Warm-ups as always consisted of 5 pushups, leg-lifts and squats
with "in DOWN/out UP breathing", then 5 more of each with the
breathing reversed, out on the down-press, in on the lift. I was
thankful that we got off relatively easy on the warm-ups and moved
right into some work on the floor, rolling and falling. Our partners
twisted our arms and gently forced us into a forward roll. My rolling
could use some improvement. Exhaling audibly as I rolled helped a
good deal, but I couldn't do a backwards roll. My falling is much
improved. I've come to realize the floor isn't really so far away and
rolling and falling in a relaxed state is actually fun! Sometimes we
stretch by extending our ams and legs and rolling from side to side
on the floor using our shoulders to lead the movement, it's very
soothing to the shoulder muscles. Edgar demonstrated some offensive
rolling, a very impressive aspect of Systema. If you're interested
check out video clip # 5 Offensive Rolling at
http://groups.msn.com/RMAHamilton/videoclips.msnw

I guess the warm-ups were easy to conserve our strength for the
yielding exercises, which were sort of grueling and painful. Usually
the yielding exercises are soft and gentle work. But we started by
trying to escape as our partners grabbed and twisted one of our
wrists, then we added a third person and tried to escape with two
people twisting our wrists and arms. You have to go in the same
direction of the twisting of the arms by being very flexible and
loose with your shoulders and slipping free of the twists. The pain
was fleeting though I had to ask for mercy a few times when I was
about to hit the floor. It did teach us that our limbs are more
pliable than we think. The body's instinct is to overprotect
vulnerable areas, so pain compliance exercises in Systema teach your
body to scale back its instinctual protective instinct to only the
degree that is necessary to preserve you so your energy can be used
for more important tasks, like thinking! At least that's how I see it.

Defense against the knife was the theme of Wednesday's class. Our
instructor allowed a lot of individual creativity for these
exercises. He demonstrated only a handful of moves, and let us work
free-form on our slow sparring, prompting us to change partners
periodically, but our class was much less structured than previous
ones. I enjoyed the groundwork in the beginning of the class a great
deal so when I was the "attacker" with the practice knife, even after
my partners knocked me down, as in last class, I "slashed" at their
legs and ankles and we took the slow sparring game down to the floor.
(Here's an article by Arthur Sennott that explains the principles of
Systema's slow sparring game if you are interested
http://www.dojoofthefourwinds.com/sparring.html)

Although I don't have much aggression, and sometimes don't use enough
force to my "attacks," I like to follow through and pretend it's a
real fight, in which case an opponent with a knife will continue to
slash even when injured or down on the ground. This is how I learned
about Systema's deadly application on the ground. One of our more
advanced Russian classmates, who must be about 6'4" and truly
enormous, got me into a nifty headlock with his knees and could have
broken my neck with a slight twist of his hips. He showed me how to
break someone's leg once they are on the ground, which you can do by
holding it straight against your thigh as a lever and jerking your
knee upward, a joint lock with the most painful consequences. In a
similar principle, Edgar showed me how to use the handle of the
attacker's knife as a lever to break their fingers. Edgar Tsakouls
(our instructor) demonstrated a few other finishing moves for work on
the ground and pantomined slashing the throat or some other
representation of fatal force when disarming and taking the knife
away from his "attackers" (which he makes looks totally effortless).

I am somewhat timid, not your typical martialist, I guess, and so I
don't like to choose a partner, even when the instructor prompts us
to switch partners, I partner with whoever's left by default. Also,
I'm sort of curious to see if anyone wants to spar with me. Our
instructor usually partners with the senior student, but he happened
to be absent and we had an odd uneven amount of students, so I ended
up partnered with our instructor for much of the class.

The challenging thing about sparring with Edgar is the principle of
Systema whereby you return the movement at the same energy level as
your partner. "Like dancing," he always says, and he does look like
he's dancing. I don't think I look like I am dancing, though. I
probably look like I am trying to ice-skate across a gravel driveway,
if you can imagine that. Edgar is impossibly light on his feet, but
he'll return any force or speed with the same velocity and pressure.
Some of the guys like to challenge him and strike a little faster as
a learning experience, but I don't feel quite ready for that kind
of "learning"! I always strike at him as slowly as possible, not
wanting to hit the floor any harder than I have to!

As always, class extended about an hour beyond our schedule, we
certainly get our money's worth at Fighthouse!

*Vsego nailuchshego* (best wishes),
Rachel