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  

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.

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

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 more I 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

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

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

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/      

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/B0C1JCNQ1P  Note 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

Carlson Gracie fought in 18 Vale Tudo matches, brought jiu-jitsu to the masses, and innovated many of the MMA training practices we now take for granted. He innovated many seemingly radical ideas at the time, like training without the gi, group classes, and being a well rounded fighter. These points come from Robert Drysdale's excellent book, The Rise and Evolution of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Evolution-Brazilian-Jiu-Jitsu-Democratization/dp/B0C1JCNQ1P I'll be talking to Robert Drysdale about Carlson Gracie and this era of jiu-jitsu in the very next episode (#387) of The Strenuous Life Podcast, so don't miss it!! Cheers, Stephan Kesting