ENTER THE KETTLEBELL: PAVEL PUSHES FORWARD
29 September 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
One of the great lessons to learn when writing instructional material is to learn how to write to communicate instead of writing to impress. Generally speaking fitness authors fall into one of two broad categories: good writers with weak athletic backgrounds or good athletes that are weak writers. Rare indeed is the superior athlete that is a superior writer/communicator. Pavel Tsatsouline is a great athlete and a great communicator. In the world of health and fitness (and all things related) there is an elemental truism that is often overlooked (or forgotten) by writers seeking to impress: In the physical transformation universe when the “expert” creates a book, DVD or tape the irreducible goal is to trigger transformation. The writer’s goal (dare I say job?) is to relate some system, some tactic, some technique that allows the reader to morph their physique. Improvement can be quantified and measured in many ways but ultimately people purchase fitness-related material in hopes the information contained within will favorably alter physical performance or the current configuration of their body. From our Purposefully Primitive ultra-simplistic standpoint, the irreducible elemental goal of fitness-related activity is to melt off unsightly, unhealthy body fat and/or build muscle. If an individual is successful at attaining the twin goals (more muscle/less fat) a cornucopia of benefits are realized: power and strength skyrocket, stamina and endurance improve and newfound vitality and energy acquired. By adding more muscle and reducing body fat every desirable physical attribute you can name can and will be achieved. As one old sage succinctly put it to me recently, “No matter how great the athlete and regardless the discipline, performance improves if the athlete somehow is able to add additional functional muscle and/or reduce body fat.” A stronger, leaner athlete is a better athlete.
Pavel Tsatsouline approaches fitness from such an awkward angle that he defies classification. Any feeble attempt to pigeonhole him and his unique approach is an exercise in pure futility. To paraphrase my own observations I wrote when reviewing his previous book, Beyond Bodybuilding - while everyone else exists within the bodybuilding echo-chamber, busily rearranging the contents of the box and claiming it as some new breakthrough, Tsatsouline stands outside the box and this vantage point allows him the clarity to construct an entirely new approach to an age-old dilemma of building the body. When he told me that he was working on his next book I silently wondered how he could top Beyond Bodybuilding. His solution was to strike off in a totally new direction. Enter the Kettlebell, Strength Secrets of the Soviet Supermen bears zero resemblance to Beyond Bodybuilding. Like a great musical artist after a hit album, he was faced with the dilemma of what to create as a follow-up. The strong critical praise heaped on BB made it a tough act to follow. Like an artist who decides to follow up a platinum selling rock album with a solo acoustic effort, Pavel went back to his roots…akin (perhaps) to Springsteen following up the biggest selling album of his career with the acoustic “Nebraska.” Enter the Kettlebell is perhaps the best single book ever written on the subject: part historical, part philosophic, part training manual, the sum total is impressive, informative, instructional and above all communicates solid training information that allows the reader to transform physically to that leaner, more muscular body they sought initially and motivated them to purchase the book to begin with. Pavel commences Enter the Kettlebell with some informative retelling of the history and the early pioneers of this uniquely Russian fitness-art. The book shifts into a manual of specific kettlebell drills. Out of 180 pages a full 120-pages are devoted to Kettlebell drills. The clarity of the text is exemplary: the layout strikes a terrific balance between text and photos. Clean and lean, this book is purposefully stripped down and functional, nothing superfluous or ornamental allowed.
If the job of the fitness writer is to communicate this book is a benchmark. The prose is spare and lean as Pavel’s physique; the whole endeavor reeks of testosterone without a whiff of commercial compromise. He tells terrific tales of the great Kettlebell hoisters of yesteryear without a hint of embellishment: real feats of power and strength don’t need hyperbole – true grit is best told flat, without embellishment as inflation cheapens phenomenal feats. I want to take a quick minute and make a couple of technical observations…Its damned hard to write well but it’s twice as hard to write well in a second language. Pavel’s writing style has matured so quickly and so appropriately that it puts me in mind of several all-time great writers who mastered second languages. Joseph Conrad was a Russian Pole who didn’t learn English until age eighteen yet mastered the intricacies of his new language to a point where he is considered the greatest of all English short story writers. (Hemingway’s 49 short stories cannot compare to the sheer volume of Conrad’s English accomplishments) Vladimir Nabokov is perhaps the greatest second-language writer in history; be it the novel, short story or his insightful literary criticism, he was the undisputed Mack-Daddy. Pavel Tsatsouline had some initial awkwardness with the slang and subtleties of his new language a decade ago but that is now ancient history. He is concluding his first decade as a published English writer and I suspect strongly that each subsequent offering will outstrip its predecessor both in terms of communicative content and economy of phrasing.
As great jazz musicians mature they learn the value of note economy and are able to say far more by playing far fewer notes: notes that have far more impact. Initially the young jazz musician seeks to share with his contemporaries that he has mastered the technical intricacies of the instrument. They reel off sheets of sound and thunder and roar like young musical lions, announcing their presence via virtuosity. After years or decades of maturation, they take their technical virtuosity for granted and concentrate on communicating. They learn the value of spaces and gaps and what is not said within the song format and eventually play with a transcendental, ethereal lightness and bite that leaves the listener in a state of rapture. I think with this latest offering Pavel has announced the end of his technical virtuosity phase and is about to enter that mature phase that only comes with time and experience. Pavel’s ever-growing army of readers will be the ultimate winners. I wonder what direction he’ll strike off on to next.
Tags:Popularity: 7% [?]
Related Posts:
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
