# Jeremy Skinner

> Black Belt | Australia

## Overview

**Name:** Jeremy Skinner

**Belt Rank:** Black Belt

**Nationality:** Australia

**Gender:** Male

**Weight:** 77 kg


## Bio

Jeremy Paul Skinner was born on September 1, 1995, in Auchenuflower, a city located in the Australian state of Queensland. Although born in Queensland, Skinner spent the majority of his formative years in Australia’s East Coast, in Newcastle – New South Wales.

Growing up Jeremy was an avid football (soccer) player, a sport he started at the age of 6. Skinner played competitively for 7 years under the tuition of John Manners at the Kincumber Roos Football Club.

As a 15-year-old, Skinner discovered his love for martial arts. Starting his life in combat sports through chitokai karate (chito-ryu) for a short period before shifting his focus towards jiu-jitsu in 2011, age-16. A move strongly based on the success certain grapplers were having at the time in mixed martial arts, more precisely in UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) events, which Jeremy followed closely during his teens.

Skinner’s first instructor was Sean Kirkwood, a black belt under John Will, who awarded Jeremy his blue belt. From there the young Aussie athlete went on to work with Luke Beston, the head coach of a  Royce Gracie  affiliate at the time.

During his early years of grappling tuition, Jeremy was almost exclusively focussed on gi work, it was only after watching American jiu-jitsu star  Eddie Cummings  compete at the EBI 4 tournament that Skinner started gaining interest for no-gi and lower limb submissions in particular. This new curiosity for this style of grappling was greatly reinforced by Jeremy’s, Mr. Beston, who incentivized the young athlete to pursue this route.

As a purple belt, Skinner went up against Absolute MMA athlete, Mikael Yahaya. After the match, Yahaya convinced Jeremy to visit Melbourne to train at AMMA with Mikael’s head coach,  Lachlan Giles . Once in the State of Victoria, Jeremy was greatly impressed with the level of training there and with the fact that a few of the local athletes were earning a living through jiu-jitsu. Understanding the level of commitment required to make it at the highest level in the sport, Jeremy opted to move to the state and train full-time at Absolute MMA.

Skinner earned both his brown and black belts from Giles, the latter in April 2020.
## Specialties

- k-guard & footlocks
## Achievements

- 1st Place ADCC Oceania & Asia Trials (2022)
- 1st Place IBJJF Pan Pacific Championship (2018 purple)
- 1st Place AJJC Australian Championship (2019 brown)
- 1st Place AGC 77KG Championship (2019)
- 3rd Place ADCC Japan Trials (2019)
- 4x Grappling Industries Champion (2018-2019)
## Lineage

- John Simon
- Lachlan Giles (Black Belt)

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**Last Updated:** September 09, 2026

**Data Source:** bjj.space (https://bjj.space/people/jeremy-skinner)