Madison Murphy

Madison Murphy — known within the academy as "Madi" — began training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at Fightworx Academy at around twelve or thirteen years of age, joining a junior programme that quickly became central to her development as both an athlete and a person. Training under head instructor and black belt Darren Yeoman, she found her most immediate influence in Vikki Todd, who led the junior programme at Fightworx. As of July 2016, with approximately one and a half years of training behind her, Madi held a yellow belt with two tabs — a rank that already understated the competitive results she had begun to accumulate.

In a 2016 interview with Jiu-Jitsu Style (Issue 30), she spoke warmly about the environment at Fightworx, describing it as a friendly setting with brilliant teachers and teammates whose support helped her grow both technically and personally. She credited BJJ with a meaningful shift in her confidence: "BJJ has made me much more confident in myself and it has taught me not to be afraid to put myself out there." That combination of personal growth and technical development made Fightworx a formative home for her early years in the sport.

Few junior competitors enter their first tournament and win a national title — but that is precisely what Madison Murphy did. After only a couple of months on the mats, she entered her first competition and won the Junior National Championships in March 2015, defeating more experienced opponents in what she later described as her biggest achievement at that stage of her career. The result announced her as one of the most naturally gifted junior grapplers in the UK.

She followed that debut victory by winning the Junior National Championships again in 2016, cementing back-to-back national titles and establishing herself as a consistent force in UK junior competition. In the same Jiu-Jitsu Style interview, she cited that second national title as her most memorable competitive moment. Her preparation was notably rigorous for her age: when building toward tournaments, she trained every day, stepped into adult classes alongside junior sessions, and added circuit training and gym work to develop physical strength.

Perhaps her most closely contested result came at the British Open, where she reached the final only to face Kasey Lyon — a training partner and Fightworx teammate. With both athletes intimately familiar with each other's games, she described it as an evenly matched, hard-fought battle and the toughest competitive experience of her junior career to that point.

Even in the early stages of her BJJ development, Madison Murphy demonstrated a clear technical identity built around dynamic guard play and active submission hunting. In the 2016 Jiu-Jitsu Style interview, she identified the De la Riva Guard as her preferred guard, drawn to the wide variety of sweeps, back-take entries, and attacking options it provides. Rather than treating it as a defensive platform, she approached it as a launching point for offensive sequences — a distinction that separates guard players who react from those who control.

Her favourite submission, the Kimura, complemented that philosophy directly. She described hunting the kimura from every position rather than reserving it for specific setups, reflecting a submission-first mindset applied across the entire match rather than in isolated moments. Together, her preference for De la Riva and the kimura pointed toward a grappling style rooted in guard retention, fluid positional transitions, and relentless pressure toward the finish. That foundation, built across approximately five training sessions per week — Tuesdays through Fridays and Sundays — gave her the technical base upon which her subsequent progression would be built.

Since her early years as a decorated junior competitor, Madison Murphy has continued to develop within the Fightworx Academy community, progressing to purple belt and taking on an integral role within the academy's coaching team. Her advancement through the belt system reflects years of sustained training and competitive commitment well beyond the yellow belt she held as a teenager in 2016.

Her involvement in coaching began remarkably early — as a 14-year-old yellow belt, she was already helping to run the kids class on Tuesday evenings. That instinct to contribute to the gym community has since grown into a substantive coaching role, with Murphy supporting the development of students across age groups and experience levels.

The path she has followed mirrors, in many ways, that of her own primary influence at Fightworx. Vikki Todd, who led the junior programme during Murphy's formative years and whom Madi praised in 2016 for her effort, dedication, and willingness to go above and beyond for her students, was promoted to BJJ black belt in 2021. Todd's continued leadership of the junior programme — now at black belt level — provides an enduring model for the kind of dual commitment to competition and community that Murphy herself has embraced. The values Murphy articulated as a teenager — contributing to the gym, helping others grow, building something beyond individual results — find direct expression in the coaching responsibilities she carries today.