Snatches

32kg Snatches in a fairly slow pace added up to 152 reps for both sides.
Hands gave up than strength. My 32kg Dragon Door kettlebell is one of the old ones manufactured years ago and has rough edges and surface as well. My hand gets pinched in the process.

Supposely relaxing Sunday but attending level 5 class of Krav Maga is no vacation.
Getting hit to a non protective facial area is one thing, but being kicked to lumber spine got me frustrating. Not of lack of defense, but acting as an assailant and I was on purpose dropped down, gave the partner to counter attack. His knee struck my spine.

I had minimum lower back injury but this is frustrating for me.

Lunatic Fringe

Training method, Lunatic Fringe is used or originated by Arnold (not from "Different Strokes").
He and his training partner drove up to a forrest with barbells, done squats for number of times til they felt real pump.

I did something similar at a night time park with 2/3 moon shining.
32kg snatch for sets which totaled 334 reps for both sides. Roughly sets of 5, 10 and 1 set of 12.
Total of 24 reps for both sides were done with 40kg.

Basically three types of snatches in course of this training.

1. Going for number of reps, eliminate as much shock absorbtion to body as possible
2. Going hard style
3. Going super hard style that you end up absorbing every single shock to the body - low reps

Pavel said in his Russian Kettlebell Challenge DVD to go no more than 45 minutes of training. Trainers and professionals must go more to explore possibilities.

Stay Hungry

Not fulfilling my stomach as before and keeping myself adequately hungry has done me good.
Only if I have some way to recover faster. I was dead tired yesterday as I was driving and got into the wrong side of the lane. Meaning I turned right and saw few cars coming against me. Japan is same as Great Britain. Never in my life had this happened since I got driver's license in summer of 1985, Houston TX.

Day was concluded as I was assaulted while entering a Krav Maga (Israeli Self Defense) facility from behind. I knew it was in no way a threat. The assailant was my female Krav Maga colleague and kettlebell student. This funny assault took all the tension away from me and realized I haven't had a relaxed state of mind for quite some time. Really appreciated this.

Krav Maga Sunday

Of all the Krav Maga students in Japan, I'm the longest surviving student. I was there from day one but not an instructor. Currently at Level 5 class, blue belt. I have good and professional relationship with every instructors and staffs. They've been vital to me for past 7 years.

I had fun at level 5 class this Sunday. I got to partner up with one of the instructors (oddly enough, I haven't partnered with him for 2 years). His kick was too fast in which sixth sense had to be in tact, decision making done in 0.01 seconds. One of roundhouse kick hit my forehead. I didn't know how to react so I fell to the ground, not a natural reaction. I was only stunned with a bump on the right eye brow.
All instructors concluded as "Glad it was you, if it was someone else, we'd call the ambulance" and we laughed. What kind of a world am I in????

These kind of things have been going on since about October 1983. My first or second football practice in high school, I was thrown into a linebacker practice. 200lbs guy carrying a ball smashed into me. Nothing much has changed.


Bump in my forehead isn't that bad. My kettlebell student, Joy did agree that I have a slightly tilted eye brow on my right side.

Training People, Training Myself

I've been keeping myself busy training people and training myself.


Lifestyle and mindset have evolved in past few months. Recent updates:

1. Long cycle clean & jerk in Hard Style (absorbing with knees when racking from top) is a way to go if you are a striking martial artist. I do sense the movements of all LCCJ Hard Style resembles the punching movement. One trick is when you punch the kettlebell off from your rack to re-clean it, this looks exactly like the initial stage of punch.


2. Turkish Get Up, lots of them has transformed my body recently. However the fighting motor skills seemed to have reset as well. I need to reboot.


3. I personally am not good at doing splits like Pavel and Jon Engum. One of my client said doing a split is his life long dream. "It may not be that difficult" I taught him a few from Relax into Stretch. One of my student at class who's a Russian asked me about splits as well yesterday.


4. I am selling Gymboss interval timer. Nothing similar like this in Japan and it is 1,750 yen per unit. Only other interval timer which I am aware of in this country, is made by Seiko but has lots of other functions and costs roughly 7,000 yen. These days I use Gymboss over Seiko stop watch/interval timer. http://shop.kettlebell.jp/shopdetail/002001000001/price/


5. I contacted USAF Technical Sergeant Philip Davis to run a workshop in January before his tour else where. Likely this will happen in Tokyo. How about learning what it is about in United States military fitness training? http://www.dragondoor.com/articler/mode3/496/


6. Lots of kettlebells have reached Tokyo port.


7. CK-FMS certificate arrived after nearly couple months after being certified.

Life's filled with boredom if you seek no progress. Having a training habit guides me to progress and improve every day. There are occasions that I feel like a better person than few months ago. Something's working.

Sunday is basically boring and eats me alive these days. I need to be doing something.

40 years

After turning 40 years old couple months ago, seems god (whoever it is) is providing me challenges. Whether I should thank him(or her), I don't know. Still got alot to do however stress level is fairly low at this point. Somehow I feel confident despite the difficulties ahead. Am I just a numb nut?

I'll be doing some readings on Way of Life written by George Hackenschmidt, a Russian pro wrestler and strongman. His wisdom probably is one of the best resources in today's fitness world.

For the first time in my life today, I saw a personal trainer in action. He was puting his client through various machines.
I realized that I am not a personal trainer. Call me whatever you want. Louis, my client touched his toes for the first time since he was a child. This was done in only a week.
Just a portion of RKC/CK-FMS mind trick.

Turkish Get Up

Doing some Turkish Get Up lately got me thinking that this very thing lead to improvements in snatches, presses for my first RKC in 2007.

Few days ago, I did lots of these with 24kg and reminded what I did couple years ago. 24kg got me do 32kg.

Yesterday was 32kg Get Up followed by 40kg half get up. Number of reps were low.

Today was about doing naked pullups. Number increased due to recent weight loss and probably from Get Up.

CK-FMS instructors

After more than a month being certified by Brett, my name along with others are on CK-FMS listing.

People I worked with, Jonathan, Dennis and Lulin are listed as well. Hoping more will come along.

Physical Culture

Brett Jones, Master RKC

I had a chat with one of my Krav Maga (Israeli self defense) instructor, who in a typical intellectual world may look like an idiot (in a fun way of course). One talk was about one of his apprentice trainer. He told me that her thorasic spine posture is a little bit stooped which in the end compromises her punching power. I had the exact same observation regarding her. We both had the same opinion. However, my knowledge is based on spending few thousand dollars attending CK-FMS, his observation is based on day in day out being a professional as a Krav Maga instructor.

To tell the truth, this guy doesn't look smart (forgetting which locker he used, couldn't remember the name of position he played for his American football team) in a typical standard. However I consider him very instinctively smart and is pretty much ahead of me in many terms.

What is intellectually smart? or what is exactly smart? This questions me quite frequently because I've seen lots of people supposely acting smart dispatching stresses and causes that end up conflicting with other people.

If we (anyone) end up laughing after overcoming conflicts of our own, then probably we are on the right track.

Fitness probably means muscles, endurances etc. Physical culture covers all that plus brain as well. After all, our brain rides on the physical structure of muscles, skelton combined with functionality of power, endurance, flexibility, joint mobility, stability, spine alignment....
The smartest one may be the one who knows about spine.

Full Nelsoned

Full Nelsoned during Krav Maga practice on Sunday. It is a submission move that is suppose to break one's neck. It didn't work on me that I managed to endure without tapping out. Actually there was no pain enough to give up. But it did bother my shoulder, not of injury but left some stiffness that I don't like.
Not knowing when to tapp out and gives bad after effect. Worst kind of submission technique being on receiving end.

Trained few people at a small studio that I rent. A new life style for me, hoping this works.

Taste it First

My old football mate's future step son, Tyler (left) at Minneapolis beer festival May 2009.
"I'll carry you when get drunk. I'm stronger than you" was his word toward me and he was drinking less!! Have to admitt one moment I experienced a parental moment for the first time in life.

Past RKC certs and trips to Minnesota have been a dream come true thing to me.
I have tasted what I'd want to do in future by using 3 silver bullets. Quitting three fairly well paid job contracts got me three trips to Minnesota. God seems to have given me to shoot just 3 shots. Fair enough.

I have tasted what I want to do every year up to this year. Now it's time for me to acually mold my own bullet.

Today was a typical day for my enjoyment. A Krav Maga instructor who I teach kettlebells had a Muay Thai match. After the match, he came to me and discussed a few things about conditioning along with other Krav Maga students (lots of women supporters). I left the arena in midst of the event and went on to train Louis, Naomi and Joy.
I felt very fortunate to spend a national holiday like this. Now I'd have to find some ways to finance this life style.
Taste it first, fill it later. For some reason this is the case for me.