CHICAGO, IL — Forty-seven minutes into his first ever Brazilian jiu-jitsu class, Marcus Webb — no relation, presumably, to any other Marcus Webb — pulled assistant instructor Dana Chu aside to ask which leg lock instructional she would recommend given his budget of "around two hundred dollars, maybe more if it's worth it." He had, at this point, learned how to fall. He had practiced a single guard pass. He had been submitted by a 14-year-old during a two-minute king-of-the-mat round that he had not fully understood the rules of. He was extremely focused. "I've been watching a lot of John Danaher," Webb explained, in the parking lot after class, still in his borrowed gi. "And I'm trying to understand — is the entry system different with no-gi? Because I'm thinking gi now but I want a system that transfers." Chu, a purple belt with three years of teaching experience, confirmed that she recommended he wait. Webb heard this and nodded in the specific way of someone who has heard a thing they did not find useful. "I told him maybe start with some guard retention basics," Chu said afterward. "Or like, learn how to do a hip escape. He said he'd already looked into that and wanted to 'skip ahead to where the game is going.' I didn't know what to say to that. He's been doing jiu-jitsu for less than an hour." Webb's approach to the sport appears to be heavily informed by YouTube algorithm recommendations and a series of podcasts he has been consuming over the past two months prior to ever stepping on a mat. He referenced, in his first sixty minutes of training, the Danaher Death Squad, the concept of "inside position," Craig Jones's approach to outside heel hooks, and something he called "the leg entanglement meta" — a phrase that caused Chu to blink several times and excuse herself. He asked about heel hook mechanics on the drive home, according to his training partner, who had driven him to the gym because Webb does not yet own equipment and was trying out class before committing. His training partner, Jaleel Thompson, 30, a white belt of six months, said the conversation was "intense." "He asked me what my leg lock game was like," Thompson said. "I've been training six months. I don't have a leg lock game. I barely have a game. He then explained to me how the 50/50 position works based on a video he watched. He drew a diagram on a napkin at Chipotle. He kept the napkin." Webb committed to training the following morning. He purchased a gi Monday morning. He purchased the Danaher lower body attacks series — all eight volumes — Monday afternoon, for $197. He watched the first three hours Monday night and took handwritten notes in a spiral notebook that he has since brought to every class. The notebook has a tab system. The tabs are labeled by position. There is a tab for "Ashi Garami Variants" and a tab for "Saddle Entries." There is no tab for "Guard" or "Mount" or "Side Control." He asked in the gym's group chat on Tuesday whether anyone wanted to drill entries. Nobody responded. He asked again Wednesday, this time including a timestamp for when he'd be at open mat and a note that he would "bring pads if needed." It is unclear what pads he means. Nobody responded to the second message either, though three members reacted with a thumbs-up emoji, which Webb interpreted as confirmed attendance. Nobody showed. By his second week, Webb had begun rolling with a strategy that multiple upper belts described as "confusing." He consistently disengages from any position that is not legs-related, abandoning dominant positions including mount and back control to dive for ankle grips. During one roll with a blue belt named Corey Park, Webb achieved mount for the first time in his jiu-jitsu career, held it for approximately two seconds, and then voluntarily gave it up to attempt what he later called "a leg drag to outside ashi entry." "He was in mount," Park said. "Full mount. On me. And then he just... left. He slid down to my feet. I was lying there like, do I just... get up? He was holding my ankle and looking at the ceiling like he was doing math." Head instructor Ramon Gutierrez, a third-degree black belt, was asked about Webb's development. "He's enthusiastic," Gutierrez said, in the careful tone of a man choosing his words. "He asks good questions. They're just not the right questions for someone who started eight days ago." Gutierrez confirmed that Webb had asked him during a fundamentals class whether the curriculum would "eventually cover leg locks or if that's something I need to supplement on my own." The curriculum covers leg locks. In the advanced class. Which Webb is not eligible for. For approximately three to four years. Webb recently updated his Instagram bio to read "BJJ | Leg Lock Specialist | Always Learning" and has begun following seventeen leg lock-focused accounts. He has also joined four Facebook groups dedicated to lower body submissions and posted in one of them asking whether the Danaher series or the Lachlan Giles series "has better heel hook finishing mechanics." The post received forty-two comments, thirty-eight of which told him to learn how to pass guard first. He liked all of them. He did not change his plan. Webb is expected to show up to next week's class with a strong theoretical framework and no functional guard of any kind. He will be dangerous in the way that a person is dangerous when they have learned a very specific thing and have not yet learned the ten things that come before it. He'll be fine. Probably.