#21 - Margot Ciccarelli

Margot Ciccarelli was born and raised in the London, United Kingdom, but has been based between New York and Hong Kong in most recent years. She has studied martial arts for 20 years within Chinese martial arts, Kendo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. She is currently a brown belt under Murilo Santana at Unity Jiu jitsu (New York City) and commonly known as one of the most active nomadic competitors as well as travelling coaches. She has a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering (Imperial College) and divides her time around the world training and teaching jiu-jitsu. Her current movement practice is a blend of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, contemporary dance and house dance. She is also the founder of Nomadic iD and current passion project is around the topic of classroom design and pedagogy in jiu-jitsu as well as curating better learning experiences both online and offline. During this conversation, Margot and Kyle commiserate on the last 6 months of lockdown, and what that has meant for teaching and practice. Margot shares about her multi-level passions of athlete, artist, and teacher. She also discusses her thoughts on, and approaches to, creativity and transferable skills. And, she talks about teaching, and her desire to not just teach technique, but give students the tools to learn.