Today I am happy to announce that this April 14-15 MOVE FITNESS & TRAINING in bringing The Orange Kettlebell Club  to Spring Fitness in Hawaii for our first Certification Course!!

We have been working on this project for a long time. I am sure anyone who reads the blog knows that we have been all over the world studying kettlebell sport and teaching workshops. We have been to Russia to study with the IKSFA coaches 3 times since early 2010 and we have been in competitions across the US and Russia. We have been teaching workshops since 2007 and with our ongoing education and experiences with IKSFA and Coach Rudnev we have reached a point where we feel ready to raise our game.

We love this sport. We love the training that goes into it. We love what this adventure has done to us and for us. We want to do our best to help move it forward. We know that we have a lot of work to do and we are excited to get started!

We will do our absolute best to bring you a quality product. We will continue to train and coach and compete. We understand how important the process is. The training is the fire in the boiler. We need to keep that going. We need to push ourselves.

To anyone who is interested in attending our certification I can promise you this, when you are training for the test we are training too. When you are smashing yourself against the bells we are killing ourselves with you. We love it. It is what we do.

The Competition

We were thinking Hawaii…if that works for you guys

We are excited to hold the first OKC/IKSFA competition at Crossfit Oahu!!!

We will be awarding IKSFA Ranking up to Rank 1 (Sporting Perfection).

You can get more information at www.orangekettlebellclub.com

We love to compete! We know you guys love to compete! We are hoping to hold a few regional competitions this year. We are grateful to IKSFA for their tutelage, support, and guidance with this project. The IKSFA coaches have taken their time to teach us more than how to lift. They have taught us how to be sportsmen (we are trying!!) and how to represent the sport. We will do our best to make you all proud.

I’m gonna go now because I am super excited and I don’t want to ramble on.

Thank you for checking out the blog and the cert!

We hope to see you soon,

Kettle

Sorry all. Dolby got Juliet and I sick when we went to LA last weekend and I for one have been having trouble kicking this chest cold. (Thanks Chu-Hu!) BOOM!

That, along with our camera breaking has led me to this. I have no footage for the week. Which is ok because I have another thing I want to talk about.

Digging

You ever get the feeling that when someone comes to you they need coaching that doesn’t really have anything to do with kettle? I mean, it does, in the respect that they want to get in shape but sometimes it feels like more than that. I know when this happens it is my job to lay out a comprehensive blah blah to help them with their fitness blah and their aesthetic yawn ca-ching. It is my job. It is my least favorite part. I always keep thinking “why are you here?”

After attending Balboa University in the 80′s and then again in the 00′s for a little post grad work I can pass along this gem for sure…You can not buy your new you from me. It must come from you. You can’t buy your health from me either, sorry we are all out of that…check back next week. Did you want to buy a heart? Does this look like OZ?  I don’t even think you meant to ask that did you? Not knowing where to start is like being lost at sea. This is not Star Trek, I can not teleport you to the finish line. I don’t even sell gps. I do have some maps though, they are a little worn, and I don’t know exactly what they are maps of, but I’ll sell them if you want them…cheap.

It’s funny. These maps, they always get you to the beach, some beach, any beach, your beach (wherever the hell that is). You’ll be happy for a little while just to be off the ocean. You will be happy to have made that progress until you see the shovels. You didn’t expect the treasure to just be sitting there waiting for you did you? You are going to have to dig a little bit, maybe a little more than a little bit. Some people have to dig deeper than others to find what they are looking for.

Hey, at least the shovels a pretty new right? Lots of people have been to this beach. Lot’s of us have landed here but that shovel man…that shovel is sooo heavy…ughhh. People really hate that shovel. Most of them just pick it up for a minute and then drop it, get back on their raft and drift back off to sea. 

But you look like a digger. I bet you gonna rip right in it. You are almost there now. How deep could it be really? Digging, digging, digging, boy you are tunneling past some crazy stuff. You are getting pretty deep now, you can barely see the sun at the top of the tunnel any more. The light is just about gone. Is this the deepest you have ever dug? Have you found what you are looking for? Did you find your treasure?

You are all alone. There is only room for one down here. I promise you that. It gets lonely. When you are down that deep it will really get your gears turning. You start to think about what matters, who matters, why you are in this deep and what it is you are really looking for.

You keep digging. Eventually the light is gone. You have dug so deep that it is just you, your shovel, and your thoughts. “I must be near the center of the Earth by now.” “How long have I been digging?” You have to rest.

You have to dream.

When you wake up you will only want one thing…out. You want to feel the breeze on the beach. You want to feel the sun. At the very least you want to see the light. It is time to climb. You climb all day, all month, all year. It’s hot and dark and endless. It is different from the ocean though. You are not lost. You know what you need to do. Hand, foot, hand, foot…just keep going up. 

A white scratch.

That is all you needed to see. It is time to go. You just have to finish. You just have to get to the light. It is your whole life.

When you are in the hole. When you dig all the way down to your center. When the light goes away and you keep going…this is when you find what you are really looking for. I don’t know what it is about the digging. But it is not the boat or the beach or the shovel or the map (although they do help and they are all ON SALE right now for CHEAP at the okcblah blah blah), it is your will to use them. That’s it. No secret.

You’re back on the beach. You are out of the hole. Give it a second to let your eyes adjust. Give them a second to focus. Can you see which way to go now?

kettle,

This week was a fun week of training. A few of us were getting ready for another IKFF meet so our training was a little altered. Juliet Kyrsten and I Road tripped it down to LA on Friday to lift on Saturday and it was Super Fun! I want to thank Luke Sniewski and the crew at LEAF Fitness for putting on a great meet. The vibe was excellent and the people there were max fun. We got to see some of our friends and make some new ones. It was the first time I ever just did a snatch set during a comp but lifting was kind if a list minute decision and I want to stay on my training program so I tried to look at it as just another training day but in the end I still felt the good jitters before the set and I ended up eating it. I only got 95 reps total which is lower than any 5 min set I have done over the past few months. I really did earn the lousy result though. I have not been as locked in as I should be. I have been having a little trouble transitioning out of stage 5 but this weekend helped…A LOT! I saw the results of my friend John Lesko hitting his CMS this weekend (Congrats John!!) and that combined with my own poor result has helped me clear my mind of all distractions. I am ready to get back in the gym tomorrow and push myself away from the dinner table so to speak.

That being said…it was really great to get to lift and support some of the team and feel the energy of some up and coming lifters. Watching the sport grow is a real thrill! I am proud to be a part of it and I am happy that during one of the sets Juliets Camera was destroyed and the footage of my set was lost forever…so so sad…so very very sad…

We did however manage to salvage the video of Juliet hitting CMS in Long cycle. She really did walk into this set. She does not train long cycle and only had about 2 and a half weeks to prepare for this meet. She got 91 reps with the 20kg. I know it looks like a 24 but all the bells at Leaf Fitness are green. That aside they were nice bells. They have good handles and felt pretty balanced. I am sure people set PR’s with them and I think they are excellent for a gym if anyone needs to stock up (Contact Luke Sniewski at www.leaflifestyle.com if you are looking for quality bells in bulk at a good price).

Here is Juliet making a smash on the Kettle:

I know that some of the other sets were recorded by different people and I was thinking about waiting for them to post the sets before I wrote the blog but since it is called “The Sunday Blog” I figured I should get out what I could no matter what. I do have a few videos from the week of training. None of my stuff is here because I thought I would have my comp video and I didn’t bother recording my lifting but I do have a little treat. I kept the video rolling a little after the set and I think I got some cool stuff. I don’t know how long I can get away with this before the guys catch on and start hamming it up… but I think these are pretty real.

So, here is a set by Nazo from this week. I like the end around 8:40

Here is a vid of one of Juliet’s new students Rebecca with her first 10 min Jerk set with the 12. I caught some of her thoughts at the end of her set too. She has no idea LOL!!

And I got some footage of Sarah lifting after taking a little time off. She is kicking the rust off. My mom would say she talkes like a truck driver!

Also, my friend Mike Noritake wrote a super cool blog about the meet and OKC. You can see it here http://kettlebellsandsinglefins.tumblr.com/day/2012/01/22

I can’t wait to get some rest and kill it tomorrow at Juno!

Kettle,

one last thing… sometimes there is a lady named “Elle” who comments on my blog. My father really likes to read her comments, but I am a little worried. Juliet swears she is real but I don’t think she actually exists. I mean, she was supposed to be in LA and I brought her an OKC shirt and everything but she didn’t make it. Hmmmm…. something doesn’t add up. Stay tuned, I will get to the bottom of this!

I have not really posted any Jerk sets on the blog because I am embarrassed of my numbers. I have this mental block when it comes to Jerk and I am always stuck between 30-35 reps. This week I did ok on Monday. Wed was terrible and I crashed during the second set but Friday was a good day. I was happy with my pacing and I got 37 reps with the 28′s. I know this is not an earth shattering number of reps but it is a pr for me with the 28′s. I started to get excited once I got to 30 and lost my concentration a little bit and dropped them at 37. I was happy with the set but the normal emotions crept in afterward. “I could have done 40 but I quit”. It is what we call the “steady state” around here, no matter how good the set is it still sucked.

Juliet needed a little break from Biathlon and this weekend she is going to take a shot at Long Cycle. We have not trained long cycle in over a year and she has about 2 weeks to prepare for this competition so one of the things she is stuck doing this week is “clean with extra swing”. We use this drill to build grip strength and timing for the clean. It is a great drill to write on a program and a terrible drill to see on a program…Boom!

Nazo has been a blast to train with as she is working her way back to the platform! Most of you know about her time being stuck in Japan during the earthquake and it has been a long road…BUT SHE’S BACK BABY!!! She is working on long cycle and we are building up her strength with a 14kg in a 5×5 drill. 5 seconds in the rack then 5 seconds in the lockout. It’s nasty. It’s double nasty with two bells! She really guts it out on this set and puts up with a cheeky camera man as he keeps it rolling after the set!! Chu-Hi!!

This is my snatch set from Wed. It is 32kg snatch+extra swing. Coach Rudnev is a mean man. Doesn’t he know I’m out of shape?! Well, I’m in shape if the shape is round! Anyway…I survived and finished the set. I have been working on my backswing because I get lazy and let the bell bend behind me. Apparently I think I am so big and strong that I can get away with being lazy...nyet. You can see in the beginning I am bending around the back badly. I try to get every rep clean but I still have much practice ahead. Coach calls this “A major flaw” in my technique. He is right naturally. I am working on it.

My student JT Killed his 10 min Long Cycle set in Hawaii with 65 reps in 10 min with 24kgs! I am very proud of him!!

And in Singapore my student Ian did a great set of 40 reps in 5 min with the 20′s Long Cycle. Ian has come such a long way and I am proud of him as well. What a great student and friend!

Next week I hope to get some footage of Dolby, Salemi, and Sarah up here…Stay Tuned

kettle,

Now the training is back and it fits a little too snugly around the thighs if you get my drift.

Stage 5 was epic. 4 weeks on the road in Japan and a 4 city tour. Did you know that in Japan they have all you can eat and drink menus? It’s a preset price and they just keep feeding you food and Chu-Hi hour after hour?

Needless to say I am fat. Fat fatty fatpants fat. Fatter than normal that’s for sure, but it was worth every last sip I do promise you!

Now I am dealing with the repercussions of sweet, beautiful excess. I am struggling through my training with this softer body and it is not fun. *

My wind is not what it should be and my rack has regressed.  That being said Coach Rudnev did pull me aside in Detroit and explain to me that I was still bending in my backswing and if I do not fix this error he would…eh…eh…kill me.

So I have been working on that.

Every rep has to be a good one. Not just the fixation but the backswing, breathing, acceleration pull, and insertion. Going into Detroit I got onto this speed kick. For example, if I had to finish my workout with 100/100 glove snatches I wanted to get through it as quickly as possible and in a dominant way. This was a change from my “just hold on for ten minutes” attitude that I had in the middle of last year. I was cranking out reps at light speed but I was letting my technique go and using my strength to lift. This was great for my wind because the bell was a 16kg or a 20 kg but when I switched back to the 32kg bell there was less than ideal transfer. I had been practicing sloppy reps.

See…Here is me with a 30kg rushing and getting sloppy

So I have been working on that.

Every rep, every set, has to be perfect. My speed is down a little but I can feel my technique improving. I am still out of shape and that slows me down but I am getting fitter every day. The diet is getting better. The running is getting better. The reps are getting better. It is all starting to come together.

Next weekend I will be in Los Angeles at the IKFF competition. I had not planned on competing this early, I am really looking more towards May, but the OKC has a few lifters going and I couldn’t miss it! I am just going to do a snatch set and stay on my program. It will be fun (I think). It will be a good early test for me to see if the month of work I put in on my tech has been paying off or not. I think it has but we will see.

Kettle,

* This is not to say it was not fun to soften up this body. It was fun. IT WAS MAXIMUM FUN!! I needed it and I am happy I did it. You can’t even imagine the footage Nazo has of Jason and I in Osaka tearing apart a whole floor of the hotel from our room to the elevators in cowboy hats and Kimonos with wooden swords and countless Chu-Hi’s! We can’t post it but if you see her ask her to see it, she has it at hand ALL OF THE FREAKING TIME”.

I needed a little quiet.

Last year was a wild one for me. Not that it was more stressful or harder than any other year. And I am not saying that it was more challenging than your year or the year Nazo had, or the year my neighbor had, but for me it was a time of change.

I knew it was going to be. I put myself out there and I knew there would be interaction with others. I wanted to make it a regular thing. I wanted to be more of a public guy. I thought it would be good for me, and it was, I think.

It started with the Siberia trip. I loved that. I trained so hard and it was really a leap into the unknown for me. Thank you Aleks and Coach Rudnev.

I was in the frozen river man. I went to Siberia in February and I touched it. It was like when I went to Africa and I had to touch the dirt, I had to touch it. I had to take my shoes off and feel that dirt between my toes. I’m big John from Long Island, what am I doing in Africa? Siberia? 100 years ago this never could have happened. But it did happen so I can check those boxes off now.

Far off places between my toes…check.

Last year I learned what it was to train. Training with success and through failure. Training when I am tired or cranky or sore or manic. Training even on the days my mind broke. Training my head, training my body and my heart. Training with Dolby and Nazo and Juliet.

I got to compete in Russia twice last year. I earned it in the only way I could, I showed up.

I entered a tournament knowing I was going to lose to a guy I didn’t like. He knew he was going to beat me. It was a strange emotion.  He beat me. I didn’t like it, but I took it.

I coached my team all year and I am so proud of all of you. I am proud of your students. I am proud that I played a role in what you are becoming. All of you.

We did the One Hour Long Cycle Charity event for the second time and we raised around $6000 for Japan Relief. Nazo was stuck in Japan during the earthquake. It was not good. It was not easy. So many of you came out to lift and support the cause. Thank you so much!

We went to Detroit. We focused on that meet since February. As we got closer to the meet I started withdrawing. I stopped blogging and we were not even teaching workshops. It was just training and recovering. That was it. Looking at my blog now I realize I did not even report on the results of the OHLC. I just couldn’t do anything other than train. I really let my business go. The funny thing is with Juno’s help I ended up with more clients than I had before the training got deep. For some reason I guess people are attracted to you when you are eating it as hard as they are.

The team Killed in Detroit. I did not hit what I wanted to but I did not crap all over myself either so I will take it and build on it. Met a few cool people and got to reconnect with some old friends. It was great.

Straight to Japan again from there for 6 events in 4 weeks including Japan’s first GS tournament. It was stage five part one. We were still focusing on Kettle teaching and lifting but we did not have numbers to hit. Just that ability to relax was huge for us. We needed it so badly. We had been locked on for almost a year non-stop.

After Japan I got a week of real, true stage 5 BOOM!! I got fat and slept in and really got away.

3 weeks ago I got back on the training horse.

2 weeks ago I really gave it my best effort.

Last week it started working and I am pleased with the progress.

Tomorrow the diet tightens up and the weight will come off again. It is going to be a big year with some big goals.

I am starting a new thing on my blog (new to my blog but surely not to the universe). Nazo, Juliet and I train together at Juno. Sometimes Sarah and Mike are there. Sometimes Dolby comes up or Rebecca stops by to lift. You never know who is coming by. I will write about the week of training on Sundays. I have creatively titled this “The Sunday Blog”.

So since the last few weeks have been about Quiet, I do not really have anything to say about training or to show you about training this week. I am just writing to write I guess. It has been a long time since I have done that

It feels good, like a far off place between my toes.

Kettle,

We are very grateful to all of those who have already contributed to the One Hour Long Cycle Charity Event and we are happy to let you know that David Halton Ceo and founder of the BodyPlus Group http://www.bodyplusgroup.com and Haleo Supplements http://www.haleo.jp has agreed to match all of the funds we raise fot this event and he will present the money when we arrive in Japan this fall!

Nazo first told Jason and I about David and how he is well known in Japan for his philanthropy. He was directly affected by the Earthquake and Tsunami this year and was on hand to donate funds and supplies to those who lost so much. We decided to take a chance and reach out to him to see if he had any interest in our charity event AND HE DID!

We are very grateful to David and the Haleo Family! We will do our best to raise as much money as we can. We will lift our hearts out.

The One Hour Long Cycle started out as a little idea for Jason Dolby’s birthday. Now it is beginning to grow. My good friend David Elkins told me once “If you follow your heart you will lift up the world”. You are the strong. We are the strong. Together we can lift and make a difference.

Please visit the site to learn more about the event and to donate:

http://www.onehourlongcycle.com/ 

Anything will help and we now have the chance to double it up!

Thank you again David!

and thank you too Nazo…you brought us to Haleo

Kettle,

So what I am thinking is I will post some footage of me snatching and talk about the progress I have made and a little of the technical stuff that is going on.

The above clip is the one from the post I was tagged in. I think this is from 2009 but it could have been 2010. This footage is when I was working with a different coach and before I went to IKSFA. Obviously I am not in very good physical condition here. I was not running or stretching or doing any conditioning work at all. I was mostly lifting heavy stuff once in a while and drinking beer out of boots. It was awesome, but it was clearly affecting my lifting.

You can see there is a lot of extra movement. I am letting energy leak out of almost every joint in my body. My hips do not come through. I am not using any real leg drive and I am really ripping the bell up with brute force. Looking at this footage for the first time in a while I would guess I did that for effect

As you can see I am snatching into an undersquat. I still do this sometimes when I miss a snatch or when I am tired but I no longer do it on every rep. I have learned that if I catch the bell out in front with my bones aligned I can post up on the bell and relax my muscles sooner and for longer than I had been. In this footage I am catching the bell way too late.

I am casting the bell on the drop. What a mess. It is not the one ring to rule them all. There is no reason to cast it to hell. It’s a weight. It wants to fall. No reason to get all flowery about it Buckley.

In the above clip I had been to the coaches at IKSFA and had been working with Coach Rudnev for about 2 months. You can see that my hips are coming through…really coming through. I was snatching this bell with my hips almost exclusively. Later this would be mockingly referred to by Coach Rudnev  as “John Technique”. You can see I am using an extreme counterbalance on the drop. Like the undersquat the “leaning back” is a tool to be used as needed. More is not always better. My conditioning was much better than before but I was still getting winded pretty easily and I was using every trick I could find to get the reps in. I think my insertion is better on this set and my breathing is good, but I am still catching the bell way too high. But the two major issues with these snatches are

1)   I am not using any transverse rotation with my acceleration pull.

2)   My arm is bending around my body during the backswing (especially on the right) because of a lack of flexibility. This also affects my lockouts.

I remember slowing down at the end of the first 2 min because I was nervous I was going too fast and I had never done 40 snatches per hand before with the 28. This was in January, before Siberia, my pr with the 24kg was 63 right 54 left.

The above footage from the competition in New York. It had been 4 months since Siberia. This time I did 90+90 with the 24kg. In December, on Christmas day I did 40 left (then I HAD to rest) then 40 right in my mother’s garage in Pennsylvania.  I was happy with my result in June. My personal record more much more than doubled in the few months I had been training with coach Rudnev.

Above is a swing snatch clip I did with the 30kg in Sept. We are getting close to a year of training with coach Rudnev and the IKSFA team. This is a drill that I do and that my students might be familiar with. It is brutal but it is excellent for helping re-enforce a lifters motor patterns, among other things like grip and breathing rhythm. When I watch this clip I feel like I am much better on the left although my numbers are better with the right…weird. I am still working on it.

Above is me in Seattle 3 weeks ago. It was my first time competing with the 32kg. I was pretty excited ! In July the most I had ever done with the 32kg was 30+30. Here I did 60+45. It was an uneven performance but I hit my CMS rank in Snatch and that was the goal of this meet for me. I made the mistake of thinking and counting during the set. I couldn’t stay focused and, well, that’s all folks.

Here is my set from this past weekend. 28kg 70 reps right (2min rest) 70reps left. I thought it said 3 min per side. And for some reason I thought it was 18 rpm, which does not compute either. Actually, it was supposed to be 20 rpm for 3 min 30 sec right (2min rest) 3min 30sec left 20rpm. So as I started my set I started thinking (big mistake) that I was not going to make it and I had to go faster. Can you find the moment when I figured this out? My technique felt pretty good in the beginning. You will see when I break into my sprint that I am working much harder. I am driving much more with my legs and pulling harder with my back and arm. It is an unsustainable pace for me. Too much muscle needs too much oxygen. For me anyway. I missed the set by 3 reps and it took 3min 7sec. During the break I actually felt pretty good and thought I would try to do the second hand in 3 min even though I realized I had 30 extra seconds. I thought I could do it. So I started faster and used a slightly different technique. It is called a “swing pendulum”. This is something that I learned at IKSFA in St. Petersburg. You can see the little scoop as the bell passes my knees on the upswing. The hard thing is to time it with my transverse hip rotation and my acceleration pull. I can manage it on my left but I can’t quite find it on my right. Can you see the difference? You can see when I miss my timing that the bells lock out to my left on an angle. It’s a trip how these little things make such a huge difference. Of course, once I get super tired there is no pendulum and hardly any rotation. It’s just SMASHING TIME! Once I start lifting like that the end of my set is near. Anyway, I know there is a lot more I could write about these videos but this blog is getting long already.

I’m training for the nationals in Detroit this November. That will be a full year of training under coach… all eyes forward.

Kettle,

I said it out loud today. That’s a first.

It is a complex emotion for me.

kettle+,

This past weekend the OKC brought Jason Dolby, Juliet Lederle, Sarah Lightfoot, Mike Salemi, and myself to Seattle. We left with 3 CMS rankings and 5 gold medals.

Mike Crushed his 24kg long cycle set and grabbed his CMS.

Juliet smoked the 16kg bell in biathlon and got her CMS.

I hit my goals for the day both on Jerk and Snatch and got CMS in Snatch.

Sarah competed in Biathlon with the 12kg and scored a 403 total!

Jason mashed up his 32kg long cycle set for 40 reps.

You can see all of our videos at the OKC YouTube Page http://www.youtube.com/user/johnwildokc?feature=mhee 

Oh, right, Mike Sanders was in New York at the IUKL World Championships and not only did he finish his 10 min, but he set a personal record by 17 reps and became the Amateur World Champion in Long Cycle 100kg weight division! This, my friends, is completely and utterly BADASS!

Now it is on to Detroit. (With a stop in Costa Mesa for the One Hour Long Cycle.)

The training for this comp went well. I have been training with Juliet over at Juno on most days. Sometimes Sarah can make it and sometimes a few others stop by to train with us. It has kept me very consistent with my training. I feel like it is my life now. I get up, brush my teeth, and go train. Almost everything else has fallen away.

I have missed writing this blog. My problem was that I have nothing other than training to talk about. I didn’t want to get peoples hopes up by telling them how hard I have been working and then stink up the joint.

That being said, I hit my goals for the day and I have been working very hard.

I am going to try to keep up on the blog. I feel better in regards to writing about the training. Although the mountain did kick my ass today!

Me next to Dave Freakin' Elkins!!! The living legend! The High Flyin, Kiss Stealin, Wheelin Dealin son of a gun! yeah, that guy! Boom Chu Hi!!!

To my team: I could not be prouder of you all. Thank you very much for trusting me and trusting Jason with your training. You guys have all worked so hard and you never quit. You never walked away. Even when it got really hard you trusted us and fought through pain and sticking points. Everything we have been doing points to Detroit. Two more months of training to go, just two more months to hit our goals. I know we can do it. I believe in all of you and I am NOT going to get all emotional here…sniff…um, you know…but…I love you guys.

Get ready for Tomorrow. Stage 5 is over.

Kettle,