Ludwig VAN

I was honored to be a guest on the Grappling Monthly Podcast to talk a little bit about Vanguard, uniforms and JiuJitsu. Check out for stories from people in the world of JiuJitsu. Sébastien - thank you for the opportunity, I was a little long winded and perhaps a bit incoherent but it was nice to speak with you. Keep up the great work.

Deadly Butterfly Guard ©️ Art: yours truly

The Homies & 🔪🔪🔪

I have some superstitions and one of them is that if I wear bright colored sox it usually brings good luck. When you’re developing something new, you need all the luck you can get to achieve the desired effect. In this case working on development of the next drop I was really happy with the result!

Thank you brother for hosting our family at your incredible restaurant ! ! ! Y’all gotta check this spot out if you are in the San Juan Capistrano area. It’s fantastic. Tony and his wife are restaurant concept veterans and it shows. I loved the Loco-moco and the Ube latte. Family had French toast and Veg scramble all of which were outstanding. Thank you and Jazz again for having us. 💙💙💙

BACKSTORY: Where do I start? There’s a lot that can be said about a T-Shirt. This particular T-Shirt “Geisha Girl” is part of the story of Streetwear in the golden days of Streetwear. SUBFREAKIE was founded in 1995 and grew organically through sweat and hustle. Eventually this brand found itself sitting alongside all of the venerable brands at the time both US and European as well as Japan (none of the usual suspects like Bape, Supreme, etc were known in the mid 2000’s) on some of the most important shelves like Union NY / LA, Ron Herman, ALife, Colette, VICE, Hideout and online with DG…etc. You had to be there to understand this significance. Fun fact: in 1996 I designed this Tshirt based on a Hanes BVD Purple label for Subfreakie and it was the foundation of the American Apparel 2001 that was in the rotation for many years. I designed the very first AA catalog for Dov while working out of Rick Klotz apartment in Weho, so this is essentially the very first American Apparel Tee to be used in street. The Packaging was made custom for Subfreakie by a SF company called vacu-sac and was a Vacuum sealed pack that kept the tees fresh while on display…since then there have been many copies but there’s never been a duplicate (zoom in) it’s uncanny that that is was the brand tagline almost 28 years ago now.

My day at Strong Sports Gym. What a great day with - friends for more than 20 years. Former business partners, periods of estrangement (due to my shortcomings) but water under the bridge and friendship remains. What a great day. Thank you see you guys soon! Wrestling mats ordered. 💪🏽

I had the pleasure of meeting up with Wada-san (SH**UN) at the venerable Triforce Jiu-Jitsu dojo. Triforce is an “OG” Jiu-Jitsu dojo in Japan founded by an OG player Hayakawa-san and features legendary competitors like Koji Shibamoto (he is still challenging the adult class ! respect).
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Wada-san had a dangerous foot lock attack courtesy of his training with Rumina-san ^~^ so I had to be careful. There were many tough students at Triforce and Luis and I were very tired after training 😅 - thank you to Wada-san and the coaching staff Haru-san for the hospitality. It was a great evening of technical sparring. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you to my friend Luis VG Korea for always being the best host. I will be back 🙏🏽

Another happy place.