This is Dylan Vandenburg and Samuel “Shark” Kahn. I’ve had the opportunity to work with them in private training sessions over the past few months and have had a GREAT time doing so. I’ve known Shark for many years now as he and his parents have been involved with and doing CrossFit since before we ever had a website or our own facility. (If it weren’t for his parents we may well have never even had our own facility.) Anyway, over the past few months I’ve had the opportunity to work with Samuel and Dylan as private training clients. During that time I’ve gotten to know them both quite a bit more and have grown quite fond of them. They have great attitudes, are a lot of fun to work with, and just are genuinely great kids. They were both best friends with Blake Glassman (Coach’s son) growing up, before I helped the Glassman’s move to AZ. Dylan will be heading to New York for College soon, and Shark to Hawaii. Samuel “Shark” Kahn is a very talented and competitive sailor and has been a part of the Internationally competitive Pegasus-Sailing Racing Team for a long time. I’ve had a GREAT time working with them over the past few months and they have both been doing SO well and making consistent gains and improvements across the board, consistently getting PR’s in Weightlifting, Gymnastics and the CrossFit “Storms”. Just last night they did “FRAN” for the first time and they did legit kipping pullups and used the specified 95 lb barbell load for the Thrusters!!! Samuel got 6:19 and Dylan 8:02. Again, that was their FIRST TIME ever doing “Fran” and they did the whole thing as Rx’d! That was so fucking cool!--I was so stoked for them!!!

I’m really happy I’ve been able to work with them during the past few months as not only have I had a great time training them, but I have gotten to know them as friends and have grown quite fond of them.

...Between private clients and group-class clients, I have several who will be going away to college within the next few weeks. To be quite honest, I’m really bummed about that because as you already know, my clients are the most important thing to me and I usually develop a strong bond with my clients. Well, ...I have been mentally “prepping” myself, I guess you could say, for all of them leaving for school, knowing full well that I’m really going to miss them. Well, anyway, ...It was my understanding that I had another few weeks to work with Shark, just as I do with everyone else, before he leaves for college, but during our training session on Sunday evening he told me that he is leaving this coming Thursday. ...I was a little shocked and it hit me kind of hard. I bit my cheek and we finished out the workout, but after they left it just caught up with me a bit and I got teary eyed. (Ok, so I pretty much fucking cried a little.--I know, pathetic, right?) Anyway, yah, it hit me kinda hard. I started to get teary eyed and I didn’t want them to see me so I sent em on a quick warmup run while I gathered myself. I didn’t want them to see me all broken up about it because I just want their last few days training here to be a lot of fun. I want them to have a great time before they leave for school so I didn’t want them to see me getting teary eyed. As I said though, after they left I shed a few tears. I just couldn’t fucking help it. I mean, I tried not to, believe me I tried. I love those kids man, and I’m really going to miss them when their gone.

So, as a Coach, is that pathetic of me?...Crying because my clients are leaving and I’m going to miss them? Well, if it is then so be it. Those kids mean a lot to me and I really care about them and I’m going to miss them. Period. It’s been a great experience training them and getting to know them.

Shark will be in good hands, I think, at CrossFit Oahu training with Bryant Powers. Bryant made the Top-Ten cut of contestants for G4TV’s contest to send one competitor from the United States to Japan to compete in “Ninja Warrior”. Out of ten (TEN!!!) seasons and hundreds of contestants, only two individuals have ever completed all four stages of Ninja Warrior. Bryant was just notified by G4TV that of the ten finalists, he made the top-three cut and will be flown down to LA to compete against the other two finalists for the one G4TV sponsored opportunity to represent the United States (and CrossFit) in the Ninja Warrior Challenge. Pretty cool, I think. Not only did Bryant Powers have a great audition video, but he was the ONLY one to do everything in one take! ...Yah, ...I think Shark will be in good hands in Oahu. ...But I am still really going to miss him and Dylan.

I realize I haven’t really been including some of the workouts I put myself through or expose my clients to, so I’ll start doing that from here on out. Try doing the following:
BW Thruster, 2xBW DeadLift; 2 rounds at 10/10. 5/5, ...”For Time”, of course. :) That’s right, 10 BodyWeight Thrusters and 10 Double-BodyWeight Deadlifts, then five and five. Hit it hard and fast. My last time was 4:26, but I am pretty certain I can do it in less than three minutes. I will get it in less than three minutes for sure. Eventually I want to get it in less than two minutes. ...If that’s too easy for you, try the same loads, but do three rounds, doing 15/15, 10/10, 5/5. I finished that in JUST under ten minutes at 9:58. But I am certain that I will get it in less that 7:30. I’d really like to get sub 7:00, but it’s pretty fucking hard. ...It’s amazing how double the reps can make it that much harder. *lol* I really like the 10/10, 5/5 format though because you can really go for it; hit it hard and fast and just fucking CRUSH it and blaze through it and simply crumble and suffer the consequences afterwards. *lol* There’s a lot to be said for being able to be very STRONG and EXPLOSIVE at very HIGH heart-rates, ...but I’ll touch on that later.