skribs136 156
Grandmaster
I grew up in the Seattle, WA area. When I was in middle school, everyone loved Nirvana. Most of my friends remember where they were when they heard Kurt Cobain had died. But I just wasn't that interested in music and hadn't really bothered to listen to them. As I started growing my interest in music, I listened to other rock and early metal bands, but it was a long time before I got around to listening to Nirvana. It was my best friend's favorite band. Most folks I knew thought they were the greatest, most influential musicians of all time. I was very excited to listen to Nirvana. When I finally got a chance, my first thought was, "that was it?" I was ready for the greatest band in the world. What I heard was just another band.
I should be clear the analogy I'm making here. I'm not saying anything about John Danaher. I think after watching this instructional that he's a very good coach and he deserves a lot of the esteem he's earned. However, I do want to talk about how this instructional was advertised. Particularly, there's one item in the description from the BJJ Fanatics website:
I will say this up front: had this been advertised as a no-gi video, I would have put this as my first SS-tier review. However, because the expectation was set that I would be learning gi applications, and this instructional did not live up to those expectations, it cannot be in the top tier.
Why would this have been my first SS-tier video? John Danaher has a reputation as someone who looks at jiu-jitsu in a very cerebral way. His manner of speaking about jiu-jitsu reminds me of Jordan Peterson, who can turn a simple question into a dissection of the semantics of the question itself and the philosophy behind the question, and he's delivered a 10-minute response before he even starts to answer the question. Danaher has a very precise way of speaking about jiu-jitsu. His words are meticulously chosen to convey specific meanings and he does an excellent job of explaining those words, what they mean (in his context), and why he's using them. He is a phenomenal instructor in that regard.
The video series is very well prepared. The techniques are shown from several angles. In fact, this is the first instructional where I have not missed details because an angle obscured them. In every technique, he shows the technique from several angles and explains the important details that you can see and describes the details you can't see from each angle.
Now, my passing game does not use the toreando. I like pressure passing. In fact, recently my Professor and I have disagreed about my passing game, because my Professor keeps asking, "Why do you go into the guard?" Because I suck at toreandos and I like to pressure pass. However, here's what I've gotten out of this series:
I should be clear the analogy I'm making here. I'm not saying anything about John Danaher. I think after watching this instructional that he's a very good coach and he deserves a lot of the esteem he's earned. However, I do want to talk about how this instructional was advertised. Particularly, there's one item in the description from the BJJ Fanatics website:
- Adapt the toreando for both gi and no-gi applications
I will say this up front: had this been advertised as a no-gi video, I would have put this as my first SS-tier review. However, because the expectation was set that I would be learning gi applications, and this instructional did not live up to those expectations, it cannot be in the top tier.
Why would this have been my first SS-tier video? John Danaher has a reputation as someone who looks at jiu-jitsu in a very cerebral way. His manner of speaking about jiu-jitsu reminds me of Jordan Peterson, who can turn a simple question into a dissection of the semantics of the question itself and the philosophy behind the question, and he's delivered a 10-minute response before he even starts to answer the question. Danaher has a very precise way of speaking about jiu-jitsu. His words are meticulously chosen to convey specific meanings and he does an excellent job of explaining those words, what they mean (in his context), and why he's using them. He is a phenomenal instructor in that regard.
The video series is very well prepared. The techniques are shown from several angles. In fact, this is the first instructional where I have not missed details because an angle obscured them. In every technique, he shows the technique from several angles and explains the important details that you can see and describes the details you can't see from each angle.
Now, my passing game does not use the toreando. I like pressure passing. In fact, recently my Professor and I have disagreed about my passing game, because my Professor keeps asking, "Why do you go into the guard?" Because I suck at toreandos and I like to pressure pass. However, here's what I've gotten out of this series:
- A better understanding of the toreando
- How to use toreando concepts to set up pressure passes with higher percentage of success
- I need to remember to chase the legs instead of only ever moving up towards the shoulders
