One of the most promising BJJ/Grappling competitors of the new generation has changed BJJ academy. Helena Crevar, known as Helena Jiu Jitsu Girl on Instagram, will train under John Danaher and represent New Wave Jiu Jitsu.
So far, Helena Craver has trained under the supervision of world champion Hector Vasquez in Las Vegas. The talented teenager trained at Cobrinha BJJ Las Vegas . Helena and her parents moved to Austin to be able to train with one of the best trainers in the world – John Danaher. Her parents are from Serbia and were both professional athletes.
Helena will be 16 in January and in the meantime she has won PAN Kids 6 times . She holds a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and this year she won the ADCC for teens. In her record, she already has 17 wins at Fight 2 Win galas, where she is the owner of the junior championship belt (she has already defended it four times). Interestingly, on the BJJ Fanatics platform you can already buy several of her instructionals.
The teenager is extremely grateful for the opportunity to train with Danaher and Ryan. We are waiting for the first performances under the banner of New Wave Jiu Jitsu. The support of Helena’s parents is the key to her success, because they left their lives in Las Vegas and moved with their daughter to Austin so that she could train in one of the best teams in the world. And yes, on his Instagram, Gordon Ryan welcomed the young BJJ star.
Helena announced the news on her IG:
“With this post, I’d like to announce that me and my parents just moved to Austin, Texas and that I will be training and competing under @danaherjohn @gordonlovesjiujitsu and the New Wave JiuJitsu team. I’m super grateful for this opportunity and looking forward to represent New Wave!”
John Danaher is one of the greatest Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu coaches in the sport’s history. However, even Danaher has some aspects to his career that he wishes were more successful – such as producing female champions.
He explained why this is the case in a recent interview for the Jiujiteira Magazine:
On the face of it, one of the great failures of my career, thus far, is that I’ve never produced a female champion. And it’s natural to ask me: “Why?”
Part of the answer is that I never engage into recruiting; I never actively “pull” people to the gym… I open the door and whoever comes, I teach. So, it tends to be a self-selected group of people that I teach.
And the door is open two ways; to walk in and to walk out, and a lot of people walk out. My teaching style isn’t for everybody. Some people like it, some people don’t.
He emphasized that he never pushed people to compete:
In the gym itself, there is a pretty high number of females. But I never push people to compete. I was never the coach that would say: “Hey man, you’re good! You gotta go out and compete.” I’ve literally never said that. I never recruit and I never tell people they have to compete.
And so what happens is that the people who compete, always do so by their own volition. So, I do have many female students. Some of them do compete, but I don’t actively push them to compete.
Nevertheless, Danaher believes that a New Wave female champion is an inevitability:
I do believe that, inevitably in the future – as the number of female athletes increase – we will start seeing female champions. But I have never actively pushed for any one group of people to succeed in competition. So, it’s been a self-selecting process.
The females who train with me are already achieving a good level of competence and one day they’re going to be successful in competition.
Helena Crevar is an up-and-coming Brazilian Jiu Jitsu champion who has dominated in the world of competition and is here to show you the best attacks from open and closed guard.
- Begin by understanding the fundamentals of closed guard and see how these strategies translate into successful submissions.
- Dive into transitions and submissions from the open guard such as De La Riva armbar transition to omoplata armbar.
