Kettlebells!

I had the opportunity to attend the Level 1 Kettlebell Certification class in Austin this past weekend.  At first I thought it might be somewhat informative but how much am I going to learn, I mean it's just a kettlebell, right?  Boy, was I wrong.  Jeff Martone, a great instructor and funny as all get out, started off by running the class through some joint mobility drills and stretches.  Those alone were almost worth the price of admission. The first few he covered I got to share with some of my classes this morning for the neck and shoulder. We then went over the foundational movement, the Russian swing, which brings the kb to chest level.  So this is a pretty basic movement, for the last four years I have been swinging a kb in CrossFit WOD's, and I learned that I was not nearly as efficient as I should have been.  I wasn't breathing properly, only occasionally drove through my heels, did not have enough hip snap and would "catch" it early. You can also have your arms too rigid, not fully open your hips, lean back to far, etc.  We learned to how to recognize and correct these mistakes.  If your Russian swing is not up to snuff than nothing else will be when working with the kb.
We learned how to do progressions to cleans, snatches, presses, squats, H2H (hand to hand), one arm swings, hand releases, thrusters, the list goes on and on.  Some are done with one bell and some with two.  They have versions of Fran and other named workouts where the barbel or dumbbell is substituted with a kb, which just makes it more challenging because we all know nothing is challenging about Fran, right?
I am looking forward to starting a elements kb class that will progress into an ongoing class.  Hopefully I will get to see you there, until then in Jeff's words "keep swinging".

We did not learn and I won't be teaching (yet/ever?) on what Jeff is demoing in the above video.