WATCH: John Kavanagh discusses his journey from karate novice to the coach of UFC’s elite

Outsiders might often have a certain idea in their heads about the world of MMA.

One word out of John Kavanagh's mouth is enough to turn that prejudice on its head. The SBG owner and head coach is as soft-spoken as he is wise and he, quite simply, is in love with martial arts. Kavanagh shot to global fame when one of his star pupils, Conor McGregor, burst onto the UFC scene in 2013 and he's since seen other students like Cathal Pendred, Paddy Holohan and Aisling Daly go on to carve out their own careers in the world's biggest MMA promotion. Ireland's first BJJ black belt owns a wealth of experience in martial arts and provided an eye-opening interview to Form.ie for a project entiteld "1 of 6." The interview explores areas as wide-ranging as what first drew him to martial arts and how being beaten up as a youngster led to him becoming more interested in perfecting the art of self-defence.

"I was really badly beaten up at around 18 and it made me question what way I had been training that I wasn’t able to defend myself. It made me revaluate things as I was actually almost killed. I started looking around and trying a few different martial arts and then I saw UFC 1. That was the big moment in my life, really. I thought it was fascinating. It was very raw; there were no gloves, and there was this small slender Brazilian guy [Royce Gracie] who beat everyone. That was it. I wasn’t sure how, but I knew then I was going to do this for the rest of my life. "

Check out the full interview below. project1of6: John Kavanagh from Form Design on Vimeo.