John Danaher is a coach, scholar, and educator of jiu jitsu, submission grappling, judo, MMA, and the martial arts. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
1:24 - Fear of death
11:40 - The path to greatness
17:19 - Judo
21:29 - Seoi nage judo throw
33:43 - Fundamentals of jiu jitsu
39:56 - Developing new techniques
47:45 - Value of training with lower belts
57:45 - Escaping bad positions
1:04:40 - Submissions
1:08:52 - Reinventing yourself in 5 years
1:25:00 - Drilling
1:43:31 - Leglock system
2:03:06 - How hard is it to break a leg?
2:07:14 - Greatest jiu jitsu player ever
2:12:04 - Roger Gracie
2:16:47 - Gordon Ryan
2:21:38 - Georges St-Pierre
2:30:48 - Superintelligent Robot vs Cyborg Gordon Ryan
3:06:29 - Advice to white belts
3:09:46 - What does it take to get a black belt
3:10:30 - Best martial art for street fighting
3:17:45 - Tie chokes
3:22:05 - Austin
3:26:45 - Meaning of life

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The following is a conversation with John Donaher, widely acknowledged as 1 of the greatest coaches and minds in the martial arts world, having coached many champions in jiu-jitsu, submission grappling, and MMA, including Gordon Ryan, Gary Tonin, Nick Rodriguez, Craig Jones, Nicky Ryan, Chris Weidman, and George St.

Quick mention of our sponsors, Onnit, SimpliSafe, Indeed, and Linode.

Check them out in the description to support this podcast.

As a side note, let me say that John is a scholar of not just Jiu Jitsu, but Judo, wrestling, Muay Thai, boxing, MMA, and outside of that, topics of history, psychology, philosophy, and even artificial intelligence, as you'll hear in this conversation.

After this chat, I started to entertain the possibility of returning back to competition as a black belt, maybe even training with John and his team for a few weeks leading up to the competition.

For a recreational practitioner, such as myself, the value of training and competing in jiu-jitsu is that it is 1 of the best ways to get humbled.

To me, keeping the ego in check is essential for a productive and happy life.

This is the Lex Friedman Podcast, and here is my conversation with John Donahuer.

I'm a human being, and like any human being, I'm biologically programmed to be terrified of death.

Every physical element in our bodies is designed to keep us away from death.

I'm no different from anyone else in that regard.

If you throw me from the top of the Empire State Building, I'm gonna scream all the way down to the concrete.

If you wave a loaded firearm in my face, I'm gonna flinch away in horror the same way anyone else would.

So in that first sense of are you afraid of death, my body is terrified of injury leading to death the same way any other human being would.

So when death is imminent, there's a terror that will cause you to

I go through the same adrenaline dumps that you would go through.

But on the other hand, you're also asking a much deeper question, which is presumably, are you afraid of non-existence?

And that's the more interesting question.

No, I should start right by saying from the start, I'm a materialist.

I don't believe that we have an immortal soul.

I don't believe there's a life after our physical death.

In this sense, from someone who starts from that point of view, you have to understand that Everyone has 2 deaths.

We always talk about our death as though there was only 1, but we all have 2 deaths.

There was a time before you were born when you were dead.

You weren't afraid of that period of non-existence.

So why would you be afraid of your second period of non-existence?

You came from non-existence, you're going to go back into it.

You weren't afraid of the first, why are you somehow afraid of the second?

So it doesn't really make sense to me as to why people would be afraid of non-existence.

You dealt with it fine the first time, deal with it the second time.

But Your mind didn't exist for the first death.

But it does exist now enough to comprehend that there's this thing that you know nothing about that's coming, which is nonexistence.

Actually, you do know about it, because you know what it was like before you were born.

Every time you go to sleep at night, you get a sneak preview of death.

You wake up in the morning, you're alive again.

And Every night when you fall asleep, you assume you're going to wake up.

But there's a whole step from that to the idea of fearing it.

I'm fully aware that there's gonna be a time I don't wake up.

Is there some mortal terror you have of this?

Going from the fact that you know you won't wake up to terror is 2 different things.

And at that point, you're making a choice at that point.

What about what some people in this context, we might call like the third death, which is when everybody forgets,

the entirety of consciousness in the universe forgets that you've ever existed, that John Donahuer ever existed.

The history books forget about who you are because the history books.

We're all very, very small players in a very big game and inevitably we're all going to go at some point.

But it's not even, it would be arrogant to say I'm disappointed in the idea that I will disappear.

But there's far greater things than me that will disappear.

I mean, it's crushing to think that there's gonna come a time where no 1 will ever hear Beethoven symphonies again.

That the mysteries of the pharaohs will be lost and no 1 will even comprehend that they once existed.

Humanity has come up with so many amazing things over its existence And to think that 1 day this is just all happening on a tiny speck in a distant corner of a very small galaxy and among millions of galaxies, that this is all for nothing.

There's a kind of dread that comes with this.

But there's also a sense in which the moment you're born and the moment you can think about these things, you know this is your inevitable fate.

So if we look at, we're in Austin and there's a guy named Elon Musk, and he's hoping, in fact, that is the drive behind many of his passions, is the human beings becoming multi-planetary species and expanding out, exploring and colonizing the solar system, the galaxy, and maybe the rest of the universe.

Is that something that fills you with excitement?

The whole, I mean, we all grew up with science fiction, the idea of exploration the same way human beings in earlier centuries were thrilled at the idea of discovering a new world, America or some other part of the world that they sail to and come back.

But now instead of sailing oceans, you're sailing solar systems and ultimately even further.

So of course that's exciting, but as far as relieving us from non-existence, it's just playing a delaying game, because ultimately even the universe itself, if the laws of thermodynamics are correct, will ultimately die.

Of course, we might not understand most of the physics and how the universe functions.

You said laws of thermodynamics, but maybe that's just a tiny little fraction of what the universe actually is.

Maybe the entirety of this experience, you know, there's guys like Donald Hoffman that think that all of this is just an illusion, that we don't, like, human cognition and perception constructs a whole, it's like a video game that we construct that's very distant from the actual reality.

And maybe 1 day we'll understand that reality, maybe it'll be like the matrix kind of thing.

So there's a lot of different possibilities here.

And there's also a philosopher named Ernest Becker.

And his idea, he disagrees with you, but he's dead now, is that he thinks that the terror of death, the terror of the knowledge that we're going to die is within all of us and is in fact the driver behind most of the creativity that we do, exploring out into the universe, but also you becoming 1 of the great scholars of the martial arts, the philosophers of fighting, is because you're actually terrified of death.

And you want to somehow permeate your knowledge, your ideas, your essence to permeate human civilization so that even when your body dies, you live on.

I would agree with him insofar as death is the single greatest motivator for action.

But going beyond that and saying that's somehow terrifying, that's an extra step on his part.

And not everyone's gonna follow him on that step.

I do believe that death is the single most important element in life that gives value to our days.

If you think, for example, of a situation where a god came to you and gave you immortality, Life would be very, very different for you.

Because ultimately, you know, your life is finite and actually very finite.

And could be even more so if fate plays its hand and you die an early death or what have you, we never know what's gonna happen tomorrow as such we get work done as soon as we can.

The moment you gain immortality, you can always put every project off.

You can always say, I don't need to do this today because I can do it 4 centuries from now.

And as you extend artificially a human life, the motivation to get things done here and now and work industriously and excel fades away because you can always come back to the idea that you can do this in the future.

And so what gives value to our days is ultimately death.

And value, it's not the only reason behind value, but a huge part of what we consider value is scarcity.

And it's probably the single greatest motivator for almost every action we partake in.

It's kind of tragic and beautiful that what

Yeah, I think it would actually be a terrible burden to be immortal.

Life would be in many ways very hollow and meaningless, I think.

People talk about death taking away the meaning of life, but I think immortality would have a very similar effect in a different direction.

So given this short life, we can think about jiu-jitsu, we can think about any kind of pursuit.

You know, you think about like an Olympic gold medal, the highest level of performance, or is it the longevity of performance of doing many amazing things and doing it for a long time?

I think the latter is kind of what we talk about in at least American society.

We want people to be healthy, balanced, perform well for a long time.

And then there's maybe like the gladiator ethic, which is the highest peak is what defines.

You asked an initial question, what makes a great life?

But then pointed towards 2 options, 1 of longevity versus degree of difficulty.

There's gotta be a lot more than that, surely.

I mean, think about, first of all, we have to understand from the start that there's never gonna be an agreed upon set of criteria for this is a great life from all perspective.

If you look from the perspective of say Machiavelli, then Stalin lived a great life.

He started from nothing, so the degree of difficulty in what he did was extraordinarily high.

He had massive impact upon world history.

He oversaw the defeat of almost all of his major enemies.

He lived to old age and died of natural causes.

So from Machiavelli's point of view, he had a great life.

If you ask a Ukrainian farmer in the 1930s whether he lived a great life, you get a very different answer.

So everything's gonna come from what perspective you begin with this.

You're going to look out at the world with a given point of view and you're gonna make your judgments.

Was this a great life or was this a terrible life?

Going back to your point, you were actually, I think, focusing the question on more, in terms of great single performances versus longevity of performances.

Presumably this isn't really a question about what makes a great life then, because there's so much more than that to a great life.

I don't know, I'm gonna push back on that.

So I think the parallels are very much closer than you're making them seem.

Stalin is an example of somebody who held power, considered by many to be 1 of the most powerful men ever.

So that's what I'm referring to, longevity.

And then there's a few people, I wish my knowledge of history was better, but people who fought a few great battles and they did not maintain power.

This contrast here, for example, Alexander the Great, who died at

from probably unnatural causes, had around 4 to 5 truly defining battles in his life, which responsible for the lion's share of his achievements, and burned very bright, but didn't burn long.

Stalin, on the other hand, started from nothing, quietly and methodically worked his way through the revolutionary phase and gained increasing amounts of power, and as he said, went all the way to the end of his career.

Yeah, there's definitely something to be said for longevity.

But as to which 1 is greater than the other, you can't give a definition or a set of criteria which will definitively say this is better than that.

But when you look, ultimately we look at Alexander is great but in a different way and we look at Stalin, I don't think many people would say Stalin was a great person but from the Machiavellian point of view, say he was great also.

But when you think about beautiful creations done by human beings in the space of, say, martial arts, in the space of sport, What inspires you?

For me, it always comes down to degree of difficulty.

But things are difficult in different ways, okay?

A single, flawless performance in youth is still, that wins a gold medal.

Let's say for example, Nadia Comaneci won the Olympic gold medal in gymnastics, the first person ever to get a perfect score.

If she had disappeared after that, we would still remember that as an incredible moment.

And the degree of difficulty to get a perfect score in Olympic gymnastics is just off the charts.

And contrast that with someone who went to 4 Olympics and got 4 silver medals.

I mean, they're both incredible achievements.

The attributes that lead to longevity typically tend to conflict with the attributes that bring a powerful single performance.

1 is all about focus on a particular event.

The other is on spreading your resources over time.

There's no need to say 1 is better than the other.

There's also just, for me personally, the stories of somebody who truly struggled are the most powerful.

I know a bunch of people don't necessarily agree because you said perfection.

Perfection is kind of the antithesis of struggle.

But I look at somebody, okay, in my own life, somebody I, I'm a fan, I'm a fan of everybody, I'm a huge fan of yours, I'm trying not to be nervous here, but Somebody I'm a fan of in the judo world is Travis Stevens.

Remarkable human being, insane in the best kinds of ways.

I think I started judo, I really started martial arts.

I wrestled, if you consider those martial arts, that's been in my blood, I'm Russian, so.

But beyond that, the whole pajama thing we wear, the gi, I started by watching Travis in 2008 Olympics.

Did you know Travis prior to watching him?

You just tuned in and you saw Travis Stevens.

I tuned into the Olympics and I was wondering what judo is.

We're all proud of our countries and so on.

So I started watching, he was, I think the only American in the Olympics for judo.

Maybe the, so this Kayla Harrison was 2012 and Rhonda was there too.

So I watched Rhonda and Travis, but obviously sort of, I was focused on somebody who also weighed the same as I did.

So there was a kind of, I think 81 kilograms.

So there's a connection, but also there's an intensity to him.

Like he would get like angry at his own failures and he would just refuse to quit.

I just, that was inspiring to me that he's the underdog and the way people talk about him, the commentators, that it was an unlikely person to do well, right?

And I, the FU attitude behind that, saying, no, I'm going to still win gold.

Obviously he didn't do well in 2008, but that was somehow inspiring.

And I just remember he pulled me in, but then I started to see this sport, I guess you can call it, of effortlessly dominating your opponent in like throwing.

Because to me, wrestling was like a grind.

You kind of control, you slowly just break your opponent.

The idea that you could, with like a foot sweep was fascinating to me.

That just because of timing, you can take these like monsters, giant people, like incredible athletes and just smash them.

It just doesn't, there was no struggle to it.

Judo, dominance in judo has a look, like the other person's like, what just happened?

It's built into the rule structure too, the whole idea of an epon, of a match being over in an instant.

That creates a thrilling spectator sport.

As you say, with Ashiwaza, the foot sweeps, you can take someone out who's heavily favored.

And if you're not, judo is the most unforgiving of all the grappling sports.

You can, if you have a lapse of concentration for half a second, it's done, it's over.

If those guys get a grip on each other, any 1 of them can throw the other.

The idea, when you see someone like Nomura who won 3 Olympic gold medals to win across 3 Olympics, and that's an incredible achievement given how many ways there are to lose in the standing position in judo, and how unforgiving it is as a sport.

It shows an incredible level of dominance.

And I think when I was also introduced at that time to the idea of Jessica and Judo, I think in Jiu-Jitsu is the same.

A lot of sports is probably the same, is there's ways to win that include kind of, if I were to use a bad term, stalling, which is like use strategy to slow down, to destroy all the weapons your opponent has and just to wait it out, to sort of break your opponent by, yeah, shutting down all their weapons, but not using any of your own.

And now Travis was always going for, he's of course really good at gripping and can do that whole game, but he was going for the big throws.

And he was almost getting frustrated by a lot of the opponents.

I know he's very good at doing big throws and he's incredible judoka, but he was also incredible at just frustrating his opponents with like gripping and strategy and so on.

And I just remember feeling the pain of this person like Travis who went through just, he broke like every part of his body.

He went through so many injuries, just this person who dedicated his entire life to this moment in 2008 and then 2012 and 2016 just gave everything.

You could see it in his face that his weapons are being shut down and he's still pushing forward.

He's still with that, both the frustration and the power.

I mean, the kind of throw he does is his main 1, I think is the standing, it's called Seonagi.

Ippon Seonagi, But that was the other thing is like the techniques he used was these big throws that, there's something to me about the Seonagi.

That's become my main throw, standing Sayanagi.

So that's when I, Travis, so Koga and Travis opened up my, if I-

Because Travis uses the same gripping patterns for Seinagi as Koga does.

All the same, and the way he uses his hips and turns.

And I remember going to my judo club and other judo clubs and they were all saying this is the wrong way to do it.

The way Travis does it is the wrong way to do it.

I've always been amazed by this, by the way.

I don't mean to cut you off, but I could literally fill

hours of reproductions of people who will tell me that either my students or other great war champions are doing things wrong.

And I'm looking at them and I'm like, who would I rather trust here in their judgment?

Koga, who was 1 of the greatest throwers of all time, Or you, a recreational guy who couldn't throw my grandmother.

I'm gonna give you a piece of advice here.

That's how you get superior athletic performance.

Watch what they do, particularly under the stress of high-level competition, because that's when you see their real game, what they really do under pressure.

Okay, and if you can emulate that, you're gonna be very successful.

I guess what I was frustrated with, to your point, is that the argument against Koga is, what he has a very specific body type and he figured out something that worked for him.

Thus, the statement is that might not be applicable to you or to the general public of Judo players that want to succeed, that by the way, at the shallow level might be true, might be true.

The point is there might be a body of knowledge that's yet to be discovered and explored that Koga opened up, that I wanted to understand why his technique worked.

It made no sense to me that with a single foot, like the way you turn the hip, the single foot that steps in, why does that work?

Because it was actually very difficult to make work, for me as a white belt, in the very beginning.

Like people just, they don't get loaded up onto your hip.

Anyway, for people who don't watch Koga highlights, watch Travis Stevens highlights, but the details of the technique don't make sense.

But when mastered, it feels like there's something fundamental there that hasn't been explored yet.

It's like Koga and Travis made me think that we don't know most of the body mechanics involved in dominance in Judo.

Like we just kind of found a few pockets that work really well.

The Uchimata, there's these different throws, Osada-gari.

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John Danaher: The Path to Mastery in Jiu Jitsu, Grappling, Judo, and MMA | Lex Fridman Podcast #182