American actor and mixed martial artist Jason David Frank has passed away at age 49 by suicide. He’s best known for his role as Tommy Oliver in the Power Rangers franchise starting with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

After studying many different styles of martial arts, he created his own martial arts style called “Toso Kune Do,” which combines Shōtōkan, Wadō-ryū, Taekwondo, Judo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, Wing Chun, Jeet Kune Do, and Aikido.

UFC 293: Israel Adesanya vs. Sean Strickland

Gerald Ford vs. Teddy Roosevelt, no holds barred MMA fight. Who wins?

Despite his portrayal as a clumsy oaf, Gerald Ford was almost certainly the best athlete to ever serve in the White House. He was a legendary college football player who won two national championships at the University of Michigan, and was MVP of the team in his senior year. Ford turned down contract offers from the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, but turned down a career in the NFL in order to attend law school. Ford was a avid skier until his 80s and continued swimming regularly for exercise into his 90s, and he would have had a notable size advantage over Theodore Roosevelt.

However, if someone genuinely knows what they are doing during a mixed martial arts fight, they are going to be very difficult to defeat -- even against an opponent who might be a superior athlete in every other sense. That has been a lesson learned throughout the growth of MMA as a mainstream sport dating back to Royce Gracie easily handling much bigger opponents in the early UFC with his Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Or Rickson Gracie calmly controlling and systematically dominating literally everyone he fought in Japan, no matter who Pride FC threw at him.

Theodore Roosevelt would be giving up quite a bit of size and athletic ability against Gerald Ford, but TR was an early student of martial arts. As President -- in the White House itself -- Roosevelt kept active with wrestling (always the best foundation for a mixed martial artist) and boxing. And he was among the first Americans to actually train in jiu jitsu and judo, receiving lessons directly from the legendary Yamashita Yoshiaki. Because of that experience, I think Theodore Roosevelt probably would have given any of his fellow Presidents a rough day at the office if they had an MMA fight, no matter how big or strong or athletic his opponent might be.

the whispery, river-like bleed of me

mostly academic discussion of kink (specifically choking/strangulation) below cut

so i saw (and just reblogged) this post going around about how consensual (erotic) choking/strangulation is always edgeplay, because it's extremely dangerous

and I'm honestly a bit confused: I've never done erotic choking, but I have consensually choked people and been choked a lot--it's kind of a major part of BJJ (the grappling part of MMA)

blood chokes, air chokes, on the giving end and the receiving end, I must have done this dozens if not hundreds of times in the past year alone

and I mean, you're meant to tap early and trust your partner to do the same ("tap early, tap often" as the saying goes), but I've never heard of chokes being particularly dangerous--

in fact people will often say things like "tap early especially for joint locks" (most submissions are either joint locks or chokes, so this statement is basically implying that chokes are the less dangerous of the two, so it's okay to fight them a little more before giving in)

also my gym has bjj classes for like 8 year olds, and I'm pretty sure they also learn chokes? (though admittedly I've never watched the kids classes; I've only ever seen them from a distance while in a different class myself)

(and anyway, kink also has a culture of tapping early (or safewording as it's called in that context), so I don't really see how the culture of tapping early would make the bjj version safer than the kink version?)

is this entire sport just massively downplaying the risks of one major aspect of it? what's going on here? (Also MMA people do talk about the dangers of concussions and stuff, so it's not like people just don't care health/danger etc)

I'm just surprised I've never heard of choking/strangulation being particularly dangerous

Weili!

Israel 'The Last Stylebender' Adesanya

When he’s ready for his first MMA lesson 🥋🥋🥋

"Pro-Wrestling is fake"

Israel Adesanya defeats Alex Pereira