Author Archives: Varg Freeborn

Today on Facebook…

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Today on Facebook I witnessed two things that caught my attention and caused an emotional response in me. One was the closing announcement of a friend’s training company, and the other was a firearms “instructor” vehemently arguing that a safety on a single-action-only pistol is unnecessary during loaded carry or use.
 
 
These two things made me sad. And angry.
 
 
For the closing of the friend’s training company, he reported no desire to continue to operate at a loss after several years and wants to enjoy his life in other ways. Which brings up a strong point in my mind, and one I’ve been considering deeply for quite a while now: is the cause enough of a reason to fight through the bullshit AND the lack of prosperity?
 
In other words, unless you are one of the dozen or so instructors nationwide who can make a living traveling and teaching, you are stuck with the job of literally fighting for clientele. Often, it is the very clientele you are trying to teach that you are fighting with.
 
The level of apathy about training with a firearm in the wide-open world of gun owners is disheartening. People just see shooting a gun as an isolated task, and an easy one at that. “Just point it and shoot!”, they say. No training needed beyond maybe a concealed carry class taught by some local “expert”.
 
I can assure you that if you spend enough time in the business, you get a really good read on what the average skill level out there is. Trust me, training is needed. So is practice. It’s not just about shooting, it’s also about dynamic muzzle control and other advanced safety concepts like getting on-line or in front of no-shoots, moving around crowds with a weapon out, dealing with stress and skill/decision making degradation, and so much more.
 
But “we don’t need that. We’ve been shooting guns with Uncle Buck our whole lives!” Or, “my dad was a marine and taught me how to shoot.” Or, “I was in the military, I know how to shoot” (despite never touching a handgun during their entire military service…) Or, “I’ve been to the police academy and I know everything now.” 
 
Sure you do.
 
But like I said, spend enough time on police training ranges and public ranges, and you will have an ugly, truthful picture. Most of you can’t shoot worth a shit. You fall apart under stress. You unconsciously muzzle flag yourself and others more times than you’ll ever believe, and you do it when there is no stress involved.
 
But, as an instructor, you want to help. So, you put your time in and you become extremely proficient because you want to do some good in the community. You want to help fill some gaps in the public knowledge, make some people safer, and maybe make a few bucks in the process.
 
But being a firearms instructor is not as cool as you thought it would be. You literally have to convince people why they need better skills and safety. And often you are fighting against dug in mindsets. They just know what they think they need to know, and they don’t know what they don’t know.
 
It’s reminiscent of being a vacuum cleaner salesman in the 80’s.
 
Salesman: “This baby right here will pick up all of that pet hair and keep on running for many years!”
 
80’s Housewife: “But it’s expensive, and my current vacuum works just fine.”
 
Salesman: [vacuums up obvious pet hair and dirt left behind by said current vacuum] “But look at how much it is lacking in pick up power! My model will really do the job and the cost is justified because it will last three times as long.”
 
80’s Housewife: “But I already have a vacuum…”
 
This is exactly what I felt like every time I talked to gun store customers about further training. “But I already know how to shoot.”
 
Nowadays, good portion of your time is spent arguing on social media, so bystanders can be convinced enough to come take advantage of your services. I say “bystanders” because you sure as hell aren’t changing the mind of the asshole trying to argue that the safety on a 1911 is unnecessary.
 
Day after day, you write good information out and share it. Maybe you make some videos, too. You subsequently put in your time arguing. All this, only to have to cancel classes for low attendance, or teach to half full classes.
 
Are you doing it for the cause, and is the cause worth your time and effort without sufficient monetary reward? The cost of equipment, range property fees, ammunition spent practicing and honing your craft, your own dollars spent attending other training and becoming a better teacher, these are expensive and time consuming.
 
Do you do it because you love it? Or is the cause what motivates you?
 
Now, I’m not bitching. I just taught a sold-out course in Okeechobee FL, and have a pretty much sold-out course coming up next month in Alliance, OH. But I remember the days that I did struggle, and I still have classes that get canceled. I watch other teachers go through it too.
 
And for those instructors on the grassroots and local level, it’s literally a constant fight for them. Like I said, if you are not one of the dozen or so guys who reached that magical level of national traveling instructor, this is your reality.
 
(As a side note, even if you do make it national you now work with mostly the same 5,000 students nationwide that support the higher training industry. You see the same faces over and over and the training world becomes an echo chamber that fights evolution with the institutional inbreeding of information that becomes closed loop doctrine and dogma.)
 
As my friend found out, one day you will have to make the choice. Is the cause worth the continued donation of time, money and effort? He ultimately chose to close his business and go live his very good life in peace and happiness. I support him 100%. But it does remind me how much the firearms instruction business does suck.
 
It doesn’t suck because it’s not lucrative at all. I’ve made a great living in this business for several years. I’m fortunate. But even when I didn’t make much money at it I made enough to cover my investment and a few goodies.
 
No, it sucks because people suck. They think they know everything. They can shoot guns, and even hit targets. Why should they give you money to show them something they already know?
 
It sucks because any monkey can attend an NRA course and be certified as an instructor, and they can carry their myths and falsehoods right into the front of a classroom or range to spew upon the unsuspecting public.
 
Which segues me into the second thing that made me sad on Facebook, the “safeties are for pussies” guy. He’s an “instructor”. Here’s a guy who is literally teaching people that using the safety on an SAO pistol such as a 1911, which has a short trigger pull that requires significantly less pressure to fire by design, is a “personal preference”.
 
No jackass. The Smith and Wesson striker fired Shield model that can be purchased with an OPTIONAL safety is a “preference”. That gun was originally designed to be a no-manual-safety, striker fired weapon with redundant built in safeties and a longer, harder trigger pull to fire it. The addition of a safety was a marketing feature to make the untrained feel better.
 
But you are confused. You think you are not one of the untrained, so you apply that line of thinking to any fucking pistol with a safety. You are going to hurt yourself or someone else. Especially if you are teaching others that it is a “preference” on weapons designed to be carried with a safety engaged.
 
You claim that the pistol is not “ready for the fight” if the safety is on. Let me tell you bro, if you cannot effectively disengage that thumb safety on a 1911 as you initiate the press-out of your draw stroke, then YOU are not “ready for the fight”. That’s that.
 
There are plenty of accomplished 1911 shooters who can demonstrate to you that disengaging the safety does NOT slow them down. They will still outshoot you by a wide margin.
 
So, there you see it first hand, an argument I was dragged into so far as I actually took the time to write about some asshole on the internet and the ignorant shit he posted.
 
Thus is the life of firearms instructors. Everyone knows everything, the public doesn’t need training, cops are experts with small arms, and instructors can literally make choices on well-developed safety concepts based on “personal preference.”
 
Don’t forget, since this is the age of “SCIENCE” a lack of “data and evidence” to prove them wrong is magically proof that they are right.
 
You’re fighting that guy. You’re fighting to get through the myths he put into unknowing minds in the classroom and on the range. You’re fighting to overcome the false confidence transferred from Uncle Buck, who hunted his whole life. You’re fighting to overcome the bad training of police academies of the 70’s and 80’s (and some still today). You’re fighting to overcome the trash information the guy behind the gun store counter pumped into the minds of new gun owners for years on end.
 
Fighting. Fighting. Fighting.
 
For half full classes and a few likes on the article you spent time writing.
 
Godspeed to you my friend. I know you are industrious and will invest your now freed up time into your health, fitness and family, and that is time better spent if you ask me.

Crawl out of the Psychological Swamp

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Today I woke up and got right on social media to make sure no one was talking smack, and to see everything I was afraid I would be missing. Then I spent time going through the groups and forums to make sure no one was spreading incorrect information about things that I obviously know a lot about. I spent time typing comments about topics for the 7000th time, and argued with some people so I could change their mind on the internet. After that I agreed with all of my Facebook friends that always agree with me…

Actually, I didn’t do any of that.

I rode my horse on the dirt roads of my neighborhood, with my daughter on her horse beside me. I spent my ride thinking about what a beautiful day it is. The featured video clip on this blog post is from that ride. That’s the back view of Tommy, my 22 year old appendix horse. He’s a stubborn old guy that likes to mosey around. My daughter was next to me on her American paint. Look at that beautiful sky at the end!

Get out and live your life!!

To be fair, I don’t ride horses everyday (my daughter sure does), but I do work hard to avoid any and all of the activities I listed in the first paragraph.

I see people everyday wasting their lives on social media, and I do not want to be one of them. Yes, I have to be on there for my business and it is a large piece of how I earn a living, but there is no need to live on there.

What if I told you that you could change your life so much that in 3 years you could be doing something you would love to do, but that you do not think is possible?

Three years ago it was the fall of 2016 and I was just beginning this journey to change my life. In my case, I was making drastic changes on a major life altering scale, but the principle will apply no matter whether you just want to have a better life or if you are balls out burning it to the ground, leaving your marriage and giving away all of your stuff (like I did).

I was in a place that I could not stand anymore. It offered zero inspiration and nothing but bad memories. I was in a job that was choking me to death. I wanted more, and by more I do not mean material things. I wanted more peace, more family time with my daughters, more enjoyment of this precious short life we have.

I wanted horses, and maybe a motorcycle, too. I wanted to live somewhere that inspired me. I wanted more freedom. But there I was, in that job, in that little house, on that shitty side street outside of dreary Youngstown, Ohio, with people that made me feel miserable.

Exactly 3 years later, here I am, 1000 miles away. My horses are in the back pasture, my Harley is in the shed. The weather is beautiful most of the time, and there is not one person around me that makes me unhappy.

Sure, my life isn’t perfect per se. I do still have issues. The major difference is that my issues today are planned for. They are being dealt with, like left over residue from so many years of bad decisions being eliminated one by one.

And the most important part is that I am not creating new problems of any large scale in my life. I am still struggling, but I wouldn’t trade my struggle today for any of my yesterdays. 

That is where the internet comes in. Why would I work so hard to remove drama and misery from my life, to create this inspirational space where I can live and work, just to wake up everyday and fucking destroy it with the constant negativity and drama of the internet?

Quite frankly, how can you expect to get to a better space in your life at all when you are both wasting precious time on the internet and, day after day, letting yourself be dragged into the psychological swamp that social media is?

Put the phone down and start living. Pick it up to capture great moments that you want to remember. Take the pic or video and put it right back down. Get back in the moment. You can post that shit later to be inspirational to other people. Right now, you’re busy living.

If your life is: go to work, spend breaks and spare time on social media, come home, spend time in between family and dinner on social media, go to bed, repeat…then you definitely need to change directions. That’s a prison of a life.

I know, I used to live it. Maybe you are uninspired by your surroundings. Maybe you are unhappy with the people around you. Maybe you just became stagnant and got lazy. Whatever the case, it is within your power to change that life, and you absolutely can not change it sitting your ass on social media staring at a phone all day.

And I get it that sometimes you’re just passionate about a cause. But, here’s the thing,

You aren’t changing the world.

You aren’t even changing anyone’s mind.

You need to use your limited energy to change your own life first, and be an example of a happy, peaceful person showing the world how to do it.

Of course it’s not easy. But you can do it.

I’m not bragging at all. Hell, most people would consider my lifestyle “poor”, since I made a decision not to accumulate any more debt, which means everything I get is older, smaller, or cheaper. Nothing I have is new or fancy. But I am happier than I have ever been, and I have way more peace in my life than I ever thought possible just a few short years ago.

I sure as hell am not going to let the addiction of social media and the negativity of people, who are able to type away with no consequence, steal that peace from me.

If your life is great, that is awesome. If you’ve been lucky enough to have made good decisions from day one, great. You’re awesome. But there are a lot of people out there like I was, coming from not so great places and mindsets and struggling to find ways to end the cycles of poverty and misery. It doesn’t mean they are bad or stupid, but they are struggling.

I am speaking to those people primarily. Here’s a guy that grew up in a drug house, watched his entire family die off from drugs and bad choices, lived through years of prison as a teen and young adult, followed that up with a few bad marriages and failed careers and businesses, and basically accumulated enough bad choices to stack the deck completely against me having any real success in life.

But I was able to turn it all around. And I don’t have to create some fake fucking persona in fantasy land (the internet) or attack other people to make myself feel worthy.

If I can do it, you can too. But you will never do it with your mind stuck in the cyber world, letting all of the stupid, meaningless shit flood your thoughts all day while it soaks up any time you could be using to better your position in life.

We only get one shot at this. Nothing is going to last forever, not your time with your family, not your children’s childhoods, not your youth or health, not the beauty of anything or anyone around you. It will all go away. Don’t miss it. Don’t waste it.

Helping others

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This past Sunday I had a great, sold out pistol class in Okeechobee. This class had a lot of new faces that I had never met before, and a few things really set in on me while I was teaching it…
 
The class had a good amount of beginners in it. For a few it was actually their first real training course, while some others were still working off of 15 to 30 year old government/law enforcement training (that probably had not been practiced in that time gap).
 
There was also a wide spectrum of gear, from unacceptable holsters that I had to immediately remove from the range for safety reasons before we even started, to Serpa’s and other subpar examples. There were also some very tuned up shooters in the course with tricked out Glocks and solid gear to run them with.
 
After spending some time working in the training industry at a national level (traveling throughout the year to teach, attending SHOT Show and NRAAM, training at national level events like OTOA, working for companies in the industry, etc.) I’ve seen the spectrum of students and instructors from the local levels to the widely known popular level.
 
One of the things that sticks out to me is how the level of student can change the more well known you get. It’s like a hierarchy, and the higher you are in popularity the more you can charge, the more you charge the more “serious” the students become, and so on.
 
At that level, “the industry” (everyone who considers themselves “in the know” about gear, weapons, training and tactics and falls into similar choices and beliefs) gets pretty harsh in their views of the average gun owner. If you are on social media, which seems to be where “the industry” actually lives, you will no doubt run into this harsh attitude.
 
Name calling and shaming for weapon and gear choices, making fun of people for being poor (“the poors” as they call them) and just a general negative attitude towards anyone who is not at least making a good attempt at being in the cool club is pretty much the norm.
 
Don’t get me wrong, I do get it. The gun world is full of absolute bullshit. The NRA, the glossy magazines and the TV shows all pump out garbage information about garbage guns and gear and the masses eat it up because they don’t know any better. In fact, they believe it is good information because all of those named sources are actually the most well funded and best looking sources out there. I mean, they’re on TV, right?
 
So, we have this general gun culture that is at best misguided and misinformed on a large scale. It is a problem. I am saying this after years of working in gun stores, working at public ranges, working for holster manufacturers and other companies in the industry as well as running my own training company for many years. (To the NRA, the magazines, the gun shows on TV, the manufacturers, you ARE the problem.)
 
Many of the people at my class this weekend would fall into those categories of dislike: less than optimal gun choices, a lack of fundamental skills like grip and trigger press, beliefs in myths about gunfighting and, especially when it came to gear and holsters, it was a serious struggle.
 
I even had one contraption calling itself a “belly band” that was basically an oversized Ace bandage with no velcro and a patch sewn into it to “hold” a gun. (If you make such a contraption and sell it to the public to carry guns around, you should be absolutely fucking ashamed of yourself, whoever you are.) It literally hit the top of my list as the worst holster ever seen with my own eyes.
 
To the guy’s credit, he immediately recognized that his rig was unsafe and told me it was not going to be suitable for the course, so he did recognize his poor choice just by being exposed to the introduction of the course in the morning.
 
It took some of the others a few hours of struggling with gear failures to get the idea that their choices were not only poor for training, but that such failures in a life or death situation on the street would be catastrophic.
 
I was patient. I was helpful. I kept the class safe. If something was unsafe, it was not permitted to be used. The failures that did happen, were well within the safety margin so I let them happen for their educational benefit. I didn’t attack anyone. I didn’t shame them.
 
I did my best to balance the class out and deliver the goods to everyone who showed up, no matter their skill level. People learned on Sunday, and when I asked the question at the end of the day, “Did you feel like I provided a safe and comfortable training environment for you today?” It was a quick and resounding “Yes!” that followed.
 
I ended up with this group for a few reasons. I am not established yet in Florida locally, so I am attracting new people into the fold by design and that is a good thing. Another reason is because the course was intentionally priced very affordably. My overhead is lower because I am a short drive away, and I want to build the type of local training culture that I had successfully built in Ohio for so many years.
 
I am intentionally declining more and more opportunities to travel and teach, opting to stay close to home for my family now. So, I end up with beginners, newbs, bad gear, and all that comes with them.
 
All I could think about at certain points throughout the day is how interesting it is that I have traveled full circle to come back to where I started: teaching average people how to be safe and effective with the guns they carry.
 
Average people. People who do not eat, sleep and breath training. People who work jobs, raise families, have hobbies, who do not live on social media talking about grip stippling, flashlights and triggers for the 57,000th time. I was very happy to see these people showing up for a course. I am happy to be of service.
 
I am happy to be of service because that is why I am here. To help people. I did not become a firearms instructor because I thought it was going to be super awesome, or because I want to be some famous instructor guy. I sure as hell don’t do it because it’ll make me rich, because it definitely will not. I started out doing it because I saw bad things happening and I wanted to fix it as much as I could.
 
I saw cavalier attitudes with little experience to back them up, macho personas based on purely bad information, and flashy bullshit based on just plain garbage (the days of plate carriers at “pistol” classes comes to mind).
 
I saw good people trying to be prepared to defend themselves and stay out of the cemetery or prison while doing it, and they were being fed information that would lead them directly to those places.
 
That is why I started this, and that is why I still do it.
 
As I make my long talked about and planned for partial exit from the industry, I look to maintain my ability to help the average people who are genuinely looking for help. I intend to teach a limited number of courses annually.
 
I have very little interest in making the cool club person feel “cooler” by having attended my course. I have very little interest in working with someone who is looking to shave that next 2/10ths of a second off of their Bill Drill time. Not only is it not my lane, but it’s not what I prioritize in fighting and self defense. Glory seekers will not find satisfaction in my classes.
 
That is where the most money is. But unfortunately, it’s not where the greatest need is. The greater good is served by welcoming more good people into the fold of the knowledgable and trained populace, and eliminating the dangerous misguided information that saturates the concealed carry population as a whole.
 
I have also found over the years that many professional students who think they are really tuned up are nothing more than great shooters. This is because there is still a shortage of classes about fighting, and a ton of classes about shooting.
 
At best you can work your way up to CQB courses, which are limited to working inside of structures and largely founded on team-based military or law enforcement doctrine. Solo foundational fighting knowledge is hard to pass on in a one or two day course, and even harder to find someone attempting to do it.
 
If my course is “open” enrollment without prior training requirements, you are welcome to make it your first training course. Those who are “tuned up” are also welcome to attend. You will see the foundational levels of how I prioritize what is important in fight training.
 
If my course lists having “developed fundamental skills and equipment choices” as a requirement to attend, then you should not show up unless you clarify with me directly that you are where you will need to be.
 
It was no shocker to me to get these students of course, because it was a no pre-requirement course. I am just happy that I have retained the ability and humility to be able to help these people raise their skills and equipment to be safer in their defense plans.
 
I will still run advanced level courses, as well as my favorite: the application-approved-only limited spot courses where I take 6 hand picked people out and we go hard on a specific skillset or procedure. There is no money in that, I do it because I love it.
 
I don’t have any tolerance or time for shithead people who think they know something, that they actually have no idea about, and they are unwilling to learn any different.
 
I have all the time in the world for the average person who doesn’t know any better, but they are genuinely out there trying to learn what they don’t know and improve their position.
 
As I go forward, progressively I want training to be something I do because I enjoy it and because I enjoy helping people, not something I do to strictly for money. It has a higher purpose than that for me.
 
 

 

Writing your life into your fitness programming

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Dealing with life events that “disrupt” programming is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome in a fitness routine. Time consuming work projects, travel, vacations, family and other intermittent life demands all have a way of knocking you off of that “perfect” workout groove you’ve been trying so hard to stay in.

Here’s a way of looking at it from a programming standpoint that can help keep you on track by actually turning these temporary situations into opportunities rather than disruptions. 

Programming is not just a static workout plan

Programming, in its most effective form, is individualized. The best program is not only one that is written specifically for you, but one that constantly evolves as you change physically and psychologically, and as your life changes around you.

If you are paying a trainer or a coach, hopefully they are listening to you and asking the right questions to take all of that into consideration while guiding that evolution towards optimizing the results of your efforts. 

Listening to, recording in detail and then synthesizing the information from your workout performance, your results and your life are the best practices that separate high-level programming from the rest of what’s out there. If you are self-coaching, you need to be doing these practices. 

This includes taking into consideration vacations or travel that will remove access to your regular gym/equipment/schedule, as well as any psychologically stressful events in your life and how they affect your drive and susceptibility to fatigue.

For many, sticking to a program and not missing the workouts, meals, and rest required for success is a huge struggle even when everything else is going right in their lives. Throw a change in that pattern and it’s extremely easy to “fall off the wagon” and lose your momentum.

It can take weeks to get back on track, only to have something else come up the following month and here we go again…

Disruption vs Microcycle vs Back-off Week

If you are like most normal people, this will sound familiar to you. Jobs, kids, taxes, life…they all can be emotionally stressful and cause real fatigue, if not keep you from getting to the gym at all.

Much of the internet would yell, “Power through it!” or “No crybabies!” But this just is not always practical or even safe. Not considering fatigue in its these forms can push you into dangerous territory resulting in injury or burnout if you “just power through it.” And sometimes, you just can’t get to the gym as planned.

There is a better way. 

Instead of viewing these events as disruptions, we need to look at them as opportunities to work in microcycles (single week plans) or back-off weeks (rest microcyles) that can optimize and sometimes supercharge your results and performance. 

For example, last month one of my online personal coaching clients had two “disruptions” coming up in his schedule. He had been working very hard for about three months uninterrupted and was disappointed and very worried that these events would set him back. This posed a real threat to his progress, as well as a psychological threat to his motivation.

The first event was a 4 day conference that involved travel and a hotel stay. This, of course, basically knocked out a week of his time. The second event was the physically and psychologically stressful task of moving out of his apartment and into a new space. These events were spaced with only one week in between them. 

Where he saw worry and disruption, I saw an opportunity. We programmed a very light week for him during the travel utilizing the hotel gym just two nights, reverting back to some hypertrophy and maintenance intensity and volume levels.

This allowed him to focus on his conference, network with associates, and have a much needed rest from what had been an unbroken eight week mesocycle of moderate intensity and volume work. It also served the purpose of preventing the emotional stress of feeling like he was sliding backwards (this is very important). 

We used that time to prepare him for a maximum effort week that would fit perfectly in between two weeks of being off program.   

The following week, we set a maximum effort goal for a microcycle (one week) of high intensity/high volume. It was perfect timing for a test of strength, work capacity and will power, and an awesome way to kickstart his mind back into feeling motivated about his progress, even though he had “missed” a week of regular programming. 

That week he produced the highest numbers of his life. He was well rested, he felt good about his work, and lifted an astounding 42,600lbs of tonnage for the week. His usual tonnage prior to the trip was just under 30,000lbs.

This obviously took a lot out of him, which created the perfect time to take a week off and get that functional movement and cardio work of moving his household items to his new place. He still managed to get to the gym that week once as well, making up a great active rest week. 

Upon returning to the mesocycle phase, he is putting up numbers that are 15% higher than before the three weeks of back-off/max effort/rest, and doing it at the same perceived exertion.

This is success. He feels great. Not only did we not lose momentum, but we were able to write his life events into his programming in a way that actually maximized his results during that time period.

This produced great results emotionally and psychologically as well, turning what would have been a negative situation into a very positive one. This will work for functional training or sports specific training cycles just as well as it worked for his strength training cycle. 

Thus we see, under good coaching, “disruptions” don’t have to exist as much as you may think. They are merely back-off weeks or focused microcycles that need to be written into the program to extract maximum value from what is available. Any good programs will have back-off weeks written into them. A little bit of adjustment in a program goes a long way toward creating a positive out of a negative. 

The trick is to plan ahead as much as possible using naturally occurring life events to implement them. Sometimes this has to be done on the fly and can’t always follow the pre-planned schedule. Use it in your program and it will push progress forward rather than slow it down or stop it.  

You may even be able to work a little harder when you realize how often life forces in rest days and back-off weeks where you did plan them. More rest can allow for higher intensities and volume in your program. 

Instead of fighting the realities of life to fit a “cookie cutter” program, we can use our real schedule and results data to optimize our program to come out even better in the end. Just a few things to think about. 

Olympic Weightlifting Seminar with Greg Everett, Catalyst Athletics

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Course: Catalyst Athletics Level 1 Olympic Weightlifting Seminar/Coaching Certification
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Date: August 24-25

This past weekend I was fortunate to have the opportunity to train with Greg Everett of Catalyst Athletics at his Level 1 Olympic Weightlifting Seminar in Salt Lake City, UT. This is a two-day course covering the performance and coaching of the two lifts that make up Olympic weightlifting competition: the snatch and the clean and jerk. The course was a great experience and I learned enough information to keep me busy for a few years practicing these very technical lifts.

Background

I have been teaching myself the “proper” Olympic lifts for about 2 years (more seriously for the past 8 months). Prior to that I had only really performed the clean in my lifting routines, so the snatch and jerk are both very new to me. I am definitely a “novice” Olympic lifter.

In all honesty, it takes several years of dedicated practice to be an accomplished and efficient Olympic lifter in it’s pure form, and by “dedicated” I mean it is the emphasis in your fitness goals for that entire time. This is differentiated from forms of the snatch and the clean and jerk that you may find in other sports, like Crossfit. (Many of those sports perform the lifts for time while sacrificing form, which is different.) Traditionally, the lifts are extremely technical, and the form is critical for maximum, safe performance.

Despite being a novice at the Olympic lifts, it did help that I have a background in fitness training, sports training, lifting weights and coaching spanning nearly 25 years.

I was coming off of a 4-week cycle that was preceded by 4 weeks off due to re-injuring my lower back. I made the mistake of attending a group Olympic lifting class where we did a bunch of good mornings prior to doing muscle snatches. Even though I knew better, the pre-fatiguing of the lower back proved to be a critical mistake. It was my responsibility to coach myself and I failed at that. 

After not being able to lift for 4 weeks, I had 4 weeks leading up to the seminar to get back to being strong enough to handle to two, 6-7 hour days of bent over and overhead lifting. I peaked that cycle 1 week before the class with a 4 hour workout of explosive and functional movements. That preparation went a long way to make the 7 hour days with Greg and the barbell not only doable but also enjoyable. Keep this in mind if you plan to attend the seminar.

Greg Everett

I became aware of Greg several years ago as my interest in the traditional sport of Olympic lifting began to grow. Having come from the “old school” of weightlifting the clean had taught me that explosively lifting heavy weights was not only beneficial for my body, it improved my athletic performance, and my ability to fight and grapple, immensely. It was quite natural to gravitate toward Greg because he simply has provided the largest library of intense knowledge ever offered to the public on the subject of Olympic lifting.  

Greg has several sources of information out: his book, Olympic Weightlifting, his website library of articles at catalystathletics.com, his YouTube channel with his Library of Movements, and much more.

I had his book and older DVD, and I had planned to attend one of his seminars for a few years now. One day, Catalyst Athletics sent me a message on Instagram. To my surprise, it was Greg telling me how much of a fan he was of my own book, Violence of MInd. A coach and author I admired and followed for years was also a fan of my work. What a great experience that was. We struck up some good conversations and I was eventually invited out to his seminar in Utah. I booked my flight and hotel, thrilled I was finally getting to attend.

Goals

My goals for the course are two-fold: First, I obviously want to improve my capabilities in the performance of the snatch, clean and jerk. I don’t have any desires to compete formally, but I do have goals to reach a moderate level of performance with a high level of form and execution, just because I want to.

The lifts have become meditative to me. I have my platform outside on my farm in Florida, and the pursuit of the challenging and elusive execution of the movements, by myself and outside in nature, takes my mind away from everything else. It creates a place that only I go to. Just me and the lift. I want to always have that in my life for as long as I can, and longevity in this type of activity comes from doing it well and doing it safely.  

My second goal is professional: I am working on segueing back into the fitness training business more in the coming year or so. I have been building my self-defense and weapons training business for several years and I really miss being a fitness and conditioning trainer, which I did full-time for several years. Getting Greg’s instruction and (eventually) his certification, while also reaching a demonstrable competence level as a lifter myself, will allow me to integrate Olympic lifting into my own programming in a safe and effective way.

With all of my gym equipment quietly stored away in a warehouse in Florida, I plan to re-open my gym eventually. When I do, Olympic lifting will be a component of the programming there, programming which will center around general physical preparedness and self-defense conditioning and capability.

I have no desire, nor do I have the background, to be a competitive Olympic weightlifting sport coach. I do, however, fully believe in the benefits of Olympic lifting in GPP fitness and self-defense/fight conditioning, hence my desire to integrate the lifts into my coaching and programming.

I want that integrated method to be in the purest form I am capable of delivering, without sacrificing form or execution for any reasons. Greg’s course is a definite source of that pure form.

Equipment and Facility

The facility used for the seminar was Proven Strength Training in American Fork, Utah, owned by USAW Coach and IWF National Referee Jenny Shumacher. Jenny was super hospitable as a host, and was available both days for any questions or help concerning the facility.

There were approximately 7 nice, but well used, standard 2-layer plywood and rubber platforms in the lifting area. There were more than enough pvc pipe lengths and regular bars of different weights and lengths for everyone to participate in the lifts.

The overall space was huge, with a Crossfit gym sharing space in the building which was also opened up to us for warmups, stretching, rowing and whatever else we needed to use or do.

The main equipment used for the seminar was pvc pipe, barbells and bumper plates. Brands ranged from American Barbell, to Eleiko and others. The equipment was well maintained and in good working order. The bars all had great spin and seemed to flex very well. It was easy to see that Jenny’s facility was a serious level weightlifting location.

The Seminar: Day One

We started at 10AM on Saturday. Greg was very personable and had a great demeanor right from the start. There were about 20 attendees with a fairly even distribution of men and women. The backgrounds were mixed, with most coming from Crossfit gyms and just a few being pure Olympic lifters and serious competitors. In terms of experience, most attendees had several years of qualified experience, while a few seemed to be novice/beginners.

Greg started by having everyone introduce themselves around the room. When I very briefly introduced myself, Greg took a minute to tell everyone how great my book is, suggesting they should buy it, which was a kind gesture.

He also humbly emphasized that what he would teach us was not necessarily new and he didn’t invent it, he just found what works and developed a unique way to teach it.

The atmosphere was not intimidating at all, everyone was very nice and positive, and the facility was extremely hospitable and welcoming. This made for a great class environment. The space was a little tight for 20 lifters, but we made it work with cooperation and courtesy. Other than wishing I was capable of lifting more comparable weights with my fellow attendees, I have no complaints.

Day one curriculum consisted of the Snatch Progression as Greg teaches it. (I won’t get into specifics here, you’ll have to take the course for that.) The snatch is a very technical lift where you start with a barbell on the floor and explosively lift it up and receive it over your head in a deep squat position and with locked elbows in a wide grip. You complete the lift by standing up with the barbell elevated over your head with locked elbows.

The basic progression we followed is:

  • Foundations, fundamentals and terminology
    • Trunk stabilization
    • Breath control
    • Foot position
    • Double knee bend
    • Hook grip
  • Snatch Receiving position
    • Overhead Position
    • Overhead Squat
    • Pressing Snatch Balance
    • Drop Snatch
    • Heaving Snatch Balance
    • Snatch Balance
  • Snatch from the hang
    • Mid-Hang Snatch Pull
    • Tall Muscle Snatch
    • Scarecrow Snatch
    • Tall Snatch
    • Mid-Hang Snatch
  • Snatch from the floor
    • Snatch Segment Deadlift
    • Halting Snatch Deadlift
    • Segment Snatch + Deadlift
    • Snatch

We began work with pvc pipes to assist in understanding the movements and positions. Greg’s breakdown of the movement into components is phenomenal and easy to understand. His choice of beginning with the receiving position is very intuitive and quite similar to how I teach firearms movements in my courses. As Greg says, you have to know where you are going to build a good path to get there.

His choice of nomenclature seems to be the most sensible I have heard of so far. He was very clear about the explanation of the use of words like catch and drop and explaining them with meaningful words and phrases like receive, and forcefully move ourselves under the bar (push or pull), among others.

This is an important distinction especially for new lifters that may not know how the lift really works. For example, if we simply call it a “drop” movement it implies that we are simply dropping into a position by relaxing and letting gravity carry us downward. This would be an incorrect mental image for a new lifter.

We know this isn’t the case because we must employ speed when getting under the bar, specifically a much greater speed than gravity itself can produce. We should be aggressively pushing ourselves down under the bar against the mass of weight going over our heads, (or in some other lifts pulling ourselves under the bar for position.) Therefore, creating accurate mental images for the lifter is easier to achieve with better explanations to accompany old terminology.

I’m definitely paraphrasing here (maybe poorly) but I think I am conveying the idea well. Greg’s use of speech and nomenclature made the learning process much more productive for sure, for both students and coaches.

Greg also emphasized aggression as an important part of weightlifting. As we moved into work with the bars and eventually with weights, that aggression would play a big part in our success in the lifts. This led to talks about the importance of mindset and focus throughout the weekend.

By the end of the day my understanding of the snatch had increased immensely. I was able to execute a few of the nicest snatches I’ve ever done, and I have gained enough knowledge of my own technical issues to go forward and begin fixing them through training and practice.

The last hour or so of the day Greg sets the class loose to snatch as you see fit using your own judgement on weight and variation choices while he walked around and coached. This was no easy task since we had been doing pulls and snatching in the different variations for approximately 5-6 hours already. Some of those hours were spent repeatedly holding isometric positions bent over in mid hang or low hang, which is extremely taxing on the back.

Despite having lifted for 5 hours prior, many of the attendees were hitting impressive lift numbers, with snatches climbing into the mid 100 kilo range (mid to high 200lbs range). There were definitely some seriously competitive lifters there and it was awesome to be in the room with them.

We ended class around 5PM and I headed for the hotel pool and hot tub to enjoy the 97 degree Utah weather and reflect on the day.

Day Two

Day two was clean and jerk day. We began the day with a quick review of the snatch progression, which included doing a few movements with pvc pipes to refresh our memories.

The progression we followed for day 2 was:

  • Receiving Position
    • Split Position
  • Jerk Progression
    • Press behind the neck
    • Press
    • Push press
    • Tall Power Jerk
    • Power Jerk
    • Split jerk behind the neck
    • Jerk balance
    • Split jerk
  • Receiving Position 
    • Clean Rack position
    • Front Squat
  • Clean from Hang
    • Mid-hang clean pull
    • Rack delivery
    • Tall muscle clean
    • Tall clean 
    • Mid-hang clean
  • Clean from Floor
    • Clean segment deadlift 
    • Halting clean deadlift
    • Segment clean + clean
    • Clean

We moved on to the jerk first, which I found to be more challenging than the snatch, personally. I simply suck at the split jerk right now. I was able to improve that quite a bit during the class, but I certainly have a long way to go.

Again, Greg’s progression is phenomenal and very intuitive towards how someone could best learn the complex series of movements within the clean and jerk. It is easy to see his years of experience and success as a coach shine through here.

I have been in front of a few local coaches here and there and never have I experienced the level of explanation or clarity that came from just a few hours with him.

The clean portion of the instruction was very fluid since it mimicked the a very similar progression as the snatch from the previous day. Most lifters understood the squat and the floor pull very well, so there wasn’t much need for remedial work. 

Just like day one, we ended the day with a blast session of cleaning and jerking at our own pace. I chose to stay very light to work on that jerk technique, while some of the others went on to clean and jerk well over 300lbs successfully. It was truly a marvel to see in person.

Conclusions

Olympic weightlifting is an amazing activity. It requires a mixture of mobility, explosiveness, strength, precision, speed and a kinesthetic awareness that few other sports require. There are few movements you can do that can provide so much benefit. They are safe, when done correctly. They are difficult to master, which can be excellent if you are looking for something to really focus on.

If you are looking for an edge in combat sports or fighting, Olympic lifting will provide it. If you want to be stronger and fitter in your daily life, well, it will help you do that, too.

The course was phenomenal and well worth the time and money. If you are serious about doing the Olympic lifts correctly, this course is a must attend event. I learned enough about Olympic lifting to keep me busy practicing and correcting my issues for the next two years.

I know there are lots of “methods” out there and some like to say that some particular method or country of origin is better than another, and so on.

I personally don’t prescribe to that philosophy as I’ve trained enough skills in my life (gun fighting, combatives, powerlifting, bodybuilding, etc.) to know that all good methods center around the same concepts, and that variations on those skills are not only good to learn, they are necessary to achieve a deeper understanding and development in the discipline.

It doesn’t matter if it’s weightlifting or gun fighting. I will listen to all of the successful methods and pick the ones that work for me the best. Greg Everett seems to understand this as well and is very humble in paying homage to his coach own Mike Burgener and acknowledging other sources when talking about concepts specific to the lifts. The Catalyst Athletics method really resonates with me.

Another one of my favorite aspects of Greg’s teaching style is that he quite intentionally avoids using big scientific words or making the class into an “anatomy and physiology” course. That was not what I was there for. That was not what anyone was there for. We wanted to learn how to better snatch, clean and jerk, and how to better help other people snatch, clean and jerk.

I’m not saying A&P knowledge is dumb or useless. But I do loathe trainers and instructors who constantly have to let everyone know how smart they are by using the scientific names of body parts every chance they get. Even when they aren’t showing off, using that hyper scientific language is annoying for most clients or trainees.

If you can’t have a normal conversation using language everyone can understand, how do you connect with your clients? Unless we need to address a specific issue with a specific part of the body, let’s just talk about movement and how to achieve it. Greg does a slamming awesome job of just that.

Being a long-time instructor myself (personal training, firearms, self-defense) I am very impressed by Greg’s teaching progressions. Teaching people complex movements that require slight, personalized variations in technique and application is difficult because, well, people are all different. Everyone has their own issues. Developing progressions that are scalable and modular to a large extent is really the Holy Grail of teaching capabilities, and Greg has that in spades.

He offered insights and instruction on the proper assessment of both athlete and movement throughout the entire course. He expertly weaved this into instruction on customizing the programming of an athlete (or yourself) around the issues that manifest in the performance of the lifts, and how to use the progression with addition and omission of variations and supporting exercises to correct the issues. 

Personally, I was lifting among the lowest weight in the gym, which I was perfectly fine with since I wanted to train strict technique while I had such a great coach around, as well as not wanting re-injure my back again by trying to impress anyone. It may have stung the ego a tiny bit, but it’s good for you to get out and see where you really are in comparison to others. It helps to prevent Dunning-Krueger from setting in.

It was great to be in a room where people are lifting more than me BUT they were doing it with correct form. This is not usually my experience when doing Olympic lifts in many gyms. These were lifters who had both had proper instruction and had also exhibited the dedication to performing the lifts correctly over years of hard work, and it showed.  

While I was among the least strong attendees there, I was not the least conditioned. I held up just fine and flying back on Monday the only complaints I had were those damn cramped economy seats. I recommend if you are going to a weightlifting seminar that you train your work capacity up to a high level. The weekend before the seminar I had reached a peak with a 4-hour workout of explosive and functional movements. That prepared me well for the low/moderate intensity 6-hour days of the seminar. Be in shape, I do recommend it.

You should also have a basic understanding of the lifts. There is no reason to walk in to a seminar of this magnitude and not know anything relevant to the material. Buy Greg’s text book, watch the videos on YouTube, try to learn the movements or at least understand them. Know the basics about how to stabilize your trunk under load, how to breath, how to back squat, etc. There wasn’t anyone in the room that didn’t have a clear understanding of these things and that was notable.

To be fair, I’ve gotten to know Greg and had the opportunity to spend a few hours one-on-one with him after the course. We did not talk much weightlifting, or gun training. We talked about life, and coaching, and family and business. He is an outstanding guy, very down to earth and humble, which makes it even that much better that he is one of the best Olympic lifting coaches alive today.  

The most valuable thing that I walked away from the seminar with is the ability to be a better coach to myself. I learned how to spot my own issues, assess ways to fix it, use the progressions in a modular, customizable way to address those issues, and simply just get better at the lifts. That’s money in the bank.

Bottom line:

Without any doubts, I will attend more seminars and training with Greg in the future, and I recommend anyone who is interested in learning about the snatch and the clean and jerk should do the same.

Get off your high horse

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I try not to be self-absorbed when I am engaged with people. I also try to learn, to not have “expert’s paradigm” when I am talking to people in casual or business conversations, even if it’s a topic that I have a lot of experience in.

This amounts to being interested in the other person enough to learn about them and learn about what they know. It requires not assuming that I know more than them. It also involves a lack of talking about myself and what I know, until it’s truly appropriate.

This doesn’t work as well in today’s world. Perhaps people’s real world views are morphing into the “social media paradigm” where you have a very short time span to sell a persona or a knowledge set to someone. I swear 8 out of 10 people I meet consider themselves pros, or awesome in some other way, and if you don’t literally fight for attention you get demoted to a learner who knows less, has less or has done less. I watch people do this to each other all the time.

Thus is the way of our social hierarchy in the social media era world. What you look like, talk like, drive and have are somehow proportionate to your capabilities and experience. “If he was as good as he says he is, he wouldn’t be driving that.” “He doesn’t “look” like he knows that much.” And so on.

Sometimes, competitiveness is the tone, “You started working in this field in 2002? Oh, well I started working in it in 2001 so I’ve been around for ALL of it…” Instead of being cooperative, “Oh, what have you learned in that time?” and then they in turn try to learn what you’ve learned in that time. Sharing knowledge and ideas. What a concept.

Most often, I would say, people are just self-absorbed. They think they know a bunch of shit, probably more than you, and so they don’t even really listen when you talk. They are here to disseminate information because they know things.

It’s not that they even thought about competing with you, they just automatically consider themselves and their knowledge more important and there’s nothing you could say that would be that interesting to them, so you are tuned out. Their own voice is in their head rehearsing for their turn to talk.

Are you a student, or a know-it-all?

Sometimes just simply asking a question will cause the other person to automatically assume that they know more than you, and they will assume authority in the conversation. This is a tragedy. For example, you see someone doing a workout and posting about it on social media. Now, imagine you yourself have been working out a long time and you know quite a bit about the topic, but you are always curious and looking for new information so you ask them, “Hey, I see you are doing this workout. Where did you get the programming for that, and how is it working for you?” Instead of actually answering the question, they reply, “If you want to understand programming you have to start with [insert arbitrary favorite program here] and research the subject.” Often, they’ll even go on to instruct you or offer suggestions for what you should be doing, even though they have no idea what you know or what you want to accomplish. They are full of themselves. They lack listening skills. The question goes unanswered and another chance to assert social dominance has been exploited. End result, no one learns anything. 

What happened to the concepts of beginner’s mind and always being the student? Sad.

Even worse is the feeling that if you are paid to do a job, like being an instructor or trainer, then you can’t ask any “average” person questions because you are afraid it will make you look like you don’t already know what they know. You somehow think you’re supposed to know everything, so you can’t be seen being “weak” or taking “instruction” from an average person.

It’s a legitimate feeling because people judge you for the surface presentation you put out. Hell, that’s what this post is about. It’s a vicious cycle.

What is even more sad is that you are vulnerable to concealment even when you think you are protected. You can’t even give people a chance to learn who they are and what they’ve done when they are open about it. The one who wants to hide those facts from you? You’ll never see him or her coming. (If you are in the self-defense, tactical, or cool guy badass world and you act this way, your mindset is truly out of touch with your stated goals.)

Listen to people. Ask questions.

People are interesting, and there are a lot of people out there you could learn from. Many of them, though they may not look like it, have done way more shit than you will in 3 lifetimes.

My best conditioning coach–by far–was a fat, silver haired guy that always had a cigar hanging out of his mouth. By today’s standards, no one would even have a training conversation with that guy. The truth is he helped produce several world champions in his younger years (as a trainer for a U.S. Olympic team) and he knew how to pull the best out of every athlete he worked with.

The most capable class attendee I have ever had in terms of self-defense, and who I would put my money on in a street fight, was a skinny, gray haired Nicaraguan guy well into his 60’s that didn’t look like he could do shit. The guy was legitimately dangerous, and though he was small, he was strong as an ox. He grew up in the Revolution Era of a country at civil war. He knew a lot of things about violence and about survival.

Sometimes people are retired, or injured, or have changed careers or family situations and they don’t “appear” to be anything special, but they are. It doesn’t matter what business you are in, this is true in every profession.

And guess what? You aren’t that fucking special, and you probably don’t even know as much shit as you think you do. Putting on a good presentation doesn’t make you a special expert, nor does having popularity on social media, or making a bunch of money (especially if you flaunt it).

Many of the people who maintain these “perfect” images are deeply flawed, and if you look hard enough you will see it. Marital problems, financial problems, regrets, and some are just plain out miserable people seething with envy, jealousy, resentment, fear, cowardice. People can present however they choose to, if they are disciplined enough. Still doesn’t make it real.

Don’t mistake this post as me being upset about someone doing this to me. That shit has been happening and will continue to happen my whole life. I like to keep quality people in my circle, and if you are self-absorbed and full of yourself then you are self-selected out of my circle. If you have anything valuable to say, I’ll listen from a distance. But it’s like everyone does it to everyone, anymore.

What does upset me is how much society suffers and how much our communities suffer because we can’t be real with each other, because everyone has to be damn “expert” or a “pro”.

It upsets me that innovative, creative people are afraid to be vocal or do things because they will be judged harshly. If the old guys that have experience aren’t respected because they don’t look cool, then how can a new guy with no experience survive that social thrashing? (And I’m not even touching on the bullies and trolls, that’s a whole different topic.) They are forced to play the persona game, where substance doesn’t matter as much as your IG game and your wittiness on FB and Twitter.

We all lose

This is my encouragement to you to take the time to actually learn from one another. If someone is trying to learn a new skill, don’t assume they don’t have ANY developed skills. Don’t be afraid to learn a new skill or to ask questions about other people’s views, even if it is what you are an “expert” in. And don’t demote someone’s social rank because they asked a question. Maybe they have a bunch of answers and experience and just want to hear your perspective. Maybe they know more than you because they aren’t afraid to ask questions.

If you are engaging with someone and they don’t ask one follow up question about any of your statements, or about you, they just talk at you, then that person has little interest in you or what you are saying. They are too busy thinking about themselves. It’s not hard to tell.

Take the time to actually listen to someone talk. Ask questions about what they are saying about themselves, ENGAGE with them. You just might start learning things again.

Being self-absorbed is a failure, and it’s one from which we all experience the resultant net loss.

Don’t let their negativity destroy your drive

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I was going to post this on Facebook but decided not to. In fact, I’ve quit posting on Facebook to great extent. I even removed the app from my smart phone. The negativity is just too much to deal with and there isn’t one good reason to subject yourself to it. Not one.

For now, I’ll talk about just one aspect of that negativity, not only on social media but from people in general. The problem of people’s propensity to be discouraging and disrespectful towards your ideas and plans.

It’s hard enough to have the courage to do great things in life without the constant negativity of people’s bullshit raining on your thought process. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that not only will people not be able to see or appreciate your “vision”, they will not even respect it. They will outright disrespect it.

They will tell you how your ideas won’t work, and how you shouldn’t do something a certain way, because obviously they know better (despite 99% of the time never having done the thing you are talking about doing). They will shit on your ideas, offer “better” ideas, and overall just inject negativity into your thoughts.

Now, if you were looking for constructive criticism, then fine. But it’s not always constructive, and it’s not always the “analysis” being asked for.

Sometimes, you just want to share your ideas, what you’re working so hard on in life. You want to voice them, maybe hear some encouragement. This is normal, and it should be something you can do, but you have to carefully choose who you share your visions with. Only those close enough to believe in you or selfless enough to encourage you should be included.

The rest of the time, I’ve found it best to keep it to yourself and woodshed your ideas. Let them see you executing later, once you’ve done the work and made it happen.

“You’re too dumb to own horses…”

I used to talk about getting horses for my daughter. I’ve never previously owned horses, or even had been around them for that matter. But I knew I wanted to do that for her. So, I worked my ass off towards it. While doing so, I made the mistake of talking about it a few times, and got responses like, “Oh, horses are so much work, you don’t know what you are getting into.” Or, “They’re so expensive, you’ll regret it once you do.” Or, my absolute favorite, “Horses are a huge responsibility, maybe you should try something smaller.”

These were actual quotes from people responding to me talking about something I was working towards over several years. As if I had put no fucking thought into this idea at all, and I needed someone to tell me how fucking stupid I was for not thinking about basic things like cost of care and the work involved in doing it. Yep, I simply daydreamed that some goddamned horses would show up one day and we would all just romp through the pasture carefree…

Guess what fuckers? I’ve owned horses for well over a year now and it has not one time been a terrible experience that I even close to regret getting into. It’s actually been a joy. My horses are healthy, they perform great, and my daughter will be competing with her horse next month. Sure, there are challenges and expenses, and I’m certain there will be heartbreaks as well. But that’s life with animals, and it has come as no shock whatsoever. Nothing you said came true. It’s been a great experience.

Here is an important detail about every one of those people. Not one of those negative-ass people were horse owners at the time. I’m not sure that they ever were.

“You’ll never succeed in that business”

Another good example was back when I decided to go into the firearms training business full-time. Oh, the negativity was fierce for that move. Before I made it happen, I was telling people what I was planning, the responses I remember went something like this:

“You’ll never make any money doing that.”
“You will never be able to compete with the military and police that are doing it.”
“The field is saturated, too many cops and military trying to make money, no one is making money.”

I went on to not only make money, I’ve made more money in this industry than in any other job or industry I’ve ever worked in. By a giant margin. It also led to one of the most high paying corporate jobs I’ve ever had. And not only was I able to be competitive amongst the military and police in the business, I became good friends with many of the most successful ones.

I even became an instructor on the cadre of police associations and law enforcement training facilities. It has been my most successful and longest running business (out of 5 legitimate businesses I’ve started and ran). Going on 7 years now and I’m looking at manually scaling it back because I’d like to do other things in life. Sounds pretty successful to me.

Of course, not one of those negative people were successful in that business. But they sure had it all figured out why I couldn’t become successful in it either.

Protect your creative process

I wised up eventually, and considered my own moves in solitude. Yes, it sucks. Especially if you are by yourself or have family that is not supportive or understanding, which has been my case more often than not. But you don’t need anyone’s input, and if what you are doing is outside of what they have experienced or accomplished, you won’t want their input.

When I made the decision to uproot my life and move 1000 miles away to Florida, from Ohio, I didn’t tell a soul what I was doing. Only one friend knew because he was the one who helped me load my truck. I made the decision, executed the plan, and made the whole move before I told anyone. This took months to accomplish. One day I just posted on social media a picture of me on a piece of land in sunny Florida with an “Oh, by the way, I live in Florida now…” message.

I knew if I had talked about it, the majority of responses would be the 10,000 reasons why it wouldn’t work, why I wouldn’t like it, and how I would be back. Yet again, they would’ve been wrong. I’ve been here a year and a half and I have never loved a place more. I wouldn’t trade my today for any of my yesterdays. Not even a question.

I have several more plans that I am not talking about openly. There’s just no need for it, and the idea creation phase is too important to have it contaminated with negative talk from people who really do not matter.

This has always been a problem with people in general. But in today’s world with social media, it’s a chronic problem. I know it is destroying many people’s drive to do great things, to pursue visions and big goals, because they are afraid of the attacks from online.

Forget about them. You don’t have to tell anyone what you are doing. You don’t need validation. Could you be crazy and not thinking something through? Of course! You want to know how to get better at making good plans? Fail from not so good planning. You will learn more from failing than you will ever learn from a bunch of people spewing opinions about things they’ve never done. And that is how you get better. My most successful business was my fifth one.

In all things people understand the need for practice, except when it comes to businesses, careers and visions in their life. They think it should be one big shot and success. Let me break it to you, you need practice in those areas too. You have to fail. You will learn. And that is how you get better at all of it: ideas, planning and execution.

If you want valuable input, find a real mentor

If you want input specific to your plans, find a mentor who has done it, and who will be empathetic to your desires. If you want encouragement, figure out who is truly in your corner out of the people close to you and let them support you with encouragement. But for the love of success, you do not need the people of social media and their fucking opinions. Not while you are in the planning or building phase. When it’s time to sell them something, step forward with what you’ve built and show the results.

I am not telling you that the only way to do it is to hide. You can absolutely show your process if you want to. But showing the process is you showing yourself doing it, working on it. It’s not just talking about it or sharing your vision or plans. There is a difference. You will still get naysayers and shit posters, but if you are actively working towards something it’s much easier to maintain your belief in yourself than if you were just talking about ideas and getting beat down.

Control your own social experience

But if there is any doubt in your ability to do something that you really plan on trying to do, don’t let the nasty people on social media get into your head. Very rarely will the negative talk come from someone who has actually done anything notable in that field (or in their lives in general). If you do share your process or journey, BLOCK negative people as soon as they show up. Don’t give them space on your platform. Your social is for you, not them, and you don’t need to be “fair”.

Create your own online experience, or sign off for the most part like I did and just go execute your life visions out there in the real world.

At a time when society is tearing itself apart and tearing each other down over social media platforms, be your own beacon and just do work. Deal with people face-to-face and quit worrying about what some shithead on the internet thinks about something he knows nothing about, especially when that something is you.

Finding your failure points

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Recently, I made a post in one of my groups about sparring a professional fighter, and how he reminded me that I don’t know jack shit about “professional boxing.” A few days before that, I made a quiet announcement that I took a side job as a bouncer, for fun and to meet people in my new town. A fellow instructor and good friend commented to me, “Nobody can ever say you don’t throw yourself out there. I really respect that. Door work, boxing gym, red man suit. Most guys with a rep immediately cease testing themselves and go into “authority” mode.”

Yes, I put myself out there. I put myself in losing situations often and I have my reasons for this. If you are serious about being good at something, especially violence, then I suggest you find your own reasons to do the same.

My friend is correct, many instructors instinctively go into “authority mode” once they achieve some recognition. It’s where they no longer test themselves or, more importantly, no longer allow themselves to be seen being tested. Because, they could fail. They could lose or perform poorly. And if that occurred, what would happen to their credibility and the draw for people to give them money for their awesome knowledge?

I believe that those fears along with the ego, are both at fault for the majority of people teaching in this business who decline to step up and get tested. The combatives instructor who never gets in a sparring ring or shows his students demonstrations at the same level he expects them to perform at. The Instagram instructor who is smoking fast and has a ton of followers, yet declines to show up for a professional level UTM force-on-force (FoF) class that’s hosted outside of his “tribe.” The guy who brings his sweetest shooting 1911 to teach a pistol class rather than the one he actually carries (and can’t shoot as well with).

I’m not saying that the guy who doesn’t get tested is automatically faking it, or whatever. There’s a ton of professional guys who are moving into their 50’s and 60’s who don’t feel a need to test themselves anymore. But, those guys have decades of boxing, fighting, rolling, law enforcement, task force, military or special operations under their belts. Some of them continue to get tested, to do work, to go after it and that is how it should be. Some of them spend their energy traveling and teaching others. But, if you didn’t spend literally years of your life doing actually dangerous shit related to what you teach, you better be out there getting tested on a regular basis.

Me? As I move into my mid 40’s in 2019, I’m still getting after it. I personally have tried to get away from it several times, building custom cars, music and guitars, doing sales…only to find my physical and mental health slipping away by living outside of what I know and love to do. So, there’s no way I could imagine actually doing it for a living such as I do now and neglecting to actually get in there and stay sharp myself. That means getting in the ring with an undefeated pro, or working the floor at a busy nightclub, or walking into a State Championship match as my first competitive shooting event. Even with having extensive experience with extreme violence and deadly force, I know I have gaps and I want to find them and fill them as much as I possibly can. It also keeps you humble, and that is important in my opinion.

In doing so, I seek failure. I am trying to find gaps in my abilities, my skills and procedures. I want to know where I am likely to fail. And if people, or even students see me failing, that’s even better. They are getting a real education at that point, from someone who has been involved in deadly violence and dangerous environments. Someone who will not give them some false sense of security of imperviousness through some magical training. Experienced fighters die at the hands of their enemies every day. It’s just bullshit to believe that some particular training, class or instructor can make you unbeatable, and it’s also bullshit to believe that any instructor is undefeatable.

Yet. that is the unintended consequence when we don’t a) help students experience failure and b) show them that we are all susceptible to failure and need improvement somewhere. I don’t fear the loss of credibility or authority, because I deal in realities. And the biggest reality about violence is we ALL can “get got” as they say. No matter how much you know, someone somewhere is better at an isolated set of skills than you are. We also all can “slip” and that is where failure comes in. I’ll step up and shoot anywhere against anyone. I’ll get into the ring and spar with anyone (providing they are trustworthy). Sometimes I lose, most times I learn, and I teach from what I know from years of training, study and direct experience.

I have always believed making yourself look perfect or undefeatable to be a huge disservice in the self-defense training world in the form of false presentation. I don’t think it’s truly a totally conscious scam…usually. It’s anti-marketing to allow your customer base to see you failing at the thing they are paying you to teach them. But we need to stop looking at it like that. It’s just wrong that people who have never been in violence are taught that this certain style or these certain techniques are THE WAY to be a hard to kill warrior, and they are taught this by someone they never see get tested. When they learn it, they are not seeing its failure points. Few dares to teach the failure points of themselves or their own gospel for fear of losing appeal. But the truth is, if you are teaching in a way that makes one believe that you or your methods do not have failure points, you are being dishonest with yourself and everyone who listens to you. And, just maybe, you don’t even realize that you are doing it.

Blog Entry: What Do We Really Want?

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In March of 2017, I was in a lot of pain and uncertainty. I was moving into a little apartment in Ohio, going through a painful divorce, quitting my corporate job, and just tired of hating everything about my life.

In March of 2018, I just self-published my first book and made enough off of the first week sales to move to a personal retreat in Central Florida.

How did this happen? It happened because I made it happen. I decided to change my life, because no one was going to change it for me. It’s not like I wasn’t working hard before. No, I’ve been doing this “change my life with hard work” thing for over 20 years, one failed hustle, after failed job, after failed marriage, after failed business, after another. But, this run through, something was different. When I sat down to make a plan this time, I was cutting everyone out, burning down everything that obligated me, and starting with me first. As James Altucher likes to say, I chose myself. It’s not that it was selfish, rather it was empirically the best decision to make. Time and again it was proven to me that I had made bad choices in relationships, partners, jobs and associations, and all for the wrong reasons. Sometimes we need to get to the root of what we really want.

In pursuit of what we want (or think we want) we will entangle ourselves into all manners of messes that will take us sometimes years to painfully extract from: lifestyles, business partnerships, marriages, job obligations…the list goes on. We often find ourselves in these situations because the answers to our happiness were believed to be found outside of ourselves, rather than from within.

Please, allow me to explain why this is not the standard spiel about “finding happiness inside of you,” because frankly that is bullshit. It takes a mix of being self-aware about what you really want, and then doing the work to see progress towards it happening outside of you. Happiness is not only progress and reward, it’s those things moving towards what our soul really wants while in an atmosphere that is nurturing to that progress. And guess what? You have to create that atmosphere to find it in the balanced way that we seek. So, you inherently have the problem of starting out without that nurturing atmosphere, without the progress and reward. That space describes my life from the middle of 2016 through 2017.

It’s simply that our life needs to be grounded in what we truly want, NOT in a means to that end. This is the difference between finding fulfillment in something outside of yourself vs finding fulfillment by manifesting yourself through the world around you. This applies specifically if you consider yourself a purpose driven entrepreneur or creator in any way, but also in a general sense to anyone trying to live a valued life.

For me, I wanted to live a life inspired to create, with the all important freedom of time to do the creating. In order to achieve that, I had to start where I was at, not where I wished I was. I downsized my life, gave away thousands of dollars worth of “stuff” and moved into a small apartment. I made way less money, at first, and used my time to develop myself and my idea of a valued life. I stayed away from relationships and defeated the notion that I “needed” a girlfriend/wife to be happy. I set goals: write and publish my first book, grow my business to a national level, and facilitate a move to a place that inspired my life. I reached those goals. All of them, including the move. For me, right now, that place is Florida. I made it a mandatory change that I would eat well, exercise very seriously for my health and well being, and spend more time in a relaxed state rather than a stressed, worried and unhappy state no matter what I had to give up.

And it was hard. Some  days, it was incredibly hard. At times, you can’t see the goal, you can’t see progress, you feel like you’re being stupid about unrealistic goals, and there is no one there to support you. You have to support yourself with sheer discipline. When the goal gets blurry, discipline is the only thing you have on that day. Discipline, and a desire to leave the unhappiness of a life that is not value driven. I did it. I am seeing progress and change. The world around me is brightening up. My life is starting to inspire me. Now, incrementally I will move towards the goal while living the valued life along the way. I won’t sacrifice anymore by lying to myself like “I will live this life that I absolutely hate to get to the other side.” Too much damage is accumulated that way. Too much time lost in unentangling ourselves from such messes.

Make the hard decisions to go through the brutal tasks of removing those entanglements today, and you will sooner be on your way to a better, value added life. Find the things you really want to do, what would make you most happy, and start working towards building it from the ground up. Your life should be rewarding, fulfilling, and provide a great marketing backdrop for your personal brand. Your home base should fuel you, recharge you, and most of all it should not consume you away from your dreams. I would be better served living my own life on my terms, and showing the world who I am from the backdrop of my inspiring life where I am not enslaved to things I do not like but rather am able to create and serve others at my leisure.

But, you have to know what you really want, and you have to believe in yourself to keep going and make it happen.

Varg Freeborn

Blog Entry: The Right Path

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At some point, probably in my second marriage, I figured out that if you constantly feel like you are swimming upstream, and logs and debris are slamming into your face, knocking you back and threatening to drown you, you most likely are not on the right path for your life. This isn’t always an easy distinction to make. It is true that sometimes things are meant to be fought for, and the struggle is the precise experience we need for growth. But there are times when your plans just aren’t the plans that will bring you peace and prosperity (or whatever it is that you value most and are not getting.)

When I was running the nightmare otherwise known as my music store business some years ago, it was quite literally like swimming upstream against a fast moving river full of huge logs smashing me in the face. All day long. Every day. This went on for 3 years, but it felt like a lifetime. At times, it threatened to consume me, including landing me in the hospital for 4 days, only to get a diagnosis of anxiety and likely depression.  It was terrible. But I had a dream, a big dream. I wanted to be the best, and build great custom guitars, and make a lot of money, and prove all of my detractors wrong. The worse it got, the more people talked shit, the more angrily I pushed forward to prove the world wrong. But I also honestly believed in myself and truly believed that this was the avenue I could use to change the quality of life for those that I loved. That was way more important than vengeance.

It was, in many ways, a great triumph. I had started a business literally from nothing. I rented a storefront with no money down in exchange for fixing the place up, and basically had a month to earn the first month’s rent. I turned that into a store with tens of thousands of dollars of inventory in just a year or two. That is not an easy feat and I am damn fucking proud of that. But, it just wasn’t to be. After 3 years of a little triumph and a lot more defeat, I made a decision to abandon ship and close it down. In the end, my heart truly was not in it. I didn’t really see myself getting a truly valued life out of it. The potential earning ceiling was low, and the effort would always be critically high.

Furthermore, it wasn’t a great contribution to the world that enriched my soul. I was simply performing service work for increasingly entitled, whiney musicians and other people with more money than musical drive. It was terribly unfulfilling work with often shitty customers and even shittier people as competition, which made the frustrations and hardships outweigh any real reason to pursue it. So, I changed gears, let it go down as pretty much an unenjoyable experience and I moved on. I sold part of the business to my tech and I was done.

Learn to drop it, let go, and put even more love into the next project

In order for me to grow, I stood right back up the very next day and filed the paperwork for the next business, which happens to be the one that I still successfully run several years later. I had done this a few times before, from my custom car shop to the fitness training business, for example. You just have to keep moving. You just can not quit.

The work that I do now is very fulfilling. Even with that, I know that the current configuration is not the ultimate goal. Hell, that’s why you are reading this blog, as I begin to experiment with new directions here. My current business (at the time of this writing) was founded upon teaching violence and educating people on the darker capabilities of humans. While that is a noble cause, it’s not what I want to spend the rest of my life thinking about. But it has been the best work experience of my life to date, and it is clearly opening more doors for me to pursue helping people in other ways outside of just fighting.

You will notice the difference immediately

Literally, it was an immediately noticeable difference when I changed streams. I went from constant struggle and turmoil, to no turmoil, by just changing business plans and verticals. I’m not saying it’s been “easy”. Of course, it’s a business and it has taken the unending hard work and sacrifice that any business takes to be successful. What’s missing are the logs smashing me in the face: the ungrateful customers, the nasty low-level competition, the constant financial deficit, and so on.

When you are on the right path, not only are you not getting smashed in the face everyday, but opportunities will open up and branch off of the path you are on. This can help in determining whether you are in that flow, or not.

As far back as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a writer and a speaker. I never quite understood how someone can make a living at that, until I had enough experiences to begin having interesting things to write and speak about. My training business morphed from teaching people how to fight, into speaking at seminars, and to writing a book, and now is transitioning into writing, teaching and speaking on more positive life subjects. The doors are opening as a direct result of the platform that I built for myself in the violence education vertical, which I built with the help of the experience I gained in the custom car business, the fitness training business, and the countless jobs I was an employee at.

I’m not trying to drive home a precise point with this article, just throwing a thought or two into my blog encouraging you to examine the turmoil you are experiencing and to follow your heart. Our plans don’t always end up looking like what we thought they would, but if you follow your heart, life can be good. Sometimes, it ends up way better than your best “plan” could ever be.