The Strenuous Life Podcast With Stephan Kesting / Grapplearts Radio

Should you pull guard in BJJ competition or fight doggedly for the takedown.  You'll get some answers to this perennial question in my  conversation about pulling guard with BJJ black belt Rob Biernacki.

Loved talking to jiu-jitsu pioneer Carlos Machado about  all things BJJ.  His love for the art and experience in the sport comes through at every second.  I hope you get as much out of this interview as I did! Some of the highlights include 01:07 - Carlos on growing up in Jiu-Jitsu family 05:52 - BJJ comes into the mainstream 08:41 - Training with Rolls Gracie 11:07 - Style of the Machado game 13:03 - The continuing evolution of Jiu Jitsu   17:54 - Who are the most athletic Jiu Jitsu practitioners?   20:44 - Who has the deepest BJJ technical knowledge?   27:41 - What he thinks about the introduction of new techniques into Jiu-Jitsu   30:46 - Submission only competition formats ` 33:32 - Carlos's reflections on competing in Abu Dhabi   Find out more about Carlos Machado at carlosmachado.net

You wouldn't think that something like stretching before a workout could be controversial, but it is. Some evidence and experts suggest that you should only do it after your workout, whereas most traditions say that you should do it before.  Who's right and what should you do?  In this episode I break it down for you (hint, it really, really depends on the sport you do)!

The other day I almost tore a partner’s ACL off the bone, which would have required him to have surgery and many months of rehabilitation. What happened exactly? I was more experienced and a bit bigger than my training partner that day and we were doing some no gi sparring. Because of the experience discrepancy I was hyper-focusing on a couple of very specific positions, namely Ashi Garami and the 411. (This is a form of Targeted Sparring which is a great tool to use when you're going against less experienced training partners - by limiting myself to only a couple positions and one submission it makes the match more even and better training for both of us.) So we’re rolling, carefully and respectfully... I’ve tapped my training partner out a few times with heel hooks, all applied in slow motion...  He’s beginning to defend the leglocks more intelligently and I'm having to work a little harder to get them...  Everything is going the way it’s supposed to. Then it almost ended very badly. I had the Ashi Garami f

Today's episode comes from a Q&A session I did on Instagram live (@stephan_kesting) and gave the answers to a ton of BJJ and training topics including... 05:00 - When I started training BJJ 06:56 - Is BJJ ever going to make it into the Olympics 08:04 - Advice for remote learners without access to a school 12:33 - Teaching seminars? 13:19 - Grappling and submissions when there's a weapon involved 17:51 - Grapplearts leglock videos 19:01 - The leglock positional hierarchy 20:39 - Dealing with cauliflower ear 23:28 - What does my training look like? 24:51 - How powerful is the ankle lock, and what's the best leglock? 27:35 - Big man game vs small man jiu-jitsu 29:34 - Is it Ok to train at multiple schools? 31:38 - Is catch wrestling any good and do I use it? 33:39 - Custom rash gaurds 34:02 - What makes someone's game world class? 37:38 - Tips for facing larger opponents 39:55 - Strategies for people with bad knees 41:23 - Neck strengthening exercises 43:47 - Mapping out a training schedule Hope you enjoy th

This is a great episode with a ton of relevant and useful tips for combat athletes!  Jason C. Brown shares a ton of information about kettlebell conditioning for jiu-jitsu and other martial arts including the details of kettlebell form, competitions, and designing conditioning programs for different people with different goals. We also riff on old-school jiu-jitsu techniques and why they still work. Give it a listen and, as always, please share it with someone else if you think it'll be useful for them!     

It started so well!  First Rob Biernacki and I discuss The Last Jedi and training with ADCC champion Yuri Simoes and World Champion Caio Terra. Then things went off the rails and we pissed off leftists, rightists, geeks, lesbians, Marxists, trickle-down economists, liberals, Trumpists, systema practitioners, academics, flat-earthers and everyone in between!

What would the boxer Vasyl Lomachenko do if he caught you macking on his girlfriend? Well, I don't think it would involve any elaborate footwork or strategies... It's fun to make things complicated in training, to use setups, fakes, and elaborate combinations to beat your training partners.  But when it comes to street self defense you should keep things really, really simple. For more of my self defense material check out my second website at selfdefensetutorials.com and my second YouTube channel at YouTube.com/selfdefensetutorials

I think you'll really like this episode!  In it I talk with Alex Kask who is  a traditional Japanese Takeuchi-ryu Ju-Jutsu teacher but also no stranger to modern Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. We go deep into the techniques and history of traditional Japanese martial arts systems, including modern vs traditional training methods, the Japanese 'Warring States' period, historical challenge matches, the importance of wrestling in an environment with weapons and armour, and much more! Find out more about Alex at http://www.shofukan.ca/ Read the article we did together on Japanese Ju-Jutsu vs Submission Grappling here: http://www.grapplearts.com/submission-grappling-vs-classical-ju-jutsu-when-cultures-and-concepts-collide/ See Alex and I talk armbars vs knives here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUYWwutQrBE And check out how the Rear Naked Choke (RNC) might be applied differently in traditional Japanese Ju-Jujutsu vs BJJ here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL8ywtIOtfY    

I really enjoyed this chat with kiteboarder and extreme athlete Jack Rieder (in part because I'm dying to try kiteboarding myself).  Here's just a bit of what we talked about... 1:10 - What is kiteboarding? 6:47 - The disciplines of kiteboarding 13:57 - Other uses for kites 17:51 - Controlling the kite 21:28 - Injuries and risk 27:14 - Media and video process 30:36 - Training vs doing for high level performance 38:07 - The future of the sport 41:11 - The art of getting sponsored 

The Christmas binge is over and it's time to take control of your diet again!  In this short episode I give you my top five pieces of advice for cleaning up your diet and not sabotaging your training with crappy nutrition.

Matt Thornton is the founder of Straight Blast Gym, the organisation that produced Conor McGregor.  He's also a skeptic with many harsh words for traditional martial arts and traditional training methods.  Don't listen if you're easily offended!   00:51 - Matt's martial arts background 10:26 - The concept of "Aliveness" 20:41 - The "I" method of teaching and training martial arts 26:14 - John Kavanagh and Conor McGregor 32:37 - Where did fantasy martial arts come from? 42:55 - The evolution of martial arts 65:54 - False positives and negatives 73:26 - Skepticism 

Why training in the martial arts without including some form of grappling is stupid, and what are the key positions, techniques and transitions you need to learn first in order to get good as fast as possible.  If you already train then I hope this helps you, and if you don't train... well... I hope it's the kick in the butt that you need to get yourself onto the mat!

I really mean it: DON'T wait until New Year's Eve to start making the changes you know should happen! Waiting will only make things more difficult.  To prove my point I drag Genghis Khan, Julius Caeser, Georges S Patton, and Robb Stark from Game of Thrones into the argument. 

"When you retire, all you want those guys you worked with to say about you is: God, he was a good firefighter!" Loved sitting down with Battalion Chief of Training Ken Johnson (ret) to talk about recent breakthroughs in firefighting tactics, training probationaries, managing emergency scenes, the critical importance of your crew, the fun side of firefighting, whether someone should become a firefighter or not, and how to increase the chances of getting signed on.  Plus we talked ironworking, boxing, and more. Let me know what you think about this interview on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, OK?

Loved doing this massive Q&A!  What I did was take the time to more fully answer questions that I had first addressed in 140 characters on my first Twitter AMA (Ask Me Anything).  Follow me on Twitter where I'm @stephankesting so you can get in on the next Q&A session!  Here's what I talked about...    My cryotherapy experiment update - 01:13 The 3 most essential submissions (and why) - 07:09 Grappling dummies and should you use them - 09:59 Bad hygiene and etiquette on the mats - 13:23 Are there techniques big guys should avoid - 16:15 Should you do a takedown or pull guard? - 18:00 Essential training for beginners - 19:51 Gracie combatives - 24:15 Worst handicap I've seen someone overcome in training - 26:33 Making starting out in jiu-jitsu easier - 27:48 Red flags and problem people at gyms - 29:06 Should belt promotions cost money? - 30:11 Dealing with strong closed guards - 31:20 The types of guard for punch defense - 32:22 Easing pressure on the spine during guillotine submissions - 33:20 Are ne

I've known and trained with black belt Sean McHugh for 16 years, so I was super-stoked to have him on the podcast.  We covered a lot of important material including  How to train your training partners so that they can help you get better as fast as possible  Strategies for optimal post workout recovery  BJJ injury prevention and rehabilitation How the teaching of BJJ has evolved since the art was introduced to North America Beginner's teaching progressions, and should you let people spar on the first day of class? The dark side of MMA, including concussions, addictions, and lack of options after leaving the sport How to continue training when life is kicking the crap out of you And much more...

In this episode I share one of my best tips to get your butt on the mat or in the gym, indicators for when it's NOT time to push, as well as a cautionary tale of when an MMA training session went too far and I ended up bleeding from the kidneys! Also, I've got some really interesting podcasts coming up in the near future, and if you subscribe then you won't miss them!

Are takedowns important even though so few BJJ gyms teach them, and can you get away with never training them if your focus is competition?  And what about self defense?  This are questions I answered during an recent Instagram Live Q&A session - follow me on Instagram @stephan_kesting and maybe next time I'll be answering YOUR question!

In this episode I answer questions and share some tips and tricks for training in BJJ as an older grappler.  How often should you train?  How can you recover faster?  Should you also do weight training as an older athlete and more!  The questions came from an Instagram Live broadcast I did; follow me on Instagram @stephan_kesting and maybe next time I'll be answering YOUR question on one of these Q&A sessions.