John Danaher Talks Giancarlo, Meregali, And Rise Of Next New Wave Stars

John Danaher breaks down the IBJJF Grand Prix and discusses the upcoming stars of Team New Wave ahead of ADCC 2024.

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Just to kick it off did you kind of tell us how training was and everything how’s this how’s the squad doing here uh everyone’s doing well um the the sad news of course is that Gordon’s going through a Health crisis right now and is very very sick so um uh we miss him

Immensely in the training room obviously um but uh the other seniors have stepped up and they’re training very very well uh Nicholas is getting ready for a big match against Matas Denise the ADCC champion and uh John car has got one of the toughest uh uh tournaments I think

Of of The Last 5 Years uh ibjjf has put together a stellar register of athletes some some of the greatest people in the sport um headlined by K and DTE he’s one of the guys we hold in very very high regard he’s always been one of the absolute toughest opponents for our for

Our team and um uh he’s preparing for that now how do you how do you uh kind of help John Carlo prepare for a Rangers opponents like you might find in as GP Yeah It’s Tricky and of course it’s also Complicated by the fact that at any

Moment someone can pull out and be replaced so there’s a there’s a limit on how much you can prepare for the athletes um what you can prepare for of course that won’t change is going to be the rule set the time duration and uh uh those things are fixed uh the the people

You go up against you don’t know what the brackets are there could be late Replacements so that’s not fixed so you make uh some general assumptions about okay it’s quite likely this person will be in the finals or quite likely this person and you make a few probabilistic

Assessments but you can’t get too fixated on you know you you got to prepare for this guy or that guy because you never know people can get eliminated you never thought would be eliminated remember this is a tournament where the least highly regarded person does actually have the tools if the stars

Aligned to remove the most highly regarded person it’s one of those tournaments where the person who Bottom seed could if everything went right for him and went wrong for the other guy could eliminate the best guy in the tournament so you don’t know who you’re

Going to be facing so um uh the main thing is to prepare for the rule set and the the time duration and uh uh and be in the best POS uh positive uh physical shape and uh and work from there so we’re basically a week out from that

How’s John Carlo looking how’s he looks great he’s in good shape he’s had some injuries over the the last 6 months but uh seems to be in good shape now and uh you saw today he’s moving very well and uh John Carlo’s thing right now what his

Biggest hurdle as a as a professional athlete is to gain greater consistency in his performances on his best day he can beat anyone in the world but the idea of a of a great Champion is to be able to beat the best the second best G

The the second best guy on your worst day that that’s the Gordon Ryden ideal Gordon on his worst day will beat the second best guy in the world um I know that seems like an impossible ideal to go towards but that’s what every athlete has to Aspire to and uh you can’t be

Someone who just beats people on your best day cuz a lot of times you go out to compete it’s not your best day so the ideal is to be able to get that consistency in your performance where you’re always shining as opposed to he have a good tournament here a good

Tournament and then a bad one can’t be like that so um uh John K is fighting to find that consistency and uh this is a very very tough venue to uh to see how he’s doing so I want to ask you about another guy we saw in the training today

Maral Mar honestly looks like feel like I see a new maral every time I see him train or he’s just constantly progressing where do you where do you think marali is right now in his noi career uh he’s still I I know you’re not going to be happy to hear this he’s

Still in the early stages of his development um the the potential this guy has is remarkable I I I’ve seen people progress quickly obviously many times in my career but this guy is truly exceptional um he’s got a game which uh you know if Gordon Ryan he plays Jitsu like a

Mathematician everything’s step by step uh Nicholas plays Jitsu like a like a Mozart like a musician it’s this artistic flourish to what he does there’s an aesthetic element to what he does um his game is just as brutally as effective but it’s also got this artistic quality to it and he as a

Person is also very different he’s more intuitive in the way thinks he’s not like an algorithmic thinker who does things step by step um uh it’s an amazing thing to watch him and uh you’re absolutely correct he is every time you watch him train it seems like there’s

Some new element to what he’s doing uh the challenge for me as a coach of course is to put interesting projects in front of him and uh some of them he rejects some of them he loves and he just over time he uh he’s got this

Artistic sense of saying okay this is my game this is my game this is not and uh the results are are pretty incredible so I want to ask you about another member Davis assari we talked a little bit off off camera already but he put together an incredible run at uh

European trials what did you think about his run there um I’ll say about Davis that if Davis continues at the rate in which he is going and his mental game can catch up with his physical game he will be someone who everybody knows about on the Jitsu world he has a ton of

Potential he’s highly intelligent um physically very very impressive uh fellow who uh has that combination of uh of supreme physicality with uh very very sharp intellectual gifts for him he’s grown so quickly physically as an athlete that the physical progression has outstripped his own self assessment of

Where he is he still thinks he’s the same guy he was 2 years ago and uh one day he’s going to realize how good he is and then everyone’s going to see a day where if you were impressed by what you saw at trials you’ll see a day much more

Impressive than that I assure you in the future he has a lot of potential um but the world doesn’t measure people by potential it measures them by achievement so I’m going to keep my mouth shut until he I’m I’m quietly confident that he’s going to go very far

In this sport but I’m going to keep my mouth shut until the day he does and then I’m going to look at you and going to say I told you so um no he’s he’s very very gifted and that was a fine performance but he knows and I know cuz

I’ve seen him here in the gym every day he can do much better than that you saw a glimpse of David assari but there’s you’ve seen as were the tip of the iceburg there’s a lot of ice underneath that water and I hope one day the world sees

It so another uh New Wave member who was in the finals Hannah Griffith actually I feel like she’s someone who might be going under the radar L Griffith sister yes what did you think about her performance uh very impressive and uh she actually went into the trials with a

Pretty severe injury so uh even pretty physically compromised she did very very well um she’s hoping to come back here to resume training and uh uh she did a camp all alone in South Africa just with her friends and still did incredibly well so uh uh we’re hoping that she’ll

Be able to move over here with Luke and train full-time and um uh I was delighted to see how well she did but uh again potential is one thing uh you’ve got to get those concrete results and uh I feel like we have young athletes in

The team right now who have a lot of physical gifts they have incredible potential but they still aren’t aware of how good they are and so there’s a discrepancy between their gym performance and their their match performance and once that start even out you’re going to see some very very

Interesting athletes emerging from here is that kind of like an interesting task for you as a coach like you like taking on that challenge where you have this new crop coming up that yeah that to me is the most interesting thing um uh everyone knows people I’ve coached in

The past they know they’re good but uh you know there’s there’s nothing better than seeing someone start at a relatively low level and then come up uh in a remarkably short time let’s look at for example Davis sari and and Luke Griffith the first time I met Luke he had just

Lost his first match in trials and uh it came to America to do some training and then the next year won trials um uh Davis sari same situation he lost his first match uh in trials in a matter of seconds and then interestingly a year later defeated the very same person who

Was one of the favorites uh in trial so you see this incredibly fast progress and it’s gratifying to see you see these kids work so hard they have Big Dreams um but the work and the road is a long hard Road and uh so when they get a

Chance to shine and flourish it’s it’s great um and uh that’s one of the great pleasures of the job I know all Rose kind of ultimately are heading towards the 2024 ADCC World Championship have you got much gave much thought in uh what that’s going to be like it’s yeah

Uh it’s going to be big not just for the team but for the sport in general I think uh uh Jon’s done an incredible job getting a venue which uh befits the growing status of of the sport um there’s so many tough teams going in like everybody’s good you know look at

The various trials you look at Asian trials you look at European trials there’s people there that I don’t even know who they are and you look at them they’re amazing like the the standards are just getting so good now look at last ADCC where trials winners were regularly beating established veterans

And champions of the sport um the game’s changing rapidly and uh uh everybody’s good everybody’s tough every team’s well well versed they’re all very very good so I think it’s going to be a colossal ADCC and um uh we’re still focused on the idea of getting people in Trials

Still have to be run um so uh it’ll be later in the year that the actual focus on the world championship itself kicks in right now it’s about there’s other things to be taken care of but you’re absolutely right uh the biggest defend of the Year by far will be 2024 ADCC