Welcome to Creonte 2.0
What to look forward to as a new chapter kicks off
I’ve been taking some time away from Creonte of late because real world stress has meant all my free time has been devoted to looking for paid work so that I can do boring things like eat and not go into collections but I’m now ready to come back starting with this here substack. While the time I have available for Creonte is now much lower for the time being, as job hunting and paid work still have to take priority, what this reduction in available hours has led to is a focusing of what to do with the time I have to give. My goals with Creonte remain the same: covering women’s BJJ in a way and with a level of respect that remains all too rare and casting whatever spotlight I have on the cool people and cool places in this sport that stand out from the very uncool ones that often dominate the conversation.
Here’s what you should expect from Creonte in the months ahead:
Event Coverage
Sports writing is what I went to school for 20 years ago and remains something I am so thoroughly passionate about, even if the overall sports content world has pushed toward more video formats. While I will still be looking to put together video highlights from events, I also will be looking to provide written breakdowns and recaps of events with important women’s matches. While events where women’s bouts claim the majority of the spotlight remain depressingly rare, even when the biggest names and best grapplers on a card are the women, that will not be the case here. From previews and interviews before events to recaps when they’re done, my goal is to make Creonte the place to be for written content on women’s grappling.
Grappler Features
In my first ever sports writing job I had three weekly responsibilities: A preview story based on an interview with the team’s coach, a recap written live at games and a weekly feature on a player where I’d interview them, learn about them as people as well as players and let fans get to know the dude inside the helmet. The latter was my favorite thing by a country mile. There are so many dope people in this sport getting lost in the endless churn of whoever is shouting whatever terrible things this week, and I want to change that. My goal is to find rad women in BJJ and tell you all about them so that they can grow their brand and prominence and we can see more good people rise to stardom in this sport. To that end: if you know (or are) a high-level or up-and-coming woman in BJJ that you think more people should know about, hit me up at creontemedia@gmail.com (please include “Featured Grappler Suggestion” in your subject for ease on my end) with a name and any info I might need to assess them and get in touch.
Gym Boosting
As somebody who spent the better part of the last year commuting 4-1/2 hours round trip to train at a place I loved and respected it’s probably not surprising to hear that I am fairly particular about the ways I think a gym should behave and the morals a gym should uphold. If you run or know of a gym that provides a safe and inclusive training atmosphere and breaks away from some of the more toxic elements of the BJJ community on matters like gender and sexuality, then I want to hear about you so that I can help others hear about you. As above, please hit me up at creontemedia@gmail.com (subject to include “Featured Gym Suggestion”) so I can begin compiling a list of gyms to look into, reach out to and cast some attention on.
Editorials
Another unsurprising thing to anyone who has talked to me or seen my work on my MMA satire page is that I have some takes on the sport. With the old blog it was hard to find the time/motivation for longform writing knowing that anything off Insta was getting minimal traction. With Substack being one of the last places people still seem to come for longform content I’m excited to be able to start posting some more researched work discussing BJJ events and culture.
One Good Move
A Patreon benefit I’ve put off actually getting started because asking for favors makes me ick, this is still a project I think is fun (and would, hopefully, help fund this a bit more so I can shift some time and resources back from other stuff to here) and so consider this my formal call: if you’re a high-ranking grappler or competitive BJJ athlete and you like my work and want to see more of it and are looking for a way to help, please consider contributing a video to One Good Move. This will be a curated list of instructional videos in which nobody contributes more than one technique they like. It can be a favorite of yours, it can be something fun you’ve always wanted to show, it can be something basic you wish more people got the fine details of. If you’re somebody in a position to sell your own instructional, I’d encourage it to not be something you’d ever use for that because I don’t wanna pinch your work, unless you viewed throwing in one as a teaser (as I would happily link to any contributors for sale instructionals/Patreons/etc.) but I would also be immensely appreciative of you contributing anything else as the realist in me knows that while I know many dope black belts who will contribute dope things, it’s the biggest names on the list that will draw the most eyes and get those other videos seen and get subscribers on board.
The collection will be available to any $5 backers of the Patreon/any Substack subscribers (once I have that set up here? I still need to look into integration options between the two to decide exactly how that will work moving forward) or donors making a onetime contribution of $25 or more which grants forever access to all current and future videos. So, if you like my work here and want to see more of it and are in position to film a short one-move tutorial video, please get in touch and let me know, it would be profoundly appreciated.
Rolling Light/Guest Rolls
About a year ago I joked about wanting a podcast where BJJ people came on and then didn’t have an interview at all and instead just played some tabletop RPGs with the host instead, and people were kinda stoked because there are more fun little nerds like me in BJJ than I ever remember. This is by far the most work of anything planned, but fortunately a lot of it is fun so I can kinda count it outside my normal working hours. I’m still in the very early phase right now, but the plan will be to have a regular group of ~4 high level BJJ women who are the main group. They will play a D&D-adjacent game with me as DM using a simplified system based on FUDGE for easy adoption. I already have a few folks in mind who have expressed interest. This campaign serves two purposes: first it will be fun on its own, and provides an arena for BJJ folks to meet and get to know the dope women involved beyond just a grappling setting. Second, this will help the core group get comfortable for what would then be a series of One Shots with guest grapplers where they come in and play a game with us.
There are already so many interview shows, many by folks way better at that than me who can get way more interesting answers than I ever would, so I’m not interested in trying to make another of those. Instead, Guest Rolls will give grapplers the chance to show their personality in a totally different way by just coming on and playing for an hour or two. Sports are better when you have a better connection to the people involved, and play is among the best ways to truly know someone. Plus, there are a ludicrous number of silly fun games out there begging to be played. Honey Heist is a game where you are bears doing a heist. Boy Problems exists in a future where lost Carly Rae Jepsen recordings are the most wanted items in the world. RPGs are so fun, y’all.
This is by far the furthest off from anything being publicly available. I have just last night completed the four page rules (which, if you’ve played D&D you can REALLY appreciate what I mean when I say simplified) for the system I intend to use, and over the next few weeks I am going to attempt to run a bunch of sessions of the first campaign with different groups of friends/family to work out the kinks while also finalizing the roster for Rolling Light, the main podcast. While this is HIGHLY nontraditional content for the combat sports world, I also think it’s going to be really fun and am excited to bring it to fruition.
The precise future of Creonte is still a bit hazy, even to me. My job situation remains extremely unsettled right now, and so it is equally possible that a month from now I have more or less time to devote to this. But what I can assure is what time I have I will spend to my best ability to make Creonte the best it can be and, ultimately, to have whatever possible positive impact I can on the sport of Jiu-Jitsu and its community as a whole.