How I Got Over

This past weekend was over, much quicker than i would like but at just the speed i lived it.  Friday was a wash, as the old saying goes, and Saturday was a long day.  Sunday, i was back in the rack by 1500 hours.  I am now awake and recharged and your ole' Uncle Willy has lots going on.  If it ain't too much bother, here is what the heck is up.

I was RKC certified in April 2005, and promoted to Senior Instructor in October 2008.  Great stuff, lots of learning going on there.  I chose not to attend the big meeting a few weekends back in St. Paul, though i did offer some thoughts to Master RKC Brett Jones and Pavel.  Brett received my thoughts on CKFMS and did his best to make sure that i understood what i was misunderstanding.  Though, it was not a misunderstanding.  I simply don't want to associate training with CKFMS.  Pavel told me, in an email reply, that he would call me in a few weeks. 

And the phone conversation that took place at 1600 hours, Monday 8.9.10, with Big Cheese John Ducane allowed for me to peacefully step away from the Russian's Kettlebell Challenge.

These are the recommendations i made for the RKC program:
-The RKC could work as a candidacy program.  Just like CKFMS.
1.  Include a copy of ETK with registration
2.  Run the same cert schedule minus snatch test
3.  Reduce the feed forward tension and verbal cuing to a volume that allows them to focus on moving the weight, rather than compressing the $#!t out of their abs and glutes and binding their soft tissue down.
4.  Allow for some scalability in the drills, since not every one can move the same way, and if they can't, it doesn't mean they should fail and be ordered to go see a CKFMS like it says in the manual.
5.  Have the snatch test be submitted via video to the Team Leader from the weekend or if they can, they should test in front of a Master/Senior /Team leader.  This should be submitted NO EARLIER than 30 days after the cert and no LATER than 120 days after the cert.
6.  Consider this: if the manual says that clean and squat should be tested with two snatch test sized bells, either make them do it at the test or take it out of the manual, no in between.
7.  1 pull up required.  Just one chin clearing pull, regardless of hand position, for men AND women.  It ain't keeping out the fatties Brett, but even if it is, that is also a good idea.  Fat people should not be able to profit in the same industry as me.  It doesn't matter if they are fat and they have 40" vertical, can roll up a frying pan, or run 100 yards in 13.1 seconds, if their waistline measurement is 3.5 times the size of their neck, and they can do something else athletic, they can also find the discipline to train for 1 pull up.  Men and women.  It simply means that they trained for it.  This should be submitted along with the snatch test AFTER the weekend course.
8.  So, they pay, the get ETK, they show up, train, they take a skills test, and teaching test, and at the end they are issued a certificate of attendance.  Then, they have the option to tell Dragon Door "I want to test as an RKC, i will submit my pull up and snatch video", and they pass a written test of simple musculoskeletal anatomy and function [flexion, extension, circumduction etc.] and then we make a big deal out of it and they are RKCs.  For current RKCs they should have to re certify in the same fashion, even if they are re certifying while assisting.  Or, they opt not to test as an RKC and they are OK with that.  It took me three months to figure out how it could all work and that is the best i can do.

It is my idea that to be the best of the best, a more selective induction could benefit the team.  It is my experience that not every RKC Instructor is a Pavelite.  I know RKCs who do not own a single Dragon Door kettlebell.  And then there are RKCs like me who do everything and more.  Maybe it was my own injury history that reestablished itself in the last year.  It could have been all that physical work at Trader Joe's or it may have been a reduced intake of animal products that aided in all of my injuries flaring up at once.  Without regard to the nature, i am fixing my state with big movements under the Gym Movement protocol:  Practice quality, tested movements, with varying degrees of specificity and the minimal effective amount of distress.  When i told Brett that CKFMS red lights me from any training and recommends that i go to the doc, he said i was not an FMS client, but an SFMA referral.  And there is where the disconnect became clear, i believe for both of us.  I do not want another doctor to either tell me to rest [i rested from April 2009 to May 2010] or to do a bunch of small movements to repair/re-pattern, etc.  No one else has been able to fix me or even answer my questions.  I am taking this into my own hands.  My body, my feedback, my system.  Brett was happy to hear that i was exploring other avenues of movement but iterated that i could have given FMS and SFMA another chance.

I want to move.  I can move, in certain contexts.  And within that box i will move around, do what i can with what's in the box, and then make that box bigger.  Thesis: Man in pain denies his old textbook and throws out his beliefs about pain and not training, antithesis: all movement is corrective if it tests well with biofeedback, synthesis-PR every day.