A transcendent session in the park tonight. 12 people, not a large class, and not small. Again we did the HKC group of lifts, but first I brought out an old torture device from my early years of training with my teacher, Pavel Tsatsouline. People enjoyed it immensely. Maybe I’ll bring it out again on Friday.
Everyone did heavy and excellent goblet squats. Many of The ladies went VERY heavy, with rock solid technique. Libby, Danielle, Kate and Nolita did squats with the 53 and 62 pound kettlebell, and alternated with double 30’s. Britt used the 80 pound kettlebell. Lindsey usually uses the 80, but scaled back to the 62 on this evening.
Those weights are impressive. But I have seen heavy lifting before. The really satisfying thing for me was the calm and confident manner in which these ladies went about their work in the greenhouse heat. No words of doubt, no scared faces, only a quiet, intense focus. The women helped each other get into position, and moved with perfect form.
These are the marks of people who have developed the habit of extreme strength. Fear and hesitation are long gone, all that remains is pure power.
Next were Turkish get-ups. People continued their excellent focus and all improved substantially. Last was 30/30 swings. This was where people really started to sweat, and disrobe. I have to say there are some incredible physiques in this class. We ended the session with 5 minutes of power swings. These are explosive single swings done in this case, one every 30 seconds. This is a good way to slowly bring down the heart rate of the class while doing the most powerful movement possible. By then the flow of sweat was a deluge. Everyone was smiling, we had short discussion about the work we did, bowed to each other in the Japanese fashion, and ended an outstanding training session. I look forward to many more. Domo. – EK