About Us

The story of Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu begins in late 1994 in New York City. John Danaher, a graduate student in Philosophy at Columbia University working as a night club bouncer to make ends meet, was deeply impressed by the ability of grapplers – wrestlers and Judo players – to control unruly patrons. This was unexpected as the central focus of most martial arts at that time was in striking styles. About the same time a major revolution was taking place across the martial arts world – the MMA revolution.

It began with the UFC shattered the public’s decades old perception of what effective fighting and training would look like. The older paradigm of striking as the basis of effective fighting technique was upended by the appearance of grapplers, in particular Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, easily tackling strikers down to the ground and controlling them and winning via submission holds that few had seen before. A chance meeting with a friend who had started Jiu-Jitsu training got Danaher to his first Jiu-Jitsu lesson, which thoroughly convinced him of the effectiveness of Jiu-Jitsu and the value of training in it. Initially Danaher’s interest was only practical, to become more skilled at dealing with nightclub violence in ways that did not harm people. In time however, his teacher, Renzo Gracie, asked him to become a teacher at his school. Danaher’s academic background enabled him to refine and change teaching methods in ways that created an extraordinarily strong room of students in a short period of time. During this time, Danaher interacted with many outstanding mentors who had important impacts on the directions of his study and started a pattern of looking for innovative ways to incorporate new ideas, concepts and techniques into the game to increase efficiency and speed of learning – that drive to change the sport rather than merely relay it was the defining characteristic of Danaher’s approach to teaching and the most persistent feature of his career and that of his students. As the reputation of the high level of grappling skill in that room spread, more and more people were attracted to train there and the size and prowess of classes in the blue basement grew. Among them was a talented young Blue belt from Canada, George’s St-Pierre. He travelled from Montreal to NYC regularly to train among this talented group. The rising momentum of Mr St-Pierre’s MMA career saw the focus of the class change into the first well known era of the Kingsway history – the MMA phase from the early 2000’s to around 2013. Danaher focused on building a room of great grapplers who could provide excellent training for the MMA stars who flocked to follow in Mr St-Pierre’s footsteps. The major focus on the Jiu-Jitsu in this period was MMA practical Jiu-Jitsu with a heavy emphasis on top control, takedown to ground transitions, the relationship between ground grappling and striking and effective control and escape from underneath. During this time Georges St-Pierre became arguably the greatest MMA of all time with a heavy grappling/Jiu-Jitsu focus in his training. He electrified the MMA world with a level of professional preparation, well rounded technique and brilliant tactics that changed the sport. In addition, Chris Weidman began training alongside Georges St-Pierre in his quest to defeat the only man of that time period who could legitimately claim to rival Mr St-Pierre as the best MMA athlete in the world – Anderson Silva. Mr Weidman accomplished his goal in dramatic fashion with one of the most impressive title runs in UFC history culminating in his defeat of Anderson Silva and his UFC Title. Soon afterwards Georges St-Pierre retired and Mr Weidman moved away to open his own gym, leaving the room empty of its MMA stars.

Around that time four brilliant young and unknown students, Eddie Cummings, Garry Tonon and the Ryan brothers, Gordon and Nicky began training in no gi Jiu-Jitsu. Their quest was very different. They were not seeking MMA titles, but grappling/jiu-jitsu titles. Around this time new grappling competitions were springing up that featured competitions without the traditional uniform of Jiu-Jitsu where athletes could compete for prize money and with rule sets that favored exciting submission holds over traditional point scoring. These four youngsters faced a problem. They were all rather inexperienced white or blue belts with no name recognition and most of their black belt opponents had many more years of experience than them. They needed an equalizer that would enable them to compete toe to toe with opponents with far more experience than them – that equalizer was leg locks. So began the second phase of the Kingsway legacy. All four trained heavily in leg locking skills, utilizing a systems based outlook based upon a set of principles that could be learned quickly and was highly adaptable so that each could develop their own personal style, while staying consistent with the overall program. The results were stunning. Starting in local competitions these four young athletes cut a swath through local competitions, easily defeating many opponents with more than three or four times their training experience, using a set of techniques that very few people outside themselves knew how to defend. Around that time a new competition began – The Eddie Bravo Invitational – which featured a rule set that favored submission hunters and was shown on UFC Fight Pass to attract a big audience. These brilliant youngsters had formed themselves into a true squad and were having an impact on the grappling world that was reminiscent of the impact of Jiu-Jitsu in early MMA in the early 1990’s. With their devastating leg locks and back attacks they stunned the grappling world. What was different about them was that though they each had their own distinctive style, they clearly had a common methodology. This was very unusual in Jiu-Jitsu. Usually a training room just developed a group of talented individuals who games had little or no resemblance to each other – they just happened to train in the same place.

What was different about the squad was that they all espoused the same philosophy and methodology over their own creative individual style. You could see clearly that they were part of a true training program that taught a shared method and vision rather than just a random collection of individuals training together. They became the most successful grapplers in the events history with Eddie winning two titles, Gordon winning four and Garry winning five. All three became the only people to win the event entirely by submissions – an incredible feat. Their tremendous success and innovation attracted many new grappling students in similar ways that the success of Georges St-Pierre attracted other MMA fighters earlier. When the Eddie Bravo Invitational event rebranded in different directions the attention of the squad shifted to the biggest event in no gi grappling The ADCC World Championships – the Olympics of grappling. This would require a very significant shift in training style and content. The ADCC event had a very different rule structure that heavily favored traditional positional control, something that was unnecessary in EBI competition. In addition the general level of competition was also much higher. A good training program can adapt to any challenge – Gordon Ryan showed just how adaptable our coaching program is by entering the 2018 World Championships as an underdog and winning Gold and Silver medals in the most successful ADCC debut in history – an incredible feat. This showed that the squad’s innovative technique worked at even the highest levels and could be adapted to any rule set. Around this time Eddie left to pursue a new career and some outstanding new talent came in as a response to Gordon’s success. Foremost among them were the brilliant Australian grappler Craig Jones, formerly a tough rival to Gordon and having a similar leg lock heavy philosophy. Also the powerful wrestler from New Jersey, Nick Rodriguez. This creates the third phase in the Kingsway story – the Neo Squad. Training began for the next world championships among many other professional competitions. Jiu-Jitsu entered a new phase of professional competition in the social media age. It grew rapidly and the squad captured the imagination of the growing Jiu-Jitsu culture. The squad had one of the most successful team performances in ADCC 2019 with more medals than any other team. Gordon Ryan became one of only a handful of athletes to win double gold medals in one of the greatest individual performances in the sport’s history. In addition , Craig and Nick Rodriguez won silver medals with outstanding performances and Garry Tonon won Bronze to complete one of the greatest team performances in the sport’s history, once again showcasing the ability of a good training program to take a core vision and apply it through many individuals. When the Covid crises hit the sport lost many of its competition outlets and training in NYC became almost impossible. The squad decided to move to Puerto Rico, training in isolation created an extraordinarily tough training environment where every single member of the room was world class. This resulted in even more competitive success but created internal strife that after nine months resulted in the squad breaking up. Danaher, Gordon Ryan and Garry Tonon moved to Austin TX to start anew. Around this time Mr Ryan revealed he had been suffering from severe stomach issues that were greatly detracting from his training and athletic preparation and contemplated retiring from the sport. Arriving in Austin with a broken team and its major star on the sidelines with a serious health issue with no place to train was not a very promising start, but what defines a great coaching program is its ability to transform a motivated athlete in less time than most believe possible. In the place of those athletes who left, new athletes entered. Among them were Giancarlo Bodoni, Nicholas Meregali and Luke Griffith. This new squad, training out of Austin TX, set about the seemingly impossible task of preparation within a year for the next ADCC World Championships. Thus began the fourth phase of the Kingsway story. The squad rebranded to New Wave Jiu-Jitsu, a team of mostly unknowns with less than a years experience in our style and ADCC competition. They stunned the grappling world again by qualifying more athletes for the event and winning another impressive tally of medals. Gordon Ryan overcame his illness to put on arguably the best ADCC performance of all time to win double gold for the second time and become the only person in history to win ADCC in three separate weight classes and the only person in history to win a weight class and a superfight. Giancarlo Bodoni won gold in his debut with one of the most electrifying and inspirational performances of the event. Nicholas Meregali won silver and bronze with less than six months of no gi training, a truly remarkable transformation. This incredible turnaround inspired new athletes to travel to Austin and begin training with us, among them a remarkable teenage female athlete Helena Crevar. The skills of the team continued to rise and New Wave entered the 2024 ADCC World Championships with Gordon Ryan battling through severe stomach illness to make his unprecedented third double gold medal performance and become the athlete with the most gold medals in ADCC history. Giancarlo Bodoni became the first man in history to win two gold medals at 88kg weight class. Helena Crevar became the youngest medal winner in ADCC history with a silver medal and Luke Griffith won silver at heavyweight and Daniel Manasoiu bronze at heavyweight – another incredible team performance. All this was done without ever having a home gym. We trained always at someone’s else gym, first at the gym of Danaher’s teacher in NYC, then at various gyms around Puerto Rico and Texas. Now we enter the fifth phase of the Kingsway journey, where finally now we have our own gym in Austin. Gordon Ryan, now retired from competition, seeks to make the transition from greatest athlete of all time to greatest coach of all time. He has the home base and the team around him to do it. If this is something you want to be a part of – enter the hall of the King!