A Journey into the Russian martial art Systema; a voyage of magic and delight

This is the diary of a lifelong Aikido student learning the Russian martial art Systema in Moscow. At first, I was just making random Facebook postings, but later I set about a more systematic [no pun intended] record of my learnings.

Systema is a “soft” or “internal” martial art that belongs to the same family as Tai Chi. It’s focus is very different and is substantially more practical, however.

I want to thank the teachers and students at Systema Ryabko Moscow for having showed me great hospitality and for having shared their wisdom and spirits with me.

June 20

Today I learned something interesting. The teacher had me standing with my back to the wall and was rhythmically punching me in the solar plexus. The idea is to learn to relax and continue breathing while being punched, as this mitigates the damage.

While I managed to relax and breathe, I was kind of hypnotised and my eyes became unfocussed. I need to try harder to remain in the present under these circumstances. Its not really painful, but its against your every instinct to not try to evade the punches or to tense up or, in my case, to evade by making my conscious mind go away.

June 25

Today we did Systema wrestling exercises.

Systema is taught by play and flow — the goal of Systema wrestling exercises is to continue the flow and give your partner a chance to learn the body mechanics intuition. Leave your ego at the door. Play to learn, not to win.

When on your back, lift your left knee slightly, and push your right foot and leg under the left knee — this is how you roll onto your front. Do the same in reverse to roll onto your back.

Keep breathing normally at all times. Even when some huge guy is pressing down on your chest.

Transmit a little rocking movement to get your partner moving and you can then exploit that movement by amplifying it into a larger rocking motion.

If you are pinned down, focus on moving the parts of your body that are free to move.

Take away fear and strength and what remains is Systema. Strength is only used to make up for lack of mastery.

Some Systema philosophy: In Asia Good and Evil are seen as in balance — Ying and Yang locked in eternal combat. Systema instructor does not believe this to be true. According to him, Evil fights Good, but Good does not fight Evil.

Don’t grimace while practising — this will transfer tension to your opponent and they will fight harder. Better to have a joyful attitude, and this will soften your opponent.

October 10

Something very interesting at the end of each class. The class forms a circle and each student takes turns to say something about their experience in the class. This might be self criticism, a comment on what they learned, or a question for the instructor. The nice thing about this is that you find out how the other students are thinking about their learning. Its inspiring and lifts the game of the group.

I tried something like this many years ago when I was technical director at Dennis Interactive in New York — post-project debriefings back in the year 2000 or so. Couldn't get anyone to say anything. I guess there was too much competitiveness or the egos too fragile.

October 21

Punch into the empty spaces. When a person is balanced and at rest, their spaces are “full”. As they move, parts of their body leave this “ at rest” state, leaving empty spaces behind. For example, if someone raises their arm to place their palm on their head, the side of their body becomes an “empty space”.

When someone initiates an attack, they first summon up their will and this is communicated through body language by activating parts of their body in a sequence ending with a punch. Punching into the parts of the body being activated interrupts the sequence of the attack. Learn to observe these activation sequences.

If not done properly, rolling on hardwood floors is painful. Aikido rolls go from one shoulder across the spine to the opposite hip. Systema rolls go from one shoulder to the other, and then down the side to the hip. A lot more fleshy padded bits are engaged. I'm wearing snowboarding padded shorts anyway, because even though the floor will show me where my mistakes are, I will use technology to master the floor.

I have been muscling through my Aikido. Going focus on more softness and slowness in my Aikido in future.

November 11

One of the unique and most important training methods of Systema is the use of a slow motion type of sparring. This sparring game is perhaps the primary physical training device that leads us to combat proficiency, as it allows us to integrate our individual skills, while learning to utilize them in coordination with an opponent. It is an incredibly useful and powerful training tool, but like any other training device, drill or practice, it must be done correctly, in order to instil the desired skills and abilities. Though the aforementioned game is practised in slow motion, it has several aspects that can be difficult for beginners to deal with. The majority of difficulties stem not from an inability to play the game itself, but from a misunderstanding of its principles and goals. The following article will clarify those issues and discuss the primary keys to making correct use of the slow sparring game.

Please read the following essay on Slow Sparring by Arthur Sennott of the Dojo of the Four Winds.

November 12

Apparently, the old Russian warriors used a lot of chain mail, and plate armour was quite rare. Chain mail protects well against a slash, but a thrust with long pointed sword will penetrate chain mail quite well. Chain mail also protects against chopping attacks by heavy bladed weapons, blunting the strike and turning it into a bludgeoning attack.

As a result, a martial tradition was born in which the body is moved such that blunt trauma is minimised, and thrusting attacks are deflected to minimise injury.

Tonight we practised with blunted knives. My partner would press the point of the knife against my body, while I had to move such that the point couldn't get any purchase and would slip off. Then we swapped and I would do the same, but trying to find natural hollows on the body that the blunted point would sit into comfortably (e.g. under the shoulder blades, in the hollows around the neck and clavicle, underneath the ribs front and back, etc. etc.).

The key, as usual in Systema, is relaxation and breathing. Once you see this shiny metal blade coming at you, your instincts to grab it or avoid it kick in. In this exercise, you must override these instincts and allow yourself to explore the natural relaxed movements that cause the point to slip off your body, after it contacts your body. For example, if the knife is placed under the right shoulder blade, if you turn your right hand anti clockwise in front of you while lifting your elbow slightly, the muscles and bones in your back will form an arched shape and the point of the knife loses its purchase and will slip off.

Essentially, this is exploring the use of the body’s natural armour — the bones and muscles, in order to minimise damage from an attack. Its fascinating stuff, and its all learned by experiment — slow speed drills and sparring. No-one can tell you how your body and mind should work, they can only help you to find out for yourself.

Still loving it.

November 21

Systema class tonight, learning to receive punches (apparently the trick is to relax completely, with your body like a sack of jelly — difficult when faced with an overweight Russian dude with ham fists intent on punching your ‘tension’ points to relax them). Very bruised and sore. Followed by traditional Russian banya (sauna), so hot your skin burns, and including jumping into freezing cold water and being whipped with oak leaves. 4 hours later and my balls still ache from the freezing water. I'm sceptical of any health regime that leaves you feeling like someone kicked you in the balls.

November 25

A bit of magic. Sensitivity training. Absorbing punches in such a way as to take away the opponent’s balance. I see it, I feel it, I do it, but I am not sure I believe it.

We start out doing some traditional Systema exercises — push-ups on the fists while regulating breathing — e.g. breathe out, do 1 push-up with empty lungs, breathe in, gather breath, breathe out, do 2 push-ups, breathe in, gather breath, breathe out, do 3 push-ups, … repeat to 10 push-ups.

Then another traditional Systema exercise, push-ups with the fists pressing down on a partners body. The goal of this exercise seems to be to get accustomed to having force on the body, and for gaining stability in the wrists while making fists, and for gaining an understanding of what angles are needed for the fists when contacting various parts of the body. When I am on the receiving end of this exersise, I try to relax and let the force of the push go right through me to the floor or wall.

Then we move on to a bit of magic. Standing, being pushed/punched by a fist, we contort and move our bodies, so that the angle of contact is changed between the body and the fist, it such a way that the pusher/puncher loses balance. The trick here seems to be to move slowly and softly so that the puncher doesn't lose the feeling that they are in control, until its too late. Any tension or stuttering movements will cause the attacker to hesitate. This is all being done at slow speeds, and is presented as an exercise rather than a practical thing.

Then we move onto the real magic. It seems that, having learned the ways to move/contort the body to take away the puncher’s balance, moving this way before the punch contacts will similarly take away the puncher’s balance. In this exercise, we learn how to move such that we position ourselves for a follow up punch after absorbing a punch and taking the attackers balance. It seems that, having stolen the attacker’s balance, openings tend to automagically appear for follow up punches. Without me really thinking about it, my unbalanced partners faces would seemingly just end up in front of my fists.

I don’t fully understand or believe what is going on here. This is all happening with cooperative partners that are highly sensitive and responsive to my movements. Its hard to imagine this working on a non-cooperative partner. That said, at the peak of my Aikido training, I have successfully thrown a non-cooperative person across the room, without even touching them, so I know this kind of magical stuff exists, but I am not convinced that it is reliable and practical. Then again, maybe these guys have found a practical way of teaching and applying the magic.

During the class, I couldn't help but think of a concept called State Transference, which is the idea that you can transfer your emotional state to another person. If you Google the term “mirror neurons”, you will find that there is a whole system in the human brain that is activated when a person acts AND when another is observed acting.

Id like to think that this aspect of Systema is part of a deep understanding of human psychology and body mechanics. I'm just a beginner, so what do I know?

November 29

The Systema instructors generally wander around giving advice, and from time to time they will sneak up and punch you if they feel you aren't relaxed enough. If you are relaxed, you can absorb the punch, if not, it tends to hurt and wind you, and you need to do special breathing to restore yourself from being winded. Either way, you learn something.

Monday night we did absorbing and deflecting punches using our body. Wednesday night the instructor sidled up and punched me in the left side. I kind of absorbed and deflected the punch so that his punching hand was caught by mine.

There is an Aikido movement where one hand passes the opponents hand across your body to your other hand (the beginning of Yokomen Uchi Shiho Nage).

I think I did this using my body to pass the instructors punching hand from my left side to my right hand. It all happened very quickly and instinctively and the result was that I was not hurt by his punch and that I ended up holding his hand so he couldn't do it again (and ready to complete the Shiho Nage movement)

I’d like to think that Monday I actually learned something. All this stuff happens at a very instinctive level, and I think that the slow sparring of Systema builds the instincts very quickly. At least, it seems that way.

Or maybe it was just random chance and I am fooling myself, having fallen into some kind of mass hypnosis with the other members of the group.

No. On reflection, I realise that the slow sparring did actually build the instincts, and that there is much more to build and learn.

November 29

I learned I have been making an important mistake in my Russian language.

When people ask me what I am doing here I have been saying “ya uchit Systema Spetsnaz” thinking it means “I am learning special forces system”.

It actually means “ I am teaching special forces system”

No wonder people have been giving me a wide berth after I say that.

The correct Russian is “ya uchel systema spetsnaz”

December 3

I was telling my English neighbour last week about Systema and Aikido, and in describing them to him, I realised I had made some good insights into the relationship between the two arts.

As “soft” and “internal” martial arts, they embody similar principles.

The differences are the origins and intentions.

Aikijutsu, the parent art of Aikido, was originally a martial art for armoured swordsmen — Samurai. These guys would spend 90% of their time training with weapons, and 10% of their time training for hand-to-hand combat. The hand-to-hand art they developed was based on the strategies and movements they learned for the sword, so that their weapon skills and movements would be compatible with their hand-to-hand skills and movements. In Aikido and Aikijutsu, an engagement begins at a range where the swords are crossed, or extended hands touch each other. Engagements are generally of the form of a fully committed attack. On the battlefield, if you saw an opportunity to cut someone down, you leapt in and cut them down, no hesitation, no fencing, nothing — just jump in and cut as hard as you can. Punching or kicking an armoured swordsman is relatively futile, but you can break their joints no matter what armour they are wearing. And so, Aikido involves an opponent attacking from a distance, putting all their energy into a single attack, evading that attack, and then breaking their joints. Over the years, the pacifist philosophy of Aikido has changed the joint breaking moves into restraining moves. The “guard” stance of Aikido is the same as the guard stance of a swordsman — both hands extended in front, one hand above the other.

Systema claims its roots to be the martial traditions of Russian knights, but I think that the art has further evolved through exposure to traditional Russian boxing, which is basically massed bare knuckle melees with 100s of participants. You can see this kind of fight on YouTube sometimes — two teams of Russian football hooligans lining up in walls, then charging into each other and breaking into a mass fist fight. In such an environment, you are going to be hit no matter what you do, and an emphasis on being able to absorb and deflect punches with your body is very helpful. The “guard” stance of Systema is elbows by the sides, bent at 90 degrees, fists extended forward at about the level of the ribcage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsfVlw5DMdY

Tonight’s Systema instructor is a rough looking character. Hand taped up from bruised knuckles, presumably from a street fight. He was emphasising being able to take a hit, and then use that energy to get in closer for a takedown. One trick is to move your body in such a way that you don’t create a hollow that will trap the punch, but rather to move and contort such that the punch will slip off. We then started playing with knives, and this guy seemingly knew exactly how one might go about a prison stabbing, sidling up with the knife concealed and then stabbing multiple times — the defence involves a movement very familiar to Aikidoka — dropping ones weight while extending the arms in a curved manner. I would hazard a bet that Systema was preserved and refined in Russian prisons as well as by the special forces.

December 12

My time in Moscow coming to an end this week, I reflect on what I have learned in my Systema classes.