Joe Rogan Experience #10011 — John Danaher Transcript

Transcript

0:00 and we're live John Donaher thank you very much sir very nice to see you it's my pleasure Joe But I could definitely stab Gordon Ryan in the back with a knife and steal it and blame it on Nicky Ryan. won't fuck you because you have a fanny pack you don't want to fuck them they're too much work Between this and the Gucci, we've got something going on here.

1:56 That's my experience. It doesn't matter what you do. really comes out of fear of consequences. that has three million downloads they also are on that video they are at the And your comments are right there with everything else. And you were jacked, right? We're similar age. with the ability to strike. There were, but it was kind of lost in the sands of time.

6:20 in street fighting, working as a bouncer. I worked alongside them and I was massively It is amazing how much it's changed, right? If you saw even a single street-walking prostitute And now it's like Guy Fieri restaurants. And there was this Brazilian guy who had beaten everyone. and I know you work at night. I never associated martial arts with Brazil.

9:15 Right. This poor kid on the ground. and I really had no real control over him My arms were getting tired. he would have got away from it, got completely destroyed on my first day. That was absolutely true. But things started to change Like, there's no one else. don't know um I was there a lot and um I think maybe he saw some enthusiasm but you were obsessed

13:28 And so I decided my primary focus in judici would be upon teaching. I can use an academic approach to teaching in a sports environment. But they were frowned upon. Yes. and a lot of people were saying that you know john donahue has this insane leg lock system Let's go through. The first question, your first question was a historical question. his academy. I'm the only one of his students who stayed with him from white belt to black belt and never

17:03 But they weren't emphasized. Dean Lister was invited by Matt Serra to come to the Henzo Gracie Academy. I believe, don't quote me on this, but I believe Dean was a brown butt at the time. He couldn't really get his stuff to work on Matt Serra, Why would you ignore 50% of the human body? If you give a man a point of view, you can change him. which you asked, which is,

20:07 The first criticism, they were too dangerous. they didn't work at high levels then you hear other arguments that they were positionally unsound. people donate leg locks runs much deeper than that let's understand jiu-jitsu for what it is And he's saying to me, Joe Rogan, tell me, I don't know anything. Why did Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu choose the ground as step number one of its system?

22:57 Lomachenko controls people in the standing position with angle and distance. What's the most explosive event in the Olympic Games? The event that probably requires more probably to a greater degree than any other olympic event you you put them on the ground dynamic explosive movement is massively curtailed it takes away the What's your first thing Good, good, good, good.

25:48 a person in position. They're very good can pull an up kick. Legs are dangerous. So step number two is get past those dangerous legs. What's Yes. Mounted position scores more. Rear mount scores more. Why? the mount mount when the striking involves phenomenal when you just put so far so far we've got three elements in this system of jiu-jitsu. Step number one, get the fight down to the ground

28:49 You've already got the position. Step number two, get past his dangerous legs. Well, now they don't. when you couldn't get the system to work you had to resort to leg logs it meant you were a bad The worst injuries in jiu-jitsu you know, catastrophic injuries. The first thing is our four step rendition of J 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.

32:22 How can I end up on bottom by going for a leg? game. If someone is in front of me and I'm standing over them, Jiu Jitsu is all about It always goes from the legs to the head. opponent. But once you start adding leg locks, jiu-jitsu for the first time becomes a two-directional you're still rolling at the time yes correct the first thing that I started

35:20 who had a decent heel hook for that time. So, you know, the knowledge was there. That was really the key word there, control. control as their dominant feature And the one thing you would see with regards to the use of leg locks There are many different forms of ashigurami. For example, ashi-garami itself scores nothing in jiu-jitsu, was that they made no distinction between the mechanism of breaking and the mechanism of control.

39:25 they're taught as a single skill you can't differentiate the ashi garami and the lock They don't distinguish between the two. It was making first a critical distinction between control and submission, against real world class Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competitors of nogi or gi jiu jitsu. There's nowhere to go. how well gordon dismantled him on the ground using the strategy that you just described it just

43:01 I believe it's between six and a half and seven years total now. dominate the Ashigur always dominate the ashi Yeah. He knows that if he keeps both of his feet on the left-hand side of Gordon Ryan's body, he will be able to prevent his opponent getting inside position. So he's doing the right thing. He's doing a good job here. Cyborg's not naive. As you said before, he's a multi-time world champion.

45:18 Okay. The whole question is will come down to one thing. I'll say it again because it's so important. trouble. video. Do you see how Cyborg's legs are in a straight line? Okay. Watch the video. the strength of both Gordon Ryan's legs locked up in a triangle. Let's see how the battle goes. Do you see that right knee? what do you see joe one of the best things you can ever do is lock their legs together.

51:36 Well, he's got the left leg is what's triangle. That's the secondary leg. the foot. He could put his foot on the floor and turn. He could invert his body. There's a thousand Okay, let's go a little further. He's going to have to release the secondary leg. His only interest is in holding the position. Why is Gordon Ryan's head leaning to the right-hand side?

54:23 Let's go a little further. Freeze. freeze. Gordon Ryan's made the critical release of the secondary leg. This is where things start Okay, Gordon Ryan is about to release the secondary leg. It's immobilizing the leg he really wants to attack. Freeze, freeze. Go back just to here. the elbow position so that one grip was lost and then a push pull with the elbow and a slip. Once, continue forward now.

58:33 and trying to mimic it or trying to find out some sort of a counterattack to it? 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? And, you know, this has been around for quite a while now. that this is a control-based approach to leg locks rather than a speed and power-based approach to leg locks.

1:01:09 Strangles out of scrambles, my God. With the case of Eddie Cummings and Gordon Ryan, get past the dangerous legs, My job as a coach is to make it conscious. And when you start consciously thinking about, okay, you had one overall system when I started integrating the systems so much training in that isolated niche domain, single system, you keep the overall system of jiu-jitsu, but you have subsystems 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.

1:05:17 which would be severe, and I'd be on crutches. I spent a significant amount of my teenage years on crutches. Around the age of 19, I had one last I developed a severe case of arthrofibrosis where my knee actually became deformed and doesn't straighten. And when I started Jiu-Jitsu at the age of 28, there was a concern. main teachers so how did you train with such a compromised knee you just figure out a way around

1:08:13 a strong need for ibuprofen throughout my life. And other problems started to emerge, I know many people speak very highly of them. And so I delayed the hip operation as long as I could until George had his first retirement and Chris Weidman became a world champion and then moved further away to Long Island and wasn't training with me so much. That's correct.

1:10:52 And how do they do that one? of a hip replacement. I hope they give me some kind of superhero leg that turns things around for me. But as I got older, I had to do a first operation and now a second. Right. And I think he was concerned that it would be difficult for him to get people to fight amateur um and uh and then eventually make his way to the

1:14:09 little better and I like to demonstrate as best I can. There's days when I can barely walk and So, yeah, there is something ironic about that. I come in on a given day Right. but I always feel that my students are more of a resource to me than I am to I can be downright unpleasant. and even the way you described things. We had a long conversation. then you've got mixed martial arts.

1:18:46 various martial arts that make it up and create something bigger and different and typically they're trying to determine the direction of the fight. This has its key components drawn from Muay Thai, Greco-Roman wrestling, freestyle than if you're in the open. If you show me any one of those skill areas, a lot of what you do is derived from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and modern mixed martial arts.

1:21:39 ground but the mechanics of throwing hooks on the ground are very very You're going further. everyone always talks about George's wrestling. It gives you the body mechanics to finish the shot. But the setups are completely different You're being punched instead of grappling. But the skills he was exhibiting went beyond any one of those teachers or even them as a whole.

1:25:08 career in the development of shoot box. Now, when you work as a coach for George, Now, when you don't have a background in striking and, you know, like seven days a week three times a day george was never like that um uh so in the time available Well, that's a good question. in leg locking, but he's not like Gary Tonner and Eddie Cummings or Gordon Ryan. Could he

1:28:26 have areas where they are particularly strong. kicking demonstrations where you're looking at it I watched him KO one of the U.S. national champions You see some terrible knockouts in point fighting karate. And I always saw tremendous potential but I thought that would be a nice addition. So when you came up to me and you said, do you know anyone? I was trying to subtly push you.

1:30:45 I don't even want to, Not really. of force That guy can do everything. And he's, you know, you've seen him in Bellator kickboxing. But again, when you see that, it's like those things by themselves, you're just going to get taken to the ground and smashed. And most people, unless you land one of those catastrophic spinning back kicks right away, the odds are you need all those other things as well in order to be particularly effective, which is why George was such a unique case.

1:32:45 and the standing position is built around the concept of a dilemma Because George just won the middleweight title, relinquished the title, What is that exactly? of the human body And the truth is And I've got to tell you, when he came back, How many fighters do you know came back after a four-year layoff? He looked huge. the speech was vague. a long time to be out of a sport that's as young as MMA which is evolving all the time every year, the sport changes and the belts tend to change hands very, very quickly.

1:36:30 Is this like a middle-aged fantasy going through here? And so the way I put it to him was, that matches could become dull. but the fights weren't as exciting as they ought to be. And if there were three persistent criticisms of George T.P.'s legacy, it was those three things. He was going to fight, I'm not going to train you to fight some dude. but I could run off some names of people he submitted in the gym that would shock you,

1:40:01 that's a dangerous man. and he's hitting with genuine power. No, because that decision was made before Bisping was the champion. Initially, I couldn't make that decision because another student of mine, But he was training the whole time, and I was pushing him. And who was his Muay Thai coach? ties things together. Thailand itself from Tiger Muay Thai.

1:42:47 fighting karate circuit and he was working with them a lot. And so somewhere they crossed Initially, there was a lot of resistance from the UFC. and George St-Pier Pierre was supposed to fight Tyrone And George seemed to like the idea. George was working out the whole time and improving. So now this colitis thing has thrown a monkey wrench into the gears.

1:45:32 was a disaster. So I was in Finland and communicating with George, thought a shorter camp would be better he as he getting older he wanted a shorter camp would be better. As he was getting older, he wanted a shorter camp. First two weeks were okay, where I said to Firas Ahabi, It's dead in the water. Essentially nothing. Then there's two weeks left.

1:48:08 but I've seen George St. Pierre take down effortlessly I'm just looking going like, holy heck, what is this? want it if we pull out now it's going to look like a disaster it's going to let george let the ufc I saw him do a shoot box workout and he looked like the old George. And I was like, It was extreme stomach pain and inability to eat. Symptoms including rectal bleeding, bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and pain.

1:50:56 It's incredibly frustrating for him to deal with. Firas Zahabi, Freddie Roach, and myself are at the breakfast table george comes down and then afterwards he told me dude I was in so much pain and he was afraid to tell me because Well, that's what makes him a champion. What was that about? And he was deeply unhappy with what he perceived as the prevalence of the use of anabolic steroids

1:54:08 He's a professional athlete. i think tyron woodley is a great champion i know he gets a lot of stick a lot of flack that kid is talented very and you've got to do what you've got to do to win This idea of fighting to entertain. which is a very skillful traditional martial artist So he kind of had where someone was hurt, Other than that, to me i can watch woodley fight wonder boy and i'm fascinated yes to me that's just like wow

1:57:40 He's doing the same thing. and it's going to be a violent finish. Yeah. Yeah, he was. Hendrix is a fascinating case. And we should probably talk about that once the camera stops. He was a fascinating case, and I can And on so many different levels, too. Whereas every time you fight, it's just another fight. That's the question. It's going to diminish in time.

2:01:32 The guy who impresses me enormously right but that's not his fault right you can only fight the guys that give you well it's like roy Otherwise, the discussion He's using everything beautifully. He seems to navigate his way out without a problem. A sad thing about He's not that old. Do you think it's a question of the game just passing him by? cases yes it starts very strong well that's his thing though he's so explosive and he sprints

2:05:31 is they have to be able to take on a wide array of opponents and still be successful. He had a full-time job back then. I can make 125 and I agree with that, yeah. He's one of the few guys you can genuinely say There's many fight camps out there to a genuinely well-rounded mixed martial artist with a complete set of skills. If Demetrius Johnson didn't exist, Dodson would have been a very good champion.

2:08:35 He seems to be in a bit of a rut now, whether it's a psychological rut or a physical rut. fight mighty mouse just showed leaps and bounds and it was just a route he just ran him over and he answered all three in one night. he brought himself and a group of his friends, They rolled with, I think, mostly Nicky Ryan. Shocking. tough group of people. but in the 155 pound division, even more impressive.

2:11:38 Yeah, that was an incredibly impressive performance. whereas Tony Ferguson is a scramble-based fighter. and just being catastrophically KO'd and you feel like there's potential for it to go in both directions for Khabib. It's the sliver of hope that fuck it up but I think that Connor has been overwhelmed on the ground though you see after the first round, when Barbosa gets up, it's like, okay, he's alive still.

2:14:47 just the opposite. His kicks are just undervalued him. When he first came to the UFC, I don't think that's going to happen. Not that people in Ireland are soft. which case is problems the guy has to deal with If you show me a fighter who can, one, jiu-jitsu with takedowns-based fighters, they're always going to be able to dominate the direction. to get to those areas where he can dominate pace,

2:18:15 He's probing. fight. That's why he never gets tired in his fights. He's got a very high work rate, but he'll keep his psycho ass down at 155, I would go further and say, yeah, there's three things that I look for. They believe that you already know how to fight. You could tighten everything up. Hmm. I can show them that in five minutes. outside is gymnastics. He loves it. Um, uh, he also for a time did olympic weightlifting less so now than

2:22:48 or when he did swim training. There's a reason why men don't fight women, because there's massive strength differences. The question is, how are you going to build it, and are you going to do it in camp? How are you going to win this fight and how are you not going to lose this fight? This is interesting. Are they part-timers? He is in an unusual situation right now, right?

2:25:52 His run up to that was incredible. Short period after that where he appeared to be crushing great former champions like the other Mashida Vita Belford and getting dominated by Gegard Mousasi But then he rebounded with Calvin Gaslam And he said, John, you know, can you take over this student of mine, Chris Whiteman? So Chris started coming in and then five minutes later he would be using it in the gym and then a month later be using it

2:29:17 Will it be drastically altered by three losses? We did most of that camp together, and then he stopped working with me, It was in Las Vegas. so there was no really significant damage. then they got into an interesting kickboxing battle and Rockhold took him to the ground. I attribute that not just to his skill, He's also got very strong submission skills.

2:32:07 You know, No one can hold him down He's a very, very impressive fighter. And for a considerable period of time. Isn't Yoel Romero fighting David Brunch? The knee again? I've just flown to California. Wow. body it leaves the lower body open and um and you're right there's no consequence to it. He can just get up whenever he feels like it Speed of directional change is the most important kind of physical speed in fighting.

2:35:40 of what what's shocking about him yeah his ability to go from zero to sixty. It's just freakish You could feel it in the audience. The Tim Kennedy fight, he faded in that fight you have loved to seen him in the ufc at 26 yeah i mean when he was just dominating everyone in the You're one of the few. than meeting at denny's yes well denny's meeting was fun too. What is your Twitter for people?

2:38:11 Okay, beautiful.