John Danaher is one of the best kept secrets in Jiu-Jitsu. The New Zealand born, BJJ black belt under Renzo Gracie has been praised by the BJJ community as being a master and brain of the art. Danaher is a highly intelligent individual, who has a Master degree in philosophy, and is totally focused on the evolution and improvement of Jiu-Jitsu. He is also the submission coach of none other than former UFC Welterweight Champion George Saint Pierre, and former UFC champion Chris Weidman to USA Olympic Judo champion Travis Stevens.

Danaher trains and teaches Jiu jitsu at Renzo Gracie’s Academy in New York.

Danaher is credited for having developed a highly advanced leg lock system for BJJ that is showcased by his students Garry Tonon and Eddie Cummings.

Garry Tonon in this interview talks about the John Danaher leg lock system and how it differs from other styles:

Garry Tonon: Yeah so I think the main difference is like you just mentioned; It is a system. I think that the way John has taught us the moves and the way that John has created this system and I’m going to say the word again is the very systematic way that some view jiu jitsu or leg locking. It is, as you know, one technique then another technique or a series of techniques. We are trying to use different principals to back up what we are doing.

For instance with a given position how are we using leverage to submit our opponent or how to change when my partner moves. Its how we recreate that leverage. And it’s a very systematic thing it’s not just learning these say fifty techniques. Okay? It’s actually teaching us how to mechanically do each of the moves that we do. So we learn the mechanics of the heal hook, of an inverted heal hook, how they work, why they work ,and then some tactics along with those mechanics. So those tactics for example would be “What am I going to do when I fail at this? Where am I going to transfer to make this stronger?What other positions could I use? How could I? How could I better hold on to this?” whatever the case may be.

So these tactics and mechanics are what really separates, I think, his systems from other people’s system. It’s just a more in depth way of kind of looking at the submissions. You certainly couldn’t say that these other great leg lockers aren’t finishing outside heal hooks, inverted heal hooks whatever the case may be. I just think that using this system and kind of just kind of packages everything into an easier to understand and more technical way of looking at things so it’s easier to learn and there’s real principles behind it. It’s not just “Do this move.” And I think that’s all of John’s Jui JItsu really us this way. And, I think all great teachers in general have at least a little bit of that. I think that John is very rigid in the fact that he doesn’t do something just to do it. He doesn’t just do something because he saw it. He certainly watches film but he likes to figure out why something works. Why this works and I think that’s really the key detail.

BJJ black belt Rob Biernacki breaks down the Danaher leg lock system after having trained intensively with Eddie Cummings: