The fight-or-flight reflex is always lurking just below the surface. When things get sufficiently stressful, our hormonal system dumps enormous amounts of adrenaline into our bloodstream, and — BOOM — suddenly we’re ready for action. That adrenaline serves a purpose: it elevates your heart rate, makes you much stronger, more pain tolerant, and able to ignore injury. If you ever have to lift a … [Read more...]
Perseverance, Life and Death in the Subarctic (Hardcover, Kindle and Audiobook Format)
I've got something special for you today: a true adventure story set in the Far North that I underwent a few years ago after a kidney transplant. I ended up learning a LOT about mental toughness, resilience, and strategies for making progress when I was absolutely at the end of my rope, lessons that I think are universally applicable. Please check out the first three chapters of the … [Read more...]
Grow in the Art, but, More Importantly, Grow in Your Life
I'm writing this on December 24th, and as far as I'm concerned, this is the real date of Christmas. You see, my parents were European, and they celebrated Christmas on the 24th; Christmas Eve was the big deal, not Christmas day. Earlier in December my brothers and I would go out into the back 40 and cut the very biggest spruce tree we could fit into the living room of the log home. … [Read more...]
Stephan Kesting Alone in the Arctic
As I can remember, the twin passions of my life have been the martial arts and the outdoors. This last summer I stepped off the mat, flew for 2 hours in a 72-year-old bush plane, and stepped into a canoe to do a 19 day solo trip through polar bear and caribou country in the Canadian Arctic. I'm finally getting around to releasing the videos from that trip. Here's episode 1... The … [Read more...]
Can You Learn Good Jiu-Jitsu from Bad People?
Imagine going through the expensive teacher training process to become a Bikram Yoga instructor. Imagine investing every penny you own to open your own studio, then slaving away at 105°F (41°C) with 40% humidity in class after class to make it financially viable. Then you find out that the founder of your system, Bikram Choudhury, has a warrant out for his arrest and has fled the country … [Read more...]
Three Big BJJ Lessons Learned on a Solo Trip in the Arctic
Earlier this summer I completed a beautiful and difficult 19-day solo canoe trip in the Canadian Arctic. There's a lot of time to think on a trip like this, and here are the 3 big lessons I learned... You can order my new book "Perseverance, Life and Death in the Subarctic" on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indigo/Chapters, or your local bookstore! Three Big BJJ Lessons Learned on a Solo … [Read more...]
Revolutionary Omoplata
A Technique that Bridges the Gap between Sweep and Submission By Stephan Kesting Originally published in Grappling Magazine in 2002. The omoplata is all the rage these days: it's a submission, a sweep, and a setup for other submissions and sweeps. If you go to a high-level grappling competition tomorrow, you will almost certainly see it used multiple times. The omoplata is a little bit … [Read more...]
Get My Next Jiu-Jitsu Instructional Free – Seriously!
After 4 years of writing my book, Perseverance, Life and Death in the Subarctic is now available for pre-order. This is an adventure story about my 1,000-mile solo trip from the boreal forest to the windswept tundra of the Arctic after a life-saving kidney transplant. Bears, forest fires, rapids, storms... it all happened on that trip. Early reviewers have been unanimous in their praise … [Read more...]
Catchwrestling: from the Snake Pit in Wigan England, to Pride FC in Japan, to Modern Submission Grappling
In episode 395 of The Strenuous Life Podcast I talk to Oz Austwick, who has extensively studied armed and unarmed combat systems in England and Europe. Today we focus on the historical wrestling systems of England... Cornish, Lancashire, Devonshire, Cumberland and Westmoreland wrestling and catchwrestling The influence of Japanese Judo and Jiu-Jitsu on English Wrestling The great Billy … [Read more...]
Bareknuckle Boxing and Historical European Swordfighting, with Oz Austwick
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 ancient swordfighting manuals, Fighting with live blades, The role of wrestling in real … [Read more...]
Alone on Everest with Jost Kobusch
On episode 392 of The Strenuous Life Podcast I'm joined by the amazing Jost Kobusch. Jost is a German mountaineer who spent two seasons on Everest trying to ascend the legendarily difficult West Ridge route and the Hornbein Couloir alone, without oxygen, and in the middle of the brutal Himalayan winter. We covered a TON of interesting topics, including 00:00 Jost Kobusch's plans for … [Read more...]
Steve Kwan Shares the Most Important BJJ Mental Models
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 BJJmentalmodels.com for Steve's podcast and Grapplearts.com/rollingbacktakes for my newest BJJ instructional. And, as always, please send today's episode to … [Read more...]
UFOs, UAPs, and Alien Bodies with Mick West
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 it out in video or audio-only format … [Read more...]
Neopagan, Vegetarian, Authoritarian, Heavy Metal, Nature Lovers with Jesse Bryant
Jesse Bryant is doing his PhD on the politics of nature, and has come across some amazing examples of both far left and far right groups wrapping themselves in the mantle of nature and what is deemed 'natural'. From the Artaman League to the Wolves of Vinland and Alex Jone's fantasies about moving back to the country, sometimes what he's found is hilarious, and sometimes it's terrifying. I … [Read more...]
Amanda Bruse – How to Compete and Win in No Gi Jiu-Jitsu
Amanda Bruse took home Gold as a black belt in her weight division at No Gi Pans in 2022, and also a Silver in the open division facing much heavier opponents. She's also done amazingly well at ADCC Trials, No Gi Worlds, and is now competing in Combat Jiu-jitsu as well. It's remarkable that she's only been training for 6 years; clearly, she's doing something right, and in this conversation I … [Read more...]
Greg Souders
To say that Greg Souders is a huge believer in drilling and gamification is actually an understatement. Greg believes that BJJ training methods have not kept up with the science of learning, and runs Standard Jiu-Jitsu in Rockville, Maryland without teaching any techniques. And black belt medalist students at the Pan Ams and the World Championships suggest that he's onto something! I really … [Read more...]
The Battle Against Disinformation and Information Nihilism, with Brooke Binowski
Brooke Binowski is a journalist specialising in debunking disinformation and misinformation. She has worked for Snopes and is now the managing editor at TruthOrFiction.com. In this episode we talk about Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, how disinformation campaigns are structured, white supremacists, why the wellness space is so prone to believing conspiracy theories, and how we can know what's … [Read more...]
How to Talk to the Vaccine Hesitant, with Amitabha Palmer
Amitabha Palmer is a wrestler, judoka, and teaches at ethics at Texas University. His research topics include how widespread conspiracism and science denialism affect democratic policy making. Ami has been on the podcast before (on episode 325, Wrestling with Trust, Propaganda and Conspiracies) and was so insightful that I was thrilled to have him back. The focus of today's conversation was … [Read more...]
Please Call Me Stephan, not ‘Professor’ or ‘Sifu’ or ‘Sensei’ or ‘Guru’ or ‘Master’ or ‘Shihan’ or ‘Kru’ or ‘Sabom’ Or ‘Kwisatz Haderach’
People mean well when they address me with an honorific but please call me Stephan, and not 'Professor' or 'Sifu' or 'Sensei' or 'Guru' or 'Master' or 'Shihan' or 'Kru' or 'Sabom' Or 'Kwisatz Haderach'... I don't like these honorifics because there's an inherent danger when lofty titles are used to amplify an already reflexive obedience towards a person. And this is especially true in a … [Read more...]
Outdated Training Methods in the Martial Arts
Richard Bejtlich is an author, martial artist, martial arts historian, and cybersecurity expert. I was thrilled to have him as a guest on episode 345 of The Strenuous Life Podcast. https://youtu.be/p0sqklw6ID4 Topics covered include... 00:26 Richard Bejtlich's background in martial arts 08:38 Where does fascination with martial arts history comes from 18:13 What research on … [Read more...]