yeah i know im not updating my blog as much as I should but thats the way the cookie crumbles. half the time when i think up something great to blog about and get all fired up im nowhere near my computer to get my rant off of my chest.

speaking of my computer…my hard drive has crashed for the 5th f’ing time. when the hell are they going to wise the f’ up and realize they gave me a lemon comp?

and hell they aren’t the only ones that need wising up…which brings me to my next couple points

earlier this year when I needed a new place to hold my kettlebell classes. i ended up finding a wellness studio that had classes like belly dancing, hot yoga and pole dancing as their flagship classes. one of the things that drew me to it was that females are my main market in fat loss since they are the ones that typically seek out trainers. i posted signs about what it is i have to offer including some of my instructor reviews saying things like “I went down a dress size in a month” and “I didn’t fit in my wedding dress because I went down 4 dress sizes when I only needed 3″ and “I lost 12lbs so far.”

I would have thought the results I got for people would sell themselves. But I guess real results are secondary to entertainment.

Now don’t get me wrong. I had a small but loyal following there praising my classes up, down left and right. One of the girls who followed my classes pretty nearly every session also did the belly dancing classes including some of the shows. When you do the shows your belly is exposed (it is belly dancing after all). Her belly was exposed and everybody was complimenting her on her abs and the results she got. She told them it was from my class and how much she enjoyed it and said they should join too. Did they do it?

Nope. They took one look at my kettlebells and didn’t want to do it. It was suggested that I change it to be a more cardio oriented class. First off kettlebell swings have been described as lung searing cardio. If I was to make it a different kind of cardio (aerobics) it wouldn’t be effective. To me training that isn’t effective is wrong…and for me to change it to that for the sake of a better dollar would be selling out.

and remember what I said…never surrender…not even in the face of annihilation.

meanwhile the dance exercise classes are cleaning house…and yet doesn’t generate real results. You want entertainment…fine it works, but if you want results train better. or i am right again

Like I said…”they are doing it wrong”

but they aren’t the only ones.

I sat in on a martial arts class at that mma gym where I run classes. You might have remembered Frank Mir being there from a previous post.

Now I have always loved martial arts. Wanting to be better at it led me to training, which led me to being a personal trainer and even though it ended up pulling me away from martial arts the kettlebells have given me the bug to start doing it again.

So I am watching a Judo class (one I was a green belt in about 8 years ago) I am watching them practicing their ground game. I overhear one of them say to the other this precious bit of advice

“Use his strength against him.”

Right…as if its that simple. Try that on Brock Lesnar and let me know how that works out for ya. Ok back to reality. That particular expression grates me since I am a strength and conditioning coach. First off its out of context. It shoudl be “use his momentum against him” not strength.

Second off a lot of martial artists don’t take their strength seriously. They are in the “all you need is technique” camp. Now if that were true then as my comrade Master RKC Dave Whitley pointed out to me, there would be no need for weight classes in anything. I would also like to add that there would be no point to testing for steroids in mma as well.

It doesn’t matter how perfect your technique is if you don’t have the strength to pull it off. Royce Gracie was legendary for being a small guy beating on big guys in the octagon but he took his strength seriously because he understood this. Bruce Lee (the quintessential martial artist imho) was known for constantly strength training, because he understood this. Both were also big into conditioning because you are going to need staying power if you aren’t able to defeat them immediately or if you have multiple matches.

Now as for the martial artists. They haven’t really taken me on as a strength coach because they don’t believe in what I have to offer or they don’t really understand it. In any case they are leaving it up to chance because if their level of martial arts skill is equal to their opponent but their opponent is stronger or better conditioned….well you can probably guess what that leads to. And if you don’t believe strength is a component… then when it comes to training…yer doing it wrong.

Eric Moss out

You know doing what I do and keeping my ears open has given me a lot of opportunities to meet interesting people. I’ve met some of the world’s strongest men, UFC champs, rock stars and just regular joe’s like you and I (well i guess nobody is really regular after all). I had the odd experience of having 2 guitars from one of my favorite bands in the back seat of my car while their music is playing in my car stereo but hey I am getting a bit ahead of myself here.

Well I had become friends with the guitarist from one of my favorite heavy metal bands Overlorde simply because I had taken the chance on emailing him and asking if I could put his kickass tunes as the background music for some of my youtube videos.

videos like this one

You know kettlebell training is kind of a form of Old School Heavy Metal itself.

Well Mark Edwards (the lead guitarist from Overlorde) has a solo gig going and he asked if I would go see him and chill where he was performing. So I drove up and watched him play….and play awesome he did.

Now I knew he was good but watching his fingers dance across the fret board like it has a life of it’s own actually made me realize just how spectacular he really is. And hearing one of my favorite bands actually call out my name and thanking me in the middle of his set was a bit surreal.

As I sat there having a beer with him and wiping the melted face off of my shirt I told him that I thought his performance was amazing.

His reply was “It’s all just scales man. Once you know those you can play anything.”

Now that got me thinking. Scales are the foundation from which music comes from. It is a bit like the foundation movements we use as general physical preparation. Swings provide the foundation from which ballistic movements come from. TGU provide the foundation for the grinding movements.

If you build a house on a shitty foundation you are going to have a shitty house no matter how much you want it to look like Wayne Manor or Buckingham Palace. The same thing goes with music adn the same thing goes with strength and conditioning (and fat loss).

So what can you learn from this? Stick to the basics. No matter what you do. (notice how it always seems to come back to that?) Get good, be strong and melt some faces \m/

and don’t get ahead of yourself

Eric Moss RKC
over and out

alright
When I went through the RKC certification course I met a lot of people. One of the most memorable was someone named Steve Mcminn. When we were all introducing ourselves and gave a little bit of background his response was “kettlebells allow me to keep my slim figure” quite funny since it was coming from a dude. We had kept up through email and he had told me he started a blog which I checked on every once in awhile and noticed he rarely updated it. So I started emailing him “dude wtf, dude wtf, dude wtf?” to which he replied with this post on his blog.

So yeah it is high time I came up with one back…called 5 reasons Steve Mcminn RKC rocks (Steve I owed ya one)

1) Steve created the very first tribute on the web to me…and not in a creepy way either. It’s such a thrill when someone creates a web shrine to my bad ass.

2) Steve is kind of like a Kung Fu fighting, kettlebell swinging…Slash. Look at his rocking hair cut and you will see why.

3) Of the people I met while getting crushed under iron he is the only one I still keep up with regularly. Good to know I have friends that get it because they were there.

4) he has a picture of his cat as his cell phone wall paper. I am a cat person as well. If you are a dog person you won’t understand.

5) He is the one who took that picture of me where I am celebrating graduating the RKC with the Spartan statues….kind of like how it came full circle. That picture turned out to be the turning point for inspiration to comrade Doug D. who is now an RKC. So he in a way is to blame as well

So if you are cruising the net, and you have read my blog already go on over to his blog and make sure he updated it in case I forget.

Steve McMinn RKC Eric Moss RKC

So not that long ago some fool in Europe was saying that kettlebells and our way of doing things doesn’t build strength. Well I guess I was tricked just like many others.

Yeah that’s right. I was tricked. I was tricked into being able to strict press half my body weight with one hand. I was tricked into doing a turkish getup with a barbell weighing 100lbs. I was tricked into being able to do a double turkish getup with 106lbs. I was tricked into doing a 1 arm chin up with my other hand holding my cell phone. I was tricked into doing an 88lb ass to ankle pistol squat. I was tricked into being the only person who doesn’t need a break when helping friends move furniture. I guess I am pretty gullible.

I remember being at a seminar for fitness professionals where two fellow RKC’s were in attendance. One was BJ Bliffert and the other was Dave Whitley Master RKC. After the first session was over they invited me up to the room where they were staying to go bend stuff before dinner. BJ had a bag of nails from Ironmind so that he could bend them. Dave brought a couple of horse shoes along for bending. This is what a couple of us foolish and weak kettlebell guys do for entertainment. I guess they were fooled as well.

John Brookfield uses kettlebells as part of his training arsenal. He rips tennis balls in half with his hands. I guess he was tricked.

I guess the top MMA guy in the world Fedor Emelianenko, who also uses kettlebells was tricked. Tricked into a 32/1 record.

And I would be willing to wager that whoever that anonymous person was that said that is weaker then every single person I had just mentioned. At least their brain is anyways.

proof that I was tricked