Monday, November 06, 2006

The Art of Strength.




Although Anthony Dilugio now calls his training the Art of Strength; Girya, The Art of Strength was the name of my kettlebell studio and website way back in Janurary 2003. I knew I should have trademarked that,lol!

Art to me is the merging of science and intuition. Science without feeling is too cold and hard and can't always see the bigger picture( as in many times the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts). Intuition, feelings and instinct are great but without the technique and discipline of science rarely project a true path that can be repeated. The blend of these two attributes is where art arrives.

It's that zone that athletes and artists live to be in. Where effort is easily transformed into results and magic often happens. You can't demand it, you can just be present when it appears; ready to take advantage of its gifts. And usually, the more you chase it the faster it runs away until you accept where you are and wait for it. Then it shows up.

So many think nothing is happening when the results of each and every workout are immediately apprarent but there is plenty happening. Energy is building, you are gaining strength and momentum and then BOOM, you suddenly are somewhere else, capable of much more than you were the day before and you dont know why. I do. It's all those tough ass workouts that you didnt want to do but did anyway, knowing this would come again . Maybe soon, maybe not for a very long time. But you had to be prepared. Just to be worthy.

It's very much like how kids grow. One day they are two inches taller than they just were.It just happened and you didnt see it. But it WAS happening before, it just wasnt apparent.


The Art of Strength is a very demanding Teacher.You must train very hard,very intently for very long time to enter its zone. But very, very interesting things are on the other side. Quite a different landscape and once seen virtually impossible to forget.

When I was a gymnast I was more interested in perfecting getting to this zone at will and being able to do everything I did in state of "flow" that competition was very much secondary.I competed because I knew it would take me there more quickly, and it would also justify all the training I wanted to do!

The Art of anything is almost always recognizable by two basic components: beauty and simplicity.

And in the realm of the body I so wanted, as Ron Morris so aptly put it, to be " transformed into physical Nirvana".

Nothing has put me back into the flow quite so ably as the kettlebell swing and its variation. It's almost like a metronome that keeps building on its own momentum. A virtual perpetual motion machine. Except you become the machine.

Cool shoes.

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