A Week of Jiu-Jitsu Inspiration: Ryan Hall, Dan Davis and John Danaher
What a week it’s been for me in Jiu-Jitsu!
Thursday, I got to host Ryan Hall and 60 others at my BJJ & MMA school, OpenMat MMA in Toronto.
Known as a super elite competitor and now rising MMA star, he recently beat legend BJ Penn in the UFC. He came to town train his striking under my friend Jorge Blanco who helped set up the seminar.
He taught a game that was both aggressive and gentle, an energy-efficient way of adapting to your opponent’s resistance, using it against them and — as we always hear martial arts is supposed to be about.
It forced the opponent to react and then adapted to whatever reaction provided in an elegant combination of ways, connecting a set of positions that open up leg attacks and sweeps.
After the seminar, he stayed for nearly two hours more sharing techniques and answering questions. Throughout the week, he was equally generous with everyone from our white belts to our elite team black belts. Lately I’ve gotten lucky, having the likes of Rener Gracie teaching a seminar in December, but it is generally rare to get such a high-profile, high-level BJJ instructor visit Toronto.
Friday, I flew to California to coach our top competitor, black belt Dan Davis in the ADCC West Coast trials. Coming off a bronze in last year’s Brazilian Nationals, the biggest no gi tournament in Brazil, and a great performance at the East Coast ADCC trials, I was excited to see him fight.
The tournament was massive, with his division being the biggest — 112 people. He had to win 7 fights.
He tapped his first opponent quite easily. His next was a tough aggressive wrestler with a good number of submission wins in MMA. Dan beat him in overtime. There seemed to be some issue with the tournament software, so fights were hours apart, adding to the build-up.
Many Jiu-Jitsu “celebrities” — Gordon Ryan, Cyborg, Andre Galvao, passed through coaching and taking pictures while we waited.
In Dan’s third fight, he fought Nathan Orchard of 10th Planet. A tricky guard passer, Nathan tried jumping on many attacks, but Dan defended and counterattacked without much effort. A hotly contested stand up battle showed awesome defensive and offensive wrestling on Dan’s part, much thanks to our epic wrestling coach and black belt Val Ostanov. At the end of regulation, Dan was holding Nathan up above his head after a shot.
In overtime, Nathan got in on a tight bodylock on Dan but he countered with an uchi mata throw. After some good escaping back to closed guard from Nathan, he ended up getting caught. He could have stalled out and won, but that’s not how he likes to win.
Afterward, Eddie Bravo came to say good job and was convinced that Dan had a wrestling background based on how well he performed — just another sign of how high-level he really is.
The Rest of the Canadian team crushed it as well.
Our good friend Steve Simms was in the same division and beat some tough people, winning five fights before placing 4th.
Peter Tremblay of Alpha MMA in Ottawa brought brown belt Jessica McNeil, and his world champion black belt daughter Alison Tremblay, both part of the Canadian Jiu-Jitsu Association’s Team Canada.
The level at this tournament was incredible and all of the Canadians kicked serious butt. Would be awesome to see more of our top people out here .
At the tournament I saw that John Danaher was teaching a seminar at my professor, Shawn Williams’ academy, 5 Start Martial Arts the next day!
At the ADCC trials, his students averaged a 90% submission rate — it was a packed house — I heard 90 in attendance. He taught his juji gatame (which, despite what many of us thought, does not mean armbar in Japanese, but rather cross-body pin). He connected it to his hip pin/leg attack system to help finish from both top and bottom when an armbar fails.
I’ve been training for more than twenty years and simple adjustments on the armbar made an instant difference. The way he systematically broke down the possible pathways from the initial point of control was simple and cohesive, as was its connection to leg attack follow-ups.
He too generously took an extra two hours or so to talk to a few of us after the seminar about everything from amazing stories of world champions coming into his famous blue basement and their experiences with his students, his motivations for sharing his knowledge through his recent instructionals and larger goals in Jiu-Jitsu and martial arts.
Frankly, with the obligations of running a martial arts school and the evolution of my other endeavours, my focus on my own Jiu-Jitsu, outside of my students and competition team has waned of late. But nothing wakes you up like learning something new and powerful from the best in the world. From Rener and Ryan to Dan and everyone who competed this weekend to John and his standout students, it’s inspiring to get exposed to such high-level Jiu-Jitsu and see what direction Jiu-Jitsu is headed in!
At the end of the seminar, there happened to be a number of us in the room who got our Black Belts from Shawn Williams. We took the opportunity to get a shot of all of us together with John and Renzo Gracie black belt Warren Stout. Aside from John Danaher who described himself, as an @$$hole during the seminar, when I look at the men in that picture, I’m taken with how amazing a collection of uniquely tough and kind each of them is. There were some missing from the photo, but the fact that that is what they all have in common is a testament to Shawn Williams himself, and is worth shouting out.
I’m taken both with how quickly Jiu-Jitsu is evolving and spreading as well as how powerfully it uplifts and inspires everywhere it goes. I’m running my first tournament in April, Fight2Unite and I want it to be an enhancement and celebration of that uplift — among other things.
Onwards and upwards.
Elliott
P.S. Congrats to Annie Le who just won her first superfight at Rory McDonell’s Parabellum Quintet show after a week or two at blue belt!
If you would like to learn and really understand Jiu-Jitsu, I have created two video courses — the Beginner’s Guide to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and The BJJ Blue Belt Curriculum. You can pick them both up at BJJ101.tv.
