Today we began with some breathing/body warmups. We started out with one step per inhale/exhale (step/inhale, step/exhale) as we walked around the room. Making our way up to five or six steps per inhale/exhale, we went into a light jog. We peaked at ten steps per inhale/exhale and climbed back down to four steps. We talked briefly about the effects experienced during the warmup. Involuntary upper costal breathing (breathing only into the upper parts of the lung in a desperate attempt for more oxygen) seemed to happen to all of us a little bit in the higher stages. We all also begin to feel slight discomfort due to oxygen deprivation when jogging at six to seven steps per inhale/exhale.
Learning to relax in this drill is so much more than just a muscular, skeletal, or psychological concept. As is often repeated in Systema, breathing is not just the mechanical action of the lungs inhaling and exhaling. The inhale and exhale literally extend into the entire body. A proper breath involves physiological efficiency well past the scope of lung operation. The body must be relaxed in an internal level. Training on this level requires a little bit more sensitivity, but is hardly outside anyone's capabilities. Simple exercises such as feeling the pulse in certain parts of the body or performing a single pushup can open doors into the internal mechanics of the body.
After our warmup, we started into some striking work. There were four of us today, so we paired off and began with a basic fist and body alignment drill. One partner stands still while the other walks around that partner, placing their fists on different parts the person's body. This drill is great for feeling one's own structure and form with respect to the person they are striking. The endless contours of the body require that each part of the body be struck genuinely. After the fist placement drill, we started to do some fist pushing. This validates the concept of structure even further. One should try to push with the fist in such a way that they don't move backwards or forwards. In other words, the person being pushed should move, not the person doing the pushing. This is a dynamic balance issue that sounds a little boring from the outside, but a lot of fun to play with once you get into the structural issues.
We eventually got into some real striking. Jase showed up for the first time so I paired off with him so I could jabber a bit about these concepts while striking him and letting him strike me. I explained to Jase how our dominant side usually carries the most tension. I explained this after he noticed himself that his left side was much more tense in receiving strikes than the other. I also explained that certain types of trauma can affect how the body handles strikes. I have had some digestive issues for the past year or so that began with a few occurences of incredibly sharp pain (possibly pancreatitis) that would last for twenty-four hours (bad combinations of prior stress and combining the wrong foods with alcohol). So strikes in certain areas of my body are not received very well. I constantly made reference to breathing so he would get the idea behind being able to take a strike. I also showed him the full spectrum of muscular tension when receiving a strike. Being completely tense sends shock all throughout the body and may possibly result in muscular tissue damage, while being completely loose allows the strike to penetrate the interal organs resulting in a very sickening feeling and potentially some internal injury. So in just a few minutes he had some of the tools to start playing around with receiving strikes. He seemed to like these concepts and ran with them quite well as I continued to hit him.
We did another drill which Fabian accidently began by hitting me as I was hitting Jase. The concept of transferring the momentum/energy of a strike received into giving someone else a strike is similar to the game "hot potato". So at first we lined up and the person in the back of the line started out by striking the person in front of them. That person strikes the person infront of them, and so on. Every so often we would rotate. After doing this for a while, we modified it so that everyone in the line faced the person in the back of the line. So the person in the back of the line would strike the person in front of them, and that person would have to turn around to be able to strike the person in front of them, and so on so that by the time the end of the line was reached, we would all be facing the person in the front on the line. Then the person in the front of the line would strike the person in front (technically behind) them and start all over again. After this we did some strike avoidance drills until the kids showed up for their class.
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