The Strenuous Life Podcast with Stephan Kesting

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 historical precedents 12:20 - Vaccine distribution in the USA 19:30 - What happens when everyone make individual choices during a pandemic 22:30 - Why have black, indigenous and latino communities have been rampaged with the virus? 27:45 - Covid-19 vs the Spanish flu 36:15 - Conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and where does distrust of experts come from 44:40 - How to talk to a covid denialist 1:00:20 - Politicians jumping to the front of the vaccination line 1:05:20 - Long term effects of Covid-19 1:12:30 - The BJJ community and Covid-19 1:17:10 - Would paying people to stay home really have worked? 1:25:00 - When might we all return to jiu-jitsu?

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 https://www.grapplearts.com/solo to see my notes from the field for that trip). If you found today's episode useful then please share it with one person who might benefit from it as well. Take good care, Stephan Kesting

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 a rating or a review of The Strenuous Life Podcast on Apple Podcasts I would be forever indebted to you! Stephan Kesting

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 seasonal flu 15:18 - Are scientists under-reporting the flu and/or counting every case or the flu as covid? 22:05 - Do scientists and the CDC want everyone to lock down forever? 23:57 - Did lockdowns work in other countries? 26:28 - Would less intrusive measures work to control COVID-19? 28:54 - Where are the deaths, is this a casedemic, and are there only more cases because of more testing? 31:40 - How long does it take to go from infected, to getting sick, going to the hospital, and dying? 32:56 - When will we see the cases and deaths peak from 2020 Thanksgiving celebrations in the USA? 36:16 - How many people are going to die per day this winter? 37:11 - How infectious is COVID-19 (comparing the R0 value of covid to that of the flu)? 40:08 - Why are the CDC and the WHO changing their stories and the advice they give? 44:31 - Is Hydroxychloroquine as a treatment being suppressed by big pharma? 50:02 - Judging the quality of evidence and data in disease research 55:39 - Are scientists coordinating their findings and suppressing inconvenient findings? 59:33 - Do hospitals get paid more to count deaths as COVID-19? 1:05:38 - Are COVID-19deaths being overcounted or undercounted in the USA? 1:08:24 - Do cloth masks and surgical masks work? 1:13:56 - Are masks enough to stop the pandemic? 1:15:48 - Car accidents deaths vs COVID-19 deaths 1:17:50 - The minimum infectious dose, or will you automatically get sick if you're exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus? 1:19:23 - How can we have confidence that the vaccine will be safe? 1:29:57 - What about herd immunity, the Swedish approach and the Great Barrington Declaration? 1:37:50 - Potential longterm health effects of COVID-19 1:38:57 - Are personal sacrifices and limitations necessary to deal with the pandemic? 1:42:14 - How can one convince vaccine skeptics? 1:45:24 - Gyms and fitness facilities during the COVID-19 1:51:51 - False dichotomies and false choices in the jiu-jitsu community 1:56:40 - The difference between case numbers and test positivity rates 1:59:45 - How do epidemiologists stay sane in 2020? Please share this podcast episode my friends - it may be one of the most important ones I've ever done. The video version of it is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpgxjZRBV38&feature=youtu.be Follow Dr Katrine Wallace on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/epidemiologistkat/?hl=en and on Tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@epidemiologistkat Follow Madeline Wallace on Tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@maddy.epidemiology Take care, Stephan Kesting

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 has worked to improve sports performance with countless athletes from almost every sport. His book, "Back Mechanic: The Step-by-Step McGill Method to Fix Back Pain" has become a classic manual for living a painfree life and "Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance" is a guide for many coaches to bring their athletes up to the next level of performance while avoiding a debilitating back injury. Here is just a little of what we covered today... 00:42 - How to become a world class expert in spinal mechanics and back pain 08:16 - Studying spines in the lab and what that tells you about spines in athletes 14:08 - Disc herniations and back pain 19:42 - Dr McGill's work with Olympians and elite athletes 24:00 - The athleticism of MMA fighter George St. Pierre 29:55 - Principles for avoiding back pain injury 34:40 - The power of the neutral spine 45:24 - The advantages and dangers of developing power through spinal rotation 51:04 - How elite strikers hit so hard 54:28 - Posture and spinal position in jiu-jitsu 1:01:07 - Hip morphology and leg flexibility of great jiu-jitsu fighters 1:06:07 - Books and other resources by Dr McGill Injury is the enemy, and avoiding injury is the key to a long and successful athletic career, so I hope you enjoy this episode! Cheers, Stephan Kesting P.S. If you get the chance a rating or a review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your audio would be HUGELY appreciated.

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.grapplearts.com/newsletter Cheers! Stephan Kesting

Division in BJJ community, angry people on the internet and the rise of conspirituality with comic and BJJ practitioner Jamie Kilstein. Jamie is the cohost of both Rear Naked Radio and A Fuckup's Guide to Self Help and has a new comedy album coming out soon!

Today I chat with Black belt no gi world champion Brandon 'Wolverine' Mullins about how the most efficient training methods to master the highly complex world of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Lots of great takeaways in this one!! 02:18 - Learning technique only vs learning technique and theory 05:42 - Fundamental movements in BJJ 09:24 - Advanced applications of fundamental movements 14:48 - Winning by achieving depth in a technique 25:40 - Successfully setting up guard submissions 37:22 - Off speed pitches and surprising your opponent in BJJ 44:03 - Starting at step 3 52:19 - Top tips for training 1:01:39 - Safe techniques 1:11:03 - IBJJF legalising reaping and heel hooks in nogi Check out the 265 page full color book we wrote together at https://www.grapplearts.com/nonstop-jiu-jitsu-book/ - it's the best BJJ book of the year for sure! Cheers Stephan Kesting

I was thrilled to talk to Matthew Remski, a cult researcher and cohost of the Conspirituality Podcast who has written extensively about the pervasive cultism and abuse in Yoga, spirituality, and wellness culture. The parallels to what's happening in BJJ are obvious. Here are some highlights... 01:48 - Matthew's own time in cults 05:39 - Conspiracy theories 08:02 - What are cults? 28:45 - Online cults 41:39 - What happens when cult prophecies fail to occur? 50:21 - How to help friends and family members in cults