on "systema" 🔪🧘💚
a play and healing art that can hurt as much as you want it to / as much as is productive for your goals?
the question is, is it a fighting art?
let me tell you about all the things It was for sure when I went before we go there.
1.it was ridiculously FUN…(IS THAT A CRIME???)
2.it was a an epic mobility routine. rolling crawling back and forth. imagine you got to a crossfit gym and they give you the pvc pipe and you roll around on the floor with it behind your back and front. and you do every manner of evasion with it.
3.it was an excellent social exercise. sensitive to others and how they feel hit and being hit, meeting new people. quick ice breaker, let me punch you.
4.alot of falling….you know I am partial to this. seems normal to us but to a new person this is a skill all itself that is built into the art.
5.it was a creative challenge. trying to play off of one another, how to respond to their movement in a way that is interesting each time. normally I do this naturally but these people were even more free associative than me in certain regards about creative movement. many of them instructors in the art. so it pushed me. I was happy for the push.
6.massage. over much of the torso. massage before punching.
7.breath work. new people in fighting oriented gyms forget to do this all the time. I still can forget if I get in a real scrap. when my mind comes back to it after the initial shock I try to soak it in. breathing. so essential to systema practice, we can learn from this.
8.THE TIME FLEW BY. it was a two hour class and I didn't check the clock once. not a single drill was boring. we were locked in. we were learning and playing.
to be real, any of that seems positive sum to me. an activity that gives you those things seems inherently valuable for what it is.
now for the question,
is it a fighting art?
I agree with the mighty Martin Wheeler — the mythic figure whose movement and demeanor and 100+ charisma power is part of what sucked me in. (kempo, bjj black belt under Machados, judo black belt, broad martial art aficionado, tactician for military, swat, police, security, special forces etc.)
get a load of this guy! The martial art Cheshire Cat! God how he moves.
essentially:
getting hit in the head hard and going fast and fighting under stress gives you confidence, that is just true.
you can do that with systema.
if people don’t do that with systema, that is okay.