Dooley Noted: 2/20/2014
I have an intense love and commitment to my training as a representative of the kettlebell community.
I tend to train alone, and I am commonly approached by gym goers.
They see me doing kettlebell ladders, mobility and stability resets, breathing drills and correctives. My training is intense, calm, and focused.
This is weird for a typical gym – but something about it gets people interested. They are missing something from their training.
Gym goers use energy, the remnants visible with a pool of sweat under a machine. But I don’t often see any calm or skill development.
As I watch people train to failure, I take myself to the edge of the cliff, as if there is a barrier there preventing me from heading over it.
I don’t go to “get out stress,” because I have a special relationship with my stress. I know the research shows the benefits of my attitude toward my stress.
The training is not to get something out of me. Rather, it puts resiliency into me.
It’s not a workout – it’s a build-in.
The calm in training has carryover into life. While I am energetic and intense, I am learning to focus and harness that energy into usable calm.
When I’ve met great strongmen like David Whitley and Brett Jones, they each had a noticeable hush of calm and focus when doing great feats like bending steel. There’s no carnal yelping, and their faces are relaxed.
They look focused and relaxed. They look calm.
Life can have high intensity. Adding calm to training just might have the carryover needed for when things get intense in life.
As always, it’s your call.
– Dr. Kathy Dooley