Our Great Coach on this episode is Matt Thornton.

Matt is a Brazilian Ju Jitsu coach, who has coached some of the greatest Mixed Martial Arts fighters in the world.

He is the founder of the Straight Blast Gym, where he has developed cross training in several martial arts as well as boxing and wrestling.

The gym now has over 50 affiliate academies located around the world.

Fighters he has coached include Randy Couture, Forrest Griffin, and Dan Henderson while he has also helped develop the careers of coaches like John Kavanagh and Karl Tanswell.

He is also a guest lecturer on philosophy and has recently published a book called The Gift of Violence: Practical Knowledge for Surviving and Thriving in a Dangerous World.

In this philosophical and insightful interview some of the highlights for me were:

•His core philosophy of Aliveness, which emphasizes training on timing, energy and motion through competing to deliver repeated experiments.

•The idea that you can't acquire meaningful skill in Brazilian Ju Jitsu without submitting 1000’s of times. And through this approach to testing and learning through failure you achieve progress

•And his belief that "frustration in the moment is almost always a useless emotion. So you run into a problem in a fight, or you run into a problem in a match. That's something that we're here to solve. That's a puzzle that will admit to a solution."

Here is the link to Matt's new book: https://amzn.asia/d/asci4hF

If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

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