Cramped in the Trees

This Thursday we did most of our work in a small grove of trees. I wanted to do some of our normal drills but add the psychological factor of being in a tight space. Fortunately almost everyone in our group showed up, so we had five bodies in addition to the trees to take up what little space was left. We began with a simple movement drill. One person uses footwork to casually avoid everyone else as they walk at him. Give the person a little strike or two if they get tangled up in the people or trees. Our group is always eager to give and take strikes--we invariably start hitting eachother towards the end of a drill if we get a little bored. I think the context of our training makes giving and receiving strikes a release--and who doesn't like a free fist massage?

From this walking drill, we advanced to avoiding strikes. Constant movement was emphasized, even if just a little bit, or possibly even if it just means breathing. As the person being attacked, focusing on one person exclusively, even briefly, resulted in taking strikes from everyone else. I forgot to bring shoes, so I had to do the work in flip flops, which required much more relaxation in the footwork to keep them on. In a real scenario I might kick them off as I was being attacked, or perhaps there wouldn't be a need to. Who really knows. At this point, the awareness had to be extended to a greater extent to the trees.

While walking and avoiding my partners using just the footwork, my vision-awareness was only moving in a single plane. Avoiding strikes in addition to using footwork requires the vision-awareness to extend beyond the single plane and into the full range of movement. Not only must the body as a whole avoid the trees, but now specific parts of the body must avoid trees while avoiding punches. I came close to slamming my head into a tree while evading a strike. Fortunately we were going slow, so I was able to yank myself out of the way inches before hitting it. At full speed I definitely would have given myself a good knock.

We finally moved into doing some work in response to the strikes. We were starting to get used to the trees by now, so they weren't much of an issue. We did begin to pick up some speed though and, perhaps intuitively, moved away from the trees. We touched on the issue of handling multiple attackers. Gene suggested I focus a little less on the attackers individually--he saw that I was starting to get hit quite a bit as a result of over focusing. What's interesting is that initially, I was moving pretty well, not focusing too much, and avoiding the strikes with what felt like a pretty good flow. But as I took a strike every now and then (an inevitability with four guys punching at you), my performance began to degrade. I became more attached to the strikes I was receiving, and consequently gave more of a conscious effort to either give them back or to try and not get struck. This resulted in a turn-based focus on each of my partners. I focused on one for a little while, then another, then another, etc. And while this focus would become more intense, I would get struck from the other people I wasn't focusing on.

So towards the end, I had to will myself a bit not to focus on any of them... which was different than how I performed when I first started the drill. When I first started, the work felt effortless. As I took more and more punches, subtle frustration ensued, and I became attached to attacking and being attacked. Fearful is a good way to describe it. As I forced myself away from this attachment, my work became less specific and a little more out of control. I resorted to using more whiplike strike movements with my arms to keep them away. So the fear was still there, but my movement was more fluid, which kept them from coming in and hitting or grabbing me. When I first started, I would let them do whatever they wanted and work with it semi-effectively. I wasn't afraid of them attacking, so they weren't afraid. I would say like lambs to the slaughter, but you might laugh once you've seen me fight. At the end, I prevented them from getting close out of my own fear. That's not to say that the way I worked at the end of the drill wouldn't be effective though. There's a time and a place for it all I suppose, even a spinning back-fist to backflip high-kick combo...maybe.

I will brag on myself a little. Ricky put me in a nice armlock from behind. So I casually took a little step to the side and planted my foot on the outside of his, then tugged a little with my torso. Apparently I only moved my torso about one or two inches with this tug, while Ricky went horizontal. This gave/gives me a chance to explain the concept of body densities. Essentially what happened, or at least what I think happened, was that Ricky was pretty tense in his upper body while locking my arms behind me. This concentrated tension in his upper body left his legs and hips fairly loose and compliant. So I took a little step to the side, not enough to catch his attention, but enough to get his legs off-base. When I tugged sharply with my torso and hips, that must have drawn attention to the fact that his legs were off-balance. So the tension shifts from his upper body to his lower body while receiving the momentum from my tug. The legs, being tense, go flying up into the air (I.e. a board on a fulcrum vs. a bag of sand on a fulcrum, the hips being the fulcrum). I'm sure there's a better way to explain this, presuming I'm even remotely on base with the concept. The basic concept is that the body, in general, will only maintain focused tension in a certain area while doing work (walking, climbing trees, knitting, anything), leaving the rest of the body loose. Often in martial arts or fighting, this gets divided into the upper body being tense while the lower body is loose or vice versa. Anyhow, I'll stop going on about it. Bragging is only an indication that I still suck. I.e. These sorts of things only happen to me at the turn of every third centry. I'll shutup about them when they happen more often. But until then! ;)

Getting Grapply

Here's a few pictures of Mark and I grappling on the carpet. My burn scabs are just now starting to fall off.




















Mark taking a pretty good shot. A little slouchy, but he seems a bit bored by my efforts.



















Me rolling around without a care in the world.



















Me demonstrating how NOT to take a strike. Bent at the stomach, shoulders caved in. I think he cheated on that one with a feint--look at the devilish grin on his face.



















Me facing the consequences of not taking the strike with good form. Breathe...



















Apparently my skill increases at the opportunity to touch Mark's ass. Ehh...















Mark snarling for the armbar. Me looking like I'm going to sock him one even though we're just grappling. Oops.














Taking strikes from a sitting position.



















The face mash technique.



















Mark probably going for the choke. Me probably not paying attention.














Hitting Mark in the back a bit.

Hopefully I get some pictures of our whole group training soon.

That Object Over There is Invisible

So I wrote a little bit previously about how casual movement doesn't attract attention. We really got a good glimpse of this today while doing some movement work with a four foot staff. The drill was to give one person the stick to swing (slowly) at everyone else. There were only three of us training that day, so the drill stayed pretty clean. One moment I remember distinctly was approaching Gene from behind while he was swinging the staff. We were going very slow, so reflexes weren't an issue (I.e. I'm saying that my bad reflexes have nothing to do this). As I was approaching him to hit him, I saw the staff move over his head and towards me from above. I thought nothing of it--Gene appeared not to be paying any attention to me, which made me presume that any of his movement wouldn't be directed at me. All of a sudden: *thunk*. Wait, how did that stick hit me? I was watching it the whole time. But without picking up on Gene's intent, the movement had no harmful context, "Oh, look, it's just a stick moving towards me, big deal". This could very well be because I'm not too bright at knowing when to get the heck out of the way though. I'm always amused by my malfunctions during training. Running headlong into kicks, ducking a shot to the chest to take it in the neck, trying to redirect a chain using my neck, etc. Maybe I should write about the "invisible effect" when I get over the neural misfires.

Working with Kids

I had the opportunity to work with a good-sized group of kids (15 or so). I don't have a whole lot of experience when it comes to working with kids, but I know I can be childish, so I didn't figure I'd be terrible at it. I was actually just giving drill ideas to the instructor, Fabian, who relayed them onto the kids. So I had them start off doing rolls, starting from a kneeling position, while holding hands. Kids don't usually have a great fear of the ground, so I figured I could dive right into messier (fun) work--I didn't want to bore them. They seemed to enjoy the rolling, especially rolling backwards. I had them all hold hands to do a big group roll as well, which they actually did really well with. There was only one kid who rolled too late. He kept trying to do everything from a technical standpoint--convinced that he didn't know how to roll very well. I judged the success of the drill by the amount of giggling coming from the rolling mass of kids.

We then practiced some evasion and distance drills, which I figured to be the most boring for them, but I think it's good for developing minds to get just a small taste of the mundane. They started out in pairs, one person striking, and the other evading. From this evasion drill we worked on following the striker, then following and lightly tapping the striker. From here we split the kids into groups of five to work the same concepts but on a mass attack scale. The drill did turn out to be the most boring for them--most of the kids either didn't pay much attention or started horsing around.

Fabian said the final drill should be something fun and involving all of the kids at once. So we created a ring, fifteen feet in diameter, and had Eros stand in the middle. The kids were told to walk quickly towards Eros and hit him twice, walk to the perimeter of the ring, touch one of the bags, walk back to hit him, etc. As they did this, we slowly decreased the diameter of the ring, making the crowd more dense. Pretty soon the perimeter of the circle shrank to about five feet and the kids were getting more rambunctious (I.e. having more fun). I also showed them what relaxation can do by standing in the middle of the crowd while they all pushed on me, then relaxing through the force and having them all fall over. This actually didn't work that well since they just wanted to push me as hard as they could. So after a few unsuccessful attempts (successful for them since they didn't really understand or care what I was trying to demo, they were having too much fun pushing me over), I just relaxed as soon as they started pushing and they all went down. They definitely got a kick out of it, though I think they really just enjoyed pushing me over!

Fabian had them line up again so they could talk about what they learned. A few of the responses were really surprising (unless they were just repeating the overall concepts that they receive in every class--kids past a certain age get that knack for saying what they're taught to say, thanks public schools). Regardless, they seemed to understand some basic principles universal to most martial arts: breathing, going slow to practice and improve movement, footwork, etc.. Working with them was definitely a treat!

Indian Run Modification

This drill turned out to be fairly fun and good for striking, breathing, and concentration. We actually walked through this drill instead of running.

Form a line and begin walking or running. The person in the back strikes the person in front of them, and that person strikes the person in front of them, etc., until the person in the front of the line is struck. The person in the back who struck first must run to the front of the line in order to get struck. This drill turned out to a little challening with respect to concentration. I definitely had a hard time remembering to strike when I had been struck, or running to the front of the line after striking from the back of the line. This drill can become challenging by making the striking happen faster, running faster, hitting deeper, etc.

A few modifications of the drill were tried as well:

1) Instead of starting from the back, the person in front will turn and face the person behind them and strike them, and that person will turn around to strike the person behind them, etc. The person in front will run to the back in time to receive a strike from the person at the end of the line.

2) Do the drill while duckwalking.

Disbelief

I think what causes a lot of disbelief with respect to Systema is how casually the work is done. Ironically, it is this casualness that causes the work to be so effective. As mentioned in the previous thread, good Systema work does not draw attention to itself unecessarily. The work draws as much attention as a person opening a door. Movement executed with focused intent and tension captures the attention of the opponent well before the movement begins. The fists tighten, the eyes open a little wider, the hips rotate a certain way, there is a sharp intake of breath. All of these signals are transmitted to the opponent that activate the "oh crap, something is about to happen" reaction. With an untrained person, this will generally mean that they tense up, freeze, throw their arms in front of their face, etc. A trained person may react a little better. At any rate, whether trained, or untrained, there is a response generated to these signals. So what we all try to practice is doing our work with a certain level of casualness. This however is not an easy task to come about, as simple as it may be. One can feign casualness but lack the skill and training to do the work. One can drop the casualness and do the work with a great amount of skill and training behind them. I have seen skilled people with bagfulls of techniques unable to work effectively against tougher and less-sensitive partners. These techniques are being signaled well before their execution. And on that same note, I have seen Systemists (me!) try to act casual without the skill and training to do anything useful.

So with this level of casualness, the work can go unnoticed. This is where all the "weird" stuff can happen. Note that I used the word "can" in reference to possibility. From my experience, there is no formula for these no touch takedowns, nasty one inch punches, or anything else that are laughable when one claims to be able to do this work by force of will, chi, whatever. Mikhail and Vladimir make no such claims. It is possible to surprise someone or lock their structure so much that they fall over without any physical force (watch America's Funniest Home Videos, you'll see it happen at least once). It is possible for a little jab to affect someone's nervous system in a devastating way. Muscles are surprisingly nice at absorbing the shock of a strike and preventing it from traveling inside (everyone who has been hit hard while their guard was down has felt this inside travel... see "The Onion" post). But if the muscles are nice and soft or very tense, a little jab can go right through and fire off the nervous system, causing all sorts of funny things to happen. This is basic psychology and physiology. So on that order, I don't claim to be able to create a no touch knockdown by force of will, and I don't think any other Systema practitioners do. We can just call them "happy accidents" or "circumstance". You'll notice in watching Mikhail that he is very physical with some, and very psychological with others. He is sensitive to how people function. There is nothing magical about the work he does. I cannot emphasize this enough.

So anyways, we learn a little bit about how the body works, rather than memorize techniques for doing specific things--functional, not robotic. We learn to relax starting with our breath. We learn to move on the foundations of our breath. We become comfortable with being uncomfortable--taking strikes, doing frustratingly sensitive work, five minute pushups, talking to God when we don't want to, etc. We are trying to approach something from many different directions, as many as there are humanly possible (which is why Systema is described as functioning on all levels of human ability). Where are we going? I like to think of it as getting closer to God, others like to think of it as heading towards freedom, others refer to it as "going home", and others simply do the work and don't waste their time philosophizing too much. So our training keeps moving and evolving, because there is so much to do, and it seems so dizzyingly complex from the outside. Those moments of clarity, that come and go during training, require the intellectual capacity of a fly.

Footwork Fandango

Our last two training sessions have involved manipulating and disrupting our partner's footwork. Our own intent very quickly becomes an inhibiting factor to doing the work in that area. Everyone has a natural sense of how to recover balance and regain stable footing. Intent makes this occur more naturally. If I have strong intentions of doing a leg sweep type move on my partner, I will often project this intent well before I actually execute the movement. This projection is easily and often unconsciously picked up by my partner, who will shift their weight or move in such a way that I won't be able to do what I intended to do. I would imagine that from here, without realizing how intent is another dimension of work, that this problem would be solved by more complex itentions (fake leg sweep to groin kick, etc.) And finally, instead of doing any work, we all start trying to work various probabilities out on a piece of graph paper.

Relaxed movement is excellent at hiding, magnifying, or simply not working at all with intent. Those casual movements pass us by without notice. Pickpockets excel here. No one notices very much because the movements are very normal and do not attract attention. Techniques must be learned, and if they must be learned, then there must be some visible intent in using them. I'm sure that as training in these techniques goes on, the conscious thought process of execution becomes quicker and less noticeable, but that takes many years. Even after such training, there is still intent. This is not to say that technique is bad or wrong, it has its context in training. Why not just take the quick route and learn to simply do the work required (kick someone's leg out from underneath them, hit the arm holding the knife as the grip weakens for a moment, etc.)?

This is the type of work we've been doing. Disrupting the footwork becomes very difficult when attempting to do it from a mechanically timed perspective. And in this difficulty, more important matters (a knife coming for the throat) tend to be ignored. The first drill we did was to have someone kneel while the rest of the group walks around them punching eachother to take the focus off of the kneeling person. The kneeling person is simply there to observe and play. An easy trap in this drill is to try and take everyone down that walks past. The only goal is to observe. Push a little here, see what happens. Pull there, oops, that didn't work. Don't necessarily make mental notes of the observations--just get comfortable playing around with the feet and legs as they go by. From here, stand up, and do the same thing, but use the feet instead of the hands to push the feet/legs around. Every once in a while, a take down will happen with just a little push to someone's leg or foot. Don't get used to this happening, but do realize that even little movements can become effective in a gigantic way.

Now add an element of stress into the picture. The people that were walking around hitting eachother are now trying to hit you. Again, keep playing while escaping the strikes. Don't do anything with the strikes or the rest of their body other than escape them and play with their footwork. Keep observing what happens to their body with these little kicks. When this drill becomes comfortable, continue to break the form in other ways once you have disrupted their footwork. Don't necessarily get stuck in the pattern of "disrupt the footwork, then disrupt the rest of the form". You can break other aspects of their form first, then disrupt the footwork, then back to breaking the form... any combination will be fine. Work simultaneously on footwork disruption and other parts of the body. Be creative and keep intent out of the picture for now. Another drill that might enhance this work is the distance drill:

Have your partner walk at you. Move out of the way casually and follow them at a certain distance. This distance should be somewhere in the area of the "middle" distance. Vladimir describes this middle distance as being not so close that one is cramped for space, and not so far away that no work can be done. One way to measure this distance is to find where you are most comfortable striking somebody front to front. Too far away and you'll have to reach for it, too close and the strike will be less effective.