PASSING MY STRONG FIRST GIRYA LEVEL 1 CERTIFICATION.

"Strength is a skill."

"Strength serves a greater purpose."

Such a great experience to take and successfully pass my SFG1! A lot of work, sweat and a few tears went into this preparation. Even a little blood, but not much. Okay, maybe more than a few tears.

Maybe you have not heard of the SFG yet, but might know about the RKC. Pavel Tsatsouline (who is credited for having popularized the Russian Kettlebells in the West) along with John DuCane had created the Russian Kettlebell Challenge, which is known to provide superior profesional kettlebell instructors. I would even say that unless someone has their RKC or at least HKC, you should not bother taking a kettlebell classe from them. Last year, Pavel split from John DuCane and founded his own company: Strong First. A lot of the senior trainers followed Pavel and the standard of certification was actually raised. As far as I was concerned, Pavel is the brain and wherever he goes is where I plan on following.

When I found out that the 3rd SFG1 certification was going to take place in Salt Lake City, I knew it had my name written all over it and I decided to sign-up, probably sooner than I would have otherwise dared. With the deadline set, I took on the task of training. Seriously train. I already did hold my HKC and I had not taken my preparing for it lightly. It was challenging, but not terribly so. After hearing someone compare the HKC to preschool and the SFG to college, I became a litte worried. Here are the certification requirements to successfully pass the SFG.

By an incredibly lucky set of circumstances, I was able to begin training under the mentorship of Dan John. I am so grateful to have been able to work with him. This man is one of the most brilliant minds in strength training. He has been kind, patient and our sessions have been very valuable. Everything he taught me has made me into a better trainer for my own clients. He teased out all of my weaknesses and set out to help me strengthen the areas where I lacked. My biggest concerns where my presses and of course, the snatch test. Ah the snatch test... 100 snatches at 16 kilos (35 lbs) in 5 minutes. At the beginning of my training, it seemed daunting.
On our first session, when I asked (politely) if he could check my snatching form, Dan said "if you are going to do 1, you are going to do 100". That was after an hour of training. I giggled, how humorous, okay let's check the form. But no, it was no joke. I had to do 100. And this is how I set out to work on my snatches. I always did 100 and increased the weight of my kettlebell until I was able to snatch my required weight.

On the first day of the certification, I showed up, hair done, make up in place, with my nails painted sparkly green, wearing fluorescent compression calves sleeves. Maybe I stuck out just a little bit. 2/3 of the attendees are male, and most people looked solid with their form and endured the pace just fine. We were separated in 4 teams of about 18 people each. My team leader was Andrea U-Shi Chang, who also happened to be the person I took my HKC from. The whole thing started like this "Good morning, let's go do your strength test". 5 pull-ups for men and 15 seconds of flexed arm hang for women. Yes, it starts with a test.
Team Leaders and their assistants play a very important role in the whole process: they correct, encourage, direct and ultimately pass or fail you on technic. Each Team Leader lectures on a topic. During this specific certification we had both Dan John and Pavel lecturing, which was a real treat.

Let's talk about the pace... Possibly this was the hardest physical thing I did in my life. We did a LOT of swings. A LOT. The atmosphere is almost what I imagine the military to be. Respect is a given, it is also expected that you will be very attentive the whole time as well as understand and implement corrections. It is expected that you will be prepared and have the stamina to keep going. And this where I was astonished. Day 1 was hard. By the end of the day I could feel my hamstrings and deep hip muscles getting sore. When soreness starts the day of, it does not bode well for the next couple of days. Not to my credit, I tend to get sore easily.
At the start of Day 2, I was exhausted. Physically very tired and mentally spent (the anxiety I was feeling was not helping). On that day, the workload was much bigger, but somewhere halfway through the day, I realized that in spite of how tired and sore I felt I could still perform. Every single time. I became even more grateful for my body and its ability to get past exhaustion and accomplish the tast at hand.
Day 1 and 2 are spent going over and drilling the 6 moves: Double Kettlebell Swing, Double Kettlebell Clean, Double Kettlebell Presses, Double Kettlebell Squats, Turkish Get Up and Snatch. Three ballistic moves and 3 grind moves. And did I mention a lot of swings? For any woman over 123 lbs and under 50 years of age the Snatch Test size kettlebell is 16 kilos (35lbs). Double Kettlebell moves are performed with two 16 kilos kettlebells.
                                   
Day 3 loomed... testing day... I felt worried about my snatch test. I had trained properly, but my mind was filled with doubts. Failure on any of the testing points means you will not pass. I worked on calming my anxiety. By the time I arrived at the location I felt almost a state of abandon. I was going to give it my all and see what would come. The Snatch Test was the first thing we did and I was asked to test with the first batch of SFG1 hopefuls. I grabbed my bell and started snatching, at the pace that Dan had taught me... and I did not put my kettlebell down until my judge counted rep # 100. I finished with some time to spare. I don't remember much aside my legs starting to seriously shake towards the end. Ah, adrenaline does do wonder does it not? The relief I felt from passing the snatch test helped me feel much more confident for my form test and I knew then that I had a very good chance to pass. And I did! The form testing though a little nerve racking went well, as did the written test.

The whole experience was pretty transformative. I learned so much from the preparation alone. It taught me that my mind can really bully my body, that my body has ressources of strength and endurance I did not really know about and that I am overall much stronger than I give myself credit for. The spirit of camaraderie was really strong. There is no sense of competition besides that with one self. We all genuinely want to see each other succeed. We correct each other and receive lots support and encouragement from teammates as well as the team leaders.
Again, without Dan's guidance, I would have been hard pressed to show up as prepared as I was.



And here is Pavel's best quote of the weekend: "the opposite of a bird is a tree". Right on.

                                     

Dan John and I shortly after I received my SFG1 Instructor certificate.