Episodes
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This podcast episode covers all the details and preparations for a long solo trip in the Arctic that I'm starting today! After 30 hours of driving and a 2 hour bush plane flight to Nueltin Lake I'll be heading north of the treeline direct into the Barren Lands of the Arctic.
Once there, I'll be completely alone and out of touch for 30 days. The only written description of the river is a few pages in a book written by a missionary in the late 1800's.
The trip spans the Thlewiaza, The-Tinne, Kognak and Tha-Anne rivers and will probably include caribou and bear encounters, whitewater and giant ice-covered lakes, and insanely complex navigational challenges.
Once the trip is underway, I'll be sharing a few photos from the field a small satellite device So if you're interested in adventure and how well jiu-jitsu works against giant Hudson Bay Polar Bears then follow along!
The best place to stay current is probably on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/essentialwilderness/), although this page on Essential Wilderness (https://tinyurl.com/nunavutsolo) should have a map that updates with my location once I'm on the water
I believe that pictures from this trip will also get cross-posted on
Threads (https://www.threads.net/@stephan_kesting)
Tiktok (https://www.tiktok.com/@essentialwilderness), and
Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@essentialwilderness/community)
I'll be back to the world and jiu-jitsu in late July. Hopefully!
Cheers, Stephan
P.S. I'm telling my publisher that this is my official book tour, so if you haven't yet pre-ordered Perseverance, Life and Death in the Subarctic (the story of another trip I did up there) then please help me out!
You can grab it at Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Perseverance-Death-Subarctic-Stephan-Kesting/dp/1639368612/
https://www.amazon.ca/Perseverance-Death-Subarctic-Stephan-Kesting/dp/1639368612/
Barnes and Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/perseverance-stephan-kesting/1145682384
And Indigo. https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/perseverance-life-and-death-in-the-subarctic/9781639368617.html
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Short episode today with my friend Denis Kang sharing three ways that fighters have improved their training methods to get ready for MMA fights.
Denis fought for the first time in 1998 (in an event without gloves) and went on to fight a total of 55 times in events like the UFC, PRIDE, DREAM, Impact FC, M-1 Global, K-1 HERO'S, ROAD FC, and Pancrase.
Denis currently teaches MMA at Pinnacle Martial Arts in Richmond, BC.
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Missing episodes?
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Luke Thomas is one of the most influential MMA analysts in the game and the host of The Morning Kombat Podcast. I was delighted to talk to him today about
How the sport of MMA has changed The rise of Eastern European fighters Why is terrible behaviour of MMA fighters tolerated Can other MMA organisations ever rival the UFC Drug testing in the UFC Fighter unions and the Ali Expansion Act What Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson means for combat sports And more!Check out Luke Thomas's Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/ @LukeThomas
And, if you have a second, please follow my two outdoor adventure accounts to make my book publisher happy! https://www.youtube.com/@essentialwilderness and https://www.instagram.com/essentialwilderness should do the trick!
Thanks ever so much,
Stephan Kesting
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In this episode I put on my adventurer hat and use my biology background to look at four studies and 352 aggressive bear encounters in Alaska to see whether bear spray or firearms was more effective at deterring aggressive black, grizzly and polar bear behaviour. The results may surprise you, but data doesn't care about your feelings!
TIMESTAMPS
01:28 - Introduction to bears spray vs guns
04:08 - Analysis of the first report, Bear Spray vs Bullets, Which Offers Better Protection, by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
04:30 - Analysis of second report, Bear Spray or Bullets, by Lynn Dickerson
08:57 - Analysis of third report, Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska, by Smith et al.
16:48 Analysis of fourth report, Efficacy of Firearms for Bear Deterrence in Alaska, by Smith et al.
23:27 Summary and personal opinions
MORE OUTDOOR STUFF BY STEPHAN KESTING
Please like this video and subscribe to my Essential Wilderness Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCujEWgySgpTa76dw__i_UAw
Check out my Essential Wilderness site at https://www.essentialwilderness.com
Follow my outdoors Instagram account at https://www.instagram.com/essentialwilderness/
Sign up to get notified about my upcoming book, Perseverance, Life and Death in the Subarctic at https://www.essentialwilderness.com/book
Thanks so much,
Stephan Kesting
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There are times when it feels like life has you trapped on the bottom of mount against a vastly heavier, more experienced opponent intent on mauling you. The steps to deal with these two situations are the same.
Pass this on to someone you think it might help,Stephan Kesting
P.S. I made one little mistake in this podcast: Epictetus was a Greek (not Roman) stoic philosopher who lived in Rome for much of his youth serving the Emperor Nero, so he doubtless knew all about suffering.
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Rob Biernacki is my guest today to talk about how injury and physical limitations have led to some of the fastest technical development of his career and the refinement of entirely new techniques like the Roadhouse Choke. Since some form of injury is inevitable there are a LOT of takeaways in this episode.
We also discuss the concepts of risk vs reward in your choice of techniques, how new techniques and technical refinements get adopted, the risks of the buggy choke, the barbell strategy for allocating your training time, how rule sets drive evolution of the art, and more.
Check out the Roadhouse Choke Instructional at http://roadhouse.bjjconcepts.net
And sign up for my free email newsletter at https://www.grapplearts.com/newsletter
Good luck with your training
Stephan Kesting
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Many people completely run out of gas when they're sparring, and often this is because they are inadvertently holding their breath. In this short podcast I share four very specific ways that I've coached people past this problem and hugely improved their endurance.
Please share this episode with someone you think it will help.
Cheers,
Stephan Kesting
P.S. This episode is also available in video form here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umD_zc5Bd3M
P.P.S. If you follow me on social media only then we are all subject to the whims of the algorithms, therefore subscribe to my (entirely free) newsletter so we can stay in touch and I can give you tons of good stuff: https://www.grapplearts.com/newsletter
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From war-torn Africa to climbing remote peaks in Greenland with Alex Honnold, Matt Pycroft has built a very impressive career working as a journalist and filmmaker. In our conversation he goes into detail how he gradually acquired the skills to achieve his goals and the lessons he's learned working with extreme athletes in inhospitable settings all over the globe.
Follow Matt on Instagram @mattpycroft and check out his latest film, Arctic Ascent with Alex Honnold, on Disney, Amazon, and National Geographic.
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The traditional class structure of doing a warmup, learning a couple of new techniques, and followed by sparring is NOT an efficient way to learn jiu-jitsu. We can do much better if we use insights from research on coaching and learning.
Today's guest is Cal MacDonald, a BJJ black belt and competitor who has dedicated himself to developing his teaching and coaching skills to the highest possible level.
Cal is a longtime blackbelt under Rob Biernacki at Island Top Team. Rob and his team are at the cutting edge of teaching and training methodologies that make people amazingly good incredibly fast. Cal coached full time at Island Top Team for five years and is also a fierce competitor, having won Gold at NAGA, Pacific Northwest Open, and many other tournaments. He has travelled to top academies for Worlds and ADCC camps, training with top athletes like Yuri Simões, Mason Fowler, and Caio Terra, so he knows what works at the highest levels.
His proudest accomplishments are the successes of his students, and he has spent thousands of hours coaching and cornering competitors as they fight their way to the podium.
Cal stays abreast of advances in sports science and cognitive science, and blended that with experience and experimentation to create the BJJ Foundations program - more info about that at https://www.grapplearts.com/foundations
Good luck with your training,
Stephan Kesting
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In this episode I talk BJJ longevity, weight training, home gyms and training methods with BJJ old-timer Mike Mahaffey. I think there are a TON of valuable takehome lessons here for anyone who trains jiu-jitsu, and ESPECIALLY the over-40 crowd!
Also check out BJJ Foundations, the brand new Grapplearts instructional that gives you the best jiu-jitsu technique and training method curriculum I've ever seen at https://www.grapplearts.com/foundations
Cheers,
Stephan Kesting -
Did you know that the England had many different wrestling systems including Cornish, Lancashire, Devonshire, Cumberland and Westmoreland wrestling and catchwrestling? In this conversation Oz Austwick and I go into the history of these arts including the influence of Japanese Judo and Jiu-Jitsu on English Wrestling... the great Billy Robinson and his influence on Kazushi Sakuraba... Satoro Sayama and the birth of Shootwrestling... American vs British catchwrestling... the blending of jiu-jitsu with catchwrestling... leglocks and traditional BJJ... and much more.
Follow Oz Austwick here: https://www.youtube.com/@EnglishMartialArts
Subscribe to The Strenuous Life Podcast on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK-c9Vxqx-I
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Rob Biernacki and his competition team are on a tear. Rob recently took gold in masters middleweight the Canadian ADCC Open, silver at the California ADCC Open, and gold in black belt M4 at the IBJJF No Gi Worlds. In this episode we talk about designing an effective training camp, dividing your conditioning and skills training, detaching emotionally from the outcome of the competition, why sharktanking and competition-style rolls are overused, 80/20 analyses of different rule sets, training athletes to think strategically while in matches, the central role of games and drills in his competition training, and strategies that work in ADCC that will lose you the match in IBJJF
Check out his latest instructional, BJJ GAMES, at https://www.grapplearts.com/bjj-games. It features 25 different games and drills Rob uses at his school to get his students ready for competition.
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In episode 393 of The Strenuous Life Podcast I talk to Oz Austwick, who has extensively studied armed and unarmed combat systems in Europe. Topics we cover include the origins of boxing in England, historical training and conditioning methods, reconstructing and testing techniques shown in swordfighting manuals, fighting with live blades, the role of wrestling in real swordfighting, and much more. I think you'll really like this one!
Oz Austwick runs the English Martial Arts channel on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/englishmartialarts and publishes at https://www.patreon.com/englishmartialarts
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Today I pick the brain of the amazing Jost Kobusch is a German mountaineer who spent two seasons on Everest trying to ascend the legendarily difficult West Ridge route and the Hornbein Couloir alone. And did I mention that he wasn't using supplemental oxygen and attempting this in the middle of the brutal Himalayan winter?
We covered a TON of interesting topics, including
Why do things the hardest way? His closest call in the mountains The dangers of the Khumbu Icefall Getting hit by an avalanche at Everest Base Camp His preferred diet for performance at high altitude Training for high altitude Dealing with injuries And moreI hope you enjoy this! Share it with a friend if you do!
Stephan Kesting
P.S. In 2015 Jost was about to climb Everest when an earthquake triggered an avalanche that destroyed Everest Base Camp. Here's the footage he filmed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JC_wIWUC2U
P.P.S. At age 21 Jost became the youngest person to solo Ama Dablam, a 6812 meter mountain in the Himalayas. Here's a documentary about that climb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVG9U8UoT2I
P.P.P.S. Follow Jost on Instagram @Jostkobusch or get coached by him at JostKobusch.com
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Today I'm joined by Steve Kwan, the host and creator of the wildly popular BJJ Mental Models podcast. We discuss the most important mental models in the art and how they can improve your ability to perform on the mat!
Check out https://www.bjjmentalmodels.com/ for Steve's podcast and https://www.grapplearts.com/rollingbacktakes for my newest BJJ instructional.
And, as always, please send today's episode to someone you think would benefit from it.
Thanks, Stephan Kesting
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With eyewitness testimony in the US Congress and purported alien bodies being wheeled into the Mexican Congress, it looks like we're in another UFO craze right now. It was great to have science writer and sceptical investigator Mick West on the podcast to make sense of this evidence and evaluate what the odds are that aliens truly walk among us. Check out Mick's current research at metabunk.org, it's my first stop for anything UFO-related. Check out the video of this conversation on the Strenuous Life Podcast channel on Youtube. And finally, please share this episode with a friend who might be interested - that's how this podcast grows! May the force be with you, Stephan Kesting
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I caught up with world record holder James Pieratt shortly after he completed a 500-mile, self-supported mountain run along the Pacific Crest Trail. But James isn't just an ultrarunner - he's also a serious weightlifter who also trains in jiu-jitsu. In this interview we went deep into how to balance strength, endurance, and skill training, the role of prehabilitation and rehabilitation, the effect of hard training on life expectancy, and what drives someone to these extremes.
Check out James' training programs at wildhuntconditioning.myshopify.com or follow him on instagram @wildhuntconditioning. If you know someone who'd be inspired by this episode please send it to them!
Stephan -
The Ultimate Self-Defense Championship was a competition in which six martial arts YouTubers competed against each other in seven self-defense challenges to find out what works, what doesn't and who would become the ultimate self-defense champion.
The organizer of this event was Rokas Leo who trained Aikido for 14 years and eventually realised that that art didn't live up to what to the promises. He made the switch to MMA training and has had several amateur MMA fights since.
My previous interview with Rokas about his evolution from Aikido to MMA: https://www.grapplearts.com/aikido-vs-mma-rokas/
Watch the first season of the Ultimate Self Defense Championship on Youtube for free: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU3nOrEfN70&list=PL4FJXg8RNp-mqVhFpncyMk4rANel-TRa9
Contribute to The Ultimate Self Defense Championship Season 2 here and get early access and extra footage: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ultimate-self-defense-championship-season-2#/
Find out more about Rokas on his site: https://www.martialartsjourney.com/
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Not only is Robert Drysdale a BJJ and ADCC World Champion, he has also conducted extensive research into the history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. In this interview, he reveals some of what he's discovered, including...
01:54 - The first wave of jiu-jitsu in Brazil - Helio Gracie and Carlos Gracie
04:35 - Exhibition and carnival fighting in Brazil
06:55 - Traditional jiu-jitsu style vs modified judo
12:14 - Training methods of the Gracie Academy in the '30s, 40s and '50s
18:43 - The second wave practitioners
19:47 - Waldemar Santana
22:49 - Carlson Gracie and the Rua Figueiredo Magalhães school
33:19 - How BJJ rule changes changed the sport
42:31 - Rolls Gracie
48:51 - Self-defense and Vale Tudo training
55:28 - Rolls Gracie death
1:00:55 - The Carlson Gracie tragedy
1:13:54 - Carlos Gracie Jr.
1:21:03 - Future rule changes, luta livre, and the sportification of jiu-jitsu
1:35:10 - The Rise and Evolution of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the book
You can grab Robert's book, The Rise and Evolution of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which goes into MUCH more detail on these topics at https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Evolution-Brazilian-Jiu-Jitsu-Democratization/dp/B0C1JCNQ1PNote that today's episode was also on my Youtube channel at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2ThcGhAlvs
If you found this episode interesting then a rating or a review to help get the word out would be SUPER appreciated.
Thanks,
Stephan Kesting
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