I recently noticed that my grappling and jiu-jitsu channel on Youtube had passed 10 million total views! I’m stoked about this, and I think it’s a big landmark for an independently operated business. Thanks to every single reader who helped out by liking, subscribing and commenting on the videos; every little bit helps!

And I’ll keep on trying to release cool free videos for you.

But it wasn’t all fun and games getting to 10,000,000 views. In fact I had to take great personal risks to get here. Well, sort of…

Let me explain.

As you may know, I’m also a firefighter in addition to all this grappling stuff

And normally I really like it when people recognise me on the street and take the time to stop and say hello. It’s really cool to meet fellow grapplers. But sometimes that open-door policy backfires big time!

An example of these two worlds colliding happened a few years ago when a water main broke in an industrial area and some warehouses got flooded. We responded to the emergency. To stop the buildings from getting flooded we decided to shut off the water at the street, but of course the shut-off valve itself is now covered up by a large expanse knee-deep water.

So another firefighter and I ended up sloshing around in this giant puddle, tools in hand, looking for the submerged valve.

All of a sudden this black sports car screeched around the corner, then skidded to a halt at the very edge of the water.

This big muscular dude with a mullet and wearing a tight white undershirt leans out the window.

At the top of his lungs he yells, “Dude! I LOVE your videos!!” I thank him, and then he accelerates away.

My co-worker, a conservative guy who has NO idea of what I’m doing with Grapplearts, reaches the worst possible conclusion about what this all means. A Bow Chicka Wah Wah sort of conclusion about my online video endeavours.

He turns to me and in a shocked voice whispers, “What… kind… of… videos??!?”

It took quite a bit of explaining for me to convince him that my video career was legit and didn’t involve any funky 1970’s porn background music.

It all got sorted out, but I hope you can now understand some of the risks I’m taking in my personal and professional life to provide these videos for you 😉 But your support makes it all worthwhile!

Thanks again

Stephan Kesting

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