Gordon Ryan is still very much in the prime of his athletic career but he’s also been developing his coaching alongside that, and has now awarded his very first brown belt to one of his students. Fernan Diaz is the student in question, and he linked up with the team at New Wave Jiu-Jitsu quite some time ago in fact. Before John Danaher and Ryan set up that team in Austin, they were in Puerto Rico with the other members of the Danaher Death Squad at the time and that’s where Diaz began training under Ryan.
When Ryan then decided that he would re-locate to Austin, Texas with Danaher and Garry Tonon to find a new gym to train at together, Diaz uprooted his life to join them. Since that day, New Wave Jiu-Jitsu has gone from strength to strength and attracted a whole host of new team-members like Nicholas Meregali and Giancarlo Bodoni. With experienced competitors and a host of up-and-coming coloured belts joining the team, New Wave have managed to put together a strong competition team led by Ryan.
That team managed to send seven competitors to ADCC 2022 and returned with an impressive haul of two gold medals, a bronze and silver, and the superfight championship. Known for their tremendous work ethic, Ryan and his teammates have been back at training immediately after that and have already begun competing again. Not only will Ryan have several more years of elite level competition left in his career and plenty more opportunities to break ADCC records, but now it seems as though he’s setting himself up well for a lifetime of involvement in BJJ as a coach as well.
Gordon Ryan announced the news that he had awarded his first brown belt in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
