Aussie Grappling Girls

Our long-awaited AGIG Camp podcast is finally here! We go into meticulous detail about our experience at the camp. This includes our journey from Albany WA, all the way to Broken Bay Island NSW, where the camp was held. We did our best to chronologically regale the events of the weekend to give the most accurate account of the camp. Nearly 150 campers from all over, 6 female black belts, 2 UFC fighters, 4 seminars, 4 rolling sessions and about 15 hours of BJJ all together made for an epic experience. We hope you enjoy the podcast and we are sorry about the wait!

This week we discuss more in-depth about tech, specifically what we are currently working as well as past techniques/submissions that were our strengths and go-to moves. We tie this in with our current drive to revisit some basics and build on recent technical pursuits. Also in this episode is a discussion on introducing BJJ to family or friends, whether we have, will or would. The subject matter for this episode was something specifically requested from listeners that ended up being a very engaging talk. Thank you all for the feedback and please keep it up! 

This week we had the pleasure of talking to Nat Frankcombe, Australia’s first female 10th planet Brown belt! Hannah and Nat have had correspondence for 3 years and have never actually met, so it was their first opportunity to meet “face to face” - well via video call.  Nat discusses her past and current competitions, having done a number of super fights this year as well as discussing training and work balance, helping run and grow the 10th planet gym in Hobart, Tasmania.  Final Note: After a total rigmarole prior to calling Nat, we FINALLY got the audio settings sorted for our correspondence podcasts! This was a total win in our books. 

Ever had one of those sessions where you cop a beating? Reckon you cracked the shits worse than Hannah last weekend? Unlikely. Hannah goes over her dummy spit and also talks through her woes of gauaging her level against higher belts. We also talk training over Christmas break and celebrate our wins of the year. 

This weeks coaches podcast introduces you to Kyle Skiba. Black Belt from Perth WA and coaches for his club Legion 13 and affiliates. He’s trained under Roger Gracie in London and competed many times in both Australia and overseas. We chat to him about his coaching and competing experiences, his journey from White to Black, his coaching philosophies and inspirations. Oh, and yes he’s also Joh’s boyfriend.  We are also happy to let you know the audio quality is on point! Finally! 

Casual, short term, long term, friends and family feels. We detail our experience with relationships throughout our jiu jitsu journey. Relationship play a major role in everyone’s lives and when you enter a jiu jitsu, amazing bonds and relationships are formed, whether that be between friends or chemistry between two people - let’s face it, it’s going to happen. Hannah explains what it’s been like having a husband who doesn’t train and the challenges that arise with that. Joh talks about her experience with casual, short term and long term relationships with other BJJ people.  It’s definitely a podcast we felt could be relative to many listeners. 

Presenting to you all our coach Chris Mazzali!  Chris has had a very interesting journey in martial arts. Becoming a martial arts coach was always something he envisioned for himself and we’ve been so fortunate to have him as our mentor. While he didn’t start with BJJ first, it’s been the arts that he’s found husband place in, though he still incorporates many other martial arts and principals in the things he teaches us. There was so much we wanted to talk to him about that we couldn’t fit in to our time frame. We hope you enjoy our chat with him as much as we did.  While the chat seems to begin abruptly, please know we talked and laughed a whole lot of shit before the proper podcast began.  Enjoy! 

Our fortnightly catch up ended up a podcast of some random rambley chats. But in saying that we did both discuss how we are dealing with busy times and scheduling. We both have a lot going on and like everybody, you have to choose what you prioritise. Sometimes you have to give up somethings or give up free time. We talk competition break and upcoming things on the agenda. Hopefully you find it a good listen even if we talk some random stuff. 

Our first coach’s podcast! We chat with Jess Fraser, a female Black Belt based in Melbourne. She is the woman responsible for the amazing organization Australian Girls in Gi (AGIG), which you will have heard us talk about numerous times. We definitely got a great amount out of this chat, so hopefully it does the same for you listeners! We do have to apologise for the the quality of this recording. Turns out correspondence podcasting is very hard work and we haven’t quite figured it out yet. We hope you can still stick around and listen even though it’s not up to our usual standard.

So sometime you have everything planned out perfectly. Then life gets in the way... This ep we explain what has been going on with us.  Life has been a little hectic lately. We promise the season of the coaches is coming soon.

This is our pre-season podcast! Season two is coming up dubbed “Season of the Coaches” so this is our pre-season poddy to catch you all up on what’s been going on and what is to come. We also end up chatting normal poddy style, talking about things we’ve been working on in Bjj and all the general rabbit holes that pop up.

A bit of a random podcast, that came totally unplanned. We discuss the dojo dynamics including belt heirachy, respect and rapport between club memebers. We also talk about the influence of personalities on the gym and how it affects training. We touch on a few other subjects like hair and the influence of work and other life commitments.

So this episode we get to share the story of Joh's grading. The story is quite funny and I'm sure you will be laughing just as hard as we were. I am so proud of her for achieving this amazing milestone. We ended up on the subject of tights and what bjj training clothing we prefer. This episode we name drop the brands we wear. Hope you enjoy x  

This episode we chatted about our lack of motivation and how we have tried to deal with that. This lead us down the garden path of lots of other subjects. Hope you enjoy. 

This episode we chat about sharing tech and discuss our mentality on overcoming injury.  We have both been teaching classes lately and realise that we go about teaching in different ways to each other. Also recongnising our own learning style and just general tech tallk. Jo introduces us to the bullshit scale.  We get on the subjet of injury and how we have coped with recovery. Looking at injuries with a positive mindset.    

This week we discussed the prevalence of weight cutting in combats sport and it's effect on us throughout our journeys. We also touch on mental health and how it has contributed to some struggles. It is an important subject we wanted to discuss on this podcast at some time. We don't go into gory details but more open up about the role weight, depression, injury and other factors have had on our lives/BJJ. We hope you get something out of it, but as always we try to deliver this in a listener-friendly, lighthearted manner.

This episode was a reflection on our most recent competition. We both hit up the Australian Girls in Gi comp in Perth. We discuss the experience we had and chat generally about the event and other random things to do with our current training. One of those general discussion type podcasts.

This podcast was following an Instagram questionnaire, asking for questions and topics. We had a fair few who wrote in, so we covered what we could. This includes BJJ heroes/idols, addressing aggressive rollers, bullying and others questions. There may also be a tangent or rabbit hole or two! Please note in this episode, we give our personal opinions and in no way want to put forth that we are qualified to give professional advice or address it like we know everything. As always this podcast is our take on situations and is very subjective. We want to keep this podcast lighthearted, so we won't dwell on negativity either :) In saying that Joh does drop a couple of C Bombs in this episode so as always, language warning! 

This week we discuss the concept of "identity" in BJJ style. How do you identify yourself on the mat? We also talk about flow rolling versus competitive rolling and what place these type of rolls have in the dojo and to us at different stages of our journey.  

 In this episode, we touch on belts and belt promotions - What it means to us and what happens when other people get promoted. It's a sticky subject that people can either get hung up on or completely avoid but we are discussing it head on. We also discuss some goal setting and what we are currently working on to better our jiu jitsu. 

Ego - guys AND girls have this on the mat. This episode we talk about our experiences in struggles dealing with the ego of guys and girls on the mat AND our own ego. We are always told to leave our ego at the door but it rarely happens and still has a place in our learning and expression on the mat. 

In this episode we discuss open mats and competition. The various types of experiences you can have at both, the way we  these situations and some of the issues that arise.  We apologise for some of the audio quality faults in this episode !

Welcome to our very first episode! Here we will introduce you to the podcast, who we are and why we started this podcast series. We will also briefly touch on subjects we will be talking about throughout the season, which will always underline issues of the female grappling world specifically - but not exclusively! We hope you enjoy!   PS Language warning!