the strength and power within
ByIn the short time I have been alive I have had the good fortune to have been able to find answers to many burning questions from many of the top guys…ever. I sought out the best ways of training for strength and conditioning and a kettlebell was brought to my front door literally by a friend, cousin, training partner and business mentor Arnel Ricafranca. Not long after that while shopping for a present I was out looking for Arnold’s Bodybuilding encyclopedia (still a great resource) when I happened to bump into a book marked Enter the Kettlebell with some bald guy on the cover…little did I know that that bald guy’s writings would change my life. In any case a dude I happened to bump into at a bar in Connecticut would maybe a day later roll up a frying pan with his bare hands and convince me to join the RKC. That someone is named Dave Whitley and he has a fondness of oldschool strongmen and strength training and he told me about a coming together of sorts of legends of old school strength which is where this next story comes from.
Not long after having met Dennis Rogers (the top performing strongman of today who can hold motorcycles and airplanes from taking off with his bare hands) I got to meet his teacher, Slim the Hammerman Farmin who is a LEGEND and still performs at an age past 70 years. I was introduced to him by Dave Whitley who is also a performing strongman (I gotta perform at some point) and he says “talk to him and you might learn something” So I don’t know how the conversation got to this point but here goes
Slim “Now you are a guy of small stature but you know what?”
Eric Moss “What”
Slim “You have within you a power equal to any single person in this room.”
I look around to my left and I see Stanless Steel, and Sunny (don’t remember his last name) and look to my right and see Dave “the iron tamer” Whitley and Dennis Rogers (who later that evening would bend a wrench with his hands and give it to me to use as a “pen holder”) and laughing I said “I don’t know about these people there is a whole lot of strength here”
Slim “No son no. You have the power you just don’t know how to reach it. If you were to take 700lbs on a deadlift and tell me you couldn’t do it and I were to say lift it or I am gonna punch her in the face do you think you can lift it?”
Eric “Depends how annoying she is being. lol”
Slim “You see that is how women are able to pick up cars off of their children because they went at it with an attitude that no one can stop them. That is how I approach my hammers.”
There is a whole lot of wisdom in that short little happening right there. If you go at it with an attitude that no one can stop you do you think that anything will? A lot of people think that big is strong…it isn’t. Dennis Rogers who is I think secretly superman is able to tap that power. He has a strength that is unreal and he isn’t much bigger then me…maybe about 10 or 20 lbs. The mighty Atom (the legend who taught Slim) was smaller then me.
Arnold Schwarzenegger said that the secret to success whether bodybuilding or anything is a 3 part formula. 1)self confidence 2)a positive mental attitude 3) honest to God hard work
Is it in you?
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