Jason Rau, a Matt Serra black belt and no-gi jiu-jitsu coach, trained extensively under John Danaher at the Blue Basement in the Renzo Gracie Academy in Manhattan, g
oing four to five times per week from late 2016 through early 2017, often for double sessions. He also held a weekly private lesson slot alongside his training partner.
“The biggest thing that I feel like he taught me was not necessarily the techniques themselves. It was the insights into certain positions. He kind of taught me how to look at a position and kind of create my own variations or my own twist on that position. And he really taught me how to teach myself. And to me, that’s been the most valuable thing.”
On precision and finishing mechanics, Rau explained in recent video:
“There was extreme attention to detail with every technique and a major emphasis on the submission when learning under him.”
He noted that Danaher emphasized the left-left rule or right-right rule when finishing arm locks, the use of a pulling grip and a pushing grip with elbows facing opposite directions, and raising the fulcrum by pulling the knee to the chest so it sits higher than the opponent’s shoulder.
On the philosophy of depth over breadth, Rau recalled:
“He would always say, ‘It’s not your breadth of knowledge, it’s your depth of knowledge.’ Being very deep in a few positions is often better than being okay at multiple positions.”
On continuous improvement, Rau said:
“One thing John Danaher taught me was to never be content with my knowledge of a given position. If you take something in jiu-jitsu that maybe you’re very good at or maybe not so good at, regardless of your skill level in that position, you’re always looking to improve yourself in that position.”
On independent thinking, Rau stated:
“John inspired me to think for myself in jiu-jitsu. Training under John, I learned that in that room people were constantly evolving, coming up with their own variations, testing things out, seeing what worked, seeing what didn’t work. And that kind of gave me the confidence to do that for myself.”
On Danaher’s influence as an instructor, Rau said:
“He would say this all the time, but all of his students are great teachers as well. You see all the guys that are underneath him, they’re all excellent teachers. And I think that’s something that really stems from the top.”
Rau summarized his overall experience this way:
“Training under John had a huge impact on my game and I think it really turned me into the grappler and teacher that I am today.”
