Lu Xiaojun is a separate breed.
No one knows why.
I do.
You do not have to believe me.
Neither I am trying to convince or console you.
But you are on my website.
I will say what needs to be said.
Look at Lu's attempts.
Both of past and the present times.
You will notice his precision has sharpened.
It is obvious - He is on to something that no other
lifter of the past and present has ever been.
No, I do not imply "substance" or "gear".
I imply something deeply human.
Something visceral.
Something inspirationally devout.
No, his Chinese compatriot Shi is not even close.
No matter how much aggression he is able to bring on stage.
No matter how crazy his power cleans are.
Liao was closer to Lu's pristineness.
But he showed his true colors.
His devotion to the sport was never as deep as Lu's.
He was serving his Ego. And even he knows it.
Perhaps you will say that Lu is the best "proportioned"
out of the three.
And that will fall on dead ears.
"Proportions", "genetics", "technique",...
are excuses.
By the unserious. For the unserious.
There is something about the East is it not?
No, I am not taking sides here.
The west is my present home.
I have come to call it so,
both for the hospitality and warmth that it has offered me,
and its openness to radical notions that challenge the status quo.
But the way these lifters move,
there is something magical about it.
But the way Lu Xiaojun moves,
there is something Godlike and yet, innocent about it.
I will not leave you hanging
with a one-way seemingly authoritarian "East is the best".
East is not "the best".
East is east.
Just as the west is west.
If I were to consider the few lifters from the West,
who came close to giving their all to the sport,
and leave nothing, really nothing back,
these three come to mind.
Pyrros Dimas.
Taner Sagir.
Naim Süleymanoğlu.
In that order.
Out of all the lifters in the West,
Pyrros comes closest to the needle-tip-like precision
and the unbelievable virtuosity that Lu routinely exhibits.
Some of his lifts almost look "Chinese".
Barely any foot movement.
Simple. Efficient. Beautiful.
Taner and Naim, with their desire to win, also almost
escaped their permanent, viscerally embodied western traits.
But their lack of precision was blatant.
Their attempts are nowhere close to the
depth of knowledge exhibited in some of Pyrros's lifts.
The rest of the west,
of the long-gone past, recent past,
and the damned present times,
do not even weightlift.
When competing, they approach the bar,
lift their ego's worth of weight, and go home.
When training, they are merely chasing highs and avoiding lows,
that only projects the reality of their routine life.
They "train" so that they do not have to truly train.
They "live" because they are too afraid to fully live.
If you are from the West,
the game is not lost.
There is still hope.
But the clock is ticking away.
And thanks to the culture around you,
with every passing moment,
you are being stripped off of your innocence, sincerity,
and the visceral desire to conquer the platform.
If Weightlifting is in your blood,
you will give it your heart, soul, and every drop of blood
in your body.
You will not need your coaches' "Cmon, let's go!".
You will do what needs to be done.
If there is as little as a hint of doubt
about whether or not Weightlifting is for you,
let me save you the trouble of living a caged life -
it is not.
Thank you.