John Danaher is a phenomenal, perhaps even the best BJJ coach of today. And one of the things that make his coaching success particularly interesting is the fact that he has never competed himself.
It’s for this reason that Professor Danaher feels more than grateful to his students. He explained why in an interview for BJJ Eastern Europe:

Throughout my career, I have been blessed with many truly outstanding students who made my task a real pleasure. All were deeply passionate about the sport and technical innovators and extraordinarily hard workers.
You must remember that I never competed in Jiu-Jitsu and so have no achievements of my own – I owe everything to my students.

Furthermore, John emphasized that, as a coach, he enjoys working with everyone. However, it’s the absolute beginners and advanced athletes that are his two favorite teaching situations:

A coach has to be able to work with whoever is in front of him and create improvement. I’m happy teaching pretty much anyone; but, probably, my two favorite coaching situations are polar opposites of each other.
I love to teach the fundamentals of the sport to total beginners, and I love to teach advanced athletes the nuances that can take them from good to great.

Interestingly, the best students must bring to me the one thing I can never give to them – passion for Jiu-Jitsu. That must come from within them. If it’s there, they can do incredible things over time, and if it is not, then no amount of coaching will help them.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by John Danaher (@danaherjohn)

Read the rest of our interview with Professor John Danaher on the following link.