I would come home from working in nightclubs at 5:30 in the morning to go to sleep, there would be large numbers of streetwalking prostitutes on my block, my avenue. If that, if you saw even a single streetwalking prostitute in that area today, it would be front page news of the New York Times. It would be so shocking, so completely out of people's m- Uh, it would literally just-
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
18. JDJohn Danaher
  ... warp people's minds.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, Time Square is the best example of that, right?
20. JDJohn Danaher
  Time Square is an extreme example of it.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Because Times Square used to be all seedy peep shows-
22. JDJohn Danaher
  It was nothing but seedy peep shows, yeah.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  And now it's like, Guy Fieri restaurants.
24. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah. (laughs)
25. JRJoe Rogan
  It's the, the, it's all-
26. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  ... weird-
28. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  ... television.
30. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah. Yeah. So the, the transformation is huge. So that was the New York that I went into.
7:48 – 11:41
First exposure to Brazilian jiu-jitsu: the office headlock wake-up call
1. JDJohn Danaher
  And, uh, it was, uh, it was a violent New York. Uh, 1991, I believe, was the year with the highest murder rate in recorded history for New York City. So, um, it was a very, very different New York City. It's not what you see today. So I came into this environment and I saw all these people who were incredibly adept in, in fighting, and they were using grappling technique to do so. This impressed me a lot. Um, at, uh, shortly after that time, uh, I was always working, um, I started to hear talk about this show, this Ultimate Fighting Show, and there was this Brazilian guy who had beaten everyone. He was wrestling people and, and strangling them and, and locking their arms, things like this, things that, things that I'd never heard of. So I, I, I, I'd heard this and, um, uh, one day I was teaching at Columbia University and a close friend of mine, who was also in the PhD program, came into my office, it was office hours, and he said, "John, you know, I know you work as a bouncer, and I know, uh, uh, you work at night, and, um, I started doing this, this martial art, it's called Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And, uh, it's mostly fought on the ground, and I remember you said most of the fights you get into, people get put down on the ground and they wrestle. And, uh, I was wondering if you would be interested in doing it." And I was like, "Brazilian jiu-jitsu?" You know, I never associated martial arts with Brazil. For me, martial arts were, you know, Japan, Korea, you know?
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
3. JDJohn Danaher
  Brazil? Like, what have they got? Capoeira, you know?
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
5. JDJohn Danaher
  Who, who, who's this guy? So I'm like, "Brazilian jiu-jitsu? Isn't jiu-jitsu, like, Japanese?" Like what does it-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
7. JDJohn Danaher
  ... isn't it, like-
8. JRJoe Rogan
  If you-
9. JDJohn Danaher
  ... a contradiction of terms, like, Brazil, jiu-jitsu? Um, so this, at the time, I was around 230 pounds, and, and this guy was, couldn't have been more than 140, and he'd only been training two weeks. So, um, he goes to me, you know, um, we go on the ground and, and we wrestle on the ground. And I was like, "Okay, let me put you in a headlock and let's see what you can do." So I shut the door of the office, I cleared out the furniture-
10. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
11. JDJohn Danaher
  ... and I put this poor kid on the ground. Now, um, I had, the only thing I knew how to do on the ground in those days was headlock people, and I, you know, I was strong guy. I had a pretty nasty headlock. And, um, so I grabbed my poor little friend and, and throttled him with a, uh, uh, basically a (Japanese term) type headlock. And, um, uh, to my shock and horror, he started slipping around behind me.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
13. JDJohn Danaher
  And I started holding harder and harder, and then about two minutes went by and I really had no real control over him, and he was starting to get around behind me. Now, I didn't know back attacks where I had complete naivety on the ground, but I could feel something bad was happening. Someone getting behind you is never a good thing in a fight. And, uh, I was getting tired. My arms were getting tired, and I had no control over the guy, and finally he slipped out and I had to stand up and run away. And I said-
14. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
15. JDJohn Danaher
  ... "Are you kidding me? I'm twice your size, you've been training two goddamn weeks." And, and if this was a real fight, he would've got away from me, and I'm tired. That's not good. And I was just saying, "If he did this in two weeks, what could you do with some training?" So I was fascinated. I went down, um, got completely destroyed on my first day. Um, I, it was hilarious. You know, who was there on his first day? Matt Serra was the most, uh, he was a blue belt at the time. Um, so even on that first day, you, you met people that would become very important in your life later on. And, um, I vowed to the moon and the stars that I would at least become competent in the game. I, I couldn't live with the idea that I was incompetent at an important element of fighting. I didn't wanna be a world champ, I didn't want... I just wanted to be competent. And, um, uh, I believed it would make my bouncing work significantly easier. That was absolutely true. Um, within a very, very short period of time, bouncing got massively easier for me.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
17. JDJohn Danaher
  Um, I've al- you know, you always hear this cliche, "Jiu-jitsu saves," you know, "Jiu-jitsu saved my life." How many people here actually hear this? People say that all the time. Well, I can think of, without any question, there are four times in my life that jiu-jitsu actually did save my life bouncing.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Really?
11:41 – 14:12
Becoming a teacher at Renzo’s: academics applied to coaching
1. JDJohn Danaher
  I can say that with complete honesty. Um, uh, it's a cliche for most people, but for me it's, it did happen. Um, so it made a massive difference, but I still saw it as something that was interesting and something I just wanted to gain competence in. That fundamentally changed, because really at that point I wanted to finish my PhD and become a professor, that's what was my original goal when I came to United States.... um, but things started to change when, uh, the three senior students at the Renzo Gracie Academy, Hikaru Maeda, Matt Serra, and Rodrigo Gracie all went their separate ways. They had to go out and start their own schools. And Renzo was busy fighting professionally in Japan, so he couldn't be at the academy all the time. And he came to me and he said, "John, y- you're gonna have to be a teacher. Like, there's no one else."
2. JRJoe Rogan
  And how long had you been training?
3. JDJohn Danaher
  Uh, I believe, if I go through the... it was around four years. I believe I was a purple belt when I first started teaching at Renzo's. Um, don't quote me on that, b- but I'll have to go back and check, but I believe that's roughly correct.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  And why did he come to you?
5. JDJohn Danaher
  Um, probably 'cause he felt sorry for me. I don't know (laughs) .
6. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
7. JDJohn Danaher
  Um, uh, I, I was there a, a lot and, um, I think maybe he saw some enthusiasm or whatnot.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, you were obsessed, right? Like, you were there daily.
9. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah. Th- that became much more so when I became a teacher because I, I, I saw that, okay, I'm, I'm filling big shoes here. You must remember all three of the, of those names that I just mentioned, all three were world champions. Okay? These, these were good, good people. And for that time, they were, they were killers. And here I am, a PhD student, now I've gotta fill in these shoes. So I was like, "I've gotta get serious about this." So I made a commitment to, um, to becoming the best possible teacher I could. Now, you must remember, I went in as a teacher. That was my first assignment. And, um, so I decided my primary focus in jiu-jitsu would be upon teaching. And, uh, uh, fortunately I came from an academic background. I had many brilliant, brilliant professors coming through the ph- uh, philosophy programs, both in New Zealand and the United States. Um, Columbia University had a fantastic PhD program. Uh, so I was very, uh, experienced in the art of teaching, but in an academic context. And I thought, maybe this has given me... fate has given me this angle where I can use an academic approach to teaching in a sports environment. And that has really become one of the, the patterns of m- of my approach to, uh, to teaching in jiu-jitsu.
14:12 – 19:47
Where the leg-lock revolution started: Dean Lister’s one-sentence insight
1. JRJoe Rogan
  So this is, uh, in the '90s, and you are a purple belt at the time. When did you develop this leg lock system...
2. JDJohn Danaher
  Mm-hmm.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  ... that has become so legendary? So for people, for the uninitiated that have never, uh, heard of you or understand what we're talking about here, for the longest time, jiu-jitsu was primarily attacks on the arms and the neck. That was pretty much it. And there were known attacks on the legs, but they were frowned upon.
4. JDJohn Danaher
  Yes.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Uh, something happened. You, you got to see some of those techniques in MMA. You got to see some heel hooks, occasionally foot locks. There's a few guys, Arlovski pulled off a, a foot lock in the UFC against Tim Sylvia. There's a few guys that were pulling these off. This is pre-Jusmar Palhares. But you, all of the sudden, came along with this very effective system that... there was rumblings many years ago about this, where a lot of people were talking about it, and a lot of people were saying that, you know, "John Danaher has this insane leg lock system." And then you started developing all these chi-... for people who don't know, the top grapplers in the world... there's a, there's a lot of top grapplers in the world. Jiu-jitsu is incredibly competitive. But you're recognized as being one of the premier coaches of the most promising young people, like Gordon Ryan, who you were talking about before, who was an Abu Dhabi champion, Garry Tonon, Nicky Ryan, Eddie Cummings. You have an incredible crew of world-class strangle artists who are also known to be some of the very best leg lockers in the world. So what happened?
6. JDJohn Danaher
  Mm-hmm.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  How did that, how did that all take place?
8. JDJohn Danaher
  Um, let's go through, uh...
9. JRJoe Rogan
  We should talk about the history of...
10. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  ... the, the taboo.
12. JDJohn Danaher
  L- l- let's... you, you've actually asked about six different questions.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. I'm sorry.
14. JDJohn Danaher
  No, no, no. It's, it's good, but we can answer them in turn.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Okay.
16. JDJohn Danaher
  So let's go... let's... the first question, your first question was a historical question. How, how did it happen? Okay?
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
18. JDJohn Danaher
  Um, first off, um, there was nothing in my early, uh, uh, learnings, uh, o- of, of jiu-jitsu which suggested leg locks. Nothing. Okay? Um, Renzo would teach. Um, by the way, I should say my, my, my sensei throughout my entire career has been Renzo Gracie. Um, I never left Renzo. He taught me from white belt to black belt, and I never left his academy. I'm the only one of his students who stayed with him from white belt to black belt and never left. Um, uh, so Renzo would teach leg locks, but it was taught in always the same fashion that everyone else did. Here's a move, here's a, you know, a figure-four toe hold. Here's a heel hook. Here's an Achilles lock. Um, so the, the moves themselves were known. Okay? They, they were, they were in existence. It wasn't like I invented heel hooks or something like that. That's, that's not the idea. Um, but they weren't emphasized. Um, a very, very, uh, talented and, um, uh, uh, influential, uh, figure in my life was a guy that I only knew for three days. Now, that sounds, that sounds crazy, right? How can you learn something from someone in three days? Well, actually, the influence he had occurred in three minutes. I'm a big believer in the idea that someone can come into your life for a very short period of time and have a massive influence. I truly believe that. In my case, it was, uh, a great American grappler called Dean Lister. Dean Lister was invited by Matt Serra to come to the Renzo Gracie Academy. I believe, don't quote me on this, but I believe Dean was a brown belt at the time. I'm pretty sure Matt was a brown belt at the time too. And, um, uh, he brought him in for around three days, and he trained mostly with Matt Serra in preparation for a grappling tournament, if I, if I remember correctly. Now, Dean was known mostly in those days for his Achilles lock. Uh, later on, he would become a heel hook specialist, but in those days it was mostly an Achilles lock. And he came to the academy, he rolled with some people, and he did...... uh, he was doing Achilles locks and getting some success. Um, you know, it went both ways. I, I remember, um, uh, he, he couldn't really get his stuff to work on Matt Serra and Matt Serra could get his stuff to work on him. But, um, uh, he was doing something which was unusual. And so I talked with him just briefly after class one day and I said, "You know, it's interesting what you're doing with these Achilles locks because I don't really do that at all. It's not something I do." And he said one sentence which completely changed my outlook. He goes, "Why would you ignore 50% of the human body?" One sentence. "Why would you ignore 50% of the human body?" And I looked and I was like, "I don't know. Why, why would you? It makes no sense." And we never talked again. And then he went back to California. He went on to become two, two time ADCC champion, mostly with leg locks. Um, but what Dean gave me was not technique, didn't show me a single technique, but he gave me a point of view. If you give a man a point of view, you can change him. Okay? He can, he can work from there. That was the influence. And, um, my sensei, Renzo Gracie, was an extremely, uh, liberal minded professor of jiu-jitsu. He would let us do whatever we wanted. Okay? He wasn't one of those guys saying, "No, no one in my academy is studying leg locks." He was never like that. He was, he would allow his students to go in any direction they wanted provided they could prove it was effective. Um, so I started studying leg locks and that's where I'm gonna
19:47 – 21:34
Why leg locks were taboo: the hidden reason isn’t safety
1. JDJohn Danaher
  come to the second question which you asked, which is, why did leg locks have such a bad reputation in jiu-jitsu? It's curious, right?
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
3. JDJohn Danaher
  We don't talk about this way about arm locks. Um, I'm gonna run through the main criticisms and you'll, you'll be my witness on this, Joe. I'm sure you heard the same criticisms-
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
5. JDJohn Danaher
  ... a thousand times. You would always hear people ref- uh, refer to leg locks in the following way. The first, the first criticism, they were too dangerous. Okay? If you, if you allowed people to do leg locks, everyone would be injured in a week and jiu-jitsu would be impossible. So that was the first criticism you would always hear. The second great criticism is they didn't work. Okay? Um, you might be able to tap out a white belt with a heel hook, but if you're world championship level, you're never gonna tap anybody. It didn't work at higher levels. That by itself, those two criticisms seem to go in opposite directions. If they, if they're really that dangerous, but they don't work, how, how does that, how do those two gel? They're either incredibly dangerous to the point where they can't be practiced or they don't work. They, they, the two arguments contradict each other. Then you hear other arguments that they were positionally unsound. That if you were in top position and you went for a leg lock, you would lose position and that was a disaster. Okay? That's a criticism with no merit because the, that cri- same criticism applies to guillotines, arm bars, etc. You can be mounted on someone, go for an arm lock and lose position, end up on bottom. But no one criticizes arm bars. Um, so as I went through the reasons why people criticized leg locking, none of them really made sense. So I started asking myself, well, often the reasons people give as opposed to what the real reasons are, are very different. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought the real reason people don't like leg locks runs much deeper than that. Let's understand jiu-jitsu for what it is.
21:34 – 31:38
The 4-step jiu-jitsu model—and why leg locks didn’t ‘fit’
1. JDJohn Danaher
  Jiu-jitsu is a systems based approach to fighting. Okay? What is the system of Brazilian jiu-jitsu? Well, it can be described in a few different ways. I'm gonna give you one rendition which is pretty simple and will resonate with most of your listeners. Jiu-jitsu is a system based around four distinct steps. You can add steps, you can subtract steps, but the, the rendition I'm gonna give you now is probably, probably the most widely known. Okay? Let's say a friend of yours asks for advice on fighting. He knows you're a Brazilian jiu-jitsu expert, you're a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and he's saying to me, "Joe Rogan, tell me, I don't know anything. I, I wanna fight someone else using your Brazilian jiu-jitsu. What are the steps of Brazilian jiu-jitsu? What's the system that it, uh, what is the system that it espouses?" You're gonna see always that step number one is take your opponent to the ground. Okay? Why? Why do you, why do you think the ground is so special? Why did Brazilian jiu-jitsu choose the ground as step number one of its system? Why do you think?
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, it all came out of judo, right? So Brazilian jiu-jitsu took the effective submission techniques of judo and then just refined them.
3. JDJohn Danaher
  That's the historical reason.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
5. JDJohn Danaher
  But what's the, what's the mechanical, physical reason?
6. JRJoe Rogan
  'Cause you can control someone on the ground far better, right?
7. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah, you can control people. Lomachenko con- uh, controls people in a standing position with angle and distance. There's different ways to control people.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes in boxing if you only are boxing.
9. JDJohn Danaher
  But why the ground? Why did they choose the ground? What's the mechanical reason? What happens when you take a human being to the ground?
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, there's a whole barrier behind them that you can press them against.
11. JDJohn Danaher
  What about if you're in bottom position?
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, you could use that barrier as leverage.
13. JDJohn Danaher
  True. But there's something that occurs when someone goes down to the ground. There's something big that you're maybe missing here.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  What am I missing?
15. JDJohn Danaher
  What's the most explosive event in the Olympic games? The, the, the event that probably requires more transfer of energy and development of kinetic energy than any other? There's a bunch you could name, but one of them for me is always gonna be the, the javelin throw. The javelin throw involves a full powered sprint, a jump, a massive explosive turning of both hips and shoulders, and a throw. All the quintessential explosive elements of the human body are involved in the javelin throw, probably to a greater degree than any other Olympic event. And as a result, people can throw a javelin 80, 90 meters.What would happen if you took those same javelin throwers and made them perform the same event on their knees?
16. JRJoe Rogan
  It wouldn't be so good.
17. JDJohn Danaher
  They probably couldn't throw it more than 10 meters. Okay, and what's changed? The closer they get to the ground, the less they can employ explosive force. What's the first thing cowboys do when they go to brand a steer?
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Take it down.
19. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah. They lock up its legs and they put it down on the ground. Nobody tries to brand a standing steer. You're gonna get killed because it can employ explosive dynamic movement to hurt you. You put them on the ground, dynamic explosive movement is massively curtailed. It takes away the single riskiest element of fighting, which is quick, dynamic movement that can generate kinetic energy.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Hmm.
21. JDJohn Danaher
  So step number one of Brazilian jiu-jitsu is get it to the ground. It's inherently safer. Less things can go catastrophically wrong on the ground than in a standing position. What's step number two?
22. JRJoe Rogan
  Secure a dominant position. Control.
23. JDJohn Danaher
  Control, too vague. There's many ways to control people. There's a definite step. You've just taken a guy down, what's your first thing in Brazilian jiu-jitsu?
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, the first thing I would try to do is get to a dominant position.
25. JDJohn Danaher
  What do you mean by that? Be more precise.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, okay, pass to side control-
27. JDJohn Danaher
  Good, good.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  ... try to mount.
29. JDJohn Danaher
  Good, good, good. You just answered it right there. Get past his legs.
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Past his legs.
31:38 – 40:48
Control first: ashi garami, separating control from breaking
1. JDJohn Danaher
  and the results were surprising. The first thing is, our four-step rendition of Jiu-Jitsu looked at Jiu-Jitsu from top position, where we took our opponent down to the ground and we were on top of them. But my study of Jiu-Jitsu didn't start from top position. It started from bottom position. If you look at my students in competition, you will notice that around 80% of their entries into leg locks come from bottom position or with their opponent behind them. In other words, from what are supposedly inferior positions. So for me, it was never a question of losing position when I went for leg locks because I was already underneath my opponent. I started underneath. How can I end up on bottom by going for a leg? I'm already on bottom. So most of my early work in leg locks was how to get into leg locks from disadvantageous positions, from underneath or when someone is behind me. So I never have, felt this problem of, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna lose position if I go for leg locks. I could still play a, a conventional Jiu-Jitsu game and have a very, very strong leg lock entry. That was the first avenue of leg locking. But things became more interesting when I got further into the leg lock game and I started to realize that as you add leg locks into the game, you change the very nature of the sport. If you look at Jiu-Jitsu as it's ordinarily practiced, it's a single direction game. If someone is in front of me and I'm standing over them, Jiu-Jitsu is all about movement from the legs towards the head. I'm supposed to pass their guard, work my way up to chest-to-chest contact, and get my head next to their head, either in front of them or behind them, either mounted or rear-mounted. So Jiu-Jitsu always goes in one direction. If you ever get stopped or you lose position, you just start the process over again. It's a mono-directional sport. It always goes from the legs to the head. Once you start adding leg locks into the game, Jiu-Jitsu becomes a two directional sport where you can go from the head down to the legs. You can go in both directions. So if I'm passing someone's guard and I simply can't do it, I can fall back and go back into the legs. If I'm side control on someone and they start to recompose their guard, I can fall back into the legs. I'm going from their upper body down to their lower body. Traditional Jiu-Jitsu always goes from the lower body directionally up to the upper body, so that you end up head to head with your opponent. But once you start adding leg locks, Jiu-Jitsu for the first time becomes a two directional sport instead of a one directional sport. And you can play your opponent's reactions between the threat of lower body and upper body in ways that opens up submissions so much more easily than the traditional game.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  So if I take you back to the moment where Dean Lister says to you, "Why would you ignore 50% of the human body?" You go back and think about this, and what is your next step? Do you just start looking at students and looking at what you're teaching and analyzing positions? Uh, you, you were still rolling at the time.
3. JDJohn Danaher
  Yes. Correct. Um, the first thing that I started to look at is, okay, who out there is doing a good job of leg locking? And the honest answer was, there weren't a lot of people. What you would see is random success with leg locks. You'd see a guy wins a match here, a guy wins a match there. Um, uh, most of the eminent leg lockers of that generation were actually coming out of Japan. You'd have people like Rami Nasato, who had a decent heel hook for that time. Um-
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Imanari.
5. JDJohn Danaher
  Imanari. That was a little bit pre-Imanari. Imanari came slightly after Rami Nasato. They, they, they fought each other in grappling matches.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Hm.
7. JDJohn Danaher
  C- One was younger than the other. Um, uh, but, uh, you know, they had some success. I believe even Sakuraba finished Newton with a knee bar. So, you know, the, the, the knowledge was there. Um, but there was nothing systematic about it. There wasn't... There wasn't, there weren't people who were coming out and just systematically finishing people with one move, okay? Um, uh, so there wasn't much in terms of people to study. So the first thing I started to asking is, well, what is the, what is the nature of leg locking? What... Um, if it's... Uh, it seems to have some problems associated with it. It, it's not as controlling as the traditional methods of Jiu-Jitsu, and that was really the key word there, control, okay? Why do people favor things like rear naked strangles so much? Because it's such a controlling position. Rear mount is an incredibly controlling position.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
9. JDJohn Danaher
  Um-... why do people favor things like kata gatame, uh, the, the, um, triangle, because this too is a, a, a very inherently controlling position. All the most high percentage, uh, finishing holds in Jujitsu all have control as their dominant feature. Okay? It's hard for people who are ... And as a result, one person can continue to use the same move with a, a large degree of success, um, uh, over time against the wide array of opponents. So everything I ... Every question I asked ultimately always came back to control, and the one thing you would see with regards to use of leg locks in the late 1990s and early 2000s was a lack of control. So all of my studies immediately went to the notion of control. Now, there are many forms of leg lock, but the ones that interest me the most always come out of what the Japanese call ashi garami. Ashi garami is a generic term. It just means tangled legs. Okay? There are many different forms of ashi garami. Ashi garami is a mechanism by which I can use two of my legs to control my opponent's legs and hips. What I started to do was make a deep study of this notion of ashi garami. How am I gonna use my legs to control the real estate between my opponent's knee and his hips, preferably on both sides? Probably the single biggest cliché that you'll hear about Jujitsu is that it's position before submission. At the time, I was primarily interested in the idea of control before submission. Control is a much deeper and wider concept than the basic point-structure-based positional position before submission model o- of Jujitsu. There's many ways to control people that have very little to do with, with position. For example, ashi garami itself scores nothing in, in Jujitsu, but done well, it can control an opponent just as well as rear mount can. So I started to see that there were many forms of control that went outside of the traditional basic positional hierarchy of Brazilian Jujitsu. Ashi garami was one of them. Probably the single greatest key in the development of my leg lock system, again, came from a simple realization, that the greatest mistake that people had made in leg lock work prior to the arrival of the squad was that they made no distinction between the mechanism of breaking and the mechanism of control. Ashi garami was the mechanism of control. The lock itself, whether it be a heel hook, an Achilles lock, a figure four toe hold, that was the mechanism of breaking. If you watch 99% of the people out there who claim to be experts in leg locking, they don't distinguish between the two. They see, for example, heel hooking as a single skill. There's the lock on the legs, the ashi garami or whatever term they use for it, and the lock itself, they're not distinguished. They're taught as a single skill. You can't differentiate the ashi garami and the lock. And you'll see people teaching in this manner. What I did was to de- strongly distinguish between the two so that my students could all hold an ashi garami position and switch from one ashi garami to another and hold people for extended periods of time and inhibit movement. If I can inhibit movement for long periods of time, I can break you at will. I can take my time when I come to break you because the control is there. The control is prime, the break is second. For most people, it's just throw in the ashi garami and-
10. JRJoe Rogan
  (coughs)
11. JDJohn Danaher
  ... immediately go for the lock. They don't even distin- The ashi garami is described as part of the heel hook. They don't distinguish between the two. Once I made that realization in the early 2000s, that's when the ball started rolling. That's when, um, uh, a significant amount of progress was made. Um, I would say that y- your question was an interesting one. Okay. You, you had the insight. Liston gave you the insight. What was the ... what started you going? It was this making first the critical distinction between control and submission, and in the case of leg locking, between the mechanism of control, ashi garami, and the mechanism of breaking, which is the lock itself. In my case, the, the heel hook.
40:48 – 45:59
Match study: Gordon Ryan vs Cyborg and the inside-position battle
1. JRJoe Rogan
  A really good example of this is how effective it's been implemented by your students against real world-class Brazilian Jujitsu competitors who don't use these methods.
2. JDJohn Danaher
  Mm-hmm.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Like, a, a good one is Gordon Ryan versus Cyborg.
4. JDJohn Danaher
  Yes.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Cyborg, who is a fucking beast of a man, and just a physical specimen, a, a real freak, and is known for his tornado guard, is, you know, is no stranger to leg locks, is no stranger to any of the positions of no-gi or gi Jujitsu. But when I watched Gordon wrap him up and control him, and before he got the submission, you could see Cyborg look completely befuddled.
6. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  You know? He was-
8. JDJohn Danaher
  And the match was over roughly 30 seconds before the submission was applied. You could just see it- Yeah.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. He was just trying to figure out a way out of it and just was-
10. JDJohn Danaher
  There's no way to go. Yeah.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  It's a terrifying position to be in for a real world-class Brazilian Jujitsu black belt like Cyborg. When you watch that, that match, I was like, "This is stunning." 'Cause Gordon is what? 21?
12. JDJohn Danaher
  Yes.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Which is amazing. And Cyborg's in his 30s, right?
14. JDJohn Danaher
  I think Cyborg has been a black belt many, many years longer than Gordon has even been doing Jujitsu, so-
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
16. JDJohn Danaher
  ... yeah. Yeah.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  He's one of the best guys in the world. And when you, you look at how well Gordon dismantled him on the ground using the strategy that you just described, it just ... It's gr- See if we can find that actually. See if you can find Gordon Ryan-... versus, uh, his- his actual name is, I- I believe you pronounce it Abreu. How do you- do you-
18. JDJohn Danaher
  I- I- it's, uh-
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Sakato Abreu?
20. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah. Hikako "Cyborg" Abreu.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. There's a lot of cyborgs in the jujitsu world. There's a male cyborg in MMA, there's a female cyborg. There's a-
22. JDJohn Danaher
  I- I-
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Here we go. Here we-
24. JDJohn Danaher
  I think cyborg and pitbull are the two most commonly seen.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  So, so we're watching it here now and you see Cyborg, who is this fucking tank of a man. And Gordon Ryan, who's quite a physical specimen himself, but much younger guy, hasn't ... How long has Gy- Gordon been doing jujitsu?
26. JDJohn Danaher
  I believe it's, uh, between six and a half and seven years total now.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  That's fucking crazy. And- and immediately, he dives under, gets low, using butterfly guard. And so his ... What he's trying to do, um, Gordon is trying to do what with Cyborg's legs?
28. JDJohn Danaher
  Uh, the first thing that Gordon Ryan needs to do is establish inside position with his feet. If you, uh ... Probably the single biggest, uh- uh, starting point for any kind of ashi garami based game, uh, if you wanna remember anything about this, Joe, remember this: whenever you go into leg locks, the person whose feet dominate the inside position will always dominate the ashi garami game. That's the heuristic that I teach all of my students. Gordon Ryan has just established inside position. That's number one.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, Cyborg just pulled him in, which is interesting. Cyborg literally pulled him in with his feet inside.
30. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah, but Gordon's feet were positioned in a way where they could only end up in- in the inside position. So that's the first thing, he's gotta establish inside position with the feet. He knows damn well if his feet occupy the inside position, wherever they go, he's going to get to the, uh, the ashi garami and his opponent won't be able to stop. Now, can we freeze it there?
45:59 – 58:25
‘Double trouble,’ wedges, and the mechanics of immobilizing an elite athlete
1. JDJohn Danaher
  The only question is, how long is it gonna take? Why am I so confident? Am I- am I an asshole? Am I saying this because I'm an asshole? No, I'm- I'm saying this because I know what's happening. I gave you one of the key notes of the leg locking game already. I'll say it again because it's so important. The man whose feet dominate the inside position will always dominate the ashi garami game. Now, the second. Whenever you go to attack someone's leg, 90% of the resistance on the leg you're attacking comes from the other leg. That's so important, I'm gonna say it to you again. Whenever I go to attack my opponent's right leg, 90% of the resistance is gonna come from his left leg. We talked about control. The foundational principle of control in leg locking is a principle I refer to as double trouble. Double trouble is a simple idea that if I control both of my opponent's legs, he do- no longer has the opportunity to use his second leg to defend the first. So the amount of trouble that you've put him in is literally doubled in a matter of seconds. Gordon Ryan has a hold of Cyborg's right leg with his left arm, and he has a- a hold of Cyborg's left leg with his legs. Why was I so confident that the match is over at this point? Because both of Cyborg's legs are now controlled by Gordon Ryan. He has just attained double trouble.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm.
3. JDJohn Danaher
  Now, let's slowly advance the video. Do you see how Cyborg's legs are in a straight line? He's having a very, very hard time holding his base. Here's the con- stop. Uh, can you go back just a fraction? Right about here. Freeze. Okay. Our whole approach to jujitsu is based around the idea of putting wedges around our opponent's body so that we can inhibit movement. A wedge functions just as, um, a door stopper stops a door from moving in a breeze. Okay? The only thing better than a wedge is a reinforced wedge. That's where the wedge is locked in place by another part of your body. Gordon Ryan currently has inside position with the right leg.He has control of Cyborg's other leg with his arm, so both legs have some degree of control. But he's about to massively reinforce that control by locking a triangle, or a senkaku, around his opponent's leg. In order for that to happen, he's gonna have to lift his hips slightly off the floor so they can elevate over Cyborg's left knee. Watch the video. There's the elevation, there's the lock. Freeze. Freeze. Now he's got Cyborg's two legs in a straight line. That means Cyborg's only mechanism of posting or saving his balance is his left arm. That's all that he's got left. At this point, the fight is done. Cyborg's right leg is controlled by Gordon Ryan's left arm. Cyborg's left leg is controlled by a reinforced wedge, the strength of both Gordon Ryan's, uh, legs locked up in a triangle. Cyborg's actually a weight division heavier, I believe, than Gordon, but it doesn't matter. At this point, both hips are controlled. This is a full st- st- state of double trouble. Both legs controlled and a breaking mechanism in place. There's an ashi garami on the leg. You can break someone from there. Cyborg knows his only method of not being finished is to keep his hips over Gordon Ryan's hips. So the next battle is, how is Gordon Ryan gonna put Cyborg's hips on the ground? What's saving Cyborg is his left hand. Let's see how the battle goes. The battle just got lost. The hips went down. Why was it so easy? Stop. Why was it so easy?
4. JRJoe Rogan
  I don't know. Tell me.
5. JDJohn Danaher
  Do you see that right knee?
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes.
7. JDJohn Danaher
  That's what pushed him over. The right knee went into the pocket of Cyborg's left hip.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm.
9. JDJohn Danaher
  That meant the directionality of force was slightly away from the one base of support that Cyborg had left, which was his left hand.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Left arm. Mm.
11. JDJohn Danaher
  So he got sat on his hips. Now go forward just a little. And freeze. What do you see, Joe?
12. JRJoe Rogan
  In what? What do you, what do you want me to look at?
13. JDJohn Danaher
  What do you see-
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, I see both legs are wrapped up.
15. JDJohn Danaher
  Good. Be more precise.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Uh, well, he has incredible control with his right leg, um, the way he's got his right leg and his left leg triangled. He's got the, uh, Cyborg's right foot tucked deep under his arm, and he also has the left foot in there as well.
17. JDJohn Danaher
  Good.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  So he's completely wrapped up with his-
19. JDJohn Danaher
  Good.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  ... legs and his arms.
21. JDJohn Danaher
  Very good. Okay, let's bring in a few points here. First, if you want to immobilize a human being and prevent them from moving, one of the best things you can ever do is lock their legs together. You get a dangerous prisoner, what's the first thing you do? Handcuff his feet together and handcuff his hands together. He's no longer dangerous. Okay? Here, Cyborg is one of the most dangerous jujitsu players in the world, but with two of his feet locked together, he's, he's effectively neutralized, okay? Perhaps most importantly, we've got a very interesting distinction here between what we call a primary and a secondary leg. Which leg is the ashi garami locked up on?
22. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, he's got the left leg is, was triangled.
23. JDJohn Danaher
  Good. You just answered it. That's the ashi garami leg. We call that the primary leg. The ashi garami is locked on Cyborg's left leg. That's the primary leg. The other leg, remember our principle of fall, 90% of all resistance comes from the second leg. The arm controls the secondary leg, and the legs control the primary leg.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  So the resistance from the secondary leg is pushing off and trying to separate the lock?
25. JDJohn Danaher
  There's numerous things. He could palm with a foot, he could put his foot on the floor and turn, he could invert his body, there's a thousand things he could do. But he's not doing any of them if you control that leg. That's the important theme. So Gordon Bon- Gordon Ryan's upper body, his left arm, controls the secondary leg, and his lower body, the ashi garami, controls the primary leg. As a result, what do you think of Cyborg's ability to move?
26. JRJoe Rogan
  He's fucked.
27. JDJohn Danaher
  He's completely nullified.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
29. JDJohn Danaher
  Okay, let's go a little further. Freeze. Now, Cyborg is doing all he can do. Movement has been taken away from him, so his only option is to fight the hands. Gordon Ryan understands that he has control of the secondary leg, but he needs to make a transition to the primary leg in order to break Cyborg. He's gonna have to release the secondary leg. Now that's a, that's a scary thing. If you release the secondary leg, then your opponent can start defending himself again. So he's gotta measure how he releases the secondary leg. So there's a battle for angle here. Cyborg is battling for the hands, but Gordon Ryan hasn't even started the hand fight yet. He's still in a control fight. His only interest is in holding the position. Go a little further. Freeze. Why did Gordon switch his right hand to the knee?
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, that's the leg that can control-
58:25 – 1:04:41
Why others struggle to copy it: systems within systems
1. JRJoe Rogan
  I have seen that with almost all your students, which is so bizarre. Now, how many people are recognizing this system and trying to mimic it or trying to find out some sort of a counterattack to it?
2. JDJohn Danaher
  Um, that's a interesting question. I'm, uh, I'm told there's actually kind of like an industry of people who try to break what we do down and mimic it. Um, I know there's, uh, people putting out numerous instructionals. They, they watch what, uh, the squad does and, and tries to, to, to break it down. Um, that's, that's good and it's natural. Uh, I, I'd be doing the same thing. If someone else was coming out and wrecking people with a given move, I'd be studying what they're doing too. Um, so yeah, there, there does seem to be an industry of that. Um, the question is, how successful are they? Do you see any other groups of people coming out and just exclusively finishing people with the same moves time and time again for years at a time at all levels of competition?
3. JRJoe Rogan
  No. You're, you're seeing more 10th Planet guys do that now. 10th Planet guys have, uh, and given you all the credit in the world, by the way, that they've, um, started transitioning to a lot more leg lock attacks, leg lock defense-
4. JDJohn Danaher
  Mm-hmm.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  ... concentrating on that.
6. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah. It's, um, uh... What we find is that most people definitely struggle with defending it. And, um, uh, you know, this has been around for quite a while now. It's been five years since the squad really started pushing this publicly. And, um, uh, it seems like there's still gonna be some... Eventually, people will figure things out. It's just the way hu- uh, progress works. But, um, uh, I think at this point, it's pretty clear that people have changed their minds about leg locks. People, I think, are recognizing that there's something different going on here, that this is a control-based approach to leg locks rather than, uh, you know, a speed and power-based, uh, approach to leg locks. And, um, uh, the evidence for its success really comes from the nature of the squad itself. If you look at the three founding members of the squad, Eddie Cummings, Gordon Ryan, and Garry Tonon, all three have very, very different body types. All three have very, very different personalities. And yet, all three use a very similar game. Um-... two of those three athletes came from nowhere. They had no competition record before they started training, uh, with me at the Renzo Gracie Academy. One of them had a competition record. He was a... I believe Garry Tonon was a brown belt, uh, competitor in the gi and, but he had no leg lock game. He was a guy who was essentially known for scrambling from bottom half guard and using rear naked strangles and, out of scrambles. Um, strangles out of scrambles, my God, that w- that was a tongue twister. (laughs) Um, uh, so, g- Garry Tonon was a particularly interesting case because he came to me as an already developed athlete. He's trained under a very good friend of mine, Tom DeBlass, um, and completely changed his game. So that showed something very interesting. That showed that someone could already have a developed game and then take on this and change their game. So that was a particularly interesting case. With the case of Eddie Cummings and Gordon Ryan, they came to me early in their development so they, they, um, they took it on wholesale as it were.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  I think this style and approach w- and one of the things that's so fascinating about it is it really requires someone like you to systematically break it down the way you have described it. Um, I've done jujitsu for 20 years, but I never stopped and thought of all the positions in the system, all the steps in the system, take the fight to the ground, get past the dangerous legs, you know, uh, achieve some sort of a dominant position, go for the submission.
8. JDJohn Danaher
  Mm-hmm.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  I, n- I didn't do that.
10. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  I knew, I knew what I was doing.
12. JDJohn Danaher
  I s- what I find with most jujitsu players is that they know what they're doing on-
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
14. JDJohn Danaher
  ... an unconscious level.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes.
16. JDJohn Danaher
  My job as a coach is to make it conscious, okay? Um, now for me the most interesting thing when I, when I first started thinking about jujitsu as a system, okay, I did that when I wrote a book for my, for my sensei, Renzo Gracie. Um, he asked me to write a book and I started thinking deeply about, you know, what is this thing that I study? I, I spend all day on the mats, what am I doing exactly? And, um, when you start consciously thinking about, okay, breaking it down to steps, you see Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as a step by step, uh, system. My question was can I go further than that? If jujitsu is a simple single system, what about if you divided jujitsu up into niche areas and instead of having one overall system, you had an overall system with many subsystems within it? So we had a leg system, a back system, a front headlock system, a kimura system. My approach to jujitsu is that I'd recognized that much of the success of early Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu came from its systematic nature, the fact that it was a systems-based approach to jujitsu and I took various niche areas and created systems within systems. Then things started getting interesting when I started integrating the system so if the one subsystem failed, you could transfer to another. That meant that my students could put opponents who had trained much, much longer than they had into a niche area which my students had so much knowledge of, so much training in that isolated niche domain, that they could take someone who had trained three, four times longer than themselves and have more knowledge in that one domain than their much more experienced opponent did.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
18. JDJohn Danaher
  And so what you saw with the squad was incredibly speedy progress where they were getting wins against people who were trained two, three, tor- times longer than they had. And this idea of what I call integrated subsystems, instead of having jujitsu as just one simple single system, you keep the overall system of jujitsu but you have subsistence within it. Each one integrated with the other so that when one system fails, you can pass off to another and go back and forth until you get the win. That was my approach to jujitsu. That's what I want to do is in, if I can innovate jujitsu in any given direction, that's probably the one I would push the most.
1:04:41 – 1:14:57
Coaching through limitations: knee injury, hip replacement, and teaching methods
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Now, throughout this time, you're dealing with some pretty significant injuries and physical limitations-
2. JDJohn Danaher
  Mm-hmm.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  ... that yo- you've had. Um, tell me about those-
4. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah. Yeah.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  ... what those were and what, h- and how those hindered you.
6. JDJohn Danaher
  Sure. Yeah. Um, uh, when I was in, in my early teens, I was involved in a, um, a rugby injury where my, my knee was, uh, massively injured. Um, over the next, uh, six years, uh, I would dislocate my knee, uh, the ligaments appeared to be, um, uh, severely compromised every six months or so. I'd, uh, get a, a fresh injury which would be severe and I'd be on crutches. I spent, um, a significant amount of my teenage years on crutches. Um, around the age of 19, I had one last injury and, uh, my knee just seemed to have no power in it. Things like, uh, I walked with a limp and, um, you must remember this is in the 1980s in New Zealand and this is pre-MRIs, um, pre-arthroscopic surgery. Uh, the doctors said, "Well, we can do an operation where we shorten the ligaments so that there's less looseness in there and, and hopefully your knee will be strong again." Um, an operation was performed and, uh, unfortunately the ligaments were cut too short and as a result my, my leg never straightened again. Um, I developed a, a severe case of arthrofibrosis where my knee actually became deformed and doesn't straighten. Um, simple actions like walking, kneeling are extremely painful for me and have been my whole life. Um...
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Just walking around is pain-
8. JDJohn Danaher
  Just walking is painful. Uh, kneeling is extremely painful and, um, you know, it's not easy to do jujitsu where there's a lot of kneeling and, uh-
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
10. JDJohn Danaher
  ... uh, also there are other kind of structural problems as I got older b- because I walk with a limp and one leg significantly bent and one straight, uh, I, I tend to be completely out of balance, out of sync with my body. So I-... soon developed, uh, considerable hip and back pain. Um, so this was something I carried with me my whole life. And, um, uh, when I started jiu-jitsu at the age of 28, uh, there was a, there was a concern, you know, "Am I gonna be able to do this?" Well, fortunately, ground grappling, as a rule, is generally easier on your body than standing martial arts. There's, uh ... I, I don't think, for example, with my leg, I could even become moderately effective at Muay Thai or taekwondo where suddenly we have to jump and land.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
12. JDJohn Danaher
  I just couldn't do it. Um, whereas jiu-jitsu, because it's on the ground, you can, you can become pretty good. Um, so I battled through that and, uh, I'm, I, I developed a, a satisfactory degree of competence and I, uh, I got a black belt from Renzo Gracie and I became one of his, uh, main teachers. So-
13. JRJoe Rogan
  How did you train with such a compromised knee?
14. JDJohn Danaher
  Uh, you just figure out a way around it. You just ... What are you gonna do? Sit down and die?
15. JRJoe Rogan
  And, but you, you never thought, "Well, boy, I fucked my knee up. I don't wanna fuck my other knee up too."
16. JDJohn Danaher
  You know, I, I, I think at that point, you, you just gotta go forward.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
18. JDJohn Danaher
  And, um, you got a choice. You, you're gonna sit down and feel sorry for yourself or you're gonna do the best you can with what you've got.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  And how limited was your game because of your knee? I mean, were you able to do-
20. JDJohn Danaher
  Um, standing position was difficult for me. Um-
21. JRJoe Rogan
  But were you ever able to do triangles and all sorts of different-
22. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah. I mean, I had, you know, every week or so I would tweak it and I'd be in pain for a day. I, I developed, um, a strong need for ibuprofen throughout my life. Um, and, uh, other problems started to emerge, especially the lower back. The lower back is, is a big issue and, um, gave me problems my whole adult life.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Does it still bother you now?
24. JDJohn Danaher
  Uh, less so now. 'Cause-
25. JRJoe Rogan
  I have a machine I have to show you.
26. JDJohn Danaher
  Okay.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  It's called the Reverse Hyper. Have you ever heard of it?
28. JDJohn Danaher
  Oh, yes. Um, I believe they were used by a guy called Louie Simmons.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
30. JDJohn Danaher
  And, um, yes. And, um, uh, uh, I used-
1:14:57 – 1:17:43
No fixed curriculum: daily diagnostics and constant observation
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Now, when you're teaching this system and, um, you, you're, uh, showing all the guys in the squad, the Danaher Death Squad, do you have, um, like... Do you have it worked out to the point where it's like you have a curriculum? Like, do you have like the-
2. JDJohn Danaher
  I never liked the word curriculum because that kind of implies that it's all worked out in advance and-
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
4. JDJohn Danaher
  ... you know, it's done step by step. Um, I come in on any given day and I'm, I'm there seven days a week. I watch all of my athletes every single day. They don't do anything without me watching them do it. So I know at the end of every day what they need to work on tomorrow because I'm there.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Wow.
6. JDJohn Danaher
  So it's not like a set curriculum where, you know, I know that on April 13th, I'm gonna do this. It's not like that.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
8. JDJohn Danaher
  It's like, "I saw you train yesterday. I saw where you fucked up and I saw where you were good. So tomorrow, we're working this."
9. JRJoe Rogan
  What an amazing resource for those guys to have someone like you standing over them watching them and analyzing their positions and techniques and progress.
10. JDJohn Danaher
  That's, um, that's generous of you to say. Um, but I always feel that my students are more of a resource to me than I am to them. I've been blessed through my entire coaching career to have some truly remarkable students, some of whom are famous and known to you and many others who aren't. And, um, uh, whatever debt they owe to me, I feel I, I owe at least as much to them. Um, my students literally give me everything. I'm, I'm a notoriously difficult person to get along with. I'm demanding, I'm, I'm a perfectionist. Um, I can be downright unpleasant. When my body's in pain, I'm short-tempered. Um, and yet they're like angels. They, they stick in there and they tough it out and they give so much time, so much effort, so much thought. And as I said, whatever resource I am to them, they, they give it right back. They're a resource to me.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, that, that attitude is why you're such a fantastic coach in the first place. Um, I remember one of the first times I started talking to you is when you were working with George. Now, what's interesting is you had a, a very interesting approach and even the way you described things. You would talk about shoot boxing.
12. JDJohn Danaher
  Mm-hmm.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Describe that because you, you didn't talk when... Like, I remember, uh, I think one of our first long conversations was at some weird Denny's or something somewhere. And one of those weird road shows like where we just sat down with-
14. JDJohn Danaher
  (laughs) You, you're absolutely right. That was the first time we met.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
16. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  W- We had a long conversation-
18. JDJohn Danaher
  Yeah.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  ... and, um, you were talking about the principles of shoot boxing. Like, please explain.
1:17:43 – 1:32:39
MMA as a transcendent sport: shoot boxing, clinch, fence fighting, ground
1. JDJohn Danaher
  Um, one of the strange things about the sport of mixed martial arts, it's so young that it... there's still so much to be done.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
3. JDJohn Danaher
  Okay? Even the way people understand mixed martial arts, to me, is interesting. 99% of people who look at mixed martial arts see mixed martial arts as an eclectic sport. In other words, it's a conglomeration of different martial arts kind of banded together and then you've got mixed martial arts. It's a mix of martial arts and there you have it. You get two guys in a cage and you've got mixed martial arts. I never saw mixed martial arts as an eclectic sport. I see it as a transcendent sport. What I mean by that is there are four distinct skill areas of mixed martial arts. Any one of those skill areas always goes beyond the component martial arts that make it up. In other words, the skill area transcends the various martial arts that make it up and creates something bigger and different from the core components that originally built it.When you look at the sport of mixed martial arts, you see there are four dominant skill areas. (inhales) The first occurs when they first come out and the two athletes have no connection with each other, and they're dancing around the cage. (inhales) This is the so-called shoot boxing phase, which involves skills drawn from Western boxing, Muay Thai, karate, uh, freestyle wrestling, and various other martial arts, where the two athletes are jockeying for position and typically, they're trying to determine the direction of the fight. Will it go down or will it stay up? (inhales) That's one skill area. The second skill area is the skill area of the clinch, where the two athletes are both still standing, but now they've got a hold on each other. They're no longer moving around at will. (inhales) This has its key components come... drawn from Muay Thai, Greco-Roman wrestling, freestyle wrestling, judo, et cetera, et cetera. Then there's a third key skill area, the area of fence fighting, fence boxing, where the two athletes are in a clinch, but they're locked on the fence, which dramatically changes the skills required for success than if you're in the open. And then you have a fourth skill area, which is the ground, and of course, that's divided into top and bottom position. So there are four skill areas of mixed martial arts. You could add more or less. You... uh, for example, you could add in the idea of the, the geography of the cage can add in new areas, but let's stick with that fundamental four for now. (inhales) If you show me any one of those skill areas, yes, you can derive skills from those component martial arts, from Muay Thai, from judo, w- whatever you choose, but that skill area is gonna have other elements that are not part of those original martial arts, that are something different, something unique, and something above the various component martial arts that made it up. (inhales) When you're fighting on the ground, a lot of what you do is derived from Brazilian jiu-jitsu and modern mixed martial arts. Most of the athletes come from a jiu-jitsu background, or, or... th- when they work ground skills, they, they work on... in a kind of a jiu-jitsu framework, but many of the things going on down there are a mix of things that are far outside of your daily training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. You can bring in things from Muay Thai. You're throwing Muay Thai elbows on the ground, but on the ground, the elbows have a very different feel from the standing position. The, the mechanics behind them are significantly different. You're throwing hooks on the ground, but the mechanics of throwing hooks on the ground are very, very different from the mechanics of throwing hooks in the standing position. So yeah, you're, you're bringing skills in from boxing, but you're adapting them too, okay? So the way to look at the sport of mixed martial arts is not just like, "Okay, I'm gonna rope together some wrestling, some boxing, and see what happens." Rather, you're developing skills in four distinct areas, a minimum of four, and the skills you ultimately develop go beyond and are significantly different from the core components that you started with. And so ultimately, the skills of a mixed martial artist at the highest levels transcend the various core martial arts that made the sport up. You'll go into something... You're going further. When you fight in a mixed martial arts fight, you're a jiu-jitsu fighter using a lot more than just jiu-jitsu and the various other boxing styles, et cetera, et cetera that you use. (inhales) In the case of shoot boxing and Georges St-Pierre, everyone always talks about Georges' wrestling. Now, Georges is a very good wrestler. He's wrestled a long time with very good people. But 90% of the success of his ability to take people down goes far beyond wrestling and has to do with the precursors to the shot. What wrestling teaches you to do in mixed martial arts is how to finish a shot. It gives you the body mechanics to finish the shot, but the setups are completely different from wrestling. I can show you endless examples of good wrestlers who went into mixed martial arts competition with no background in mixed martial arts and couldn't take anybody down. The distance is different, the stance is different, the motion is different, the setups are completely different, the context is different. You're being punched instead of grappling. (inhales) Georges, in my opinion, throughout his career, had a level of skill and technical insight in the, the art of boxing, kickboxing, and do take-downs that no one else has even come close to. Much of what he did in that area came from himself. Did he have good wrestling coaches? Absolutely. Did he have good boxing coaches? Absolutely. Great Muay Thai coaches? 100%. But the skills he was exhibiting went beyond any one of those teachers or even them as a whole. The act of tying together all of those disparate skills came from him, the integration of skills, and so you have someone who had a wrestling background, had a boxing background, had a Muay Thai background, but ultimately what he was doing was something bigger than all of those put together. There's a synergistic effect here with the, the, uh, the sum was, was somehow greater than the components that, uh, uh, individually made it up. And that's what I mean when I talk about a transcendent sport. Um, Georges St-Pierre was largely responsible through individual experimentation starting in his late teens and going through his entire career in the development of shootbox.