Woo-hoo, I passed!

I re-shot my TGU video about a week ago, and submitted it to Geoff Neupert for his consideration. I deliberately didn't post the re-shoot here, because I wanted to test my own ability to judge what a get-up should look like. I mean, if I can't spot my own mistakes, how can I expect to spot those of my clients? And if I can't do that I really have no business offering kettlebell instruction, right?

Anyway, it took Geoff a while to get around to looking at it--Senior RKCs evidently are busy people!--but eventually he found some time, and he thought it looked good.

So it would seem that I am an HKC.

I am very, very happy about this if for no other reason than that it allows me to speak with some authority when I tell people they should not seek kettlebell instruction from anyone who uses the words "squat" and lift" when teaching the kettlebell swing.

I'm also glad to get this resolved sooner rather than later, while the lessons learned at the HKC are still fresh in my mind. I've actually begun using some of the corrective drills with my personal training clients on the theory that the problems that they are meant to address--a rounded low back, an elevated and protracted shoulder, a lack of tension in the core, etc--are not unique to kettlebell training. But I have not wanted to put a kettlebell into anyone's hand until I got the go-ahead from Geoff.

Now that I do have the go-ahead, it will be interesting to see where this leads. I am always going to be a personal trainer first and a kettlebell instructor second, meaning that if someone wants to work with kettlebells I will be happy to teach them as much as I can, but I don't plan to force them on anyone. There is no magic to kettlebells; they are simply great tools. I'm happy I have the know-how to be able to introduce them to more people, but if in the end those people decide they'd rather do something else I'm always going to accommodate their preferences. Of course I'm hoping at least a few people fall in love with kettlebells and decide they want to delve deeper, and it will be my pleasure to refer those folks to an RKC who can instruct them in the clean, press and snatch.

As for my own training, I certainly plan to continue using kettlebells and honing my skills but more for my own satisfaction than anything else. I will have to see how things develop over the next few months, but at this point I don't believe it makes financial sense for me to pursue RKC certification. There's no point in doing it unless I plan to be teaching cleans, presses and snatches, and I just can't see there being a huge demand for that among my clientele. I have limited funds to spend on continuing education, and right now there are other certifications that I think would be more helpful.

No question, there's a part of me that would like to do it just to say I did it and lived, but that's more about my own insecurities than anything else. Anyway, I already know I'm tough enough, and anyone who thinks otherwise needs to bourree a mile in my pointe shoes and reassess :) (Okay, it's only like 15 feet from one side of the stage to the other but it feels like a mile!)

I'd also love to be able to train with amazing people like Geoff Neupert and Mark Cheng and Brett Jones and of course Pavel, but with Mark and Tracy Reifkind living only a little more than an hour away I don't need to travel far just to get a great learning experience. And, frankly, travel is an ordeal for me. I just hate it, though I can suck it up when I am strongly motivated.

So, anyway, that's the way my thinking is going at this point, although I have plenty of time for my thoughts to evolve ... and knowing me, I expect they will.

Next post I promise to get back to my HKC play-by-play!