The Strenuous Life Podcast with Stephan Kesting

Today's conversation with Marcio Pie was a blend of two of my favorite topics: the science of biology and the science of BJJ.  Marcio is a professor of zoology at UFPR and practices Jiu-Jitsu in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil 01:17 - Introduction to evolution 06:20 - Runaway selection 09:44 - Jiu-Jitsu strategies 14:28 - Evolutionary stable strategies 18:09 - The prisoner's dilemma 21:41 - Evolution app...

Mike McCastle set a new world record on Jan 23, 2021, immersing himself in ice for 2 hours and 40 minutes and surviving! He joined me on Episode 323 of The Strenuous Life Podcast to talk about this absolutely insane challenge including The physical preparation and mental strength required to it off, The limits of the human body, Tummo (inner fire) breathing and visualisation, How 'normal' people c...

What exactly is herd immunity? How can we be sure that the vaccine companies aren't lying to us?  What is this 'R0' value and why does it matter? What are the proven methods to stop outbreaks?  Are what are the reasons for hope? These are just some of the topics I cover on today's podcast with Colin Furness, PhD, a epidemiologist at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Univer...

Priit is a renowned BJJ black belt who has taught his style of defensive jiu-jitsu to thousands of people through his classes, seminars and instructionals.  He is known for his unusual approach to teaching jiu-jitsu and is famous for structuring classes in such a way so that people come away from them with the techniques and concepts they can actually use right away.  In addition we covered the to...

Today I talk with Dr Nicholas Tyau, a BJJ Black Belt and internal medicine specialist who was working in NYC hospitals during Covid Ground Zero in 2020.  We discuss the 5 key factors you need to consider after you've been vaccinated but before you decide to return to normal training, including... 1) Local hospital and ICU occupancy rates 2) Test positivity rates in your community 3) Vaccination ra...

Brandon Morgan is a high level powerlifter who trains, coaches and competes out of the Kabuki Strength gym in Portland Oregon.  In this episode we go deep into strength training and conditioning for combat sports drawing on his personal experience as a wrestler and training MMA athletes to be bigger, stronger, faster, and more injury resistant. Follow Brandon on Instagram at @bmorg33 and at @kabuk...

Nini Munoz PhD has a very strong background in risk and failure analysis, and statistical process.  She has used these skills and a background in biology to make the science around the Covid-19 pandemic easy to understand and digest on her amazing Instagram feed at https://www.instagram.com/niniandthebrain/ I think you'll enjoy our conversation about risk, science, and who to believe. Take care, S...

In this episode I'm joined by pro-wrestler Tad Murphy to talk about the legendary wrestler Karl Gotch.    Karl Gotch was a German-Hungarian wrestler born in Belgium who trained at the infamous 'Snake Pit' in Wigan, England, then competed in the United States and then taught several generations of pro-wrestlers in Japan.    His influence is the common link between just about every major Japanese MM...

Regardless of whether you want to fight in MMA, work as a cop, or just be effective in self defense you have to know how to function in a stressful environment.  Today with Jeff Quail MSc we dive into the physiology of the fight or flight reflex, stress exposure training, the balance between training safety and realism, the c arryover between combative sports and policing and much more.     Jeff Q...

Two of the best ways to develop your guard are gripfighting and kuzushi. Today I talk with Rob Biernacki about these rarely taught critical skills and how to develop them. Go to https://www.grapplearts.com/gripfighting for more info! Cheers, Stephan Kesting

Why some competitors excel at competition and others don't, hero worship in BJJ, and how to succeed at BJJ partnerships with Andrew 'Goatfury' Smith.   Andrew is a 3rd degree black belt who runs Revolution BJJ ( https://revolutionbjj.com/ ) in Richmond Virginia and helped found the US Grappling competition circuit.   Please leave a rating and a review of this podcast if you can - it really helps!...

Today I chat with Dan "TrumpetDan" Lukeheart from Brea Jiu-Jitsu in Orange County about the steps he's taken to keep his school open in a responsible manner during the Covid-19 pandemic, how to improve your BJJ skills during a training layoff, and how to win more matches in tournaments.  Check out Dan's school at http://breajiujitsu.com/ The video form of this conversation is available on Youtube...

Your health is like a credit card.. You can definitely put things onto your credit card once in a while.  You can even use a credit card to help bridge the gap when you're short on funds. But sooner or later you need to pay it off. But if you keep on making withdrawals against your card without ever putting money back into it then you're going to end up in serious trouble. Your health is the same...

Dr Chris Moriarty is a medical doctor and a former high level black belt BJJ competitor. In this episode we talk about the rapidly evolving situation of covid vaccines, viral variants, and what it means for training jiu-jitsu and martial arts in general.  Dr Moriarty has been instrumental in creating guidelines to make BJJ training during a pandemic safer (available at https://www.grapplearts.com/...

Today I talk with Matt Kirtley, better known to many as 'Aesopian', about Changes to jiu-jitsu culture, Crazy martial arts cults, Channeling of ancient spirits, How we can get more out of drilling, Red flags that you're in a jiu-jitsu cult And much more I met Matt ages ago when he published step-by-step breakdowns for the reverse omoplata and the rolling crucifix attack on a forum which I then rep...

How leglocks and leglocking strategy have changed in the last 20 years. As they say for TED Talk Podcasts, this presentation contains powerful visuals and can be viewed at https://youtu.be/9mF_YtLOVI4   I recorded this while editing the Oliver Taza No Gi Leglocks instructional which is now available at https://www.grapplearts.com/taza. Much of the terminology I use comes from The Modern Leglock Fo...

BJJ black belt and entrepreneur Elliott Bayev on the ability to test new ideas in jiu-jitsu, how the basics change over time, how to use jiu-jitsu in sales and running a business, and much more.   Follow Elliott on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/elliottbayev/ .     And you can find me (Stephan) on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/stephan_kesting/ and on Twitter at https://twitter.com...

Jules Evans studies the history of ideas and was the perfect person to help me understand the abundance of insane conspiracy theories on BOTH sides of the political spectrum right now. We discuss why there are so many lizard people in tunnels, why  many Nazi leaders held new age beliefs, how BLM resembles a religion, and why BJJ is such a fertile breeding ground for conspiracy thinking in 2020 and...

Daniel Goldberg is a medical historian, a public health ethicist, a lawyer and has practiced BJJ for 8 years. It was great to have him on the podcast to talk about the course of the Covid-19 pandemic and when we might be able to get back to normal.   00:50 - Introduction to Daniel Goldberg 06:09 - On the difficulty of persuading the unpersuadable 08:02 - How the current pandemic has many historica...

2020 has been a hell of a year, but better times are coming soon, so it's time to get our collective asses into gear. In today's podcast I'll take you through the 7 mental hacks I've successfully used to punch on through to the other side and that I'm going to develop and keep my momentum in 2021 as well! The second half of today's podcast was recorded during my 1000 mile solo in the arctic (go to...

How to get better at predicting what your opponent is going to do, develop faster reactions and train your intuition with Rob Biernacki.  Check out Rob's Submission Formula instructional in which you'll learn how to make all your chokes, armlocks and leglocks much tighter and much more effective: https://www.grapplearts.com/submissionformula

Today I talk with pro-wrestler Tad Lincoln Murphy about catch wrestling in early American circuses, the development of luta livre in Brazil, Shootwrestling in Japan, and how one trains to becomes a pro wrestler in the first place!   Follow Tad the wrestler on Instagram at @tadwrestler or in his customer success career at @lincolnmurphy   And if you could find it in your black little heart to leave...

01:32 - Qualifications of epidemiologists Dr Katrine Wallace and Madeline Lewis 04:42 - Is COVID-19 actually 99.5% survivable? 06:33 - What are the current best estimates of the COVID-19 infection fatality rate and case fatality rates? 10:00 - How important are IFR and CFR in the policy decisions? 10:50 - Is COVID-19 no more deadly than the flu? 13:55 - Problems with comparing Covid to the seasona...

Back pain is incredibly common in sport, including all combative sports like jiu-jitsu, MMA, boxing and judo. That is why I was thrilled to talk to Dr Stuart McGill, one of the world's leading experts on back pain. Dr McGill spent 30 years researching and teaching spinal mechanics at the University of Waterloo in Canada.  He has published more than 300 scientific papers, written 3 textbooks, and h...

Here are 5 principles that I use on a daily basis for evaluating risk, along with concrete examples from martial arts training, fire fighting, white water kayaking, and behavior during a pandemic. I hope you find this useful! The single best way to stay in touch with what's going on with the podcast, grapplearts, and everything else is still my newsletter.  Sign up for free at https://www.grapplea...