Brian Glick is a third degree Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt under John Danaher and Renzo Gracie. He began training BJJ in 2000. Since then he has gone on to run his own gym, Brooklyn Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, whilst still training at the legendary Renzo Gracie Academy in New York. Although Glick is now an established name in the BJJ world, it wasn’t always this way and as he describes, the earlier days of his training were quite different compared to the Jiu Jitsu that many people experience today. Not only this, but he also explains his approach to training, the influence of his professors, fight camps and stories from the years gone by.
On his early days of BJJ and discovering what it was
As mentioned, Glick was around in the early days of BJJ in the USA. It turns out that he also didn’t fit the typical profile of someone who would train the art back then. He says “I wasn’t a high school athlete and didn’t do any serious physical activity before Jiu Jitsu. The way many people first learned about Jiu Jitsu back then was through video tapes. These were instructionals that Renzo and Rorion had made – you could buy or trade them. The chance of a real Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructor, nevermind a Gracie, who lived or taught in your neighborhood was very low.”
However, things changed for Glick when he met a Dutchman who happened to train BJJ and introduced him to it, adding “I was lucky enough to meet someone who had trained Jiu Jitsu pretty early on, during the late 90s. He originally did karate in California with Fumio Demura from Japan, and Muay Thai, which was more of a European thing at the time. When we met he described all of this to me, and also claimed to do something he called ‘ground fighting’. So I asked him more about it because it sounded cutting edge. I remember thinking, “that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard – no one fights on the ground!” I said, “Everyone knows what fighting looks like. It looks like Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris.” But to his credit, he explained it pretty calmly and offered to demonstrate it. He showed me a guillotine or triangle, conveniently forgetting to tell me how to tap. It felt like my head was going to explode. I said, “Well…this does seem to work”. He told me that there was a Gracie living in New York and to look him up if I wanted to find out more. This was way before the internet, so I had to look in the Yellow Pages. I can’t remember how I finally found it, but the Renzo Academy turned out to be just 7 blocks from where I lived. I showed up for a class one day and that was it.”
Of course this wasn’t something I knew at the time, but Renzo Gracie himself deserves a lot of credit for his contributions to early no gi Jiu Jitsu. I think this is often overlooked with the swirl and storm of modern Jiu Jitsu. He had a very technical approach to no gi at a time when not many others were interested in it at that level. In Brazil it was mostly either gi-BJJ or Luta Livre. Renzo’s academy focused on no gi even early on, and you could see this with the success of the academy’s competitors in the first years of ADCC.The likes of Matt Serra, Ricardo Almeida and Rodrigo Gracie all did MMA and trained no gi. There wasn’t a “pro” no gi at the time like there is now, so the only option was MMA if you wanted a career. Renzo sculpted modern Jiu Jitsu, and created a space and platform for Danaher’s no gi ventures, which he has alluded to many times over the years.
How BJJ was very different back then – not for the faint hearted
Glick also reminisces about the earlier days of BJJ when it wasn’t well-known by the public. It’s difficult to imagine going back to that period and trying to experience the different cultures. He notes, “It was more primitive, certainly not as technologically sophisticated as what we see today. It’s difficult to compare it to now since at the time the social awareness of Jiu Jitsu was more or less nonexistent. No one knew what it was, even after UFC, which was itself still very marginal. For most people it was a freak show. At its best it was grouped in with the handful of things at that time which were considered “extreme sports” – it was way back behind skateboarding and snowboarding and BMX. Remember that even CrossFit was so out there that no one knew what it was.
Jiu Jitsu was cut from the same cloth. The people drawn to it were people who were fighting already; cops, bouncers, tough guys, rough-and-tumble folks. The remainder were mostly serious life-long martial artists who were there to upgrade their skills, transitioning from striking to grappling. So that was like 90% of the population. People at the time were interested in Jiu Jitsu because it promised something special – that was the message of those early UFCs with Royce Gracie. You could be smaller, lighter and weaker and not just survive but actually thrive in the new grappling environment. In those days, though, those who kept returning to the training day in and day out (myself included) were crazy.”
On his relationship with John Danaher and whether he was cut out for BJJ
Such was the extreme clientele of BJJ at the time, Glick wasn’t in the main two groups who were attracted to its draw. Instead, he was in the minority of smaller people who weren’t from a fighting background. Yet he stuck it out, even though his coach at the time John Danaher questioned whether it was safe for him to do so. He states “I knew at the time that I didn’t fall into tne of the main categories of people at Renzo’s. I knew I wasn’t an athlete or a traditional martial artist; I wasn’t trying to be a UFC fighter or a tough guy. So there was no space in the environment that I fit into. When Danaher took me aside, it was a moment highlighting that I wasn’t in any of those categories – he had seen and noticed this. He was genuinely concerned I’d get broken in half. As I said, I wasn’t in any kind of physical shape, and if I showed you a picture of me in 2000 you would say the same thing. I looked like a guy who’d like to find a nice basket to weave or a good sock to knit. So you could say there was a lack of important physical attributes at the outset. I was down at the bottom of the ladder as far as toughness went. But that conversation was also a challenge – a kind of ultimatum, an obstacle to step over to see if I’d stay. Had I walked away, he’d have done the responsible thing by dissuading me…and if I’d quit then, he’d have been right to do it. As it was, I stayed which just solidified my commitment.“
On implementing Judo into his BJJ and looking at grappling as a whole
Aside from BJJ, Glick is also regarded for his standout Judo skills. Once again, it was John Danaher who played a pivotal role in his development and the two studied Judo extensively over the years in how to apply it to BJJ. He adds “Most of my Judo came from Danaher, during those first 15 years when we were training and as his systems were forming. It was like a research and development experience. He has an uncanny ability to extract the most salient and significant aspects of what people do well, and it is a skill that extends well beyond Jiu Jitsu. His eye is like nothing else I’ve ever seen before, in Jiu Jitsu or anywhere else. Most of my Judo came from that.
Along the way, I stacked what I was learning with formal Judo practice. I trained under Sensei Shiina, who was one of the very first people to bring Judo from Japan to the East Coast of the US as part of Japan’s effort to spread Judo to the world. He opened his dojo here in Brooklyn in the 1960s.
I also trained with Sensei Teimoc Johnston-Ono, who was an Olympic Judoka in the 1976 USA team and one of the only people to win World Masters titles at Black Belt in both Judo and Jiu Jitsu. Teimoc still trains today in his 60’s, a model of longevity and sustainable training protocols. I have been fortunate to have some excellent judokas as training partners also. The St. Leger brothers are also Danaher black belts and were Olympic alternates and members of the US National team. Shintaro Higashi is one of the youngest coral belts ever and a veteran of the World Team. All of them are among my closest friends. .
Overall, it wasn’t an orthodox path of Judo because we always weighted standing throws in relation to the important ground work part of Jiu Jitsu. Danaher’s emphasis on transition between standing and the ground made it unique. The idea behind what we were doing was not to “win” in Judo, but rather to more fully integrate the standing work with the ground work. Gripping, movement and throws mattered but only in a Jiu Jitsu context, which didn’t really happen before Danaher put his mind on it. As a result, I became comfortable in a small set of a significant throws which didn’t violate any of the cardinal rules of Jiu Jitsu. So it was relatively safe and very effective. I’m very proud to have developed in that way.”
Training in fight camps with GSP, Chris Weidman & The DDS
Although Glick doesn’t consider himself a professional athlete, he has been involved in training camps with the likes of UFC Champions such as Georges St.Pierre and Chris Weidman. We asked him about his approach when training with these individuals and the role that he played when it came to preparing them for fights and competitions. This was his answer: “The stakes for a pro-competitor are very high. A lot is riding on a few moments, so an MMA fighter’s career by nature has a cyclical quality, with tremendous peaks and valleys. This emphasis on outcome isn’t always well-matched with the qualities it takes to be a student. It’s been 10 or 12 years now that Georges and I have trained together, and when he first started coming to Renzo’s, he was a rising star but still wasn’t a legend yet. It was clear to everyone he was immensely skilled and had the intensity, attention to detail and commitment, but he himself knew that he was there specifically to develop his grappling. . . From the very outset, he showed up as a very dedicated student, and from my perspective that was a key factor in his success. At the level he is at, it can be tempting to assert your own expertise, but he wasn’t trying to be the best in the room – he could have easily crushed any of us if we were doing anything other than Jiu Jitsu. His goal was to learn as much as he could, to do as well as he could do. Ultimately, he is an incredible student of the martial arts who deeply understands the value of long-term gain over the short-term success.
My own priority is always to be the best student I can be, to learn without getting in the way of what’s being taught. Georges’ approach and attitude was very similar, and so was Chris Weidman’s. I was as technical a training partner as I could be, so that they could have clean access to what Danaher was teaching rather than trying to muddy the waters with my own opinions. Often the challenge is to just get yourself out of the way so you and those you work with can progress.
On a familiar note, we also asked about the training camps that involved the Danaher Death Squad members for competitions such as ADCC and EBI. He remarked, “Being in training camps is group-based – everyone needs to get the most out of it that they can. Everyone prepares together and there is a current which carries everyone in the room along. In the process of getting a group ready for a big event, you’re also learning on an individual level too, seeing your own weaknesses, how athletically gifted people work and how what you do relates to that. The degree of professionalism, dedication and organization is always inspiring. It’s based on constant progressive evolution rather than standing still. You could see this very easily with the progression of Garry Tonon and Gordon Ryan – nothing remains the same for very long, and everyone goes from strength to strength. This is no coincidence and shows that Danaher’s system works.”
Glick also addresses the internet rumors of ‘Boris’
For those that don’t know, Boris was something of a mythical figure who would sometimes crop up in online forums or chat. It was said that Boris was a highly skilled practitioner at the Renzo Gracie New York academy who held down a regular job, yet still went toe to toe with the best during training. Then one day he suddenly quit and has since gone AWOL. It turns out the rumours are true, as Glick recalls, “Boris and I didn’t train together too much due to having classes at different time schedules. We had a mutual respect though and yes, he was really very good. Martial arts is filled with myths and stories of skilled guys who reach the highest heights and then suddenly disappear, and he did the same.”
On his biggest achievements and influences in BJJ
Lastly, we asked Glick about his biggest achievements in the martial arts and who influenced his style the most. This was his answer, “I’m still grateful that I found the right teacher at the outset. Having worked with Danaher for 20 years, I’m very glad to be an expression of his approach. At a time when people move quickly from place to place and teacher to teacher, that alone is a kind of achievement I think. To have learned to practice and to teach from him is very rewarding.
Obviously, he is still my biggest influence. I’m happy to watch as people take note of John’s work. He labored in obscurity for so long, so as his student to see him receive recognition for his contributions is very gratifying.
We would like to thank Brian Glick for the interview. He can be followed on Instagram here, as well as on his Youtube here which has a lot of instructional material. Alternatively, if you are in the Brooklyn area then you can also find him teaching at his gym, BrooklynBJJ.
