Roger Gracie wouldn’t listen to John Danaher

Roger Gracie has been training with Gordon Ryan, John Danaher, Giancarlo Bodoni, Oliver Taza and the other New Wave jiu jitsu members in Austin Texas the last few weeks.

However, footage reveals that Roger’s not necessarily been listening to John Danaher’s technique explanations. In the image below, you see that Roger Gracie does a shoulder exercise with an elastic band, instead of paying attention to John Danaher’s technique demonstration with Giancarlo Bodoni. Gordon Ryan and his girlfriend Nathali Santori are also visible in the image, and they are paying attention to the technique.

Roger Gracie doesn't listen to John Danaher's explanation at the New Wave jiu jitsu gym
Image: Roger Gracie does an elastic band exercise while John Danaher teaches a technique, and Gordon Ryan watches

What does this mean?

  • Does Roger Gracie think that John’s techniques are not legit?
  • Does Roger Gracie already know all of John Danaher’s techniques, because he watched all Danaher’s instructionals?
  • Is Roger purposefully disrespecting John Danaher? I don’t think it’s that.

Apparently, John Danaher and Roger Gracie made an agreement that Roger can work on his own exercises during the technique demonstration. Maybe they talked about it, or it’s an unspoken agreement.

Nevertheless, I find it quite surprising that Roger appears so uninterested in Danaher’s teaching. We know that Roger Gracie loves jiu jitsu, and Danaher’s style is very different from his. So you’d think that Roger would be very interested in the classes.

By the way, this footage is from Gordon Ryan’s vlog for UFC Fight Pass. You can watch the part where Roger clearly doesn’t watch Danaher’s technique demonstration at 6:33.

Also read: Gordon Ryan vs Roger Gracie: who’s got the better closed guard instructional?

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