Recently, I was able to go with my coaches up to Kingsway Brazilian jiu-jitsu in Austin and train with the greatest competitor of our time in sport Jiu Jitsu, the king Gordon Ryan, and his coach John Danaher. It did not disappoint at all. We did a private lesson with Gordon Ryan, and we were able to work on details for the head and arm choke, we worked on back control, and we worked on the grips for the heel hook as well. In terms of improving our technical mastery, we walked away with some great insights.
That being said, the bigger impact from training with them was getting a window into Gordon Ryan’s Jiu Jitsu mind. He was able to rattle off details like a machine, and it was clear when he summarized things at the end that he has a very narrow selection of words that he uses to describe exactly what he wants to accomplish. The information in his head is very well organized, and he needs not think very much to be able to draw on that information.
When I met John Danaher, I praised this aspect of Gordon, the succinctness and accuracy with which he related information to students. And Mr. Danaher responded to my praise by noting the importance of organizing information, particularly for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He emphasized that he believes the most important aspect of information is its organization and the ability to access that information as opposed to simply having tremendous cumulative knowledge. He asked me to consider this analogy: imagine that you had to access information quickly within a 24-hour time period, and you had to choose between having access to a library that has every single book in creation but no system of organization versus having access to a local library organized by the Dewey Decimal System.
Overall, the biggest takeaway for me in training with Gordon Ryan and John Danaher, something that I will continue to do in the future, is how do we organize the information that we have in Jiu Jitsu? For me, it begins in positions, but I think the creation of sub-positions within positions is critical to accessing knowledge quickly, and in this regard, I very much appreciate John Danaher’s work in these areas.