Passing the HKC

[IronbellAthletics]

This past weekend I had the privilege of attending and passing the first Hardstyle Kettlebell Certification (HKC).


I wasn't sure what to expect, but on the way to Minnesota, I got some Chinese food for lunch. My fortune cookie presented me with the following message:

Repetition is the mother of skill.

I didn't know it at the time, but this fortune would be very clearly demonstrated to me and the other HKC candidates on Saturday morning.


Lest you think these certifications were handed out willy-nilly after an 8-hour demo of the 3 basic exercises, let me tell you that there were some folks who left that day, and all they got was a t-shirt. If you passed, you truly earned it.


As my Team Leader Jeff O'Connor said, we were expected to meet the rigid and exacting standards of the Hardstyle system. The best way to do that? Repetition! And not just any rep, it had better be a repetition done the RKC way!


If you came to the certification with bad habits, those habits would fail you if you didn't clean them up by the end of the day. And you had better be able to clean up your teammate's bad habits too, as being able to teach corrective strategies was part of the training as well.


Pavel taught us the finer points of the Goblet Squat, the Turkish Get-up and the Kettlebell Swing. And through our Team Leaders, we learned the exacting standards that Dragondoor requires in order to be able to teach these moves under the HKC/Dragondoor name.


If you have yet to work with an RKC (or now, an HKC), I would highly recommend it, as you're not doing yourself justice as a kettlebell practitioner and you may even be opening yourself up to injuries down the road.


Thanks to Pavel, Jeff, my teammates on Team O'Connor and my new HKC friends for helping me succeed on Saturday.


Finally and most importantly, I discovered that my fortune should be corrected to read as follows:

Correct repetition is the mother of skill!

[USMC-FIT]

Congratulations! Hope to see you at the RKC in San Jose.

[0311bravo]

That was a great write up. Congratulations.

[IronbellAthletics]

Thanks guys. Unfortunately, the San Jose RKC is not within my reach ($$$) right now. Hopefully one of the others might be possible.

[crewtat2]

I myself attend the HKC in St. Paul this past weekend, and you are right, there were some people who did travel to the workshop probably thinking that they would just skate on through and get a cert. I heard that a good few that attended didn't not pass. Even though the HKC was not stressful as an RKC, all the instructors still held a disciplined environment and expected alot from the students.
I have been training with Kettlebells for about a year know, my brother-in-law is a RKC and shown what to do, to a point(he is waiting for me to go through the RKC). Going to the workshop, I thought that I knew what I was doing, that was a the wrong thought process. What Pavel and the rest of the instructors did, was pound the basics into our heads for 8 hours. The swing I had a little refining to do, but the TGU and the Goblet squat needed the most adjusting. At the end, I now have a better understanding on "why," the basics for the Hardstyle system are so important and how those three foundation exercises are root for all that we do for movement. Needless to say, I did pass the HKC and I am gearing up for the RKC. Thanks to all of the instructors(Chief, Master, Senior, and RKC I/II) that made this past weekend one of the greatest learning experiences of my life.
Hardstyle!

[IronbellAthletics]

I realized that my first post was lacking in a few details. For those on the fence about attending the HKC, or wondering exactly what's involved, I've expanded my first post on the HKC here:http://www.hkcpro.com