What is martial arts? Is it simply the practice of methods of violence? Or dancing around in costumes? What does it mean to you?

Today's special guest is my friend Roy Dean. You may know Roy from his Brazilian jiu-jitsu DVD's, online courses, YouTube videos, or books. Roy and I tried to connect for another ordinary podcast interview, but technology squashed our attempts and we ended up chatting for an hour anyway. This was serendipitous as we ended up on topics with the makings of a great podcast. Things often not talked about by black belt instructors in the martial arts. We linked up a week later and recorded this intriguing discussion for all of you. Join me today, as I welcome Roy Dean and we take you on a journey inside the minds of black belts.

I have a great first-time conversation for all of you today. I’m joined by Iain Abernethy, a karateka from the UK. Iain runs a popular YouTube channel known as PracticalKataBunkai, is the author of multiple books, and DVD’s, and travels the world teaching Karate.

Over the past year or two, many of you have reached out to me urging Iain and I to connect due to our similar approaches to the martial arts. Well it finally happened, and we have you to thank for this exceptional conversation. Thank you and enjoy.

Jerry Liu of 'Fight Commentary Breakdowns' & 'FC Chats' stopped by for a great discussion. Jerry runs some popular YouTube channels but has been a life long martial artist from Kung Fu as a kid, to Kempo, Muay Thai, and BJJ as he continues his journey. Join us as we go the rounds and attempt to change one another's minds, or agree on topics such as:

‘Teacher : Student' ratios in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Emotional Control and Sparring with Wild Partners

Concussions | CTE in Combat Sports

How to Spot Bad Self-Defense Courses

For this podcast my friend and BJJ Black Belt Stephen Kesting stops by to chat about his background in Judo, Kung Fu, and his eventual shift to BJJ. We also discuss the current state of BJJ, where it is heading, and wrap up with some technical advice for beginners and where to focus your efforts in BJJ early on. A great conversation that I know you will enjoy.

Stephen started his website grapplearts.com back in 2003 to share his passion for BJJ and help others learn through systematic practice and easy to follow instruction.

Today's podcast is with my good friend and martial arts aficionado, Sensei Ando of SenseiAndo.com, and Happy Life Martial Arts. We may very well have opened Pandora's Box here with this discussion. In his first appearance on my podcast, Sensei Ando and I discuss a variety of topics from fitness in martial arts, training failures, martial arts psychology, dissecting frogs, serial killers, bad teachers and whatever other manner of odd conversation that happened to introduce itself to this conversation. As always though, a rich and enjoyable conversation with Ando and something I'm sure all of you will enjoy.

Here are 5 tips to help you with setting up, and training martial arts (boxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, wrestling, judo, etc.) at home. Today I'll go over good training practices to make sure you stay with your training, ideal locations and how to adapt to what type of space you live in, types of heavy bags and how to size them, throwing dummies, grappling dummies, and type of mats you want to look for if you do any ground work/takedowns/grappling or wrestling.

Today I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Dr. Kate Kelly of Active Recovery Boston. Dr. Kelly has helped me work through a myriad of injuries over the past 10+ years. She is one of my first stops whenever I have something getting in the way of my training.

We had a great discussion on ‘What active recovery means', and how it can interplay with injury prevention and recovery; strategies to apply it, and why it is important to athletes and non-athletes alike. We also delve into the differences in training for women and men, and the affects of ageing on athletes and how we can keep training smart well into our twilight years. Join us for this excellent conversation.

Delve into the history of Chinese boxing, famous generals, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, UFC leg locks, gunpowder, and all things martial arts, as I interview Dr. Peter Lorge, author of Chinese Martial Arts from Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century. The second half we delve into General Qi Ji Guang, Sun-Tzu, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, teaching methods, and...INTERNAL vs EXTERNAL nonsense!

How to tackle and solve difficult problems we have in learning and practicing martial arts forms/kata/tao lu. Check out these tips I used to improve my own forms training that are found in the classic game of chess.