2016 July - Meeting up with Joefrey Wibrin - Geralt

[Geralt]

Been off for a few days for vacation with the family. Since I was not far from Belgium, I had talked with Joefrey Wibrin some time ago about meeting up. We have been doing some corresponding now and then from the beginning of me joining the GB. We finally found a good time to meet up with each other last Wednesday, July 15th 2016. I payed him a visit with - of course - some of my equipment. After I arrived, the day literally flew by!

For those who do not know Joefrey, he's a COC#3, MM2 and a pretty good bender, working up to red nail level. He's an introvert, silent and modest member of the GB. Joefrey is always willing to help and share advice. He's persistent in training for his goals. 

After a cup of Joe and some talking, we decided to begin our session and I was permitted to enter the holiest of holy places in Belgium in Joefrey's house. Lot's of gripstuff to play with but so few things to do before the hands go numb. Turns out that Joefrey has a lot of neat stuff, a lot of it handmade or just gathered and fabricated from found materials. Also a lof of nice original implements. Just like me, Joefrey likes grippers a lot and it shows. 

We did a warming up with the grippers and while talking, we closed already some pretty heavy grippers up till RB260 and HG's - just for trying - before we actually got started. I had no idea where I would stand gripperwise, since my effort had lay a lot in the thickbar field last weeks. 

We both closed several 3's from the easy range to the tough range. I also closed a 155 Ghp7 quite easy and Joefrey showed me his Monster Hunter collection from Silvis. Tried them and he suggested me filming the level 4 for a certification with the settingblock. I believe it's a 30mm block. He filmed me closing it for 4 reps. I am pretty sure I could have managed a TNS with it, but I wanted to try some heavier stuff. We talked a bit back and forth after this and he gave me an 'lighter' IM3.5 to try. I made a good MMS set judged by him but I missed it by just a hair. I was really surprised with this! Apparently my current training works out well. Joefrey hadn't been doing a lot of gripperwork lately but still did some pretty strong closes from MMS to TNS with a lot of different heavy grippers. Our hands started to get pretty tired from the gripperwork and in the end Joefrey showed my his certification #3 on which he certed in 2014. He wanted me to try it, just for fun and I had no expectency for myself that I would even come close. However, I got it down,CCS, to again, just a hair! I was very glad with this, since I had been doing a lot of gripperwork before this. 

Joefrey prepared some lunch and the keyword here was: 'Meatballs'. Nom. 

After lunch, we started with the rolling thunder. We worked up in reps with some different weightloading and we discussed some technique. We didn't end up very high in weight, probably because of the high volume of grippercloses we did in the morning, but I managed to pull 75kg. I believe I tried 80 or a bit less, but after the 75 I was a goner and didn't get good lifts again. Joefrey and I were on the same level. After the RT he introduced me to the IM Hub and we worked up from 10kg up till 21kg, which I could lift in a good way to lockout and back. I have never trained the Hub and so didn't Joefrey for some time, so this was a good base to establish. 

After this we did Globlifts, penny lifts and some other stuff I don't even recall any more from memory. We did so much and talked and laughed a lot. I had taken my 25kg Blob with me, but we couldn't do anything with it at this point anymore. 
I was quite toasted but Joefrey insisted that I would try some bending. At this point I couldn't get the technique down right, so I just watched him doing some stuff. Turns out that for bending, Joefrey was amped up and he bend - first time - the equivalent of red nail with suedes! He was stoked and wished he had put that energy in a red nail, so I suggested why not try it again, which he did. It was very cool to see someone bending in realtime, but also getting his first red nail! Although not in the IM pads, it was a great feat to achieve and to witness. Also, he did it easily within the official time frame, just two hits for the kink and two hits for the crush. It melted. Now Joefrey knows he can pull it off and he will start in working the padding down to IM wraps. It's a matter of time before we will see him bend the red nail under cert conditions. 

Joefrey introduced me to his wife and one of his sons who just came home after that and we drank a cup of coffee again before I traveled back home. He showed me his IM#3 certification papers and was clearly stoked about his red nail bend. Big achievements. We had a great day! joefrey thnx for your hospitality and we will meet up again in the future for sure. It was a good motivating workout for future things to happen. Persistence is the key. 

[Geralt]

Dammit, I forgot that we both did a silver bullet hold at the end of the day. 'Regular' IM#3, 2.5kg with original implement. Both around 22 secs strong hand and 17 or so off hand. 

@MANTHOS, he also showed me your MM replica, it's been taken good care of! 

Edited July 15, 2016 by Geralt

[anwnate]

Glad you shared this with the board!