The Danaher Disappointment Squad (Big Dan vs Greg Souders)
Analyzing the struggle session of Tom DeBlass and Dan Manasoiu.
Greg Souders “debated” Tom DeBlass and Big Dan on the 29th of January, 2025, in an Instagram Live. You can find a full recording reuploaded to YouTube here. Heads up: it’s hard to watch and it’s very long.
Eco is confirmed to be in the consciousness of the very highest echelon of jiu jitsu. In fact, Tom DeBlass claims that John Danaher is well aware (and, apparently, rejects it to some degree).
I made a quick Instagram response, featuring heavy satire.
I posted three other shorter videos of various satirical density, posing what I think to be the biggest questions that the “other side” needs to thoughtfully and serious answer. One of them is embedded below. The other two are available on the @combatlearning Instagram profile. Check them out.
It’s a good thing this happened because Tom and Big Dan looked bad to everyone who isn’t a total sycophant already.
Tom was more worried about defending why you should still buy $400 instructionals than how to figure out more precisely the value of drilling compared to other forms of training.
Big Dan is lost start to finish, and smug about being lost, too. He can’t answer basic questions, he doesn’t know how to use logic, he doesn’t know when he’s been answered, he contradicts himself in massive ways, constantly, and refuses questioning on all of it.
Both of them think sport science is entirely irrelevant to jiu jitsu if every point we make about human movement isn’t demonstrated in a direct jiu jitsu study.
Nonsense. An obviously unsustainable position that would do violence to perhaps most beliefs they hold on other topics.
But that doesn’t matter. They don’t care. It wasn’t a real objection. It was smokescreen for other anxieties, like, what if Greg’s viral video about instructionals hurts my bottom line?
What if the changing culture in jiu jitsu forces me to learn something new about teaching?
GASP
What if I have to change what I do to keep making the same money???
Perish the thought.
The Landscape: Eco is here to stay
We have total confirmation that jiu jitsu, for all its great accomplishments and athletes, is occupied nonetheless by mentally lazy, defensive, fake intellectuals at the very top.
This is unfortunate, but it’s also an opportunity. The more these people have childish fits, insolent crash-outs, and overall keep bringing attention to the concept, the better we look, the more eyes get on our message, the more capital and good will we earn in the community at large.
And that’ll spill into MMA, kickboxing, judo, wrestling, Muay Thai, karate, taekwondo, and beyond.
Nothing is stopping this train now.
Lesson learned:
Everyone has the same basic beliefs about training as the worst karate guy you’ve ever met.
The fact jiu jitsu players play better jiu jitsu than karate plays karate is merely an accident of history.
Onward and upward.
P.S. Paid video training review dropping in the next couple days.
P.P.S. Want a full analysis of the big debate? I might could be persuaded to torture myself for my readers and friends, but only if you ask me to.
I understand the frustration brother, especially when you know the effectiveness of the approach and people still disregard it, it's just misunderstanding though. People are protective of their beliefs and systems. That's okay! Eco is proving its effectiveness, it'll do a-lot of the work on its own. We have to bide our time patiently until then.....Also I really appreciated you and the guys in the Mix at EcoPalooza this year. I watched and have experimented with every single one of those games, and it's been a game *sorry* changer. Keep doing the work man! People will come around