Flexibility and coordination are really important if you want to learn the olympic lifts. You can ALWAYS work on getting stronger right? If you don't have flexibility, it's really difficult. I was a competitive figure skater growing up which gave me a great base of flexibility, coordination and big muscles in my legs that never seemed to go away. I actually lifted less than one year prior to deciding it would be fun to learn to OL.
I've only trained w/this new group of folks and coach twice so they are just doing little tweaks to my technique each week. Things like narrowing my stance, widening grip on the snatch, make sure I'm not looking up, relaxing my arms, not strangling the bar w/my grip (again, relax my upper body), fast feet on the jerk, dropping FAST to make the catch on cleans and snatches, all sorts of fun stuff.
You may really like this stuff coming from a martial arts background. I was initially drawn to it because it combines the fun of lifting heavy stuff with my affinity towards refining technique, attention to detail, competition, etc. At least set up one session with this guy in the Twin Cities. I would think that after ONE session, you will be hooked. Just ask Tina!
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