2022 Twin Cities Kettlebell Open Retrospective

Welcome to the platform podcast. We talk to coaches, athletes, experts, and real people to learn about their approaches to training, nutrition, mindset, and much more. I am your host, Jordan Kunde-Wright, founder, and head coach of the Twin Cities Kettlebell Club. And I'm on a mission to help others build sustainable, healthy lifestyles. Before we jump into the episode, I want to take a moment to thank everyone who participated in the second annual Twin Cities Kettlebell Open. We had a dozen in-person lifters, as well as 25 or 26 online competitors, a few people who weren't able to participate, but we gave away a whole bunch of awesome raffle prizes, had a great time lifting, and some people who won some cash based on their performance on the platform. So it was just awesome. I want to, once again, thank our sponsors, Barefoot Athletics back again for the second year, Pro Kettlebell back for the second year, Bellivator Bell, it's back for their second year. Kettlebell Kings jumping in, living.fit, jumping in, Sorenson Strong, a special shout out to Bill and Stephanie who not only donated a prize for the prize pack, but also came and gave an in-person seminar for Indian clubs, which was fantastic. And I'll be posting up a link to that on our YouTube channel. Nathan Canberum from CK Maceworks, and Verizon Wireless, so thank you again to our sponsors, and I hope that you guys can make it. Next year, we are going to continue trying to bake this into the best Kettlebell competition we can, so thank you to everyone who participated. And stay tuned as we get ready to announce details on the 2023 Twin Cities Kettlebell Open. And of course, I'm incredible and grateful that you listen to this podcast, the best way you could support me is to support those sponsors who I just listed. And if you haven't already, please be sure to leave a rating review of the platform podcast in your app of choice. And if you want 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. And you can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube at Twin Cities Kettlebell Club, or email me at Twin Cities Kettlebell Club at gmail.com. Now, without further ado, let's step onto the platform for our 2022 Twin Cities Kettlebell Open Retrospective. Alright, welcome into this week's episode of the platform podcast. I am incredibly excited to be talking to you all about the 2022 Twin Cities Kettlebell Open. Woo boy! A lot of work, but a lot of fun. Man, it was awesome, just awesome. I got to start out with thank yous. So this event would not have been possible without a ton of work. And as part of my growth from last year's event, I delegated more. I asked for more help. And so I got to give shout outs to the people that gave me that feedback and stepped up to help me. You know, first and foremost, Sarah for narrow, helping me behind the scenes with all of the spreadsheet magic that she does to make sure that we can get ranks into the into the people's hands very quickly. She coded up all of the logic to input so that when we input resulted immediately, it immediately spit out the ranks for the IKO ranking tables. And she's great at that stuff behind the scenes. There's a lot of work that goes into that management of data entry and data engineering. And she's very good at that and she likes doing it and she volunteers to help me and does so. And it's an incredible help. So Sarah, thank you very much. Mr. Matt Boris, who was in from Canada, he helped me with a ton of a ton of stuff logistically, hauling stuff to and from the gym, you know, and just generally saying anything that you need. Let me know judging sets and judging video submissions and just really doing anything that anything that I asked him to do. Brenna and Brenna and Ryan Thompson making a quick run for me, you know, just ask them to go get tablecloths because I forgot to get tablecloths, you know, and then Sarah Summers, who was not able to attend in person, but stepped in to help me coordinate the online video submission judge assignment. I did not do as good a job getting video submission judge assignments out this week because what some of you do not know is that the week leading up to the competition. Both of my kids got sick at the early part of the week and then later than I got sick and then literally the day before the competition, my wife got really sick with the flu. And so I was honestly concerned that I was going to have to hand off the entire competition to to Matt and Sarah to run because I was not going to risk getting everyone sick with the flu, but I quarantined myself in my basement. And did not get sick myself, so, but yeah, I just wanted to thank everyone that that helped me make this event a success and I would very much call it a success. It was a lot of fun and I think it was, I think it was well run and I think everyone had a good time, I'm getting good feedback on the post event survey so far. So and if you attended or participated online and haven't filled out the survey, please do so because I do very much take that feedback into consideration and listen to the things that you tell me it had a big effect on the things that I focused on from last year to this year. And there will be more things that I will learn as well, which is the entire point of this episode right so. If you're not familiar with what a retrospective is, it comes from software development typically so I am a scrum master by day, which is, you know, basically a project manager specific in software development. types of workflows typically so one of the things that we that we focus on is reflecting on our on our previous sprint so our most recent effort setting aside time to look back and say okay, what went well, what could be improved and where should we focus. So you're planning your next effort based on how you can improve your next effort based on what you just did in your previous effort and making sure that you have continuous process improvement so I like to do these things as soon as the event is done to really make sure that it's fresh in people's minds and you can get the most relevant feedback possible. So that is what I'm focusing on right now and that's why I got the survey out pretty quickly and I want that feedback as quickly as possible because I want to look at what went well where can I improve and where should I focus for next year so that's what we're going to be talking about here in this episode. First I want to give just a quick recap of some of the prize winners and the great performance the great performances that we had the highlights the areas of improvement and where I'll be focusing right so we'll start with the prize winners and first i'll start with the raffle prize winners so it gives me another chance to thank our sponsors barefoot athletics gave us six one hundred dollar gift cards. So those went to Dave Van Buskerk Steve Riddle and Ron Bushwala Jen Casey Linda Roberts and Matt Holden all won a one hundred dollar gift card from barefoot athletics they make minimalist training shoes and cool apparel but they're really all about their tagline is optimizing the human to ground interface I love their shoes actually wearing a pair of their slippers right now the osos they're my they're my house slippers. They allow your toes to spread and get full toe display which is great they have very thin souls so you can really feel the ground they're great for dead lifting in they're great for any. Honestly any general training that you're going to do or walking or even just casual you know wearing around the house are out and about I really love their shoes I. I have been wearing them for several years i'm one of the early adopters I love everything that they do their stuff is well made it's not super expensive. And at last it is just really really good stuff so I really appreciate barefoot athletics and if you're looking to improve your athletic performance improving your foot function is definitely one thing that can really really help with that and we'll probably do an episode about that where I just need to get an expert on to talk more intelligently about it than I can but thank you to barefoot athletics. I'm a pro kettlebell Nikolai Pooch-Lav from the Seattle kettlebell club and him and Amber once again stepped up and helped us with with donating some awesome prizes a $300 gift card went to Josh Wang and a $200 gift card went to Sarah summers and a set of magnetic chip weights went to Sarah. So thank you guys for participating and I hope you really enjoy those kettlebells they are made in America and they have the two different sizes which is great I know Sarah summers was incredibly excited about winning this because she already has one pro kettlebell a 16 kg that she uses right now just for snatch because she only has the one and so now she's going to get a second one so she'll have a matching parent can use it for for long cycles. Those are fantastic so she's very excited about that I know everybody's excited about one of those prizes so thank you again to Nikolai and Amber kettlebell kings my friends from kettlebell kings stepped up and gave us a $150 gift card and Mandy grace one a one that gift card and she's already used it to redeem for a 24 kilogram kettlebell kings kettlebell so she's about to get the pain put on her by her coach Andrea LaVoy. So she's she's very excited about that congratulations Mandy and thank you kettlebell kings and then living dot fit the education company Melissa Cavisto Matt Boris Sony green and Nico Hazel all want a $50 gift card from living dot fit that's my friend Aaron guy yet and Jay from kettlebell kings they he launched a living dot fit so that's their kind of education education. Education, education division and they also sell other equipment other than just kettlebells like the battle ropes that errands into and bands and dumbbells and things like that so they're they're going to be able to pick up some equipment or a program from living dot fit. And then CK mace works our man Nathan came from a gave away a custom plate loadable mace or club gave away two of those and my guy Greg Anderson one one of them and Amanda saltis won the other one so thank you very much Nathan they're going to be able to get whatever they want the customer a customized club which is awesome you can get those cut to custom lengths depending on. What works for you and he'll consult with you Nathan will consult with you to talk about what might be your best option based on your height and your training space to because that's always a concern if you're going to be swinging a God are you're going to be swinging a mace you need to make sure that you're not going to bang it into your ceiling so it's really nice to be able to get a customizable plate loadable mace plate loadable is also really nice because you know you can load it up. To 25 30 40 pounds or you know if you're like me and recover from a shoulder injury you can just keep it really light and use it for that so really excited about that thank you very much Nathan and CK mace works. Belivator belts Mr Dennis facility gave away a 50% off discount code two of them and they were won by Dave CB Har and Adam tweed to Twin Cities Kettlebell Club members as it just so happens this was done by random number generator that I had nothing to do with so just just so we're above board it was a random number generator I didn't have anything to do with choosing who won these prizes everybody who enter. And paid an entry fee got entered into the drawings so everybody had had equal odds and then sorenson strong came in and they donated a 1.5 pound maple Indian clubs with the logo from the event and Sarah for narrow actually won those and then they also did an awesome and awesome demo of how to use Indian clubs it was just an intro to how the basics of Indian clubs. At the end of the competition while we were tabulating results and filling out certificates for everyone was a nice opportunity for people to learn a little bit about Indian clubs and how they can be of benefit i'm going to have bill and stuff on the podcast at some point to talk about club training and mace training and how training and circular patterns can be a very good adjunct to kettlebell sport training so. I really want to thank them that was that was fantastic it was a really great price they turned out so cool in fact I bought my own pair of clubs with the with my dragon logo the orboros logo on it for myself to put in my garage those ones are a little bit heavier and they got the Mahogany finish but yeah there's a really really cool price so you should reach out to them they're fantastic and then. Last but not least was Verizon home internet my friend Sam cook got us hooked up with an athlete prize pack worth over $200 so is a duffle bag a yoga mat some I think like a shaker cup or a yeti cooler I can't remember all the stuff that was in there was a bunch of stuff in there so it was a cool prize pack and Joe Dickinson won that prize pack so. Thank you again to all of our sponsors and congratulations to everyone who won i hope you find these prizes to be useful in your training and that you that you get your money's worth out of them because I think they were some really really cool prizes so. Kettlebell Drenge thank you for rating with me you wielded the steel with honor grit determination and bravery thank you to everyone who participated in this year's twin cities kettlebell open thank you again to our sponsors barefoot athletics pro kettlebell kettlebell kings living dot fit sorenson strong ck mace works bellevator and Verizon home internet. Prepare yourselves for rating season to come again in 2023 keep your steel sharp keep your body fit and your mind ready and I will be back to tell you when it is time for rating to commence all right with that said now let's talk about some of the cool. performances that happened there was 500 dollars in total prize money at stake 250 dollars for the top overall coefficient so that is the weight of the kettlebells used times the reps and then divided by body weight and there was a couple of multipliers in there for the different for the different lifts i will. Have Sarah for narrow explain some of those things were we're going to be evaluating how we how we assess top coefficient because right now it does skew very heavily towards people who do triathlon I will be perfectly honest about that because we we give everyone a coefficient score for each lift in the people who do the most events are the most likely to win the event and it is skewed towards lighter athletes because coefficient tends to favor people who are lighter so we're going to assess. what is the best way to determine who the overall winners are maybe look at adding some more prize levels or tiers for next year but for this year we kept it the same as we did in the first year and once again the top coefficient winner was Andrea LaVoy so she's going to get 250 dollars in cold hard cash and that's back to back win for her. She is such a stud and she kicked ass and with very very very little training did a 16 KG triathlon and hit CMS rank in all three lifts so you know that's a pretty legit performance i don't think anybody can anybody can say that Andrea didn't didn't earn didn't earn that win. she came in and kicked ass because she is just a phenomenal lifter with great technique and tougher nails and she did it all in the span of three hours and and really really performed very very well so congratulations Andrea it's a testament to your athleticism and technique and all of the hard work that you've put in as well as just your mental toughness to be able to handle that much work in such a short period of time. And then second overall was Andrew Limpersky who ironically was not very happy with his own performance but we'll we'll get into that as we do the retrospective a little bit more but hopefully this helped ease that it's not because he didn't perform well is because he had a goal that he was going for and he fell short of hitting the rank that he wanted to which i've been there if you've been in this game for very long at all you've probably been there too. You know sometimes the numbers that you hit in practice consistently don't always show up on comp day and that sucks when that happens it's really frustrating but they're they're extenuating factors but Andrew had a great performance he also did triathlon heated with 20 kg bells and he did and he did really really well I was very happy with his performance as his coach but I also completely understand his frustration so. Yeah, but Andrew did a great job and he won a hundred dollars for his second place finish third place 50 dollars goes to Greg Anderson now Greg was the only person in the comp who did a half marathon set that was added by special request Greg is the OG original member of the Twin Cities kettlebell club so and he is triathlon. So and he is training for an IKMF world championship happening here in November across the pond so he we used this as a as a training set as a test set to see how far he's progressing the last couple of months and he put on a hell of a performance on the platform 30 minutes one arm long cycle you can change hands as many times as you want. But if you put the bell down you get a zero if you put the bell down before the time expires you get zero so Greg did three hundred and fifteen one arm long cycles with a single 20 kg bell and for those that were there at the at the comp he he was he pushed it to the limit he was about ready to throw up at the end and by about I mean he was he was literally gagging on the platform. But he just he held the bell and and just took it he stopped lifting for a little bit but held the bell and rack position because he had done at that point about 29 and a half minutes of work and had he put the bell down. Before that time finished he would have gotten a zero so he held it all the way through he managed to squeeze out like a couple a couple reps in the last 30 seconds but not before he had to prevent himself from throwing up all over the platform which would have really thrown. The schedule off because we had to do some clean up since he was he was the first lifter on one of the platforms but he did a great job just a gritty gritty gutty performance and he's been working so hard. Half marathon is no joke marathon is no joke there's a ton of work done in every single set every single workout every training session you know he's hitting over 20 thousand kilos in a session you know so he's he's working incredibly hard. And that showed up on on the platform so a great performance by Greg it was it was fun to watch and I'm glad thank you for not throwing up on the platform a man I appreciate that we won't talk about my garage floor. Leave that one out and then last but not least was Steve Rustin he wins $50 for best new lifter and it was voted on by a committee of three judges so it was not chosen by me so the three judges Matt. Boris Sarah for narrow and Sarah summers were my committee to help me select best new lifter so the people that help me put on this competition were the ones who voted on who the best new lifter was and Steve is a new lifter this was his first competition he's been training with me for about a year and he did. Effectively a triathlon over the course of a week now he did not register for triathlon he was not ranked in triathlon he was ranked individually in 10 minute jerk 10 minutes snatch and 10 minute long cycle so he did not he did not receive a he did not receive a triathlon score but he did. Effectively do a triathlon over the course of a week but because he spread it out it's not a triathlon submission he he did 87 reps in long cycle which was rank one and that honestly was the plan was he was just going to do a long cycle set but he he did it and it went well enough that he then wanted to try. His hand at jerk and see if he could finish a 10 minute jerk set because we had been training triathlon in his training cycle but he had been sick a couple weeks ago so we thought maybe it might be better just to do one left and focus on that he did so well in his long cycle set and got rank one. That he asked if he he should do jerk and he did that and did 119 reps in 10 minutes with the with the 20s for jerk which is good for rank two in his weight class he was in the open category for men and then in snatch he did 117 reps which is rank three now Steve is you know a six foot five. So he's got a long ways to move the bell and he he put on a really impressive performance great technique great grit shown and it was super cute he his he's got a couple a couple of young kids who were cheering him on in his video submissions they were counting down his reps in his last minute and you could really tell the you could tell the emotional and psychological benefit that that gave Steve as he was lifting so it was fantastic so just another great performance so to the to those winners congratulations it is well earned as part of the reason I wanted to to put money cash prize in for this is because this is merit based right you you win this money it's not just it's not just based on the odds being in your favor in a raffle prize so I wanted to have something for people who who really put on great performances so congratulations to to the four of you for when in those prizes stay tuned for updates as we we evaluate the scoring mechanisms for determining the winners of the cash prizes and maybe add in some other some other prizes so it can be spread out and be as favorable as possible or as fair as possible across the different weight classes and divisions and really rewards you know just exceptional performances so I'm going to I'm going to take that feedback and and assess and talk to some people in the kettlebell who are who are pretty deep in the kettlebell sport world about what's the what is the best way to give out cash prizes but everybody that want a cash prize put on a great performance this past week so thank you very much and congratulations it is it is well earned so all right now let's get into the retrospective as I alluded to in the intro is basically three questions that I always look to to answer what went well what could be improved and where should we focus right so for me you know what were what were the highlights what went well there are several things and this is this is going to get into some more performances because that's honestly always what the highlights are for me is is the people I do this sport because I love the people and I can always I feel like I feel like I can always find wins when I when I focus on on the people that I'm that I care about and who did and who did well in those in those performances so for me I would say the top highlight and this is this is totally bias and I know and that's okay the top the top thing for me was that my daughter Kira did her first ever competition set and she did a 10 minute long cycle set with the two kilo bells from Moses Dunca and it was awesome it was so fun as a dad and as a coach to see her she did a full 10 minute long cycle set and she did 104 reps in 10 minutes so she was going fast and and doing really good work and she had a smile on her face the whole time and it just made me so happy she was she was working so hard and she did she just did so so well it was it was great and I have to say for for next year I think we are going to be I think we are going to be advertising that will have a kids division for next year so I'd love to get I would love to have more kids sign up to compete so if we can make that a thank for next year if I can get if I can get a lot of a lot of kids signed up that would be that would be fantastic it was it was but for me personally like that was truly truly one of the highlights so another thing I'm going to say that is really great Another another amazing highlight for me was Brenna Thompson. This was her first competition and she was in conversation for the best new lifter just so you know Brenna you were in conversation for the best new lifter because you crushed your your biafalan set. She she did an eight kilo biafalan and she did 223 reps on snatch and 166 reps on jerk which was good enough for rank one and I had a bunch of a bunch of people giving me shit as as her coach saying that she should have been doing 12s because she threw around the she threw around the 8 kilos you know like they were like they were nothing but she worked really hard and you know we we had a plan here we wanted her to be successful in her first competition the 12s we didn't have enough of a training cycle with the 12s she had been training with 12s but we didn't have enough training training time under the 12s to where I felt comfortable as a coach putting her out there and having her having her do two 10 minute sets in a single day in her first competition with the 12s I wanted to make sure that she had a successful fun competition and she had been dealing with some some shoulder stuff you know that that limited limited our ability to go heavier than than the eights you know she's back to health now so I think she knows she's she's moving up to the 12s now and you know she took the eight she took the eight kgs with her but I was like how do you really need to take those because I don't think I'm going to let you trade with them very much anymore but she's well they're good for cardio which is fair she she knows she's she's gonna still have some eight kgs sets up there but she is definitely going to be competing heavier next time but she put on a great performance and it was super fun to see and she just she just did awesome she did awesome and then her husband Ryan also did he did a 24 kg five minute triathlon and part of the reason this was one of the highlights for me is just because I know from talking with Ryan that his training cycle prior to this was not ideal you know between himself getting sick kids getting sick work you know et cetera like so many of us with cold and flu season you know his training cycle going into this was not ideal and he was not sure he was going to be able to finish even a five minute triathlon with with the 24 kg had discussed moving to a different weight or you know changing it to something maybe easier but decided he can do hard things he loves to embrace the suck um and so um Ryan hit that five minute triathlon hard and did really really well with it um and gridded it out um another one was uh was Dave seabewhart um he had a similar situation except that rather than being sick a couple weeks ago he was sick like a couple days before the competition um and honestly still looked like he was not feeling great at weigh-ins the day before the competition and uh was definitely you know not at his top um condition for uh for lifting and he gridded through a five minute triathlon with the 16s which was a step down we had planned on doing a 20 20 kg triathlon but because he was sick um we made the call to to step it down a little bit and he just gutted it out he just gutted it out left it all on the platform really pushed hard and his wife and kids uh came to watch him and cheer him on as well um which was super cool to see um that was another that was another highlight for me um getting my man Matt Boris uh in town um coming in from Canada representing the the Riddle struck crew and the Canadians um was a highlight for me as well it was just it was just great having him here um I appreciated all the help he gave me and all the feedback he gives me and um it's just it's great it's great having him here and we have such a great time maybe too much of a good time sometimes when we get together um you know that's Cooper Cups fault inside joke but uh it was it was so fun having Matt here and I really appreciated him making the trip down um it was it was just it was just awesome having him here um and then you know for me personally getting back on the platform um that was that was incredible for me um I just did a I did a 12 kg triathlon I was actually only going to do originally I was only going to do one five minutes that with five minute long cycle with the 12 kilogram was my initial thought then I signed up instead for the 12 kg by aphalon um and then last minute because Sarah forne was a bad influence on me uh I decided yeah fuck it I'll add the third I'll add the third lift in May as well right so um so I added in I added in the third lift um and decided to go ahead and do uh long cycle as well and uh yeah that was great it was great for me to get back on the platform um I kept smiling during my jerk set because every time my brain started telling me oh this is harder this hurts um it made me smile because it's like yeah it does yeah this is hard oh god I missed that feeling uh so rather than this is the first time in my competitive experience um where where those uh those thoughts that go through your head during kettlebell sports sets actually just made me smile it just it made me so happy it brought me so much joy uh to be back on the platform and it just reminded me of how much I love this sport and how much I love competing in this sport um so you know that was that was another huge highlight for me um so you know a lot of positives there from from just the amazing performance and there are more I we don't have enough time for me to go into everybody's performance um but those were just those were just some of them um but you know and then some other just logistical ones that are things that I think were improvements from from last year you know um I had an MC Michael was Michael was fantastic it was a lot of fun having an MC it took that off of my plate um and he was he was so fun um kept the kid the crowd engaged was engaging with people on Facebook live um and it just just made it really really fun he did a great job um I thought the I thought the uh the metals were awesome so thank you to Chris Guile um for for putting out some some cool metals um so we'll be mailing out the metals to our uh to our virtual competitors and you know people that were here in person got their metals um you know we didn't we didn't award ceremony at the end and that was that was a lot of fun um you know I loved I loved the prizes that we gave away as well I was super super happy with the sponsors and everything that we had to give away that was fantastic um you know I loved the venue I love working with the athlete lab they're a fantastic partner um it is such a great space it's so fun it's a great place to have a competition um they have everything that we need there and um we did a better job of managing the chalk this year last year we left behind a disaster of a chalk mess and we did a better job this year of of managing that um so we kept the chalk to a a a tarped off area and everybody respected that that boundary and it was made clean up a lot easier so uh so thank you so much for that and um yeah I think I think all in all um the the the feedback that we got from last year allowed me to improve um the experience for everyone this year so um that is the the highlights of the of the twin city's catapult open 2022 um and yeah now we're gonna get into some of the areas of improvement so what are my areas of improvement what are some things that didn't uh go as well as I would have liked um for me honestly the the top one there is uh more in-person lifters um I am very happy uh with the total number of participants uh that we that we did end up having in in the competition um but we we saw the in-person numbers drop while the total enrollment went went up which for me is um you know challenging um I love seeing people in person I love doing the I love giving the option for the video submission because I realize it makes it more convenient and then you know guys like Chris Guile who live in England um can participate still and compete in win prizes um but um there is nothing that beats the feel of the energy of an in-person competition the crowd having a big group of people um all together lifting in um the vibe there is is something that's just really hard to replace um and I realized that COVID has gotten us much more comfortable with the virtual competitions and and things like that so um I am very happy that that there are as many participants as their work it was great we had 38 total participants I think we had 47 total registrants we had several people couldn't couldn't participate for for various reasons but um it was it was great to have that high of a level of turnout um I would want to keep growing it obviously um but I also want to figure out how to um get more people to live come lift in-person the twin cities is beautiful and it is a great place to visit there's a ton to do here um it is a nice city that is not overwhelming travel is awesome the you know um the surrounding areas great there's theater and breweries and distilleries and parks and outdoor green spaces so there's something for everyone here so I really hope I can convince more people to come in-person um and I do really try and put on a good in-person competition um you know as I said in the highlights I really I really love the venue and we keep investing in in the technology and um and the other pieces so if there are if there's feedback that you have for me on on what it would take to get you here in person if it's something I can do I'll do it um because I want to I want to make this a big in-person competition uh as well and I know for a lot of a lot of people extenuating circumstances um I know the economy is tough right now I know um there's more risk uh for a lot of people right now uh money's tighter with inflation things are more expensive uh etc so I don't put this all on me um I understand that they're extenuating circumstances might have nothing to do with me um but I just I'm saying you know for me an area of improvement would be to figure out how I can get more people here in person so um another area of improvement I think is uh doing a better job with the judging standards meeting uh I I was prepared with some notes but the notes were on my phone and I didn't have the notes in front of me and I lost my place a couple of times um so I could have been smoother there it was great format to be my my my model uh showing these things and he chimed in with a few things that I had forgotten um so I could just do a better job communicating the judging standards in a cleaner more concise way um and making sure that that I cover all of the things that are in the rulebook um so that people know um how they're going to be assessed so that is one that I I just it was just a miss on my part um you know it's something I had planned on doing um I had planned on printing out notes and things um but with my whole family getting sick the week before the competition and me getting sick the week before the competition is just something that fell off of my radar um it seemed like a lower priority than some of the other things um so I didn't do as good of a job as I could have done with the judging standards meeting so I will own that myself and say that is something I can definitely control and can improve on so um another area of improvement um is that the venue was was just too loud in general um I was told the music uh in the feedback I was told the music was too loud in the space and it is a big space with the big high ceilings you know if you've ever been in a crossfit box um a lot of times they're their big spaces um and so um the MC Michael was was running the was running the the the show on the playlist um and um it was just it was he was the audio guy and it was just it was just too loud it didn't bother me um but I used to go under rock concerts and things um and I don't think I was as focused on it I was I had so many other things going on it didn't it didn't really strike me that um it was too loud um but other people have told me that and I got that feedback from from multiple people so clearly that was the case it was too loud um so if it was too loud for for people I apologize um I did have I did have my kids wearing ear protection in there so I was obviously aware that it was loud um but I didn't it it wasn't bothering me so I didn't think it was too loud I could still understand what was being said um by Michael but um I did get that feedback and I will take that feedback so we will do better with the audio um next year figure out a better audio on the live stream as well um not sure um how we're gonna solve that one but that's a piece of that's a piece of uh improvement feedback um as well oh and speaking of the music I could not get the playlist that I had created specifically for this contest um to come up on Spotify prior to um the comp so I guess I could have done a better job um making sure um that our music was ready um to be played at the athlete lab um for whatever reason we could not find my public playlist on Spotify um when I when I went to try and play it on on on their sound system so um that's on me I didn't test I didn't test ahead of time um we were so focused on setting up the venue and setting up the things that once everything was all set up and good to go um that then we just I just I just assumed that we would be able to find my publicly available playlist I thought I made the name very queryable um easy to find um and it it did not I blame Spotify for this I think that their search functionality actually sucks um particularly on the iPad um but anyways that's neither here nor there I can't fix Spotify um but I can plan better and test things sooner um so that I can um so that I can give a better overall experience and have the music uh ready to go so those are a few areas of improvement that that I've recognized um also just um you know giving more options for for the swag and doing a better communication better communication on um the opportunity to get the shirts for the shirts for the club or for the for the event from the club or other pieces of swag uh this is something that it has been on my brain but it's not something that I've prioritized um this is something that uh I didn't do a good job of letting people know that they can get the club t-shirt or get the event t-shirts directly from the website this year um that was just a miss on my part I didn't do a good job of communicating where to order the club t-shirts I don't the reason I don't order a bunch of t-shirts in bulk and and have them there in person at the at the venue is a I don't want to have a bunch of leftover t-shirts um you know because I'd be guessing um and b that's really hard on the environment if you do that um so I tried to just do a direct fulfillment um where you just go to the website place and order then it gets printed and shipped to you directly um so there's no waste there's no extras printed um etc um but I didn't do a good job of communicating that in advance to the lifters so um those are those are some of my areas of improvement um and so now the you know the final question then that I usually like to ask is where do you want to focus well I always focus first on um the things I can control um so having this retro recorded as a record having the having the the survey feedback um also as a record so collecting all of the data um helps me have a record of of what feedback I have and what things I noted um and I like to focus first on what are the things that I can control um so the better judging standards communication I can control the communication to the lifters I can control um the swag I can control now like I said I can't control Spotify but I can figure something else out I can I can know that I can't control Spotify and make sure that I do a better job testing um prior to the event right so um I will focus first on those things that I can control and I will improve those areas um but also then the next step for me is um or the next tier is what is the what is the area of um largest return um and I don't mean financially I just mean um what's what what do I think is going to make the big the biggest difference and so for me that's the building up the in-person attendance numbers that is an area of focus for me for next year so that's going to be um you know an area that I want to focus on so I'm networking with other clubs and coaches um to help to help get bigger turnouts um so you know um I gotta come up with a plan I gotta come up with a plan for that and figuring out how I can how I can do that um and then all so um you know as I alluded to during the episode um evaluating the scoring criteria and communicating the scoring criteria in advance to the lifters but um evaluating the scoring criteria um to see what is the best way to have have prizes um divvyed out you know should it be for specific disciplines um should it be you know best overall um you know et cetera et cetera et cetera so and this is one where I'm gonna like I said I'm gonna network with other people who are who are deep in the kettlebell sport community and see how do they do it um and also I'm gonna look outside this kettlebell sport community and see like how do they do it in Olympic weightlifting how do they do it in powerlifting um you know what's the and there might not be a right answer um I just got you know I've gotten some feedback that um you know people don't like that it's uh that the the the cash monies go to to triathlon people you know they're thinking of it as is it a tri competition is it a triathlon competition um which I'm not I'm not necessarily opposed to because you know training for triathlon is a big part of my philosophy um it's a big part of my identity um personally you know um but um you know and so so my my bias is probably reflected in in the way prizes are awarded um there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself but one other people are telling me that that makes them they don't like it um I need to take that into consideration so um I am taking that into consideration and that will be an area of focus for me and I will assess um and then decide if we're gonna make changes um and then communicate those changes um so yeah that is the retrospective on the 2022 twin cities kettlebell open um I hope everybody that attended and everybody that participated had a great time I had a great fucking time I love doing this it is a lot of work um I hope uh I hope it's showing up that I put the work in that that's really what I hope um that that the effort and attention to detail that I try and put into everything that I do um makes a difference to to the attendees I hope that the competition comes off well that you feel comfortable that it's fun um you see value in it and it's something that you would want to continue attending and tell your friends about and bring other people to um that is my biggest focus for growth is to continue to make it an excellent experience I know that if I continue to make it an excellent experience and continue to take your feedback that we will just get better and better and better at putting on high quality competitions um and I really appreciate each and every one of you that but you're trusting me to put on a good comp that invest your money invest your time um your blood sweat tears skin all of the things that go into a competition um so thank you to everyone and if you have feedback for me um please you know give it to me on uh Facebook or Instagram or email me um fill out the survey if you attended the competition and even if you didn't attend the competition and you have based on this you have feedback on um you know things that I could change or if there's a reason why you didn't attend um please tell me you know or there's a reason why you didn't sign up and it's something that I can do better um please let me know because um I do want this to be the best competition possible so uh thank you again for listening I hope that I will see you next year at the Twin Cities Kettlebell Open stay tuned for updates as we confirm dates and I will get those details out to you as they become available stay tuned and see you next time on the platform podcast 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