Back on FlowFit!!

My toes have officially let me get back to FlowFit. The first time was Tuesday...third round and I was already starting to fade. I just finished again, and I got through the 15 minutes (with a 1 minute break for some guard situps and hip shooting) and was pretty hyped the whole way. Oddly, my breathing has gotten better. You're supposed to inhale naturally through the nose and exhale with force, and that comes without much thought or effort now. It's also been a big help in maintaining my newly developed lung capacity.

BJJ's Best Branding: John Danaher

Getting on with the Branding Series, here's a guy that defies everything you'd expect to see.


Branding isn't always intentional. Sometimes people just do their thing and *bam*...a personal brand is born.

This black belt under Renzo Gracie is something of the King Arthur of the jiu jitsu community. The base of the legend of Danaher is the fact that he doesn't compete. It comes complete with fuzzy anecdotes, rumors of genetically deformed joints (he actually does have a misshapen patella and ended up with arthrofibrosis after a surgery gone wrong) and a healthy presence of online debates.

BJJ’s Best Branding: Grapplearts-Stephan Kesting

Now...for the inspiration of the Branding Series:

One promotion, one little promotion from Grapplearts totally woke me up to branding in BJJ.

This promotion has an interesting back-story, with 400 DVDs originally being given away, then after a decision by Stephan , another 400 being sent out, with the chance for three people to win a complete library of his material. Because of my lax email checking, I missed the first 400, but I was ready for the second. I set a phone alarm, told a friend to help me out (in case of any computer issues) and set up an Outlook reminder for the 12PM EST kickoff. Well, at 11:55, I decided to test the link. A video started. It was of Stephan driving, transporting and unpacking the DVDs. Almost instantly I felt a kind of excitement that I hadn’t felt since I first started watching Lost (you know…before it got annoying).

A Microbiologist's Take on BJJ

**For the sake of the health of all in the BJJ community, I encourage sharing of this information--so if you'd like to repost or distribute this article, include credit and link back to http://bjiujitsu.blogspot.com/2011/09/microbiologists-take-on-bjj.html or http://www.gifreak.com/content/microbiologists-take-bjj. A lot of time and work went into researching this post and proper credit should be given.**

So I've really been wondering about all this...information we've got floating around regarding treatment, prevention, cleanliness, the whole shebang. Thankfully, a girl I know from WAY back grew up to be a really cool microbiologist (she managed to work a reference to LeBron James into a conversation about bacteria) and she was nice enough to, after a weekend at Dragoncon, take the time to answer some questions I'd collected.


You can check her credentials below (she did her dissertation on MRSA), and if you have any questions about the critters you may be carrying to and from the gym, you can also email her at ms.oxide at gmail dot com, just tell her you read her interview with Megan. (Seriously, shoot her an email, she'd love the questions.)


If you have a few minutes, take the time to read the whole thing. She addresses the general "lifestyles" of bateria and fungi, the use of triclosan, MRSA, and general habits that we have around keeping clean in the gym, not to mention a bunch of other things (like not washing belts), that we could all benefit from. So, a huge thanks to Brea and...here goes!