Mikhail Ryabko Seminar (with Vladimir Vasiliev)

Mikhail Ryabko Seminar (with Vladimir Vasiliev) - Saturday, June 4th, 2005

Although I didn't drink on Friday evening, I also didn't get a good night's rest and was kind of tired for the following day's seminar. Even though lack of sleep is a big stressor for me, sometimes I train well when I'm too tired to think. Mikhail started out with a discussion of fear. He said that we all experience fear, and not to expect to eliminate it altogether but to just to cope with it well, and that breathing would help us to do so. I thought this was important--nothing in his remarks suggested that we'd become fearless through Systema training, only that we might learn to lessen its negative effects (such as holding the breath or tensing up, for example.) I was glad that we started out by just slowly walking around the floor, inhaling with one step, exhaling with another, then inhaling with two steps, etc,, up to five steps, and down to one again. I think it was at a later point that we did a similar pyramid breathing exercise, inhaling for one pushup, then two, up to five, then down again. A pushup is more exertion that taking a simple step, but I found it easier to hold my breath for five pushups than for five steps. The difficulty of the pushup distracts me from my fear of not breathing! Like the five-minute pushup, writing numbers and letters with arms and legs is familiar to you all from the write-ups of the LA seminars. First we lay on our backs and wrote numbers in the air with both legs held together. At 10, we were to write numbers with each foot separately, which I found difficult, if not downright impossible! Then we stood up, and "wrote" numbers on the floor by walking the outlines of the numbers, as previously described, as if writing in fresh snow. We also wrote our names in this fashion, as well as "Lord Have Mercy." Mikhail told us the writing of our names could become our own personal kata. I learned a great deal about strikes on Saturday and especially Sunday. Mikhail told us not to hyperextend our arms, and to keep the arm relaxed until the moment of impact, when only the fist should become tense. He said that striking with a tense, hyperextended arm would make the strike resonate into our own bodies, even up to the head, and cause psychological shock and physical damage. He told us the same thing about kicks, and that people who strike and kick this way will eventually suffer from joint damage (Vlad posted about "Psychological Rebound" on this thread: http://www.russianmartialart.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=61 ) Mikhail demonstrated striking and spoke for a long time about this topic. Many people lined up to be struck by him, but there wasn't time to hit everyone. Several people amazed me with their ability to absorb strikes. One large guy in particular was extraordinarily composed. Mikhail asked volunteers to try striking this guy, and you could see all the effort and energy they placed into their punches (as opposed to Mikhail's strikes which are far more subtle). But the guy just shrugged off the strikes from students as if they were nothing--perhaps they felt that way, after Mikhail's! I didn't feel the floor shake during the strikes demo, as someone else reported, but I did see a few volunteers shaking--literally. Especially after receiving the first strike and waiting for the remaining ones. I don't think I've ever seen such a close demonstration of students coping with their own fear. I'm not saying that to embarrass anyone, as I certainly wouldn't have wanted to trade places with them. I give them a lot of credit for volunteering to accept strikes, which helped all of us to better understand this topic. It was interesting to see how they restored themselves, and how Mikhail and even the students in the immediate area helped them to stay upright, take away the strike, and breathe through the pain. Another thing that stuck in my memory was a few exercises that we did at faster speeds. To practice our strikes, we had five people line up and a sixth person stand at the end of the line a few feet away. One by one, the line of people ran at this person and attacked, while he used his fist to redirect us, just pushing, not striking. We did many of our striking exercises by just pushing, and this is excellent practice. When it was my turn, I found I had to be precise for my push to redirect the attacking person. There's no room for sloppiness, as an incorrect push simply won't move the person. I found you have to move quickly and not get hung up in fending off one person...the goal was only to redirect their path. We also did the same line exercise, but running and kicking at the person with a kind of leaping kick while they pushed to redirect the kick. I found this to be kind of tricky in terms of timing my attacks. I guess I'm more used to working slow, because sometimes my leaping kick was too soon, other times, too late. These two exercises were great practice, as you rotate through a line of five different people and are quickly exposed to everyone's unique style of attack. We did a few floor exercises with multiple partners, eventually working up to faster speeds. We started off slowly, one person kicking or stepping on another person, who lay on the ground. Then two people kicking, which is my favorite Systema drill because it teaches me how to move around on the ground. Then the two people had to kick a little faster, and finally at full speed. I was reminded of Martin Wheeler's description of Systema groundwork as "moving between the limbs." With two people kicking you at full speed, you just can't "run away." They are running, while you're on the ground, so the old adage "you can run, but you can't hide," applies to this situation. Most of the time, I found myself moving between the two people kicking me, and staying very close to their legs, to better avoid their feet (since a kick is actually more painful if you stay farther away from the kicking leg.) I think Vlad led these last few exercises at faster speeds; he taught for a few hours after lunch on both Saturday and Sunday. Towards the end of the seminar, Vlad asked us to do ten pushups, sit-ups, leg lifts, and squats at our own pace, and to come back to the center when done. It always takes me at least twice as long to get through these exercises as it does the rest of the class. If I go too fast, I start to breathe after the movement, rather than before, also, I start to hurry through tough parts, like the 45-degree angle of the sit-up. I was just thinking to myself that I'd better hurry up when Vlad came over and again told me "looks good!" I don't think he was talking about my squat, but my Systema practice in general. To my surprise, he then told the class we did our exercises too quickly and asked us to go back and do them all again with more care! This request emphasized the difference between whipping out a bunch of pushups to burn a few calories and doing the Systema exercises with proper form and breathing. Afterwards, I was pretty exhausted, and even wondering if I could sneak in a quick nap before the evening's Russian banquet. But I decided to shower and change instead. The banquet was wonderful. There was a huge buffet of all kinds of Russian foods and at the end of the long tables, an assortment of wine, beer, and of course icy- cold bottles of vodka on every table. Even though I generally prefer not to eat meat, I also love fine food and ethnic cuisines, so I tried as many dishes as possible. Like English cooking, most people associate Russian food with plain fare, but there's much more to both cuisines than cabbages and potatoes (although I am very fond of both of those humble vegetables). My favorites were a cheese-and-mushroom casserole and a cold salad of herring, potatoes, and beets. But I was amazed at a seemingly simple dish of boiled potatoes. Each potato was so smooth and perfectly round, it must have been peeled with a razor blade. A plain dish, but one prepared with meticulous care. I drank a few glasses of good red wine and talked to some Fighthouse veterans I haven't seen in a long while. I also talked to some people from this forum as well as Systema students from all over the country. It was a lot of fun, and I have to confess, it was easier for me to talk to such a large group of people after a few glasses of vino! The party was a great experience for me, as I began to see my fellow students as friends and comrades rather than a vast body of intimidating strangers. But I wanted to be well-rested for Sunday, so I left while my classmates were still drinking late into the night, promising them that my lack of a hangover and my solid 8 hours of rest would give me a distinct advantage on the following day! Sunday was my favorite of the three seminars, so I will post a few thoughts about it shortly, time permitting, if not, then I will return to this thread over the weekend.