Will the real Russian Martial Art please stand up?

Well, it’s been quite some time since I last posted something on my blog, so I thought I’d make a comeback with this Q&A-type article on the subject of my understanding and perception of Russian Martial Art, and the way we practice it at the Göteborgs Dynamo Club. Please keep in mind that the views expressed below are to a degree personal, but also the result of my research on the work of various instructors from different styles of RMA, some of whom I have had the opportunity to personally meet, train, and exchange views with.

What is Russian Martial Art?

Contemporary Russian Martial Art is the old Slavic combat skills and training methods coming from as far back as the 10^th century, that were systematized during the second half of the twentieth century, through the influence of Soviet scientific research in the field of human biomechanics and the neurophysiology of learning – in a few words, it is tradition viewed and treated through the eye of cutting-edge science, and at the same time, a way to study combat within the context of the rational Western scientific tradition. In this sense, there is absolutely no place in RMA for irrelevant national folklore, false prophets, or masters demanding blind faith from their students.

Is RMA the creation of one specific person, group or family?

RMA is a body of knowledge on combat and physical culture that has evolved over the centuries through the life experiences of the Russian people. It is not a martial art that sprang fully formed out of someone’s head. Having said that, we must point that there are indeed various persons who have developed their own training approaches to contemporary RMA. Such persons are Alexey Kadochnikov (Russian Style), Alexander Retuinskih (ROSS), Mikhail Ryabko (Systema RMA) et.al. There are also a number of systems that are modern-day revivals of old Slavic fighting styles, such as Belov’s Slavyano-Goritskaya Borba, Gruntovski’s Skobar, Buza, and the Russian All-Around Fighting. These specific approaches are different styles of RMA but they share too many common elements - way more than their founders would sometimes like to admit. Alexander Retuinskih, for one thing, has been quoted as saying that “…there are no Russian martial arts; there is only Russian Martial Art” and this is the view I subscribe to.

Is RMA conceptually connected to a specific religious dogma?

Rational science cannot in any way be connected to religion. The idea that one’s religious faith affects his ability to learn a martial art is just as absurd as claiming that only a Christian can become a good doctor or that great physicists are exclusively Buddhists. Having said that, an interesting historical connection is that, in 1274 “wall-to-wall” fist fighting contests (one of the most popular cultural expressions of RMA) were banned in Russia, under threat of excommunication from Christianity for the participants, since the church considered them “barbarian ceremonies”[1].

Video: Common people having fun and honing their combat skills at the same time - it's not just the "cammo pants crowd" that needs to prepare for war. Does it looks like a pagan ceremony? Sure! Is it Russian Martial Art? You bet!

Isn’t RMA the combat system used by elite units of the Soviet and Russian military?

Well, yes and no. Yes, because during the Soviet era, the Bolsheviks attempted to wipe out any martial tradition of native origin (something similar to what happened to Chinese martial arts during the Cultural Revolution launched by Mao Zedong). During that period, Russian Martial Art remained in practice due to its lethal effectiveness, in some (not all) elite units of the Soviet Special Forces concealed under the title “Combat SAMBO Spetsnaz”[2]. No, because the roots of Russian Martial Art can be traced back in the 10^th century, in an era when Russia did not have a professional army (professional military units were introduced to Russia during the 17^th century, according to the Western European standards [3]). Back then, in times of war, the people who defended their country were farmers, artisans and merchants, rather than warrior knights. These simple people were forced by circumstances to develop training methods that were:

• effective enough to keep them able-bodied and mentally tough,

• not injurious to the body so that they could keep doing their everyday jobs,

• playful and challenging so that training would be enjoyable rather than a burden.

Since Russian Martial Art consists to a large degree of those training methods that have survived until today, it is a combat system tailored to the needs of common people, that one day might be called upon to defend their land of family, rather than those of elite soldiers that make a living out of fighting.

Video: Military hand-to-hand combat training of a GRU special forces unit: a few things look like Russian Martial Art, but most don't...

How is RMA different from other styles of martial arts?

In terms of the result we seek to achieve, it is not different. Just like most martial arts, RMA includes strikes, kicks, takedowns, joint manipulations, control and restraint techniques, defense on the ground, plus fighting with and against weapons. What differs though is the overall approach to learning, and the specific training methods that derive from it. The specific ways in which RMA differs from other combat systems can be summed up as follows:

• Health comes first, effectiveness follows. In RMA, training is supposed to make one healthy for life, not able to fight for just a decade or so. We emphasize correct biomechanics that allow for maximum performance with minimum stress to the body. Other than contact injuries (that we seek to minimize using protective equipment or controlled force application) and accidents, all other injuries that happen as a result of the training are not considered “part of the job” and are dealt with through a diligent health-first approach. Now, can someone become a good fighter without good biomechanics? Possibly, but the price to pay in injuries will be steep when his fighting days are over.

• Training is non technique-based. Instead of practicing specific techniques until they become “second nature”, the RMA practitioner’s goal is to first understand a series of fundamental concepts and cultivate a number of basic principles that when applied, will allow him to improvise spontaneous solutions to a great variety of combat problems, i.e. “create techniques” under pressure. Take fist fighting as an example: instead of practicing the six standard punches of boxing, in RMA we first learn how to generate maximum full-body power, and then how to apply force with the fist from any position and at any direction. This way, someone who practices Russian fist fighting, can rather easily limit his options to those allowed by the sport of boxing, while a boxer cannot easily expand his options to movements he has not trained at. In this sense, RMA becomes a set of concepts and principles that enhance performance whatever the strategies and tactics used by the fighter or the context of combat (un-armed combat, weapons fighting, sport fighting, self-defense etc), rather than a specific method of conducting combat.

• All-around dexterity is valued more than specific skills or aggression. In RMA, we do not only train combat-specific exercises and drills. We also practice a great variety of exercises/games (balancing, rolling and tumbling, twirling with the staff, sticks and rope, etc) that result in the development of all-around dexterity - the cultivation of “intelligence” in one’s body, so that it has the potential to perform ANY movement fluently and effortlessly. All-around dexterity is often mistakenly referred to as an “innate talent”, but the truth is that it can be cultivated. A body which is dexterous can learn surprisingly fast how to perform any task (martial or other) much more efficiently. This is why dexterity training is a valuable tool to improve performance not only in the field of combat, but also in all kinds of sports and of course, the physical activities of everyday life. Besides the facilitation of the learning process, there is one more reason that makes dexterity very important: in the chaos of combat, it is not aggression and blind fury that will save one’s life, but rather morale, adaptability and improvisation. Dexterity training is the key to all three.

Video: Arkadiy Kadochnikov, Alexey Kadochnikov's son, demonstrating a biomechanical exercise with incredible flow! If there is no sophistication of movement, it's not Russian Martial Art...

Does training in RMA include physical conditioning?

Practitioners of RMA are taught to use as little force as possible when fighting, but occasionally that might still be a significant amount of force, so conditioning is necessary. At the beginning stages of training our conditioning mainly consists of joint mobility work and stability work, but down the road Russian kettlebells and skipping ropes become our favorite (though not the only) tools.

Is there any full-contact fighting involved in RMA?

Historically, full-contact fighting of various forms (one-on-one and “wall-on-wall” [4] fist fighting, belt wrestling, one-handed wrestling, stick fighting) has been an important aspect of RMA. At the Dynamo Club, in order to ensure the effectiveness of the skills that are developed through practice, we need to test them under pressure, so we do a number of drills against resisting partners and occasionally we fist-fight, wrestle or stick-fight using full force. Of course, we use the appropriate protective equipment to minimize injuries. Having said that, we believe that full-contact sparring is just a part and not the be-all and end-all of martial arts training.

Video: Some single-hand wrestling demonstrated by practitioners of Russian All-Around Fighting. A force-against-force drill that may not be "realistic combat" but builds skills useful in real combat.

Is RMA easy to learn?

To make it simple, RMA is a training method that helps one to master his own body, in order to learn how to manipulate other people’s bodies in the context combat. It is a process that might be described as challenging, occasionally frustrating, extremely rewarding and definitely fascinating, but easy… no, not really. To put it differently, how easy is it to become a good (let alone elite) tennis player, pianist or dancer?

Who can train in RMA?

Theoretically, any person who is physically and mentally healthy can take up RMA. On a more practical level, it helps a lot if you commit to training because you enjoy learning new physical skills for the sheer challenge of it and not because you’re expecting short-term returns (like being able to disarm knives, AK-47s, bazookas, etc, especially if you have not spent a day of your life in the army). In a few words, if it is a few “simple, effective, and easy-to-use techniques” you are after, in order to become a “spetsnaz killing machine” within a few months, RMA is not for you.

Last but not least: the Göteborgs Dynamo Club is not your run-of-the-mill franchise gym, where you swipe your membership card at the reception desk and train while avoiding interaction with all other human beings under the same roof. In alignment to the centuries-old tradition of Russian Martial Art, we first and foremost are a community of people exploring movement as related to hand-to-hand combat. We train as a community and we grow as a community. In this sense, it is more important for one to become a good training partner than a good practitioner. If your personal agenda is the only thing you consider important and you cannot be a team player, there are other gyms out there that can help you more than we can.

References:

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_fist_fighting

[2] Retuinskih, Alexander. Russian Style of Hand-to-Hand Combat. 1^st Books, 2001. p. xxv

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Russian_Army

[4] Wall-on-wall fist fights were usually held during religious celebrations in Russia. Men and youngsters of neighboring towns and villages met on fields or frozen rivers, formed lines or “walls” and fought with fists, under very strict rules. The wall that managed to break through the opponents’ wall was the winner. Although the wall-on-wall fights were held for entertainment, they were actually a type of informal military training. What was tested in these “competitions” was not the technical competence of the fighters, but their mental toughness and their willingness to fight shoulder to shoulder with their comrades when duty called. A famous Russian phrase, “Do not hit a man when he’s down”, is said to have its roots in the rules of wall-on-wall fighting.

You say you know what you want, but are you sure you know what you need?

One of the things that I find increasingly cool about having trained at a number of martial arts over the years is that, at any given moment, I can revisit a style I used to train at in the past and reach new conclusions, since I am now approaching it from a different point of view. Breaking down the mechanics of the Muay Thai clinch with help from the concepts and principles of Russian Martial Art, or finding a non-classical way to train Silat throws are not only examples of mind-stimulating exercises, but also proof that the common elements between different martial art styles are many more than their proponents often care to admit.

This period, I am revisiting my Filipino stick-fighting with the help of a good training partner and not only am I having a great time, but I am very content to notice my stick skills have improved, although I haven't trained at them for about three years! The whys and the hows of such a paradox might be the subject of a future blog post. What I wanted to share with you now is, well, a joke. I was going through my series of Dog Brothers Martial Arts DVDs the other day in order to remember some stick-fighting drills, and was reminded of the joke about the old lady and the Filipino Hilot healer, that Guro Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny uses to introduce the material taught in the Combining Stick and Footwork DVD, so here it is: an old lady goes to the village healer and says to him, "It is very hard to admit, but I have a terrible flatulence problem, I am passing a lot of gas all the time. You may not notice it because they don't make any noise and they don't smell". The healer thinks for a minute and he goes, "Hmmm, I see. Take these herbs and visit me again in a week". The old lady goes off, she takes the herbs, comes back in a week and says to him, "Listen, I know you are a good healer, but I am sorry to say that things haven't got any better, they're actually a little worse, not only am I still having a problem with flatulence, but now they smell! They're still not making any noise, but now they smell". And the healer replies, "Good, now that we managed to clear your sinuses, let's see what we can do about your hearing".



The point of this joke/story, in the words of Marc Denny, is that "...people usually have an idea of what it is that they need, but very often the person who is giving the help has a different perspective". He goes ahead to point out that people often come to him and ask help with their stick-fighting, in the form of various "effective techniques that will win matches", but more often than not, the point they miss is much simpler and at the same time more profound: that the tip of their stick and their feet do not move together in a coordinated way! There are hardcore ways to train, for when you have to fight a death match the next month, concludes Denny, and then there are ways that you train in order to build yourself in the long haul.

Well, what never ceases to surprise me is how many practitioners of martial arts approach their training as if they have to fight a death match in a few days! A few months ago I attended a two-day seminar with Alex Costic. For the best part of ten hours, Alex tried to present his personal training approach to Russian Martial Art (one that he has painstakingly developed over a number of years), which includes a series of biomechanical exercises in order for one to achieve freedom of movement, breaking down techniques through static drills, integrating techniques through fluid and dynamic drills and finally testing them under pressure. After nine hours of explaining and demonstrating, Alex was rather surprised to find out that the majority of the participants had only one question: "Can you show us some gun disarms?" In order to keep things into perspective, I have to add here that only one out of thirty or so participants was a law enforcement officer, and the laws of the country where the seminar was held do not allow its citizens to bear arms...

It is not for me to try and explain the complex psychological processes through which each person's perceptions about martial arts are formed. Still, in the media-driven society we live in, I suspect the imagery used by the mainstream and other media channels to promote combat sports and martial arts play a major role in these processes. For example, in the increasingly popular MMA TV shows, magazines, podcasts, blogs and what have you, fighters are very often referred to as "gladiators" (very inconsistent with the attempt to present MMA as a sport and not a spectacle, if you ask me), they give interviews promising to "get in the cage, mess him up and knock him out" or something similar, and most often, after winning a match, they jump on the cage fence, scream, and beat their chests - all that with a musical background of heavy metal music and a visual background of gothic monsters or patterns, printed on t-shirts and hoodies of dubious taste. On the other end of the spectrum, we have the "reality fighting" systems: in the city I live in, I see pretty often various fliers or posters urging potential practitioners to start training so that they "Take No S**t from Anybody!" or asking them "What will you do if the stuff you learn in the dojo does not work in the streets?". And I guess you already know that, but Youtube is packed with videos of tough guys wearing camo pants, stripping opponents off their knives, AK-74s, bazoukas and ballistic missiles. I can't be really sure of that, but it seems to me that after young men - who are naturally prone to participate in what Marc Denny calls "young male ritual hierarchical combat" - are exposed to these media images, when they enter a martial arts school, they're more prone to fight and win now rather than patiently train and learn in the long haul...

So, some of you might ask, why is that bad? Well, first of all, there's the ethical/sociological question regarding the benefits of having a great number of young men out there training to become angry pit bulls, but I won't really bother you with that, since the subject of this blog is not society or ethics, but human movement as related to combat and training for fighting. Let's get to more practical considerations, then. I believe it was more than ten years ago when Matt Thornton, head of the Straight Blast Gym worldwide martial arts organization, introduced his concept of "aliveness in training". In a few words, this concept states that, in order for any combat training method to be valid, it must include the components of energy (i.e. real force being applied), timing and motion - without these it is nothing more than "dead patterns ". In the Straight Blast Instructional DVDs, I remember Thornton stating that he wants his students to start sparring from the first day they enter his gym. In this sense, a student who just begins his training in stand-up fighting will spend a few minutes learning the mechanics of the jab, throw a few jabs on the focus mitts and then start sparring using only the jab, on the first day of his training. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the jab is nothing else but a way of applying the mechanics of power generation, which include weight transferring, dropping and rotating the pelvis/torso/shoulders. But if one has no experience in these mechanics, if there is a problem or plain inefficient movement that is, how can learning be achieved by adding to the problem the tactical parameter of having to hit an opponent that hits back? Please do not misunderstand me - I do believe that training against resisting partners is a neccessary tool if one is to acquire functional combat skills, but it is not the only tool.

Training against resisting opponents builds mental tenacity, which is a neccessary attribute if one aspires to become a fighter. Still, obsessing with "alive training" and focusing exclussively on the application of skills, usually happens to the detriment of movement efficiency and produces tough fighters with inferior skills - the ones usually referred to as "also runs". Exceptional fighters make difficult things look easy, because they take the time to master the movement first and then the various applications. In my view, martial arts training has two components: number one consists of doing the strategically, tactically and technically correct thing while interacting with an opponent, number two consists of using your own body in the most efficient way while performing number one. For good or bad, number two is achieved through a number of not-so-cool exercises and drills, a lot of them performed solo.

Over the last few years, I have had the opportunity to train with a fair amount of people in the Göteborgs Systema-RMA club and based on my experience I believe there are lots of people out there with less than optimal motor control, due to simple and profound problems such as mobility or stability deficits, lack of balance, coordination or rhythm in their movement and trust me, these problems simply cannot be addressed by focusing on sparring against resisting opponents or disarming AK-74s from less-than-resisting opponents. Should you to ingnore the simple and profound stuff and focus on the "exciting" stuff, you run the danger of sparring yourself into an also-run tough guy or the danger of disarming your way into becoming a self-deluded "Specnaz killing machine". In both cases mastery - of both your art and your self - will be way beyond your grasp. And you will end up believing that flatulence is the worst of your problems. So, once again, you say you know what you want but are you sure you know what you need?

The YouTube video above includes highlights from a number of fights of Guro "Crafty Dog" Denny in Dog Brothers gatherings. He is usually the one fighting with no t-shirt on. You can learn more about the Dog Brothers here.

To learn more about Matt Thornton (whom I deeply respect although I partially disagree with) and the Straight Blast Gym click here.

Which way to mastery?

It was a few weeks ago on a Sunday morning when I found myself in an airport, ready to board an airplane, with nothing to read during the flight. My only option was the airport newsstand and, without giving it too much thought, I picked something from the non-fiction shelves - a book titled Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Daniel H. Pink. The book is about human motivation, the things that make us tick, and what scientific research has discovered on the subject. I found it a pretty insightful read, although the author tries to reach conclusions mostly on the gap between what science knows and what is commonly practiced in the field of business management (which I do not care much about). What impressed me the most from Daniel Pink's argument for the need of a new approach in order for people to get motivated, creative and productive, is the importance of the element of mastery, i.e. the urge most of us have to become better and better at something that matters. Here's some advice the author gives, which I believe will be helpful and inspirational to martial arts practitioners:

"One key to mastery is what Florida State University psychology professor Anders Ericsson calls 'deliberate practice' - a 'lifelong period of... effort to improve performance in a specific domain[. Deliberate practice isn't running a few miles each day or banging on the piano for twenty minutes each morning. It's much more purposeful, focused, and, yes, painful. Follow these steps - over and over again for a decade - and you just might become a master.

• Remember that deliberate practice has one objective: to improve performance. 'People who play tennis once a week for years don't get any better if they do the same thing each time', Ericsson has said. 'Deliberate practice is about changing your perfromance, setting new goals and straining yourself to reach a bit higher each time'.
• Repeat, repeat, repeat. Repetition matters. Basketball greats don't shoot ten free throws at the end of team practice; they shoot five hundred.
• Seek constant,critical feedback. If you don't know how you're doing, you won't know what to improve.
• Focus ruthlessly on where you need help. While many of us work on what we're already good at, say Ericsson, 'those who get better work on their weaknesses'.
• Prepare for the process to be mentally and physically exhausting. That's why so few people commit to it, but that's why it works".

If you are interested in the idea of mastery you will probably find this previous post on the Systema Sweden blog interesting.

You can buy Daniel H. Pink's book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates us, here (Amazon UK).

How can you learn how to fight when you can barely stand???

Although I own quite a few of them, I don't find martial arts textbooks especially useful. If one does not know how to read between the lines (and pictures), they seem to promote an inefficient way of teaching the arts, by focusing on directions on how to execute specific techniques: "1) Grab your opponent from the neck and biceps, 2) Push the neck diagonally to the back while at the same time pulling the arm in a 45 degree angle towards the opponent's front right corner", etc. Whether we like it or not, combat techniques are not like IKEA furniture, where if one blindly follows the instructions, the end result will inevitably be a couch or an armchair. The subtleties of manipulating an alive and resisting human body are infinite, so sensitivity and adaptive measures are needed every moment of the interaction, and no martial arts textbook can convey that.

Nevertheless, every now and then one can stumble upon valuable pieces of insight in books about martial arts and from my experience, these are usually located in the first, introductory chapters, where the basic principles of the art analyzed in the book are explained. For example, the other day I was browsing Total Aikido: The Master Course by master Gozo Shioda. On page 14 of the book, Shioda explains the first basic principle of aikido, namely Chusin-Ryoku, or "the power of the center line": "One of the basics of aikido is the principle of maintaining a straight center line in the body. For most people, even if they try to stand straight, their center line is not really straight. Even when we do stand straight and focus on keeping our center line fixed, we lose it again as soon as we move. If this happens, then the purpose of aikido, the development of breath power, becomes impossible. If we are able to maintain a strong centerline whatever direction we move in, we have focused power. By forging this focused power, we are also promoting strong posture, concentration and breath power [1]".



Now, Shioda, at a height of 1,57m and barely 50 kilos of weight, was by any measure a very small man. Still, if one watches his aikido demonstrations, it is obvious that this man, unimpressive in terms of stature, possessed extraordinary power and impressive skills, so we must assume that his writings must have some importance, right? The problem is that his descriptions seem to me pretty vague and open to interpretation (as is very common with most Asian martial arts, in my opinion). This should not be surprising: when Shioda was studying aikido under the founder of the art, Morihei Ueshiba, scientific research into the field of human movement was nonexistent, so the terms one could use to describe what happens into a moving human body had to be intuitive, which means that they lacked objectivity.

I don't even want to think about what on earth "breath power" might mean, but how about the term "center line"? Some difficulty might be also present here, in order to explain it. For example, some Wing Chun people describe the center line as an imaginary line drawn along the centre of the human body that joins the eyes, nose, throat, navel, knees, and groin as a central focus of attack. Some JKD people might add that the centerline should always be directed towards the opponent, so that all our weapons are available to use to the maximum of their capabilities. The way I understand these explanations, it seems that the center line is some sort of a topographical feature that lies on the front part of the body. In Shioda's description, I suspect that, much more than a topographical feature, the center line is a biomechanical feature of a body in motion.

Maybe then, if we turned to biomechanics and sports science, we'd get some additional insight. According to Joanne Elphinston, performance consultant to elite athletes, "...all sports require control of a central longitudinal axis (CLA) to achieve their most efficient movement. In practice this central axis is not a rigid position: it is the sense of a firm but flexible central reference point, which supports movement of the torso and limbs. Imagine a firm, thick metal cable passing vertically through the top of your head and down through the middle of your body. This cable would form an axis for your shoulders, thorax and pelvis to smoothly rotate around, but still enable you to move easily in all directions. [...] If the central axis collapses, rotational movement will be restricted due to joint compression on the concave side of the collapse, and soft tissue tension on the convex side" [2].

Some of you might note that from the vague terminology used in some Asian martial arts we have moved into geek language territory, so we'd better try and make it simple: if you have seen the movie Karate Kid 2, you probably remember that little spinning drum Mr Miyagi used as an analogy to help Daniel understand the "secret technique" that was to save him during the final fight (if you haven't seen the movie, you haven't missed much, but you can check the final fight scene and the drum I'm talking about here and before you ask, yes I too believe that Ralph Macchio's central longitudinal axis is kinda crooked). OK, now try to think what would happen if the stick which runs through the middle of the drum, was made from soft rubber instead of wood - most probably, it would collapse under the weight of the drum, so rotation would be hard to achieve, if at all possible. Well, that's what happens if one lacks control of the CLA or, as Gozo Shioda might say, is unable to maintain a "strong centerline". And, obviously this does not only happen in martial arts practice - whether you play golf, tennis, or ice hockey, or you want to pack some serious power in your punches and make your throwing techniques more efficient, you must rotate your torso, and rotation will be strongest when it is performed around a strong, clearly defined axis.

So, how does one establish this central longitudinal axis? Well, it is mostly about maintaining a neutral position of the spine (keeping those gentle curves at the cervical and lumbar regions intact) with the least effort possible. In other words, you need to have an ideal posture, described once again by Joanne Elphinston as "simply and buoyantly supporting yourself against gravity, and allowing your body structures to move and interact in their least stressful, most effective relationships. An ideal dynamic posture should make movement easier, helping you to establish a central axis for balanced motion and allowing you to breathe freely" [3]. Unfortunately, nowadays this is easier said than done in our urbanised society, with most people spending many hours a day hunched in front of a computer, squeezed in a car seat, or collapsed on the couch in front of a television set.

It always strikes me as a paradox when I see Systema RMA practitioners in seminars trying to perform what is taught by instructors with perfect posture, using a less than ideal posture themselves. The problem is two-fold, in my opinion. On one side we have the students that focus on the end goal of each movement they try to perform, ignoring the process through which the goal can be achieved, what F.M Alexander, founder of the Alexander Technique, called the "means whereby": if one only cares about delivering a mighty Systema punch, he tends to "think with his fists", which makes focusing on the ideal posture impossible. On the other side, although all the Systema RMA instructors I have trained with (including Mikhail Ryabko and Vladimir Vasiliev) have an ideal posture, they never actually refer to it as an essential ingredient of their skills. What they do is repeatedly urge the practitioners to relax - the problem is that bad posture, by its mechanical structure generates tension in order to be maintained, which means that relaxation is by definition unattainable...

A protracted and backwardly rotated head, lack of mobility in the thoracic spine, abducted or winged shoulder blades, externally rotated hips, are all factors that contribute to a bad posture and will make your progress in martial arts (or any other type of) training arduous and, most probably, laden with injuries. If you want to check whether your posture is good, the mirror won't help you much - having a partner video your training sessions will. After you see yourself training, go check out videos of top practitioners of martial arts and top athletes and make a comparison (you can check once again the demonstration by Gozo Shioda above, perhaps a DVD with work by Mikhail Ryabko, but also videos of Mohammed Ali, Michael Jordan and even some accomplished dancers or gymnasts - ideal posture is not exclusively found in one martial art, sport or discipline). If you discover that you don't fare that well, you've got work to do, but please stay away from the "military approach" to posture: the advice to "stand up straight, head up, shoulders back, stomach in", will lead you away from your goal, by causing increased effort and muscular tension in your body. The basic Systema exercises (push-ups, sit-ups, flat-foot squats) can help you a lot, as long as you focus on executing them with a "long spine", imagining (not actively trying) that your head is moving away from your pelvis. Some stability training for your core, pelvis and shoulder girdle will also work miracles. Still, the best methods to improve your posture utilize subtle cues in order to activate neurological reflexes that stimulate your posture quickly and easily (the Alexander Technique is one of the most sophisticated I know off). You might want to try some lessons in one of those. And most importantly, when you're training, try not to think with your fists and feet. Before you try to perform any movement, even you warm-up exercises, just perform a mental check of your posture, until the neutral position of the spine becomes a habit for you (the slow training methods utilized in Russian Martial Art make this awareness possible). Because, just being able to stand does not in any way mean you're in a position to fight.

References:
[1] Shioda, Gozo. Total Aikido: The Master Course. Kodansha, 1996. p. 14
[2] Elphinston, J. Stability, Sport and Performance Movement. Lotus Publishing, 2008. p.17
[3] Ibid. p. 61

A system of humans at play!

Whenever an opportunity to train with Alex Kostic turns up, I do my best to grasp it and you know what? - it's not just because I want to train with him. Please don't misunderstand me, Alex's seminars are full of insights and those "aha!" moments, regarding their technical content. What I find even more fascinating though, is talking to him, because he has this uncanny ability to draw analogies between philosophy and somatic psychotherapy (his fields of academic study) and martial arts training and practice. During the last two times we met and trained with Alex (November 2009 in Sweden and two weeks ago in Athens, Greece), we discussed extensively his personal approach to Russian Martial Art, which he has named "Sistema Homo Ludens" and honestly, a number of his ideas made a huge impression on me. For those of you who do not already know, "Homo Ludens" (Man the Player) is a book written in 1938 by Dutch historian, cultural theorist and professor Johan Huizinga, that discusses the importance of the play element of culture and society. My personal views on an approach of teaching combat skills (or any other type of skills) through play might be the subject of a future blog post. What I wanted to share in this post is a text posted by Alex himself yesterday of Facebook, regarding the philosophy of Sistema Homo Ludens, plus a video trailer highlighting the various aspects of Homo Ludens training and a video interview of Alex explaining more of his ideas. Hope you enjoy these!

"Homo Ludens: Philosophy (by Alex Kostic)
Combat, as a diverse conglomeration of specific practices of relations with oneself and others, necessarily implies movement as a horizon of more or less set possibilities. For each of us, the possibility of movement is so axiomatic and immediate that we almost never think of it. The moves that people make are most often instrumental in character – walking from part of the town to another in order to get to work, bending over to reach an important document in a drawer, sitting down to get rest, etc. The common thread for all these motions is that they are not an end in themselves, but rather aimed at some purpose exterior to the movement itself. On the other side, in the window of glorious human dignified practices are those that have taken movement to an art: acting, ballet, dance, etc. What does it mean? It is to say that within those practices the movement is not in the function of some immediate goal, but instead it rises to the fullness of its temporality, which realized its essential capacities through the play. Play, therefore, is not something we use to attain any other goal – it is a goal in itself.

The common attitude is that in combat training most important issue is the command of various fighting techniques. Nevertheless, in the course of such training, what is referred to as techniques, and meant to be the desired outcome of a movement, is usually simply “glued” to a body that tries, under the pressure of desire for success, to anticipate the unpredictable spontaneity of the situation, in which only a body educated through movement can lead to more or less favorable resolving of the conflict. The technical training attempts to compensate for what is lacking in the domain of corporal education, by reaching for the satisfactory outcome in a strictly controlled situation. That way, the combative training instills in its practitioners the uncritical self-confidence in an irresponsible manner, the self-confidence that is not founded in the freedom of move, but rather in the fantasy of efficiency.

First one needs to suspend the yearning for the perfection of technique, for the sake of free movement. Such freedom does not bear with dogma or school uniformity, but instead seeks space for play, which in a conflict situation becomes the unpredictable struggle for survival. Therefore, a man who plays will not ask about the origins of the particular movement, but alternatively he will reinvent every “technique” himself.

That way, the first step in educating the body entails linking the movements freely into various biomechanical kinetic chains. At first on one’s own and later with a partner, the body learns to anticipate force vectors and in the beginning starts with imitation, but soon follows with improvisation, in order to relieve itself from striving to do the “right” or “realistic” technique. In its place, it will make the necessary and sufficient movement, thus rewarding the practitioner with satisfaction. In that context, the satisfaction lures the body into breaking out of its shy autism and stepping into the field of its possibilities. However, in that field there is someone else waiting, and with regards to combat, that someone is threatening.

The threat at hand simulates the feeling of being in danger, which cannot be escaped through any training. In the first stage, the subject has acquired fluid movement, softening the body with pleasure and forgetting about the threat. Once it matures, the body needs to be scared by strong hits, impossible situation that humiliate the narcissism of theatrical flawlessness.

The threat at issue simulates the feeling of danger that cannot be avoided through any training. In the first phase, the subject has acquired fluidity of movement, softened his body with pleasure and forgot about the threat. Once the body has matured, it needs to be scared by powerful strikes and “impossible” situations, which humiliate the narcissism of the theatrical flawlessness. Only through perseverance in the experience of stressful contact it is possible to talk about mature, self-critical attitude towards conflicts. Once the spontaneity of movement, which does not stem from the conscious projection characteristic for technical exercises, is unified with the experience of the struggle and overcoming obstacles, the training becomes free play that is no longer played by the child in its naïveté, nor the adolescent in its competitiveness, but rather an adult person in its responsible relaxation.

Let the spirit of play spread through the training hall, and not the dubious authority of a master, who compensates his fear from the loss of control through egotistical perfectionism. Let the gym become a temporal and unpretentious community of equal explorers of corporal movement, instead of a bullying domain, which insists on rivalry, thus establishing the ungrounded hierarchy that, as a rule, only results in selfish egotism".





More on Alex Kostic and Sistema Homo Ludens at www.russianmartialart-serbia.com.
You can preview the book Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga here.

What would you rather play? The guitar or Guitar Hero?

Strangely enough, even though I grew up listening to and idolizing the great heroes of guitar (Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Richie Blackmore, Jeff Beck, but also B.B. King, Albert King, Steve Cropper, Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell and George Benson, among others), the people who designed and market the video game Guitar Hero, probably do not consider me (and most people of my generation) as part of their target group. Besides listening to famous guitar players, I also took up playing the guitar for a few years when I was younger. But since I also trained in martial arts, I decided that you cannot break bricks, boards and tiles and at the same time demand from your fingers to be agile, so I finally ended up just playing air guitar at parties...

A few months ago I played Guitar Hero for the first time and although, based on my past, one would expect me to enjoy it, well... I didn't. Part of my dislike for the game comes from the fact that I'm rather the old-school type. I admire all guitar heroes, because they spent countless hours practicing before they managed to reach fame and stardom: first they got to know their "axes" as good as possible and perfected their "licks", then practiced with a band, then performed at humble establishments (to say the least) in order to get their act solid – in a few words they paid their dues. Nowadays, it seems that anyone can "live the experience" of being a guitar god, with the help of a piece of electronic equipment and none of the fuss – so typical of the age of instant gratification we live in. I’m afraid I just don't get it...

Of course some of you might say that this is an ethical reason to dislike the game, but the ethics of one person do not necessarily coincide with those of another, and I am not going to argue on that. Still, there are a few more reasons I do not like Guitar Hero, rather of a practical nature, and I would like to present them too, so here I go:

1. The game is not that much of a challenge. Sure, it requires some skill, but not much: some sense of rhythm and hand-eye coordination. A recreational guitar player definitely has those and something more: he knows how to produce tones from the instrument he's holding.
2. There's not enough freedom. With only five buttons (!) on the fretboard plus a lever that simulates the picking of the strings, there are only twenty or so (correct me if I'm wrong) combinations of things you can do with your fingers of both hands. The combination to use each moment is provided by the game software – you are not allowed to deviate from the "correct" choice, which is dictated by the original recording of the song included in the game disc. So basically, you don't play the game, the game plays you. Isn't this very un-guitar hero? Can you imagine Jimi Hendrix playing the exact same solo every time he played a specific piece of music? Yeah, I thought so… Plus, you cannot regulate the sound of your guitar by using your wah-wah pedal, by playing with a slide, by bending, plucking, strumming the strings or whatever. Boring…
3. It simply doesn't get you anywhere! After having "played to perfection" all the songs included in one of the game discs (possible, but not probable, since the compilations are rather uneven), the fun is over until you buy another disc. Whereas, a guitar allows you to learn new songs every now and then so you can have fun with your friends, become a virtuoso soloist, or even compose your own music – as long as you put the time and effort.
4. A guitar player can very easily play Guitar Hero. A Guitar Hero player can't necessarily play the guitar. Do I have to elaborate on that one?

Lately, a number of people with some experience in military Close Quarters Combat systems have contacted me in order to start training in Russian Martial Art. Some of them seem to think that RMA is a typical CQC system, only the "techniques" we use are more effective, due to the (partially) Soviet origins of our training method. I try to explain that in RMA, we treat every action (a sequence of movements with a specific goal) as a "symphony of movement". And in order to reach the level of skill needed to perform a symphony, one must first learn how to play scales of single notes, i.e. explore the movement potential of the human body for its own sake, then play some "musical phrases" with these notes, later start interacting with other "musicians" in order to understand the ideas of harmony and counterpoint, and finally perform the part which is needed in any given musical piece. The end goal of this process is what my friend and senior Systema RMA instructor Emmanuel Manolakakis calls "a set of skills for life", not only for combat or survival.

The analogy I use between Russian Martial Art and music seems to put off the people who are interested in "a few high percentage techniques" that will address most situations, so they never show up for training. And I think that's for the better, because as an instructor and coach, I'd rather teach people how to play the guitar than play Guitar Hero...

You think you're ready to train in martial arts? Well, think again!

I vaguely remember this warm afternoon back in the late nineties. My Kung Fu instructor had taken all his students to the local track, in order to do a Cooper test. I was in the first bunch of students to complete their 12 minutes of running, and I was standing aside and recovering while the second group performed the test. Maria was running with the second group - she was in her early thirties, and I guess she thought that training in Kung Fu fitted well with her alternative, slightly new-agey lifestyle. I remember she had a sunny disposition and was almost always smiling, but as she was walking towards the rest of us after the end of the test, all I could see in her face was discomfort and frustration.
"Hey, what's with you?", I asked her as she was approaching.
"Well, you know what?", she replied. "I never had the slightest pain in my body... until I started training".

I didn't pay much attention to what she said, I just found it rather funny - I mean, who would take up any kind of training in order to accumulate pain in their body? Still, as my Kung Fu years went by and both the volume and the intensity of my training escalated, as I gradually shifted my focus towards san shou competition, something strange started happening to my body. In the very beginning it was dull pain in both my knees, which was dismissed as "adaptation discomfort", and went away after a few sessions of acupuncture. Later, I started feeling some generalized soreness in my whole body after intense san shou sessions, and it did not go away until my warm-up for the next training session. At some point, I had to take almost a month off training because of a sharp pain in my right shoulder (which later developed into a nasty supraspinatus tendonitis that bothers me until today). The next body part to give way was my lower back: two, maybe three times a year, the muscles in my left lower back went into spasm, and I had to stay away from both training and my job for days at a time. In late 1999, while preparing for the 5th World Wushu Championships, I trained six hours a day, six days a week and at the same time, devoted a minimum of eight hours a day to my job. My body was constantly complaining and I had trouble sleeping at night due to numerous pains. I talked to my instructor about this and his reply was that "my problem was fear, not injury" (or something just as stupid and ignorant), so I kept on training - I wasn't going to cave in to fear, right? Of course, in order to keep going, I had to take lots of pain killers and muscle relaxants. In the end, I was unable to peak my training for the championships, but I travelled to Hong Kong anyway and lost in my first bout. Six months later, in the Wushu nationals, I managed to win two fights, but in the third one, for the gold medal, I had to quit after two rounds. It was impossible to continue fighting, because I could barely stand upright - the pain in my lower back was excruciating and my left leg was numb from the buttock down to the toes. A few weeks later, an MRI scan revealed a L5-S1 hernia and degeneration of disk in my spine. Although my doctor (an orthopedic surgeon) told me that I would never be able to train again unless I had the hernia surgically removed, I ignored him and managed to make a come-back after three weeks of rest, another few sessions of acupuncture and some dead-lifting (no, seriously). A year later, I partially tore the meniscus in my right knee, and as I was pretty close to the age of 35 (which is the age limit for the International Wushu Federation san shou competitions), I decided to call it quits - something which gradually led me away from the Chinese martial arts altogether.

While it is relatively easy to describe the injuries, it is hardly possible to convey through writing all the pain, the frustration and the anguish I felt back then. After all, I was supposed to be a talented athlete! Why was this happening to me? Well, the thing is that my body was trying to tell me something by breaking down, and I was just not listening. In the next years (as I grew older and, presumably, wiser) I decided to pay more attention to what my body was trying to tell, and I also tired to learn as much about the human body as I could. So, what I know today and did not back then, is that I started my training for san shou competition being slightly scoliotic towards the right side, so my right shoulder was slightly protracted and internally rotated (does this spell supraspinatus tendonitis, or what?). I was also slightly knock-kneed, and my feet were slightly everted in a normal standing position. I emphasize that all these problems were slight. They could not be detected, if one did not know what to look for, and it seems no one did. The orthopedic surgeon I mentioned above later told me that they were all deviations from the ideal, but still, well within what is considered to be normal. Oh, and one more thing: my squatting technique was very bad, but nobody seemed to know what to do about it. In any case, it seems that there was no particular reason (at least in the beginning) to suspect problems in my motor control, since I could easily perform all the skills related to my sport.

I suspect that the wealth of information widely available today on the structure and function of the human body was not available back then - certainly not in a country like Greece anyway. The thing is that all those slight asymmetries in my body were weak links leading to what sports scientists refer to as "energy leaks" due to poor biomechanics. You see, even if an athlete has some sort of deficit in strength, flexibility, coordination, stability or balance (like I did), the body will unconsciously find a way to perform what is asked of it, even if that way is less than technically optimal. This is known as "compensating" and that's exactly what causes an energy leak to happen. According to physical therapist and strength training expert Gray Cook, "an energy leak occurs when all of the energy generated to perform a certain task or movement, does not go specifically into that task or movement. Science tells us that the energy must go somewhere. Usually the energy creates stress within the body. The stress can take many forms. It may cause unnecessary work or movement in another part of the body, placing greater stress on certain muscles and tendons (strains). It may create unnatural motion of the spine or limbs, placing greater stress on joints and ligaments (sprains). This movement can create stress and trauma that may go unnoticed for weeks and months. Eventually the athlete will pay the price if the stress continues [mybold]" [1]. Keep in mind that we are talking about slight mistakes here that initially do not affect performance and usually cannot be detected by someone who does not know what to look for. So as the training load increases, a shoulder starts to hurt more and more, the lower back is consistently sore, a knee buckles, but the causes remain mysteriously unknown!

When one takes up martial arts training, it is taken for granted that his body is functioning properly and ready to accept the training load imposed by the needs of the art. Well, this might have been the case with young boys in ancient Sparta, the offspring of the samurai in feudal Japan, and the children in a Cossack tribe. Is it the same though with modern Western people (even youngsters) who grow up sitting for hours at a time in front of a computer, and who's idea of exercise is playing video game hockey or basketball? I very much doubt it. The body needs to be thoroughly tested and assessed first in order to determine if generic movement properties are correct, before one proceeds to learning martial art (or sport) specific movements. After all, a two arm shoulder throw (morote seoinage for you judo people) is nothing but a push and a pull, a rotation around the body's central longitudinal axis, a squat and a bend at the hips. Still, if there is even a minor problem in any of the movement components, the thousants of repetitions required in order to master the technique, will inevitably lead to injury. Oh, and one more thing: even elite level athletes use compensatory movement patterns, resulting in overuse injuries or training plateaus. Imagine what might be the case with an average 20 year old who walks into an MMA school with dreams of becoming "the ultimate fighter"...

So how is it then that one can assess generic movement properties, before progressing to specific skills? Well, there are numerous methods out there, and it is the responsibility (and dare I say, duty) of every coach, especially those working with children, to study as many of these as possible. Otherwise, some day a student might walk up to his Sensei, Sifu, Guro or Coach, and say: "You know what? I never had any pain in my body... until I started training". And that wouldn't be nice, would it?

References:
[1] Cook, G. Athletic Body in Balance. Human Kinetics, 2003. p. 9