This week we are excited to run an Ask Me Anything with Coach Simon Carson! Each week we will have a new coach take questions from members via our Facebook Members Only group. New to the club? You can join our group here.
You probably know Simon best from his 256th place finish in the Mongolian Wrestling Nationals. Outside of that, he is also a professional mixed martial artist, a brown belt in BJJ, registered Exercise Scientist, holds a Bachelor of Health Science (Human Movement) and of course he also founded this gym we all call home.
Also a Level 1 Olympic Lifting Coach, Simon has trained Olympians, World Champions in BJJ and State Champion boxers. His expertise is widely recognised, writing for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, and he has been featured on Nova and SEN.
Tyrell Woollcott – Big Boss, have you ever had a different profile picture Simon Carson? ?
This bad boy.
Stefano Seung Jin Lee – How did you get into MMA, and what made you open your own gym?
I got into MMA through first doing Boxing, then BJJ and then wanting to put it together. I started the gym mainly as wanted to make a place that was a really good place for me to train by making a good facility with everything I needed, including great coaches.
Trung Le – What did you learn in your past career that help you built AMMA? And how did you come up with the unique idea of Thailand for a seminar/holiday location gym? Also…what’s next?
Hey Trung, in terms of lessons from my past career in health and fitness, it was really trying to bring the service and facility standard across from that industry to Martial Arts (It was a bit more of a cottage industry 10 years ago). The Thailand gym came up as I liked training there, and it is of course the home of Thai boxing. It does not mean that there is not great coaches here for Thai boxing, but over there you can run with an instructor to student ratio of 3/4 to 1 which means everyone gets pads, and more individual instruction. In terms of whats next, it is just to continue to improve what we are doing already. We would only open another centre when we have more of our own coaches wanting to and ready to take the jump to being partners in a centre
Jack Nicola – After your dominant win in a big show like Battlefield FC…don’t you think you should continue?
Thanks Jack, but I am old and fat. More keen to help you young guys get to the top.
Reon Mahima – 1. What’s your story? 2. Who’s your top 3 MMA fighters? 3. How do you defend a NS/TBag kimura in an MMA rule set? 4. What’s your thoughts on KO’s in sparring? 5. Rank- pad work, roadwork, bag work, shadow, s&c, sparring, drills, situation.
1. My Story – My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a 15-year-old French prostitute named Chloé with webbed feet. My father would womanise; he would drink; he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament…My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon … luge lessons … In the spring, we’d make meat helmets … When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds — pretty standard, really. At the age of 12, I received my first scribe. At the age of 14, a Zoroastrian named Vilmer ritualistically shaved my testicles. When I was 18 I went to evil medical school. At age 25 I took up tap dancing. I wanted to be a quadruple threat: an actor, dancer, singer and mixed martial artist.
2. Top 3 Fighters (Current) DC, Alexander Volkanovski and Rob Whittaker.
3. N/S Kimura Defence – If done correctly, there is no defence (wearing no underwear and Thai boxing shorts).
4. KO’s in sparring should not happen. Only on rare occasions where accidental (harder) contact is made.
5. Ranking of pad work, roadwork, bag work, shadow, s&c, sparring, drills, situation. In my honest opinion, all these things achieve different outcomes so I dont think ranking one more important than the other is the right way to look at it.
Joshua Ber – Who’s your hero and why?
I don’t really have a hero that I look up to, but the fighter I respect the most would be DC. He conducts himself well both in and out the cage and seeks to test himself against the best at any weight.