By Sean Schniederjan, RKC
Pavel’s first bodyweight, Naked Warrior focused workshop in almost three years, on the scenic shores of Ventura, with 50+ in attendance started as an idea right at this desk I’m sitting at nearly 9 months ago. The original idea was a private workshop at my alma mater, focusing on the TSC lifts. After going back and forth with Pavel a few times it appeared that a public workshop would be the way to go.
I vaguely remembered a Pavel workshop that was put on by Mark Toomey (RKC Team Leader) in Reno back in 2007. I remembered Mark’s forum post about the incredible manners exhibited by the attendees at the post workshop dinner at Mark’s private residence and how everyone picked up after themselves. I guess this story made a strong impression on me as it did for Mark. If it weren’t for that memorable detail, I would have likely forgotten that Mark did the workshop with Pavel and likely never would have called him up.
Since Mark had done a workshop with Pavel and I hadn’t, I called him up and asked him for some advice. I told him my idea and he told me his. His was much better.
The word got off a little slowly. There are RKCs to fix that problem, namely Dr. Mark Cheng and David Whitley, Sr. RKC. I asked them for help getting the word out and they did. It sold out rather quickly with their aid.
It had been a few years since I’d been in Ventura so I asked the local, Sr. RKC Doug Nepodal for some help with good places to get coffee and have a group dinner. Group seating at Winchester’s on a Saturday night would have been impossible without his help.
Pavel suggested making kettlebells available. It was last minute, but Dragondoor Dennis put together the order and had them at the hotel ready to distribute. The only slight difference in my order and the ones shipped out was an extra 48kg kettlebell. Literally two minutes after noticing the extra Beast on my order form, I was emailed by one of the attendees (an RKCII) asking if it was too late to request a 48kg.
One of the worries I had was the size of the park. Dave Whitley and I rolled in Friday night to survey the field. It was much bigger, and much more beautiful than I had remembered. I wished I would have arranged some video of what I knew was going to be a memorable workshop. The park was so beautiful and serene that Pavel could teach the workshop in Russian and I would still come away glad I was there. First thing the morning of the workshop, Jordan Vezina, RKC asked to do some filming and put together a very nice piece in HD:
I had asked my buddy from college to take some pictures. Unfortunately, he had to take off before we could do a group pic. No problem, Jen Bryan, RKC had her camera there. Turns out she is a professional, and therefore has a really nice camera and took some money shots.
Once I knew the workshop was sold out, I put an open invite to all RKC Team Leaders and up. Several took me up on the invite and drove significant distances for the chance to listen to Pavel. These are strong, successful men and they sacrificed their Saturdays to come down and help out. Master RKC Rif even put his experience and expertise in gymnastics to teach the handstand portion of the menu. This of course was not in the original plan, but to the delight of 50 eager listeners in the cool California sun, it was something we all got to experience and benefit from.
On a personal note, seeing Rif teach bodyweight strength was one of my personal RKC dream teaching scenarios, Dan John teaching oly lifts with double KBs being the other. Rif was actually kind enough to be my partner on a few drills, how awesome is that?!
And then there was the workshop itself. I asked Pavel, how are you going to teach one arm pushups, KB Military presses, and handstand pushups without smoking the shoulders and everyone in attendance in the first hour? At the RKC, there is military presses only and some pushups, and even that was a bit of a handful. Pavel answered the way any expert would answer: he would assess the situation first before making a definite plan.
What he did on that beach is something that put smiles on the faces of all those in attendance. We were experiencing GTG (Grease the groove, cf. Naked Warrior) straight from the mind that first articulated what GTG was and why it works. The answer was to cycle from movement to movement, and have them build upon one another. Just when the shoulders would start getting smoked, we would move back to pistols and vice versa. And true to the essence of GTG, EVERYONE was getting stronger throughout the day. Well, this is Pavel so it did start to taper off at around 3pm. Extreme pain was felt my many attendees on Sunday. It was hard and easy.
It is hard to imagine how satisfying this experience of GTGing is when you are going through the motions with Pavel himself. This satisfaction was felt by the strength veterans and newbies at HSV alike. He broke down the exercises into their elements and made pistols and one arm pushups accessible to all, just as he said he would. The park overlooking Ventura beach is a good place to experience a master doing his work.
What I noticed from talking with the people there is that the workshop was as laid back as the scenery in which it was held. The RKC personnel were there, but there would be no gym boss going off every 5 minutes for swings. No snatch tests. No military pressing half your BW in front of the group. It was just a group of people getting stronger without any pressure coming from the outside. Hardstyle Ventura is the RKC on vacation.
Sr. RKC Will Williams made the trip from the East Coast. Little did I or any of the other attendees know, Will was taking scrupulous notes of most every detail that Pavel uttered on that beach. Since then, he has spent significant time and energy, and sacrifice of other things he could have done, to polish these notes and make them available in manual format to those who attended the event. In a way, this is better than a manual because it is based on what actually went down between Pavel and this particular group. It is suited to the attendees. Not to mention the fact that W2 possesses a brilliant Hardstyle Mind. I will be going over these pages as I train indoors over the long Minnesota winter. This is exciting.
And since my mind tends to gravitate toward the spiritual side of things, I couldn’t help but notice that strength is almost a spiritual reality, even though it pertains to the physical body. Strength is hidden. It comes out in different manifestations and you know that a person is strong when they execute certain movements the right way. A pistol is a great example. Seeing a person go down to rock bottom shows hip flexibily, proper hip mechanics, glute and hamstring activation, a good static stomp, hip flexor strength and mobility, hamstring flexibility, and a host of other attributes. You know that strength exists in a person through external signs, but strength itself is an internal, hidden reality. This is very similar to arguments on the existence of the soul, which is known by attributing a cause to explain various external realities or signs. To get metaphysical, the act of strength in a person is ordered to doing strong things, and when strong things are being done, this is when strength is most itself, when it "is" in the fullest sense. Marina Park is a good place to contemplate these kinds of things on your water break.
The moral of Hardstyle Ventura (haha) for me was discovered while sitting on a patio in sunny Santa Monica the morning after discussing what went down with Mark Toomey and Doc Cheng. There was a young man who traveled from New Brunswick, on the Eastern end of Canada, to the West Coast for this event. It took him 12 hours to make the trip (one way). His mother was there too. Mark related how he had spoken with this young man’s mother and that he had recently fallen in with a bad crowd and was beginning to head down the path that many young people go down but one that few people would say is “good.” But the mother proudly announced that things changed suddenly when her son picked up a book on biomechanics and soon thereafter discovered Pavel. A light went on, a passion was discovered, and there would be no looking back. Better this discovery happen at age 19 rather than 30, right? He heard about this workshop and was determined to go, whatever the sacrifice of time and money and the discomforts of tedious travel. His mother was there to help him make the journey. Mark walked over to Pavel toward the end of the workshop, tapped him on the shoulder and said “Hey, Pavel, you know this kid traveled over 12 hours to see you.”
Mark’s theory was that Hardstyle Ventura was put on for this young man, unbeknown to all of us. I was surprised to observe Mark rather quiet at the workshop. Turns out he was listening rather than talking, and by doing so discovered the best storyline of this incredible event which would have remain hidden had he not done so. I'll be shocked if this youngster doesn't join the ranks of the RKCs.
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