Once upon a time in a far off land, I was a newbie to powerlifting. It was 2001, and I was going to London, Ohio, for a seminar with the powerlifting guru Dave Tate. I was so excited to learn how to squat, bench and deadlift. I remember that I actually missed my girlfriend's (read ex-girlfriend's) birthday so that I could come down to the seminar. So I went out and bought my Chuck Taylors, packed my coolest (read tightest) shirt, bought a brand new notebook to write in and headed for London.

I pulled up to a non-descriptive building in the middle of a farm “downtown” and thought I was in the wrong place. A small EFS sticker in the window assured me that I was not. It was like going into a secret club house. I was late, as I always am, and Dave yelled at me as I walked in. So now I took a seat in the back. I couldn’t see what any of the slides said, but I didn’t want to say anything so I just listened to what Dave was saying and took tons of notes.

"Head up! Uh huh....sit back...got it. Posterior chain...sure, sure. And...70 pound box of porn...what?"

Well there was no slide for this information. During a break, I got two feet from the wall where the slides were projected and I figured out that Dave wasn’t even going off of the slides. Sure he had bullet points and facts, but what he was teaching couldn’t be learned from a book; it came from blood, sweat and years under the bar.

After the break, it was time to lift. I was always one of the strongest guys around so I thought I would impress everyone. Well when Dave asked for a volunteer to teach squat technique, I was up front as fast as I could move. I never squatted with bands, and with the old-school green bands on the bar, I unracked it. I wobbled around and almost fell over. Dave laughed - alot. Then he made a comment about how I didn’t know how to squat because I was from Michigan (you have to live here to understand it). Once I tightened up Dave told me to squat. I immediately fell to the box and had trouble getting up. Of course Dave didn’t help me, he just said “stay tight, and get the fuck off the box”.  Then we went up to one, two and then even three plates. With three plates and green bands I felt like the weight was going to crush me, but I wouldn’t say anything because Dave was teaching me how to squat and I couldn’t puss out in front of him. After about 100 reps without him letting me rack it and everyone laughing at me shaking, and doing just about everything wrong under the sun, Dave racked it and I knew that I didn’t know squat. Although through the entire experience Dave taught me a few new ways to use the word "fuck".

We went to lunch, and while everyone was walking in to the local pizza/deli/Five 'n' Dime/doctor’s office, Dave started talking to me. He asked about what I did, where I was from and what I wanted to do. I was like wow, this guy that I've been reading about really wants to know about me, this is awesome. As it turned out, Dave and I had bounced in some of the same strip clubs in the Detroit area, several years apart of coarse, and our backgrounds were pretty similar. Then he told me something that I never thought he’d say after my horrible squatting adventure, and that is, “You are pretty strong, you just have to spend more time under the bar.” Now I've been lifting since I was 15 years old, but in that moment I realized that just being in the gym and putting the weight on your back does not mean spending time “under the bar”.  I was reading pretty voraciously about strength and was a collegiate strength coach, but what I wasn’t doing was sacrificing under the bar to learn the lessons only blood, sweat and years under the bar can teach.

I walked away from my first meeting with Dave with two lessons:

  1. I needed to spend a lot more time under the bar.
  2. Fuck is not only an integral part of Dave’s vernacular, but often serves as the noun, verb and adjective in the same sentence.