Shout Out to Rick Kaselj

Today my wife and I are heading out to Vancouver to so I can teach a workshop with Rick Kaselj and she can enjoy Vancouver without any trace of snow or freezing temperatures. This is somewhat of a big deal for me, as it’s kind of coming full circle with how I started in the online aspect of the fitness industry. (There’s still some spots for the Saturday session if you’re available. Click HERE for more info)

Rick’s main area of specialization is fitness programming for people who have different injuries and medical conditions. He’s managed to create a massive collection of digital products for pretty much every condition you could expect to run across as either a regular exerciser and also for trainers and medical professionals. He’s even created some fantastic collaborations in his Muscle Imbalances Revealed series (of which I was a part of a couple times), as well as a live workshop we filmed in Edmonton called the Spinal Health and Core Training Seminar, and has developed a fairly massive online following.

Rick and I first met through proximity when we both presented at a conference in Edmonton back in (I think) 2007. We didn’t get much of a chance to chat during the event, but following it I reached out to him to see if he wanted to do any collaborative work on any projects he had coming up. I was willing to write, talk, do videos, pretty much anything in order to test the waters with this online stuff, especially since he’s one of the guys who had a considerable experience and could help me figure out what was going on. Essentially, my goal was to make it like a promo from the Rock in the early stage of his career: electrifying, with minimal actual substance, but still rememberable.

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From there, he helped me learn that I should start a blog, start writing, understand the back end for putting together products and content, and how to essentially establish myself in a competitive industry.

Once the first Muscle Imbalances Revealed came out and was a great success, we worked together again to put out the second version, and it was also received really well. From there, Rick and I teamed up with Tony Gentilcore and Jeff Cubos to put together the Spinal Health seminar

Rick kept working on his own products, managing to garner a very decent living from them and helping change a lot of lives by providing realistic and highly practical information that people could take immediately and use with an understanding of what it was going to do and who it was appropriate for. A quick review of his Products Page will give you an idea that this guy probably doesn’t sleep. He may not, actually.

He reached out to me and wanted to know if I wanted to teach a 2 day workshop in Vancouver with him, and I jumped at the opportunity. Not only is a trip to Vancouver always awesome and a great way to begin spring after a long Edmonton winter, but it’s not often you get a chance to present with someone you consider a mentor and friend. I can honestly say that without Rick, I wouldn’t have this website, and you probably wouldn’t be reading this, so I owe him a huge debt of gratitude.

No one gets where they are without others helping them out. I’ve had a lot of people help me in various ways (Tony Gentilcore, Mike Boyle, Eric Cressey, James “Diesel” Smith, Michol Dalcourt, Jeff Cubos, John Romaniello, Ben Bruno, Bret Contreras, and a bunch of others just to name a few), and each has provided information, time, and advice on how to become better in one way or another, giving freely of themselves without asking anything in return. I am a firm believer that helping others more than they could help you is one of the greatest gifts you could offer, and try to also help as many people as possible by giving freely of my time and advice as I can. If I can help influence someone in a positive way like those I mentioned helped influence me, I’ve paid it forward.

This weekend teaching with Rick is going to be awesome. Not only is Rick an interesting guy (seriously, who carries their debit and credit cards in a ziploc bag??), his style of information delivery and personality is completely different than mine, which will make it a fantastic contrast where participants will get a lot out of it. We’ll also go through Voodoo, Hip Hinge training, and Monster Mobility, a new seminar that we’ll be filming and releasing to the public shortly, so it’s going to be nothing but A game performances all around.

Thanks Rick, for being a great friend, mentor, and peer for everything I’ve been able to do on this site and every other one. We’ll bust out an awkward Predator-style handshake when we meet up tomorrow.