Aleks Salkin, SFG 2 & Original Strength Coach (Part 1)

Kettlebell Drengir, the spoils become clear as the time for battle draws nearer. Our sponsors this year will be Barefoot Athletics just giving away $600 gift cards. Pro Kettlebell was giving away a $300 gift card, a $200 gift card, and a set of magnetic chip weights. Kettlebell Kings is giving away a $150 gift card, living.fit giving away $450 gift cards. Sorenson Strong giving away a pair of 1.5 pound Indian clubs with the event logo engraved. CK Mace Works is giving away two custom plate-loadable Mace's or clubs. Elevator is giving away two 50% off discount codes for a custom lifting belt. In addition, there will be a $500 cash prize for the best lifters in the event. Sign up today at TwinsittiesKettlebellClub.com. Welcome to the platform podcast. We talked to coaches, athletes, experts, and real people to learn about their approaches to training, nutrition, mindset, and much more. I'm your host, Jordan Kunde-Wright, founder and head coach of the Twinsitties Kettlebell Club. And I'm on a mission to help others build sustainable healthy lifestyles. Before we jump into the episode, I want to remind you that registration is open for the second annual Twinsitties Kettlebell Open here on October 22nd. I'm hosted by our friends at the Athlete Lab in Little Canada, Minnesota. Just like we did last year, we will include an option for video submissions for participants who are unable to make the trip in person, and you'll be eligible for all of the same prizes as our in-person competitors. Just go to our website TwinsittiesKettlebellClub.com for details. This week, my guest is Aleks Salkin. And in fact, this is going to be a two-part episode because Aleks and I talked for over two hours, had a great conversation. I really enjoyed chatting with him. He is a strong first level two coach, as well as an original strength coach. And we got into a whole bunch of different things, talking about strength and calisthenics and body weight movement and his background. So I hope you really enjoy this conversation. And as always, if you do, please do me a favor and give me a five-star rating review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get this podcast, share an episode with a friend. And of course, if you are interested in signing up for the Twinsitties Kettle Open, do that. I would love to see your set. I would love to see you here in the Twinsitties if you can make it. Otherwise, go ahead and submit a video submission. And last but not least, if you want to help reaching your goals without wasting time, please fill out the coaching interest form linked in the episode notes. I help athletes of all levels using my integrated coaching approach. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube at Twinsitties Kettle Open Club, or email me at Twinsitties Kettle Open Club at gmail.com. Now, without further ado, let's step onto the platform with Aleks Salkin. All right. Welcome into this week's episode of the platform podcast. My guest this week is Aleks Salkin. He is a SFG level two that's strong first for those of you that don't know the, uh, that don't know the abbreviations that's strong first kettlebell instructor, as well as a, what is it, an original strength certified coach? So we're going to get into that and he told me that he also has, I'm not sure if this is a boxing nickname or some other, or some other type of nickname they call him the Hebrew hammer. So Aleks, thank you so much for taking the time to join me coming on the platform podcast. Appreciate you being on. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. We got, we got to start with, we got to start with the Hebrew hammer is what is, what is going on there? How did that come about? All right. Well, first of all, it should come as no surprise to anybody with a nickname like that that I am Jewish. So that part is probably the obvious one. But then how I got the weird if it wasn't the case. Yeah, it is. Well, you know, the funny thing too is I also speak very fluent Hebrew and I, I don't always lead like interactions with, uh, like new people, you know, with my being Jewish, but, um, I was at a wedding couple of weeks, yeah, I was like a weekend, two weekends ago, something like that. And I was meeting a friend of a friend, uh, who I was attending with. And for some reason, you know, the, the language is that I, I've learned, uh, came up and she mentioned that I speak Hebrew and the guy was just like, yeah, all of a sudden, very intently interested. And as it turns out, he was, he was Jewish as well. So he's like, but he didn't want to ask, are you Jewish? Yeah. Which is like, which is not a bad question. I asked perfectly fine question, but he was like, so why do you know Hebrew? Which is like the roundabout way of asking, the roundabout way of asking, yeah. Exactly. Uh, yeah. And so at any rate, yeah, so there's that. But then how I got the nickname was very funny because, you know, I, I am a big believer that you can't give yourself a nickname. Somebody else has to give it to you and it has to stick, you know, like, it's not to say that nobody has successfully given themselves a nickname. I happen to know of at least one person, uh, in the kettlebell world who did that. And I'm not going to mention any names, uh, but he did successfully give himself a nickname that really stuck. But for me, I had two different, uh, colleagues, both of them were New Yorkers, uh, oddly enough, uh, who called me the Hebrew hammer independently of each other. So one of them is Steve Holliner, he's now a master RKC and, um, Steve Coach Fury Holliner. So if you, if you look him up, that will be his, his nickname. I feel like I should give them. And I think, I don't think he gave himself that nickname, either. I think in his case, if I remember his story correctly, was that he, when he was working as, uh, an engineer or a graphic designer, whatever, he had his head shaped and his co-workers called him the bald Fury. And so the term Fury just kind of stuck with him. And so it, you know, kind of morphed into Coach Fury. And then, uh, another friend and colleague of mine, Ari Harris also called me the Hebrew hammer. Uh, again, independently. They and Steve and Ari knew each other, but they called me this independently of one another. And so I was like, well, you know what, I, I, I can't fight fate. I, I got to be the Hebrew hammer from now on. All right. I like it. I like it. That's, uh, I agree with you. You can't give yourself a nickname. Um, I, I actually had the distinct pleasure when I was a sophomore in high school. I was playing varsity baseball and my brother was a senior. And so he made it a point to, uh, to make sure my, his friends, haze me a little bit. And one of the, one of the guys on the team took it, took it upon himself to, to give me a different nickname every day, um, and they got, just got more, more and more ridiculous. I think the one that ended up sticking was Klunko, which they could never really wear or why that came from. But, uh, yes. That's, that's a nickname that can really only happen when you're in like high school, where it's just like, you guys are goofy and you're like on a wavelength, where you can say things that are goofy. And you're like, everybody gets it. Like nobody needs, it's funny to those like six people. And anybody else is like, what the hell is wrong with these kids? Exactly. It's, it's really like the peak of inside jokes. I think high school is. So they, they're like, Klunko and everyone's, oh my god, that's so funny. No one can describe why it's funny. No one can describe even like what the relevance is to you specifically. But everybody's just kind of like, you know, as, as a group agrees that that is your nickname. And so now you are, you are Jordan Klunko, right? Yeah, apparently. Yeah, so, but whatever, that's, that's fine. You know, I, I always rolled with it because, you know, otherwise it's only going to get worse and worse if you, if you don't take it well. So it was, it was, it was good, it was good time. So, so I want to, I want to ask a little bit. I'm actually going to ask first about the original strength certification because I know this is a kettlebell podcast. And I asked you to come on because of your strong, your strong first background, but not really intrigued. I like learning new things. And I hadn't heard of the original strength certification before, before now. So tell me a little bit about what original strength is and what it's about and how you incorporate it. Oh my man, you were in for a treat because it is like perfect. If you like kettlebell training or strength training in general, original strength is awesome. What I really like about it is that it, it complements just about everything. And so I'll, I'll explain briefly. So basically original strength is the brainchild of Tim Anderson and Jeff Newpert. And Jeff Newpert, as you know is now a retired master kettlebell instructor. And back in the day, I'm not going to give away their whole story because they've got some great material on, you know, how the whole system developed. But I will give it to you, as we would say in Hebrew on one foot. Basically, they, each of them were involved in a different movement system to try to improve mobility and their athleticism and stuff like that. And they kept finding that, you know, as they dive deeper into the system, things just got more complex. They got more complicated. They got a little bit more difficult to keep up with. And so what they started to do was try to find a way to simplify everything. And they stumbled across. And this is, you know, like nothing like voodoo or woo woo or anything like that. But it was something even within that system that talked about like, look, when all else fails, you can try doing this. And I think it was something as simple as like cross crawls, which is, you know, where you touch the opposite arm and leg. You see this is a very common movement in warmups for sports and stuff like that. Due to the variety of different benefits that it gives to the body. So crossing the midline of your body or making contact with the opposite side of the body is great for getting the two hemispheres of the brain to work together a bit better and can improve your coordination. And most importantly, help you to reset the nervous system in a manner of speaking. I know some people like to be really pedantic and they're like, well, I see you, you can't really press the reset. But no, there's no reset button in your system. I'm of the mind. I'm of the mind. Do you want to be right or do you want to be useful? Exactly. It's a useful analogy. So it helps people understand, yes, it's fine that muscles don't actually have brains. So there's no such thing as muscle memory and find that you can't actually press reset on the central nervous system. But you're talking about neurological priming of the pathways. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it's the same thing when people are like, well, you know, you really can't have gluteal amnesial because you know, you glutes are good to follow. We get it. Okay. But exactly. This is basically it. So in layman's terms, it's it's pressing reset is what they like to call it. And so basically what they did is they started looking into the human developmental sequence. And this is something that, you know, we've known about for a long time. It's not a huge mystery. Like if you, you do you've got kids, you watch them as they develop, you know, I start over. Exactly. They're going to start crawling soon. Exactly. They're laying on their back. They can just breathe and kind of move their head around. And eventually that builds up into the ability to roll over and then get up on all fours, rock back and forth, crawl. There are a lot of other, you know, stages in between and beyond and that sort of a thing. So they started experimenting with these movements. And they started to codify it into system that was based off of certain principles. And one of the things I love about original strength is one of the things that I love about strong first is that it's a systems based or it's a principles based system, meaning. As Pavel himself has said regarding the various iterations that strong first has gone through over the years, the tactics may have changed, but the principles have stayed the same, meaning the way that they might attempt to reach a given goal, they might use a different path or they might slightly alter what the path is going to be, but the principles are going to remain the same. And so original strength is very similar. So basically what it is, it is the organization of the human developmental sequence into certain series of principles for you that you can use for your own training, that you can test in real time to see if your movement is getting better, staying the same, maybe degrading. So this can give you ideas of what you need to do in your own training to help you to move better, to feel better, to perform better. And I originally discovered it because Tim Anderson and his friend Mike McNiff wrote a book in 2011 called The Coming Bulletproof. And Jeff was a big fan of the book and he posted, this is back in the old days of the RKC where they had an instructor's only forum. And I don't know if you knew about all of this stuff, but it was basically, I would like it to this. It's like going into like a busy lobby in like a swanky hotel. That was like the general forum where it's like everybody mingle there, everybody met for drinks and had discussions and whatever. And then there was like this private room, it's like a member's only room. And that was where the instructors would meet and it was like a very different feel to it. And it was a very special thing. I don't know that they really got, that anybody's ever really been able to recreate it. Because forums have kind of gone away. Like there are still forums. People first still has a great forum, very active forum, but they still have bodybuilding.com bro. Bodybuilding.com. Absolutely. That has that, by the way, that's a forum that if you want to like really like follow the white rabbit and see how deep the rabbit will go. You go to bodybuilding.com and you check out the or iron garm, I don't know if iron garm still is. See all of these things have now just been subsumed by Reddit. Reddit is basically just one metaphor, like that's all Reddit really is, right? Yeah. Exactly. It's captured all of that same zeitgeist from back in the day of the old school forums, like bodybuilding.com and RKC and then the RKC instructor's room had its own. It was like the behind the velvet rope VIP area, like, oh shit, I really want to get that. I really want to get that RKC one so I can get, I can get into the instructor's room. I want to hear what they're talking about. Yeah, that's 100% the case because it really was. I mean, again, Reddit, it's like, you know, anybody can join. I don't think they have private forums. I think it's basically all public. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. I'm barely on Reddit, but yeah. I've gone on just a couple of times, but suffice it to say, yeah, that's a perfect example. Like, Reddit is basically what the internet was like pre social media or before everything was on social media that Reddit has definitely preserved it. So it was very much like that and I remember Jeff was like, I promised my friend Tim that I would mention this book, you know, I've really gotten a lot out of it and it's called Becoming Bulletproof. It was like $7, $9 or something like that. So I was like, okay, I'll buy a copy. And I was blown away because I was like, you know, what, this stuff is like really simple, makes perfect sense. I need to test this out. So I started doing it for myself, started doing the movements with some of my students. And this was a real, like, based off of what original strength is now where they've done again, similar in spirit to what strong person has done where it's like an inch wide and a mile beat, you know, like, they have a very narrow focus, which is the human developmental sequence. And then, of course, the areas to which it branches off. So there are things that dig into like athleticism and how to use the original strength resets to improve your strength training, like weightlifting, kettlebell lifting, calisthenics training, you know, your athletics. So there are a lot of coaches who use original strength where they're student athletes or even non-student athletes. In fact, there's one gent, Chip Morton, who was, I think for something like 20 years, he was the SNC coach, strength and conditioning coach for those who are not familiar. Again, I know we toss out on all these, these sort in terms, I got to make sure I mention them for these Cincinnati bangles. And so he was, he was using original strength for people like Adam Pacman, Jones, you know, to help him on the field and a variety of other people. So real professional athletes, you know, meaning up-and-comers, people who are getting paid, you know, like their entire paycheck is coming from smashing into people in the field and stuff like that. So what's very cool about the system is, again, it's based around the basic human developmental sequence, which is deep diaphragmatic breathing, head control, rolling, rocking, and gate pattern movement, such as crawling, marching, things like that. And lo and behold, I found, you know what, when I do this stuff, I feel pretty good. My clients feel pretty good. And then in 2012, in Chicago, Tim and Jeff held the second ever, back then it was still called becoming bulletproof, second ever becoming bulletproof workshop. And I think it was like four or six hours, something like that. And I remember one of the things that they had us do because I was really interested in it. There was another system bouncing around at a time that I had gone, oddly enough, also gone to Chicago. I lived in Omaha, and so I had to take a mega bust to Chicago for like on the cheap, you know, 10 years ago. Back in the day, young, starving personal trainer trying to make, trying to make his credentials and learn everything again. Exactly. I, like, tried to go, I think that was the year that I went to like the most workshops I'd ever gone to because I also went to the naked warrior with pobble. This was what later became SFV or strong for his body weight. Yeah. And then there was original strength, again, then it was called becoming bulletproof and some other ones too. And yeah, exactly. It was like, I had to scrape my pennies together, do like, you know, by hook or by crook, I was going to go to all these workshops. And I remember one of the things that they had us do, we really went in depth. Like, the stuff that is in the original becoming bulletproof is, I don't know if you could buy it anymore, but it was just kind of a basic overview, like, this is what rocking is. You know, here's rolling and it didn't give you all the possible iterations of it, like how this pattern, you know, could be expressed in a variety of different ways. It was just like one example. And they gave tons of examples. And then they showed us how, like, they introduced this concept, which is, you know, baseline, regressions and progressions. And it's not algorithmic in the sense that you're like, oh, well, if you can't do this and you have to do this, it's like, test it out because sometimes you do something that's a progression for one person, but for you, it's actually right where you need to be, even if you're not like a super advanced athlete. So it's a name that kind of makes it a little bit easier to categorize what these movements are. And in essence, we went through it. We would test and retest a movement. And they still do this in the original strength workshops to this day, which I highly recommend that people attend their far and away, some of the most fun workshops you can go to. And at the end, or toward the end, one of the things Jeff did is like, okay, we were in a gym setting and there was an indoor track, not like a huge one, but it was sizable enough. He's like, we're all going to leopard crawl around the track and until you collapse, basically. And so we tried to get, well, at least just one lap. And as it turns out, that was more than enough to collapse most people. I just barely made the full lap. And like my quads were on fire. And I was like, man, you know what, this is amazing. I got to try this, you know, like, I got to dive in more, like more deeply right now. I've been using it kind of in a surface level. I want to see how deep this rabbit hole goes. So I crawled like every day, somewhere between let's say three to six minutes a day, something like that. Like as a grand total, and for like two months. And at this time, I stopped squatting with the kettlebells. And I know this is total heresy, completely blasphemy. But I did other kettlebell stuff, but I was like, I'm going to put the front squats, you know, to the side for a little while. And mine weren't very good anyway. I was like, you know, I had the time, I weighed maybe 155 pounds. And I could front squat a pair of 24's or 53 pound kettlebells for like 10 reps total, which is like, you know, like a six year old girl with polio could probably do that. But, but let, you know, my legs definitely weren't as strong at that time. But so what I did is two months, just daily crawling. And then one day, I got a wild hair, and I was like, you know, when I'm going to test out my front squats, I mean, not even a while see how they're going to feel. So I went out to the garage, grabbed my kettlebells, and no warm up or anything. All right, I take the back. I think I did a very brief warm up. And then I did. Who's warm up? Yeah, exactly. I always want to warm up. Now, again, at this time, I was like 26, I think. So it's a little easier when you're 26 to just jump right in. And, and again, I also, yeah, exactly. Aleks, as you recall from my previous anecdote, I wasn't exactly lifting huge weights. So like, it was, you know, it wasn't like the, I wasn't like I was as liable to get hurt. But yes, I wouldn't, I wouldn't even cross my mind to like not warm up if I were going to try to do a PR now because it's like, you know, you're just, man, I get hurt. But it may not, just, you may not get the key to happen. Yeah, exactly. I'm up. I learn when you get, I get a little bit older, you're like, oh, shit, that work. I was great. What are you different? Oh, I wound up for 15 or so far. I was responsible. I did the right thing. I did a responsible thing. Do what my coach told me I should do. Exactly. Amazing how that works. But what I was really amazed by was that I, I knocked out. 20 front squats with a pair of 24 kilo bills. And in fact, there's still to this day on YouTube, there's a video of me doing it. And I was still very skinny and very, you know, you could see I was like, again, I was very wavy. And I'm still somewhat wavy-ish, I would say, but not, not to the same degree. So by then, you know, I was, before I was intrigued upon going to the workshop, I was, I was convinced. And then after this experiment, I was sold, I was like, I got to just keep digging and see how far this goes. So at the time, it was only like workshops that they would offer. And it was just, you know, like come learn and, you know, enjoy. And then Tim and Jeff decided they were going to put together a certification. And you know, it's a good thing they didn't ask me about it because if they'd asked me out of it, I'm like, what do you need a certification for, you know, like it's, if you, this is what you can't share your vision with other people sometimes because they may not completely understand. But they, they were definitely on to something because they, it was January of 2014, they decided they were going to do the first ever, uh, instructors certification. And they hand picked, uh, maybe 13 to 14 people, uh, to attend. It was basically like, you don't have to pay to attend. This is the first one. And we, we basically want people we know who are familiar, very familiar with the system. And at this time, I was living in Israel. I had moved there, um, and like April of 2013, I had no money. So I mean, like, the previous discussion of like me taking a $50 mega bus to Chicago from Omaha and, you know, like, having to withstand the drunk college kids going from Des Moines to Chicago was, you know, like, it was an adventure of its own. Exactly. Podcast episode. Oh, man. I tried to drown most of it. I don't, I only remember like bits and pieces of it now, but, but basically that, that image was still playing out at that time in terms of my financial abilities. I just, you know, I was working as a personal trainer, living in Jerusalem, which, as you might imagine, doesn't have a huge, like, interest in personal training, spiritual training. Certain. You're very interested in that. But personal training, there's a somewhat less, uh, large market, whereas Tel Aviv that I lived there, you know, it would have been probably all over the place. But, um, but I was like, the in Tel Aviv too, we've had, we've had some Salkin lifters on the podcast. Who in particular? Anybody I might know? Solomon Salkin. Yeah. He was on my podcast. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. He's good. He's, uh, I haven't talked him in a while. I should reach back out to him. But yeah, he's, uh, he's a GS guy. He's quite, quite good, as I recall. Yeah. Yeah. I have very little to actually like compare it to because I've never done GS. I have nothing but respect for their, like, insane work capacity and pain tolerance. That's what we're all about on this podcast. It's almost all, it's almost all GS, but I, I try and, I'm trying to branch out and make sure we, we cover all the bases. No, certainly, but now GS is great. Like I said, I've got nothing but respect for those guys because I, I've seen, uh, just the unbelievable workloads they put up. And I've got, I don't know if you've ever, if you've had him on it, I'll be, if you haven't, you should, uh, leave my mark. He's, uh, yeah, that dude. I mean, he's just all the live long day. You know, he can just put a pair of 32s over his head, like it's, uh, like it's his job. Yeah, he's a master for sure. Oh yeah, absolutely. Um, but suffice it to say, you know, I, I was like, okay, I'm going to go to this original strength. A certification. I'm going to scrape together my shekels. Now it was no longer panties. Now it was shekels. And, uh, I'm going to make it happen. So I went there and I was, uh, the only international, uh, or quasi international. Cause you know, I grew up in Omaha, but ended up and I went from Midwest to mid east, basically, and then back to Midwest. But, um, but yeah, I was the, the only international individual there at the time. It was, I didn't realize just how impactful it was going to be. But now original strength has just become such a huge part of everything that I do with, you know, the programs that I write, you know, and, uh, for my own online business, you know, when I, when I do, uh, online coaching or consulting with people, it makes up a big part of it. And what I find so great about it is that, you know, we, we really have a love for the, uh, for the basics. And I know that, uh, it's the same with GS, you know, like they really drill the basics down to perfection. And what could be more basic than just the most essential baseline of all movements. That, or the, we'll say the baseline for all the movements that you'll later do, which is, you know, the human developmental sequences. This is the stuff that we start to do to get us to the point where we can walk and run and jump and, you know, do all sorts of other cool advanced stuff. Uh, the more I did it, the more I had my students do it, uh, the better things seem to go, the more people wanted to put money in my pocket, you know, as I trained them, which was also a very nice side effect of helping them. And, uh, yeah, the cooler everything else became. So that is a, I know a very non short, uh, kind of introduction. This is a long form podcast. It's totally fine. We, we totally enjoy it, embrace tangents and trips, trips down side roads and, and it's, it's awesome. So it, it, it sounds, it sounds like an excellent, um, it sounds like an excellent system. And like you said, when you were evaluating it, it was like, this makes logical sense to me. Right. Most things that when you think about it, it's like, okay, this is simple, but it also makes sense. Right. We, we start in certain movement patterns. It's what progresses us to the point where we can do these more advanced things. And because we can do more advanced things, we kind of stop doing those basic movements. But what happens anytime you stop doing something there are, of course, our major movers probably stay about the same, you know, our quads and glutes and everything can still can still locomotives very well. And when you say, hey, get back down into a quadruped position and, and crawl around, and crawl around this track, instead of doing it bipedally, suddenly all those little stabilizer muscles and, and, you know, the ranges of motion and planes of motion that we don't touch regularly anymore suddenly get touched. And you're like, oh, holy crap, everything hurts and I'm dying. Exactly. That is exactly the way I would describe it. And in fact, I think even before people do that a lot of times, they, they kind of know that they're in for that feeling because I remember. I was very fortunate when I was living in Israel that I had people who wanted to look out for me, even that they didn't know me very well, like there was a guy who was he was a friend of a friend of mine, and he was like, I'm going to take you to some of the gyms and, you know, and hurt silly I hurt silly as like the suburb of Tel Aviv. And I'm going to see if we can get you a job there. Now I didn't have in the Salkin credential. So none of the gyms were actually interested in looking at me at all because they're like, you know, you have to kind of have like this certification from. Like Israel's physical culture institute, otherwise gyms just won't hire you, but well, I remember we went to this one place and this guy was intrigued and he was like. And he was a big marathon guy like he could run out like he could just run a marathon on a whim, like somebody was telling me that he was managing this gym. And it was like a kind of a lazy afternoon. He didn't have any work to do is I'm just going to run a marathon. So he got on a treadmill and he ran. I mean, I guess that I don't think he was like an exceptional marathon runner because I think they said it took like five hours from to do it. But nevertheless, five hours is a long time. Did he did it on a whim on a whim. He didn't. Yeah, I didn't, you know, plan and prepare for it. But I told him. I was like, okay, well, he's like, so what, you know, what do you have in mind to teach like what kind of classes and I was like, maybe I can show you and I said. I'm going to hit down on all four of them and have you crawl with something like that. You know, I was trying and he just like pause like froze, you know, like a deer and headlight. Maybe you show me. And I was like, it's struck me. I was like, you know, like I think he's worried he's not going to be able to get back up or he's, you know, very stiff. He didn't have like this, you know, he didn't move like a cat, you know, or anything like with this, you know, the sort of smoothness that you would expect he was somebody who had great work capacity, but not great movement capacity. And yeah, then I started to realize this was something that a lot of people really needed, but number one, they didn't realize that they needed it. And the second they did it, like you said, they're like, oh my god, this is hard and I'm dying and, you know, why is this so difficult. And that was, that was basically the experience that I had training people for many years. They're like, why is this so difficult. And then wait, why can I touch my toes then, how come I can sit in full squad. We didn't even stretch anything and now I can do these things. So one of those things you don't have to necessarily understand why it works, but you can see that it works. And then that gives them the motivation to want to keep doing it. Yeah, I on things like that, I just fall back on the a door that gets opened, never has rusty hinges. You know, if you, if you move, if you move the joint, you move the pattern, you tend to be able to keep doing it. Exactly. The movement is the medicine. So yeah, that's that is awesome. I really, I really enjoyed that. I'm going to look more into it. When you, when you described it, now I am familiar with it. I just, I knew it is, I knew it is becoming bulletproof. I didn't, the reason I didn't know about the, I guess I'm aging myself a little bit. Like I didn't know, I didn't know about the rebrand. So I didn't, I didn't connect those two dots. But yeah, that those primal movement patterns is, I think, incredibly, incredibly valuable for, for people, especially, did you have any injuries that, that you were, that you were dealing with when you, or was it just. I've had a couple. I know it is several of the injuries that I've had. I've been fortunate because most of them were, most of them were like annoying injuries. You know, I've had some where it's like actual physical damage. For instance, my, the labor of my right shoulder is afraid. It's not torn evidently, but it's afraid. I don't know what that means is just put the PT or whoever to the MRI said. My, my surgeon told me if you opened up everyone's shoulder, they would all have frayed laborums. Yeah, that's just nor, you know, in his, in his words, that's fairly normal wear and tear. And he said, honestly, you could probably diagnose almost everyone with some degree of a torn labor. But your body works around it. You know, it's a matter of whether or not it's a significant enough tear to, to require any intervention, or if you can't function around it. Well, you know, it's, it was interesting to actually is that, and then I know this is a tangent show. So I feel comfortable going on this tangent. You know, portal is very well known movement, my stroke. I like to call him. He doesn't like to be called master evidently. He says, you know, no one's really a master. You always have to be a student. But he, there was a story from like in his early days before he went on to be like Conor McGregor's movement coach. He was an interpretive dancer in Berlin, which, as you would probably agree as a job pretty much nobody even thought existed. He was, that was his, his gig. He was an interpretive dancer in Berlin. If I recall correctly, he tore the labor in one of his shoulders. And it was pretty bad. And he was able to rehab it without surgery. So like to your point, yeah, you can, you can get some damage on your body. And provided that you learn how the body moves and you learn, you know, what are the things that you need to do in order to maybe protect a joint that you hadn't previously protected all that much. It can go a long way. And I've been pretty fortunate because again, I've had some annoying nagging kind of things that will pop up here and there, but nothing like super significant. Salkin all kettlebell drinker, you honorable warriors and wielders of the steel. The time has come to raid. Join us and fight for honor, glory and the spoils of battle. Sign up today for the Twin Cities kettlebell open on October 22nd in person in little Canada, Minnesota or by video submission from anywhere in the world. Come fight for your clan or for glory all your own to be told in your saga claim your spoils and may your name ring out forever in the hall of champions. Sign up today at Twin Cities kettlebell club dot com. But I one of the things that I definitely had was this was back in 2011. I didn't have a dip station and I didn't have a lot of room for a dip station. So I decided I was going to make one which was I'm about as mechanically inclined as Stevie Wonder, probably, you know, like I don't maybe he's very mechanically fine. Maybe it's not fair for me. I have no idea. But so what I did is I had these old martial arts belts and some thin PVC pipe and some chains and then I think maybe some declamps or I don't know what you call them like the you know, I'm referring to like climbers use. It's like one of those carabiners carabiners. Yes. And I think I'm going to make like a makeshift set of rings and I'm going to do dips on them. And this was like, I mean, you think you know regular rings is pretty unstable, pretty tough to do. And by the way, it was wrapped around a door jam full of blood. Like that, that like that idea written all this is like something that's like intentionally done on YouTube now as a joke, like the port. And I know you DIY gym equipment. Yeah, had I known that this could have catapulted me into YouTube started. I probably would have filmed it. But I didn't have the presence of mine to turn the camera on. Well, no, it was YouTube probably much of a thing back back in this this period of time. It wasn't as big, but I did. I did have a YouTube channel. That's a thing is like I could have done it. It wasn't. I had a couple videos that was it. I missed it. I wouldn't be on my podcast. You'd be too big of a star. So, you know, you never know. I don't I don't turn down too many podcast offers. And I, but you could be right. I have this, this, this sense, like, for instance, that I, this is another somewhat side tangent. But I'm going to finish. How did you? How did the dips thing end up? I will. I will. I'm going to whip right back. Since we're talking about could have been, you know, I could have been YouTube star. But I was in a high school. Actually, everything all through high school. I was really scrawny, unathletic, weak, uncoordinated, just, you know, not that predator naturally good at anything, except bad. And it for some reason, I could smoke people in badminton and Jim and I'm talking, like, two at a time, like I sucked it. Everything else, you know, basketball, football, all embarrassment, but then badminton. I crushed it. And I thought, I mean, it's a real shame. I'm good at a sport and no one cares about. I didn't realize it was an Olympic sport because I was seven 16 at 17 at the time. Yeah, 16. Had I known I mean, that's enough time to practice enough to become a world champ. maybe go to the Olympics, you know, so that that's an even bigger, you know, uh, could have been, what could have been had, if Wikipedia had been around back then, I could have looked up badminton and seen that it was in the work, but, uh, we were still around back then. So yeah, Google was. That's right. Yeah. Not exactly. I don't really have an excuse. I was just lazy. But, uh, but yeah, basically set up this dip station and I decided I was going to try to do dips on it every once in a while. And I would do like one or two. And then one day I was like, I'm going to see how many I can do. Uh, the answer was four, but that turns out that that was one too many because what what ended up happening is I don't, I did this day. I don't know quite what it was, but something in my upper bag wasn't the rhomboid, I think I'm already on my right side, just like, like seized up. And I was like, oh, that doesn't feel good. Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to hold off. And then I went to this chiropractor and he was great. He's a ART certified, which is like, uh, they do manual release. Yeah, I can release therapy. Yeah, exactly. Love that. I love that. It is amazing stuff. And he was, I still see him for this day. He's, he's excellent. Um, so I went to him. He got it like 50% gone. He's like, okay, come see me next week. And we'll see if we can get the rest of it. God, I was great. So, um, just bad decision on my part. I was hanging out with some friends and it was like Sunday. I would often go to their place and we'd have dinner on Sunday. Very hospitable. And we would, then we would go to the basement and we would watch, you know, like some HBO show, like Game of Thrones or Boardwalk Empire or something like that. And I don't remember what it was, but I was laying back and I was laying on a, on a pillow on my upper back. And I don't know why this would have caused this to happen. I got up after 45 minutes or an hour watching the show. And all of a sudden, it was like a gunshot wound on my upper back. Like at the position I was in, I think it's like, maybe my shoulder blades were just pulled together too much. And my shoulders were sagging. I have no idea. But it, I was in like, unbelievable pain. Like my right shoulder, I had to keep it elevated at all times so that I wouldn't feel like there was just, again, it was like, like a bullet wound. And then somebody was taking like a screwdriver and just twisting it in there. It, I can't even, I have no clue why it should have hurt that much. So this day, it doesn't make any sense to me. But it was pertaining to that. So, um, one of the things that, uh, I, one of the things that would happen, it was like once a month for a couple of years, um, I would just get like this knot in my upper back and I would have to take a week off until it would go away. And then I started doing the OS resets more regularly. And it was like, it could be gone in like a day rather than a week. And then it just stopped coming around at all. And now, I mean, it's been years since it's been, uh, a regular thing. And I periodically, I can still kind of feel a little bit like wanting to act up. But, um, ever since I started doing the OS resets, I think there was something about just getting the body to move the way that it's supposed to move and get everything moving, you know, like in conjunction with everything else, specifically as it pertains to the gate pattern with stuff like crawling, I also found rocking and rolling was very helpful. Um, yeah, I made a huge difference. So that is one injury. Well, kind of quasi injury, because again, it was no real physical damage. It was just, you know, it's not logical. But, but those can be, you know, I mean, backspasms keep professional athletes from competing. So they're not, they're not, not injuries, right? Exactly. They're just, they're not the same as when we think of like, oh, a torn ACL or, you know, sprung or, you know, whatever. Yeah. That was a big one for me. And I've had a few other ones too, you know, like my knees sometimes would get fatigued or would bug me or, or what have you and then just loads and loads of crawling and, you know, knees felt great. Um, because I also injured my knees at some point, both of them. Again, it was like it, oh, it was overstretching the poplidious muscle from being a little too zealous in my stretching regimen. And yeah, I've just found that there have just been tons of things that have helped me to stay resilient about the OS reset. And then of course, you know, my kettlebell lifting improves my calisthenics improves. So it's like, it's a no brainer to keep it in the program, you know, nice. So let's, let's, uh, we're going to go full Tarantino now. Now we're going to go back to the beginning. You alluded to, you alluded to your, your, your being, uh, I think you said way fish week on athletic uncoordinated, all of these things. So, so tell me a little bit about that. Like coming up, you, you obviously weren't, you weren't, uh, you weren't super athletic coming up. But how did you, how did you then transition into a life as a strength coach? Well, so, you know, I always liked physical activity as a kid because when I was young, you know, like, you know, you and I, I think we're probably roughly the same age. We're in the same, at the very, at the very least, we're the same generation. And, you know, we still had that playing outside thing, you know, like parents like go play outside, you know, get out of the house. I'm been, I can tell the, tell the streetlights. Come on. Exactly. Exactly. And so it was very much the, the case with me. And, uh, when I was young, we lived in a house that had a creek right behind it. And the creek, I used to spend a lot of time there. Like I would, I would, you know, play games to see like how, how long it would take me to get, you know, from, you know, basically like from where my parents' house was to, you know, a farthest down the street that I could just use in the creek only. And so I did a lot of outdoor activities, a lot of physical activities. And I did my mom put me in gymnastics when I was young, because she was in gymnastics when she was younger. And so she wanted me to have the, the experience as well. And, uh, and her mother was a Canadian Olympian actually. So, you know, I theoretically come from like a quite a good pedigree of, you know, athleticism and just, it must skip a generation. I don't know. Maybe my kids, you know, will end up. Maybe you're more athletic than you give yourself credit for. Well, not a, not as a kid. Now I definitely think that, you know, like, but it was, it's been through hard work. It wasn't one of those things, apart from badminton, where I was just automatically very good. Yeah. Um, so how big are, how big are you physically? It's hard to tell we're on Zoom. We've never met in person. So yeah, I never actually know. It's always an adventure to see like how, how big is this person actually in real life? I'm happy to say that I think I have a persona that's larger than my stature because a couple of years ago, I went and, uh, did some calisthenics workshops in Australia. And one of the guys who attended was somebody who's followed me online for some years. And, you know, we, we've had a lot of contact together and he said, I thought you'd be taller. And I was like, well, no, but I'm about five eight. Okay. And we're about 180 pounds. Okay. Uh, there's no way fish anymore. No, no. Now I would say I've, I've definitely gone, uh, beyond whitefish, for sure. But, uh, you know, even in, gosh, even my early years of college, I was, I think, 147 pounds, something like that. So I, that was like very way. That's, that's what I struggled with weighing in eighth grade. I was, I was, I was trying to stay under 150 pounds in eighth grade. So, yeah. It's funny to me. Context. No, I, it's funny too because I, I remember actually when I was in seventh grade, there was a kid in my class, a football player who weighed over 200 pounds. And even now it's just like the, the most I've ever weighed was 192. I did a, uh, mass building program. And I was 192 for like maybe an hour or so, you know, and then it's like, it started to kind of go back down. I was just, I tried to cram as many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into my mouth as I could before I stepped on the scale. And that's how I, I got there. But, um, yeah. So I was, I was still weighed. I remember it was, uh, I was probably, I was 20 years old. And I, uh, I had a jaw surgery, so I couldn't work out for some time. And I lost some weight. And I remember getting on the scale. And it said 141. So if that gives you an idea of, yeah, just how, and again, I was still five, eight, but I was just tiny. Yeah, very gone. Um, and, but yeah. So like, when I was in elementary school, I remember I was, I was never really picked last I was picked like almost last, you know, for team sports. Um, never did anything impressive with the mile run. Um, I, I do remember there were certain things that I was, I was good at, like for whatever reason I could do clapping pushups. And this is the gym teacher would periodically ask me to demonstrate, you know, clapping pushups or, you know, what have you. But, uh, and I'm sure they looked at rocious because I'm sure it wasn't like, okay, I'm gonna, you know, keep a somewhat narrow-ish grip, you know, it's probably super wide, you know, chest nowhere close to the floor. I've, I have no clue, but the hands were at least close enough together where I can, they were good enough that the gym teacher was like, hey, you demonstrate those. Exactly. Exactly. Um, so yeah, I had, there was some things physically that I was pretty decent at, you know, again, like playing outside traversing creeks and, you know, outdoorsy things like that. Um, but team sports, I was never really good at, uh, again, I was just kind of like, very average in many ways or maybe in, maybe below average in some ways. And I, there's a story that I'd love to tell because again, this really wasn't until I discovered the kettlebell that anything started to change. Um, there's a story of a friend of mine and somebody that I've still good friends with to this day and we like to reminisce because of just how big the 180 was, but we were, this is probably very beginning years of college and he and some of our other buddies would meet in our friend Mike's basement. And, you know, Mike is a big dude and he could bench 300 something pounds, you know, Derek, my friend, he could also bench, even now I think he can bench the upwards of the 300s, you know, um, and then it was like, you know, I would get on and it was like stripping the plates. I everybody's huffing and puffing just to get the plates out of the way, you know, and it was like, I don't know what I was lifting, but it was not a lot. And Derek jokingly was like, so was it hard for you to like open doors, you know, to like poke on it in my weakness. And, and, and then he's, he laughs now kind of sheepishly. He's like, you know, if only I'd known, you know, what, what you would have come. Yeah. But that wasn't the only time that that happened. In fact, I remember in junior year, the speaking of the bench press, which is still my name is this. I was not important. Not an important. I did some bench, I did like a lot of benching in 2020, 2021, kind of toward the beginning of that year. And, you know, I ended up hurting both of my shoulders doing it. I was like, it's just not worth it, you know, I just, I can't, I can't see the purpose. And also I suck at it. So it's the fact that I suck. It makes it easier to hate it. Yeah, exactly. It was far easier to hate it. But I was really good at it. And I have two, now two surgically reconstructed shoulders. So, you know, was it because of the bench press? No, it was because of playing football. Well, it was, you know, that was, that was the first, that was the first one playing football was the first one. And then the second one was just because of an unprotected fall. When you're unconscious, you can't, you can't, you can't stop yourself from, you can't protect your joints at all. Now, did you get like sack really hard on the field or whatever? No, no, no, this is, this is, so I just, I had shoulder surgery just a few months ago. But it was back in December of last year. I just, I spiked a really bad fever and got, and was sick and was just got up to go back to my bedroom and, and passed out. And I just, I just fainted. I just, I got up too fast. I, you're not fully with it, you know, right? It was one of those, I was like, had a fever, had been sick and dehydrated. And just got, I just wanted to get back to my bed. And, you know, got up too fast, started walking to the bedroom and, you know, lights out and, yeah, I landed unsupported on my shoulder, cracked a red. Yeah, it was ugly. So crazy. I'm like, I'm so close. I'm like 14 weeks removed from surgery now. And I just got, I just got the, I got the okay to start lifting. So I'm going to start, I'm going to start picking up the bells again in a week. So, pretty excited about that. But yeah, isn't it crazy, though, that how like, you fall like as a kid or a youngster and you're like, man, no big deal. I didn't like, as an adult, you like, just shatter. Like, I remember, uh, she was probably like, was the summer going into my senior year in high school. I took up skating for some reason. Like, I just always had lots of, like, free time during the day. You know, I didn't have a job. Um, and, uh, you know, I would hang out with friends and stuff like that. But I started skating. And I remember one point, I was skating down this hill and I hit, you know, like the side of roller skates skateboarding. Like, skateboarding, skateboarding. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I should have been, uh, should have been more specific. I just wanted to understand my brain went to roller blades for some reason, but that's just projecting my own adolescence. No, that's that's perfectly good. But when I hear skating, that's the first thing I think of two. Um, but, you know, it was very popular, at least among the youths in Nebraska, when I was not, but near your jinko, your jinko jeans and your skin, your skin. Oh, god. Yeah. The jinko. Well, the ironic thing is I wore jinko jeans when I didn't skate. And then when I started skating, I was already like, jinko was like, passe and I just didn't, didn't want to wear it. But, uh, I remember going down this hill, and there was, you know, they've got those blocks that make up the sidewalk, right? And they're like, there's a crack in between all of them. And I wasn't going fast enough. And like, hit this crack and I got launched over and landed on my shoulder. The only thing that happened is I got like, I scraped up like the, you know, the shoulder, I got like a stab, but like, shoulder didn't hurt. I didn't have any damage. But if that were to happen now, I don't know, I don't know what my fate is. Yeah. You just, you just got up and you're like, ah, shit, that's that. And then you walk back up to the top of the hill. And we're like, that was 100% it. Yeah. It was, it was nuts. Yeah. Like, kids, if you're listening, enjoy your youth while you can because when you get older, you definitely have to be a little bit, but you can still do crazy stuff. You just can't get a, you can't do as many of them. Just takes takes longer to recover from them, really, is what happens. Yes. Yes. Exactly. So, so let's, let's, let's talk about the, you know, saved by the bell. Um, you know, what, so, so what, so how did you discover the kettlebell? When did that happen? And, you know, that's obviously become a big part of your life. It's a big part of my life. That's why we're talking. So yeah. Tell me about that. How did that, how did that happen? Well, it's interesting because it was almost kind of like in a, in like a series of steps, I would say. So for instance, I had read, I was, so I was really big into my first foray into, physical culture. We might call it was through martial arts. There was a, there still is actually an Omaha this really great gym owned by a guy named Nick Doyle who is, as the name would imply, he's straight up Irish. He's like from Ireland, um, moved to Omaha of all places as a, as a, as a youngster. I think, I think the story is that his like, sister was living here. And so he was like, Oh, you know, get out of Ireland. I'll, you know, see what Nebraska's like. Um, and he's got a great gym. He's kind of a place that is less like Ireland. That's probably why. Maybe Arizona. I don't know. Like we got a lot of green, you know, a lot of sweaters, you know, in Ireland, a lot of what have you, and I want to go to places just to see a yellow, like corn. What should actually grows other than potatoes? Exactly. Exactly. And so he has a great jam. He's trained. You have sea fighters like Houston, Aleksander was a big one. Um, when I was, even when I was going there, Houston was, was training there. Anthony Smith, I think he was, I think he was a heavyweight. Um, I don't know if he ever became a champ or not. But, um, so I was like a really legit gym. And, you know, and Mick was, you know, like two time world champion kickboxer, you know, like real deal. So I would go there and practice the heck out of some way tie a couple of times a week. Because it's like a 19 and 20 year old. And, um, and I was really, of course, into Bruce Lee because who wasn't, you know, Bruce Lee is the man, you know, he's just doesn't get better. And so I wanted to find out as much as I could about how he trained because I was also getting into training, the friend of mine who got into boy type the same time I did. He was kind of like the catalyst behind the Trevor. He was getting into bodybuilding. And so he was looking great. I mean, he, you know, he kind of grown up being a little bit ponchy. And he started lifting. And, you know, it was just, you know, he looked like a colossus of a dude. And so he showed me some stuff to do. Like, you know, here's, you know, it was like the burrow stuff. You know, here's like six different exercises for your chest and 12 for your arms and, you know, whatever. Um, here's your split. Exactly. We do chest on Monday. We do triceps on Tuesday. Who biceps on Wednesday. And you have very correctly left out legs because we didn't train legs. I mean, Trevor might have actually, I didn't because my rationale, again, it was this very room. It was like, I'm doing, I'm kicking plenty and boy type. So I, what do I really need to work my legs for? Like to me, it was like, okay, well, if you're, if you're using the limb, you don't really need to, you know, do I need a train at them? Never mind. Yeah, never mind that that would be extra with the limb you use being beneficial. Right. Well, never mind. The logic doesn't even hold up because it's like, well, I'm doing all these curls and all these tricep things. You know, so I'm also doing plenty of punching. So why don't I just, the real reason I just didn't want to train the legs? Cause you walk like a, you walk like a rodeo cowboy. Yeah, exactly. Like the rickets and everything. Um, now, uh, I bought a book on, uh, uh, ostensibly on Bruce Lee's approach to training called the art of expressing the human body. And it had, it was just a dizzying amount of information about, you know, the, some of the routines that Bruce did. And you know, it was mostly like bodybuilding stuff, but he also did stuff with, uh, he had like a circuit trainer machine, uh, which is called like a Marcy circuit trainer and, you know, back then it was, it was kind of like a big deal. And so I was like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start doing this stuff. But in one chapter, there was this oblique reference, no pictures, but there was an oblique reference to this thing called a kettlebell. And I was like, this seemed really intriguing. Like, I wonder if there's some way that I can get one of these things, but the way that they described it, you would maybe recognize this because Milo, the strength company used to sell one of these like a suitcase handle that you'd put in the dumbbell to that you could turn a dumbbell into a kettlebell. So I think that's kind of what they were referring to in there because, uh, if I remember the passage correctly, it was something along those lines. And I was intrigued. I couldn't even really picture it, but I was like, this, no longer extent piece of equipment sounds like there's something to it. And like, it's, you know, like, it's the real deal. And then, you know, the inception seed was planted deep. Exactly. Exactly. It was like, there might as well have been Leonardo DiCaprio, like, you know, in my dreams, you know, like in my head, just trying to put this idea in there. And I was taking uh, university Spanish classes, which is not as impressive as it sounds because it's basically the Spanish that you would have taken if you had done it in high school, but for people in college, but you paid for it. Yeah, I paid for it, yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Instead of letting my parents tax dollars pay for it, which would have been probably as useful. But, uh, but before class, I would always get there like 15 minutes early. And there was a guy that I had gone to middle and high school with and some and I really didn't get along with him in the middle of high school. He was like very, uh, brash and he was very, you know, like, didn't care what other people thought. And I was very, you know, kind of like, I don't know, I wouldn't say introverted, but I, I kind of kept myself a little bit. But, uh, well, you know, the thing is it's like that in and of itself, I think the other reason I didn't like it is because you need me in the balls ones. And I think they just kind of put that in there. I think I actually, yeah, honestly, I don't remember 100%. But I'm like, eight times even meeting the balls and by how many different, not that many, but I was like, there was a specific reason enough that I don't remember. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's like, it hasn't happened in a very long time, but there was like the concentration of times when it was happening was definitely like, you know, teens and beforehand. Yeah. Um, it just said the dovetail was when I was coming off age. Let's let's not go down that rabbit. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's the time when I get everyone's kicking each other in the balls. You know, like, if you do it now, it's like, you'd better, there's going to be a funeral. Some, you know, at some point, like because that's just you can't do it anymore. But, um, when you're a rough and rowdy kid, you get away with it. But we, we started chatting in, um, before our, our Spanish classes. And he was always just, he was just really interested in strength training. And he was talking about this bad ass dude named Pablo and this crazy thing called kettlebells. And I was like, I've heard of these. And, um, I was like, I want to know more. And I think, I think this is again to date me a little bit. I think he brought like a printout of like what Pablo looked like. I was like, it was like the cover of entry to kettlebell. And I saw this kettlebell. I was like, that is nothing like what I anticipated. It was just a big ugly iron ball with like a handle on it. And I was like, huh, that's, that's very interesting. And Drew was really way ahead of the time. Because back then, I still thought, you know, don't squat below parallel. If you squat at all, you know, because that's what we were told. And he's like, that's bogus. Of course, you squat below parallel. And I was like, never even heard anybody say that. It was just like, I didn't even know it was a position one could hold. I didn't think there was any debate. It was just, I was, I was always coached to get to 90 and no deeper. Get to 90 and go. Like that was, that was it. Back, that's what I was thought. I remember, I had hurt my knee and my tie. And I went and I got some help from like a gal who worked at the university gym. And she showed me like a bunch of different exercises. And she's like, you know, here's how to squat and here's how to do this. Just don't go below 90 degrees when you squat or something. I go to about parallel and that's it. So I had never occurred because I'd never really squatted before, you know, but it never occurred to me that, you know, there were people who were advocating going below parallel. So that's too great. It's not a thing. No. And I, you know, the thing was, as I was like, why there's so many things that I just don't know, you know, it's like I realized there wasn't an expert, but I was like, man, there like, I didn't even know that it was a position one could hold. And I don't, and this is okay. So then this went on for some time, you know, and he brought into the kettlebell book and he he brought in the naked warrior. And it was, you know, there's a picture of Pavel pistol squatting, you know, he is clawed away in the ground. You're just what's that? He is clothed, semi clothed. Yes, it's, it's, it's just a clever nickname, folks. Don't worry. There's no, there's no nudity in this book. I gotta show you of that. And any that you do see is totally tasteful. That's, you know, very tasteful. That you can be sure of. And I remember it was probably late March or early April, 2008. He called a Drew, a friend who possibly need me in the balls at some point in high school called me up. And he said, hey, what are you doing? And I was like, just, you know, hanging out. And he's like, do you want to come over and try a kettlebell work? And, you know, previously I didn't really have any interest in it. But for whatever reason, I said, sure, you know, all I'll swing by. So went over there and he showed me his kettlebell collection. And I was like, okay, you know, I didn't really know what to think. I remember the first thing I tried to do was curl the kettlebell. And he's like, no, no, you don't do that with a kettlebell. And you know, because I, all you know is what you know. So you can, there's nothing wrong with that. No, I've done curls with kettlebells. I think it's a perfectly fine thing to do. But, you know, he goes, let me, I was like, so what do you do with him? He's like, let me show you. And he starts snatching. And I was like, oh my god, that's amazing. And he's showing me all these other things. You know, he's showing me how to swing. And I promise you my technique was god awful. Oh, you don't have to convince me, I believe. I was once too. Yeah, I mean, I wish I had video of it because I am sure that it would be bad. You do, that's the sadistic part of you that wishes there's video of that. Yeah, I'm serious, man, because like, I would just love to see how far I've come. And I could get, I have that, like, a massacistic, you know, like will to actually see how bad I was. But I remember, you know, we were on his, on his, on his driveway. It was, you know, nice spring day, swinging this kettlebell around. And I was like, man, this is what training supposed to be, you know, this makes sense. I'm using my whole body. It feels like it's just kind of like a natural thing. I didn't even know how to describe it. It just felt right, you know. And, and he was like true friend. He loaned me a 25 pound kettlebell. And a copy of Andrew the kettlebell and the naked warrior, which I still have. I actually bought him new copies of it because I had gone through them so much and put some wear and tear on them that I was like, I'm just going to buy you brand new ones. And I did give him his 25 pound kettlebell. But, um, but after that, it was just like, I was off to the races. You know, you, I was doing, you know, get swings and get ups, you know, and I would do some presses here and there. And, you know, eventually, you know, it's like my, my knees didn't feel great. My back didn't feel great. My shoulders kind of bugged me. So it's like, I should probably see an instructor. Um, and this is like in their early days when it was like, you know, now his kettlebell instructors all over the place, but, um, as luck would have it. What chronologically, when, when was this? Well, we'll, we'll, we'll date ourselves a little bit, but it helps, it helps people contextualize like when you say there weren't kettlebell instructors, like, when was this that you were first getting into it? 2008. So this is about 14 years ago. Same. Yeah. Same to, yeah. So you, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's like, not only word on that kettlebell instructors, there were no kettlebells. It's like, now I was, I was, I was, I was, like, I was fortunate that, like, when I discovered kettlebells, I happened to be in the Twin Cities, which is where, which is where Dragon Door is, like, literally Dragon Door's headquarters is a mile from my house. Like, I could walk to their, to their, to their headquarters. And, you know, they're insane, they're insane. Paul, it's actually a little candidate now, but, you know, it's, like, so I just happened to be close to where kettlebells actually were in America, but like, that was not the experience for, for most people when they discovered kettlebells. Yeah, especially if you're living in like Nebraska, where I can assure you, a lot of the trends don't reach us immediately. So, yeah, I know they have, they have the internet on computers now. Yeah, exactly. You don't have to just go to the library anymore. You can have it in your home. It was, it was a mind-blowing thing. Well, as luck would have it, there had been, this was probably, oh, this was definitely, late July or maybe early August, 2008. And I remember this specifically because this ended up being a very momentous occasion. There's a guy named Scott Stevens who wrote a, something in what's called the public pulse, where it's like, this was basically like, before people went on Facebook and spout it out, you know, their opinions, you could write to the newspaper at some point. Yeah, exactly. And then the newspaper would post it. But they had a couple of weeks prior. I think the newspaper posted something, or put something published, that's what I'm looking for, about kettlebells and how, oh, you know, maybe they'll help it make it easier for you to carry your groceries in. But you know, it's kind of a fad or whatever. So Scott wrote in and he was like, explaining why the article was wrong and what the facts were. And then he signed it, Scott Stevens, RKC. And I was like, holy moly, there's an RKC in Omaha. I have to look this guy up. So I looked him up, he had a website, he reached out and I said, hey, I want to do a lesson with you because I'm really into kettlebell training. And you know, I just, you know, my shoulders are bugging me, you know, like my low back doesn't always feel great. Knees are kind of bugging me a little bit. And, which in his head, he's like, you're doing this all wrong. Yeah, he's like, you definitely need me. So I guess sure come on in and we'll, you know, we'll do an appointment. So it was about an hour and a half. And I remember seeing him do a swing. I was, I'd never seen anybody swing like that. I mean, it was just like, and he, he's also like a 50 red black belt in Taekwondo. So I mean, he understands like how to go like from, you know, loose super fast to like, wham, you know, like, relax to snap exactly. And so he showed me like, I showed him my press. And I was like, way out here, he's like, okay, you're basically giving yourself like a standing kimura. So we're going to need to fix this. And so, you know, bring your hand in a little bit like that. And okay, would your swings do this? That. And so I and then he showed me some other movements. And, and, and after that, I was hooked. It was like basically every six to eight weeks. I'd set up another appointment with him. And to this day, we're, we're still good friends. We keep in touch and talk shop about kettlebells, but also, you know, a variety of other topics as well. But thank you for listening to this episode of the platform podcast. We'll be back with a new episode soon. Please be sure to leave a rating and review of the platform podcast in your app of choice, support our work by supporting our affiliates. And of course, if you have questions or you want help reaching your goals, reach out to me. Until next time, thanks for listening.