Who is Dmitry Klokov? I had no idea, but he was coming to Australia with Charles Poliquin so he must be good.
I just finished 4 days worth of learning and training with one of the best strength athletes of all time Dmitry Klokov and the best strength coach ever, Charles Poliquin. For me nothing compares to actually implementing what you have learnt, and there is no better way to be taught Olympic lifting than from a World Champ and Olympic medialist.
Leading into this camp I had never done Olympic lifting before and didn't know much about it. All I had done was a couple of power cleans and about 2 sessions of the power snatch. After signing up in March, I felt it would be direspectful not to know who my teacher was and what he had accomplished in his career. So I googled Dmitry Klokov, WOW, I knew I had signed up for a great course. The man is a beast.
Fast forward to now, and after meeting Dmitry and having the opportunity to be taught by him and see his work ethic, I am way more impressed than I was when I seen him lift massive weights in all lifts on youtube. On day 1, his flight was delayed so he came straight to class from the airport, hit a 180kg snatch, trained us till 3pm without a break, had a quick feed, and then continued to teach us till 10pm that night.
There was no time limit on how long he would spend with each individual correcting their technique. He would make sure we understood the drill fully before he moved on to the next person. Sure people would say "that's what you paid him for" but the reality is, we got way more than we paid because he cared. He is passionate about what he does and I believe this is one of his greatest attributes.
He has a way of explaining complex things in very simple ways that allows you to understand the goal of what you are doing. Even though he has only just started speaking English more fluently recently, he makes things so clear by using simple cues and by using exercises to correct breakdown in technique instead of using too many words. This was great, it helped me enormously.
With his help I was able to clean and jerk 105kg. This was my first ever time attempting this lift so for me it was massive.
I am now a better coach due to this experience as I now fully understand the correct technique to use when doing the Olympic lifts or the variations and by Dmitry showing us his assistance lifts to correct all types of weaknesses I know I will be a better athlete myself and that all of my clients and athletes I coach will be better for it too.
It was a humbling experience to be able to meet a world champion and Olympic medalist, but for me, the best part was that Dmitry is a down to earth bloke, who loves his sport, who has time for everyone he meets, and just has a real passion for what he does. To me, that's a real champion. He has achieved everything in his sport but he doesn't think he is bigger than the world.
I'll speak more about the camp in the future.