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.