Johnny Yaps

In this episode I sat down with Cem Onur from Champ Mouthguards.

I always recommend that people who are getting into contact sports to have a fitted mouthguard.

Oddly enough, I had reached out to Cem a while back to do a podcast episode and it was a 'chance' meeting that allowed us to actually meet in real life to connect over business opportunities and to actually sit down and do this episode.

Shout out to Jesse from Legends gym who kindly lent us the space to do this.

I always find family dynamics to be something so intriguing, one of the beautiful things in life is the relationships we share with people and Cem has definitely got a special relationship with his mother.

I think this episode is also a great example how in life we're going to experience a range of careers - for Cem, logistics, real estate, finance and the dental prosthetics industries!

Anyway, enjoy!

Hi Everyone!

In this episode I sit down with Ali El Kheir from Sydney Wrestling Academy.

Ali also coaches one of my friends and teammates Gase Sanita (shoutout Gase!) and I remember years ago when lots of people in the Jiu Jitsu scene were talking about this blue belt on the scene.

As such, it was great to catch up to talk about a range of topics, from a talking parrot to family, his martial arts story as well as his upcoming match with Thalison Soares at the next Subversion event.

In an age where people are told to be 'all in' it's important to recognise that the 'what' we do in life should never be the 'first' thing in order of importance in our life.

Enjoy!

Links:

https://www.sydwrestling.com.au/

https://www.instagram.com/gingjitsu/

https://www.instagram.com/subversion_jiujitsu/

In this episode I sit down with Anthony Doueihi to chat about his experience traversing the Camino de Santiago with no training.

To put this in perspective, Anthony walked around 1200 kilometres on his pilgrimmage.

There's obviously a lot of time for reflection when you're walking long distances by yourself so it was nice to chat with Anthony after his return and having the opportunity to reflect on certain parts of his journey.

From working as a Pastry chef through to Remedial building, faith, gratitude there are so many themes in this episode that I enjoyed and I hope you enjoy it too.

Hi All,

It would be kind of difficult to summarise all the topics of discussion in this episode. However if you like listening to stories, random talk about Jiu Jitsu, discussions around teaching, competing and some fairly crazy tangents, well this episode is for you.

Shout out to Hayden Limebeer for a little cameo towards the end as well.

Note: I got it wrong in the podcast it was actually Kevin Kelly who talked about the 1,000 true fans idea (link below:)

https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/

Links:

https://www.instagram.com/jeremypaulskinner/

https://www.atomicdojo.com.au/

https://www.instagram.com/bobbysandhubjj/

https://app.athletesocean.com/members/bobbybjj/

https://www.instagram.com/frederickdaniel3/

https://www.instagram.com/grapplingeducation/

Hi Everyone!

In this episode I chat with Josh Majdalani aka Locomotion Massage as he does some work on me.

One thing I realised after doing this episode is how hard it is to maintain your train of thought when you're in pain, however it's a good pain that needed to get worked on anyway.

Josh is an interesting guy and despite appearances is a massive teddy bear who with the advantage of weight is able to do good work with his massage therapies.

That said, Josh's story of how he came to this point is even more interesting, having worked as a corrections officer before getting in trouble for a bad habit with the white stuff.

From getting in trouble to sorting through PTSD and reflecting on his own journey, I think it's important to accept certain things that have happened in your life as they put you in frame for the things in your future.

As such, regret is one of those things that whilst a valid emotion, it doesn't help you to grow as a person if you repeatedly hang onto it.

Anyway, I tried my best to edit out the dead moments in this episode so I hope you all enjoy it!

Links:

https://www.instagram.com/locomotion_massage/

https://grapplingeducation.com/performance/

https://www.instagram.com/joshie_trav/

Hi Everyone! In this episode Richy Walsh and I are in the car heading down to Canberra for a visit to an MMA gym, so it was a great opportunity for us to chat and record a podcast!

Apologies if the audio quality is a little different, I've tried my best to cut out all the background noise etc. (I actually find it a little odd trying to do a podcast without the microphone and the headphones on, but I'm trying to get better at it)

From fighting in the UFC to his work with the UFC Performance Institute, Richy has experienced some pretty amazing things and to be able to share his insights experiencing life after fighting is definitely something for all athletes to think about.

I'm really blessed to be able to spend time with not only great martial artists but just great people. This episode in reflection didn't really feel quite like a podcast and more like the kind of conversations Rich and I often have as we share ideas and perspectives on a whole range of issues.

There's something about getting to the tip of the spear in any given field that I think will resonate for a lot of people, enjoy!

Links:

https://www.instagram.com/richufc

In this episode I sat down with Sami Baki, a Jiu Jitsu Black belt, father, co-owner of Bankstown Martial arts.

I met Sami through commentating at one of the local MMA shows and I dropped in to visit him at Gracie Humaita Bankstown to chat.

Sami grew up as the middle child of 7 siblings and although it would be a fairly uncommon thing nowadays it was great to listen to him share his experiences growing up in a big family.

There's no shortage of stories in this one and it was great to listen to Sami share his experiences and also his thought process as things unfolded along the way.

Goal setting is also an important theme from this episode and Sami shares how approaching life in 5 year blocks allowed him to focus on Jiu Jitsu and subsequent life goals.

https://www.instagram.com/chewbakibjj/

https://www.bankstownmartialarts.com.au/

In this episode I sat down with Reid Reale - Director of Performance & Nutrition at the UFC Performance Institute in Shanghai, China during his recent trip to Australia to assist athletes for UFC 293.

Now if you're expecting a masterclass in weight cutting and nutrition for combat sports....

This episode won't be it, to be fair, Reid would have done more than his fair share of talking about nutrition and performance in other podcasts so the real takeaway on that front is that you simply can't overlook the basic pillars of eating good food, sleeping right and putting in the work.

If you did want to get these kinds of insights, you can find plenty of those resources in his published works here:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mXaxPcgAAAAJ&hl=en

Reid is widely considered an authority on the science of combat sports nutrition, however as you all know I'm interested in finding out the stories of how people actually end up where they are.

There's plenty of great stories in this one, so I hope you all enjoy it!

https://www.instagram.com/reidreale/

In this episode I sat down with Keller Locke-Sodhi of @grapplingeducation

I've built a bit of a relationship with Keller through Grapple Mania and Grappling education and part of the reason for us getting together was to talk about this idea he had to find some uniformity when we think of what 'distinction' would be in jiu jitsu.

I've always found Keller to be really thoughtful and always willing to invest himself to develop ideas to further the development of the sport. It was also interesting that despite us coming from polar opposite experiences in Martial Arts we have come to such similar conclusions.

I hope you enjoy this conversation!

Links:

https://grapplingeducation.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaENeSlNBt-vA5-kHY9DGWA

https://grapplingeducation.com/grapple-mania/

https://www.instagram.com/___kellerls__/

In this episode I chat with Meer Awny of Ethos Performance - a dedicated Strength & Conditioning facility for combat sports athletes.

Meer is a fairly intense guy, I think we nailed this down to his Kurdish heritage so it was interesting to chat with him and hear his experiences that led him to the pathway of focusing on S&C for combat sports.

Enjoy!

https://www.ethosperformance.com.au/

https://www.instagram.com/ethos.performance/