Ironmind Gold Nail 1, ATG 0; the story of my weirdest hobby

In 2006 I was sitting at a computer in an MWR tent in Bucca Iraq shopping around for new DVDs. I was bored as all hell during my brief times of rest and relaxation and I wanted some new stuff to do with my training. Up until this point I was doing some pretty ridiculous kettlebell circuits and was sick of doing an hours worth of work to feel trained that day.

Some how that evening I found my way to pitch page for Dennis Rogers “336 lbs of Fury” DVD, which features Dennis and his student Pat bending and breaking all sorts of stuff. If you have never seen Dennis or Pat, they are not what anyone would describe as big guys, yet they were doing things that I thought were impossible. I had no idea how to take that, and I had thousands of dollars in my account which needed spending. I ordered it that day.

So a week later my DVD gets in, and I sit down to watch it. The DVD opens with Pat bending a 6 1/2″ 5/16″ nail, which at the time I had no idea of relative difficulty, other than it was clearly stressful to him because he had some serious eye of the tiger going on. Next in the DVD was Dennis bending a huge cresent wrench, then Pat bending a #5 draft horseshoe.

Those who know me describe me as a very linear thinking person. Basically I do not do anything fast until I am going to do it, then I do it really fucking fast. Once that DVD ended I knew I was going to be a steel bending kind of guy. Not just a good one either, I would become a great bender.

Of course I had little clue where to start. I emailed Dennis that week, and he recommended I check out John Brookfield. John’s books led me to Ironmind and their bag of nails.

I ordered the bag of nails, along with 3 orders of extra in each color that day. Something like 500 pieces of steel came in the mail 6 days later (APO mail is incredibly fast) along with no instructions of how to do this whole thing.

This same week, Jedd Johnson from the Dieselcrew released a nail bending Ebook. In some ways I, being the narcissist I am, felt that all of the world was shifting ever so slightly to make way for my new weird hobby. The best part of an Ebook is instant download.

I opened the ebook, looked at the pictures, and wrapped up a nail. That night I bent three white nails, 10 green nails, and a yellow nail with what is known as an underhand grip. To me that was the only grip which made sense from looking at the pictures (never minding Jedd described the techniques in great detail) and in many ways it felt natural to me, considering how unnatural the whole thing is.

I bent all of the steel I ordered except the red nails in my first month and ordered refills. I responded quickly to the bending and noticed my strength was increasing with my standard circuits of pressing and snatching.

Skip forward almost a year, time to come back to the USA. I brought my weird ass hobby with me and started a website on blogspot. I planned on using the blog as a digital training log, and started posting pictures on it plus workouts. For some reason, other people seemed to enjoy dropping in and asked about the steel bending even cheered me on to bigger bends. At some point in December I posted a video of a Red Nail bend and traffic increased by 3X. That in case you were wondering was from around 50-60 people a day visiting to almost 200. I thought that was pretty weird, but I stayed on track and posted more and more videos while of course talking shit to people on forums. The simple life of a meathead- train for two hours, than spend 4 hours talking about it.

My first video of a red nail bend. I was not pissed off, my face was stuck scowling all the time…

I contacted Ironmind in December 2007 and asked for a judge for the red nail certification. The red nail is more or less the standard of bending excellence. It is not the top of the mountain but it is a very good mark of achievement. The first time I picked up a red nail I was amazed that human beings could bend them, and now I could do it too.

Unfortunately no judge could be arranged before end of year, so I did my cert bend in the beginning of 2008. My judge was Clair Watnye, who is a prominent real estate broker in Minot. He and I became friends afterwards so that was an added bonus.

The red nail bend was a big thing to me. Goal setting was not new to me, but this had been different in my mind. Maybe it was because I first thought the whole thing was bullshit with Dennis and Pat the first time I saw it. Through my achievement I knew they were exactly what they said they were, and some new doors opened in my mind. The idea of becoming a performing strongman.

I bent more and more shit. Horse shoes, spikes, wrenches, long bars, short bars, name it and I probably tried it. I could easily pulverize any deck of cards, any phone book, most name brand tools (of certain types and sizes of course) and a whole mess of steel bars. To make a conservative estimate I bent over 6,000 pieces of steel. I had bent 20 red nails in 15 minutes, and 100 grade 5 bolts in 50 minutes. Hex steel, stainless, all different lengths. I was recognized in that small world of bending by the top guys as a great up and comer.

This was the kind of shit I would do on a given day…

Goals shift and change, and I had to do some things differently. One of the problems I was having was losing more and more mobility and being more rigid every month. This is not technically from steel bending, but instead from my continued practice of more and more tension during the bending. I was good at getting tight. So good at it that I was always tight. All the time.

When I shifted my training towards other goals, such as bottoms up pressing 1/2 body weight which I did in Feb 2009 , lifting 1,500 lbs in the hand and thigh lift which I did in May of 2009, and completing my RKC/CK-FMS requirements which I did in June 2009. I continued to bend shit, but I also moved in many more directions.

Over the last year, my steel bending frequency dropped. I think some of it came down to losing interest in the internet lists, having the same discussions on forums relating to wrapping styles, and the logistical issues of buying steel, having places to store it, and dealing with the problems of heavy duty bends. At some point you will be hurt with it, and my interest in lost training days is at an all time low.

Recently however my interest was brought back to my weird hobby.

On the Ironmind forum some how the topic of red nail rules was brought up and there were discussions of changing the rules (which I cared very little about, I can bend a Red nail in any style very easily) and an interesting conclusion arose. IM would release a new nail, the Gold nail. 8 & 3/8″ long by 3/8″ thick. That is monstrous.

For certification the rule would be IM pads, which are thin pieces of cloth, and a complete bend in less than 60 seconds. Now we are talking truly elite level bending. Randy said he would send the new challenge bar to anyone on the red roster who wanted to try it. I immediately jumped on it.

The “nail” arrived yesterday, a thick huge piece of steel which looks more like a missing part to a car suspension system than a piece of fitness equipment.

8 & 3/8" long by 3/8" diameter, the gold nail is no joke

Today I tried it out. Since the bar is so long I figure the best method to bend it will be with my double underhand style. I figure the added length gives me a small leverage advantage. Getting a bar that long under your chin for DO is very hard.

I wrapped it up according to official standards, picked it up, and hit it really hard.

All I heard was a loud crack in both wrists, and a lot of discomfort.

Some how I forgot this shit does in fact hurt.

I noted the most minute degree of deformation in the bar. 1 degree. Wow, this bar is a mother fucker.

I rested, and attempted it with my reverse style, a new crack greeted me from my elbows. Not painful, but somewhat surprising.

The bar has a total of 3 degrees bend to it, just enough to give it a slight wobble. This is where the new fight starts.

I don’t know how long it will take to bend this stupid bar. I don’t know how many practice pieces I will need to do before I am ready.

What I do know, is that if IM decides to run with the Gold Nail as some kind of COC #4 for bending, than I will be on the list.

Just because. Because I know I can. Because I have bent 3/8″ diameter CRS in the past, and it is certainly possible.

That is how simply my mind works some times. See the target, shoot the target. Not much else to think about.

So for the tiny, tight niche world of steel benders: I am back in the game. I will not be participating in forum discussions of wrapping styles or how much of an asshole so and so is. I will not be submitting for your bending lists or challenges. Not because I have a problem with them, but because I don’t care.

I have a new target, and that is all I need. I have all the information I need to execute my plan.

Gold nail you have won this round, but not this war.