Nathalia Santoro has been promoted to the rank of BJJ brown belt by John Danaher.
Nathalia, who is a long-time girlfriend of Gordon Ryan, shared the news and her gratitude for the promotion on her social media:
I have never expected receiving my brown belt anytime soon. John is known for being one of the hardest professors to belt students. He just won’t do it unless your skills are sharp and you are progressing faster than others. Period.
In the beginning of this year I made a mistake of jokingly asking John when will I get my brown belt, because my birthday was around the corner. His answer was:
“Nathalia, you are Gordon’s Ryan woman, you are not a regular chick. People expect more from you just because of that. You have to be beating black belts as a purple belt easily before I give you a brown belt.”
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She may suck at competing, but she is very good at Jiu-Jitsu. I am very happy to he part of this process. A huge congrats to @heysonnyy2 on a WELL deserved brown belt.
She is now, to my understanding, John’s 2nd ever female brown belt, which is a big statement. Now if she can just learn a Guard Pass she can get her black belt before age 60.
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