What's inside of you?

I decided to attend my first RKC in April 2006 after just the year before, losing 120lbs because I wanted to have the experience of training for three days straight (with the "big boys" lol), not because I saw myself becoming a teacher or Instructor  I knew a really great teacher and Instructor (I was married to him) so my measure of a professional, one that gets paid, was pretty high!  I just thought that because I had such incredible results from training the swing that it would be nice to learn how to teach friends and family close to me....and that's what I did. I continued to do my own training of course and then a few months later I started my first blog.  I wasn't until January 2009 that I really, officially, hung my hat out as an Instructor of my method of training the kettlebell swing.

I teach how to use the kettlebell swing, and only the swing, as an entire workout.  I do not teach any other kettlebell skill until a student has demonstrated and trained this most important first movement.  Personally I wouldn't teach any other skill if I didn't have to because no other movement is as effective at doing exactly what most people , including myself, want, increase muscle tone, fat loss, and strength, than the swing.  But in addition to all of that goodness, my swing classes and routines are so much dang fun I could do it all day everyday!

Maybe all of that other stuff is fun too, but because my background is that of being overweight I was never attracted to weighted movements that made me feel heavy.  The Get up would be the first example, but also the strict grinds of the squat and press would follow closely behind.  Back in "the day"  there were Renegade Rows and Bear Crawls...you might as well shoot me!  Those exercises may be great at some point for some people but at the end of the day in addition to the benefits I listed earlier, no other movement delivers what the swing does....confidence and success!

Oh yes....confidence and success!  Those two things have recently been replaced with two words commonly heard to describe my training and that of my students...."bad ass"!  Now I realize that some people would be turned off if they were called "bad ass", it's not for everybody. But it is for me, I like it!  I always say the training the kettlebell swing brought out my inner athlete, but it also brought out my inner bad ass!  It never occurred to me how much of my true self was trapped inside...not "trapped" necessarily, but maybe, simply unrealized.

Sometimes I think that I'm a completely different person that I was most of my life, but I know better.  I'm the same person, only my best version and getting better all the time.  There is so much more inside of me I can't wait to see what shows up next!  What's inside of you?  Or if you've already discovered how transformative training kettlebells can be what's the biggest change or impact it's made on your life?

Pictures above.  Me at my first RKC swinging an 8kg!  I think I've built a little more strength and muscle tone since then!  Whatcha think?