MMA fighters are known to go to great lengths to learn the full range of skills and disciplines demanded by elite mixed martial arts. Many move away from home to train in specialist gyms. But relocating from the UK to Brazil for more than three years as a teenager is definitely not the usual route.
But that's what Liverpool's Darren Till did and he believes his MMA armoury is all the better for it. Not only did he learn some much-needed specialist groundwork skills, but he also survived a huge culture shock all on his own.
And as the welterweight revealed to ESPN, improving his skill set wasn't the only reason his coach, Colin Heron, sent him to Brazil. A near-death experience after being stabbed in a nightclub fight also made it abundantly clear he needed to get away from Liverpool.
"I was kicked out of school and my mum was on my case to get a job," Till told ESPN.
"I didn't care if I didn't make a career and a huge amount of money, I just wanted to do what I really liked.
"I was training a lot but mixing with the wrong crowd. I was in a nightclub and I got stabbed, I spent time in the hospital, chatted with my coach [who told me] 'if you want to continue fighting you've got to get focused'.
"If the knife had hit the nerve -- it was 1mm away -- I'd have bled to death. It hasn't made me the guy I am today, it just showed me that life can be taken away from you really quickly. Back then, it could have been my night to die there. Coach Colin said 'go there and when the time is ready I'll tell you to come back'. I just believe everything he says, so I went the week later.
"'Go to Brazil [he said] and let's see what can happen'. He trusted me to come back a UFC fighter."
Unsurprisingly, Till's move to South America was more challenging than he expected and he really struggled at first.
"It was overwhelming because I didn't know when I was coming back," said Till.
"I was in an apartment on my own. No one spoke English, so it was really hard to order food and go to the supermarket -- I realised I had to learn the language.
"I made a list about daily routine: Eat, gym, study Portuguese on Google translate, go training in the night and come back and do the same thing.
"I self-studied; just wrote words down that I thought I needed. I'd ask questions to people in the gym and in a few months Portuguese was just rolling off my tongue.
Although the language barrier was less of an issue in the gym than outside, his training partners posed a very different challenge.
"I was fresh blood. My groundwork wasn't the best -- Brazilians are black belts -- and I was getting tapped permanently.
"But gradually, as the months went by, I was ruining people and sparring.
"I was dedicated. A man on a mission, on a crazy mission. Nothing else to focus on. No distractions. Speaking to Colin every week made me more determined.'
"But I was also over there to teach them Muay Thai, my coach Marcelo wanted me to be the Muay Thai instructor.
"Through technique I was able to translate. I remember thinking 'I'm teaching you Muay Thai - I'm going to break every last one of yous'. Colin told me 'make sure you kill every one of them in the gym'".
And he believes he benefited hugely from all the specific groundwork training.
"The focus [was] a lot more on ground related [techniques]. A lot of rolling every day, submissions, grappling, a lot of technique. Good for me to be there. Training with legitimate black belts."
And despite his early struggles and being so far away from home Till is adamant he didn't get homesick.
"I didn't miss [any]thing. Now and then I'd speak to friends and my mum, but I wasn't pining to go back. I'm not the sort of guy to cry about hard times. I just got on with life."
Life by this time included having a baby which prolonged his stay -- but as he explained he would from the very beginning, coach Colin decided the time was right for Till to return to Liverpool around Christmas 2016.
"The time was right. Colin warned me I'd have to come back: 'You've got to make a big bang when you're back to training and fighting in the UFC. People are waiting for you, people have forgotten about you. It's been 18 months since your last fight -- you've got to make a big bang'.
"And I did. Came back and made big impact in 2017. Everything Colin has said has come true."
Till, now 25, won three fights in 2017, the last of which a very impressive knockout victory over celebrated fighter Donald Cerrone in Oct. 2017. For those who didn't already know about Till, this was the fight that made them sit up and take notice.
It is also the fight that prompted UFC to grant him headline billing on the first UFC event in Liverpool against an even bigger name in MMA, Stephen 'Wonderboy' Thompson, the No. 1 ranked UFC welterweight.
Till, 10 years younger than Thompson, is full of pride and excitement at the impending Liverpool Echo Arena fight this Sunday. He knows that a win over Wonderboy could bring a title shot for Till.
Quite the journey from that teenage boy who turned up in Brazil unable to speak the language and hold his own in the gym.
Looking back now, how does he think his experience in Brazil changed him?
"[I came back] four years older", he jokes. "Ended up having a baby, which was main reason to stay there. The Till that came back was more mature, [with] more of a different outlook on the world."