The Strenuous Life Podcast with Stephan Kesting

Rosi Sexton is a true renaissance woman. She fought in BodogFight, EliteXC, Cage Warriors and was the first British Woman to fight in the UFC.  But she's also Cambridge educated with a PhD in Theoret…

Does training with grappling dummies actually work to improve your skills?  And what else can you do to get better when training time is limited and it's difficult to make it to class as often as you…

Daniel Bohigian is a Guerrilla Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt under Dave Camarillo, competes actively, and also teaches 'Philosophy of Sport' at San Jose State. 

In this episode we discussed philosophy vs jiu-…

Paul Kindzia was immersed in the world of marathon and triathalon for many years before immersing himself in BJJ, even going so far as to write a book on the topic called 'Master Jiu-Jitsu, Master Li…

Jiu-jitsu black belt Adam Nadow was recently attacked in the street and used his training to defend himself and control his attacker until the police arrived.  The video of this confrontation later w…

In this coming year it's 100% certain that some days you'll be the hammer and other days you'll be the nail. This is normal and to be expected.  In this podcast I share some advice from Japan and fro…

How to figure out what makes you train and how to use that to improve your skills. Being self aware about whether you're intrinsically or extrinsically motivated is sports psychology 101 and super im…

Cliff Jacobson wrote 'Canoeing Wild Rivers' which was a HUGE influence on me as an outdoorsman (the other two cornerstone books were 'Path of the Paddle' by Bill Mason and 'The Complete Walker' by Co…

Dr Mark Cheng has rehabbed TONS of combat athletes, has trained with some of the best instructors in the world, and has a wealth of experience in the martial arts. In this podcast we cover pressure t…

Tito Ortiz vs Chuck Liddell got us all talking about it again: when should an MMA fighter retire? In the last 10 years we've learned that brain damage in combat sports is a HUGE problem. CTE makes th…

There are 5 ranges of combat, but many martial artists only train in one or two of those ranges.  Ideally though you should be at least familiar with each of those ranges to be a complete martial art…

How to train mentally and physically to become a world calibre champion wrestler, with Commonwealth Games gold medalist and 5 times national team member Nick Ungoalah. 

We go DEEP in this episode and…

Rob Biernacki and I sit down to discuss BJJ guard passing from a strategic point of view.  When should you pass standing and when should you pass on your knees?  When should you go for submission bas…

A quick rant about the absolute easiest way to add effective and proven techniques to your game, namely going through the memory banks and trying to figure out what you used to do that worked great t…

I was thrilled to appear on The Great Flip Podcast to talk about jiu-jitsu, specifically why it's probably the best self defense martial art for women and girls.  I hope you enjoy it!

Catch up with t…

In this episode I talk about the importance of self experimentation and how your results may be different from most other people's.  I share some dietary experiments I've been fooling around with and…

Rob from McDojoLife has been relentless in his attempts to expose martial arts frauds, exposing everyone from from chi-based knockout masters to ninjas who practise bending joints in the direction th…

If you're interested in self defense then how do you train techniques that are too deadly to spar realistically, like eye gouges and groin punches, and combine that with the safer sportive techniques…