The Actionaut

Not all of you know, but I was raised in a family of artists. My father is a concert pianist and my mom has been exhibiting paintings worldwide (she has a show currently you may have been informed about through my newsletter. Subscribe to it for workshops and other announcements/promos/specials).

Anyway, when my brother came to LA with his wife for their honeymoon, we also got to hang out and one of the things we went to see was Dennis Hopper’s display or artwork at the MOCA downtown LA, near Little Tokyo.

I urge all of you to go see his show, Double Standard, which he helped curate but never got to see because of his passing on May 29, 2010.

The picture to which the title of the Dennis Hopper show owes its name.

Dennis Hopper is a staple of Los Angeles. He is known for his quirky roles, but he represents Venice at its best. One of the true ambassadors for this unconventional, non-generic part of Los Angeles, his work spans LA in the 60′s, with photographs of his contemporaries in the arts (Andy Warhol, Bill Cosby) as well as other influences such as his political involvement or his affinity for the biker culture (seen on film in Easy Rider).
The show ends Sunday, September 26.

Go see it! Click HERE for info.

Comments (0) Sep 25 2010

It’s funny how things can relate to one another without an obvious common denominator.

RELAX INTO STRETCH
I have been reading Pavel Tsatsouline’s book Relax Into Stretch and learned something very interesting about flexibility. Just that stretching doesn’t work to make you flexible or prevent injuries, but generally speaking the benefits of stretching are very short term. Of course, this general blanket statement I am making doesn’t apply to various forms of stretching and Pavel goes into great length to explain the what and the why behind stretching. If you look at extremely flexible people in avenues like yoga, dance, gymnastics, what is not obvious to the average audience is that their respective practitioners are applying a form of strength under load. Their muscles are contracted and strong, yet they reach an amazing range of motion.

Now, for a change of perception, picture a stocky, short and very powerful looking Olympic lifter. At first sight, he may look like a spark plug or a cannonball. Watch him snatch twice his bodyweight and hold the position. Most people have a hard time doing it with a broomstick! That’s precisely what I am referring to: flexibility is a matter of strength.

In Relax Into Stretch, Pavel describes how flexibility is a matter of your own perception. If you feel you cannot go into full splits, you certainly will not be able to. Yet, under total anesthesia, your body is able to achieve levels of flexibility unknown to you (because your brain is not sending you signals of fear) which, once awake, you go back to where you were. The concept of “relaxing into stretch”, also referred to as “forced relaxation” has to do with the inhibition reflex, or the body’s response to protecting itself from something you fear, by “coiling’ or shortening a muscle that is not used to have a certain demand place upon it. If you engage the muscles you are trying to stretch, the fear is dissipated by the muscular contraction. Holding the position/contraction ends up relaxing you (even if it fatigues the muscle) and as you release the contraction, your muscle, now relieved, can eek out an extra centimeter or two (or an inch for those of you unfamiliar with the metric system!).

This perception/fear response brings me to another topic, unrelated be it for the idea of perception.

Relax into Stretch
Instant Flexibility Through Mastering Muscle Tension

PERCEPTION IS REALITY
Perception is in your mind, in your brain. Perceive something as hard, it will be hard. When you look at the picture below, what do you see?

I had two different conversations with two different women who have experienced unpleasant situations with the men in their life. One ended up filing a restraining order against her ex, the other is in a very unhealthy relationship she is afraid of coming out of. In his book The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violence, Gavin De Becker talks about how we dull our sense of fear, or basic survival instinct, which normally triggers a fight, flight, freeze or faint response. Hopefully, for your survival you pick one of the first two! Seriously, though, how one handles a situation has to do with one’s perception of it. If you are repeating a pattern of abuse from childhood, it may be hard to break from it in your adult social life. What you perceive as being normal is skewed. If you deal with a person who is an abuser (but you yourself have no such past trauma), the easiest way to deal with it is to ignore it, for instance, when it comes to stalking (responding only elicits further action from the stalker). Of course, you create a paper trail and contact the authorities or experts like Mr De Becker, read the book for a better understanding of what I am only providing a trailer for

CONCLUSION
“Fear is the mindkiller” is a quote the mentat Piter De Vries utters in Dune. Perception is in the mind. The fear response from your body as you stretch your muscles inhibits full range of motion. As you contract the muscles, you take away the fear and by releasing or relieving the contraction, your relaxed muscle goes deeper into the stretch. In survival situations, fear triggers the ability to perform astonishing feats of strength that we otherwise dull on a daily basis by living in constant fear or stress. We also allow ourselves to live in unhealthy patterns simply because we are familiar with them. To individual growing up abused, their sense of normalcy is skewed. Change the perception by changing the action. Break the pattern.

Comments (1) Sep 14 2010

Last weekend, I had the honor, pleasure and privilege to be invited as an instructor assistant for the RKC weekend workshop in San Diego, CA.

After unloading several thousand pounds worth of kettlebells ranging from 10lb to 106lb (in boxes first, much harder to lift than by the handle, before unpacking them), the instructors were tested on their form in all the drills, including the infamous snatch test, which is 100 reps under 5 minutes with 24kg/53lb for males under 50, 20kg/44lb males over 50 -aka Master Class- and 16kg/35lb for ladies weighing over 123.5lb, 12kg/26lb for ladies under 123.5lb.

We were blessed with weather that was fair compared to last year’s triple digit. People flew from Italy, Singapore, Australia and even North of the border to attend the event. Slightly different format from when I took mine: fewer workouts to punctuate the instruction, but practice was performed with heavier weights. No chickens, no sissifying of the workout or the system. Only grade A1 muscle! We are a school of strength first and foremost. Pavel Tsatsouline, Doug Nepodal (toughest guy in a kilt I ever met), Doc Cheng, Jeff O’Connor, Josh Henkin and Paul Daniels commandeered the instruction with their distinct personalities and abilities.

The demographics spanned the gamut in age, profession and abilities, though everyone showed up, or almost everyone, ready for the event. You HAVE to prepare AT LEAST 6 months prior to attending in building your conditioning. In my group alone, heralded by Mark “Doc” Cheng to whom we owe the high bridge in the Turkish get-Up among many other contributions (and he’s a pretty humble guy, but great to see in action), we had a few 50+ y.o. guys (doctor, wrestling coach, successful entrepreneur), a mother of an RKC instructor, a lawyer who looked like she flew in from Pandora, an Aussie Sheila with athleticism that would rival most men I know, a female EMT who was recertifying and whose skill surpassed most people I know, you get the picture.

Why should you train for the RKC? Whether you want to instruct or push your own limits, you get adopted into a community of skill, knowledge, support and strength that makes every other protocol pale in comparison. While the kettlebells offer many advantages, we can also recognize its limitations, but the protocols taught will allow you to surpass those limitations and carry-over into other modalities with such ease, you may surpass others who’ve trained there for years. Jeff O’Connor, one of the team leaders, even said that if there’s something great and new we don’t have in our system, rest assured it’ll make its way there.

On that note, I read through the new instructor manual and discovered more articles backing up what I am telling you about. Improved cueing, better organization for instruction so that you assimilate the drills faster than before, tools I wish I had myself a couple of years back. And that’s the beauty of the RKC system: like a computer’s operating system, we upgrade, fix the bugs to make the “machine” faster, stronger, more streamlined and efficient. Pavel’s constant research and outside contributions grow the system. Here’s another example: I’ve been working with the TRX for years before even touching a kettlebell. Now, Pavel has a new book and DVD about TRX training which I can’t wait to play with because I KNOW the stuff in it is going to be good!

I’ve helped frail clients get big in record time. I’ve shortened my workouts yet made myself stronger and faster. I got rid of excess information and superfluous moves, going back to what Jeff O’Connor calls “Advanced Basics”. Really, think about it with another quote I once mentioned stating that the difference between a white belt and a black belt is the execution of the basics. A swing is a swing is a swing. How you do it is what matters (meaning: well!)

If you are still curious about kettlebells, email me so I can set up a session for you, to introduce you, or maybe get a group going for an intro workshop. Your training will never be the same afterwards. Your physique and your life will improve.

As Pavel always says or ends his emails with: “Power to you!”

Comments (0) Sep 04 2010