The Sonny Brown Breakdown

In this episode, I talk to Alexander Volkanovski. Alex is the current UFC featherweight champion. We discuss what it was like as an amateur athlete rising through the ranks of Australia to become the UFC champion and how he was able to get valuable training with partners of all different abilities. Also, the mentality he adopted to help drive and motivate him to the top by building resilience and...

I talk to Adisa Banjoko aka Adisa the Bishop. He is the creator of the Hip Hop Chess Federation, Author of a book titled Bobby, Bruce and the Bronx and host of the Podcast called The Bishop Chronicles. The Hip Hop Chess federation combines the arts of Hip Hop, Chess and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and teaches positive life strategies to at-risk and incarcerated youth. We discuss how he formed the HHCF fro...

In this episode, I talk to Jon Fitch. Jon was the World Series of Fighting Welterweight Champion, Has fought for the UFC title against George St Pierre and also fought for the Bellator title against Rory Macdonald which went to a draw. He has also written an autobiography called Failing Upward/Death by Ego and hosts his podcast called Jon Fitch Knows Nothing. We discuss how he got into fighting an...

I talk to Greg Nelson, who was the coach for UFC champions Brock Lesnar, Sean Sherk and Rose Namajunas. He is a 4th Degree BJJ Blackbelt, Division 1 Folkstyle Wrestler, All American Gymnast and Muay Thai kickboxer along with multiple other martial arts. We discuss how he creates a positive culture in his gym while utilising visualisation, affirmation and building relationships. How this also contr...

I talk to Brian Ebersole, a veteran of over 70 MMA fights, including a memorable run in the UFC. We discuss his early beginnings in the American scholastic wrestling system and the competitive mindset that helped to produce. The start of his fight career which includes training with American Kickboxing Academy, Frank Shamrock and leading all the way to the UFC and finally, how chaos theory, math a...

I talk to Bruce Hoyer. He coaches out of a small town in Dakota that has produced 7 UFC fighters and uses innovative teaching strategies including the flipped classroom model of instruction. The flipped classroom is an instructional strategy that has the students study the techniques at home on YouTube and then come into class ready to drill. We discuss his use of this teaching model in-depth, usi...

I talk to Dr Ian Dunican, a sleep researcher who has worked with elite combat sports athletes at the Australian Institute of Sport on strategies to help optimise sleep, recovery and performance and who is himself a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner and Ultra-Marathon Runner. We discuss sleep cycles, optimising training load and dealing with night time jitters after a workout and sleep tracking gadg...

I talk to Matt Lindland, the head coach of the USA Greco Roman wrestling team, Olympic silver medalist & MMA Pioneer. We discuss his experience coaching wrestlers from a folkstyle background and how to alter their risk-taking intuitions to suit Greco roman. How coaches can simplify their coaching to help their athletes learn more and a lot faster How failure and questioning athletes can help them...

I talk to Brandon McCaghren or B-MAC from 10th Planet Decatur, Alabama. We discuss his start travelling from his home town to train with Eddie Bravo in LA and the value of constraints vs operating in the wild. How the innovative 10th Planet "Hot Box" system and the warm-up routines and patterns have helped it grow and establish itself. Also, building positive club culture and the martial value of...

I talk to Rory from RVV BJJ, who takes a methodical approach to explain the science behind your jiu-jitsu. He explains the critical principle of alignment which breaks down into posture, structure and base. An innovative drilling method known as "*F*YJJ". He also discussed various ways to maximise training time and why beginners should NOT train closed guard. Finally, he explains how low percentag...

I talk to Andy from School of Grappling. We discuss how systems theory, complexity and chaos can be underlying forces in your grappling training but how misunderstanding systems can be a frequent occurrence in Jiu-Jitsu. Then why attempting to build the perfect, all-encompassing grappling system is doomed to fail before you even begin and how intuition could help to patch the leaks providing you c...

I talk to Wim Deputter who is Belgium based Black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. We discuss how Jiu-Jitsu is a principle that means a Boxer could be doing Jiu-Jitsu, but you could be a BJJ player and not be doing Jiu-Jitsu. How Wims "Mirroring Principle" is an algorithm and fundamental movement rule that guides BJJ, MMA, Striking and self-defence situations. How constraints placed on any art will de...

I talk to Jake Shannon who is the founder of Scientific Wrestling and The King of Catch Wrestling Tournaments. We discuss how the history of submission grappling can trace its roots back to bored English miners who loved to gamble, how Japanese MMA emerged out of the theatrical and entertainment-driven world of professional Wrestling. The moment a quirky, professional wrestler bested the most famo...

I talk to Daniele Bolelli who is a writer, martial artist and a university professor. He is the host of multiple podcasts including the Drunken Daoist podcast and the History on Fire podcast. He has also authored many books such as "On the Warrior's Path: Philosophy, Fighting, and Martial Arts Mythology" and "Not Afraid: On Fear, Heartbreak, Raising a Baby Girl, and Cage Fighting". Here we discuss...

I talk to Luke Martin from Sydney West Martial Arts. Luke is an instructor I have personally trained with, and for the last few years, he has been pursuing ways of bringing the world-class Danaher grappling system into his gym. Despite being based on the other side of the world, for years he has taken weekly online private lessons with Jason Rau and gives many practical tips on how he has been abl...

In this episode, I talk to Andy from the School of Grappling. The School of grappling Instagram and website has many great articles that look at statistics of MMA and ADCC grappling exchanges and how to use systems and heuristics to improve your grappling training. Here we discuss his fascinating ideas about teaching and developing intuition/instincts for grappling.

I talk to Priit Mihkelson of 3D Treening in Estonia. He is a BJJ Black Belt under SBG founder Matt Thornton and has done many seminars for the BJJ Globetrotter organisation. We discuss his unique approach to teaching jiu-jitsu in a style he describes as "Functionalistic Minimalism" which looks at fundamental positions rather than the lock flows we are used to seeing demonstrated.

In this episode I talk to Jahred Dell of ArticulateBJJ.com where he writes excellent articles about the art, sport and lifestyle of Brazilian jiu-jitsu wi and who also happens to be a high school teacher and we discuss his thoughts on the crossovers between teaching a class of high school students and jiu-jitsu students.