A Lesson From Mopeility WOD

You may have seen the training video from last week that included the original group of friends that helped create 70’s Big. I purposely didn’t mention how a better video exists, and it is episode #3 of Brent’s Mopeility WOD.

Some of you new readers are probably thoroughly confused, so let me explain. After I prematurely left graduate school, I was trying to find a situation where I could coach and learn. To make a long story short, I ended up at Rippetoe’s Wichita Falls Athletic Club for eighteen months. When I first arrived in January of 2009, I sat in my truck eating some food because Rip was not at the gym yet. Out walks an Asian kid carrying a gym bag with a frizzy fro sticking out six to eight inches off of his head. I sat there and thought, “Boy, he must be a real weightlifter.” I could not have been more fucking wrong.

This Asian was Brent Kim — my most peculiar and irritating best friend. Brent and I became friends, we added Chris, and we hung out and trained regularly. After painstaking effort — and by that, I mean two months of yelling arguments across the gym — I convinced Brent to do a linear progression. I also fixed the soft tissue issues in his proximal biceps, which allowed him to begin bench pressing again (breaking the scar tissue up was a lot like this). I always say that I created a monster because Brent didn’t talk a lot until he did the linear progression. Whether it was his growing strength or his growing belligerence as a result of Chris and I picking on him, Brent was a rabid verbal sparring partner. It was like yesterday that I remember him telling Cliff, a mutual friend, to “get fucked”.

Brent is an interesting creature. He historically is afraid of talking to women, goes to bed really late, sleeps through important events, enjoys being insulted, and generally has a self deprecating outlook. He weighs under 160 pounds, yet he squats more than the majority of people reading this sentence (over 405 regularly and could do over 450 no big deal). He has pretty good mechanics and has learned the utility of mobility, but he is notorious for not being coachable. My favorite story is Glen Pendlay recalling Brent not really heeding any advice he had at all, ever. And Brent has a lot of respect for Pendlay!

Anyway, Brent has an interesting personality that comes out in his former training log and now through his website MopeilityWOD.com.  The name stems from the effective MobilityWOD.com — Kelly Starrett’s engine of self mobility work — as well as the idea that at their core, every person truly is a mope. Yet this acceptance should be celebrated and shared. The translation is that MopeilityWOD is a humorous, satirical world view infused with experiential truths. But you’ll never hear that from Brent.

Still not convinced to check it out? Then this will entice you: the first time I went to Australia in 2011, I had a nearly 50 year old man ask me if Brent actually acted the way he portrays himself. The answer was an irrevocable “yes”.