Here is a recent interview Thierry Sanchez had with Steve Cotter Head Director of the IKFF. I recently had an oppurtuninty to attend a training day with Steve Cotter and Ken Blackburn in Sparta, NJ. They discussed some different techniques for kettlebell sport. I will post a review of that shortly. Here is the interview.
When I want answers, the easiest way I’ve found is to go directly to the person and ask.
Steve Cotter generously agreed to put aside some of his time to answer my wide range questions in depth. Enjoy!
How do you usually describe yourself?
First and foremost a student and teacher, a person who loves to experience life, a father and a friend.
Tell us shortly about your background, in sports and business?
My primary background is in martial arts, in particular the Chinese internal martial arts, which are fighting arts but also health systems incorporating physical training and breathing and meditation.
I started teaching professionally at 15 years of age and taught full time for about 15 years. I used to train all day every day, literally 8-10 hours each day, 6 days per week. It was all I did throughout my teenage years into my mid-20s. For a few years in the mid-1990s I fought full contact, in a sport called kuoshu, and I won 2 US National titles in 1995, 1996, and fought for Team USA at the 1996 World Kuoshu Games in Taiwan, where I won a bronze medal at those games with Team USA.
In my late 20s I decided that while I loved the arts, I didn’t want to continue to earn my living through martial arts as I thought that I would have to water-down the training to become financially successful. So I began university study of exercise science to further my education because of my love for physical conditioning.
I began earning my living as a trainer in 2001 after receiving my degree in Kinesiology. I just followed my passion and learned how to develop my business out of this love for training. I have been in business for myself since 2003 and in recent years have developed my own Kettlebell & Fitness certification program called the CKT, and I teach all over the world as part of the IKFF organization I founded in 2008.
What is the worst job you’ve ever had?
When I was 16 years old I worked for a landscape company for 3 days. It was back-breaking work but the worst part was the owner was a real, how do you say “asshole”. I started each day at 5 am and worked until about 3 pm. We had to pick and shovel on real hard ground, mostly stone. Now 3 days doesn’t sound like much, but I had actually set the record because most of the people who worked for this guy quit after 1 day. He usually hired migrant workers from Mexico and they are well known and respected for their work ethic, taking jobs that most Americans would not take, but even those guys could not stand to work for him.
You’ve learned kettlebells from the best. How do you improve on their teachings and pass it on to your students?
I would not say that I improve on their teaching, only that I improve on my own teaching. Communication is very personal, and while there are others who are more accomplished KB lifters, I believe my gift lies in connecting with people and being able to clearly communicate and simplify principles to any population. That said, I have always considered myself a student, open and willing to learn and study from those who know more or know things that I have yet to learn. This is an important aspect of being a good teacher, the ability to always learn and modify when appropriate.
There are some great KB champions who are much more experienced than I, such as Fedorenko, Ginko, Fuglev or my coach Oleh Ilika.They are champions of the sport. However what I think my contribution is the use of kettlebells for diverse athletic mobility, so here are a few clips that demonstrate some KB based mobility exercises:
What makes a great KB instructor in your opinion?
The ultimate test of a good teacher is the success of their students. This includes their results, either in improved health & fitness and/or sporting success, but also improvements in their level of happiness.
Even more, a great teacher can direct his or her students how to apply the principles of the art form (kettlebells or otherwise) into their life at large. To be able to lift a KB more effectively is important, but can you utilize those principle to help your life in other areas as well? If the principles of Kettlebells cannot be applied laterally into other facets of your life, then the training is one-dimensional.
A teacher is one who serves his student’s needs effectively.
How do you see the kettlebell sport scene on the world plan as it is right now?
It is growing well, however the limitation right now I believe, as in most things, is ego and personal ambitions. It seems that the various leaders of the world’s KB organizations are unwilling and unable to collaborate because everyone wants to call the shots. This is a limitation because the talent and passion is divided among several organizations instead of working together for a common goal. KB Sport will never make it as an Olympic sport unless and until there is clear, unified leadership.
Tell us what you’re thinking of bringing into the sport?
There needs to be growth and accessibility. It cannot be viewed as an elitist endeavor because frankly there needs to be fresh blood. In the West at least, the best athletes will gravitate toward the ‘money’ sports like American football, baseball, basketball and hockey and soccer in Europe. So most of the growth has to come from regular folks who are ambitious. Most of them are business people, housewives and young fitness enthusiasts. So there has to be the ability to easily enter the sport through user friendly competitions and lots of them.
We work towards making the sport as user friendly as possible and no gurus.
IKFF has now its own rank tables, does that mean more opportunities for new world champions?
Yes I believe it does. Also because I have been fortunate to develop a global following and some youtube fame (haha) we get opportunities to host events at very large and prestigious sporting events, such as the Arnold Classic in US and the Body Power Expo in the UK. We have also been asked to host a meet at the Mr. Olympia event in Las Vegas. More and larger venues will bring more competitors and out of those new champions will develop.
If I understand correctly, the rank tables will be used for the first time at the Arnold’s. What other events have you got in mind, especially in Europe?
We are working in collaborating with the Trojan Lifting Club in London to put on a competition at the Body Power Expo in Birmingham, England this May, which is Europe’s largest fitness expo.
Why use 20kg bells in the system, but not 28kg?
16kg is very light and strong woman can fairly easily attain Master of Sport ranking with only a few months of training. This is much easier than for the men who have to use 32kg. So 20kg is a nice progression for women.
On the other hand, 32kg is not that much heavier than 28kg. If a man can do high reps with 28kg, he can do pretty well with 32kg as well. No ranking system is flawless, so there needs to be some compromise here and there. The main thing is to have a logical goal in mind and a rationale for the decisions made. We cannot do everything at once, so we must choose, including some things and eliminating other things.
What’s the idea behind the going up on the toes for swings and cleans? Is it a technique to use for extra power or expected to be done every repetition?
It is simply one of many assistance or corrective drills, to be applied in context. Sometimes people will fail to adequately extend from the groun up. The extension begins in the feet, transfers through the ankles, knees, hips and spine. Often folks will not extend sufficiently at the knees, so the coming up on the toes is a corrective drill to teach people how to extend the knees more fully. The raising onto the toes facilitates the knee extension. Once the students has learned how to extend properly, the toes raise can be removed again.
What happens sometimes is someone will take one picture of a video clip and then, either lacking context or unfortunately intentionally trying to misrepresent what is being taught, and post it. This has happened with the technique you refer to. I know of a guy who has very small certification program. He views me as a competitor and so he took a picture of me showing the swing coming up on toes and then posted it on a forum, stating that it is the “official” IKFF swing. Of course it is not, it is simply one of many corrective drills, but since forums are mostly filled by people who do not train (if they did they would not spend so much time on internet forums!), folks will speculate about how it is good or not good, without having any idea about what the drill is for.
What encouraged you to create IKFF in the first place?
A few things. First of all I was not satisfied to be a big fish in a small pond. I started in kettlebells, like most people in the West, with the teaching of Pavel and rkc. It served a very useful purpose in the beginning. I was quite content. But then my eyes were opened to a much higher level of skill with KB when I visited Russia for the first time in 2005. What I saw there blew my mind. Here were folks who were vastly superior, more fit, and more skillful than anything I had encountered in America. It was humbling and quite frankly I was embarrassed because by this time I was already becoming known as one of top KB guys in US with the rkc system. But I believe one has to be honest with himself, and I could not turn a blind eye and pretend my system was superior when faced with the evidence that it was vastly inferior. So at that point I became discouraged by the limitations of the system I had been first brought up in.
The other facet is that I am not a proponent of glass ceilings. It was clear to me that organizationally, the group I was with was not honestly interested in being cutting-edge. They were more interested in the illusion of being cutting edge, in protecting the status quo rather than really raising their standard. I could see that there was never going to be a way to grow to my fullest potential with them, that as long as I was content to be a yes man or a #2 for the rest of my life it would be fine, but since I wanted to grow, it was no longer a good fit. An ambitious person cannot stay under someone he is more talented than forever.
Lastly, I was getting increasingly more emails from folks who really liked my DVDs and teaching style and were asking me if I would offer my own certification. At first I resisted with because I was happy to be a part of a team working for the same vision. As it became clear to me that my vision was not the same as the group leadership, I grew apart and went on my own. Growth can be painful, but for me it was a great decision to go my separate way.
I have much experience that was not going to be able to be expressed fully in a restricted environment, so I created an avenue that allowed for this expression.
What is your vision/ dream and what are the directions for IKFF in the future?
We are continuing to grow at a rapid pace. IKFF was the first Kettlebell organization to be truly global and I see now that other have since tried to follow suite. They say imitation is a form of flattery, so I see that as a huge compliment. IKFF is a community to support ambitious people who want to create a better existence for themselves. It is at service level to improve fitness via kettlebells and other functional training modalities, but also it serves as a model to have a clear vision, to set goals and to achieve success. I want for others what I want for myself, the ability to create and earn by following your passion and by providing useful service to those who seek improvements in their lives.
“We exist to support and help the growth of our members.” How do you achieve this?
Through modeling. It starts with me. I am a guy who had nothing and by using the power of my focus, was able to create clear goals and accomplish them through belief and desire coupled with hard work. This leadership inspires others and gives them an example. If I can accomplish my dreams and am open and willing to share with others, they will in turn be motivated to create and follow their own dreams. This is contagious! Further, we do not operate with some pseudo-militaristic hierarchy. I do not try to create some glass ceiling where, like in a boy’s club, where members can only progress based on favoritism, or timing or how connected they are. It is an open-source community. Anyone who is willing to take initiative and has a vision and purpose has a place to grow. I am honest about this. I know there are and will always be folks who are more talented than me in some manner or another. Progress is based on merit, not on servitude or favoritism. I want those who come up in this system to achieve as much success as they are able, it honors me when students are able to accomplish something great.
What other personal values that you bring into your work environment and team?
Lead from the front. I am out there front and center, sweating along with the students and working as hard or harder than them. My gimmick is that there is no gimmick, just good information and an honest delivery of this information. It is sharing my experience, on one true way or dogma build around cute anecdotes, it you and me and the bell, sweating and learning together as a team.
I think the greatest value is that I am living the life I want to live, I do what makes me happy and I am not a slave to a system. We are constantly striving to improve and grow, if we find some new information that serves progress more effectively or efficiently, we integrate that new way. Progress is our only rule.
Do you have plans of competing yourself in 2010?
I would like to compete in Europe sometime this year. My coach Oleh Ilika has invited me to some of the IGSF competitions and I will try to compete in one of them, however my schedule is very dynamic, so I will have to commit on relatively short notice, because my teaching and travel schedule is so intense.
Who plans your personal training?
I don’t realistically have a planned training. My schedule simply does not allow that now. At 40 years of age, my priority now is teaching and training is supplementary to that. So I just do the best I can and work as hard as I can during the many courses I teach. Along with that, I try to get in as much training as I can in between courses.
How do you keep fit while traveling so much?
My fitness is mostly a result of the many years of vigorous training I did in the martial arts from the age of 12-27. That set a very strong and lasting foundation for me, not only physically, but also in terms of the ability to focus. Most people assume I train much more than I do, because they think I am always in great shape. The reality is that me at 50% is more than most at 100% so in some ways I am living off of the reservoir that I built up.
In general I strive for a balance via diverse movement patters. Kettlebells compliments this philosophy very well because I am able to work my entire body with just a few key movements, so a little goes a long way.
Do you have a favorite place and cuisine?
Favorite place, well I have so many. I really enjoy Thailand, the people are very friendly and the atmosphere is exotic. I also really like Kuala Lumpur, awesome food. Some of my favorite cities are New York, Hong Kong and London, and of course there is no place like home, which for me is San Diego, but I also live part of the year in Genova, Italy, which is a nice city on the sea.
Favorite cuisines is probably Thai food, also like Indian a lot, but it has to be good, there is nothing worse than bad Indian food!
Aside from martial arts and kettlebells, what sport do you really love, and why?
I appreciate American football. It is the quintessential American sport, because it depends so heavily upon teamwork and organization. In many sports, such as basketball and to some degree football (soccer), a vastly superior athlete can dominate a game or segments of the game. Not so in American football, which requires all 22 players (11 on offense, 11 on defense) working together in a structure system in order to have success.
The other thing is American football players tend not to be primadonnas, like in basketball or soccer, they are much tougher and more coach-able. I think this is because it is a full contact sport, so anyone with too big of a chip on their shoulder will eventually get it knocked off, because when you are hit hard and hurt, it tends to humble even the most arrogant of athletes.
Could you tell us…
One tip for optimal recovery?
Qigong breathing helps to relax the body and mind and has a rejuvenating effect on the body.
One supplement you use?
MSM is a very good supplement that I like to take each morning. It is beneficially for helping to alkanalize the blood, as the body in general tends to be more acidic, and most foods have an acidic effect on the blood. MSM is also good for the immune function, and the health of the skin.
One thing nobody would ever guess about you?
I am a very compassionate person, I suffer greatly when I see injustice taking place, particularly when children and animals are abused. I despise tyranny of any nature and believe in the essential goodness of life.
From what I can see, you value the mental aspect of performance. According to you, what stops people achieving their goals?
Mind-body integration is essential to success, not just for athletics but for all facets of life. Training for sport is a microcosm for life. That is to say, sportsmen set goals and then follow a systematic, progressive program to achieve them. The pursuit of the goal is what keeps the mind focused. The same is true for any other type of goal, be it success in business, relationships, health and so on.
What stops people from achieving their goals—first is not having goals. Often people will think they have goals, but all they have is ideas. An idea is simply a thought, but a goal is a thought that is externalized with a plan. To say or think, I will lose 10 lbs, for example is an idea, it comes and it goes. But to say, I will lose 10 lbs, by this particular date by following this specific plan, THAT is a goal. The other link is lack of belief, not believing in his or her own capabilities and worth. Next, it is lack of focus, being distracted or discouraged. Finally, lacking the energy and desire to fuel the goal.
What makes you successful/ What drives you to be the best at what you do?
What makes me successful? The same things, a strong belief in who and what I am, a clear vision about what I want to accomplish and the energy and passion to stick with my vision to its fruition. This whole process is actually a science, it is replicable. If you stick with the program you will receive the desired results, nothing is by chance or coincidence. Conceive, believe, achieve can summarize this process.
Thanks Steve!
http://kettlebell-fitness.dk/
