John Danaher has just announced that he is considering retirement from coaching at a professional level in BJJ as he prepares to undergo multiple surgeries. He’s been one of the most successful coaches in the sport for quite some time now, coaching Gordon Ryan and several other elite competitors over the years. Although he was involved in BJJ for a long time before this, he first rose to prominence as the grappling coach for MMA legend Georges St-Pierre. He then developed the Danaher Death Squad and after years of success with that team, the eventual breakup led to him developing another successful competition team at New Wave Jiu-Jitsu.
Throughout all of this, it’s been well-known that Danaher has been dealing with multiple injuries to his hips and knees. Although this has limited his ability to stay active in the mats, he’s still been able to train many of the best grapplers in the world. Now John Danaher has chosen to hopefully correct these issues with multiple surgeries, although this has led to him considering retirement from his professional coaching career. He first explained the sequence of events that led to his injuries and how he will be attempting to fix them this year:
“You have to work with what you’ve got: In my Jiu jitsu journey one of the biggest issues was always my own body. I began the sport late with a crippled leg. I always tried to live as active a life as my body would permit. Unfortunately when one part of the body is compromised, other parts have to take an added strain, which in the long term will always cause problems. Eight years ago I got a hip replacement and was able to resume coaching at a professional level. About four years ago my other hip started to deteriorate in a similar way. I was going to get it replaced, but when the squad broke up I had to start a new team from scratch and so I had to delay it. Recently my hip went into final decline and now doctors are urging me to get it replaced and also the crippled knee that was the root cause of the problems. This year I will have to do four surgeries to try and get a satisfactory body back. I started today with the easiest surgery – a bilateral inguinal hernia repair that I’ve been putting off too long. Then I will have to schedule the much more serious hip and knee replacements (after that I have to get lens implanted my eyes to get my deteriorating vision back in order). My last hip replacement took about six months to a year to fully recover from. The issue will be the more complex and generally less robust knee replacement, which in my case will be attached to a femur that already has a hip replacement on the other side of it.”
Given that recovery and rehabilitation from this many surgeries will require a lot of time and dedication, it’s understandable that he will have less time to coach his students. He then explained that these surgeries might lead to him becoming a purely recreational coach instead:
”The doctors say that generally this is the end of any kind of Jiu jitsu type movement at high level. As such I will most likely have to make a reappraisal of my role in Jiu jitsu coaching. I hope that given enough time I can return to high level coaching but it may be that I have to switch focus to more recreational Jiu jitsu coaching. Despite the uncertainty, there is something of which I am very sure. If I do have to step away from coaching professional athletes, my students are without exception, truly outstanding teachers so I am extremely confident that they can represent what we espoused far better than I ever did and contribute greatly to the sports continued growth. Today, one operation down, three more to go!”
John Danaher announced the news that he was undergoing multiple surgeries and considering retirement from professional coaching in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
