Steve Whitmore

Thursday, November 20, 2014

"How to Love a Grappler" (Book Review)

Valerie Worthington's book is a guide for the family and partners of people who train BJJ.

The middle portion of pressing lifts is the most problematic. How do you get past these sticking points?

The middle portion of pressing lifts is the most problematic. You know this from experience.

This is due to the fact your elbow or knees joints are at about a ninety-degree angle when in mid-press. In a third-class lever, this is the most inefficient position possible, commonly referred to in gym parlance as the "sticking point."

Training with these five basic principles will keep you healthy, injury free, and getting stronger for years to come.

Basics are basics and you should work them until you have rinsed them for all they are worth. Then turn them inside-out, backwards, and upside-down. Then turn them up the right way, and start again (a bit like a college student’s underwear.) I know you know this. I also know, as an athlete, you probably don’t do this.

Starting Strength Coaches Association Series: Brodie from Legal, Part III

The Law and Strength Coaching: Protecting Your Business from Legal Liability. Presented at the Starting Strength Coaches Conference, October 4, 2014, Wichita Falls, TX. Part 1 : Part 2 : Discuss

ATM Fraud

Remembering a 2007 Tony Blauer self-defense video, four people use acting to devalue themselves as targets and avoid physical confrontations.

Glory Dawson had finished her waitressing shift and was headed home when she remembered she needed to deposit a check. Dawson went to an ATM, put her card into the machine and saw four men walking toward her. They surrounded her.

“How much money you got in there?” one of them asked.

“I didn’t turn around, I didn’t look at them, I just had this second of, ‘Oh my gosh. What do I do?’” Dawson said.

Then Dawson remembered the “devalue” technique from Blauer’s CrossFit Defense class. She hit cancel and started screaming at the ATM, yelling about having no money and flailing around in what was essentially a foul-mouthed temper tantrum.

“I screamed, ‘I can’t believe that motherfucking bastard took all my money,’” Dawson said.

The men backed away. One of them said, “Oh, she’s crazy,” as they disappeared. Dawson got in her car and drove home, safe.

Blauer has spent most of his life coaching, researching and studying fights, but he goes out of his way to teach people how to avoid them. One of the key self-defense skills Blauer teaches has nothing to do with kicks or punches. It has to do with devaluing yourself as a victim so the potential attacker never becomes the actual attacker.

“Win the fight by not having one,” Blauer said.

In the Bag

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5 Unconventional Tips for Coaching Kids

I'm not going to give you the usual boring advice. Instead, I'm here to offer some not-so-expected tips on how to handle kids.

An old colleague of mine used to have this fantastic saying he’d express at least once a week, “I love kids! Of course, I couldn’t eat a whole one.”