The Sevan Podcast - #401 - Jami Tikkanen

Episode Date: May 17, 2022

DREAM TEAM coach and L1 Flowmaster takes a break from coaching the top fittest Europeans, Australians and Americans to catch up with Sevan since they last saw each other at some Regional back in 2017.  Sign up for our email: https://thesevanpodcast.com/ ------------------------- Partners: https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://thesevanpodcast.com/ - OUR WEBSITE https://sogosnacks.com/ - SAVE15 coupon code - the snacks my kids eat - tell them Sevan sent you! https://www.hybridathletics.com/produ... - THE BARBELL BRUSH https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS https://usekilo.com - OUR WEBSITE PROVIDER ------------------------- #TheSevanPodcast #CrossFitGames #CrossFit Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Krum. Krum. Krum. Krum. Austin, good morning. We're ready. I'm ready, too. He's not here.

Yami Tinkanen. Tinkanen? He sent me a picture this morning of him training with Björgman Carl Gudmundsson. And it says, I'm still at the gym with this guy it might get tight to finish before 4 p.m i guess that's what time it is over there in the um cold country i'll most likely be ready 15 past does that work for you well of course it does thank you for the heads up take your time no stress this is just a show that just goes and goes and goes. Carly, good morning. Nizzle, Graham, Christine, Nate. Oh.

Hmm. What to do for 15 minutes. Yami and I go way back. I mean, I was trying to remember the first time we met it must be like 2009 or 10 pretty pretty far back i what's weird is is that already kind of seemed like the second chapter to me at uh over there at crossfit inquire i used to work like 2006 7 8 i was kind of just just had my head down just making videos. I mean, I got to know everyone, but it was, it was a little bit of a bumpy ride. Um, not in a bad way, not in a bad, just, um, you know, learning stuff. Like when you first learn how to ride a

bike, you got to ride off the curb. You got to ride up the curb. You got to learn bunny hops, wheelies, all that stuff. I just had to learn. I had to learn i was the dirt twirling hippie liberal boy from uh from berkeley and i was getting immersed in a um in a project that and it's in its origins were to um build a fitness program that would help first responders help people whose lives depended on their fitness right you want be, you got to climb up into a window CrossFit. It was the, uh, workout regimen for you. Um, and of course I was just, I was just turned onto it. Um, because I thought it was cool that so many of these things I had never done in my life. I couldn't remember ever running a 400 meter as fast as I could ever. And here I am at 34 years

old, trying it for the first time. Weird. You ever spend any time in San Diego? So on. Yes, I used to live in San Diego. I lived in San Diego for three years in Del Mar with Greg Glassman at his house with my wife. And actually Avi was born in our home in Berkeley, but then we just, we were living with Greg.

We had Avi and then we went back down and me and Avi and Haley, we all lived in the same house. It was cool. So fun. It was full immersion. I can't remember. I can't ever, we just worked, work, work, work, work, work. And it was play too. It was fun. You know, uh, it was, it was an environment. It was like working in a classroom. It was constantly learning. The company was exploding, was exploding.

I'm trying to remember what years those were. Those were probably like, I don't know. I'm just making this up. 2012, 13, 14, or maybe it's 14, 15, 16. I'm not sure. But yeah, I lived down there. David was living down there at that time. There was some, the general counsel was living down there. I think Marshall was down there i think marshall is down there

um uh there was another guy um steve weiss dale saran um brian mulvaney everyone was down there everyone was down there i'm actually when it's it's weird i now accept uh i when i think of where dave lives now i do think of him living in Santa Cruz, but forever, that was just so weird. I never imagined any of us would move up here, would all live up here. Corey, good morning. Kenan, good morning. Teddy Williams, what's up? San Diego is great. If you had unlimited resources, Cachola, and there was any one place you could live in the world, it would be almost crazy not to put San Diego at the very, very, very, very, very top of that list. And recently I just spent two weeks in Newport.

Oh, I'm so hungry. That's weird. I think in 400 shows I've never said that. I just got hungry. I didn't eat yesterday. Yesterday was my fasting day. I fasted for more than two years every single Saturday night to Monday morning. I stopped eating Saturday night and I started eating again Monday morning. Done that for over two years now. My wife got me onto it. She's like two weeks ahead of me. Oh, already a text from my wife. That's weird. Did the dog eat? Yes. ahead of me oh already a text from my wife that's weird did the dog eat yes um so san diego just has crazy resources crazy crazy resources everything's down there it's expensive but it's got it all san diego also has that thing where uh i don't know if we just want to jump right into this but the i think san diego school district has that law where you can't give kids homework and judge them, grade them based on the homework they turn in because it's racist. So sweet. The insanity.

So today we have Yami Tinkinen. I may have not have seen him. I was trying to remember the last time I saw him. Also, I think he taught with Chuck Carswell a level one in Italy that I went to and filmed in Milan forever ago. I mean forever ago. And I think maybe that was the last time I saw him. But I'm guessing maybe I had to have run into him at the games. Yeah, Newport's crazy crazy newport was so nice it was and it was clean the only time i was in san diego i was there five minutes and had everything

stolen from my car in coronado beach safest place in america wow wow wow that's a shame matt that sucks i'm sorry that. Yeah. I don't think of theft happening on the Island out there. I didn't spend much time on the Island. It was always, I think I went out there once to film with Andy Stumpf and then maybe a couple other times. I don't know why I went out there, but it was just always to do something over there where the Navy guys train to film something over there. Nowhere in California is hippie anymore. That's all gone. That's that's I'm in the I'm supposedly in the epicenter of that. It's gone. What happened is, is all the real hippies are now really conservative. What happened is all the real hippies are now really conservative.

All the real peace, love, freedom hippies are all conservative, and they've – that whole thing got fractured, right? In college, there were the two different groups of hippies. There's the group who like – how I kind of fancy myself is like one day I forgot to put my shoes on i lost my shoes i never wore shoes again i got my clothes out of the free box etc etc i just became i started looking like that because of the lifestyle i lived and then there was the other group of hippies who were wealthy and um and they would cut the hole in their pants and then sew the patch in just to go for that certain look. I was the hippie that smoked weed out of an apple, and then there was the other hippie that smoked weed out of the $350 chillum. I said it, chillum, glass chillum, for those of you that know.

What is the one question you didn't ask during an interview that haunts you that you didn't ask? Jason Watkins. I don't know know i'm sure there's one i'm sure there's a bunch i'm sure there's a bunch if i think of any any thoughts on andrew's new video on frederick agidius i i didn't even i didn't see the i didn't see it like how new is it today i'll go over when you say andrew you mean mr hiller the batman i'll go over here and look real quick i know i'm crazy impressed by uh by hunter mcintyre crazy crazy i think we got taylor oh frederick could get his invalid the with major penalties. I haven't looked at it. But I am going to try to get Andrew Hiller on again this Friday. I watched the woman behind the no reps.

That's his chick. Oh, I should have been paying closer attention. I didn't realize there were so many bikini shots of her in the video. I was just listening to it. And then I started listening to this one. Ben Smith and I reprogrammed the semifinals one, and I'll finish that. And then I'll get to this Frederick. I don't really know Frederick that well. I just know I'm just in passing.

Just like, hi, how are you? Congratulations on you and your wife both being amazing. I'm stoked for them. They have a kid. I'm excited Annie's coming on. I'm really curious to hear her thoughts on raising a kid man i was kind of tripping on how much um she trains she must be torn just wanting to spend every second with her kid watch it with yami uh

ah philippe, Mr. URL, man. Good to see you, brother. Good to see you. I'm looking, I'm looking through my,

um, notes for my live calling shows to see if there's anything on here that, that I could talk about everything i have on here is just so heavy and i don't oh here's something fun okay okay okay so this let me share this screen this is good this is good i thought this was cute uh here we go crossfit leadership is a coachable skill leadership is a coachable skill by michael lorenzen and uh this was published on may 10th 2022 which is uh six days ago i'm going to read you the first sentence and then i'm going to skip down to the last paragraph okay you guys ready This is – I don't even know where this is.

This is on CrossFit.com forward slash pro coach forward slash leadership is a coachable skill. I didn't even know that they were – I didn't even know they published stuff like this anymore. Is this the CrossFit Journal? What is this thing? Is it – what a bizarre – isn't it bizarre that they bought CrossFit? I mean I guess it was weird that when Greg got rid of it, but they bought CrossFit Inc. and they own the best fitness, nutrition, health journal in the world, and yet it's still hidden. You'd think there'd be a link up here on the top that says CrossFit Journal. Here we go.

The Leadership as a Coachable Skill, Michael Lorenzen, May 10, 2022, just a couple days ago, less than a week. When I started coaching gymnastics in the mid 80s, coaches didn't often take courses on coaching, communicating, listening, influencing, or any other aspect of leadership. We just copied what we saw or what you might call pattern matching. If a coach I respected offered a correction to his skill, I followed their instruction. That's the first three or four sentences. Looks like it's a good article. And then down here, there's a picture. The last paragraph is a picture of Dave Castro at the swim event, which looks like San Diego or Los Angeles. And in the picture, I see Lucas Parker. I see Lucas Parker, Josh Bridges, Dave Castro.

It looks like Tommy Hackenbrook all talking on the beach, Cole Sager, and they're having a chat. And this is the final paragraph of this article, which I find fascinating that this was published six days ago. Okay? This was published six days ago on the CrossFit website. Here we go. A final thought, a great example of effective leadership in our community is Dave Castro. From the outside, people have a lot of opinions of Dave they encounter on social media or TV. You might guess that he lives on the left side of the continuum. And I thought the same after judging a decade worth of CrossFit games, I learned that Dave has a really nuanced and effective understanding of leadership.

The people I worked with, the people I worked under at the games, mostly seminar staff, are the most talented, professional, and inspirational group of humans I've ever encountered. They would all run through walls for Dave. Even if it seemed like he was a crazy man ordering unreasonable changes, he effectively built personal, authentic relationships with each of them and understood how they worked and what they needed. He developed a sustainable, intrinsically motivating culture with his people. And when I would have rare individual encounters with Dave, he inevitably came across as kind, gentle, and open. I suspect this is a result of life as a SEAL. The more elite the unit in the U.S. military, the flatter the hierarchy, the more independent, and the greater levels of intrinsic motivation and inspirational leadership.

Dave models all of those things and is adept at applying the right tool for the right person in the right circumstance. That should be all of our goals as coaches who lead. It's an entire article on the CrossFit site from six days ago on leadership. And then the final paragraph is using Dave as an example. Hey, Yami. Hey. Yami, do you know this guy, Dr. Mike Lorenzen? No, I don't think I do. No.

I don't recognize the name either. Maybe we recognize him if we saw him. Maybe, yeah. I was trying to remember the first time we met and the last time we saw each other. I couldn't remember either. Were you at that level one

in Milan that I went to and Chuck Carswell was there? Does that sound familiar at all? No, I don't think so. It was at an indoor shooting range? Oh, yeah, yeah. I was there. We've seen after that for sure, but yeah, that was in that like crazy. They had laser tag

and indoor shooting. Yeah, I was there. They ended up being a competitor of CrossFit, right? They ended up like opening their own like equipment. Yeah. Those guys. The Cross Gym.

Yeah, there was a whole thing. There was a whole thing. Yeah, they were ambitious entrepreneurs. I don't blame them. I don't blame them. Yeah, for sure. For sure. You're in Iceland.

I'm now in Amsterdam. I am in Iceland, but we just flew in Sunday, yesterday. Yeah, we flew in yesterday and we were just at the gym training a little bit. No shit. You're getting ready. It's that close. Yeah, a couple of days, a couple of days, and then we get going with the semifinals. Are you pumped?

I'm excited. I'm excited to see. I mean, especially, you know, I've done this with BK so many times. I've done this with Annie so many times. But now we have the team competing this weekend as well. So it's going to be a different experience. It should be exciting. We have a Björgvin, Carl Gudmundsson, Annie Thor's daughter, Katrin David's daughter.

We have Tola. Yeah, Morroquino. Morroquino. Morroquino. Yes.quino. Morroquino. Yes. We have Mr. Porter, Con Porter. Yes, Mr. Porter. Is Frederick competing?

Yeah, he's going to do the age group qualifiers the weekend after the semis. But not this weekend, right? And then we have Lauren Fisher on the team. Right. As well. And then in a couple of weeks, we have Henrik Hoppelaar, who was 17th last year. Wow.

Hey, Henrik's not training in Iceland. No, he's training in Finland. He sometimes trains with Jonne as well, and he's got another training partner, Ludvig. But yeah, typically he's training in finland he sometimes trains with yonne as well and he's got another training partner ludwig but yeah typically he's in he's in finland yeah or is it uh you met annie in 2010 yeah in homestead i think you were there actually were you there in homestead for those regionals is that england where's homestead homestead is in sweden it's like where eliko headquarters oh yes i was there yes yes yes yes that's where you guys met yeah i

mean she was just this like raw diamond you know what i mean like the amount of pure potential that she had but she just hadn't been coached in crossfit really that was this that was a sectional, right? Yeah, sectional. That's it. Wow. I do remember that. Mikko kind of stole the show there. Yeah. Actually, I came there to work with Mikko as an osteopath. That's why I was there that year. So it turned out really well. Okay.

How is this? Is this the first team you've ever trained? Uh-oh. He froze. Did I freeze? Did I do that? Yami froze. Did he freeze for you guys?

Someone comment. I hear Yami's voice every single time I break a barbell set. Back to the bar. Get back. No, that wasn't Yami. I don't think that was Yami. i think you're confusing that with someone else that was um that was sarah's coach uh yami really quick before i get back to the question that wasn't you in that video who's saying back to the bar back to the bar yelling that at sarah sigmund's daughter no that was nuts yeah so brandon waddell thought that was a totally

different character that guy is i don't even know if that guy's around anymore but that was not yami yes that's someone else what was that guy's name uh it's john singleton probably no no no no it was oh eric laukelner yeah yeah yeah he was like the exact opposite of john singleton they were the dynamic duo back in the day. Yeah, yeah. John Singleton's not Finnish, is he? No, he's British. British, okay. Yeah, we went to school together, actually.

No shit? Yeah, osteopathy. Before CrossFit? Yeah. I started 2006. I was living in France at the time. Then I came to London to study, and I introduced John to CrossFit. So tell me that story again. Tell me about 2006 in France, how you ran across CrossFit. Weird, because CrossFit kind of – I mean, I guess it's going in France, but it never just like really caught on there. Yeah, so I think now, actually's it's a really huge growing market so i they are i think

i lived in france for four years i think that the culture is a little bit slow to adapt new things but then they embrace them when they get it you know really get into it um yeah so i was in in france uh from 2002 2006 and it was 2006 i was doing martial arts i was training i did at the time my background is in judo, so competing judo. But then I was doing Wing Chun. I was so excited that, you know, the guy who was teaching, Sifu Didier-Bédard, he was a student of William Chung who trained with Bruce Lee. So it's very exciting for me as a young man to be training in that academy.

And yeah, I was just training a lot. I thought I was in really good shape. I was, you know, training 10, 11 sessions a week. And then I found CrossFit and realized that I was not in a good shape at all. And how did you find it in France? By the way, did you know Dave's a huge fan of Bruce Lee? Did you guys know that? Did you know that?

I didn't know that. No. Huge. I mean, the same way, the way you talk about it, like he influenced you, he influenced Dave greatly. Yeah. I think that this was just so much good philosophy of thinking about integrating different things in different

styles you know um yeah for sure huge influence for me growing up still is um still is a little bit less so now but still definitely significant figure um yeah go ahead and crossfit in france how did it pop on your radar because i remember being i went to france one time to visit a crossfit gym there and there weren't a lot of crossfit gyms there at the time and i remember walking around paris and i never even saw anyone jogging yeah no mainly just smoking and yeah cross on yeah no i mean the culture is changing it's shifting for sure but especially for women i think that the traditional French image was different and now it's changing. It's really great to see. But I, you know, I found it online. I was just looking,

I was always just curious. So I was just looking for different ways to train, you know, get an edge on the other people who I was training with, you know, they were technically better. So I thought if I'm in better conditions, I have a better chance. And I just, you know, it was Alta Vista back in the day, not no Google. And I just searched training methods. I think I came to, you know, like T Nation and then Cyberpunk. If you know that website used to exist, it was like big, high intensity training, like weight training page, and then somehow managed to stumble across crossfit.com. And you know, I was working at a hotel night shift at that time and uh i just spent

all my night shifts just reading crossfit journal you know everything that greg glassman wrote and trying to integrate it think about it put it in practice in training how did you know how did you know when you came across it you're like okay this is it this is what i'm gonna dive in on yeah i think there's two things one i had trained I was six. So I had like a good feel of, you know, what works for my body. So when I tried CrossFit for the first time, it was like, wow, it was very, very different hit than what I was used to. And, and, and then the other side of it was the kind of the intellectual aspects to fitness that I think he really brought into it. Like thinking deeply first principles would be trendy to say nowadays, like thinking true first principles, um, about fitness. And that appealed to me

intellectually, like immediately as well. Obsessed with learning is how you've described yourself. Yes. I feel like that's a appropriate, um, to the point to where you listen to books at two speed and three speed? Yes. Especially when I was teaching the level ones and traveling all the time. And that's what I did. Like going, like I tried to read a book every weekend when I was doing that, just like the airport time and like all that airplane time. Yes. It's not as intense right now because you know, that tried to balance it with work so that it's not, everything is not so intense all the time, but yeah, there was a period when I was doing that. So, so in 2000, um, how did you end up in France from Finland? You're, you're finished, correct? Yeah, I'm finished. Um, I finished school and

then before going to university, I had studied French for a really long time, but I felt like I can't speak French and it was really frustrating to me. So there was an opportunity from Finland to go and work at Euro Disney in Paris. And so I, yeah, so I took a job interview, got hired and then just was, I was going to go for six months. And then I went, went there. Then I found a martial arts school three months later and I was like, wow, this is what I kind of always wanted to do. I kind of wanted to become a martial arts instructor. And then through that, I found a school,

Chinese medicine school through someone in that school. And I started to study Chinese medicine in France. So then I stayed for my studies. I went to work, but I stayed for the studies. What did you do at Disneyland? I did a couple of different things. I did what's called a guest flow. So it's kind of making sure that people stay where they need to stay during parades and shows and things like that. And then I did guest services, which was like guided tours, VIP tours, and dealing with all the complaints and all the issues in the park on like a guest level.

And you spoke at the time of Finnish, English and French? Yeah. The French came after, let's say, six months of having a headache every day. Then I started to I have this distinct memory of dreaming in French and being like, wow, there's something changed in my brain. Wow. And so those are your do you have any other languages besides those three? I mean, those are enough, but yeah, I can fake I can fake a couple languages like I can fake a little bit of Italian, Spanish and German. But, you know, it becomes quickly obvious that I don't actually speak them and now my new project i haven't i

moved to iceland so my new project is i'm going to learn icelandic i don't know how long it's going to take me but i will do you think you're going to stay there like is it home yeah for now it's going to be home at least we'll see how long but for now it makes a lot of sense to be there so i officially live in iceland right now well when you say it lot of sense to be there so i officially live in iceland right now when you say it it makes sense to be there um and i know this is a little bit loaded uh but does that mean uh another year beyond this year meaning that you don't think this is just a one-off um annie does the teams and then and then it disbands. No, there is definitely going to be more to come. I feel like we're just getting started.

I mean, let's say with this generation of athletes that we have right now and the team. And then, you know, I think that there's a lot of future generations coming from Iceland as well. So it'd be nice to actually build something in there, you know, that's more long lasting. to actually build something in that, you know, that's more long lasting. Anyone in specific you're talking about? Because the generation that you're working with, I've been extremely pessimistic about and unjustifiably so. I mean, I thought I would never have guessed and I would never bet $5 that Annie would be on podium last year.

It really is truly one of the most remarkable things I've ever, ever, ever, ever seen in a sport. It's, I mean, she was at the 2009 games. She had a baby. She had a massive injury. And those two girls she was on the podium with are the two best, I mean. Yeah. Like those are the two best ever.

I mean, I think if any of those three girls who are on those are the two best ever i mean i don't i think if um any of the any of those three girls who are on the podium can go to any of the games and win i think i mean in my opinion yeah for sure i you know i i've said this every time last year was like holding things together with duct tape and chewing gum you know every day was a struggle and a challenge and we were able to yeah because of logistics or injuries or um that there's a that there's a baby or i mean it's just yeah like it's everything right like it's just like her getting used to being a mom and what that entails on day to day yeah and then coming back from you know pretty traumatic childbirth uh that was not easy to recover from and and then you know

or everything that you have to deal with as an athlete with your identity between being a you know a professional athlete and being a mom and and you know being a girlfriend to to frederick and and everything else you know like that there's a lot to manage and then just having you know some things post-pregnancy that need to be that need to be dealt with um so just keeping her body you, doing things that her body could handle on a given day. And that was always variable, you know, that would always be a moving target. So we have to constantly adapt things. And I think that was like, there was such a good learning experience, because there was, you know, every day was a new challenge, basically.

But keeping, you know, being able to keep that together, that was really what I refer to as like with the duct tape and chewing gum, you know, just trying to keep the boat afloat for long enough for it to make it to the harbor i want to come back to this i got too many threads open right now i want to i want to finish this uh i really want to come back to this it's fascinating um the the team uh the team i want to talk about the team in future years okay so let's go back so so you go when you go to um france and you start martial arts had you done martial arts before then yeah so i started judo when i was six i was kind of like i was good enough to make it to the national team so that they would have someone to be thrown around and i could go compete internationally to lose a game you know a match

that was kind of my level so i was i was like a good athlete i i knew how to train hard but i always thought too much to be a good athlete you know like oh interesting yeah yeah too analytical for my own good you know not necessarily in a productive way like someone like fikowski would be in in crossfit but maybe more in like generating too much anxiety in competition setting about worrying about all the potential outcomes and things like that so yeah i think i knew relatively early on that I'll probably make a better coach than an athlete, but I also loved pursuing that side. You know, these, um, I, I, I can see that in you, um, that, that is, I, is this is a little bit of time I've spent with you. Like I see you like that as an analytical person or someone who's thinking, not that you're not present, but that you're present with your thoughts.

And what's interesting is when I think of people like Rich Froning, I don't think that I just think of him as a good old boy, you know, just like, I just get out there and work. But if you talk to him, he, he, um, he's, he's sitting in his motor home at night during the games and he's not sleeping and he's running through exactly what you said, all the possible outcomes. And it's fascinating. That's a must, though, isn't it, to be successful? Oh, to be able to be self-aware. Well, but yeah, and to be going through the processes.

That's part of it, doing that work at night. It's not just managing that thing and telling it to be quiet. It's attending to the thoughts, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that the more mature I get, the more I realize that it's good to accept yourself as you are and learn how to manage yourself, you know, rather than try to change yourself to be something you're not. So I think it is important, but I do think that athletes deal with it differently. There are athletes who don't think about it so much. They will get nervous and stressed and they have to deal with it, but they might not be... Not everyone will think about what's the seventh order consequence of this action. Some people are happy with the first or the second order consequence and that's okay

for them. And that makes it, I think, the process more manageable. There's less permutations of what's possible. What does that mean, the seventh order versus the first order? What does that mean? What's order mean? Right, like what's order in this? Like, okay, if I do this now, if I spill this water, the table is going to be wet. And then maybe the second order is I might slip on that water that went on the floor. Oh, shit.

And then the next is like maybe I need to go to the hospital this weekend, and now I can't copy coaching. You know, so it's like that. Wow. So, wow, I never thought of it like that. So the chess player that we admire who can think seven moves ahead to fix a solution also is tortured by those same thoughts by having to think – by thinking seven moves ahead on something that's irrelevant and out of their control. Yeah, yeah. Like all these superpowers have the kryptonite to them as well, for sure.

Okay. So, um, and, what's his name? Does, so your, your program is called the training plan.

Yes. Yes. And then the other judo guy, his program is called training think tank. Yeah, Max. And I was actually just, uh,

Sarah was training with us. So Max was there. Um, I was just came from the gym with them. Sarah, by the way, said, why don't you call her no more? And she would love to be on the show. She told me to tell you. You know what's hard about communicating with her? Actually, this is just me being a baby. First of all, she's always welcome on the show. I love her on the show. She's dope. But her phone is finicky.

Do you text with her or do you DM with her? She responds to DMs very quickly. But when I text with her, sometimes she's blue. Sometimes she's green. I never know whether she got them. Do you text with her? I think Instagram is the fastest way to reach her. It is. But I encourage people to do that but still okay okay i just assume like someone like her her um inbox must be just a shit show i can only imagine yes yeah yeah i'd like to dig through it

one day if she ever wants to give me her password i'd love to dig through it i feel like uh some pictures i'm after i feel like that's a definitely never gonna happen i agree but we can dream we can dream we can dream sarah send me your uh access to your instagram account okay so um so then you you go to france and that's when the whole the chinese medicine thing stops starts up the um what'd you call it osteopath yeah so so i went to my idea this very like uh somehow naive idealistic idea as a young man was you know if i can learn how to harm with my hands i have to heal with my hands so i wanted to have the chinese medicine and the martial arts it's about like a very traditional chinese kung fu movie kind of thing um and then when i studied chinese medicine

there was a lot of that chinese medicine is very hard to understand for a Western mind if you don't understand Chinese language. I think it's so much of it is metaphor. And Chinese language is very much a metaphor in itself. So I was always more interested in the manual side of things. So I did acupuncture. I did manual therapy. But the manual therapy was always interesting.

And we had a couple of people who were osteopaths, French- French trained osteopaths, which is a little different than what I did. But they were very good with their hands. And I wanted that. You know, I was like, wow, you are better than our teachers with what you do with your hands. It's like I want to learn that. Where can I go? What you said there, if you don't speak Chinese, Chinese medicine can be hard to get your head wrapped around. speak Chinese, Chinese medicine can be hard to get your head wrapped around. Is that because the Western mind is always in duality that it's, it's not present? Yeah. The language supports

that. Let me give you just one quick example. I could say to you, I don't like Yami and people would jump to the conclusion that I dislike you when really all I'm pointing at is that I don't like you. And that maybe the option is, is that I love you, really all I'm pointing at is that I don't like you. And that maybe the option is, is that I love you, but the Western mind does, it doesn't stay still and, and, and just sit there and be like, okay, well then we don't know what's how it always has to be jumping and grasping at something as opposed to, if I said I dislike you, then it would be very clear that I dislike you. Is that it? Is it something in there? It's something, yeah, I think that that's something to that, that kind of Western duality

concept. Absolutely. But I think it's also learning how to read between the lines. And if you don't understand the language, reading between the lines is very difficult. I just felt that there was a lot of metaphor that, you know, what you learned in a book that was translated, let's say I was studying in French, so it's translated from Chinese to French. So we'd lost something in translation already and interpretation of the author who translated it. Then I'm trying to read this text and then I'm trying to understand what it means when the dragon lands on the well on a spring day, you know, not that extreme, but I was like, say that again. like that yeah when the dragon lands on this on the well on the on the well on on the spring and in a spring day on a spring day but you know i that's not really

a real example but it's it's kind of to give the idea that the language is so poetic that you need to have quite a deep cultural understanding to be able to read between the lines and i i've always felt that if i want to learn something, I want to learn it deeply. Like I want, I want to understand the principles so I can apply them. If I just know the technicalities, it's like,

just doesn't click with me. I don't feel like I know it, you know, it's like a Richard Feynman, you know, to know the name of the bird is not to know the bird, you know, it's kind of like you need to understand deeper.

And I just felt like I can, I will never reach, I'm not willing to invest that much time to learn the Chinese language and culture to then be able to get deep into that topic. And that's why I was like, this is enough for me. I did a diploma, and I was like, okay, I'm good. I'm good. And that's where you met Singleton? Yeah, John was in the same school as me.

I'm just tripping on that. Are you tripping on that? Isn't that weird? It is weird. What was his background? Do you know if he was in martial arts? Yeah, he actually was. He went to China to study Kung Fu.

He was in like a school, Chinese Kung Fu school for a while. So he was also very serious about martial arts. Yeah. So all three of you are a little bit overach overachiever eccentric um you uh john and um and uh max max got max was i i it's been a long time since i spoke with him but um not a long time there's been a lot of people a lot of shit has forgotten from my brain but he was obsessed and he came from a he was a real uh i think he took it to the level that you took it to, like the national level. And it was judo.

His was judo too, right? Was it judo or wrestling? I'm not 100% sure. I need to speak with him about it. I didn't realize actually that he had done judo. Maybe I did. I don't know. You guys both aren't real – you guys aren't really – I was going to say aren't really big speakers.

You're both big speakers, but you guys don't engage unnecessarily. In what context? I'm just saying, like, if the two of you were in a room and you were training your athletes and he was training his athletes, it wouldn't be weird if you guys didn't talk. Yeah, we would say hi. We would definitely say hi. We'd be friendly and we'd talk. We might talk about something really random then. We certainly spoke today. But we also, I think we respect each other as professionals and we both understand what it takes. So then we leave each other the space to do the work that we need to do. What gym are you guys at? Can you say?

or maybe I shouldn't, but I will say we went to CrossFit Amsterdam. It's, if you have never seen this gym, it's just really beautiful. They have their own boats. They're just by the water. Apparently, so the guy, I don't know, I think he's the, I don't know if he's the only owner, but he's been there for a really long time. I did his level one back in the day. We've known each other for over 10 years.

This was the first time I got to go see his box. And it's just, it's a great space and yeah they have access to the water you could go jump and swim straight from that you could do a swim workout from the gym basically in a canal and they have their own boat which is random oh that that bring i know fuck i'm all over the place but that brings me that is really random by the way and i wonder how many gyms have that but that brings me to that is really random, by the way, and I wonder how many of you have said that. But that brings me to this. I saw this on your Instagram. And speaking of jumping in a river, this is pretty awesome right here.

This is pretty awesome. Where – this is in Geneva? No, this is in Thun. Yeah, this is in Thun. So this river – What country is that? That's in Switzerland. Yeah, it's in Switzerland. And yeah, there is in Thun. So this river. What country is that? That's in Switzerland. Yeah, it's in Switzerland.

And yeah, there is this bridge. There are higher bridges. This was the one I chose to jump from. Well, it's not the bridge. It's the water. Look how aggressive that water is. Yeah, it's wild. It's wild.

You just want to stay on the surface. You don't want to dive. Otherwise, you don't know where you end up. Who's that who jumped in with you? That is Rito. He was one of our clients at our gym in London. And where do you get out? Oh, there are like a couple of spots.

There are some stairs like on the left that you can't see, like little ladders that you can get out. And it gets calmer like, you know, further down so you can get out a little easier. Yeah, it looks hairball. I just picture like another 100 yards. You guys went over a 200-foot waterfall. Yeah, yeah, basically. There is actually a waterfall at the end. There's like a little dam, so you don't want to go that far. Crazy.

But that's so good. And it's like, it's so hot in Switzerland. You know, it's like 30, 35 centigrade. So like, let's say 100 degrees or so Fahrenheit in the summer. So that's pretty sweet. This is actually coming back from the gym like to go to the gym train jump and this river takes and you took us straight to uh his place actually oh no shit yeah so you get out and you're there yeah that's awesome did you do that

bunch of times every time i could yeah when i was there i mean it's just yeah it's awesome wow what a great story you work out at the gym then you jump in a fast-moving river and it takes you to your front door yeah exactly and people there will have like dry bags with them so they put all their stuff and they actually use this in the summertime as like a means of short distance transportation you know is this someone in the window too i just noticed i'm watching you uh right there is that a lady that yeah i don't know who that is they probably get the show i mean that bridge is people are jumping from it all the time when it's warm so is that legal probably i'm in the u.s they'd never allow that that's far too far there are bridges

that are like three times taller than that that lead to a similar river that people are jumping from. So if they are allowed, then I think this one is good to go. It's good. So you do this program, and then you just – you never knew John Singleton. Is that – John – What do you mean? What's Singleton's first name? John. John. You didn't know John before.

You meet him in the Chinese school of medicine. Oh, sympathy school. Sorry, in London. That's okay. My bad. And then – oh, you don't meet him in France. No. So I study in France.

I graduate from my school. I apply for sympathy school in London, and then i moved to london from paris and start my studies there and that dude and at that point you're already doing crossfit yeah at that point yeah i had done the crossfit at that point for like a year and a half coming on two years and so you say to him hey dude you want to try this crossfit shit out and he says sure yeah i think it was kind of like i was training i would always go at lunchtime and people wondering what i was doing and i was training in a park at the time like the first time i went to a crossfit gym anywhere in the world was uh 2009 you know until then i

just trained outside in the park i'd have a set of rings and i had a kettlebell that i went to buy and i didn't have a car in london so I had to carry this kettlebell for like a couple of miles just to get it home. It's a 24, so nothing too heavy, but it was still an effort at the time. Yeah. I would just have two kettlebells, a set of rings, and then a park that had, there was like a pretty nice two loops, like a 400 and a 600 meter run loop. And yeah, most of my training was done there and then sometimes the university had a gym i i have a good story i went there was like a really the gym was really bad but they had this old pulley machine that i would do pull-ups from the pulley machine so like this like thick thing and uh maybe my best claim to fame was i was able to do one lunch break i did it's dusty

room as well i did 34 rounds of cindy holding on to this like thick thick beam instead of doing like a proper pull-up bar wow probably my all-time best performance in anything in crossfit but yeah it was it was like nothing fancy for yeah for a really long time for me in crossfit i did um six months of schooling at the university of london and the gym there was so bad. At the time, I didn't think it was bad, but now looking back in hindsight, I mean, it was bad. I mean, I had fun there, but it was just a small room, tiny with just old ass pulleys everywhere. That's kind of how it was in my school as well. Yeah. Just, just crazy pulleys.

No one else trained there. Like it was me. and then a couple of people started to join me. But yeah, it was just like, yeah, not good. Yeah, I think it was just me and just tons of Middle Eastern dudes. Oh, funny. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this team comes together.

Is this the first team you've done? Yeah. together um are is this the first team you've done yeah so i was saying before we got disconnected um was that uh we worked with uh crossfit solid which was swedish team when they finished fifth at the games this was many years back but not like this not directly i just helped them with programming and they figured things out um but yeah this is the first time i'm working with a team in this capacity and like this intensely I mean obviously like everyone's committed everyone's moved to Iceland for this project you know so yeah it's uh it's been interesting and definitely is there any is there any part of you that's um I mean as the coach you don't have you don't I mean I guess you still have BKG but is there any and I don't know how much say you have in it but is there any part of you that was like you have to swallow?

Like, no, I just want to work with Annie and BKG. And like when you first hear like a little kid that doesn't want change. Yeah, no. When Annie told me that she wanted to go team and she called me, I mean, I said this before, but like there were two things that she was going to tell me. She was either going to tell me that she's pregnant again and or she was going to tell me that she wants to go team. And how did you know that? Because the way she prefaced the phone call hey can we talk today at four and you're like that's weird she doesn't normally she would just call yeah yeah there was

yeah there was a little bit of that they were just knowing each other for so long i felt like it was in the air we hadn't really spoken about the team but i think we had mentioned it fleetingly in the past and it just felt like that's what it's going to be so when he taught she told me i was like yeah let's do it um because i believe that this's going to be. So when she told me, I was like, yeah, let's do it. Because I believe that this is going to help her grow also as an individual athlete. And I think honestly, Annie is in the best shape she's ever been. Like it's- I heard you say that a couple of days ago in an interview. Yes.

She, like, it's pretty amazing actually that she is in such a good shape. Obviously we've had to modify the training. There's less individual training and more team training and more tactics and learning how to deal with the worm and everything that goes with the team, you know, but I always felt that this is going to be an opportunity from her, like specifically from her perspective, it's going to be an opportunity to grow as an athlete. And as a human in a way that's going to help her if she wants to do individual competitions in the future. So I was, that's why I was like, okay, let's use this to take you to the next level. in the future. So I was, that's why I was like, okay, let's use this to take you to the next level.

Um, and I've heard you, I've heard you talk about that too. In the, in the end, this isn't, or maybe at the top of the pyramid, I forget exactly how you phrased it, but this is about just growing as a human. It looks like people are doing CrossFit. It looks like people are training. It looks like people are coaching. It looks like people are running a business. But in the end, it's all really just human growth. It's just progress of just becoming a better human every single day or expanding your capabilities, your abilities, your awareness. Yeah. And I think it's also about, I am the kind of person that I need to feel like my work is meaningful. And I remember there is this very good video. It's on YouTube somewhere. There's like a Jewish rabbi who talks about the story of two vagrants, you know, people who just like, just these two people just standing around, they get arrested by the police. They're being asked,

what are you doing? And the one person says, I'm doing nothing. And the other one is asked, well, what are you doing? Saying, oh, I'm helping the other guy. And the moral of the story is that if you're helping someone who's doing nothing, then you're doing nothing. And that really stuck with me. So when I think about coaching, when I think about, like, one, helping the athletes grow as people and using this context as the means to that end very much, I think that the other side that's really important and makes the work really meaningful

is the inspiration that these athletes can have on other people's lives. You know, if they can get other people off the couch or they can get you know especially female athletes can get little girls inspired to feel like they can be something especially in countries where it's not so easy traditionally and i've had enough stories about that in regards to specifically for example annie that that's really the other important aspect for me so it's like the growth of the human individual human but it's also kind of like some kind of a contribution in one way or the other for humanity, at least through inspiration. So I think that's really important. Do you have a girlfriend? Let's not talk about my private life.

We're in a little bit of a situation right now. Let me ask you, do you have kids? No kids, no. BKG and Katrin and Annie talk and they were speaking in Icelandic and it was being translated on the bottom. And I really like, even though I have no idea what they're saying, it really resonated with me. Like these are three people from this Island. This is their home. They speak the same language. And then I was like, wow. And Yami picks up his life and goes there. Is there any,

and you've, that's your whole life for the last, right? Long time. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and how old are you? Um, I'm 39, 39. I guess that's not that old. I didn't have my first kid till I was 43, but is there any, do you, and being a thinker, do you think about where you're going to just finally land or or no yeah yeah i do i do and i feel like i have more clarity uh but yeah i mean for me you know iceland right now for example as a place to live you know indefinitely it's it's that that absolutely would work for me you know as long as i can get out of there every now and then yeah i mean it's just funny like coming to amsterdam i was just showing like two max i was showing two pictures like pictures of here's iceland beautiful you know scenery in iceland but the colors are very dull you know in

iceland like there are no vivid colors in iceland at least this time of the year and then coming to amsterdam and you know there's everything is so lush and everything is so green and bright and radiant there is a stark contrast that was kind of interesting to see now that i spent so much time in iceland in in one go you know so there are things that iceland doesn't have to offer but as long as you get to travel i think it's it's absolutely fine there is the presupposition that um relationships would be harder for someone who's traveling but but maybe it maybe it's not, maybe that's just bullshit. Maybe it's just, yeah. I mean, I was never, I was never home, uh, for the first, you know, five, six, seven, eight years of my CrossFit journey and, and, and it works.

Yeah. Yeah. It certainly has worked for me in the past as well for a long time. So yeah, absolutely. I think you can, you can make it happen but you need to um be the right kind of people for it to work like it has to work for both parties and if and if you can do that you can do anything yes yes although it's very different to spend time together versus spend time apart you know that's also it could also go so that you can spend time apart but you can't spend time together when you know extended periods of time so i think it both ways it's funny you said the hardest part for me in my relationship was always the the day i came back because i would have a little bit of ocd like i would come back and the entry was hard like hey where like where's my shit yeah i mean i when i did the ones, I would do like years when I did 48 seminars in a year.

So I was on the road almost all the time. Like just living out of a bag. Basically living out of a go-rock for that time, yes. And you were Flowmaster. Yeah, yeah, pretty early on. I think it was 2011 or 2012 I started to do Flowmaster. Yes. Are you glad you had that experience, the or 2012 I started to do Flowmaster. Yes. Are you glad you had that experience, the whole L1 team, the Flowmaster, all that?

Absolutely. I mean, I loved it. It's just a great group of people. It's just nice to be part of a group of people where everyone wants to get better all the time and they really care about their work. You know, just that culture that's being – you know, that was created. You know, I think Daveave and nicole for a huge part obviously greg glassman but the dave and nicole really molded the culture to be what it was and i think just having that pre like the expectation of standards that you know at the

end of each time if i got to observe the other trainers for example there was always feedback they wanted the feedback they expected the feedback because they want to get better and i always had the expectation that of course there is going to be feedback at the end so you go through every weekend trying to be better every single time for me that's like that's the environment that i want to be in i i suspect that 999 out of a thousand people who heard what you just said really didn't get it. There were 199 people that are not my people. That one person, that's the one. And the reason why I say that is because – and I wouldn't get it except that I got to see the peak.

I don't know if I could handle being on that team. And you described it perfectly. The feedback is real. It's hardcore. You guys give each other some fucking brutal feedback. It's every weekend. You never get to be perfect. You know what I mean?

I mean, it's a – but the other piece that I don't think that's really hard to understand is there's a culture, like a real culture. Like you don't use that word lightly. Like it's a crazy culture amongst you guys. Healthy. Yeah. Powerful. If you can handle it, you know, it can also be very unhealthy. But obviously the internship process, the intent is to see how people handle feedback as well. You know, and I had a lot of interns and not a lot of people.

I think I only ever passed two or three people for the team out of over 50 people that i must have seen and it's just crazy did you guys hear that only two or three out of 50 put your hands together for lady raven dad thank you this is literally the best day of my life on august 2nd what's with all the police trucks outside you know the butcher goes around just chopping people up comes a new m night shamalan experience the feds are hurt he's gonna be here today josh hartnett i'm in control and salika as lady raven this whole concert it's a trap. Trap, directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Only in theaters August 2nd. Imagine you're in Ottawa paddling along the Rideau Canal. Oh.

Then ziplining across the Ottawa River between two provinces. Ah. Before cycling along a picturesque pathway. Oh. And seeing your favorite artist at a giant outdoor music festival. Ah. Adventure awaits in Ottawa. From oh to ah. Plan your Ottawa adventure

at ottawatourism.ca. Yeah, I mean, that's about the ratio, but I think it is. I'm actually trying to find it. This is a great quote that I wanted to say perfectly from Jordan Peterson. This was great. It's's like i don't tell people you're okay the way that you are that's not the right story the right story is you're way less than you could be you know oh oh yeah i just i actually have a clip of that for to show in a couple days yes yeah you're way less than you could be yeah and i think that's you know and you're looking for that person who understands that you know that's the right person for the team oh uh jeffrey burchfield says so what is a flow master right so flow master was kind of the head trainer for each level one or level two seminar the one that took responsibility

that everything ran on time that we've covered all the content that needed to cover that the participant experience was what it needed to be uh that we delivered a really good weekend and that all the information was there. And then, you know, there'd be administrative roles and doing after action reports for Dave and Nicole afterwards, making sure that the whole seminar as a whole is moving in the right direction, but also just really ensuring that the participants have the experience that they deserve every single time. And anything could happen. The weirdest shit would happen. So just imagine someone comes in from the week before and they're upset because they think their test was graded wrong or someone falls off a bar or the building you're in starts to flood and you have to switch locations or one

of the seminar staff gets sick or the Scantron machine that grades them stops working i mean it is and you you and dave and nicole don't expect you you have to make it work yeah you have to make it fucking work it is a when things run smoothly it's the greatest position on earth when things don't move smoothly all fucking eyes are on you right i mean yeah and you are expected to come up with the solution like there is the there is trust that you will come up with the solution and there is is also the trust that if you cannot, that you will definitely reach out to them. But like the expectation is that you, you're going to figure it out. Yeah. It's a pretty, um, if you worked at CrossFit and the, the, being on the L1 team, everyone,

at least everyone that I knew, we all admired the L1 trainers. Um, but if you were Flowmaster, you, you were, you were really, really revered and it was a really humble cool group of dudes and girls yeah yeah not a lot of not a lot of girl flow masters right lisa i'm trying to think lisa ray yeah there are denny's uh oh yeah right yeah there's definitely a few and i think more now more now but definitely a privilege to be part of that group of people absolutely um so so now you're in iceland and annie tells you she wants to go team and um do you have to before then the only people you trained were annie and bkg right and then everyone else filtered through

the training plan yeah so there were some athletes like typically the process went so that you got to a certain level like björk can follow that general programming until he made the games just because there was enough for him to make it to the games you know he i always think that the programming matters but it what matters much more is the consistency and the intent that you approach it with right so yeah so the pathway very much has been that you get to a certain level and And it's been depending on the year and a little bit of the personal relationship with the athlete and how I felt like their work ethic and other things were. But there have been other athletes that I've worked with on an individual level or some individual level as well, like Hendrik Harpelainen, for example. But there's always been like, you know, you get to a certain point and then we have the conversation about what's next. Like, it's going to take a little bit more now to reach the next level, but yeah.

people and they're this i'm gonna lose you a little bit yami lauren fisher she's been around forever oh what katrin holy cow i like i i don't want to be in the same stable as all the conport like wow now what's going on like almost like you adopted three four kids and your original two kids are like what the fuck is there any of that or do you have that discussion or i think i've always been very conscious that i need to make sure that everyone gets the attention that they need. Like just like what you have three kids. Yeah. Yeah. They all need their own attention. Some need probably more attention than others and at different times.

So I think it's kind of a little bit similar in managing those relationships and trying to be very good at seeing what people need and how to create connection with people, especially new people, like how to create connection with them and then how to make sure that, you know, the older children are also being taken care of so they don't feel like they're not getting anything. Yeah, I do do that. If I kiss one, I'm like, I go kiss the other two. Or if I – when I walk in the house after the podcast, I'll put my – I'll rub their backs and I'll make sure I – I'll consciously make sure I get each one. Yeah. Not that I – I don't notice if they care or not, but I don't want to plant that seed. And I think, I imagine that this is true for you as well.

At least it's true for me with the athletes is that these are things that you are conscious of, but you do them on these things unconsciously. I think it's very much like that because you, you can't like, you need to be a certain kind of person to have those relationships. And I think then things come automatically to you but you're also conscious that they need to happen just in case you have that day where you don't um it's you know björkvin is so easy and i think with

female athletes is always a little bit more challenging i think didn't greg glassman say that men will die for points and women will kill for points right right? They are like, I think women... Wow. Right? I think it's correct. I think it's correct. So, you know, women are, I would say in many ways, women are just more competitive than men. Like that's kind of my conclusion. And that just means that you have to manage those relationships very carefully, not in any kind of manipulative way,

but just like make sure that you take everyone um you give everyone the attention that they need and you take everyone into account i i had um uh justin madaris came on the show and then after a few months later i i cracked a joke um that i him and i didn't click and but but what but it was sincere we didn't click but i didn't mean it in a negative way at all. We really got along. I liked him. We just, like, I loved my grandfather.

I never clicked with my grandfather. And then so I invited him on the show again, and he responded, you know, oh, I thought we didn't click. I'm like, yeah, that's why we have to hang out again so we can, like, try to click. And for me, clicking is like loving someone like like we we we hold hands and we tread water together and everyone's kind of responsible for not be um not being not pulling the other guy underwater right not being lazy not taking it advantage um clicking

is like when you're both your feet are doing the egg beater maybe at the same uh rate you know and you're trying to fit in with the other person i have to i have to imagine with annie and and and bjorgvin that you you're experiencing love with them you're experiencing um beyond uh like like human communion. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for me – And if these other guys are there – sorry to interrupt. No worries. Those things take – like clicking with someone is different than getting along with them, right?

Mm-hmm. Like you start to – I mean, can you – what if there's someone there you don't click with? You just keep faking it and just hope until you make it? I think my answer would be I make sure that I do click with them. Okay. I think there's a connection. Especially Americans. You are a different culture than Lauren Fisher.

She comes from Stockton, California. I mean, it's a completely fucking different planet. Yeah. I think in short term with athletes, I mean, there are a lot of different philosophies. I say, yes, I love both Annie and Pierre Quinn. And we've had this long relationship and we are friends as well as having this working relationship together. And I think that's been really important for the longevity. But the foundation of that is trust.

And it always has to be the trust. I trust that they will do the work to get to where they want to. They tell me that they want to go. And they trust that I will do the work. And if I don't know that, I'll ask. And I find answers. And I tell them. And I'm honest.

And that foundation of trust, I think, short term, with the team, for example, I feel like we have a level of friendship already, which is great. But at the same time, they need to trust me. They don't need to like me. And that's okay. I do think that's not the case. I don't feel like they dislike me. But there's certainly times in training that they will dislike me, just like Annie and Piotrkin, et cetera, because the process is painful and difficult.

I ask them to do things that they might not want to do. At least it's hard for them to want to do those things. More than not want to do them right if they're it's it's even a different word it's um it's something that they're questioning they're questioning to the point where they're they're gonna have to kind of step into the unknown could you give me an example of that and that's where the trust is like something you would ask them to do that like needs to be done that they would that they might not be able to get their head wrapped around i i think like two different scenarios. I'd say like, oh, I can give you actually three. So one

is you're doing some, you know, you're doing conditioning work, for example, you're doing hard intervals and they might not believe that they can do the next interval because the last one was so hard that they have to, they feel like they've given their all, but I can, you know, with the experience that I have now with them I can see like I can tell them hey I believe that you could do this let's go like like if they're on the machines for example they did for example yeah and then you're like okay you're gonna rest one minute and go on 30 seconds and they're basically like are you fucking batshit crazy can't you tell I don't feel yeah they might say I don't think I can do it and then that's my time to tell them you know lend them my

confidence in them and say, hey, you can. Let's go. Let's do the work. Do you ever ignore them when they do that? Ignore is not the right word. Just don't say anything. Like, just let – that's just a thought that they had. I'm going to let it pass for them.

Yes, sometimes. And sometimes it can be just body language, you know. But I try to be very cognizant of what they need in that moment like i i think this is like communicating with athletes kind of what i was saying before a lot of it comes unconsciously but there is a very conscious process of what's the outcome that they need right now like what do they need right now to do the thing that we are doing here in that moment and i think that's that's always the like the background baseline consideration for me when

I'm speaking with them is to try to figure out what do they need right now, especially in training, like obviously we're more relaxed at sometimes, but like in that moment, I'm just looking for the outcome for them. And that can be, you know, that could be me walking away. That could be me smiling. That can be just patting them on the back or just saying something to work needs to get done. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Ultimately how it happens happens exactly yeah it's just like getting it pulling it out of them you know what do they need right now to be able to do that um that's how when i in a lot of my life um that thinking like that has is been so successful for me i'm not i don't care about being right or wrong i just need to get get what I want. I have to cross this bridge. It's like when someone says – I don't know what the example is, but when someone accuses someone of cheating – like if you were escaping from a burning building and you kipped to jump out the window and someone said that's cheating you're like okay you know like i'm okay i can live with it fine

yeah that was the point wasn't to not cheat the point was just to not uh burn yeah absolutely in the building um i have a video here i want to show you and ask you um bjorvin looks scared here and i'm wondering if you think he is um let's see what's going on. I'm wondering if you – you probably didn't sense it at the time, but I'm guessing if you – I'm wondering if you sense it now. He looks worried. Look at his face. Does he have concern that maybe he's going to lose his co-chair? No, he's concerned that I'm bench pressing more than he is. That's what it is.

Okay, good. That's what it is. I see this look on his face like, oh, shit, Yami shouldn't be doing this. He's going to… No, that's the look on my face like a couple days before the games when he does a backflip off a pier to the water or something like that. That's my face. Now, he's just worried that I'm going to bench press five kilos for him.

What is this, 315, 315 pounds? It's like just under. It's 140, so it's like a little under. Okay. He's being a good dude, and he has the training plan shirt on. I want to show you guys something that I just noticed. This is, you guys all know this already about CrossFit,

but there is a man in a wheelchair. You can see working out on the right side of the screen. Then you see one of the greatest athletes that's ever fucking walked the planet. Come in the picture stage left, Katrin, David's daughter and then right there she's putting her hands on um maybe the greatest coach easily arguable the

greatest coach in the in crossfit uh and and then high-fiving uh one of the most phenomenal human beings also male uh bjorgman carl goodman and this is i mean i just don't think you see maybe i'm wrong but i just don't think you see lebron who who isn't nearly as fit as Katrin or Björgvin, working out in this environment. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah. So cool. One of the things that really made me want to be in Iceland is that gym and the environment in there and you know that's annie's gym what gym is that that's crossfit drakevic okay and there's just so many people who

want to be better whether they are competitive like they have a great teenager group of you know a lot of you know good athletes in the coming years for sure and there is just this culture people who go take a class and then there are are people, the Icelandic names are so difficult. I can't say his name properly, but the person you saw on the right, like people are just there and they're going after it. You know, like it doesn't matter whether you're taking a class, whether you're training outside the class, whatever you're doing, like people are there just to get better. And it's just like, it's so like freaking great to be in that environment.

Like it gets me fired up just thinking about it, know and it doesn't matter who you are it just doesn't it's a trip i i don't know if it's still like this i bet it is though but iceland has more crossfit per capita than anywhere in the world yeah i wouldn't be surprised i mean you got a place with 300 000 people you get 30 gyms. I mean, that's. Yeah. Is it only 30? I don't know. I haven't looked in years and years, but it's just.

It's definitely a lot. And it's really embedded in the culture now. I feel like. The in the most superficial sense, how is the team doing? How Annie, Tola, Khan and Lauren Fisher, how are they doing? Yeah, I guess we're going to find out on Sunday night, right? Over the next three days, that's the test. But yeah, I think we're doing really well as a team. There's things that we need to work on, for sure.

I'm not going to pretend that we everything is you know that we've mastered every aspect of team competition that would be very unrealistic in this time but there has been definitely that kind of relentless quest of just being better each time and fine-tuning details and understanding the team competition and you know like tola and lauren especially con also has some experience in the team but like we have people who have done a lot of team competitions. And I've been trying to really rely on them or lean on them to give their expertise to me as well, because they have maybe better understanding of the team than I do. So I think with the short time that we've had, we've definitely been able to put together a team that's going to be a very legitimate contender by the time we get to the games. But of course,

together a team that's going to be a very legitimate contender by the time we get to the games. But of course, now this weekend is going to be our first in-person proper opportunity to compete. So I'm looking forward to seeing not what goes right, but what goes wrong. What do we need to work on? Because I'm sure that there will be things. And I don't hope that things go badly, but I hope that we get challenges so that we know what we need to be ready it's, it's going to be a hard competition, of course, but the games is going to be a completely different level. Um, you will, um, will Katrin, David's daughter, and, uh, always Corey respect, respect, know your audience respect. Well, Katrin, David's daughter and, uh, Björgvin Carl Gudmundsson also be competing at this event uh björgvin is competing this weekend and then katrin is competing in the strength in depth so that's the final uh so

you go to that also with her oh yes yeah absolutely so it's real you really are coaching her oh yeah yeah yeah since uh more or less since uh rogue like it was kind of like leading up the rogue we were kind of testing the waters a little bit uh and then coming from rogue like it was kind of like leading up the rogue we were kind of testing the waters a little bit uh and then coming from rogue like yes it it is it is hard to see um uh because nostalgically you see these it would be like seeing um annie go to to ben bergeron right nostalgically we've we've followed the sport for so long and we we always know it's Yami and Annie. And nostalgically, everyone, I think, has enjoyed the Katrin and Ben relationship. You would see them together. You could recognize the intensity and care in the relationship.

And so to see her come over there, it's like a shock to us, right? It's like you open up your peanut butter and jelly sandwich, instead of peanut butter it's it's mayonnaise and you're just like wait what is it are you sure i mean i'm scandinavian but mayonnaise is a little harsh right sorry i know it's a bad example uh and your deal how how is that she is a um she's uh two times game champion clearly one of the best who's ever been she had one how long was she with ben i want to say wasn't it 2014 she had the rope climb event that i remember like i have a picture actually of hugging like annie and her hugging each other at those regionals uh when she didn't make it you know that was clear after that event that she's not going to make it

and i think it was the year after right right? She came back 2015, 16. You know, they started sometime 2014, probably then after the regionals, they must have started working together. And then until now, like this summer or like this last fall. So maybe there's more, but let's say there's three different kinds of athletes where they come from.

You get someone young that's never had a coach, so you get them. Then you get someone like Annie that you have a long relationship. And then you get someone who's amazing like Katrin, but she's had this other coach for so long. So she has her habits. She has her ways. Do you assimilate to her or does she assimilate to you or is it both? How does it work? Yeah, I think it's both.

I mean, she has a lot of good habits. And I mean, I think that it's kind of like… I mean, obviously, right? I mean, you're fine-tuning like a perfect muffin. You're like, well, what are we going to do to this muffin? Yeah, yeah. Well, in a way, I think it's like she clearly has to have done many things right to be able to be as good as she is right now and then i think there are some things this kind of happens in crossfit that i

think this must in some ways happened even like before catherine worked with ben and i think that a lot of the great crossfit athletes are great athletes because they are very like because they are great athletes not because they received um good technical coaching early in their career. So a lot of the athletes that I see that are very high level, they still have a lot of fundamental technical challenges in their movements, like Katrin's muscle-ups, for example, rope climbs historically, the upper body pulling and things like that. And I think that they are very hard to address.

And I think that when Katrin went to Ben, she already had this, a certain amount of habits that they were able to work on and improve. And so in many ways, you know, what we've been doing this season is kind of go back again to a lot of the fundamentals and work on those. And I also recognize that even though, you know, she's in a very good place right now, this work cannot be complete in a single season. You know, it can be, she can be ready and she can be a contender. But there's no way to do all the work that we need to do in just like nine months.

It's just not enough time, you know. So that's one aspect. I think the other one is really that like with the work that they had done together. I mean, obviously, Katrin comes in like she knows so much. She can do so much. They've done so much valuable work. It's like I have the privilege of inheriting that work in some ways and not having to lay those foundations in place. That's really interesting because then you can focus on, you know, I can focus on the things that I see through my eyes that might be different than another coach would see just because of their past experiences, education, everything else.

It's like we're all looking at the same person from different angles. How could they be better? And that's really interesting. She, of all the athletes, and maybe it's just because she has so much content out there, I always hear her say this same thing over and over. She believes, she's excited to get better she makes that very clear when she speaks the coolest thing about this is i know that i can get better it's it's it seems to be a mantra with her and i guess that would be a must for you to coach her because if she didn't think that what would be the point of coaching her yeah absolutely

absolutely especially you know going back to like very basic things at the athlete at that level is would be you know very difficult i think there's a balance though to play i think it's very important to know that you can be better it's also really good to know that you're great and remember that you know because it could it could also go the other way you know that we break everything down so much that then she would feel like she's not a good athlete. You know, that's, that's, that was kind of like an important balance to play. It's like, Hey, remember that you're great as you are. You've already been world champion multiple times. You are very good at what you do now. Let's get better, you know, rather than, you know, the other alternative, which is like, well, you are not

that good. It's like, no, no, you are amazing. And that's the opportunity. I just saw recently, um, my, one of my sons has been playing tennis for three years or almost three years. And the first two years he was, um, we played so much and he grew in, he practiced so much that he grew really fast in it. But so he was always with older kids. And when you're a five-year-old and you're with seven-year-olds, no matter how good you are, you can't beat them because they can do some movements and cross the court that with no technique, they can still beat you. Right. Just like the greatest, um, the greatest martial artist at seven years old cannot beat me up. You know what I mean? Like, just throw a cinder block at him, right? At four years old, maybe at seven.

Okay. Okay. Okay. At four. Um, so now he's in a class where he's the best and he's seven now and i'm like oh i wonder why the teacher's not moving him up so i asked teacher why aren't you moving up because dude he just spent two years of just losing non-stop i need to keep him here even though he's better than most of the kids in the class if not all because he needs to start learning what it's like to win yeah that's that's good. I guess that's the psychological piece, right? You don't want to just always be losing. You need to experience some winning. Yeah, yeah.

It's tricky, right? I think probably, and again, I'm just, this is armchair psychotherapy, but like as long as the kids feel like they're loved, regardless of the outcome. Yeah. If they trust that process, you know, like the process becomes the priority.

I think it's probably okay up to a certain point not to win and just to learn. regardless of the outcome. Yeah. If they trust that process, you know, like the process becomes the priority. I think it's probably okay up to a certain point not to win and just to learn. But there is going to be a time when if you don't know, learn how to win. And I see this with adult athletes as well. It's like, if you don't know how to win, when you're about to win, you don't dare to take that step.

Right. And what is, how would you describe that step? What what is that step so let's say like classic thing would be that you're at the regional semifinals level competition you're coming that final event you're you're clutched on that you know your first crossfit games spot and you choke because the pressure that the idea i think that that identity if you don't have you have not developed the identity that you can be a champion, that you can win in that moment, the other identity that you have is not going to allow you to physically perform to your capacity. You will actually self-sabotage yourself out of that opportunity. And of course there are levels to this. Maybe you don't self-sabotage quite enough and you still make it and you can grow now. But I've also seen it happen the other way.

You said something very interesting. So there are these athletes. Oh, I need to make sure I ask this question. There are these athletes that get a narrative spun up about them. Laura Horvath can't do handstand pushups. Annie Thor's daughter can't do muscle ups. You know, so-and-so can't run, et cetera. And in one of the interviews, you say, hey, you shouldn't let that narrative get out of control in your own head.

You shouldn't spin a narrative around your sticky spots. Can you explain to me why? Is it because then you have to overcome two things, the narrative and the movement. And is this kind of what you're talking about, about being a champion? Yeah, I think so. I mean, one of the things I always have this engraved, if I, if I get a new iPad, I have engraved at the back of the iPad, don't believe everything you think. And that's much more about your emotional, like what you feel as emotions, then it's about what you think intellectually, right? It's much more about your emotional, like what you feel as emotions than it's about what you think intellectually, right?

It's much more about managing your chimp if you're familiar with this chimp paradox of having the human, the chimp, and the computer kind of brain model. But like those narratives can easily spin out of control. And it's very easy to feed that narrative and make it like a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I oftentimes say to athletes in different contexts, I'll just tell them it's like, don't say stupid shit out loud. Because if you say something out loud, you're more likely than not to buy into it. Because who's the most trustworthy person in your life?

Who do you know the best? It's going to be you. So the more you repeat things, whether in your head or more, like maybe worse or better, depending on what you say externally, if you say things out loud, you will start to believe in them. It's just like physiology. This is how humans work. Right. So I am not a big fan of the athletes talking about those narratives out loud, unless it's in a context where we can process it immediately and move on from it. But like leaving it hanging is not good at all. God, that is so good.

You also said this, which is I just absolutely love. And everyone could use to hear this. And this is the problem why people don't understand what science is, by the way. You say something about models. Let me see if I can – if I wrote it down here. All models are wrong, but some are useful, and people really don't understand that. And I guess I'll ask you. The usefulness is its predictive value, and hence that is the definition of science. Not that science is real or true because we know it's not, but it's just the leading edge of it is what has the best predictive value. That's why astronomy works better than astrology because of its predictive value. Not that either one of them is true. Yeah. Right. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, you don't perceive the world as it is. You perceived in a way that's useful to you to survive in it. And then we can create this internal models that make us see the world in a certain light or in a certain way. And might miss things that we you know it's this kind of like whole luck concept of like preparation meets opportunities like you're prepared to see the thing you're prepared to see the opportunities based on your background so i very much think this is but both human experience and the scientific process is this really like gaussian prediction of the future you know we're just trying to predict what's going to happen

next so that we can survive and the science yeah all this idea of models is is very much the same i mean i i think this is like a very philosophical idea in the sense that all models are wrong but some of them are useful and and that usefulness really is the predictive value it's it's it's this you could also think about it on a very simple level and say like is this model useful for me in my daily life without taking it any further? Right, right. And that would be sufficient. But then saying that, yeah, if it has predictive value in real life, then yes, it is more useful. Like if you want to be rich, if you have a model of making money that works, brings you money, then, you know, that's a useful model.

But it doesn't make the model right. Right. Reading astrology is fun. it's fun to look up your sign and then see okay i'm a pisces oh it says today i'm going to be if i should have positive thoughts and make my it's fun that doesn't make it doesn't make it real no but i was going to say but you can buy into that narrative and try to make it real and right right self-deception is is probably one of the you know the big problems that we can run into and and and consensus uh affects that also you you know something is not

the right thing to do um uh you know going outside and being in the sun is is better for you but someone told you to stay at home and lay in bed yeah and maybe because that's the consensus right and it's like wait a second it would actually better if i walked outside in my backyard and sat out there for 10 minutes or i don't feel good and they say to rest i actually should go sit on the assault bike for 10 minutes and pedal slowly yeah and i think this is the dialogue like the the internal dialogue dialogue or monologue that we have uh oftentimes i think that the worst thing is that when when you know when when your own work like when you are your own worst enemy you know when you say those things and then you do those things you kind of if you have that feeling i think a lot

of these athletes are good also because they have this feeling that they should go and do the thing you know they should go and train they might not feel great but they feel like they should go train someone else is not going to have that same sensation it's very difficult for them to become in this context for example a great athlete it is not going to have that same sensation. It's very difficult for them to become in this context, for example, a great athlete. It's those people who have that feeling that I should go and do this and then can take action on it. That will be more successful. And this is obviously true in other areas of life as well. It's fascinating to me that, but I get it. The more out of shape people come, the less they want to move, right? They don't, no one wants to drive their car if it's a piece of shit.

Yeah. It's also that it's takes energy to change, right? Like your nervous system uses a lot of glucose, a lot of fuel to make a change. It's more difficult. It's much more easy to feel pain in your shoulder. If you had shoulder pain before, it's harder to feel it in your hip. You know what I, like these pathways are carved into us, like using the same old pathways. It's very energy efficient.

So we default to doing what we've always done. Wow. Wow. There's almost like two different because there are so the the people are surviving in such an unhealthy state on the planet now. There's almost. And then on the other hand, you have people like Björg been on the planet now there's almost and then on the other hand you you you have people like bjorn been on the planet also with us it's almost like it's becoming two different um species it really is it's bizarre yeah it's almost like it's not the same the same protocols don't work

for them it's like is the difference between like a diesel truck and a gas truck i mean it's just it's not that they can't be the same it's not like we couldn't just like hold bjorgman down and pump them full of glucose for a year and you know um turn them into one of those or we couldn't take someone well i don't know do i think people can get so unhealthy that they can't come back yeah maybe maybe but like i i think of like the people in my environment and i think one responsibilities of friends and coaches, etc, is to make sure that they never get to that point, right, that point of no return. And I think this is where being a part of a community or parents or being a parent. family unit or whether it's a, let's say a CrossFit community or any other community. I think that the, one of the roles of the community is to provide feedback to the individual about their actions. So then this is where it becomes really important to make sure that you are in the right community for you. You are in the right environment so that the people around you

are making you make the right decisions because otherwise you feel so ashamed or you feel excluded. Like, right. Right. Right yeah right that's not good don't do that any value in riding the assault bike backwards i mean why not let's say that in the last nine months we haven't done it and then we did it maybe once no i mean you could ride assault bike backwards why would you what would be someone's reasoning, though? I mean, walking backwards is a lot more like there's a lot more going on if you walk or run backwards. Whether you want to pull a sled, like very trendy knees over toes guy, or whether you're just walking outside backwards and have this different visual flow and vestibular like balance stimulus that you won't get going forward.

There's a lot into that. But I don't know about that assault bike. I just yesterday, every once in a while, i'll ride it backwards not very fast and i and i let go of the handles too because i i want to try to sit really erect when i do it um but but it's it's it's weird it's like i don't realize the pressure it puts on my knee to ride the assault bike until i ride it backwards and then and then there's like a i don't know i just thought of yesterday i was like okay that's yami it could be it could be a warm-up thing i ride it very slow backwards you know like under 50 rpms like for it was like at 49 rpms okay i'll promise i'll explore this tomorrow

okay and and what about um and i've been um walking backwards on the assault runner yeah because of the the trendiness of it. Yeah. So here's the thing. One of the problems with Assault Runners or any kind of stationary cardio equipment is that what you don't get is the visual flow, right? Moving through space. And it turns out that this is something that we've evolved to have. So it's quite a strange stimulus for your brain.

Your legs are doing the work. Your arms are doing the work. Let's say you're running on a treadmill. But the visual field does not change this is like there's a kind of like a dissonance you know yeah between never thought you're supposed to experience and what's happening so it's not that it's terrible for you but if i have the preference if i can get the athletes to run bike you know move in space i much prefer that than the stationary machines but it's very nice to have the truth

monitor in front of you telling about your effort you know and then controlling that effort maybe um how's the guitar coming uh well i i've bought i've bought more guitars which is nice uh whether the skill level i would say that i'm definitely one of those guitar players that the number of guitars is not proportional to the uh capacity do you play every day? Yeah, typically I'll aim to play at least 30 minutes every day. Wow. So let's say you come home and it's a late night. You come home, you train with the guys, then you have a meeting, then you guys go out to dinner and you come home and you're tired. Will you make sure at least you pick it up for five minutes? You know that the trick is that I picked it up in the morning before I did anything else. Okay.

That's the trick. Yeah. Like I make a cup of coffee for myself in the morning and then I play guitar. All right. And the Icelandic, you said you're going to learn Icelandic. Is that what I hear there? I read into that and I think, okay, that ties into his commitment of maybe staying there multiple years. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it's like at some point I've traveled so much in my life. I've lived in so many different countries, like besides like

UK and France and Finland that I think it's, um, I know for myself that I need some kind of commitment devices to be able to actually commit to staying somewhere so like officially moving to Iceland is one of them I think committing to learning the language is another one of them you know I'm just like basically again knowing how I am trying to manage who I am and then just trying to put these things in place so that I know what I'm going to do in the future so I'm not tempted to go and travel move somewhere else you know so it's definitely a conscious strategy plus I think it'll be kind somewhere else, you know? So it's definitely a conscious strategy. Plus I think it'll be kind of cool to know that language is, it's kind of useless in some ways that there's so few people who speak

Icelandic, but if you are in Iceland, then it becomes also very useful. Do you, do you own a home anywhere on the planet? No, I had to, I've never even owned a car in my life. Wow. Okay. Do you drive? Yeah. Yeah. I drive, I drive and in iceland you need to be you need to drive yeah this is your very first picture on instagram this is from uh 514 weeks ago july 8th 2012 i've probably posted 20 times since then. I know you are not a big poster.

You wait, you'll just wait and see one day. I will start normally when I'm scrolling through people's Instagram, I said, and I'm doing research on, I'm like scrolling down to the bottom with yours. I was like, Oh, we're there. We're at the bottom. And there's, and there, and there's any, where is this? This is in LA.

This is after the, I think it – no. This is how it begins. So this is the beginning of the game. So there's Karl Pauly in the front with overexposed face. And then the background. On the right, there's another Icelandic guy. I cannot remember his name, unfortunately. I do know him. And then there's Annie, and then there's Frederick there as well.

So this is before the games in 2012. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. So it started with her and it's still going with her. Yeah. It's kind of crazy to think how long it's been. But we very consciously from beginning wanted to commit to something long term.

And like as an athlete, it's very easy to go very hard, like not anyone, but a lot of people can go very hard three, four, five years maybe. But it's much harder to have longevity. So, you know, just from a training perspective and just from the mindset perspective of living that athlete life for so long, I think it's just so important to think about like, what is it that you could do? What is it that you, you know, you could do? And then what is it that you would do? And like, have those, that's like Jordan Peterson thing, right? But like, have those two things, make sure that they, they actually are, we do things that are sustainable, very long periods of time and not do things that might be great for one season but that's the end of the game you know and it and it's and it's uh it hasn't been it's not easy no and i don't feel like it's got any easier sometimes i think it's like i should be really

so much better at this right now than i am because it's it doesn't feel easy on a daily basis uh like i don't think i experience easiness in in my work very often there's flow at times which makes things feel easier but like a lot of times the process is you know what was the answer anyways who said that writing is easy you just stare at the typewriter until you start to bleed from your eyes and that's kind of like how it is in in some ways maybe that's a little extreme it's not that hard but it's it's it's definitely not like how it is in some ways. Maybe that's a little extreme. It's not that hard, but it's definitely not any easier. There is an evolution and a development, and it probably isn't stopping now that she's doing team, that happens around these superstars like Annie, right? So you have Rich Froning.

If you met him in 2010, I would go over to his house, and I had him all to myself. My wife and I went over there. We hang out with him for a week. There's no one around us. It's just me, her rich. His dad comes around. We take pictures. We watch him train. We film. It's just, we got them all. We can, he's ours. Now, if you go see rich, it's, it's, I'm guessing it's not like that at all, right? It's a, it's a whole fucking, it's the mayhem empire. So you meetie and she's this young girl and you have her all to yourself you have your own your own clay and now all of a sudden um you have her parents who have ideas for you and and and uh then she gets a boyfriend

frederick gidius who has ideas for her and then now you have this team and then you have a gym and then you have the president of fucking Iceland wants to meet her. And it's just like, holy shit, there becomes this whole social phenomenon that happens around these people. And you're still the guy who just just trying to tune the radio. Is it is that the hardest part to manage? Just all the voices now that are in the room and. Yeah. Yeah. not so much now i think at some point in the process i think our relationship is at the point where we we talk really openly

about anything and i think is that was that scary at first yeah maybe you know when i was in my like late 20s like early on like as i've grown i feel like i've you know true to this work partially i've grown as a human quite a lot and those conversations have become easier it's also like understanding that those conversations are essential like for something to work long term you can't like have a relationship with a person as a you know working relationship and friendship if you're not willing to talk about things that are hard to talk about like it's just not real that relationship then um but i think it's there is this side of helping the person to manage what they have going on and then being able to manage the other people, keeping the outcome in mind of what we're trying to accomplish.

And that's definitely a challenging part of it. But it's also a part that I think coaching athletes at this level, as a coach, you have to accept that that's part of the job description. That is part of the work. If you can't manage the people around, then it's, it's not going to work because there is too much noise. As you were saying this, I was thinking about just, just in terms of relationships in the most superficial way, it's like, um, the, the, the first time you fart around your girlfriend, right? It's like, well, at some point she's going to have to know that I fart, but, but it's like that at some point she's gonna have to know that i fart but but it's like that you you said you're right when you're young there's a um

an intellectual dishonesty but but it's for sincere reasons you want someone to like you and then you realize oh but this person would actually if we're honest with each other there'll be a respect that's deeper than liking. Yeah, but I guess it's kind of like in a relationship that you can either pretend to be someone at the beginning that you're not and figure it out five years down the line or later, or you can be who you are and see if it works from the beginning. And, you know, I don't say that, like, I think the first few years with Annie, for example, we were kind of like figuring out how we work best together.

And then but in that time, we developed the trust both ways that we can talk about things and it has to go both ways. She needs to feel also, I think, importantly, that, you know, I trust her so that I can go to her and speak with her about things as well as much as she trusts me. I think it's like that trust is a two way stream stream it's very hard to have trust just in one direction um there's this um conventional uh social norm that people will judge coaches who take credit and i'm like why like ben bergeron should be able to fucking be like fuck i had katrin and matt fraser in the same year fuck you i'm the best i don't got a problem with that people are like it takes so like the coach should be humble and be like the athlete did it all i'm like what why i think like what's the am i missing something what's the logic is there a logic to being a humble coach like what like why why are why is everyone so hard on the coaches i can't like they just want the coach to teach and shut the fuck up

and get out of the way it's like wait what why don't you want the whole team to just be have swagger yeah yeah i mean there's a lot of different levels of this to answer it, both specifically and generally. I think, by the way, I'm not I'm not accusing Ben of doing that either. I've always thought of him as a humble man, but some people are like, oh, he takes too much credit. I'm like too much credit. I'd have a shirt saying I'm the best. Yeah, I would probably wear a shirt, but I would say I don't know. Yeah, I would probably wear a shirt, but I would say I don't know. But I think it's like, for me, at least personally, like, I'm very much more in the camp of, you know,

some people have this confidence where they just believe in what they say. And I don't necessarily believe in what I say a lot of the time, but I know that I will say it with enough conviction that someone else will when it matters. You know, but I'm the kind of person who's always, it's kind of knowing, you know, again, all models are wrong. Some are useful. So I know I'm wrong. It's just like, how wrong am I? And at least for me, I've definitely had early on, maybe early on, let's say that last year, after last year, I have no doubts of my contribution to Annie's career, for example. But let's say that in the past, it's like, did she win because of me? Or did she win despite of me? You know, would it would she have been greater with someone else than she would have been with me? I think it's important

if you care about your work that you ask those questions. You know, it's also important to find answers that support you and like your own confidence and your own ego and your own identity, where you can have confidence that yes, at actually like i made a significant contribution to their success but i think it's also healthy to have a little bit of that humility and not just jump on the boat and say like hey of course it's because of me because the truth is you don't know right right right um what about what about last year was last year, like, because your. Your athlete has been through so much, so many, I don't want to use the word obstacles or challenges, but just so much. Right. I don't know how to. She had a kid.. She has, she has a husband, she has a house, she has a gym, she has an injury. She has a time off. She has, is that what, what about last year

for you? Um, what, what happened in you last year? And was it because of the outcome or. I think it's partially the outcome. Like you need to have some level of success to build confidence, but I think it's also the amount of work that we had to do. So the amount of work that we had to do, I'd say to have the specific, you know, like taken, like I have this specific set of skills, like to have the specific skill set that was required for her to be successful from a coaching perspective was quite like, you know, osteopathy, Chinese medicine. I study functional neurology. osteopathy, Chinese medicine. I studied functional neurology. There's a lot of these different things that you had to have, plus the experience of coaching athletes at that level, that I think were all essential parts of her being able to be successful. So you could have had a team of people who could have maybe done that. But I think to have one single individual that has all that knowledge available in a practical usage at their hands, it would have been extremely difficult if

it wasn't me. And that was kind of like my feeling. And I don't oftentimes say these things. It's not very easy for me to praise myself, especially in public, because that's just not how I operate traditionally. I'm more the Finnish, you know, I don't necessarily. I would say you barely praised yourself. Don't worry.

No one even noticed it. Exactly. And in my head, I was like, wow, he's so funny. No, you know what I mean? But this is the thing, right? No, I was like, wow, he's so funny. No, you know what I mean? But this is the thing, right? No, it was that. And then we just had some like, I don't even know if Annie thinks about this this way. But we had, for example, I might have said this somewhere else.

But we had the clean run event. And she runs back to the stadium, to the heavy bar. And she hadn't cleaned that weight before. But I told her, look, I know exactly what you will be able to lift and this, you can lift it. But she comes to the stadium and she does this and gets the audience to cheer her on and she makes the lift.

But I didn't need to see the lift. When she did this, I knew she was going to make the lift. And that was something that we kind of set up two months prior on a run together, talking about narrow and broad focus and using either one as strategies to fuel your performance at the right time. So I don't think she did it like consciously, it was an unconscious thing. But for me, it felt like that was the seed that we planted two months ago, you know. And so that was for me, it was a very special coaching

experience just to see that seed grow, you know grow and bloom just at that right time when it was needed for her to do as well as she did in that event. You saw the work you guys did. Yeah. Tangible. You're like, holy shit. Maybe other people can't see it, but I see it. Exactly. So that was one very, very for me obvious example of that and there were others at the games of just like planting all these little seeds trying to keep them alive and then them just like um when you see when you see an athlete um do that um summon the crowd some might think that they're summoning the crowd to um get energy from them or to get them to cheer but maybe maybe maybe what really

what we're seeing is they're they're they know they're gonna do it it could be do you know what i mean like like it's a premonition or or they're putting their perfect it's not for an athlete as great as annie it's still not enough pressure, and she wants more pressure. Put more pressure on me. Yeah, but see, it's not more – So I can rise to the occasion. I mean, what is that? It's not – in that context specifically, my interpretation at least, is that it's not – at that moment, it's not more pressure.

It's more energy. It is like – in that very specific example, I think it is – Like magical energy? Like literally energy? No, it's just feeling. energy it is like in that very specific example i think like magical energy like like literally energy no it's just feeling you know like if you go and lift at the gym by yourself and you're max out your deadlift let's say or you're around with 209 209 pounds 209 pounds that's impressive and then or you go and you have three people who are just like they're just about at the same level as you and they're all pushing freaking hard

and they all want to PR that day and you're just going in a rotation around the barbell. It's like, that's the energy, you know? And I think that's just the social connection that you have in that moment and you create this expectation and you, of course, will have all these physiological changes

as the consequence of that. I would say it's more that if someone wants to conceptualize it as energy in whatever way they want to. I just use it maybe more metaphorically to describe the internal chemistry of the athlete in that moment. It's like they're self-regulating

their arousal levels by external means and the audience is their means. Do you think that the baby and the hormones that come with having a baby um affected annie made her a better athlete you think there's any value into um should all the games athletes get knocked up well you know what the the soviet union what they used to do is they would get the female athletes pregnant and then abort. And then they would get these hormones but not the baby. That was their strategy. No shit. Yeah.

I interviewed Darian Weeks a few weeks ago. He's a UFC fighter. And he said that three weeks before the fight, he does something called edging. Do you know what edging is? Yeah, he does edging for three weeks. He doesn't let one fly. So he has sex for three weeks. He doesn't let one fly. So he just, he has sex with his wife, but just doesn't let one fly. I mean, you're the, you're the neuro Feng Shui, Chinese medicine biologist. What,

is there any truth to that? Yeah. I mean, I can see that what could happen is that your testosterone levels are extremely high because you're just looking to mate, essentially, right? So you're using that testosterone to create aggression towards the other individual. In that context, you know, now you're fighting for the same female, potentially, even though you're not. But you can create that story in your head and use that powerfully. Maybe. I don't know that physiologically that there is. But I bet there's some research. I'm sure someone's written a paper about this. Yeah. Someone needs to check it out. I don know i mean what do you what would you do you'd get a hundred men and just have them do that edging to test their testosterone and then

have them do that edging technique every day or and then yeah then they need to have uh and then retest it willing a willing female or male however they prefer companion to to perform the act you know maybe you don't even need some Maybe you don't even need someone else. Maybe it's different. You know that from your brain perspective, you touching you versus someone else touching you is very complete. It's very different circuitry.

Is it? That is true? Yes. It's not the same circuitry. It's very different. Obviously, there's pathways. Part of the pathways are the same. The higher sensors in the brain, yes, it's very different i mean obviously there's pathways part of the pathways are the same but like wow the higher centers in the brain yes it's it's going to be different so you've seen studies on that yeah there there is very clear research on this on the specific brain area that's called the insular cortex that is like an important integration center in the brain

but it's also kind of like where emotional pain and other things are kind of like – not that things are located in the brain, that's clearly, but it's an important part of that network for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So people who are just sitting around watching porn all day, beating off or missing out? Yeah, I mean that's kind of like a given, isn't it? It is a given. We have to do a physiology for that. It is a given. It is a given.

It's just crazy how many probably people fucking do that as opposed to like, hey, show some discipline, go out and exercise and run around the track and maybe you'll meet a girl or a boy or someone over there. Yes. It's kind of good to connect with real people. Wow. Spoken. Yami Tinkanen. It's good to interact with real people. That's the highlight of the podcast.

146. How are you on time? Do we have a few more minutes? Yeah, absolutely. No problem. What do your parents do? How did you get, why are you the way you are?

Are they still alive, your parents? Yeah, they're alive. They're retired. My dad was an IT guy, first for a bank and then for a university. And my mom's done secretarial jobs in both private companies, fire departments, etc. And they're in Finland?

They're in Finland, yeah. Up north by Miko or down south in Helsinki? Yeah, so Miko is like, if Finland is like here, Miko is kind of like here. He's not really that up north. My sister lives all the way up north, and my parents live more in the east, closer to Russian border. Oh. You guys don't like the Russians too much, right? The two cultures aren't too friendly? It's not so much that we don't like the Russians.

I think the Russian people are great, but I think that it's more the potential threat that's always been there, you know, for Finland, of Russian invasion with, you know, we used to be part of Russia, and we had the Winter War, we've had a lot of history, you know. What year was that? I had no idea. Finland used to be a part of Russia. What year was that? Oh, that was before the First World War. Okay. Yeah. So we got our independence only after that, you know, and we were part of Sweden also in the past. So we've been part of a couple of different empires in the past. But yeah, there is definitely this sense of threat. When I went there and filmed with Miko, I remember asking, St. Petersburg is just right over the border, right? Yeah, it's not too far.

Okay. Is it still called St. Petersburg? Yeah, I think so. At least in English. And I remember asking some of the Finnish people, have you gone to St. Petersburg? They're like, fuck no. I was like, okay. don't ask that question again. Your time out of Finland, when you go back there, do you culturally a couple of things. I go see my family. I go see my friends. My friends, I think generally tend to be people then that are also a little bit more outgoing and more open than typical Finnish men would be. Or I go hiking, which is then I'm going to be in the wilderness and not see people. So hard to say. I guess the joke was that I was the Finn that got thrown out for being too extroverted. No, go ahead no i was gonna say and like i mean yes i i am more extrovert than outrovert i think more extrovert than outrovert that didn't make any sense more extrovert than introvert but also like i'm still finished i'm i'm i'm aware that i'm not american you know my level of enthusiasm and excitement does not show the same way as it does.

If you're an American, you haven't been to Finland and like hung out there with the people you kind of can't even imagine. You kind of can't even imagine it. This is as good as it gets with Finnish people. So, yes, yes. Yami is raging right now. He probably did a line of coke or something before this. I mean, he is going right now. He probably did a line of coke or something before this. I mean he is going completely off. The team – I had Khan on, and Khan had – I think he had alluded to the fact that he wasn't the first choice, that there were – actually that he was the third choice, that there were two other dudes that were proposed to be on the team before him um is that is that hard for him i mean he seemed to handle

it well but is it and you have these people who are at different levels right you have this someone who's like done everything you could do in the sport annie and then you have people like tola and con who have not and then you have sort sort of a Lauren who's in the middle. Now, that's not a – I don't mean that as a hit at any of them. We all know that to make it to the games is fucking just nuts. How is that? How is that training a group of people who are so varied in their achievements? And is it indicative in their abilities too?

Do you have to like – oh, God, sorry, Khan. Do you have to like slow everything down for Khan becauseie will just run off to the side of the earth for him no you have to slow no no no if anything you have to slow khan for everyone else i mean i don't know if you ever trained with this guy no no no no i don't know anything about him except that he's fun to look at yeah and talk to yes both he's a beautiful human being for sure and he's also just a complete beast. Especially when it comes to conditioning, like there's very few people who can hang with him.

Like he's pure physical, like potential and ability is extremely high. You know, like he's easily top 10 games athlete if he gets everything right, you know. But I don't think he's had coaching in the past. And I think also like the lifestyle has not always supported the athletic performance. So, you know, that's been kind of like with with him it's been important to try to dial things in you know nutrition sleep things like that and but do it in a way that will work for him you know

this thing like it's it's not that just people will be able to do certain things it has to be something that he can do long term and that's been like what we've been working with just really taking him into account as a person, how he is and everything else. But no, I don't, you know, Khan, honestly, let's say him specifically, he, even if he wasn't the first person we asked, like he is absolutely the right person for the team. Like I could not be happier, you know,

both for an opportunity to help him with the things that he needs help with. That's exciting for me as a coach, as a person person but also with everything that he brings to the team i mean you had a long conversation with him you know the depth of him as a human being incredible incredible yeah and one of the first conversations i had with him and annie when we're talking about the expectations and the pressures of being in this team it's like look there could be someone else in the team that would make the team better as an athlete, but you will make the team better as a human.

And I think that is like why he needs to be there. And then on the other side, well, he's a freaking crazy athlete, you know? Like he can perform when he needs to perform and he will sell his soul in a competition if he has to. So for me, you know, like I would have been really, in hindsight, if I could have like had a couple of different outcomes of who's in the team, it would have been very sad if he wasn't, you know, like I would have been really – in hindsight, if I could have like had a couple different outcomes of who's in the team, it would have been very sad if he wasn't, you know.

So when you go to the games, you'll have Björgvin and you'll have – will you also be Frederik's coach at the games? Well, I think Frederik is most likely and he can speak for himself he's probably going to be uh helping me with the team at the games regardless of the outcome of the call what if he makes it as a masters what if he makes it as ma yeah then then that's the decision we have to make at that point but like as it stands right now i think he's going to be you know helping with the team he's got such good experience in that context you know from doing the grid from you know being there with the guys all the time. Like he's there every day with us, like training,

and then also helping the team, you know, and all the individual athletes. He helps Björkvin and Katrin a lot as well. So that's at least, you know, where we are right now. But there is going to be, obviously, everyone needs to make it true. But let's say that things go as they would. So Björkvin and Katrin as individuals. Hopefully, Hendrik is going to also make it this year.

Again, he's in good shape. And then we have the team. So it's going to be, you know, for a small team of us, it's going to be a lot of moving parts to manage for sure. Dude, that's an understatement. Dude, that's an understatement. I'm trying to think. I guess the athletes do spend a lot of time just alone or with each other too, so you have time. And I guess what's the bigger challenge, managing a team and an individual athlete or one male and one female if you have bjorkvin and catrin yeah i mean i've done any any and pure queen and then you know have a frederick that makes have henrik in that

like i've done this male female athlete thing and what it looks like in practice is that i don't see anything at the games you know that's my experience i haven't seen the like you're just looking at the tv sets i'm looking at the tv or i'm working with the other athlete getting them ready and then reviewing footage afterwards. I rarely go out to see the events. It's also good for my adrenaline management. You know, like if I go there every time, get hyped, then I don't train to that weekend. You know, at least not enough to kind of get rid of that adrenaline.

I'm going to be cooked by the time of, you know, the weekend is done. So I try to be very conscious of managing that. And typically, yeah, I just have my hands full all the time at the games anyway already. But I think with having team and the individuals, because they're going to be at different venues, that's why we need to have, you know, Frederick as a team member to really help with that process. Is Annie stepping up also? Have you seen a different side of Annie now that she's sort of like stepping up into like this team captain coaching mama role? she's sort of like stepping up into like this team captain coaching mama role? Yeah, for sure. For sure. And, and, you know, she's always had strong thoughts about how things would be done. You know, it's not like this is something new. So it's kind of, I feel like it's very natural for her to step in that role. But I also feel like it's important for the team to have everyone capable of stepping up in that role. You know, it's more like a meritocracy than dictatorship.

You know, I don't think, I think that's really like, we should have the best ideas. Whoever has the best ideas, we follow those ideas. And then, but that requires leadership abilities from everyone.

And oftentimes the people, you know, if they don't speak up as much, if they say something, it's going to be so much more powerful. The person who talks all the time, the words just lose meaning. Right. So everyone, tell me about it. Tell me about it. No one in my family listens to me. Right? So I just think it's important that, yes, Annie can take that role,

but it's been very like a conscious thing of like trying to make sure that everyone can take that role. And especially those who don't feel so comfortable with it will take that role because it's going to be so much more powerful coming from them. Man, I'm excited. You guys, today's Monday, Friday, you guys take the floor? Yeah, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Yeah. And then will you go back to Iceland or will you go to wherever Katrin's going? So go back to Iceland. We'd still have a couple of weeks to train, train in Iceland and then go to London just before just before the competition okay so it's not just the following week no no this is like the first weekend and then the other one is the last weekend

so who who will go with you and katrin anyone else so hendrik is going to be there harper and then we have ludwig hansen who's also hendrik's training partner he's been working with a long time. How about Frederick? Will he go? No, not on that trip. He's going to stay and make sure that the other guys, you know, the team is getting taken care of as well. Is it hard for Annie to not go to that and support Katrin?

And is it hard for Katrin not to go with you guys to Amsterdam? Yeah, to a degree. I think for Annie, obviously, with Freya, with having a child, it like, it's always easier to stay with your baby than to do anything else. Yes. But at the same time, yes, I'm, they would both love to support each other for sure. And I know that Catherine would love to be here, but you know, she's a professional. She knows she has to train, you know, she, she can't take a trip right now. Uh, we're, it looks like we have any schedule for after the semifinals. And I guess this will be a question for her to ask.

But man, it must be a trip for her. She must want to spend. She must be really torn between spending every second with her kid. And having to train the way I'm seeing in these videos. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a level of compromise in every direction. I think it's like I think some training training groups might run extremely tight schedules. I always think of, for example,

we need to run schedules that will work for this group as a whole. And there's going to be compromise in different directions. But we have to get the work done, kind of what we alluded to before, not have a schedule that doesn't actually work, that's not realistic. So of course, there are some compromises that have to be done with that. But I think she's doing a good job at managing it. But I'm sure that is very difficult also to be a part because the training has to be done. Yeah, I know my kids are asleep and I don't even want to come do the podcast. I'm like, no, I don't want to be there when they wake up.

Yami, thank you. It was great to catch up with you yeah it's been so long really i i i knew that um before talking to you that you had taken on an incredible task with that crew of people and i was really excited for you but i also um uh am crazy impressed that the you don't show any show any signs of bearing the weight of all of these people on you but i know um from the research weight of all of these people on you. But I know from the research and the videos I've done on you and talking to you that you take it fucking with absolute seriousness, their well-being. So congratulations.

Kudos to you. Congratulations to everyone who gets to work with you. And hopefully we get to talk again soon. I'm excited. Maybe even I can bug you throughout with no pressure, of course. Like if you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can bug you throughout and with no pressure, of course, like if you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can't fuck. Exactly. You know what I mean?

Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. If I can, I will. Okay. So I have your phone number. So I'll text you probably throughout the weekend and try to bug you. If I can get five or 10 minutes, that'd be great.

If not, I know that I'm sending my love. Yeah, absolutely. Cool. Yeah. For me at that time of athletes always come first before me as well. So, but then, yeah,

if we can, let's do it. Uh, guys, thanks for, um, checking in. Thank you to Yami.

And, uh, we'll see you guys tonight with a Brian friend as we talk about the semifinals.