I had the pleasure of being invited to Steve Cotter's London workshops over the weekend and it was a real eye opener on a "new" way of kettlebell training.
I 've been taught and training in a very hard, rigid fashion where power is expressed in hard, snappy movements. However, the Russian Kettlebell Sport way relies on a much more fluid rhythm. A martial arts analogy would be between an external martial art, with defined tension and explosiveness and an internal martial art where the strength is gathered and released in a smooth wave.
Is there a right or wrong way? My personal opinion is that the harder style of training works great but to refine it into this softer approach creates greater economy of motion and allows better fatigue management. It also feels like it has more longevity in training as the "softness" means less physical damage over time.
The first refinement taught was the swing, which was taught to me as a straight arm action, explosive hip snap and a hard, defined drive through. The method demonstrated by Steve was much softer, using only as much power as necessary to drive the kettlebell upwards and used a soft elbow that was allowed to bend.
This felt odd but in the best martial arts philosophy, cups were emptied and after some adjustment, yes, I found this method of swinging much better.
A lot was covered in the seminar, some highlights being a demonstration of one legged squat jumps onto a platform, some "animal style" bodyweight drills and meeting a horde of other kettlebell enthusiasts.
Steve Cotter was a great demonstrator of technique but more importantly a great teacher who is always ready to learn and progress with his own training, something that is vital if you're aiming to teach and not just be the head of a cult. He's shorter than expected though :)
Will post some more stuff later after a hot bath and plenty of food.
