Today we had the privilege of meeting up with Jiu-Jitsu black belt Kevin Corkhill. Owner of Precision Combat Academy, based in Liverpool. On February 26th, he takes on Mikey Musumeci in the Under 60kgs bout, on the main card of Grapplefest 11.
First of all, it’s worth mentioning how down to earth Kev is. We spent a few minutes getting to know each other and then went into the interview.
Kev says that competing in Liverpool, he has the home game advantage, but when he’s on the mat.
”It’s just another day, when I’m in there, it’s just me and him…”
Under 60kg is quite light, but Kev believes that if you are blaming things like your weight or strength, as the reason you lost – you’ll never be good at Jiu-Jitsu.
We turned to the conversation of competing. Kev explains that he’d rather do shows than competitions, with shows being more consistent when being on time and being professionally run.
Kev’s Philosophy on Jiu-Jitsu
Kev mentions that there are 3 main things that all martial arts have in common:
- What we can actually apply and do in the gym
- What we can actually do in a live situation/competition
- What our idealisation of it (what we ideally would love to do)
”The reality of it is that you are almost always somewhere in the middle. If I could make my Jiujitsu just my idealisation, it would be me, taking you down, me passing your guard, you rolling over me and me choking you…But it’s not like that, it might be like that in the gym, but it’s not like that in competition…you need to keep out there and train with different people, you get your ego checked, it’s very easy for your ego to get lost in this game and think you’re amazing…that’s how I got good to start with, you need to be self critical…’
The Future for Kev Corkhill
I asked what the future holds. Currently buzzing that everyone is back in the gym and said that his main dream is to get people as excited about Jiu-Jitsu as he is. Suppose he achieves that, the job is done. He also said he’d either beat Mikey and become Jitsu famous or won’t. In which case, he’ll keep training and look forward to the next big name that comes his way.
We wish Kev nothing but the best for the future. We’re really looking forward to this matchup. He went on to say that if you’re ever in Liverpool, he wants to show his heart, so come down, get on the mats, and let’s roll!
Who have you got winning this? Who else will you be looking out for on Grapplefest 11? Have you got our tickets yet? Get yours by clicking here.
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Featured image credits to Kev Corkhill
