Oliver Taza and Giancarlo Bodoni have recently spoken out in defense of their coach John Danaher’s approach to renaming Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu techniques.
The debate surrounding Danaher’s methods has been reignited by the release of his instructional Master the Move: The American Lock.
The instructional focuses on the Americana – a submission already known in martial arts by various names such as ude-garami.
Critics, particularly from the Catch Wrestling community, have accused Danaher of rebranding a well-established move; arguing that this erases the technique’s historical roots.
Critics also claim that renaming such techniques contributes to a culture of appropriation in BJJ, where moves are repackaged to create a feeling of exclusivity or novelty for commercial purposes.
Amid this controversy, Taza and Bodoni defended Danaher’s approach, emphasizing his role in redefining how Jiu-Jitsu is taught and understood.
Taza emphasized:
Everybody uses John’s terminology, John’s systems.
I never heard the word system in my life until John started becoming popular.Then everybody’s like: “Oh this is my system, this is the system.”
Despite the criticism, Taza says that Danaher’s way of describing techniques and concepts has changed the way BJJ is taught & understood for the better.
He also emphasized that Danaher never claimed he “invented” anything:
I’ve never heard him say in the 10 years I’ve been training with him (something like): “I came up with this” or “I invented this.”
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