Getting Raw Ep# 32 Steve Cotter & Kent Pumpa IKFF

Welcome to Getting Raw. It's Richard Mark Toutounji. Today I've got Steve Cotter and Ken Pumper. Welcome guys. Now Ken, I've had you on the couch before.

Yeah, I was.

I haven't had Steve on the couch. Steve's all the way over here from San Diego in the States and you're doing some courses and training trainers. Is that correct?

Yes, that's right.

So we're lucky enough to have you on our couch. There's 2 people on the couch today, so—

Great couch.

Yeah, we'll get through you both. But you're doing some really cool things right now. I've heard that the IKFF is now launching in Australia.

Yes.

For the first time. And I know you've been out here a couple of other times, but you're really taking it out now and putting your stamp in the Australian market, kettlebell market now, yeah?

That's right, yes.

Tell me a bit about yourself, because, you know, all you have to do is YouTube you and find you online, you've got thousands of views and people People want to know what your strategies are. People want to learn off you and learn your skills. So tell me your story and how you got here.

Okay. Well, I've always been involved in physical training, physical culture. I started training really seriously in martial arts when I was 12 years old and did that pretty much religiously for about 15 years or so. And my first job was as a martial arts instructor when I was about 15, 16. And so that was pretty much my whole upbringing was around martial arts. training and conditioning, meditation, breathing exercise. And then in my late 20s, I decided that I didn't want to do martial arts for the rest of my life as a career. Right. So I decided to get some formal education, and I went to university and got my degree in kinesiology at that time. And so I was really always interested in the sports conditioning side of things, and so the kinesiology was sort of the scientific background that matched my Sure. My practical experience. Yeah. And when I came out of school, I looked after what were the best certifications out there. So I went through the NSCA and the ACSM and started doing personal training. But I've always been very entrepreneurial and I didn't really— I wasn't happy to just stay in a gym.

You didn't want to just do the single 1-hour back-to-back?

Yeah, I didn't want to carry a clipboard and change the pins for the rest of my life. So after I got out of school, I was in my early 30s, and I had gone from, you know, my days of martial arts training all day, every day, and then I went to being a full-time student, and so my conditioning started to deteriorate, and I didn't like that feeling. So I realized that I—

So Steve Cutler was getting a few love handles, was he?

I wouldn't go that far, but my 8-pack maybe went down to a 6-pack or 5-pack. So basically, I didn't have the time that I used to have, so it dawned on me that I I needed to figure out a way that I could do a lot of work in less time. And that kind of led me to the kettlebells. Kettlebells were just coming into the American marketplace.

And what year was that?

This was like 2002. So kettlebells were just kind of starting out and they were just in catalogs and on the internet. There was really no wide-scale presence there. So I got involved with kettlebells and just trained myself initially. And I was able to pick up the basics because of my understanding of movement through my martial art training. Originally I got involved with the RKC program, which Pavel Tsatsouline was kind of the— we'd say he's like the godfather of the modern kettlebell movement. He kind of brought the marketing into kettlebells. Got involved with his organization and became one of the instructors for that program.

So one of the first instructors to teach kettlebells?

Yeah, I was one of the first wave. Some other really well-respected guys like Steve Maxwell and Mike Mahler. Those are guys that we all kind of were helping Pavel develop that program. and teaching the classes with him. But I wasn't really happy with the scope of the program. There was a— in 2005, I went to Russia, I went to Moscow, and I saw the kettlebell world championships there, and I saw the level of those athletes, and it was, you know, just so far beyond anything.

That you've ever seen?

Yeah, and nothing that was being done in the US with the level was really high, so I became really interested in that, but there was no real way to learn this. There was no education. There was no Russians really teaching their secrets, you could say. So I became interested in that and started little by little learning more about the sport side of kettlebell and kind of balancing out the general fitness side of things. And so anyway, leading to the IKFF, around 2005 I started creating some different DVD products.

You've got quite a few DVDs out there.

Yeah, I have probably 9 or 10 now. And I'm not a type of person that likes to replicate things, so when I do a new product, it's because I have I have something to say. I don't just repack it the same way. There's no fluff. Yeah, yeah, I think that's kind of, it's not really fair to the consumer. They want information and I'm always evolving my own development as a coach, as a teacher, also as an athlete. So I want to share my new discoveries as they develop. And so because of the DVDs, I started developing somewhat of a following and YouTube clips and things like that. And over the years, I was getting inquiries from people saying, hey, you know, if you ever do a certification, we'll be the first to sign up.

And you mentioned before, you know, entrepreneurial. This is where your entrepreneurial spirit's come out, actually. You know, you said the Russians are not really promoting, like, educational. This is where you're putting DVDs out, you're putting more educational out to lead in that way, possibly.

Yeah, you know, really general fitness. And this is what people really knew about. Now, you know, fast forward 10 years later, now there's a lot more information. There's a lot more involvement of sort of the whole world. The kettlebell sport as well as the fitness. So we know way more now than we knew even 5 years ago. And so I founded the IKFF in 2008. There was just a lot of interest in my particular communication method, how I teach, and more of a holistic approach with not just kettlebells for fitness, kettlebells for sport, but also integrating it with mobility and mental focus type of exercises. So it's really being taught, it's physical

Yeah,

it's definitely mind and body, and it's, it's very integrated. So we were trying to train the entire system. And then the other part of that is, as individuals, and myself as an entrepreneur, people really need a way to develop their, their passion, develop their, their interests and their skills. And so part of what we do with IKFF is help to develop people that love fitness, but they don't understand maybe how to create a business out of it.

Right.

And that's, that's one of the main reasons why I've partnered partnered in Australia with Ken and Bootcamps Australia because we share a lot of those same goals of obviously we're trying to better ourselves, but we want to create more opportunity for people that want to develop their skills and their business as well.

How many countries is the IKF in now?

We probably have members in maybe 50 countries. I've done certifications in about 30 countries, so every continent except for Antarctica because I need to save some goals for next year. You know, so, but South America, Africa, Europe, Asia.

So you're always like seeming like, you know, your postcode is around the world. You're always moving all the time to train more trainers.

For now, you know, for now it's kind of my calling. But, you know, longer term, I'm now in a phase where I've been working with a lot of the same people for over 4 years now. And I have some really, really skillful and well-developed instructors in different parts of the world. So the next phase will be sort of phasing Right. And developing instructors in different regions that can sort of start taking over these courses.

And how have you been able to really get into 50 countries, I guess, with the— well, we always say speed, but I mean, it is under, you know, a couple— I mean, a few years we're talking about here. Yeah. How have you been able to do that? You know, what's the secret to that?

Well, first of all, I think big. I don't believe in limitation. I like to say limitation is a man-made creation. So, if you can conceive of something and if you You have faith, you have belief in yourself, then you can achieve it. So it's kind of a cliché, but conceive, believe, achieve.

How do you find that?

It's definitely the case. So I think big. I don't think in terms of limitation. But the main thing is, you know, people are the most important resource. I call it human capital. Not in the sense of slave labor, but in the sense of we can't really get anywhere in life without connecting with people and communicating with people. So I really love to interact with people. I love to teach and make connections with

And that's sort of been the secret, is interact with the right people to grow you.

Yeah, the secret is there's no secret. But yeah, it's basically that I don't— I'm not a guru. I don't put myself above people. I have certain skill set and I know what that is, but you know, teacher and a student, they need each other. Yeah, if I don't have someone to teach, then there's nothing for me. So we really need each other and just making that human connection with people. And so everything I do, I don't do any advertising per se. I don't I don't spend any money on advertising. It's all organic. And people that come to my course, they enjoy it.

They get a lot of benefit. They're searching for that. They really want that.

Yeah, and it's just word of mouth. And then, you know, it just kind of snowballs from there. So, you know, momentum can work in any direction. You can have positive momentum or negative momentum. So I try to keep in positive momentum doing—

Oh, I love this positive. I really should have brought my Yellow Fox Blue Chief shirt, Kent, too. I mean, I do have spares at home, so I must drop by.

Yeah, where's mine?

I could have got one. Perfect with your motto, you know what I mean? Alright, so you guys have partnered up now and, you know, camp— you know, you've got the boot camps and you're really pushing it out there. You've got how many locations at the moment?

Just around 60, 65, something like that.

About 65 locations around Australia. So obviously with that sort of network and with the IKFF now and partnering up, to me it seems like it would be quite a large program and by the sounds of it, a really interactive program, not just, you know, here's the skills but actually learning the depth of it, you know, why you're doing

Well, the biggest thing for us is education. And, you know, I'm like Richard, I'm always searching for the best of the best. And I've known Steve a long time now, and he always comes back and, you know, everything that he does is very educational. And it's very positive for our industry to have, you know, people coming out from around the world. You know, we're still an island. You know, as big as we are, we're still an island. And, you know, if we don't have these good coaches coming out, we can't grow better coaches ourselves.

That makes sense, yeah.

You know, so it's about bringing Bringing that education out, and obviously we've just launched with Fitness Australia, obviously Steve's courses with the CKT, and obviously we want to keep quality with the IKFF. It's really important to Steve, and I think it's really important for me to have quality trainers out there to grow a brand. So, you know, we're not worried about the quantity, we're worried about the quality.

Because we were talking about it the other day, I mean, the quality of trainers. I mean, you're seeing, you're finding it hard to find trainers in Sydney, and this is probably one of the initiatives that will help you obviously in your business, and I guess a lot of other business owners out there to do that.

I think we're all searching for someone, you know, to replace ourselves at some stage. And, you know, trainers, there's nothing wrong with being a good trainer, but, you know, I'm looking for people that want to be excellent. Yeah. I want the next me, the next Steve, you know, that's what we want to search for. Yeah. We want people in our business that we can rely on, not just come and go, you know. Like, what, 9 months is the average lifespan of a PT in our industry now, which is pretty sad. But, you know, I want to create something where I can give people a career within a business and, you know, grow and And this is

one of the ways that obviously IKF has been built. You know, your team comes with people that are really passionate in Australia and putting the IKF brand to it and bang, that's how it grows really fast.

Yeah, it's really important. I think a mistake a lot of people make is they try to either do too much themselves or they go outside of their skill set or they allow their— I mean, we all have egos.

Outside their skill set, I think it's a big one.

Yeah, and you can't be great at everything. In my opinion and my experience, you know, you have to be able to pick your battles. I think Kent shares this, is, you know, you want to be excellent at a few key components, and then you can bring other people that are excellent at other things. Kent's skills and my skills are very complementary. He's great at what he does. In my opinion, he's the best at what he does, and I'm very good at what I do. And, you know, so we complement each other. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of times the ego gets in the way. We all have ego, but there's too many folks that are— they have to always be the man, they always have to be the boss. And so They're unable to collaborate or they can't be around other alpha males. And, you know, this is really a limitation. And my opinion is that that's an insecurity. If you know what you know and you're good at what you know, then you don't worry about what other people are doing. You just stick to your skill set.

Some really good tips and really good advice there, I think, in business and, you know, just yourself, you know. It's excellent advice.

We're all about growing, you know, and some people really get caught up in the competition, but what are you competing? I'm not trying to compete with somebody else. I'm trying I'm trying to compete with myself, be better than what I am today. And if everybody has that mindset, everybody can grow.

Well, it's impressive for sure, and I love— I'll be very interested to see you guys coming out more, obviously Steve, and doing more courses and that sort of stuff. I know you're going to jump on a plane today. Where are you off to next to teach?

We're off to Brisbane, and then we're back in Sydney for the CKT on the weekend. And then obviously building the awareness for November. So before, Steve filming used to come out probably once every 2 years, so we're trying to We bring him out twice a year now.

Excellent.

So we just build the brand and, you know, we're looking at organizing proper competitions and a lot of involvement.

Look forward to it. Should be a good event. Thanks for coming, getting right. I'm going to get you guys on here later on when you're back again.

Great. We got a great collaboration coming up which we'll tell you about what that's going to be next time we're here.

Excellent. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Steve.

Thank you, Rich.

Thanks very much. Thanks, Kent.

Cheers.

Thanks a lot, guys.