How irresponsible! What Negligent coaching! What a McDojo! These are all critiques we would have jumped to before, and of course can still be valid. But we think differently now.   Our rational:   Sparring is a skill that needs to be developed over time. Effective, safe, fun, controlle...

Can we be better at getting better? This is a question we consistently ask ourselves at Primal. This series of short video animations, introduces concepts and principles from the sport science research and their practical implications for practicing and developing in Mixed Martial Arts. With help...

To our Primal people.     What is a good training culture?   I believe, that underlying every gym training culture is a consensus. A commonly shared set of beliefs, expectations, ideals and behaviors. It is a vibe that should be apparent nearly immediately when someone enters the env...

A few years back, I would have likely flat out denied using YouTube as a coaching resource. Afterall, regurgitating online tutorial content to students doesn’t exactly lend credibility to a coach. Before the age of YouTube, finding techniques and activities to incorporate into practice required...

A few years ago, I read Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers. Gladwell helped popularize the ‘10,000-hour rule’, an average number of hours required to achieve elite level mastery within a domain. This ‘rule’ can be attributed to Swedish professor Anders Ericsson, and his 1990’s research into pra...

Given the references to ‘science’, I'll scatter throughout my blog posts, I wanted to know what exactly the definition of a scientist is. The British Science Council defines a scientist a ‘someone who systematically gathers and uses research and evidence, making a hypothesis and testing it, to...