Anthony and Brutal Recess

Today’s Workout:

from the Brutal Recess DVD…

Overhead Squats with Dangly Bits. Hang some weight from the bar with bands and then squat it over your head. Go heavier until 2 reps is outright scary. The weight on the bands makes things much harder than weight on the bar, so plan accordingly.

Get Outside:

Flow Burpees onto big tire (6)
Cossack Squats (6 per side)
Tire flips (2)
Run from tire to wall and back (about 140 feet)

Repeat until tire is at the wall. With each consecutive round, the run gets shorter, but the time between the heavy stuff shrinks. Have fun.

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Meet Anthony

Anthony is 7 years old. He’s also about 4’8” and about 150 pounds (170 when we first met him). I wasn’t that tall until I was 12, and Anthony could pass for someone in junior high. Thankfully mom was imbued with the wisdom to understand several things. Although it was obvious physically that Anthony is different, it took a tuned-in parent to understand that this child thought, spoke and generally grokked things a little differently as well. He talks with words of someone who has a creative spirit a bit beyond his years, and a humor that has a sophistication above that of his chronological clan. It wasn’t just his size that would make him stand out in this peer group, it was a lot more, and this made creating such a peer group tough.

But mom had some ideas. First, a child needs to play. With a lack of an immediate tribe of friends, this wasn’t happening yet. An intellect with that much fire in it also needed the fuel of movement and physical challenge to complete the path towards total humanness. Now most adults lack this connection, but Mom wasn’t going to deny it for her son.

Second, she made the brave, and correct, assumption that sports did not equal play. Oh, there are times when the two join forces and become one, but this is a much rarer experience than PE teachers and the AYSO would like you to think. What makes this observation particular special is that many parents would already be dreaming of that football scholarship and the subsequent NFL contract, putting unneeded pressure on their son 5 years larger than he should be. Nope, Anthony needs to be a kid before he can be a man, not a kid who simply becomes a bigger kid.

And there needn’t be excessive roughhousing yet. Martial arts training or collision sports do not need to make an appearance in the life of an uncoordinated, out-of-shape 2nd grader. He needs to understand his relationship to his body, not have it exploited, ridiculed or, heck, damaged.

I’ve known Mom since those blurry days before Bodytribe, which we’ll simply call The Before Time, so I was a bit flattered that she thought we might have some ideas for her son. I knew Trainer AJ and Anthony would teach each other all sorts of things, and since then, Anthony has become a fascinating, wonderful dichotomy. He seems both older and younger, letting the ability of his newly found child-ness create a more confident relationship with his already advanced intellect.

AJ has taken a classic Bodytribe approach to training Anthony… discover the strengths while banishing the weaknesses… and some interesting things have emerged. Sure, a kid without a strong play element in his past might not have all the usual tools in the toolbox to bust out the kind of athletic frolic someone that age should, but as he was acquiring these new skills (and really embracing the process), AJ discovered that Anthony had some picture-perfect powerlifting technique hiding under that awkwardness.

So now, not only can this kid drag a sled forever, roll on the ground like a… well… kid, and hustle better than he ever has, he is currently training for our next powerlifting meet. AJ, of course, is play personified, and knows the importance of being serious about not being too serious, so weight on the bar is rarely discussed. It doesn’t matter. It’s about technique and FUN! In 10 or 15 years, we’ll worry about how heavy the bar is, but right now Anthony is being a kid… sure, a kid that will probably be the youngest APA competitor to date, but nonetheless, a true child with nothing but possibility ahead of him.

(Anthony after receiving his first trophy ever for a 40 minute challenge that AJ issued)
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BRUTAL RECESS DVD

Here’s the confession of someone who has spent months on a labor of love…

The constant thought in my head is wondering ‘does this suck or is it awesome?’ There’s no in-between in my mind, no mediocre place for the contents of this to dwell. For some reason I can only see this project as utter garbage or sort of groundbreaking? Heck, maybe both. But it’s HERE!!

Although the physical product won’t be able to be shipped until next Wednesday, The Brutal Recess DVD will go on sale officially next Monday, September 6th.

Whew!!

I won’t bore you with the unlimited technical difficulties that have plagued this DVD release, but I would like to reconnect with the world that I have sort of abandoned over the last month or so to get this done. So Hi, everyone… let me tell ya about this new DVD…

It, again, despite my initial idea, is a 2-disc set. It’s almost 3 hours of material, which is a combination of lectures and workshop footage mixed with applying the Brutal Recess concept with warmups, bodyweight workouts, kettlebell workouts and club workouts. The big goal of the entire product is two fold:

1) Demonstrate that YOU can create new ideas and workouts (don’t leave it up to the gurus and ‘experts’ to do your thinking for you) by giving you some ideas to ponder and play with.

2) Perpetuate the concept of selfless fitness. The pursuit of strength can impact the entire community for the better if it isn’t a solo or selfish endeavor.

That’s right. We’ve avoided hand-feeding you recipes, instead handing you a bunch of ingredients and telling you to make it to your liking! You are the art, artist, critic, and the gallery of anima mundi. Create yourself and let it benefit the Tribe!

Brutal Recess will be on sale for $40. I’ll also going to be putting together a package deal for both our DVD’s and the book, but you can read about that Monday when the sale begins!

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This Saturday’s Tune Up: Building a Powerlifting Program for the Holistic Lifter. How to lift heavy but with longevity and athleticism in mind. Strength for empowerment, not just big numbers. A handful of us are gearing up for the meets coming up in October (Portola) and November (Bodytribe). Whether you want to compete in those or not, join us for a couple of hours of talking about embracing strength. $10 donation for members, $20 for non-members.

Next week is the beginning of the Strength Training for Runners program. Trainer Terri, herself an amazing runner and extremely creative goofball trainer (seems to be the Bodytribe requirement), has put together this program to increase your running speed while keeping you injury free. More details here…

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Brutal Recess in Fort Collins! The good folks at Emergent Fitness in Fort Collins, Colorado, have done some very progressive program design innovations. But they’re not done. They’re bringing a little Bodytribe their way on Sept. 18th. If you happen to be in the area, ‘twould behoove you to join us! More info here…

Our workshop schedule is always increasing. We’ll be coming to Brooklyn, Palm Desert, Portland, Milwaukee and Fort Lauderdale before the year is over. If you’d like to book a Bodytribe workshop, let me know ASAP. And don’t forget Strength Camp here at the tribe in October!!

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Finally… Facebook. Look, I’m not really an internet junkie. But the bigger our tribe gets, the more important it is to maintain dialog. So if you haven’t joined the Bodytribe Group on Facebook yet, please do. I’m NOT joining any other social networking website for at least a year. I can’t handle building a new profile every stinking time… so come visit us at the one place we’ll be sure to be. Clicky for FACEBOOK here.

Brutal Recess in Austin in July

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