Danielle Kelly gets a different type of achievement when teaching BJJ

As much as Danielle Kelly loves stepping inside the circle and competing under the bright lights of ONE Championship, the submission grappling superstar also enjoys running seminars and teaching the next generation of Brazilian jiu-jitsu stars.

In an interview with ONE Championship, Kelly shared details of her foray into the world of teaching over the last couple of years and the rewarding feelings she gets by sharing her love for the sport with others:

“Actually, I've been teaching at the school a lot recently. Like, for the past two years but traveling and teaching seminars, I've been doing it for about two years too. Actually, I'm doing both but more of the traveling now. It brings me, it's a new type of feeling.”

When she’s not busy teaching her craft in the gym, Danielle Kelly is busy dominating the best grapplers in the world inside the circle. She did exactly that in her appearance at ONE on Prime Video 4 on November 18. Kelly entered her second bout under the ONE banner meeting sambo world champion Mariia Molchanova.

Kelly dispatched her Russian challenger via rear-naked choke in just 2:15. It was another impressive performance for the Silver Fox BJJ product.

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Danielle Kelly recalls being made fun of in school

Before becoming one of the biggest names in the world of submission grappling, Danielle Kelly was a shy seventh-grader who was excited to join the school wrestling team.

While women in combat sports have been normalized for the most part, there was a time when a girl competing in a male-dominated sport was largely unaccepted.

Speaking to ONE Championship, Danielle Kelly shared details of the bullying she had to endure as a young girl interested in wrestling:

“When I first started wrestling, it was kind of new. It was a big deal when I was joining the wrestling team, even when I was in high school, but I was like in seventh grade. So then hearing a girl join a wrestling team at a public school I went to was weird. And then I got made fun of. It wasn’t normal, but I loved it either way.”

Today, Kelly is a 27-year-old Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and competes for the biggest martial arts organization in the world.