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Christian Barry and John Danaher were both graduate students in philosophy at Columbia University, and it was there that Danaher’s introduction to Jiu-Jitsu began.<\/strong><\/p>\n Recalling his first impressions of Danaher, Barry said:<\/p>\n I knew that John worked part-time as a bouncer.<\/p>\n He was a very large imposing figure, very soft-spoken, very serious, but he also would sort of quietly and politely sometimes tell me about his experiences as a bouncer, which were kind of eye-opening and sort of terrifying for me at the time.<\/p>\n After training for a few months himself, Barry brought Jiu-Jitsu up with Danaher directly:<\/p>\n I talked to him about it a couple of times and he seemed fine but a little bit not that interested. That changed when Danaher challenged Barry to show him some Jiu-Jitsu firsthand:<\/p>\n He just got me on the floor and pulled me into a headlock. I didn’t know that much Jiu-Jitsu.<\/p>\n I had probably been training for about three months and probably weighed about 154 lbs (70 kilos). Barry managed to escape and take Danaher’s back, a moment he believes shifted something:<\/p>\n I think he was kind of intrigued.<\/p>\n From there, the two trained informally at the Columbia gym on mats taped together with electrical tape:<\/p>\n It mostly consisted at first of me just trying to keep him off me…<\/p>\n Everybody wanted to train with him because he was like a fascinating physical guy. He became very serious and sort of obsessive in his training and thinking about it and quickly zoomed past me and many other people.<\/p>\n Barry said Danaher became completely absorbed in the art almost immediately, and even in those early days showed confidence in experimenting with his own ideas:<\/p>\n John did have that confidence early of just coming up with stuff and he would use it in training and it would work. And they were like: “No, if it works, it works.”<\/p>\n Barry also linked Danaher’s teaching style directly back to their shared academic background:<\/p>\n That systematic breaking down and articulation of general principles explaining sort of more complex phenomenon is definitely a fruits of a more philosophical mindset.<\/p>\n The post Christian Barry Recalls How John Danaher First Discovered Jiu-Jitsu: “He Was A Bit Of A Monster” appeared first on Bjj Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n
\nHe was a man who had found his own way of using his body effectively in fighting and probably might have been a bit skeptical.<\/p>\n
\nHe weighed considerably more than that. He was a bit of a monster.<\/p>\n
\nHe was like a serious weightlifter and he weighed a lot, quality strong guy, and it would be a good test case for anybody to show whether or not their guard actually works if you can kind of keep someone like that at bay.<\/p>\n
\nI remember just being like: “John, are we supposed to be doing this?”<\/p>\n