Yesterday, I rolled my Z down the 101 along the coast of California from Paso Robles back to Santa Barbara. It was a relaxed drive with LOTS of sport cars on the road. I stopped by Rusty Smith's reincarnated "HardCore 360 Gym" in Santa Barbara to meet KB Comrade Tim Spencer. Tim showed me around the new 360...AWESOME! Can't wait to talk more about this cool training facility just blocks from the SoCal ocean in SB. Tim, Rusty, me, and other 360 comrades are all heading for the RKC certification in San Diego this August, so Tim and I discussed our strengths, weaknesses, and training strategies for the next couple of months to get ready. After that, I rolled in the late afternoon down to Ventura where a KB throwdown at the city park seemed to be in order.
Decided to do some 24kg swings. 20 at the top of each minute. 15 minutes=150 swings. Then I worked on some 24kg overhead lockouts with a walkaround. I walked down about 20 yards, turned around, then walked back with one arm, short rest, repeated with other arm. After a few sets of this, I was walking around and taking my rest and stepped on bee which promptly stung the crap out of my foot! As I watched my foot turn red and throb with pain, I became absorbed into a Zen frame of mind asking myself what was the lesson and where is my gratitude? Lesson? I should consider wearing shoes when working in the bright sunshine on grass that has clover flowers! Gratitude? I'm thankful the bee did not sting me when I had the 24kg over my head!
As I was warming up, a pleasant young woman sat right in front of me (but out of my line of fire) with a huge papaya. She smiled and asked what those things were. I explained they were Russian kettlebells. She asked me what they did. I explained the strength and power benefits but went into the corrective aspects too. She smiled. I went back to my workout. She carefully sliced the papaya and laid them all out on the grass like playing cards then ate one at a time in a very relaxed manner with my pressurized breathing and lockouts in the background. After about 20 minutes, we bid each other farewell and good day. Then the bee stung me a few minutes later, and I decided the workout was over...or rather this was decided by the tribal guru bee creature.
I went to eat some fish tacos at the Anacapa Brewery--my favorite hangout in Ventura. I felt inclined to walk barefoot which was inspired by a recent blog post by Tim Spencer. I walked along the beach with no shoes letting the cool and frothy surf sweep over my naked feet (soothing my one throbbing foot too!). I walked slowly...looking. You see a lot of stuff when you look for it. I found a cool rock with another small rock embedded into it. I found a large vertebrae. Not sure what animal it came from--but I thought it was cool. I found a piece of sea glass. It was white.
I saw some trash and started thinking about Steve Ilg's teachings that we should take appropriate action each day and do small things that make a difference. I picked up a couple pieces of plastic and carried them back to the trash can before leaving. Then I rolled back to Valencia...tired but relaxed.
From SoCal on Memorial Day Weekend, Coach RJ
