Jamming with the Master of the Fu

DUUUUDES!! I am fired up. Watch out, get out those reading glasses. Had a great day in the garage box today. Sifu Michael Casey, one of the baddest ass fighters in the entire world, (SERIOUSLY!!) graced me with his presence. And he was a humble, very cool dude. he is out here for the holidays visiting family and is the master Wing Tsun instructor for a guy I work with (edward) who used to post on this blog, but hurt his back and hasn't been here in several months. He has been doing oly/barbell lifting for ten years and was trained by some wicked Russian oly lifter way back in the day. The Russian coach guy wouldn't even allow him to try a full snatch until he could snatch balance (snatch drop as Michael called it) his body weight. Michael once won a National Championship in Full-Contact Kick-Boxing in Germany. Suffice to say, the dude will put a hurt on you... and you'd never know it. Such a humble and kind guy. When he first came over today, my wife had arrived at the same time and her arms were super sore (we are wondering if she has rhabdo to be honest, so sore she can't sleep, for days, and she feels like crap) and he ran out there and started hauling groceries in, and we had known each other in person for like 5 minutes. Nice guy. He was actually running to my wife to take bags of groceries from her. Anyway, we worked on snatches for about 30 minutes. To put it straight, my form sucks and I need to work on it. He taught me a lot of good stuff but now I just need to practice because despite his teachings I continued to make the same mistakes because that's just what my body wants to do. They say snatches and cleans take a few years to truly master. Some of my problems: The catch: I don't catch it "back" and firm, I catch it forward and am making my arms work (which I know contributes to my shoulder problems), you need to get those shoulders back and catch that bitch with your arms locked and shoulders active, behind the ears. Also, on the way up he literally scrapes his legs with the bar, I have the bar out some. My knees are over my feet on the catch too, so my quads are doing the catch work instead of my glutes and back. I could go on and on, for those of you who have been trained on the snatch you know how many ways there are to mess it up. I know he catches these with his back because the dude is ripped. He'd never say that though. R I P P E D. And... could whoop all of our asses at the same time, but seems far too nice to do something like that. So we did snatches and warm-up for like 30 minutes, and then because I had to go, it was time to get pukey, so Michael chose FGB for a metcon. Thanks a lot man! I got the Muscle Driver "Clock Gone Bad" clock from Chelle for Christmas so I was anxious to fire it up. That thing is cool, but it doesn't allow you to time rounds. Does that really matter, your round times, or does the final time only matter? It actually has a FGB button, so you juct click it and it gives you a 10 second prep timer, then does a 3,2,1,go!! sequence and beeps loud every 60 seconds and stops after 17 minutes (has the same type of thing for 20/10 tabata). Also got a pocket sized HD camcorder (flip mini HD or something like that). I'll post a few vids of the WOD tomorrow. I scored a 305 which is a PR, but caveats (which have always applied, so it's a true PR for me)... My wall ball target is 9'4" (and I know that extra 8" costs a couple reps) and also rounds 2 and 3 I did box step-ups and not jumps because something weird is going on. The site indicates this is a fair sub, but I know jumping takes more out of you (and it's more fun). When my legs get fatiguted I can't do Box Jumps without eating poo (shin to box, fall on face) and I don't know why. That was not true until a few months ago. Anway, what a great day in the garage gym. You can stop reading my BS now. Here's a link about Michael. http://www.usadojo.com/biographies/michael-casey.htm He wants to start posting with us too (he has a few times before). We are tied for our PR on the 2K row so it's on. Rowing is the only thing I am decent at it seems. I should focus on it so that when you guys all kill me all the time, at least I can outrow you. When I posted the first 2K throwdown he beat me. He got 7:09 to my 7:15 but I have since matched it, but Jacob has the blog record (of course, he's made of hydraulics), 7:02 I believe. They say the elite rowers can get sub 7's. Who's got it in them? Tomorrow's WOD (5K row) makes my cringe, because I HATE rowing hard, especially that far, and I love it. Last week I tried and quit. I QUIT! Jacob says when you quit on the WOD you quit on yourself. Tomorrow I won't quit, even if my time sucks. I always set a PR pace, so I think because I couldn't hold that last time I quit. That, and I thought I was going to vomit for real. Seriously, it's the hardest thing in the gym in my opinion. I think I figured out why though... I have this idea that when you are rowing, you are not allowed to stop and rest, you have to finish it out unbroken the whole way through. No rest is allowed. Must have something to do with the fact that I am on a machine. It's like we have to keep moving together. Sorry so long. Your readership is optional though. Quit reading this crap. Why are you still reading it? Good evening gentlemen