I had the pleasure of spending yesterday in Toronto at the American Kettlebell Club certification.  It was nice to see old friends and meet some new ones.  I figured that the circus doesn't often come this close to town.   Given that Toronto is about a 3.5 hour drive from here, I made the trip.  My plan was to test Long Cycle in front of my coach Valery Fedorenko.  I was hoping to get Master of Sport numbers or something close.  Well it it didn't quite turn out that way.  I was pretty cold and stiff from the long ride (We got on the road at 5:45am) but no matter, I knew if I got it, it wouldn't be by much and also I knew my technique had a lot of holes so I was also hoping to take advantage of the keen eyes of the AKC coaches.  I was not disappointed.  I ended up at 39 reps when a bell slipped out of my rack at 7 minutes.  I was on pace to get the numbers (I needed 54) but I was pretty smoked with marginal form deteriorating rapidly.  I received a lot of feedback from Valery, Eric, Cate, and John.  I also got some great info about some stretches from some of the new coaches attending.   Thanks guys.  I know exactly what I need to do so I'll be working in some pretty big technique changes.  You have to take advantage of these hands-on opportunities when they arise.

I was impressed with the structure of the certification.  First, the facility was great.  It was held at The Fighting Arts Collective in Toronto  (927 Dupont Street).  It is a nice open martial arts studio with plenty of room to train and quite a bit of MA equipment.  I was quite fascinated with the poster showing the Dim Mak Death touch and how this point may vary with the time of day.  This sparked interesting questions as to the effect of daylight savings time and how this could be applied if someone were fighting someone from another time zone for example. 

I was also impressed with the changes to the actual certification process.  It has changed a lot since I took the course back in Feb 2007.  First of all the crew has gotten a bit more academic.  There is a written test.  The hands on component has increased as well.  When I first attended we spent most of the time listening to a didactic presentation and watching demos.  The actual practice component was less.  Not that is was that bad, it is just a whole lot better now.  In fact most of the time was spent with kettlebells in the new coaches hands.  The group was divided in to two smaller groups and the assistant head coaches Cate Imes and Jon Hoskins taught the groups and Valery split time with both groups.  It seemed to work really well.  Another significant improvement is the spreading out of the material over 2 days.  There is a lot of material covered so it makes sense to spread it out.  I remember at my certification I was writing stuff down as fast as I could and when I got home I could only read about 60% of it.  Plus we went about 2 hours past the scheduled end of the conference.  That was a problem for anyone who had a plane to catch.  The 2 day certification is a vast improvement.  Another difference has to do with the set of bells you get.  Before you got a pair of 12, 16, 24 and 32 kg bells.  Now you get one each of 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32.  Personally I prefer the pairs but I am not paying the electric bill so to speak.  Most coaches and their clients are more interested in the fitness aspects rather than the competition work so single bell work is well suited to that need I suppose.


Perhaps most impressive was Cate's strict military press of a 28kg bell.



I had a great time.  The highlight was driving home.  The QEW was a parking lot basically.  After sitting on that for about an hour things opened up.  Once I got into Buffalo my driving efficiency was rewarded with a speeding ticket.  72 in a 55.  I forgot the 190 speed limit is 55.  What really surprised me though was the size of the ticket (and the fine) it is about the size of a standard sheet of paper.  I think the fine was $140.  I mean geez, I wasn't even going that fast, it wasn't a construction zone, a school zone or a nuclear free zone.  This was probably the least offensive ticket I ever received.  My worst by far was the 77 in a 35 I got in Durham several years ago.  No posted speed limit, new road, non residential 2 lanes each way separated by a boulevard.  The officer gave me reckless driving on top of it because he said the pavement was "damp".  I am surprised he didn't drop a kilo of Moroccan Hash in my trunk and say "What do we have here son?"  I had to get a lawyer for that one.  Most of the time anymore I drive like an old man (slow and I often leave my signal on after lane changes).

 All in all a good weekend.  Like I said I have the blueprint to clean up my technique and I will work the plan, as soon as I pay my ticket.  This may preclude my attendance at Ken Blackburns  NAKF/IKFF  meet in July in Flint.  I was saving that money for a Kevlar vest.