A Dark Side Adventure

Systema. Started innocently enough with a 2 on 1 wrestling warmup, about 50%.  Was going well till one knee gave out with an audible pop.  Exactly the same thing as last time but the other knee. The guys were a bit shocked.

So anyway I kept going, we did stress breathing and then a major massage/conditioning session. This is great – all about using a compliant partner to practise damage and accepting damage yourself. Begin light and build up to full pounding, slapping, whatever. Started with neck and shoulders, arms, torso, legs and then the head. This is very very valuable -training, absolutely gold. You get to practise and finetune any kind of damaging strike, get direct feedback about what is effective. Pressure points. Does this hurt more than this? Lots of Uechi open hands, knuckles, nice. Then you get to work on your own mind game when its your turn to be attacked. Where else do you get to practise your response to being hit? I like this kind of challenge. Finished with light grabbing/avoidance  drill, have to pre-empt, disrupt.

Back to physio tomorrow. Is the universe trying to tell me something, and if so, what?

I did get to Systema Wednesday. Main thing was working with knives, still reasonably slow for the most part, to add immediacy as least as much as for the knife practise. Very very good work. The thing that really hits in for me with this knife stuff is that there are no halfway measures – either you immobilise the aggressor or you immobilise the knife. Everything else - you lose.

Sunday – Uechi. More JCM and Sanchin. Listening to the body, trying to feel the compression and expansion, keeping alignment, feeling when it doesn’t work. Profound, subtle.

Being under vs over. Base. Circles. Sanchin – elbows, shoulders, qwas. Feeling the centre, posture. Feet. Filling. Wauke. Hitting the big pad, hitting Marcus. Much discussion

Tuesday. Out in the park. Warmup with vigorous pushing/flowing with partner. Then some hand and arm strength work, resistance stuff. Pushing  with resistant partner, then sometimes compliant to change it up. Slow squats. Pushing drill while balanced on one leg, have to flow and move with it. Everyone in a line pushing to flow the energy along the group, fun. Clinch work, positioning, trying to get to the back.

Wednesday. Ground mummy drill, an old favourite. Adding disruption. Thinking compressing and expanding the body. Lots of squats. Then a preparatory ground drill designed to train a kind of double leg disrupt where you hook into the attackers legs and push them apart. Had to practise the upward/outward movement while the partner was lying over you, kind of an upside down pushup, very hard to describe. Then worked on using it more realistically. Lots of situps. Standing drill, blending, pausing to find the opening, pushing. Progressed to working with grabs, have to blend and defend or pre-empt.

Sunday Park Uechi. Lots of Joint Centre Mass stuff. Coming in towards partner, feeling where the centre is,  feeling compression, taking the centre, pushing them away without using the arms as such. Different versions. Stepping through pushing partner using centre – belly and hips - to pull the legs through. This is incredibly interesting stuff. Have to really feel what is happening, listen to the body. Then a pad drill – have to leave it till the last minute to hit a pad swinging at you. Some observations on perception and learning.  And Sanchin, thinking about the whole centre thing, making more adjustment to the movement. Wow.

Work work work.

No training makes Sue very grumpy.

Sunday in the park – started with demo and discussion of the JCM stuff, which we have worked on before. Some practise – was quickly obvious that my shoulder mobility is going to need to improve to get these takedowns working as they should. Then a really useful game with a Swiss ball standing in for attacking strikes – have to move out of its way to touch partner on the back of the head. Lesson – Move! Very graphic. Damm weather packed in but we have great material to practise til next week.

 Running warmup with stress breathing, about 20 minutes. Then strengtha nd ground stuff. Tyhen falling. Start in sitting position, have to simply fall to the side, very relaxed. Lots of this then onto knees, have to just relax and drop over. Then with a partner, being pushed over. This ramps up to a  pushing kick or knee. Have to fall, recover with strategy. Then adding a gift of disruption to the attacker. Pushups and walking in between to unwind the brain. Then the drill from Tuesday, have to move with an attack, blend and retaliate. great session, have a HUGE bruise on my elbow lol.

Walking and stress beathing, pushups and squats. Then hard, strong pushing on a partner, holding them to stop the body moving. This ramped up to hard, strong striking. This went on for quite a while, really just going as hard as the partner could cope. Practise for striking - long, relaxed, disengaged hits. Practise for taking hits. Some very slow situps and leg lifts. Then a drill where one person goes to grab the other, not too fast, have to just move to avoid/evade. Then progress to moving with the partner and adding a gift – the strikes we just practised and anything else that works. Ramped up rather a lot. I have missed this mayhem! A great session.

Finally back to some kind of normality. Qi Gong and warmup, meditation. Very slow version of the standard form, nice. Then the sword form, last sections and the whole thing in one hit. Discussion about the martial applications and reasons for doing the form versus the spiritual, energy flow stuff.Very enjoyable.