notes from Kevin's November 2006 seminar at Fighthouse

It's been awhile since these seminars. I recorded some notes but
didn't have time to write anything up because I was busy with my
final project. I never really got a solution I was happy with, by the
way. It was far too much code for such a simple assignment. But I did
get an A, anyway. It's funny, I thought I was not as smart as the
other students. As I wrote in my earlier post, I have this issue with
self-confidence. And because I had to revise all my weekly
assignments so many times, and was often vexed by these puzzles that
the professor gave us, I just assumed it was easier for everyone
else. But on the last day, it turned out that I was the only student
to complete all 13 assignments. This is probably more of a reflection
of my stubborness and persistence than sheer intellect. But it was
still startling enough to completely change my self-perception.

So that's all in the past and it's a new semester, new challenges,
but I haven't forgotten Kevin's seminars. This will be a bit rougher
than usual because so much time has passed, but I wanted to share
this with you anyway. I remember that Kevin emphasized three
principles throughout the whole weekend:

1) If you can't move fluidly by yourself, adding a partner won't
help. This is an important concept because I think this impatience
sometimes causes students to ignore the drills and fight with each
other. But there's no getting around the fact that you must learn to
move fluidly on your own before you can expect to succeed at sparring
with a partner. You should be relaxed and fluid enough to have a
reasonable measure of control over your direction. Imagine if
training took place on a subway platform. Do you have enough control
to avoid being knocked onto the tracks?
2) Breathe – no further explanation needed. We all know this is
important, but too often forget.
3) Cheat, don't compete. I'm a big proponent of this advice. That is
why some of my classmates say I fight dirty and have all kinds of
nasty tricks. It is true that I don't mind yanking hair or bending a
pinky finger to get myself out of a sticky situation. But of course I
only resort to those means when I can't escape any other way, like if
my partner is a lot stronger and using all his strength against me.
Straightforward competition is fine for sport, in life, playing by
the rules does not necessarily mean you'll survive. Competing with
your classmates is pointless. Let's say you are the best one, you
have "beaten" all your classmates. That only assures you that you'll
be safe if any of your classmates attack you. What about the other
six billion people in the world? Can you compete with all of them?
Better not to assess your skills through competition.

Saturday

So, in keeping with principle #1, we started with an hour-and-a-half
of movement exercises on the ground. Kevin told us this modest
investment of ninety minutes would be helpful for the remaining four
hours. He demonstrated four types of full squats:

-just a regular low squat with back straight, as in Systema class
- a Cossack squat, knee bent, weight on one foot or the other, moving
fluidly in a circular motion as if shooting 360 degrees
- hunter's squat: also on one knee, with the other folded on the
floor and foot turned slightly inward – comfortable for sitting on
cold ground a long time,
- and then the half-pigeon, kind of like a yoga position with one
knee bent leaning forward slightly and the other leg stretched out
behind – it's easy to roll or to stand up from this position

Kevin fluidly moved from one position to the other, periodically
going all the way to the ground, or standing up, or rotating around
in the Cossack squat. He encouraged us to do the same. If you can
move fluidly from each of these squats to the others, you can
probably move very well on the ground. Unfortunately I found the
regular squat pretty uncomfortable; this is one of the most painful
positions for me. If I try to stand up from this position, all the
joints in my knees and ankles will start mistracking and I'll be
temporarily crippled. I don't know if there's any way I will improve;
my massage therapist does not think I should squat so low because it
causes subluxation. So I generally do half squats and maybe someday
I'll be able to go a bit lower. The other three positions weren't as
painful, and the hunter's squat and half pigeon were actually pretty
comfortable. But I don't think I was transitioning too fluidly
between them.

Kevin mentioned something about "unlocking the 5 & 6th vertebrae"
that I didn't quite catch. I think it involved lifting the legs up
and over the head, as if doing a leg lift, and then doing something
else to unlock the vertebrae. I wish I had caught what he said
because I am pretty sure that my 5th and 6th vertebrae are "locked"
as I think he mentioned that it makes backwards rolls more difficult,
and I have always had a hard time with those (I have to fling my legs
over my head, rather than moving them in a controlled manner).

We practiced "threading" to turn from laying on the stomach, to the
back, and stomach again. This is where you initiate the sideways turn
by "threading" one leg underneath the other – start on your back by
making a kind of a "4" shape with the bent leg sliding under the
straight leg, then rotate your hips to turn over. We also did some
breakdance-style moves, the "helicopter" where you kind of wave your
legs around, I can't even explain this one. But it was the foundation
for the next one which I found pretty straightforward: rolling from
stomach to back and stomach again, but without touching your arms or
legs to the floor. You accomplish this by rotating your hips, and it
just naturally turns your body, so that you don't even need to rest
more than your upper thighs on the floor to turn yourself.

Kevin showed us these "drilling"exercises where you "screw" your arm
into the ground. This is a good exercise for stiff muscles. You just
kind of rotate your arm on the floor, pressing slightly on the wrist,
or the elbow, and rotating your shoulder so that it stretches your
muscles. It's hard to explain, but I think these kinds of exercises
warm up the joints by releasing sinuvial fluid for better
lubrication.

We learned how important breathing is with the next exercise. One
partner lay on the floor on his back, the other leaned heavily on one
part of his torso. The partner on the floor had to inhale "through"
the part being leaned on, and then the leaning person would release
that part and press on another point, and the person on the floor had
to exhale through the released point and inhale through the other
point being pressed on. So basically, your partner influenced your
breathing with this exercise. But it's not so easy as it sounds. I
found when my partner leaned heavily on my upper chest, it was
actually pretty difficult to breathe "through" it. (By "leaning
heavily," I mean, put quite a lot of weight on your partner, so that
he might feel his breathing a little restricted until he adapts to
it.) So we practiced breathing through different parts of the chest
and stomach even when under pressure. This is a pretty crucial skill
for groundwork, if you've ever been trapped underneath a much heavier
training partner, I'm sure you'd agree!

We did a little joint-locking work, first in partners, one person
twisting the other's arm, then in groups of three, with two people
twisting both of one person's arms. We also did a little practice
with escaping from wrist and finger locks. I remember Kevin telling
us that if you are locking the fingers and you bring the pinky across
the other fingers, rather than keeping it parallel to the other
fingers, it hurts a lot more. However, I don't have any further notes
about the latter. But I can fill in the gap with some work we did
last week in Edgar's classes with finger locks. Edgar showed us that
when your fingers are being locked, you can help with your other
hand, your leg, or even your head, by using these parts to brace your
fingers are they are being bent backwards or forwards. You just use
the flat plane of a part of your body that isn't locked to stop the
bending before it gets too painful. Of course you do have to follow
up and escape from the lock, too. Edgar also showed how to tense the
lower part of the arm and the hand, then release the tension, to
manipulate the person locking you. And a bunch of other tactics to
prevent wrist and finger locks, which I won't go into further detail
since I want to return to Kevin's teachings.

We did a drill to improve shoulder mobility. One person faces two
people, arms spread, around one of each of their shoulders. Then you
dip your head in a deep circle, touching the back of the head to
their torsos, and come up on the other side and straighten head.
Kevin had the girls triple up for this since it really does involve
rubbing your head all over your partners' chests. Later we did this
in Edgar's class and I didn't have the benefit of female partners. I
have to admit, I was pretty embarrassed when my classmate was rubbing
his head all over my breasts. I know that he didn't intend to
embarrass me and generally I'm pretty easygoing about close contact,
but I'm not anxious to repeat this particular exercise with the guys!
Kevin told us you can also use a wall to do this. Face the wall,
spread arms flat and parallel to floor, palms to the wall. Dip your
head down as far as you can go towards one side, and slide in a
circular motion to come up on the other side. The back of your head
should touch the wall.

We spent a good amount of time on chokes. Kevin is not the first
instructor to tell us that air chokes are too dangerous for everyday
practice. I wish that students would heed this a little more. A blood
choke might require a little more precision but it's pretty safe even
if you are choked out. An air choke if applied with too much force
has a greater chance of fatality. Yet whenever we practice chokes,
inevitably one of my partners will begin to strangle me, and I don't
feel comfortable with repeated oxygen deprivation, sometimes it
leaves me so light-headed that my vision blurs and I have trouble
standing. I think this is something I should practice rarely at this
point, but it seems most students prefer applying it rather than the
blood choke.

But we practiced this as a technical skill, which means one person
was passively allowing the other to choke, then tapping out. So there
was a safety net. One thing about tapping out: if your partner taps
out while you're choking him, just release him, even if you think he
could stand a bit more. Don't make the call as to how much he can
stand. Maybe he can stand a bit more but on the other hand, maybe
he's about to black out. It is hard for another person to judge that.
Don't put your partner through agony because it will make him
tougher. There aren't too many Systema exercises that call for
tapping out but when it is part of the drill, heed the tap out and
don't push it.

Kevin also demonstrated how to bring someone back if you choke them
out. As far as I recall, this involved propping the person up into a
sitting position. But I don't remember too much else about this part
of the seminar.

Kevin often illustrated his instruction by recounting his experience
of the injuries he had seen in others or sustained himself. Some of
his descriptions were kind of grisly, but he wasn't trying to impress
us with his battle stories. He was just telling us how the techniques
we applied could lead to serious damage, even accidentally. I
remember in particular his description of demonstrating a strike to
the upper thigh, towards the outside of the leg. Apparently there is
a vulnerable point at this area. He was demonstrating on a student
who appeared not to feel anything when Kevin struck him, so he kept
asking Kevin to hit him harder. But the next day, his leg was
completely swollen, apparently he didn't ice it as Kevin advised him,
and he ended up in the hospital, I think they had to drain his leg. I
hope I've remembered that story correctly; it was only one of many
that Kevin recounted to illustrate the damage that can be inflicted
even in just practice sessions. It's worth remembering that you don't
have to put your partner in agony to cause a lot of damage; some
injuries don't hurt much at the time but could lead to serious
complications afterward

Unfortunately that's all I have from Saturday; big chunks are missing
but that's what happens when you write about training months after
you've completed it. I have a little more from Sunday, though, so
please, read on!

Sunday

We warmed up with some small joint rotation of the arms, "drilling"
the limbs, loosening the sinuvial fluid, rolling shoulders, wrists,
and elbows, as we did on Saturday against the floor, but standing
freely. Kevin mentioned the "cat's whisker's analogy" – each of a
cat's whiskers correspond to an area of its body and that's how they
know whether they will fit into a tight space just by poking their
heads into the space. He talked about "prioception" and knowing your
own body, demonstrating how many movements of Systema can be
initiated by touching your own limbs. For example, the wave-like
movement can be initiated by touching your midsection as if you are
drawing a sword from your belt. Kevin also told an interesting
anecdote about Vlad teaching shooting to some students whose aim was
off. He had the students touch the target with the gun and this
improved their accuracy. He even had the guys move a huge cannon,
touch the target with it, and move it back, which improved their aim.
Kevin showed how, when escaping from a lock, if touch yourself as you
move, grasp your other hand that isn't locked, and so forth, you can
generate movements to escape. He told us that George Foreman was well-
known for touching the face of his opponent before landing the
strike.

We did some rolling drills – rolling very, very slowly. I have a hard
time with this, I asked Kevin why I always collapse just after
reaching about 90 degrees and I can't control the rest of the roll. I
think this may be related to the "unlocking the 5th and 6th
vertebrae" that he talked about on Saturday. Or it could be that I
just don't have very strong abdominals even though I can do lots of
Systema-style sit-ups, but I think those are not really an ab
exercise, strange though it may sound, I don't really feel my abs
engaged during sit-ups as they are during the leg lifts.

Kevin gave me some advice about rolling. He explained that you have
to move from one shoulder to another – somehow I never thought of
this with slow rolls before, only with rolls to change direction.
That slows the rolls down quite a bit but I still have an issue with
control, especially on the backwards rolls.

Kevin had us rolling from side to side starting in a "star" position
with body elevated and palms and feet touching the floor. Then you
just let one arm collapse and turn inward to roll from one side to
another. Kevin thought I was doing this well, he asked if I had done
this exercise before, I said Not that I recall, but later I remember
that I used to do this a lot to get over my fear of rolling from a
standing position, by starting on all fours which seems less scary
than standing.

I found that when I roll on my left shoulder, it's fairly smooth, but
on my right shoulder, it wobbles. That's because my right arm is so
much stronger, and so when I'm supporting my entire body weight on my
left arm in the moment before I drop into the roll, it's a bit
shaky. "That means you're human" Kevin said kindly.

Kevin talked about "stirring the joints," rotating the limb until you
eventually find some area of tension to work against. This can be a
brutal technique, especially when manipulating the head. But it has a
gentler application, for example, if you are taking someone down and
they are going forward, sometimes it's hard to get the person to drop
those last few feet to the floor. I think that many people are more
unwilling to land face first than on their ass, because there's a lot
more padding on the behind. So when you encounter this resistance,
you can kind of wiggle their arm around with slight directional
changes until you discover a point where a little pressure will drop
them. But you have to be sensitive to do this, if you use brute force
and the person resisting is a lot stronger, you'll just be
deadlocked.

We next did a very enjoyable exercise where one partner is on the
ground, the other just stands still or approaches the other very
slowly, and then the person on the ground practicing takedowns by
rolling into his partner, or using the legs, or grabbing an arm,
using the movement of the body on the ground to affect the other's
posture.

We spent a good long while on different kinds of leg and foot locks –
torquing the ankle, the proper grip for ankle locks, also heel locks,
and how to put pressure on the foot by rolling the shoulder back,
leaning back with the body weight. This was kind of technical; I had
a little trouble getting the locks. Kevin told us that, because the
foot is so far from the brain, by the time you feel the pain, your
foot is already broken. So he advised us to be gentle with the ankle
locks.

We also practiced escaping from these locks by "drilling" the leg
forward before the grip is too secure, or by slightly rising into a
squat so the foot is on the floor instead of being cranked. Once the
twisting begins, you have to move your body to follow your foot, it's
the only way to stop the break.

I also recall some sort of vigorous arm or shoulder locks with both
people on the ground, and the one being locked was supposed to tap
out, though I can't remember the exact details, but I do remember
that my partner wasn't really locking me well enough. He kept waiting
for me to tap out but I was perfectly comfortable. I think both of us
were getting a little frustrated; it was just like a nice stretch for
me, and he was wondering why it didn't hurt. Finally he said, "I
would have been screaming in agony by now!" And my classmate heard
this and told him, "She's got the most flexible joints." And once he
knew that, he was comfortable locking me a lot further than seemed
safe to him. I guess it's hard to know how your locks will affect
someone else. I don't think I have flexible joints, it's not like I'm
double-jointed or whatever the appropriate term is. But I do have
hypermobile joints which means some positions which might be locks on
another person are just enjoyable stretches for me. That's why I
prone to mistracking joints but on the other hand, it gives me a lot
of flexibility in the hips and shoulders which is helpful for ground
work.

If you want to test your shoulder flexibility, Edgar showed us this
exercise. Lay flat on your stomach with arms stretched out to your
sides. Have two people pin your hands to the floor, and if you are
feeling optimistic, have two more people holding your legs. Then see
if you can roll onto your shoulders. It's very difficult to do this
because you can't rotate your arm! But I found to my surprise that I
was one of the few students in our class who could roll onto my
shoulders in this position. I would not be surprised if the others
also had hypermobile joints as flexibility is the main symptom of
this inherited condition.

We did some more chokes as on Saturday, the "half-ox collar," with
one person draping arm arm over the other's neck in a choke from the
rear, as well as a side choke. Kevin showed how to straighten your
body by moving your hips underneath your head and standing up. He
told us to look upwards, it almost naturally straightens you, and
also to press your tongue on the roof of the mouth. To facilitate
straightening the posture while being choked, he had us work in
groups of threes, one person chokes the other, then a third person
comes along and hits in the center of the back, which naturally
pushes the choked person into the right posture. But you can't push
from your head, the movement has to start from the back and hips.

I think it was towards the end of the day that Kevin explained a
little about striking, how to take the strike out, and drill the
strike deep into your partner. I kind of hung back during this
segment, even more so than usual, because a lot of men don't like to
hit women. I mean, they will hit me well enough if we're sparring, or
even during the exercise where one person stands in the circle and
the others all strike. But for some reason, they want to hit me when
I'm just standing there to practice absorption. So I wound up
partnered with Kevin's assistant instructor, Jordan, who asked if I
preferred if him or Edgar hit me. I hadn't thought about it – Edgar
hits me when we're training together, but I've never stood there and
accepted strikes from him, he doesn't usually do this with us. I
think in retrospect, it's better to practice with someone you don't
know as well, if you have that opportunity. So Jordan hit me a bunch
of times, sometimes on the ground, other times standing, and he said
I took them pretty well. And I also practiced my strikes on him. But
unfortunately, I don't have any more notes about the striking segment
of Sunday.

We practiced some defense "from the guard" – one partner approaching
the other on the ground and trying to maneuver on top of him, while
the one on the ground had to move offensively and prevent being
mounted. At least I think that's what we were doing. I can't recall
if the person standing was trying to get between the legs or trying
for the mount, but I do remember that the one on the ground had to
prevent the approach. I enjoyed this exercise a great deal; I always
like to work on the ground.

At one point I remember thinking, "this isn't such a grueling
workout," I was thinking that I'd be exhausted after the all-day
seminar. Sometimes seminars are very athletic, I remember doing 100
pushups at one of Martin Wheeler's where he was trying to get us into
a state of controlled fatigue. It turns out I was sore by Sunday
evening, but not unpleasantly sore – not the kind where you can't
move at all – when you wake up in the morning so stiff you can hardly
walk (OK, I've overexerted myself at some past seminars, I confess).
Actually it's kind of pleasant soreness in my hamstrings and biceps
which is good, it shows that I worked muscles that I am unaccustomed
to using in different ways.

Afterwards, Kevin stuck around to answer questions and offer healing
advance and massage to people with specific problems. I wanted to
stay and observe, but quite honestly, I was feeling uncomfortable in
the environment. Kevin's visit coincided with a real down point in my
training. It happens sometimes and I just can't seem to snap out of
it. Then one day, it's suddenly gone and I'm back to normal. It was
many weeks after Kevin left when I suddenly snapped back to normal.
It was during the university's winter break so I had the whole week
off and was taking advantage of it to do some extra training at
Fighthouse. That's the weird thing about being in a plateau
or `valley' as I think of them (plateau = leveling out, valley =
bottoming). Although training is a little depressing in that it
doesn't make me happy, at the same time, I don't want to stop doing
it and will in fact train even more if my schedule permits. So I was
in the daytime class at Fighthouse and we were doing exercises in a
circle, one person in the center, the rest of the class surrounding
and kicking or punching the one in the center, who had to respond in
kind. I kept telling the guys to go slower, that it would be the same
exercise even at a lesser speed, but a few guys just didn't want to
slow down. And suddenly I realized that I wanted to hit them, felt
they deserved it for ignoring my repeated requests. Because they were
shoving, kicking, and hitting me hard and fast, I wound up flying in
all directions and returning the same force to them. And I felt a
certain satisfaction in nailing those few guys who wouldn't go slowly
even though I asked them to. I know this is not appropriate, in many
ways, it's the very opposite of Systema. But you have to keep in mind
how prone I am to become too passive, even to the point of letting
everyone else prevail over me so they don't feel bad if they have
less skill. And for a too-passive person, a little aggression can be
helpful. When I saw that I was holding my own even though the rest of
the class was punching and kicking me, I felt a lot more positive
about my training. And I just suddenly snapped out of it, but
unfortunately not in time for Kevin's visit.

So, Kevin, if you are reading this, I'm sorry I was not at my best
during your seminar, but I hope we'll have the chance to train
together again! Many thanks for your great seminars, and as always,
thanks to Edgar and Peggy for hosting us, and to all participants.

*Vsego nailuchshego* (best wishes),
Rachel