In this episode I sit down with Andrew Flynn, a Jiu Jitsu black belt, Tai Chi Chuan advocate and accidental fightwear company owner.

Andrew is one of the guys behind alchemical fightwear (https://www.alchemical.com.au/) a healthy living company that also sells natural, plastic free option for martial arts / grappling apparel.

It was a fun conversation as we also went deep on Andrew's journey, from project management to Tai Chi Chuan, to Jiu Jitsu, cafe's and more.

Traditional martial arts often get a bad rap in modern martial arts discussions and it was nice for Andrew to articulate his experience with it.

We also go through his experience in building up a business to selling it, engineering / project management and of course the reasons why Alchemical focuses on Hemp / natural fibred fight wear.

Links:

https://www.alchemical.com.au/

Alchemical Fightwear on Socials: https://www.instagram.com/alchemicalfightwear/

Hemp history, uses, benefits and more.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15440478.2024.2435047#d1e199

Invention of Synthetic fibres and textiles

https://www.greenhive.io/blog/synthetic-fabrics 

Chemicals From Textiles to Skin

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6133113/

What Does Plastic Do To The Endocrine System

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-chemicals-in-plastics-impact-your-endocrine-system/

Microplastics found in artery plaque buildup of stroke survivors

https://www.heart.org/news/2025/04/22/plaque-buildup-in-the-necks-of-stroke-survivors-may-be-loaded-with-microplastics 

Nanoplastics that enter human cells cause cell death via trojan horse principle

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32786567/