I was interviewed for a column in Australia’s largest daily newspaper, The Daily Telegraph.

It will be published either this Sunday or next in the health and fitness section Body and Soul.

The journalist is quite a kettlebell fan and asked me questions relative to why readers should want to use kettlebells and the types of results one would expect to find through kettlebell training. Good exposure for the growing KB community Down Under and well needed, because Australia is now the world’s “fattest” country!

Great news from the Pacific Northwest!

Major League Baseball’s Seattle Mariner’s just named my friend Don Wakamatsu their new manager. I am so happy for Don, as he is one of the brightest minds in baseball and he finally gets the chance he has long deserved.

I had the pleasure of working with Don a few weeks back while I was doing some work with the Texas Ranger’s S&C coach.

I will likely be doing some work with Don and the Mariners moving forward, as he is a big kettlebell fan.

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

Greetings from Down Under!

I am in the midst of a whirlwind seminar tour in Australia, sponsored by my good friends at http://www.kettlebells.com.au/

The tour started last Saturday, with a great course in Melbourne. We were joined by special guest Paul Tuck, the Tasmanian Girevik extraordinaire, and Australia’s fitness man. Paul shared some of his experience and wisdom with the course, and yes the message is Steve Cotter approved

Kettlebells are good for you!

Paul is a brilliant man as well as an inspiration for those who wish to be vital and energetic entering the Golden years. At 47 years of age, he can run circles around most men 1/2 his age.  Here are a few more of his sites for your viewing pleasure:

http://sites.google.com/site/ferrolithicpark/system/app/pages/sitemap/hierarchy

http://taskettlebellers.tripod.com/

After the Melbourne course, we went onward to Perth, where we had our biggest group, 35 hard-working Western Australians. Not bad for a Tuesday afternoon, especially considerting that WA is so remote. The next day it was on to Adelaide in South Australia and today we are on way to Canberra, the nation’s capital.

Friday and Saturday we have courses in beautiful Sydney, then Sunday in Queensland’s Brisbane. Monday I fly to New Zealand, where I will be giving CKT certification courses in Auckland. Then home for Thanksgiving!

I love Australia, it is a vast and beautiful country, and with 7 courses in 9 days, I am also getting a fair bit of exercise. Fun stuff!

Yesterday I got to teach in my hometown, and that doesn’t happen very often.

Things have worked out for me that I do most of my teaching nationally and overseas and when I am home in San Diego I tend to just chill out and not do much except for in my home office. So, it is nice to be able to drive down the street to teach.

Last year Power Systems launched their Total Training Seminars for fitness professionals, and I have been asked to be a part of many of them. For the San Diego seminar the featured presenters were Todd Durkin and myself. www.totaltrainingseminars.com

Todd is probably most known for being the trainer to many of the world best professional football players, including Ladanian Tomlinson, Drew Brees, , Carson Palmer and Kellen Winslow Jr. I have heard about Todd from a number of colleagues, but until yesterday we had never met.

Now I know what all the talk is about. Todd is tops as a trainer, I can say that without hestitaion. First off he has the personality and command to warrant respect and get people to like him. It took about 5 seconds for us to hit it off and talk like we were old friends. I’ve presented and been around hundreds of teachers, coaches, and trainers over the past 20 years and Durkin has just got ‘it’.

Such a fun day. First Todd and I did an impromptu Q&A while waiting for the last minute registrants to sign in. We both put it out that no question was off limits, that we both offer a lot of practical experience, and that the group of 120 people should take advantage of the opportunity to pick our brains.

So one woman asked about the economy and how that has effected our businesses. What Todd said was in the spirit of my own thought and experiences, and he said it so well. Basically, telling the group that one must take control of his or her own thought and attitude. Don’t focus on the negativity, in times of great challenge there is great opporunity and to be passionate. He is absolutely right. I said to put aside the newspapers, turn off the tv, do not allow the negative mindset interfere with what you want to do, keep your eye on the prize.

So from the start, we clicked and the foundation was laid for a empowering day.

I started off with an intro to training and focused primarily on basic kettlebell lifts although the bigger picture is how we use our body and to utilize a comprehensive mind/body approach.

Next Todd led everyone through his Train the Joes like the Pros. This was awesome and just like how I like to teach, Todd spent only a few minutes on theory and then had everyone up on their feet and working! It was a great class, intense exercise and high energy and fun. We did massive variety with the bodyweight training, medicine balls, kettlebells, BOSU, reaction ball, partner training.

It was great fun; I took part and worked up a great sweat; there was some challenging work and Todd kept us moving for about 1.5 hours.

Like myself, Tood is a guy who teaches by leading. He demonstrated and did the work with us, kept the energy up and infused with meaning.

In addition to the great exercise materials, Tood integrated his Marine Corp training and had us marching to some fun cadence calls. It was clear that his presentation style is entirely his own and it is always great to watch an artist work.

At the end of the training, Durkin brought us all into the middle to seal the deal; we did some deep breathing and expression of gratitude and basically just connected as a group.

Everyone was happy and tired at the same time.

Todd and I will be doing some things together, I’m going to get up to his place and do some training when I get back from my next trip.

You can find some more information about this awesome fitness resource at:

www.fitnessquest10.com

www.ToddDurkin.com

I had an enjoyable conversation with host Joe Sarti on his excellent Voice of America network show "Your Life Without Limitis".

We sat and talked for about an honor and I was please to have a freestyle talk about well-being and living life.

For your listening pleasure :

www.modavox.com/voiceamericacms/WebModules/HostModaview.aspx

If the show doesn’t load for you automatically, go to the archives and click on the November 5th entry.

Had a great session today with coaches from not 1, but 3 different major league baseball teams.

In addition to working with Jose Vasquez from the Texas Rangers, I also spent time with Oakland A’s Bench Coach Don Wakamatsu and the Director of Minor League Player Development for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Mike Brumley.

All 3 coaches are just great guys, really innovative and we had a blast talking, training and exchanging ideas. I learned quite a bit. Of particular interest to me was talking with Coach Wakamatsu about the mechanics of catching, as that is an area of expertise for him. Catchers need tremendous hip and thigh strength, mobility and flexibility, and that is an area I know quite a bit about, so it was fun to bounce some training ideas around.

My theories about the importance of work capacity for athletes were substantiated by all the coaches. While a lot of times strength coaches/trainers will focus on ‘power’ and strength development, an often overlooked aspect is the ability to sustain the power over the course of an entire season. Baseball has a very long season, at least 6 months, and more including spring training. So it is not just about being strong, it is about keeping strong through the long, laborious season.

So, after discussing the philosophy and logical approach, we agreed that the most valuable application for kettlebells in the context of professional baseball athletes is its value as a tool to develop sustained work capacity. They agreed that if an athlete needs to build bulk and limit strength, a barball is going to be more suitable in most cases. So, we foces on working for time, learning how to relax under diress and rythmical, anatomical breathing methods with the lifts.

We had a great time, the coaches appreciated the attention to detail and I have been able to make some friends who have a whole lot of experience at the highest levels of the game.

Not to mention, the Ballpark at Arlington is one of the most beautiful baseball stadiums in the country, simply gorgeous architecture.

Not a bad day, and now I get to go home!!!

As much as I wish to tell all about the amazing journeys to Africa and Spain, I am having a difficulty uploading pictures to the blog, and I can’t tell the stories without the photos, so I will have that up soon.

Today I am in Dallas, where I was brought in to do a day of work with the Texas Rangers Major League Baseball Team.

Strength & Conditioning coach Jose’  Vasquez is one of the bright young minds in baseball today, and he is looking for ways to integrate kettlebells into the overall S&C program for his players. So, he contacted me to ask for some assistance developing some simple programs to combine KB with Barbells.

This is fun for me, I get to exchange ideas with a world-class coach, as well as teach some high-level athletes some subtleties of training technique. I am excited and this will be a fun day.

Will give some feedback after we spend the day with the training.

We had so much fun at the recent Level 2 IKFF course that I am ready to do it again.

The inaugural CKT-FMD Level 2 course took place in Taunton, Massachusetts and the participants were introduced to a wide range of strength, conditioning, agility, deep breathing/qigong methods, flexibility, mobility, acrobatics and of course kettlebell lifting. We worked, we played, we experimented and we discussed.

Here are some very brief samplings of the course offerings. The basic idea of the FMD course is that with Kettlebell lifting as a level 1 foundation, you can further explore movement dynamics through complimentary arts. This is a golden age for fitness and IKFF is happy to be involved in the education process.

Special thanks to the incomparable gentle giant John Wild Buckley and the Orange Kettlebell Club, for providing the above footage. OKC has a great website, check it out: www.orangekettlebellclub.com

This is just a sample; you cannot read context from a video montage; all you can see is that we have a lot of fun and do a lot of movement; some of the footage contains play and in the freestyle components of the course everyone has an option of trying new things or not. So, for the viewer, follow along at your own risk

We are getting a lot of requests for Level 2 courses. The 2009 calendar is already almost fully booked. Contact Ken Blackburn if you wish to enroll in or host a Level 1 or Level 2 course in 2009: ken.blackburn@ikff.net

I am pleased to announce that my long-awaited instructional DVD Mastering the Pistol is now available.

I am very excited to present this in-depth, step-by-step tutorial that breaks down and actually teaches you the skill of the Pistol.

Here is what a customer says about this DVD:

"Dear Steve,
I just wanted to pass along a "thank you" for producing your "MASTERING THE PISTOL" dvd.   I had just completed level one of the workouts for the past two weeks using the one minute rest protocol.  I plan to start level two on Monday. 

I have tried pistols in the past (using the Naked Warrior) as my guide, but never truly "go it".  After your explanations in the dvd and your progression towards mastering, I believe I will be able to achieve my goal finally without pain. 

You are a great inspiration and a wonderful teacher.  I appreciate all your hard work and thank you for it! "

Be peaceful,
Rick Vittum

Here is the link to purchase your copy: www.fullkontact.com/training-dvds-pistol.html

Leaving UK now after a jam-packed week and a half of teaching and training.

This was a particularly enjoying series of courses because I was able to bring Ken Blackburn along with me this time around, his first international course. I’m really greatful to have such a reliable right hand man, friend and professional to share the workload with. Now that we have been going strong with the Certified Kettlebell Trainer courses, I don’t know how I would be able to do this without Ken’s involvement.

The students love him, are in awe of his strenght and mobility and I know that if I am not at my 100% best, that I can rely upon Ken to step up and keep the level high, and visa versa.

Here is a recap of this latest segment of the IKFF world tour.

We started last weekend in London, where we conducted our course in the Docklands region near Canary Wharf. The venue was a great one, a circus training and acrobatic school. It was a diverse European audience, with participants not only from England, but also Vikings from Norway, Italians as well as a Kiwi and South African. The students worked super hard, as they always do, and we had a load of fun. Congratulations to all the newly-mined CKT coaches, who braved through some long sets, including a 22 minute set of cleans (one hand change).

After London course, Ken and I had an off day, so I treated him to a short trip to Amsterdam, which is unlike any city in the world. Things started off with adventure, as we booked on Easyjet, a discount airline. We thought 2 hours was plenty of time however the queue was exceptionally long, and by the time we eventually cleared security, we had less than 15 minutes to get to our gate. Well, I don’t run sprints very often, but I can still move quite quickly when spurred to. As soon as we got of the train to the terminal, Ken (inadvertantly) body checked a few passengers, which was the only daylight I needed! I cut back and zipped through the hole and I was off, sprining up the escalators, moving laterally through the herd of people. It was one heck of a heart pump; Ken was a little behind, and he was having trouble breathing when he came to the gate, because he was apparently laughing so hard watching me navigate through the crowd. Well we were awake at this point, and quite sweaty. Poor fellow passengers!

We got to AMS and checked into our hotel; had a nice buffet and then settled in. A few hours later we caught a train to center city. What a place! Just a tip—learn the difference between a cafe and a coffee house!! Of course we checked out the famous RLD and then we took a really cool canal cruise, which was quite relaxing. Then met up with a friend who lives there, who showed us around the city some more. It was a great time and a perfect way to break up the teaching.

The next morning we headed back to London, where that evening I gave a talk to a group of physios about strength & conditioning, kettlebells and potential rehab applications.

Interestingly, the day we got to AMS I received an email from an old friend and school brother from my first gong fu school. We hadn’t seen each other in probably 12-15 years. He is now in international banking/finance and living in London. He did a search on kettlebells and found me online and it so happened I was in London at that time. So we were able to meet up for dinner. Man it was so great to see him again. What a small world!

The next day I flew out to Helsinki, where I introduced a few KB master classes at the FISAF Global Summit; simultaneously, FISAF was hosting the European Championships for Aerobic Dance, so there were a lot of very fit woman around. Of course KB is a good match. There is a great potential for growth with FISAF as they have 35 member nations and growing. My friend Martti Nappari was very kind to arrange to provide KBs for the courses, which was great. After one of my classes, I was asked to do an interview with a Finnish magazine called Sport, which is a high-end woman’s health and fitness magazine. Before the interview, they wanted some photos and the photographer was quite aggressive and wasted no time getting straight to the point. The first thing she said is "can you take your clothes off", haha. Well I kept my pants on, but being the shy and modest person I am, I made sure to undo my top quite slowly!! The writer and photographer seemed to enjoy this quite and bit and who am I to be a party-pooper. They assured me that the readership would approve, so I made the sacrifice.

To make the Helsinki visit complete, I had the pleasure of meeting up for dinner with my kettlebell sport friends Marko Suomi and Kukka Laasko. That was awesome. I will say however, that I did not enjoy the taste of reindeer! Poor Rudolph, he must be an acquired taste!

From Helsinki, it was back to England for a course in the lovely spa town of Harrogate, about an hour North of Manchester. This was hosted by Stuart Agars of the National Centre for Combat Martial Arts, another ideal venue with plenty of open space and a nice matted floor to use for mobility work. A high energy group in no small part as a result of the presence of the incomparable Rannoch Donald and the Scottish contingent. Although this was the first time we had met in person, I felt like Rannoch and I are old friend and it was just great to have his energy and enthusiasm around all weekend.  Also attended by Julian Monk, the strength coach for the great Liverpool Football Club (soccer for Americans), the always cheerful Jason Dean and his lovely accomplice Paula Wells and my friend Alan Orr of Martial Art Illustrated fame. Look for a series of articles co-authored by Alan and I to be published in upcoming issues of MAI.

I told the Harrogate group that they simply must be tougher than the Londoners, so we all enjoyed a nice 24 minute set of cleans together. A few torn hands, but that was more so because of the rough handles than technique. A fun and productive weekend once again.

The success of this trip would not be possible were it not for my colleague and great friends Jonathan Lewis of Balance Physio, who worked extensively to assure that all venues and kettlebells and registrations were complete and Stuart Agars, who opened his training hall and home to Ken and I. I thank you so much for that gentleman.

That’s an overview. As always, I’ll remember a few highlight later, but I will say that this was once of the most fun and most productive trips to date for Team IKFF!!