Training Log 13 Today is supposed to be my last day at my current host’s place – except my host is not even in. Last I heard he went to Belarus. I honestly don’t know what I’m supposed to do about my registration. Oh well. Today is also the day my dad is coming – in fact, I’m typing this on the Aeroexpress to Domodedovo because I’m going to pick him up. Smart eh! Anyway, class today was with Zaikovsky and as always, Zaikovsky means magic. In fact, I’m quite sure that’s exactly what his name means. We started class with 30 push ups, 30 squats and 30 sit ups (or 15 if you are slow like me). Today we explored more about the idea of moving power with the help of a stick. I think we started without a stick first but then later moved to using a stick to increase the obviousness of the power we are supposed to feel. It is very interesting the way it’s supposed to work. I think I’m starting to see why Zaikovsky doesn’t care so much as to what is going on in his body – having to deal with too much information to think about consciously has a higher chance of crippling you than helping you work. This he explained when the Emmanuel (the French guy) and I asked him if he was off balance when he was working. “I am not thinking about my balance.” Zaikovsky replied. “There are more important things to think of when someone is hitting you.” I found that when I was not so concerned about falling off I worked better. Again, this reminded me of Evgeniy’s teaching that without confidence in your body, you can’t work. I’m starting to understand why exercises and those funny looking drills including the one where you form a circle around a person and push him around slowly. There were a few interesting concepts to work with today. One of these was the idea of the power in the stick. Now I don’t fully get it, because when I move power in my body there is tension control but with a stick it is impossible. Whatever the case is, power needs to go to the stick and then you just move the stick according to its “natural movement”. It strikes me that Zaikovsky’s Systema style seems almost Aristotelian – things that move move because they have a tendency to move – things move according to their natural movement. Kind of doesn’t explain everything but also kind of explains everything. It’s really a feeling. (Stopped halfway and now this part is written the next day. I recall less now…) At one point, we were swinging the sticks around to try to find the natural movement of the stick when Zaikovsky took out a shashka and brought to our attention the end of the hilt which is curved a lot. “This is meant for the little finger.” he said “You are supposed to move the sword using only your little finger.” He then demonstrated how you do it and actually, it made a lot of sense that you don’t force the sword to do something but rather allow it to move naturally. While I like the idea, I was finding that I had to move way too much in order to let the stick move nicely and that meant that I couldn’t move where I wanted to nor could I control the stick. So I asked Zaikovsky how I could move the stick naturally while still retaining control. His reply was pretty epic, “It’s like riding a bicycle – you have to find a common understanding.” Later as we were still working out the whole stick thing, I found myself unable to grasp how to use the energy of the opponent in a dynamic way. (I might be wrong) In Aikido, I think they literally take the person’s balance and power while they are moving, but what I see in Systema is that the person does not even have to be moving which is really strange. So I asked Zaikovsky about it and he explained that there is this continuum of movement. Pushing a person with strength is not wrong – he demonstrated how he could use strength and it was still effective – but it had limited use in a dynamic combat situation. Fair enough, I understood that part at least. But I didn’t quite get how he used similar methods when I was stationary and using force. He also demonstrated how he could and when I asked if it was like where the two met, he sort of agreed. He then gave me the chance to attack him as I wished and he demonstrated using less energy by using mine. It was really fun seeing how he worked and as he said, it was really different from using fighting the person. It was like a 5-10 minute demonstration but I don’t have much way to write about it nor did I get it videoed. Later he demonstrated something which he said “could not be seen on video” but I… videoed anyway. It was really funny because he would control Emmanuel in a way that he would fall but it really is invisible in the video anyway. I can’t recall what else happened after that – but I know that during circle, Yohei said that the training gave him good energy but Zaikovsky replied saying it was not energy but… (can’t recall properly… maybe he said that it was the right state or the right body positioning or something. Oh. Maybe he said it was internal work. Ahhh...)
Posted on: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 08:54:34 +0000
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