There’s so much cool stuff going on right now that I feel compelled to list out a whole lot of it here.
First off – checking email this morning yielded some GREAT news as Beth Andrews has been promoted to Senior RKC! Beth is not only an incredible leader, but she’s really cool, a lot of fun and a great example of what we can do in terms of strength and skill when we put our minds to it. Beth has demonstrated some amazing strength ever since I’ve known her, and my mind still reels from watching how easily she did a pull up with an extra 24kg… and that happened a while ago. Beth is seriously into pull ups – and I’m pretty sure that she’ll be knocking out 1 arm chin ups very soon, if she isn’t already!
If you don’t already know who Mike Gillette is – then check out this article! We did an interview a little while back, but THIS hadn’t happened yet. What’s THIS?! Ripley’s Believe it or Not!!! It involves heights, a bowling ball, broken glass and more. AND they figured out all the math behind it too. As someone who’s tried the bowling ball stunt (smaller height, no broken glass than you VERY much) I have a ton of respect for this wild and crazy feat. After you’ve read that – check out the interview I did with him for Dragon Door a little while back too. He’s a really interesting guy!
More interesting interviews you might have missed:
- Master RKC Keira Newton’s inspiring story
- Master RKC and UTC creator, Thomas Phillips
- Gus Petersen – creator of the K.A.T. system of kettlebell juggling
- Mark Bixby – RKC Team Leader and Rennaissance Man
- Robert Rimoczi Senior RKC – Germany
- Elliot Newman – who has very interesting nutrition ideas….
So, back to Boston – as some of you were aware from the “Unboxing Video” in the previous post, there’s a somewhat wild video in the works. I’m still editing the video of the infamous “snow stunt” with any luck that’ll come out over the weekend for your enjoyment, or for you to point and laugh at. Frankly, I’m more apprehensive about letting it loose on the internet than I was about actually DOING it in the first place! What a funny world we live in….
In other news, a fellow kettlebell instructor sent me a good question the other day about programming mixed level group kettlebell classes… with a few irregular attendees!
Q: How do you program for your group classes? I feel like I’m getting lost, some people regularly attend, and some people miss class so often that they are just not consistent. I have all levels of fitness in the class and want them all to have success. What is the best to focus on?
A: I make our workouts scalable in terms of fitness level and skills. For example, if the advanced people are doing snatches, your new people will be doing 1 arm swings. I’ll typically write one workout for all and then build in ways to scale it back in terms of skill, intensity, and of course lighter weight kettlebell options.
When I want to teach new people a new move while making sure the others are continuing to improve while NOT getting bored, I’ll design a sort of “general” workout which might use a particular move to “punctuate” it. Since many people struggle with kettlebell cleans it’s a good first example: the advanced people will go heavier and work on the subtleties, the very new people may explore the “cheat clean” and the intermediate/new-ish people might be learning the real clean for the first time, or fine tuning their clean (you know.. like NOT casting it out in front!) It can be frustrating when people don’t show up regularly – mostly because we know how well they could be doing if they were regulars!!!
Almost forgot – the list will grow, but here’s some reviews of some very surprising favorite flavors of raw vegan protein bars from Dale’s Raw Foods! They’re so good even little miss meat-a-saurus-rex over here likes ’em!!!!!!
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