I noted a couple of things. I know that people pay a grand for a one or day workshop to “master” dozens of different sports and moves. Someone may tell you that you have a back issue in squatting from this workshop or cert or clinic or add a point about your O lifting pull or make a general statement about this or that.

It’s probably not enough. I can fix most people’s squats in a second or two. As you enter the site, click on all the little buttons and enjoy all the free stuff. That video is old now and I like to think I have improved my skill set since then, but that little video has helped a lot of people. It is free. It is good. For those asking me about “Complexes” the list is right there as well as the JD Warmup.

It is free. It is good. Quality coaching does NOT come from a blitz weekend where much of the time is spent demeaning others. (As a note, this may sound like I am demeaning others, but I am not…I think I am making a point) You KNOW when you work with a master. My good friend, Pavel, calls this the “A-HA! Moments” as everything suddenly makes sense. With one touch, one push, one shove, you instantly understand the principle and usually never forget the feeling when everything links in perfectly.

That’s what I liked about this workshop in Sunnyvale. Our mobility work this morning was so good, I was taking notes while twisting apart. The review of simply the differences between the Olympic lifts and the Power lifts was probably as clear and eloquent as anything I have ever heard. The friendly environment was amazing, but everything flowed. One should come away from a weekend like this with clarity.

As always, a big thanks to my brother, Gary, who bravely shuttles me around to these events. He has his own following now and is pestered by fans at these events. He endures it with humility and grace.

And, now, a little taste of my next book:

I think I could make a fortune with a book entitled “Eat your way to success.” Honestly, the three best mental images I have for success involve eating. From what I have seen across the vast landscape of America, I think that eating is not a rarity for many here in these United States. Sadly, my “Frog, Elephant and Alpo Dog Food Diet” might lose customers simply by the title. Every time I fly, I see an advertisement for something called the “Cookie Diet.” That can sell. Somehow, even if it was “The All You Can Eat Frog, Elephant and Alpo Dog Food Diet” still might not break the top ten bestseller list.

If there is an axiom for a successful life and having any chance at achieving any goals, it would be the following:

“You can’t do everything, but you can do something.”

Let that sit before you for a moment. If I could do anything for my legacy to this fine planet earth, I would hope and pray it would be “Do something.” For years, at workshops I have been preaching my “secret” two words to success: show up. I need to add “Do something,” too.

My favorite story about the magic of simply showing up happened in 1984. I was standing in line, after a long train ride to get to there and probably no real sleep in two days, to register for my intensive Turkish language class. Quick, imagine me standing in line because that is all I was doing. If you have ever stood in line, use that imagine if that is easier for you.

A guy behind the registration desk slammed a phone down, looked up at me and said;” Do you want $1500.” My answer was “uh, yes.” It turns out that another student just decided to quit and had been given a nice stipend just to show up. I was given a check in the next three minutes for $1500 for simply standing in line.

If you want to be a national champion, you really need to get to the stadium on time. If you decide to get married, the ceremony starts at 11. Be there. Showing up is underrated as a life skills success clue.

Of course, showing up is only step one. Step two is to do something. When I counsel/mentor/coach/teach/help others in goal setting it often only takes a few minutes to outline a list of goals in every single area of life. Warning: be careful about setting goals, because you may attain them. Almost every time I have had one of these goal setting experiences, the person looks up and smiles from this sheet of paper, then their eyes go wide and they ask: “Well, uh, what do I do?”

Do something.

Easy to type. Easy to read. And, actually, easy to do. The problem for most people is that the enormity of a goal seems to explode like the Big Bang before them. You want to get your college degree? Well, you have to register, get a parking pass, find the cafeteria, buy a school sweatshirt, find a lifetime friend to have several funny experiences, go on a roadtrip, write and lose the Great American Novel, read a book simply from Cliff Notes…hey, you have a lot to do! For me, when someone says to college, I have a refreshing mental image of fun, study and free time. Why the disconnect? Well, I’ve done it!

Halfway through, I get an urgent tap from Father Carley and we rush out in a snow storm to save kegs of Guiness from evil and I end up wheeling several kegs through wall to wall humanity. I get several “Hey Danny!s” as I drag the stuff through.

That’s why we lift weights. We lift weights so that when the time steps up to move kegs, we are at the ready. We are a noble brother and sisterhood, ready at any time to rally up and move kegs. Or whatever.

Off to Sunnyvale. It’s going to be another busy weekend.

I notice 52 sometimes. Today, we had an intersquad track meet and the icy wind was brutal all afternoon. My joints took a hit, to say the least. But, I feel good. Master RKC Brett Jones sent me a bunch of stuff about getting my hips back and it is humbling stuff. It’s my version of the Program Minimum Minimum: at least 100 snatches or VO2 max every day, a get up or get up stretch, a goblet squat, a press and then serious work on the “issues.”

Just doing the stuff helps. Just doing the stuff is a workout. I think people miss this all the time, they try to bang bang bang away and miss the stuff that is going to help long term. Hey, I know I did/do. I probably will forget all of this again when I get better. I do that kind of thing. It’s funny how I keep learning the same lessons.

I was named a Senior RKC today. To be honest, I think I have a ways to go before I am qualified. I have skills and I think I know my stuff, but kbells expose me to the world unlike anything I have ever tried. An honor…and I will celebrate.

That was the easiest day of the week, by the way. The RKC II instilled some new drills into me and I decided to share them with my students. Although I couldn’t do a windmill in San Jose, teaching it slowly limbered me up. I took Dr. Jeff McCombs advice, to see his work go here: go to www.mccombsplan.com, and began finding a half an hour a day to hot tub. Think it is easy? Try finding a half an hour to sweat it out. He also advised me to look at my diet a bit and I’m telling you this guy is good. I suddenly realized a few things about why I thrived on Atkins, the Meat Leaves and Berries Diet, and the Velocity Diet. I need more protein and I might have some issues with breads and sugar.
Tweaking the diet, hot tubbing, Kettlebell yoga and some sleep have miraculously cured much of my reinjured hip issues. I was doing so well until I popped it at the state weightlifting meet. Alas.

What’s the point of all of this? Well, I don’t know, I rarely know the point. I think it might be something like this: We tend to ignore the things that work for us and keep looking over the fence at our neighbor’s grass. I “know” what makes me work but I lack the discipline to follow it.

Interested in hearing me? I’m in Sunnyvale, California next weekend.

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I have journal entries that state “Who is this guy?” after bad workouts or poor competitive performances. I try to disassociate myself from bad efforts as it seems to keep one emotionally (and probably all the other “allys,” too) moving forward.

I came in injured, maybe just hurt. I have been struggling with this hip issue and blew it up two weeks ahead of time with a new state record in the snatch (not much of a lift, but, well, whatever). Then, a week out, I popped my left elbow doing lots of pullups. I swore I had never been hurt before, but Tiffini (my wife who, for whatever reason, continues to love me) noted “Yes, except for that one surgery on that elbow, you have never injured it.”

The RKC experience is an opportunity to get called out physically, intellectually and emotionally. By Day Two, I was a wreck and I began to literally shrink. Pavel and Brett were wonderful in their encouragement and, honestly, I couldn’t find a better partner than Jeff McComb.

Here is the issue: I couldn’t do a windmill, I couldn’t do a Bent Press, I couldn’t do anything. The pullups and pistols work (where I just got EXPOSED) had left me sore. Moreover, I shrunk. It was like being on the bad end of a big loss; I got smaller.

I couldn’t push my hips, I couldn’t twist…I was done. “Who is this guy?”

Sunday, I think I rallied back even to the point of doing extra work and finding who I am again. The ideas have been tossing around in my head since then: how much emotional impact is there in physical training? Did I, as I assumed (I think wrongly now) “shrink” in front of my cadre?

This insight leaped me into a great realization about why training to failure is such…a failure. You literally make failure a normative movement. The body responds by saving itself the time and effort by reducing the time and effort it takes to fail.

On Sunday, I could do a Windmill even though “on paper,” I was trashed. Today, teaching my javelin throwers, I nailed a Windmill that would make Goddess DuCane not wince and would only encourage Team Leader Jones to make 20 or so corrections (well below the mark from this weekend when I did my work).

So, I sat there spinning this around my head wondering about the impact of emotions upon our training. Is it possible that “Stage Fright” can have the same impact on participants at a clinic? I think “yes.” I have always understood the importance of the emotional side of lifting, that all consuming rage that is masked by a face of calm and humor, but now I am also thinking that it can destroy something as simple as a “Kettlebell Yoga” move like the windmill.

It’s like a rhetorical question: one can answer right, but the speaker will still correct the answer. On Saturday, I let my embarrassment of physical laxity drain my ability to perform. Like a fifth grade girl singing “Tomorrow” and forgetting it’s only a day away, I tightened up and ruined my ability to be “me.”

Not that “me” is so great, but the insight that if I panic under the stress of the friendly atmosphere of the RKC II, one can only imagine the stress of our students, clients and athletes when we call upon them to go outside their little comfort zone. Literally, I had to reinvent myself in just a few hours to let myself “go” and move again at our certification.

The emotional hit of floundering was unexpected and humbling. But, I won’t forget the lessons.

Yep, first day of track season. RKC II finished last night. 3:30 wake up call, early flight, long day teaching and behind on my college grades. Oh, and the whole “move” thing.

I sometimes show my stress. Sometimes I just can’t keep up. I guess last night was one of those times. It’s hard to keep things juggling, but the upside of trying to maximize life is that sometimes your life strikes back.

I will put my notes from the RKC up within the next few days. But, it is amazing how much you can learn when the best of the best are teaching you. Very impressive stuff. I need pictures and hopefully I can pop some up. Sorry for the lack of clarity.

I won’t stress about it.

I am convinced that there is a synergy in doing things like this in something like a journal. If I see “CANI,” which is “Constant and Never Ending Improvement” next to the fact that I ate chips as a snack, it resonates inside my head as a bit of conflict. If I make a few notes about the importance of really understanding what Qualities I need to focus on for my goals, it doesn’t hurt for me to look at some chapter notes that agree with this point.

Which raises some questions: first, do journals really help? I have kept mine since 1971, so probably I am on the “pro-journal” side. Others, like Art DeVany argue that diaries and journals (for training) just get us focused back into the whole Industrial revolution model of training which is certainly worthy of discussion. DeVany would point out that this linear method of training is almost always doomed (though certainly some people can follow programs for years…I can’t).

Second, what am I going to do with all these journals when my journey ends? Who is going to read my scribbles?

Third, what are the three keys to journal? Well, let me tell you what I pick up from Tony: What did you learn? What did you improve? What did you enjoy? I think my journals allow me a quick peek into each and every day and review these questions. I find that “what did you learn?” is the single most important question I can ask of myself and my athletes. If you have worked with me, you have heard it.

So, I will keep this bizarre daily habit. I drive good friends crazy with my long lists and attempts at back filling events (like my famous attempt to list what we did at Discus Camp every year).

So, I had two protein shakes, some Crystal Lite with Leucine, some chicken tamales and perhaps more than a bucket of coffee or two. What did I learn? I think I can improve on this, but I did enjoy the tamales.

I was going to talk about my sprint workouts mixed with single armed presses, I think. It’s a great workout and I know that we have done that many, many times together. I train with a lot of people in my backyard and some of them become famous from their insights and idiocy. He will be missed. Let’s all keep hanging on together. If I can help, let me know.

I have been thinking about training outside lately because it is become more and more evident that this long winter is coming to an end. Bill Murray’s character in “Groundhog Day,” Phil, may have felt this way: “When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter,” but I feel like tossing on a t-shirt and carrying some Farmer Bars and throwing some stuff and acting like myself. Winter is time for VO2 Max workouts with a Kettlebell and sets of five. Spring is time to throw things, sprint a bit and drive the neighbors back inside shaking their heads.

Today was one of those nice February days when the sun shines and one forecaster calls it “Partly Cloudy” and another “Partly Sunny.” Whether this glass is half empty or half full, I’m just happy to have had my class take the kettlebells outside and practice juggling and toss in a few Litvinovs. Life is too short to not toss and catch a kettlebell.

I can’t imagine a better fate than a long winter followed by the wonderful explosion of spring. As the days lengthen (”Lent” is the another way of saying it), I feel the stirrings of competition, discus camp and rebirth in the wind.

As most readers know, I am convinced that most people don’t do enough reps of everything and anything. You don’t tell people you love them enough and you don’t do enough throws and you don’t do enough squats. Reps are the answer, but the quality is the issue. When posture breaks, stop. When joint mobility is compromised, reassess. If it is a simple human movement, do a lot, if it requires a seamless combination of all of them, keep an eye on quality. If you are pounding your head against the wall to improve, stop.

If you believe, like I do, that the fundamental human movements need to be done a lot and often, it follows that you should do them a lot and often.

I enjoyed my time in Tacoma. I gave away some of my secrets and the ideas about reps are absolutely cutting edge. The workout I had them do is so “right,” that is amazes me. I will be posting some ideas about bring me to you on the site in a few weeks, but, for now, just keep this discussion alive at the Q and A area. I’m not sure there are any “secrets,” but doing the movements with posture in mind is certainly nothing new, but so few people do it!