Training with Legends

I'm sorry it's been a bit longer than usual since my last blogpost. Right now, I don't think I could possibly be busier unless I changed my name to John Du Cane. Normally, I like to share some insights with my blog readers, but this post is going to be a glimpse into one of the most hectic, yet rewarding, days I've had in ages.

This week, I've had the pleasure and honor of having Dr. Vadim Kolganov visiting me here in Los Angeles. As we both share three common loves (Hard Style kettlebell training, manual medicine, and martial arts), there never seems to be enough hours in the day.

We both couldn't help but realize that +2 hour training sessions felt like barely 30 minutes, even when wearing a thick Judo gi top in the Los Angeles summer heat. Whether reviewing Sambo fundamental mobility drills, throw set-ups & entries, pins, submissions, or Kali blade work with Guro John Spezzano, the training sessions were always over far too soon.

Yesterday was an action packed day. Starting with a morning get-together with Dr. Kolganov & RKC Chief Instructor Pavel Tsatsouline for a brief workout, we continued on with a private training session for Raleigh Enterprises President, Mark Rosenthal, who is graciously hosting Dr. Kolganov at the Sunset Marquis Hotel & Villas, and after a couple of errands, returned back to the Rosenthal house for a powwow with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu/JKD/Kali expert, Prof. Roy Harris.

To watch two brilliant minds and two high level experts like Harris & Kolganov exchange technique and talk about their favorite techniques in their respective fields of experience and preference was about as cool an experience as someone could hope for in martial arts. Dr. Kolganov gifted a kurtka (Sambo jacket) to Prof. Harris and shared techniques from both Sambo wrestling & Retuinskih's ROSS system, and Prof. Harris shared his insights into Kalis Ilustrissimo weaponry, the JKD mindset of streetfighting, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Later in the evening, Dr. Kolganov & I drove down to the Perform Better Summit in Long Beach and met up with Functional Movement System masterminds Gray Cook & Brett Jones. Every time I meet up with Gray, no matter how short the interaction, I always leave with some clinical pearl (or 10) that leaves me both dumbfounded and inspired at the same time. By the time we made it down to Long Beach last night, I was dead tired. On the drive back, I was re-energized from Gray's insights, keenly aware of how much and how urgently I have to grow and improve as a clinician.

Today.... R&R.

The UCLA, CK-FMS, SFMA de-brief

Finally... I know how overdue this is, but, man... what a month!

I think I've been using the excuse that I've been waiting for people to send me photos of me from UCLA & CK-FMS to procrastinate from writing this post, but I'm getting this done today, come hell or high water. (Addendum - the pic above is courtesy of Heidi Rothenberg, RKC, and just received on 8/25/08)

The UCLA-RKC
Most of you've already heard about the adventures that I took KJ on during his stay here in LA, so I'll leave those out of this post. I will, however, say that the UCLA RKC marked my domestic debut as a Team Leader, having made my international debut back in Budapest.

Just prior to the RKC, there were a few hours when Brett Jones, MRKC, KJ & I were sitting here in this dinky little home/office room of mine and powwowing just before the cert. I have to say that that was one of the cooler moments in memory. It's always a good thing when the guys you looked up to as untouchables become your friends & colleagues, but then once you know them, you respect them even more.

The KBLA crew fielded no shortage of personnel for the UCLA cert, and each one of them carried themselves stunningly. I've been hearing from someone almost every other day about how well my students did at UCLA, and I have to thank them for their hard work and their display of pride. With few exceptions and despite their fatigue following the weekend's strain and exhaustion, everyone associated with KBLA stayed after the RKC was concluded to help Dragon Door with cleanup and packing. That kind of team spirit is what makes KBLA so great to be at the helm of. Having people like that makes me want to give my all to them time & time again.

"Trusty" Justin Garfield, USMC, RKC helped KJ & I load, haul, and unload an obscene number of kettlebells from UCLA to my apartment. This place looked like Fort Hard Style for a few days afterward.

In the aftermath of UCLA, I felt completely drained. The blazing sun overhead, the expectations from this being the first RKC cert in Los Angeles AND at my alma mater, and just being on point for 3 non-stop days took its toll, and the Viking & I just crashed out hard afterwards.

Reflecting back, there were several high points along the way.
- Listening to Coach Dan John speak on training methods and high goblet squat presentation. The importance and value of so much of what he taught sailed over the heads of most people there. I know I only caught a modicum of what he was trying to share with us.
- Co-presenting the NGU/TGU with Rif
- Working with Steve Belanger, RKC & Michelle Kilikauskas, RKC II as my assistants. I have NOTHING but high praise for them!
- Sharing the field with other Team Leaders, Seniors, & Masters that I respect and admire
- Meeting so many highly motivated and disciplined RKC candidates and working with them as they developed into RKCs!

One point of discussion was the quality of certain assistants.
The RKC is not a place to strut, to sit around, or to be aloof for assistant RKCs.

It's a place and occasion to do the following, in the following order:
1. to recertify and demonstrate your technical proficiency in all of the RKC I requirements,
2. to demonstrate your ability to teach those skills to others as an assistant to your Team Leader, and
3. to pick up on all the fine points that you missed in your previous excursion through the RKC as a student.

Rest damn assured that KBLA's going to make sure that each & every RKC that we field as an assistant is more than ready to do all of those. Anton Summers, RKC did us all proud at UCLA. There's MUCH more to come from many more waiting in the wings.

And now that we've got representatives in the O.C., we're branching out as Kettlebells Orange County too!

The Certified Kettlebell - Functional Movement Screen (CK-FMS) workshop
What a reunion!

KJ, Doug Nepodal & I were on the same flight out of LAX, and we got the red carpet welcome from Matt Johnson, RKC. Matt took time out of his day to scoop up the Three Amigos from MSP and bring us to the hotel. Big thanks to Com. Matt for such hospitality!

The first moments as KJ, Doug & I rolled out, getting into the Holiday Inn was like being back at the reunion you always wished your reunions were like. We got our rooms and met up in The Liffey (the in-house restaurant) later that evening, and you'd swear you've never seen so much warmth and happiness in one place. That kind of camaraderie left a lasting impression on us all, no doubt.

The CK-FMS workshop itself was a thing of absolute beauty. I'd originally signed up just for the sheer pleasure of being a student, but that was prior to having a couple of meetings with Gray Cook & Dr. Lee Burton, who honored me with an invitation to assist. I'd originally been exposed to the Functional Movement Screen directly by Gray a couple of years ago when he gave Pavel & I an in-depth introduction to it at the Beckham Academy. I'd been practicing it on my own as well, studying bits & pieces here & there, along with the "Secrets of..." series. I met up with Gray & Lee in Long Beach for their Perform Better workshops earlier this year, and then flew out to Indy to go through the full FMS course itself, where I ended up assisting (much to my shock & surprise). When Gray told me that he wanted me to assist at the CK-FMS, I was speechless.

Despite studying the reference materials, I was amazed at how many little fine points I'd missed or overlooked as the workshop progressed. Throughout the weekend, as much as I thought I'd prepared to assist Gray & Brett, I felt like I was just struggling to stay abreast of the knowledge that the two of them were doling out. Danielle Cook, RKC II, Gray's wife and a well-practiced FMS instructor, put me a bit more at ease when she commented that a lot of this material she'd never seen either, as it was the first time Gray & Brett were presenting it together. As the two of them were teaching, I felt like I had my lips on a firehose that was on full-blast. I had to keep checking my skull every few hours to see if there was an exit wound yet.

With even the massive amounts of experience and learning that a high-level coach like Rif has, he too was remarking well before the end of the day, "My brain hurts!"

It wasn't until the last day when Brett confessed that he was taken off guard and blown away by something Gray explained or presented that I started to feel a little more consolation. You can rest assured that for the coming months, I'll be hip deep in the Gray [Cook] Matter.

The Takeaway... Hard Style and the RKC System is an incredible body of knowledge that prepares the human body for ideal movement and true strength. It fits in with the FMS like a hand in a glove, and I'm just more inspired to learn and practice more of both.

The Aftermath... After spending the weekend with people I love & respect like Toomey, the Blifferts, Engum, Whitley, O'Connor, Pavel, KJ, Rif, and the like, leaving was a serious downer. If the Iron Tamer himself hadn't called me and asked if I was back home & bummed out too, I'd have thought someone put a downer in my Cheerios. There's really something to be said for the kind of family that's come out of The School of Strength!

Oh yeah... and if you have pics of me or Courtney, please e-mail them to me!!!

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OK... sorry about the prior incompleteness. Had to run down to the Inosanto Academy to train the man himself.

SFMA debrief
At Gray Cook's encouragement, I signed up for the Selective Functional Movement Assessment Course, taught by Dr. Kyle Kiesel. This course focused more on diagnostic tools for physicians, while still operating on the same paradigm as the FMS.

There are still basic tests that are scored, and the focus for treatment is refined down to a very formulaic means. Courtney & I had dinner with Dr. Kiesel after the course and both of us gave him the same feedback:

As medical professionals (east & west), we were both taught plenty of diagnostic tests and how to use plenty of diagnostic tools, from pulses to MRIs to serum glucose tests. No matter what branch of medicine you're in, if you're learning from a top-notch mentor and a really skilled clinician, you're taught to go for the keystone, the central point of dysfunction or disease. When you treat that effectively, all the other secondary symptoms will usually improve.

The SFMA & FMS technologies give everyone involved in human performance a means of identifying dysfunction, aiming us toward the key problem, and rectifying it with either corrective exercise, intervention, or referral. This is the essence of being a useful participant in another person's true wellness.

As I said this morning at the Inosanto Academy, I'm so blessed to have access to good people like these with knowledge so deep. Life's good.

Oh yeah... and send me pics from UCLA or CK-FMS if you've got 'em!

And for this weekend...

Man, I can't believe it... About to get on another plane. Luckily, this is just a short trip.

As I was writing a note for my KettlebellsLosAngeles Newsletter, I liked the content so much that I figured it might be beneficial if I posted the message here too.

Enjoy, Folks!
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Hello, Kettlebellers!

One of these days, I'll be able to follow my own advice and PROPERLY moderate my workload, but right now, it's just moving at the speed of absolute insanity. I'll be heading out of town this Sunday morning, but there will still be plenty of KBLA's RKC-certified instructors and instructor candidates on hand to teach in my absence. My wife, Dr. Courtney Cheng, RKC II, may be under the weather, so don't expect her to be on hand.

For this week's training, there are 2 things I want people to work on:

1. Maximum Volitional Contraction (MVC), and

2. Efficient Explosiveness (EE).

Through my training with Pavel Tsatsouline and my conversations with Gray Cook, both mentors of mine, I've realized that more often than not, people think they're contracting a muscle to its maximum (i.e., generating an MVC) when they're really not.

How does this happen?..... Simple... we lose touch with our bodies and develop really awful habits of motion and of stability. Some people refer to this as having poor ergonomics, but it's also an issue of having rotten movement patterns.

What's the first, most vital movement pattern that people tend to unlearn?.... BREATH!

Why is breath crucial?..... Aside from the obvious issues of asphyxiation, how we breathe is one of the most fundamental factors deciding whether we're in an efficient and powerful state (parasympathetic nervous system dominant - i.e., calm & in control) or a highly inefficient and weak state (sympathetic nervous system dominant - i.e., fearful, panicked, defensive, & in denial).

When I was discussing this with Gray Cook this past weekend, I almost thought that I was sitting in a psychology class, but these are all the SAME messages that we hear in Traditional Chinese Martial Arts training, starting with Chi Kung (aka. qigong). We try to shift our breathing down to the lower abdomen to train diaphragmatic breating, instead of breathing in our upper chests. As Brett Jones, MRKC, said in Secrets of the Shoulder, the lungs expand downward because of our diaphragms, and that's 2/3 of our lung volume!! But in many cases, we've unlearned how to breath properly. Want proof? Watch a baby breathe. The belly rises and falls, not the upper chest.

And how does that tie into Russian Kettlebell training?..... The sharp and short "sssst!" sound you make on exhalation while doing KB ballistics is a rapid intraabdomenal compression, coming from your lower abdomen. If you try it from your chest, it's weak. Not as many stabilizing muscles fire. Now try it exhaling sharply, almost from your groin. Feel how different it is in terms of the power you generate???

So this is how class is going to run this weekend as far as a rough schedule:

- 10 minutes of joint mobility (basic warmup)

- at least 5 minutes of VERY focused lower abdomenal breathing:
*Start with your feet shoulder width and parallel, relax your legs, reach up to the sky with the vertex of your head, and overlay one palm on your sternum and the other palm just under your belly button. Now breathe slowly, evenly, and deeply.
*You should feel the palm on your lower abdomen push outward against your hand as you inhale, and fall back in towards your spine as you exhale. The hand on your sternum should ideally not even move.

- Divide the class up into beginners, semi-experienced, and RKC candidates

- One of the RKCs takes the beginners & semi-experienced through the Hard Style Lock, wall squat, KB deadlift, KB swing, and Naked Get-Up. Remember that for a first-timer, less is more. The Hard Style Lock is a crucial skill where you get your first exposure to MVC. If you "think" you're clenching your glutes or "think" you're locking your knees, the odds are pretty damn good that you COULD and SHOULD engage them even MORE forcefully. We live in a "good enough" society, but you need to remember that "good enough" means "first idiot injured from carelessness" in Chinese.

You want to be able to pull off the ENTIRE 5 point Hard Style Lock with real synchronicity and your real Maximum Volitional Contraction, and the KBLA instructional crew will show you how. As Pavel always says, "Tension equals strength." So learn WELL how to generate tension right from the get-go..... A leakage in tension is a liability in structure!

NOTE: For the instructional crew, if you see someone zoning out or ignoring your instructions, don't let them touch a kettlebell. Have them do bodyweight exercises until they learn how to move properly. Moving improperly with a kettlebell is just a means of reinforcing compensation mechanisms, and as the saying goes, "nothing good can come of it."

- RKC Candidates: Instead of doing the Hard Style Lock and all of that, grab a relatively heavy bell and do 5 - 10 swings with 2 hands, and then 5 swings per hand of 1 handed swings. You're trying to achieve 2 things: a) maximum explosiveness from the legs and glutes, and b) note the feeling of smoothness at the bottom of the arc with the 1-handed swing.

Once you've done that, go through your snatch test with the strict RKC rules. I want to see numbers posted on my blog under the corresponding post. Coach each other as you go through it, forcing each other to adhere to maximally correct form.

THIS RKC SNATCH TEST is your lesson in Efficient Explosiveness. What are the salient points of EE?
*Sensing exactly how much muscular force/explosiveness to use to get the KB to float up to the apex
*Guiding the arc of the KB more vertically than diagonally. If the KB bounces on your wrist, it's usually because you're either overthrowing the bell or you're finishing the snatch with the apex in front of you. Adjust accordingly.
*Sense the smoothness at the bottom of the arc. Lowering the KB from the apex doesn't mean "turn your brain off". Rather, you should be just as mentally engaged and aware of the feel of the bell while you're lowering it as you were while you were snatching it upward. If it feels like there's any jerkiness or strain, you need to adjust your form.

You are each allowed only ONE attempt on Sunday. Rest well on Saturday and bring your A game!

Once you've gone through your snatch tests, rejoin the class and spread the lovin'.

This weekend's circuit will be designed by KBLA's own Dr. Jeff McCombs, DC, RKC, if he's present. Doc Jeff is highly competent in both putting a hurt on you and taking the hurt off of you!

Train hard, train smart, train kettlebells!

"Doc" Mark Cheng, RKC Team Leader

Spilling Clinical Secrets

Don't be fooled by the title of the post. It's not like I'm going to tell you some juicy confidential patient information or post pics of some of the celebs that hang out here. This post is about some of the BEST information that I've seen in clinical medicine.

Man, it's amazing how when you find something really good, you just can't stop talking about it and can't help expressing your enthusiasm about it.

I've been watching Gray Cook & Brett Jones's Secrets of the Hip & Knee DVD, and it's absolutely excellent. I can't tell you how many priceless insights I got just from the Introduction section, let alone the rest of the DVD. This just rocks.

"But I'm not a doctor or a clinician. Why do I need this DVD?"

Simple. If you train yourself as an athlete and want to understand the workings of your body and how to train it with maximum effectiveness and safety, this is perhaps the closest thing to a user's guide that you're gonna get. If you train others, work out with others, or even teach a grade-school PE class or coach a team, this info is PRICELESS!

If your old PE teachers or coaches or workout buddies knew the proper way of training in a way such that you'd almost never complain of a lower back problem or a knee pain, wouldn't you consider that valuable?

How many times have your lower back or knees bothered you after training?

And finally, how much money have you spent on treating those issues?

Compare that for the price of a 2 DVD set that'll open your eyes and your mind to how to best train the hips & knees in ways that'll preserve the stability and mobility of your problem areas in ways that keep you pain free, and it's a no-brainer.

Just awesome. I wish that Gray & Brett were my professors for orthopedics during my medical education, but thank God I've got access to them now!