#182 – John Danaher: The Path to Mastery in Jiu Jitsu, Grappling, Judo, and MMA
Lex Fridman Podcast
Lex Fridman
4.7 • 13.6K Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2021
⏱️ 223 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
John Danaher is a coach, scholar, and educator of jiu jitsu, submission grappling, judo, MMA, and the martial arts. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(07:02) – Fear of death
(17:18) – The path to greatness
(22:57) – Judo
(27:07) – Seoi nage judo throw
(39:21) – Fundamentals of jiu jitsu
(45:34) – Developing new techniques
(53:24) – Value of training with lower belts
(1:03:23) – Escaping bad positions
(1:10:18) – Submissions
(1:14:30) – Reinventing yourself in 5 years
(1:30:38) – Drilling
(1:49:10) – Leglock system
(2:08:44) – How hard is it to break a leg?
(2:12:52) – Greatest jiu jitsu player ever
(2:17:42) – Roger Gracie
(2:22:25) – Gordon Ryan
(2:27:16) – Georges St-Pierre
(2:36:26) – Superintelligent Robot vs Cyborg Gordon Ryan
(3:12:07) – Advice to white belts
(3:15:24) – What does it take to get a black belt
(3:16:09) – Best martial art for street fighting
(3:23:23) – Tie chokes
(3:27:44) – Austin
(3:32:23) – Meaning of life
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following is a conversation with John Donahar. |
| 0:02.7 | Wide-leg knowledge is one of the greatest coaches and minds in the martial arts world. |
| 0:08.7 | Having coached many champions in Jiu Jitsu, submission grappling and MMA, including Gordon |
| 0:14.7 | Ryan, Gary Tonan, Nick Rodriguez, Craig Jones, Nikki Ryan, Chris Wideman, and George St. |
| 0:22.2 | Pierre. |
| 0:23.2 | Quick mention of our sponsors. |
| 0:25.1 | On it, simply safe, indeed, and linoid. |
| 0:28.9 | Check them out in the description to support this podcast. |
| 0:32.2 | As a side note, let me say that John is a scholar of not just Jiu Jitsu, but judo, wrestling, |
| 0:38.3 | moitai, boxing, and MMA, and outside of that, topics of history, psychology, philosophy, |
| 0:46.4 | and even artificial intelligence, as you'll hear in this conversation. |
| 0:50.8 | After this chat, I started to entertain the possibility of returning back to competition |
| 0:56.0 | as a black belt. |
| 0:57.4 | I've even trained with John and his team for a few weeks, leading up to the competition. |
| 1:02.4 | For a recreational practitioner, such as myself, the value of training and competing in Jiu Jitsu |
| 1:08.3 | is that it is one of the best ways to get humbled. |
| 1:11.6 | To me, keeping the ego in check is essential for a productive and happy life. |
| 1:17.5 | As usual, I'll do a few minutes of Asnaal, no ads in the middle. |
| 1:21.4 | I try to make this interesting, but I give you time stamps, so if you skip, please still |
| 1:25.7 | check out the sponsors by clicking the links in the description. |
| 1:29.0 | It is the best way to support this podcast. |
| 1:31.0 | I'm very picky about the sponsors we take on, so hopefully if you buy their stuff, you'll |
... |
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