What is the big picture of kettlebell sport and fitness organisations in the world? I wil try to make some sense of  them but it’s not easy…

The big picture

I’m trying to sort out all the different kettlebell related international organisations. Just typing about them is a mess, so I decided to ”draw”.

This pic above is a simple version of the current international organisations. And by international I mean an organisation that operates somehow in several countries. There are several more fitness orgs and I’m not really sure if AKC should be in both fitness and GS?

It doesn’t help a bit that it’s quite hard to get info on the actual events of all these. Sure, all of them have websites but there’s no one view to see all the events of different orgs.

I didn’t list all the country organisations for two reasons: I don’t know all of them and they would not have fit on the pic.  IKSA is mentioned separately because it’s a distinct entity, as it offers certifications and is not a country org. I’m not really sure if it should be under fitness or GS or both, and if it is a company or non-profit. Well, doesn’t really matter for this drawing.

So there’s at least one problem. There’s no way to quickly find out all the member orgs of the international GS federations and their contact info. I think of all these three, IUKL has the most up to date website, but it has parts that are very old. You can get in contact with IUKL and WKC people by email in english if you are not in a hurry.

Also, a second problem: Who to contact? Which is the actual governing body? They all say that they are but what makes an org more powerful than the other? They are all separate entities.

I have two wishes for the future of international GS: just one federation, with an up to date website of the activities. Maybe some day. It will take time for sure but I don’t think GS will go to the Olympics with several Governing Bodies 🙂

Finland

Also, below is a picture of the finnish Girevoy Sport ”scene”.

So, The Finnish Weightlifting Federation is the governing body of GS as a sport in Finland. Governing body means that they regulate the official rules, records and championships competitions. Under that federation there’s clubs and committees. All of these orgs are non-profit. I listed only things relative to kettlebells, so there’s only the three currently operating kettlebell clubs.  Each club can arrange unofficial meets, but all need to apply for a permission from the federation if they want to arrange national championships for example.  So far, meets have been organised in here by Finnish Kettlebell Association and Girevoy Sport Lieto.

The Finnish Kettlebell Association (where I’m at) also is the representative of the IUKL in Finland. This means that we can participate and vote in IUKL meetings and can compete in their competitions.

Also, there’s the kettlebell committee, which operates under the federation. They have members of the kettlebell clubs and the federations and their job is to work on the rules and other national kettlebell sport issues. Here’s the committee’s current members (in Finnish):

http://painonnosto.fi/portal/fi/liitto/liitto___toiminta/johtokunta_ja_valiokunnat/kahvakuulavaliokunta/

Thougths on the different orgs

So, why not join also IGSF and WKC? Well, being a member of an international federation costs money and it also requires you to actually take part in the meetings. Also, I’m not really sure if WKC and IGSF are active in working in western Europe, which is something that is interesting for the growth of the sport. So far, IUKL has been very open about us competing in their competitions, and we have received invitations from all of the orgs to compete. And, I also really wish that in the future there would be only one international federation, so maybe there’s no reason to join all of them.

Right now, in my view it looks like IUKL will ”win” the battle of Europe with IGSF, because they have so many new countries and very good old ones also. Of course, it all depends on open communications with all the countries, to really push the big competitions and the sport from the east to the west.

There’s also many kettlebell related companies in Finland, at least 5 that sell kettlebells and many others who also sell courses, workshops and private lessons. But, I’m not starting a drawing of those 🙂

Mixed up?

Last weekend I was assisting in the IKFF CKT cert course in Oulu, Finland. I was attending the same course in Barcelona last year. This time, I had the change to follow from ”the outside” how Steve and John taught. The emphasis of the IKFF cert is how to teach the basics to other people, not so much on refining each lifter’s own tehcnique to the fine details. They teach the fundamental issues, like how and why and where power should be produced and what are the preferred body positions for safe lifting. These principles apply to any lifts and any stunts. This is good stuff for someone who wants to teach kettlebells for fitness to anyone, for example in personal training, in gyms, etc. because there’s emphasis on how to break down the exercises and what are the typical problems.

I’ve been to some other certs and compared to those, this gives a person more tools on working with others. I think all the certs have has a different approach and different goals, so it’s actually pretty hard to compare them one to one. But, I will post my thoughts and opinions on them anyway :). Last year, I attended the IUKL 1st and 2nd level Girevoy Sport coaching course in Ventspils. (since then, the course structures have been changed). It was led by Vasily Ginko, and the goal was to teach how to coach kettlebell sport athletes. So, we went trough the basic lifts in detail, and covered also massage and nutrition issues. The mindset was in Girevoy Sport, and how to increase performance in that. Good stuff. These courses have now changed to IKSA GS courses.

Before that, I also attended a finnish cert, which taught a variety of exercises with kettlebells and also mobility. The way of teaching was giving the person a huge amount of exercise examples, not focusing on any lift in detail. This was like a catalog of different exercises and their variations, good maybe for someone who thinks ”you can do only this and that” with weights. This course is now the IKSA fitness kettlebell course. A fun course but too much variety for variety’s sake in my opinion.

I haven’t been to the RKC and AKC certs, so no idea how they approach kettlebell lifting. Well, I have some idea of course, based on friends’ experiences but not personal experience.

For the, all of these have given me some tools on how to approach my own teaching and training. IKFF CKT has been the most beneficial for me on teaching to others, IUKL was beneficial for GS and the third one gave some new ideas about mobility exercises.

As for recommendations, before attending any cert, I would recommend practicing the basics for many months to a year and getting in good (not necessarily great) shape. Think about what you want to get out of the course, why you are going. All of the courses have a great deal of physical work, so it’s good to be in such a shape that you can work a lot and still focus. For GS, the primary learning tool in my opinion is one’s own lifting and especially competing. If there’s a change to be reviewed by a more experienced lifter, use it. Ginko is a good teacher, and if he’s doing a full GS course, it will be good stuff. For general fitness and teaching others I recommend the IKFF CKT.

For one’s own personal training, I recommend getting together with other kettlebell enthusiasts and just training. The basics aren’t that hard, it is really the common man’s or woman’s sport. Learn the basics well, add in variety from DVDs and/or youtube for fun, mix and match according to your goals. Just my opinion.

So, to sum up my recommendations:

I know the basics, want to teach others in a gym, a group, my own personal training business -> IKFF CKT

I train GS, know how to lift but want more details and info about program design -> Ginko GS international level

I mention these because they are generally accessible as buyable producs. Of course there are other GS coaches in Russia for example and you can travel there and try to find someone. In general, I think if one’s a GS athlete or a coach, the significance of a cert is minimal. I mean, for a sport, performance and getting better at the sport mean something, papers don’t. I think the IUKL cert is aimed at us westerners, who really have no idea about GS, to learn the basics in a good way. So, while the papers are not important, the information about the history and time tested approaches of the sport indeed are. In the fitness industry, the papers are probably more important. I think the IKFF has a good reputation for offering quality courses, so that’s why it can be valuable to have that sort of certs if you are thinking training others and charging money from it. Of course, even in that, the personality and skills are more important than any papers.

Well, it all depends on so many variables that all the ranting is pretty much meaningless in the grand scheme of things anyway 🙂 Accept no bullshit, train hard and have fun are good principles for kettlebell certs too! 🙂

Here’s some data from WordPress, the page views per month since the beginning of this blog.

Months and Years

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Ok, doesn’t say nothing about quality of course 🙂 I guess the beginning of the year is a time for checking what’s been happening. This year, don’t know much about what will happen,  I have training goals and some workshops planned but the calendar is pretty open and I like it that way. Last year was full of courses and traveling and teaching. This year I will teach or co-teach some workshops, for example assisting Steve Cotter in Sweden in May and teaching KB lifting basics under he Finnish Weightlifting Federation in February. Other highlight of the year will be the Ventspils Atlants tournament in Latvia in August. Other than that, training, writing and doing some video.

I’m open to suggestions about workshop or private teaching or co-teaching 🙂 Until now I haven’t made much commitments because the year’s schedule has been kind of ”open”.