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 learn, his time coaching BJ Penn for his MMA fight against GSP and what BJJ can learn from wrestling ..read more

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 determine what that art can become and how constraining beginners to focus on control and then to allow controlled chaos can be the best way for them to develop. Wim is a life long martial artist also f ..read more

I talk to Luke Martin, a Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt who runs Sydney West Martial Arts. He recently switched his academy from a mix of gi and no-gi training to only no-gi for adults. We discuss how he feels the culture of no-gi jiu-jitsu is progressing and John Danaher's influence on the sport and himself. We also discuss how he views the impact of external vs internal effects on the grappling culture ..read more

I talk to Luke Martin, a Jiu-Jitsu coach currently preparing his athletes for the ADCC world championships out of the New Wave Jiu-Jitsu camp in Texas with John Danaher, Gordon Ryan, Gary Tonon, Nicholas Meregali and the rest of the New Wave ADCC competitors. In a special emergency broadcast edition of the Sonny Brown Breakdown podcast, he gives us a rare insight into what that experience is like and how John Danaher prepares his athletes for the biggest competition in grappling ..read more

I talk to Sam Kressin, a Black Belt in BJJ who also trained extensively with catch wrestling legend Billy Robinson. Sam is also a talented visual artist who holds a degree in exercise and sports science. We discuss how he came to find jiu-jitsu and catch wrestling in his martial arts journey and his time spent training both, and the process of combining them. He also coaches grappling and runs catch wrestling workshops for Scientific Wrestling and gives an excellent insight into his coaching philosophy ..read more

I talk to Jeremy Skinner, a Jiu-Jitsu black belt, coach & competitor who recently won the ADCC Oceana trials, which will see him compete at the 2022 ADCC World championships. We discuss his preparation for competition while managing his coaching responsibilities and how he can determine quality in jiu-jitsu instruction and teaching. We also discuss his thoughts on current competition formats and how he feels a shift to a more team-based competitive format will lead to the technical evolution of the sport ..read more

I talk to Rob From McDojoLife. Rob has been a lifelong martial artist with a black belt in Karate and a Purple Belt in Jiu-Jitsu. McDojo life has a massive social media presence that you have likely seen before where it exposes fakes, frauds and phoneys of the martial arts industries. We discuss the elements that make a McDojo, the warning signs and dangers of fake martial arts, and how you can avoid these as a student and coach.    ..read more

I talk to Lachlan Giles about his instructional style. He experimented with using the reverse classroom model to teach jiu-jitsu which involves students watching videos before attending class and then directing portions of their training over what they want to learn. We discuss this experiment, his thoughts and readings on skill acquisition in general for grapplers, and the launch of his new online learning platform Submeta.  ..read more

I talk to Richy Walsh, A veteran of The UFC & The Ultimate Fighter who now works as an MMA Coach at the UFC Performance Institute in Shanghai, China. We discuss the goals of the UFC P.I, how they run the MMA Combine & scout for new talent and the running of a fight camp. He also explains the periodisation of MMA Skills training and his thoughts on applying the same process for mental training. Lastly, how he game plans and breaks down footage for the athletes and runs the professional sparring sessions ..read more

In this episode of The Sonny Brown Breakdown, guest Scott Sievewright discusses his ecological approach to coaching martial arts. Sievewright emphasises the importance of live, unscripted sparring from day one to build relationships and develop skills, arguing that traditional techniques taught in isolation do not effectively transfer to real-life fighting situations. Sievewright believes his method can produce better, more skilled fighters compared to traditional approaches by developing movement repertoire and qualities through live, games-based play sparring. He highlights the role of sparr ..read more