Learning to Fight! Conversations in Combat Skill

Send us Fan Mail Learning to Fight Podcast — Conversations in Combat Skill After a year-long hiatus, the Primal MMA Coaching Podcast is back—Rebranded, and refocused as the Learning to Fight Podcast: Conversations in Combat Skill . Your hosts are: Adam Singer — Co-owner and head coach at SBG Athens , BJJ black belt, long-time MMA coach, with years of developing novice to elite level fighters. Stud...

Send us Fan Mail Learning to Fight Podcast — Conversations in Combat Skill After a year-long hiatus, the Primal MMA Coaching Podcast is back—Rebranded, and refocused as the Learning to Fight Podcast: Conversations in Combat Skill . Your hosts are: Adam Singer — Co-owner and head coach at SBG Athens , BJJ black belt, long-time MMA coach, with years of developing novice to elite level fighters. Stud...

Send us Fan Mail Learning to Fight Podcast — Conversations in Combat Skill After a year-long hiatus, the Primal MMA Coaching Podcast is back—Rebranded, and refocused as the Learning to Fight Podcast: Conversations in Combat Skill . Your hosts are: Adam Singer — Co-owner and head coach at SBG Athens , BJJ black belt, long-time MMA coach, with years of developing novice to elite level fighters. Stud...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I’m joined by Andy from the School of Grappling , a coach and physicist whose analytical approach to no-gi grappling and wrestling has made him a respected figure in the sport. We discuss the science behind skill development, biomechanics, and training methods that align with the ecological approach. As the podcast nears its conclusion, I’m grateful to have one of...

Send us Fan Mail  In this episode of the Primal MMA Coaching Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Laura Cuijpers , an assistant professor at the University of Groningen, to explore the emotional and psychological aspects of martial arts training. We dive into Dr. Laura's work on agency, resilience, and the application of the ecological approach in self-defense, with a particular focus on women's...

Send us Fan Mail Today I welcome Sonny Sahota from Praxis Gym in Canada. Sonny, a judo black belt and manager of Kensington Judo Club in Vancouver, shares his insights on integrating Ecological Dynamics and the Active Inference Framework (AIF) into martial arts coaching. Sony introduces some of the tenets these approaches, discussing how they inform skill acquisition, practice design, and the bala...

Send us Fan Mail Coach Rob Cole joins me today to talk coaching within an ecological dynamics framework. Rob is a long time mixed martial artist, globetrotters BJJ coach and a regular coach at Ascension Athletics in Connecticut. 

Send us Fan Mail Gray Thomas joins me today to talk about the Ecological Psychology side of ecological dynamics. Gray is a PhD student at the university of Connecticut where he studies and researches Ecological Psychology.  I enjoyed my chat with Gray and learn more about eco psych. The ecological approach really hangs on the theory of direct perception. Gray took some time today to talk about thi...

Send us Fan Mail Today's chat was with Pittsburgh Pirate's coach John Baker John is a former MLB player and current performance and skills coach alongside Andy Bass in the Pirates Baseball organization.  Also a BJJ purple belt, Ecological dynamics advocate and MMA fan. We had a fun chat covering all things eco, baseball and combat sports. 

Send us Fan Mail The boys from emergence are back to discuss their recently accepted and published paper on  " Applying an ecological dynamics framework to mixed martial arts training ".  This paper followed their previous publication from 2023 " (Re)conceptualizing movement behavior in sport as a problem-solving activity ". Both of these papers were supported and co-authored b...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I talk with Coach James de Lacey of Sweet Science of Fighting . While most discussions on the podcast have been biased toward the perceptual half of the perception-action loop. Coach James talks about how we can support the action side through science informed exercise programming. While James doesn't offer a specific program for combat athletes, he does give...

Send us Fan Mail Today I talk with Dr Andy Bass . Andy is a researcher, educator, former pro baseball player and is currently a performance coach with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Andy talks about both the mental side and motor learning side of skill development. How the two can be separate but also generally integrate. I have linked several episodes that Andy features on in the podcast description, an...

Send us Fan Mail Today I chat with Irish National Kickboxing Coach Jon Mackey about the role of training tools in striking sports. We'll explore whether these tools actually support skill acquisition and debunk some of the popular training gimmicks that are flooding social media. Coach Mackey brings not only an extensive coaching experience, but his academic perspective as a PhD is skill acq...

Send us Fan Mail Today I welcome Kit Dale and Greg Souders on to the show. Kit is well know in the jiu-jitsu world for his rapid development in the sport and his achievements at high level no-gi grappling in a short few years. An advocate of 'learning through trial and error and one that has been preaching the anti-drilling message for years' it seemed fitting that I get him on to talk w...

Send us Fan Mail Today, I chat with Noah Shaffner from the Standard Jiu-Jitsu Grappling Team , mentored by Greg Souders. Unlike my usual guests who are coaches or academics, Noah stands out as a student who has embraced the ecological approach to skill development. Despite being only 17, his insights into the sport and its methodologies are profound. While many might assume he's echoing Coach...

Send us Fan Mail Today I talk with Coach Rory Singer.  Rory is the younger brother of Coach Adam Singer and together they have run and coached MMA in Athens Georgia for several Decades. Rory is an UFC Vet and lifelong martial artist. In this convo we spoke about the expectations we have for new students entering the sport and particularly those who have the aspirations to fight at a high level. We...

Send us Fan Mail Emergence founder, NFL skills coach and MMA superfan Shawn Myszka joined me to discuss Strickland's win over Adesanya last week. As stated during intro. Must of this analysis is somewhat speculative given we are not privy to the innerworkings of both fighter's camps, preparation and day to day training methodologies. 

Send us Fan Mail Today I am chatting with Ed Ingamells . (Aka the Partybear). Ed is a black belt and coach at the Institute of Grappling in North London, UK. As a former Neuroscience PhD student, Ed has a deep understanding of cognitive psychology. Ed talks about his shift in recent years to a more ecological approach and how ecological psychology and direct perception make more sense to him from...

Send us Fan Mail Adam Singer joins me today to talk coaching, culture and continuing the SBG philosophy of aliveness through an ecological lens. 

Send us Fan Mail Today I am joined by Coach Josh Root from Gravitas Martial Arts in Arkansas. Josh has recently re-visited an Eco D approach to grappling after initially abandoning it due to uncertainty. With a deeper understanding and support from Standard's Greg Souder's, Coach Josh is not looking back and has been all in on the approach. Enjoying some early success he is starting to g...

Send us Fan Mail Professor Alan Dunton is back. Alan is a lecturer and researcher at MTU Cork, Ireland. With a PhD in Skill Acquisitor and having been a long time martial artist himself and a National TKD team competitor, Alan is well informed on both the theory and practical sides of the sport and training.  Alan and I discuss developing metastability.  Metastability occurs when an athlete is abl...

Send us Fan Mail In today's podcast, we're honored to have Jon Mackey as our guest, a celebrated coach in both Taekwon-Do and Kickboxing. With a career that began in 1987, Jon has trained numerous national, European, and world gold medalists in Taekwon-Do and Kickboxing, including Amy Wall, Lauren Bradshaw, and Robyn McDonnell. As the founder of Red Star Kickboxing and the National Direc...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I speak with Coach Ricky Pachon . A young  coach from Gracie Barra, Bondi Beach, Australia . Ricky leads a successful youth competition team and is himself an avid competitor on the Australian BJJ/Grappling scene. Recently a parent of a student of Ricky reached out to me to introduce him. Following several years of employing a high-repetition traditional approach t...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is the first of two interviews by Brian Willis of the Excellence in Training Academy. Brian reached out to both myself and Standard Jiu-jitsu's Greg Souders to talk about our application of Ecological Dynamics to Striking and Grappling respectively. With Brian's blessing he allowed me to share these interviews here on my podcast, given his interviews (over 3...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is the second of two interviews by Brian Willis of the Excellence in Training Academy. Brian reached out to both myself and Standard Jiu-jitsu's Greg Souders to talk about our application of Ecological Dynamics to Striking and Grappling respectively. With Brian's blessing he allowed me to share these interviews here on my podcast, given his interviews (over...