training
Well, my first post on deluxe. In answer to the gentleman who wanted to know about sparring with a systema practioner, I first attended a systema seminar shortly after it arrived in the uk. The weekend itself was camping on a little island and was taught by a 5th dan in ninjitsu, at the time I was studying thai boxing and tried the everything that I knew at the time to land a blow on the guy. I then went through the rather unpleasant experience of having everything that I thought I knew fall apart on me.
Some of the posters have commented that systema can look somewhat unrealistic and I agree it does, which added to the shock because it looked exactly the same when the guy was taking me apart. My brain devided into three distinct voices, one said "this can't be happening", another said "this is happening, do something", the third was yelling at the second to shut up because I was doing what little I could to resist and just ending up in a bigger heap.
Yes there is some non-contact work involved, I don't expect anyone to believe in it without experiencing it, but it worked on me and on everyone else there.
For the sake of completeness I'll mention two other things that made an inpression on me, other than fists and feet obviously. While we were there we were sharing the island with a bunch of rugby players who had all brought their kids with them. On the saturday night the kids were running wild around the tents, when we politely complained to the parents the following morning we were threatend. The instructor then offered to fight all of them himself. Not in an aggressive manner, more "ok, ready when you are". That was a real eye opener, I've never seen seven heavily built men back down so quickly in my life.
What also struck me was one of the instructors junior students, who had come along and had only been in systema for a few months and was about my size, however I have no doubt that he would have won in a fight, because he was pretty good in his own right. I have no doubt that he could defend himself which was reassuring because it showed me that the skills weren't just for high ranking martial artists and they could be picked up quite quickly.
Anyway you may have guessed by now I rather like Systema and were there a school within 100 miles of me would be studying it.
So to the guy who started the topic I'd say your lucky man go along and try it out and if your not sure about it on a practical level ask the instructor if you can just go flat out for a while. If their anything like mine was they'll be only too happy to oblige.
By the way, where are you based?
Well, my first post on deluxe. In answer to the gentleman who wanted to know about sparring with a systema practioner, I first attended a systema seminar shortly after it arrived in the uk. The weekend itself was camping on a little island and was taught by a 5th dan in ninjitsu, at the time I was studying thai boxing and tried the everything that I knew at the time to land a blow on the guy. I then went through the rather unpleasant experience of having everything that I thought I knew fall apart on me.
Some of the posters have commented that systema can look somewhat unrealistic and I agree it does, which added to the shock because it looked exactly the same when the guy was taking me apart. My brain devided into three distinct voices, one said "this can't be happening", another said "this is happening, do something", the third was yelling at the second to shut up because I was doing what little I could to resist and just ending up in a bigger heap.
Yes there is some non-contact work involved, I don't expect anyone to believe in it without experiencing it, but it worked on me and on everyone else there.
For the sake of completeness I'll mention two other things that made an inpression on me, other than fists and feet obviously. While we were there we were sharing the island with a bunch of rugby players who had all brought their kids with them. On the saturday night the kids were running wild around the tents, when we politely complained to the parents the following morning we were threatend. The instructor then offered to fight all of them himself. Not in an aggressive manner, more "ok, ready when you are". That was a real eye opener, I've never seen seven heavily built men back down so quickly in my life.
What also struck me was one of the instructors junior students, who had come along and had only been in systema for a few months and was about my size, however I have no doubt that he would have won in a fight, because he was pretty good in his own right. I have no doubt that he could defend himself which was reassuring because it showed me that the skills weren't just for high ranking martial artists and they could be picked up quite quickly.
Anyway you may have guessed by now I rather like Systema and were there a school within 100 miles of me would be studying it.
So to the guy who started the topic I'd say your lucky man go along and try it out and if your not sure about it on a practical level ask the instructor if you can just go flat out for a while. If their anything like mine was they'll be only too happy to oblige.
By the way, where are you based?
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