Other/Mixed The First Time You Touched A Bell -- Long Post Warning

[Marcus Aurelius]

Hello All,

Please listen to this while reading this thread. I first listened to this song when all of this was taking place, so it really provides a great framework.



I just wanted to share my journey with the kettlebell and I hope everyone else will share theirs. This will be a super long post and a little spiritual and emotional.

I was a senior in high school and there was a kid who was in better shape than anyone else in the class. He was always maxing out the pull ups in gym class and had a Brad Pitt style body. Me being a chubby out of shape gamer asked him what his secret was in math class. He said kettlebells. I had no idea what he was talking about but we quickly became friends and he invited me to his house. There were kettlebells littered around his backyard. It turns out his friends dad was an former RKC and had a backyard gym next door and kids used to borrow his equipment. My friend showed me a 16 kg and told me to lift it off the ground. I couldn't even do anything with it, it felt so heavy. So after a walk through the woods with my friend I headed home.

Being so motivated by my weakness, I went to Barnes and Noble with my mom and by chance picked out the Warrior Diet and Enter the Kettlebell. What I didn't know at the time was that these two books were somewhat related in terms of communities. So, I read the program minimum from Enter the Kettlebell and started practicing the movements with a kettlebell from Dicks Sporting Goods. I just thrashed myself in the summer with the program minimum. I was so sore but I was so happy. I was so excited to be training and the marketing worked so well on my brain. I'm embarrassed to say that I posted on the old Dragondoor forum way too many times with silly and pointless questions. I want to thank @Steve Freides for his patience with me back then. I went under a different alias. My friends got a little tired of me talking about kettlebell training but they were happy I was excited about making myself healthier. I even made the kettlebell the background on my computer. I took the book with me everywhere, to school and to work. I was always reading it.

When I got my official RKC kettlebell, I was so excited that I got the one from the book. I ran home from work and ripped that box open. The bell came with a caution tag which made is so much cooler. I still have the tag too. I sat there for 10 minutes just looking at home polished and beautiful the bell was compared to my Dicks Sporting Goods bell. I finally had something "official."

This leads me to the Warrior Diet. Before starting the Warrior Diet, I was very overweight and unhealthy. I ate awful and quite frankly I felt awful. I was teased at school. I started the Warrior Diet and was so enamored by the book and it's view on eating. I asked my mom to take me to the supermarket so I could buy some healthy food. It was the first time I bought foods that benefitted me instead of hindered me. I bought some vegetables, chicken, fruits, and rice. I started it the next day at school. I had some almonds for lunch and my friends thought I was crazy but knew I wanted to do it. After a couple days, I got out of school one day and everything seemed brighter. The grass was greener, the sky was so blue, the sun was so warm, and I was so happy. I was just happy and for the first time energetic. I wasn't overfed. When Ori says the Warrior Diet is spiritual, he isn't kidding. I felt pure and unburdened. I went home, trained and ate my large evening meal with complete freedom. For the first time I went to bed truly happy. It wasn't the kind of happy that comes from things, it's the kind of happy you get when you know you're on the right path.

The kettlebell community made me feel like I was a part of something special. So never devalue the benefit of an online forum to people. Sometimes I picture that there is someone like I was, excited and looking forward to growing stronger. Asking questions that are simple to us but confusing and exciting to them. We can be the cannon that shoots that anonymous poster in the right direction to a better life.

Thank you everyone for reading.

 

[Carl in Dover]

Awesome story...thanks for sharing.

Carl in Dover

 

[Snowman]

Indeed, thank you for sharing. It's interesting to see how people are motivated by different factors, especially to those of us who hope to make a living (in part or in whole) by motivating people to make similar changes...

I don't really remember exactly when I first touched a kettlebell. I know my first one was a 25 pound Gold's Gym 'bell from Walmart, and I just bought it because it was cheap and seemed like it could be useful. For quite a few years kettlebells were just an adjunct to my other training (mostly bodyweight), and because of that I never gave any of the related techniques much attention. I did poorly programmed training, some of which involved poorly executed swings and snatches with poorly made kettlebells. Luckily, my programming (or lack thereof) was so bad that I never got strong enough to really hurt myself .
I very slowly learned and evolved, as people tend to do, and part of that evolution included taking a couple years to really focus on how to use barbells and kettlebells correctly. Attracted to the simplicity and effectiveness of kettlebell training, I slowly increased how much I used them. This ended up being pretty serendipitous, because it meant that I had a good option to turn to once my responsibilities started to get the better of my time, and going to a gym was no longer a good option. The time and money I've invested in kettlebells and kettlebell training has had quite the return, giving me a way to navigate the demands of work, school, marriage, and fatherhood without sacrificing my health and fitness. Not to mention that it's provided a certain level of consistency amidst the chaos .

 

[Marcus Aurelius]

This might seem a little silly but the post got me thinking.

Appreciate everyday that you get the opportunity to lift. We only get a limited amount of days. Appreciate every moment of every day. From our first press to our last, make it count. There will be a day when we grip a kettlebell for the last time. So be thankful for the opportunity. The opportunity to move your body. The opportunity to feel the sun on your face, the grass between your toes, the freezing cold of the snow, the feeling of doing loaded carries in the sweltering heat, the feeling of peace between sets, the feeling of lifting a bar off the ground, the feeling of struggle and most importantly the feeling of a day well spent. Just be thankful, for one day our lives will be complete and we won't get another rep. We'll be someone else's deadlift.

 

[Anna C]

Appreciate everyday that you get the opportunity to lift. We only get a limited amount of days. Appreciate every moment of every day. From our first press to our last, make it count. There will be a day when we grip a kettlebell for the last time. So be thankful for the opportunity. The opportunity to move your body. The opportunity to feel the sun on your face, the grass between your toes, the freezing cold of the snow, the feeling of doing loaded carries in the sweltering heat, the feeling of peace between sets, the feeling of lifting a bar off the ground, the feeling of struggle and most importantly the feeling of a day well spent. Just be thankful, for one day our lives will be complete and we won't get another rep. We'll be someone else's deadlift.

Watching my husband and my son as pallbearers at my mother-in-law's funeral just one week ago today... this hits home, and you are so right. Very well said. And thank you.

 

[Geoduck]

This might seem a little silly but the post got me thinking.

Appreciate everyday that you get the opportunity to lift. We only get a limited amount of days. Appreciate every moment of every day. From our first press to our last, make it count. There will be a day when we grip a kettlebell for the last time. So be thankful for the opportunity. The opportunity to move your body. The opportunity to feel the sun on your face, the grass between your toes, the freezing cold of the snow, the feeling of doing loaded carries in the sweltering heat, the feeling of peace between sets, the feeling of lifting a bar off the ground, the feeling of struggle and most importantly the feeling of a day well spent. Just be thankful, for one day our lives will be complete and we won't get another rep. We'll be someone else's deadlift.

This hit me right where it needed to. Beautiful stuff, thank you. And now I’m off to go grab a coffee get in the S&S session I’ve been putting off for... pointless reasons. Time to enjoy the process.