John Danaher‘s journey into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu began in 1994 in New York City, during a time when Renzo Gracie was not yet permanently based there. Renzo would periodically visit from Brazil, working with a local affiliated instructor. The training schedule was initially limited, with only three one-hour classes per week.
Everything changed when Renzo permanently moved to New York and established his academy with his associate. The increased training frequency and intensity – training twice daily, seven days a week – led to dramatic improvements for the students. According to Danaher’s story in appearance on Jake Shields podcast, this shift made:
“An enormous difference to the people that trained there.”
The early days of training were conducted in unconventional locations. Their first gym was in a condemned building owned by questionable operators with apparent organized crime connections. They would access the training space via an ancient elevator operated by a man in his 90s. They later moved to a kung fu school that rented space to various martial arts disciplines, where tensions ran high between different styles. The other martial arts groups united in their disdain for jiu-jitsu’s growing popularity, even insisting on hanging a “curtain of shame” around the BJJ training area.
For Danaher, who had come to New York as a philosophy student at Columbia University, the transition into becoming a jiu-jitsu instructor was not as dramatic a shift as it might appear. He notes that philosophy taught him to break down complex material and analyze it systematically – skills that would prove invaluable in developing his analytical approach to teaching martial arts.
These humble beginnings in 1994 marked the start of what would become one of the most influential careers in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instruction, with Danaher going on to develop numerous world champions and revolutionize aspects of the sport.
