and having much gratitude for being alive at this moment.

The end of the year is always a bit of a sentimental time as it is truly a common denominator the world over. All of us stop and make note of the change of year, and wake up to a New Year. So, it means nothing and it means everything, at the same time.

For me, 2007 had been one of the most intense and incredible years of my life. A year of massive change is some respects, and a broader perspective and valuable experiences.

I have some great opportunities in this year, and that is in large part because of the foundational steps I took in 2007.  Looking back over the year, I feel a strong sense of accomplishment, as I know I have achieved some important objectives and in retrospect I have done a lot in a short amount of time. Hindsight is 20-20 as the saying goes.

Here is a brief synopsis of my 2007-year in review:

January: This began a surge in international travel when I spent 10 days in Iceland and taught a series of kettlebell and conditioning workshops and classes along with Steve Maxwell. I saw first hand that Iceland is a powerful and beautiful and intense country with equally strong people.

February:  The month began with a trip out to Las Vegas to meet up with former UFC champion Randy Couture. I introduced him very briefly to kettlebell training at his new gym. My friend Mike Mahler picked me up at the airport and went along with me.

Next was a visit to Florida to train with Master Kao and my brother students in the Chang Hung Xi Xui Gong Kung Fu system. Master Kao looked over my training and makes adjustments, corrections and introduced new material. Also, I am far from a perfect student, and Master Kao always reminds me of what a great teacher is, and how there is always patience and love for the students. I try to always keep this in mind when I am in the role of teacher.

In the later part of the month I taught a seminar at PL Champion John Pena’s gym in Tucson, AZ and then led a 2-day course in Tempe. Got to meet Dr. Eric Cobb there, and it was an exposure to his Z-health material for the first time.

From there, I went out to NY to film some DVD projects, the Encyclopedia of Bodyweight Conditioning and Extreme Kettlebell Workout. Along with Iceland in January, upstate NY was a good reminder of why I live in San Diego. I love the snow, yet I prefer to play in it on a visit than to live in it and have to move it around daily.

March: This was also a very busy month, starting with a trip to the annual fitness and physical culture lollapalooza known as the Arnold in Columbus, Ohio. Assisted Randy Couture along with my friend Zach Even esch. We were the models while Randy talked about his fitness program for MMA fighting. It was a fun weekend at Randy really emerged as an international icon during that weekend, and it was fun to see that in action. For the first time ever, Arnold was not the biggest attraction at his own event. Randy owned that town that weekend. Zach and I got some free tickets to the UFC that weekend and the energy of the arena was buzzing as Randy dominated Tim Sylvia to capture the UFC Heavyweight crown.

The next weekend was the first very successful Kettlebell, Bodyweight and Movement Dynamics Boot camp that Ken Blackburn and I taught. The participants loved it, it was tremendous fun to teach and a real pleasure to be able to work alongside a coach and athlete that is very high level and brings a lot of advanced gifts. When Ken and I collaborate, the courses are very dynamic and flow really well.  There are youtube clips you can see if you put Steve Cotter Fenton Boot camp Ken Blackburn as keywords.  There is also a DVD you can by to see the action. I will put the DVD link up on my site.

Also, I went to Cincinnati and participated in my first American Kettlebell Club coaching certification, and I got a lot of valuable refinement thanks to Coach Fedorenko’s experience. It was also good to see a lot of friends who have involved in kettlebell for a few years, all-coming together for continued education.

The next day in the city, I led a workshop with my friend Dave Randolph with a great group of people.

Later that month I took my first of several trips to London. It was a very full yet exhilarating experience in which I taught 7 days of seminars in 7 days, 4 in London, and 4 more up north in Manchester and Harrogate. It is said that it is not work if you love what you do, and a big part of the reason I enjoy what I do is the people involved. My hosts Jon Lewis and Jason Dean kept things fun and high energy.

During this trip I flew down to Barcelona, Spain to teach the first international kettlebell seminar there with my friends Michael de Acevedo and Natalia Marquez.  Of course, people loved it, so this was the start of a growing training community in Spain. Great city with inspiring architecture, BCN has become one of my favorite places to visit.

April: April was a cool-down period staying at home and focusing on time with my family, since I had been away so much. I had time to let all the travel catch up with me, and I was tired for half the month.

May: Started off with a very active trip throughout parts of Northern Europe. Began in Tampere, Finland for a few days, led a training camp and met up with some new and old friends. Finland is a beautiful country, one of the most powerful places on earth. It is such a hearty place and so clean and pure. I got to experience sauna again and I am amazed that sauna never became a tradition in more places in the world. There is such a feeling of health and vibrancy with the Finnish sauna. It is more than an activity, is a part of the culture.

From there I went to Ireland. I have always felt a special attraction to Ireland, as I am half-Irish. The people are so warm and in terms of sheer breath-taking beauty, Ireland is one of the most picturesque places on earth. If you love greenery and rolling hills, this is the classic place. Also, Dublin has become a very modern city, and Ireland has one of the strongest and fastest-growing economies in all of Europe. It is a very happening place to be nowadays.

After 2 days of kicking back spending time with some friends, I was off to UK for just few days where I taught a seminar in Leeds, and had a day of private training in Kent, which is also a very beautiful place.

Then I went to Düsseldorf, Germany, and gave my first German kettlebell seminar. There is a strong strength training tradition in Germany, and the Germans are also very friendly, warm and hospitable people. I quickly came to enjoy my time with all the people I met there.  Finally, it was one more day in Finland before my return flight out of Helsinki, and I met up with my good friend Marko Suomi once again to have lunch and some kettlebell training.

I had 3 days at home to recover then a quick visit to LA where Master Kao was staying on his way back from Asia, so I went for a few hours for him to look over my training. He also taught me the set that I was to teach for the Urban Zen group a few days later. The next day, it was a drive to Irvine, CA for my first of what will be many seminars in collaboration with Power Systems. I presented Elite Athletic Training to a room full of fitness professionals, and got to meet some other presenters whom I had not previously known.

The next day I flew out to NYC to teach a 3-hour seminar at CF NYC. I love the CF people; they always love to train and are most often very friendly and genuine. CF NYC are my boys and I love doing course with them and of course I love NY. My dear friend Lorraine came out to help me with the corrections and we had a great time.

The next day I was a guest lecturer for the first Donna Karan well-being forum, Urban Zen Initiative. I sat on a panel discussion with some very important people like Professor Robert Thurman and rocker and tai chi practitioner Lou Reed. Since I was brought in as an expert in qigong and its role in health, wellness and modern medicine, I figured I would simply apply my topic to myself and simply breath deeply. When it was my turns to speak, I held my own. It was a great experience and a glimpse into the world the NYC elite. Donna K is also a lovely lady and very down-to-earth. Definitely a person that others gravitate towards.

After the panel discussion, I met up with my wife and children and sister-in-law, who flex in that day from San Diego. I had time to kiss them and say hello and change, and then it was back to the Stephan Weiss galleries to teach a qigong class for the Urban Zen. The class went exceptionally well, and I got a lot of positive feedback from the participants, the majority of which were yoga practitioners. Also, Donna K was very complimentary, and I even helped her with her back, because my hands were so hot and full of qi after the 3 hour class that as soon as I put my hands on her back she completely melted and started asking me if I wanted to come back and then started introducing me to all her friends It was fun.

Back to the hotel for the officially beginning of a well-needed family vacation. We spent the next day checking out NYC and letting the kids climb around at the park, then did the Times Square thing, then it was time to turn in. The next morning we flew to Paris.

Paris was of course a beautiful and famous city, yet we were not overly impressed. There is a level of service that is very different than what an American might typically expect. I prefer the service we get in America, I must say. I have not been outside of the city, so I reserve judgment about all of France. I had heard it said many time that Parisians are rude, and I never believed it anything but prejudice. Our experience was similar to what we had been told. Yet, in spite of that, we had a blast at the wedding festivities of a family member who married and French man.

After a few days in Paris, we flew to the beautiful Mediterranean island of Cyprus, where we stayed for 5 days. This is a special place. If you want a slow speed, tropical island paradise with good food and few worries, Cyprus is place to check out.  Our kids also loved it there and the Mediterranean is my favorite water to swim in so far, really clear and majestic. We still talk about Cyprus all the time.

After Cyprus it was off to Athens, Greece for 2 days, and we took in as much as we could in those two days. We really grew to like Greece in that short time. The architecture is breath-taking and my experience at the Acropolis is surreal, I could really feel the sense of the greatness of the Greek tradition and what we call the mythology.

This brought back home in June and I had about 10 days at home, in which time I worked with the Mission Support Team at Coronado for the first time.

Then it was off to my first Asian and Australian kettlebell courses. I left for Singapore on a Wednesday, got there on a Friday, and taught on Saturday and Sunday. It was sort of an investigation of the Asian market to see how well developed kettlebell training can become there. It wasn’t a large group, but we had a lot of fun and Singapore is a brilliant city, with many excellent choice for cuisine and great for shopping.

Then the flight to Melbourne, Australia. The customs are very tough there and they kept me for a while. I hardly ever get hassled but in Oz they were a bit repetitive but eventually allowed me into their wonderful country. My friend and associate Rick Ravensdale runs a high quality business and service and I was pleased to see a very strong showing of dedicated trainers and athletes, even though it was a Tuesday seminar. We had a full house and the Aussies love a good time. Was a great first exposure to the land down under.

A flight back to Singapore, then a quick trek into Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a very strict country. I took the bus and we got caught in a nasty traffic jam so was a few hours late. I didn’t get to stay any time and had to head straight to the airport–next time I’ll fly! Then I was off to Bangkok, Thailand, were I had a meeting with the owner of an import company that outfits gyms in Asia with exercise equipment.  My impression is that Thailand is very volatile and it is not a great place for me to set up business at this point in time.

I arrived home and had a few weeks of relaxing before my next seminar.

In July it was a 2-day seminar in lovely Vancouver, British Columbia. This is a beautiful modern city, kept very clean and with a stunning mountain back drop. Possibly the prettiest city in North American. The seminar crew was awesome and it was nice to have a course closer to home for a change.

A few weeks later I headed out to Greece for the invaluable opportunity to meet and train with Valery Fedorenko—–Pontelay Filkidis (I do not believe I have spelled his name correctly, with apologies) in his old school, high-powered gym. It was a monumental experience for my education, watching a world-class coach with over 40 champions under his tutelage, as well as the young men that basically lived at the gym and could do amazing feats of strength and endurance. We just don’t see this level of skill and training in America, at least not in the world of kettlebell lifting, and not yet. That will change and is changing now, and opportunities like this facilitate such rapid ascension. The ability to mimic and spend time with the world’s best coaches and athletes is worth more than money. It was definitely worth a trip halfway around the world, because we don’t meet people like this every day.  I was only there for a full day, because I spent one day at Heathrow on the way in due to famously nasty weather in London. After Greece I went to Istanbul for 2 days, another of the world’s great and historic cities. It was a very interesting time as the elections had just occurred the day I arrived and everything was shut down. I didn’t get a full sense of the city. The people seemed very nice and the Turkish are well known for their love of children and warmness (unless of course you are a sworn enemy ;-). The food is fantastic, as it is throughout the Mediterranean regions.

Spent a few days in London on the way back, and had a great 3 hour seminar at Jon Lewis’s Balance Physio, then enjoy good food and company. I love London; it is a great, lively city.  The next day I had a few private lessons and lunch with some friends. Then it was back to home, sweet home.

Once home, it was nice again to unwind and the family and I spent a weekend in gorgeous Lake Tahoe, which is a place that everyone loves, it is just breath taking. Another relative got married and it was great to spend that day with them and there is always a good excuse to go to Tahoe. That was really nice and we had a great time, and I realized that I would not be taking all of these trips alone for much longer. We just have so much fun when we are together, and my children love to travel even more than me.

August brought me out to Virginia Beach for 3 days of intensive kettlebell training for one of the SEAL teams; classical lifts, feats of strength, juggling, we did some of everything out in the hot, humid August weather and these boys aren’t considered the world’s finest for no good reason. They don’t complain, they do the work, so we got in a lot of reps in those 3 days. Of course, only the best for these guys, which is why they ordered exclusively the professional grade kettlebells that I recommend.  That was a professional honor to be sure, and I felt very good on the way home from that trip. The next day, I worked with another sterling group, providing an introduction to classical kettlebell lifting to Tim Larkin and his TFT Instructor group. Tim had just opened a magnificent training facility in San Diego and he and his instructors took a liking to the kettlebell training.

A few weeks of recovery at home, and then it was a 1-day workout out in Cincinnati with my friends and colleagues Tom Furman and Dave Randolph. It was another excellent group. On Sunday I took part in the AKC training day and saw that I had been doing a lot of teaching, but was way out of shape!

I had 4 days at home and then it was back to Barcelona for a 2 day Spanish Kettlebell workshop with Michael and Natalia. This time the group was larger and more serious. It was good to see that kettlebell training is also really catching on in Spain now. Which is why I will be teaching my first European Kettlebell certification there in November 2008. More on that in some upcoming blogs.

I flew in and out of Madrid, and had to spend one night there on the way out. I didn’t see much, but there is a noticeable different vibe here as compared to Barcelona. Madrid is much more happening and definitely an active city. Seemed pretty cool with a lot to check out.

September was a chance to regroup again from home. I went to Boston for one weekend and did a one-day presentation as part of the Power Systems team. The group of fitness professionals were almost all brand new to kettlebells, so they were all over it and Power Systems sold out of all their kettlebells directly after the presentation.  The next day, I did a workshop at CF Boston with my friend Cate Imes. It was a rare treat for the participants, as Cate did most of the teaching. I wanted to help expose people to Cate, because she is the most accomplished American kettlebell lifter, and is an equally good trainer/coach. She did a great job and it is good to see that she is teaching more workshops now.

October was a return trip to Germany. It was nice to see my good friend Rolf again. He did a great job working with Dr. Hermann Korte, who provided the gym, to promote and register participants. Little by little, the German kettlebell market is growing. I also had a chance to stay in the German countryside and it was incredible. I stayed in a very small town about 60 km outside of Frankfurt in a beautiful stone house. It was totally dark at night and perfectly quite. It is a nice change of pace to be in that environment. There is also a lot of history on the property where I stayed, and it was interesting to hear the stories about the wars that were fought on that very soil.

The next week it was NYC, where I taught one-day workshops in Brooklyn and then in Edison, NJ. At this point I am pretty much on a role, and meeting some really gong ho and dedicated people.

Next week was Las Vegas and the long-awaited Boys are Back in Town, in which I collaborated with Mahler, Maxwell and Morrison to present a 2 day training containing advancement each of us had made as trainers since our early days of working together in developing the rkc curriculum. It was fun to work with these guys again and we all had a blast. It was a sell-out crowd and we had people come from as far away as Germany to attend. The DVD is available on my site. There is a lot of very good KB and BW training on there.

November: The month started off in Miami, where the AKC had their first international meet and National Kettlebell Sport Championships. I went to support the sport and the good work AKC has been doing to provide accurate information about kettlebell lifting and build the quality of the that skill. There were some great performances; some cameos from some of Europe’s world championships and a tough few sets on my part. I didn’t set any PRs, but it was fun to be a part of a meet again and I realized once again just how much I hadn’t been training! A few of my friends achieve Master of Sports levels in the sport, which is no small accomplishment. Most notably was Marty Farrell, who became the first ever-American born male to accomplish this feet in competition. Also, Ken Blackburn wowed the crowd with an intense effort of 52 consecutive reps in the Chair Press with 141 pounds, or 2×32kg kettlebells.

2 days at home and then a very long trek to Sydney, Australia. What a fantastic city, it is and the Aussies were ready for some serious training. As always, Australian Kettlebells did a perfect job organizing everything and finding a perfect training location. My good buddy Paul Tucker came up from Tasmania to assist me in the lift, and put on a very impressive demo for the group in Long Cycle. Paul is the single best example I know of in the kettlebell world of a mature (read over 40 with families and work responsibilities) adult building steady, consistent progress while maintaining a healthy balance in life. He shows very logically how a moderate yet intense approach to life-long progress can be sustained. After the weekend seminars, I spent a day in city centre and one of my customers met up with me and showed me around. Sydney has that feel to it like you find in the thrilling cities like NY, London, etc. Loved it there and Oz, like America is a vast country with so much diversity.

The last leg of this trip was my first visit to New Zealand. I didn’t know what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised that the most commercial of all gym, the original Les Mills in Auckland, was very interested in my kettlebell course and sent a room full of trainers to learn about kettlebells for the first time. Luckily there are some kettlebell retailers there so although quite isolated from the rest of the world, the Kiwis now have the knowledge and the tools that they need to fully develop kettlebell training as a leading fitness protocol. Aside from the teaching, NZ is a place where there is amazing scenery everywhere you go. There probably isn’t a greener place on earth, but if you like rainforest and volcanoes and water, this is the place. I didn’t make it to the South island; it is said the South is even more majestic than the North, which is hard to conceive of.

December started off with the 2nd Full KOntact & Extreme Athletic Training Bootcamp in Fenton, MI. Ken and I once again collaborated to present much or our combined education in physical training. We both come from pretty vast backgrounds in martial arts, and Ken is one of the few people I have met who move as well as I do, yet he is about 60 lb larger, and all muscle. If you haven’t checked out the footage, check my previous blog entry in Dec and you can watch it. Many of the participants have asked us to do it again, and we’ve gotten requests to bring this Bootcamp to other locations, so that is something we will likely do.

I had a 10 days at home and then off to Asia, first to Singapore, then Hong Kong. Singapore gave me a chance to see some friends and met up with an old friend from my full contact US Team; I hadn’t seen Ty in many years, and here we met again halfway across the world. Ty moved to Thailand some years back to further develop his fighting skills, and ended up staying there. When he heard I would be in Singapore, he flew down and took part in the course. I look for Ty to a major ally of mine in that part of the part, as he is not only a skilled MA with extensive practical experience, but also a cutting-edge personal trainer who is constantly sharpening his education.

Following Singapore I went to Hong Kong for the first time and I couldn’t have though up a more perfect ending to an amazing year. I will do a lot of teaching and a lot of business in Hong Kong, as it is just a place where things happen and you can get things done. There is not a lot of fluff so you can be very serious and to the point.

This is really just a glimpse at my professional developments, yet it always encapsulates so much for me.

What a year! So many great things. Now I will stay home for some time to create, enjoy my family and train the way I like to train.

There are some wonderful developments and I am doing my best to keep up with everything.

Thanks for reading this and may all your dreams come true!