While all
martial arts are physical encapsulations of survival strategy, there is
considerable variation in both the depth of the strategy and the time required
to teach it to a useful level. Systema,
a martial art of the Russian Special Forces, is remarkable both for the depth
of its teachings and the effectiveness and rapidity of its teaching
method. While many systems of martial
arts promote physical, energetic and psychological wellbeing as well as
teaching self-defence, this usually requires lengthy training cycles.
Systema
tends to teach much more quickly, and the recent seminar in Toronto given by visiting
masters Valantin Talanov and Major Konstantin Komarov was no exception.
Systema has
no forms, no stances and few techniques. Its approach to life and to combat
rests on two main teachings: natural movement and proper breathing, taught
through a repertoire of exercises and drills.
How it Works
Well, it
turns out that most people don’t know how to do either of these things
properly, and Systema addresses that directly and immediately. Students are taught methodically how to avoid
and move around incoming force, how to absorb it and cushion even the most powerful
punches, and how to move naturally even in the most unpleasant situations, such
as while on the ground being kicked. Through natural movement and breath work,
the practitioner maintains physical and psychological relaxation throughout the
encounter, which, paradoxically, makes him or her a very difficult target.
Of course,
cultivating natural movement requires deep relaxation and relaxation in turn
requires that you be free from fears, doubts and anxieties. Never fear, though – Systema has this covered
too. Since the two primary physical
fears are falling and getting hit, Systema takes you through a series of
exercises that let you experience these in a controlled way. And it works – you really do lose any fear of
falling or getting hit.
Furthering
these principles, a great deal of Talanov’s morning session was spent on giving
and absorbing energy from punches, as well as on detecting points of tension
within your attacker and pushing or striking them. This serves two purposes. First, in striking a point of tension, the
tension, along with the emotional energy behind it, dissipates, thus reducing
the opponent’s will to attack. Given
this approach, it isn’t surprising that another of the exercises focused on the
difference between defending yourself in a way that calms the aggressor down
rather than further infuriating him. Second, the point of tension is the point
at which you can cause your opponent to collapse with a shocking degree of
ease, as you’ll see in the video below.
All of
this, of course, helps you in several ways, by dispersing your own tensions and
allowing you to learn to deal with a wide variety of different energies from
different people. They learn to take
punches while relaxing through the pain enough to be sensitive to a partner’s
points of tension. One of the more
interesting iterations of these exercises involved punching inside an incoming
punch and then immediately punching to the torso; in other words, hitting two
points of tension in rapid succession.
With the punches coming at you, there’s no time to think. You just have to relax and be sensitive to
your partner.
In combat,
this gets really interesting: your opponent is on the offensive, tense and
primed for combat, and convinced until the very last second that he’s going to
win. Then suddenly he’s in a heap on the
floor, bewildered and wondering what happened.
Because Systema exercises train natural body movement, all movements in
combat are ideally made without any thought and using very little energy - they
happen naturally, and are thus very difficult to see or anticipate. Humans are set up to react against hostile
energy, which Systema movements exclude.
Systema’s punches and strikes rely on only momentary muscular tension- yet
tend to feel like being hit with bricks when done right.
The amazing
thing from our point of view was that so many of Systema’s basic principles
resemble those of the “soft” or “internal” martial arts of China, despite
external disparity in teaching styles.
The emphasis on relaxation during combat, the central use of breathing
to remove tensions from the body, the use of posture and the role of attention
all seemed familiar from Tai Chi.
The latter
was particularly interesting. A number
of students asked Major Komarov about dealing with fear and accumulated stress,
and his advice was to make a practice of regularly scanning your body from top
to bottom for areas of tension caused by stress or fear. Then you focus on and physically press on each
tense area in turn while breathing into it to release the tension. This develops your internal attention so that
you’re always subconsciously correcting fear and stress through their
physiological manifestations. In other
words, you train yourself to defuse fear and anxiety, tension and stress at
their early stages, rather than letting them build up and run your life.
Systema is
a tremendous tool for psychological and energetic healing, a means of dealing
with incoming stress from any source, and a deadly martial art that can become
combat-effective very quickly. Above
all, it is a tremendous tool of personal development. The principles you learn will help your
relationships with everyone, even (especially) people attempting to do you harm.
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