Form, Flinch, or Flow -- by Kevin Secours

Copyright © 2004

In trying to understand a specific style of martial art, the temptation always exists to judge it based on how it looks. In looking at Russian Systema, many have noted that some elements resemble Aikido. Others find similarities between it and Bagua, Hsing-i or Tai Chi. Some notice moves that are similar to Kali or Indonesian Silat. Others see something entirely different. The fact is, the human brain is image-driven. Our brains are constantly working to process and categorize what they see, into something familiar and simple. This process is called pareidolia. It’s what instinctively allows us to see what seems like recognizable faces and shapes in clouds,
or in tree bark or in a random shape. It’s the reflex at the basis of ink blot tests and the roadblock that prevents many from enjoying abstract art.

The pareidolia reflex is largely context-based. For example, a grilled cheese sandwich recently sold for $55,000 on E-bay because it was alleged to contain the image of the Virgin Mary burned into the bread. This assumption was due in large part to the fact the audience was Christian. Buddhists living in Thailand would be far less likely to make the same connection. In much the same way, a friend of mine who is a Judo practitioner recently watched a video clip of Systema on the internet. Because he saw one loose leg sweep being performed he concluded that we were little more than a sloppy version of Judo or Sambo, in making this leap, he completely misunderstood our basic approach. As the old expression goes: “When all you’ve got is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.”

All martial arts must necessarily share similarities since they all share physiology. As Bruce Lee said, so long as we have two arms and two legs, there can be only so many ways to punch or kick. Granted, cultural values may interpret how a movement is perceived or expressed, but in the end, we are limited by our biology. For this reason that I’m always cautious about defining Systema according to one person’s expression of it over another. The fact is, these expressions are more reflections of that individual’s own bodily limitations and strengths and individual mastery. As an educator, I’ve always looked instead at the training method at the root of that expression-- the path taken to arrive at the summit, rather than the destination itself. It is
precisely Systema’s educational approach which I believe is so unique.

The Russian martial arts were created in an environment of extreme diversity, in terms of climate, geography and natural opponents. From this multiplicity came a fundamental dedication to adaptability. Whereas contemporary Asian arts were generally culturally inclined to pursue form, ritual and memorization, Russian warriors encouraged autonomy, freedom and spontaneity from the very beginning. This sole principle was continually reinforced for centuries until it became a culturally embedded ideal. Then, in 1917, when the Communist government banned the public practice of their indigenous combat systems and restricted the arts solely to the most elite tiers of their Special Operations Units, the art underwent an even greater change. It’s important to remember that at this point, the full resources of this massive country were literally poured into the military and Systema was given unrestricted support and funding, which included research in athletic performance enhancement, psychology, strategy and weaponry. This was a period where for nearly 100 years, the sole goal of the government was to create nothing less than the ultimate soldier. This combination of adaptability, the existence of unrelenting military opposition and battlefield experimentation and a century of government support, led to the maximization of Systema.

From this perspective of learning methodology, I classify all martial training into 3 fundamental classifications: Formal, Flinch and Flow Training.

Bodily Re-Education:

Formal Training refers to most traditional schools of martial arts, which deeply respect rank and ritual, often adhering to aesthetic or philosophical ideals and using ancient forms and routines to instruct. In the language of Bruce Lee, these styles are like factories that force the individual student into a single mould. While this type of “cookie-cutter” approach does have its
advantages, it does little to incorporate the psychology of the individual.

Flinch Training is largely comprised of the modern “combative” or reality self-defense schools. These approaches place full stock in the idea that during an adrenalized crisis state, the human body’s performance will erode and the startle-flinch response will be triggered. Minimizing movements to the simplest gross-motor movements, these methods use instinctive reflexes and positions as triggers for their trained arsenal. In doing this, they arguably achieve faster learning curves, but this shortcut may come with a hefty price tag. In reinforcing the more aggressive instincts of the body, the practitioners may in effect be bypassing their natural inhibition to harm and exposing their bodies and minds to needless levels of stress hormones. In
effect, training becomes as chemically harmful as combat and evolves into a source of trauma and injury that may intensify aggression and lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorders.

Flow Training takes a more holistic approach to combat preparation. It seeks to do more than just prepare the individual for the possibility of physically defending themselves; it also seeks to insulate them for the emotional aftermath of harming a fellow human being. This is achieved by
familiarizing the student with their individual fear responses. Rather than indulging and reinforcing the flinch response as Flinch Training does, Flow training seeks to maximize the practitioner’s natural Relaxation Response and reinforces lucid thought and authentic reaction toe very situation.

Unlike formal training, which often imitates the gesture or actions of animals despite massive differences in our basic morphology, Flow Training seeks to maximize the greatest weapon our species possesses--our highly evolved brains. It is precisely our brains that have allowed us as insufficient creatures, lacking the claws and fangs and proportionate muscular strength of the other dominant species on our planet to achieve the position of power that we hold. Whereas Formal Training often gets lost in the quagmire of this metacognitive gift, over thinking and over philosophizing their approach, both Flinch and Flow based training seek to maximize the full strength of our rational minds by using it to forge a more successful training approach.

Flinch Training does succeed but it does so in most cases without any regard for the intrinsic spirituality or emotion of warriorhood. While it does well in preparing the soldier to harm at a mechanical level, it does little to prepare them to reap what they have sown and scarcely addresses the idea of the emotional aftermath. All reality-based systems are certainly not
created equally and some fantastic schools do exist, however, overall, I have seen too many whose proponents are driven by blood-lust and the desire to harm. The goal of Flow Training is to protect the self and not to harm the other.

Flow training, at its root, seeks to create a student that is humble and self-aware not aggressive and seeking violence. Its goal is to create a student that enters into every situation authentically and responds to the unique context around them rather than according to some artificial limit. In
the end, Flow Training seeks to do more than just protect the student in the unlikely or rare event that they are attacked by a knife-wielding attacker in an alleyway. It seeks to also protect them from the inevitable daily attacks of stress, from self-doubt and illness and from the temptation of becoming what they are seeking to protect themselves against.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Got A Second? -- by Ken J. Good

Preface - by Sid Heal, Los Angeles Sheriff's Department - Used by Permission

Because all tactical operations are dynamic, they are also time sensitive. Decisions and actions that are delayed are often rendered ineffective because of the constantly changing circumstances. When an adversary is involved, the operation is not only time sensitive, but also time competitive. Time or opportunity neglected by one adversary can be exploited by the other. Recognizing the importance of this characteristic, Napoleon said, "It may be that in the future I may lose a battle, but I shall never lose a minute."

A useful tool for understanding the importance of this concept is the OODA Loop. The OODA Loop, often called Boyd's Cycle, is a creation of Col. John Boyd, USAF (Ret.). Col. Boyd was a student of tactical operations and observed a similarity in many battles and campaigns. He noted that in many of the engagements, one side presented the other with a series of unexpected and threatening situations with which they had not been able to keep pace. The slower side was eventually defeated. What Col. Boyd observed was the fact that conflicts are time competitive.

According to Boyd's theory, conflict can be seen as a series of time-competitive, Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action (OODA) cycles. Each party to a conflict begins by observing themselves, the physical surroundings and the adversary. Next they orient themselves. Orientation refers to making a mental image or snapshot of the situation. Orientation is necessary because of the fluid, chaotic nature of conflicts makes it impossible to process information as fast as we can observe it. This requires a freeze-frame concept and provides a perspective or orientation. Once we have an orientation, we need to make a decision. The decision takes into account all the factors present at the time of the orientation. Last comes the implementation of the decision. This requires action. One tactical adage states that, "Decisions without actions are pointless". Actions without decisions are reckless." Then, because we hope that our actions will have changed the situation, the cycle begins anew. The cycle continues to repeat itself throughout a tactical operation.

The adversary who can consistently go through Boyd's Cycle faster than the other gains a tremendous advantage. By the time the slower adversary reacts, the faster one is doing something different and the action becomes ineffective. With each cycle, the slower party's action is ineffective by a larger and larger margin. The aggregate resolution of these episodes will eventually determine the outcome of the conflict. For example, as long as the actions of the authorities continue to prove successful, a suspect will remain in a reactive posture, while the commander maintains the freedom to act. No matter that the suspect desperately strives to accomplish, every action becomes less useful than the preceding one. As a result, the suspect falls farther and farther behind. This demonstrates that the initiative follows the faster adversary.

Introduction - written by Ken J. Good, President of Progressive Combat Solutions LLC

Today's environment of accelerating scientific discoveries and technological change bring ever-improving hardware to the end user. In this climate is it easy to overlook and even abandon the core foundation of any weapon system, the interplay and perceptions of the human mind in a combative situation.

A man who understood this better than most was Col. John Boyd, USAF (Ret.) Col. Boyd was tasked with determining why American pilots in apparently inferior aircraft were consistently outmatching their Korean counterparts. Air to air combat takes place in a 360-degree sphere and represents the pinnacle of the man and machine relationship coupled with the man on man dynamic warriors dream about.

Boyd was an extremely accomplished pilot who had a standing bet with all students under his tutelage. $40 - 40 seconds. The student would be allowed to start in a position of advantage and if Col. Boyd could not maneuver his same type aircraft into a position of advantage within 40 seconds, the student could collect $40. I don't think any ever collected.

Col. Boyd developed and pressed forward a simple, yet deeply profound model now known as the OODA cycle or as it often called, Boyd's Cycle. The cycle of Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act is the essence of combat and present in any human conflict.

Col. Boyd considered and defined the nature of combat in terms of time. All engagements were a competition for time, a precious commodity not voluntarily relinquished by either party. Col. Boyd understood the importance and advantages of relentlessly forcing the adversary to deal with a rapid serious of events in order to disorient and "get inside" the opponents OODA cycle.

Once "inside", time for the insider moves as it should, one event flowing to the next in a predictable pattern, the outcome virtually certain. On the other hand, the "victim" is stuck in time. He has no apparent opportunities to Observe and Orient meaningful events. Decisions and Actions are ineffective. He is pulled down and entangled in an unrecoverable death spiral. The laws of the universe somehow seem to have been unhinged. Time has somehow stood still as in a bad dream when one cannot run away from a terrible manifestation of the inner mind.

In the battle of "mind-space" the goal is simple; get inside and stay there.

Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. O.O.D.A.
The acronym is easy to remember The cycle itself is absolutely crucial to understand if one is regularly in harms way.

In order to consistently and effectively defeat opponents, you must sequentially move through the OODA cycle whether you are aware of it or not. It is model that can be used to dissect compressed timeframes in a logical and sequential manner. All engagements whether they are air-to-air dogfights or an up close and personal, hand-to-hand confrontation, conform to this simple, powerful, and insightful model.

I have noted that by studying and learning to apply this cycle, one has a effective way to segment, analyze, and improve human performance in confrontational situations. It is a gemstone to be admired and constantly examined.

Recalibrating the Internal Clock
The first issue is our perception of time itself.
I often illustrate people's perception of the time by walking to the back of the classroom and then back to the podium while elucidating some tactical point. While the class is still trying to digest the point, I then ask several students, how long did it take for me to walk to the back of the room and return to the podium? Typically I get a few turned faces, questioning looks and frowns. They are non-verbally asking me, what difference does it make how long that took?

The answers I do receive will typically range from 2 seconds to 10 seconds, a substantial variance. Some will argue that I did not give them any preparation to ready their internal stopwatch. But this misses the point. No one in a rapidly developing engagement is going to stop and remind you to calibrate your chronograph. The point is, using recall alone, the same event witnessed by trained observers is perceived to have taken place in different universes where physical reality moves at different speeds.

The other interesting thing to note is that I will never get an answer like 3.345 seconds.

Why is this so? True sometimes I get an answer of 3½ seconds, but that's as fine a gradient ever expressed. Our everyday existence does not require a division of time any closer than seconds for most events, in terms of verbal articulation. But in the world of close quarter engagements, using only full seconds to measure time is like using a sledgehammer to fine cut a diamond.

Tremendous and significant changes can happen in one second. A proficient adversary can fire three rounds out of a semi-auto shotgun while passing by an open doorway, horizontally and vertically changing position in relation to you in under a second.

To further illustrate the calibration point in the classroom, I ask someone to stand up and I give this volunteer a "red gun", an inoperative hard plastic replica handgun. I tell them to put it in their waistband, and I do the same. I tell them that they are now part of a futuristic new game show that pits one man against the other in a six-foot gunfight. The participants face each other, winner to receive one million dollars. Both are wearing metallic braces on their wrist and ankles and are held in place by a strong magnetic field. Both will actually be using real, perfectly functioning firearms. When the green light is observed, you will be free to access your firearm and dispatch your opponent as required.

Now I throw a twist into the scenario. I tell the student, that he was smarter and more cunning than I and he offered ½ his winnings to the operator of the magnetic field, if he would release his magnets 1 second earlier than mine. The operator says no, because one second was too obvious and the producers would have him executed for this breach of the rules. So the negotiations continue.

How about .9 seconds? How about .8 seconds? How about .4 seconds? How about .2 seconds? The operator finally agrees to release my opponent's magnets .125 seconds prior to mine. At this point in the discussion, I then ask the student, would you take this time advantage if given to you, even if you had to pay $100,000 for it? The answer is inevitably, in the affirmative! Any sane person would take any and all time given in a gunfight, no matter how small the increment.

We zoom back out. How important is time? How important is learning to perceive time? How important is it to re-calibrate our internal chronographs? How does one get better and more efficient at anything?

A familiar shooting drill that many trainers use to roughly gauge a shooter's proficiency is the "El Presidente".

The shooter starts out back facing to the target with a loaded and holstered handgun. At the sound of the buzzer the shooter spins to face 3 targets, 10 yards away, equally spaced 1 yard apart. The shooter is required to fire 2 rounds into each of the targets, reload and fire 6 more rounds, 2 in each target, attempting to hit the "A" zone of a standard IPSC target.

When you ask a new shooter to perform this drill you are not even looking for a time hack, but are more concerned about weapons handling and overall safety during the entire process. If the shooter safely completes the drill under 15 seconds, everybody is happy.

Give that same shooter some solid instruction and a few hundred rounds of practice and he or she should be hovering around 10 seconds consistently.

How does one go from 10 seconds to low 4-second runs? What should be examined is not how fast the shooter is shooting. But one should examine closely by what process did this shooter eliminate so much unnecessary motion and negative mental distractions in order to consistently repeat this performance?

For the remainder of this discussion, let's assume that we are talking about split seconds of time to move through the OODA cycle. Let's enter into the matrix.

Observe - The Starting Blocks - The First Quarter
This has to be your highest priority, find the threat before he or she finds you. An insight on the obvious you say! There is more than meets the proverbial eye!

Evaluating the modern battlefield, one should note that an enormous amount of effort and resources have been dedicated to "seeing" or observing the battlefield in real time. The investment in these resources has paid off handsomely during recent conflicts. The U.S. military exploits a tremendous satellite network, flies high altitude reconnaissance missions, deploys airborne and ground based radar systems, runs patrol operations, gathers real-time intelligence from a variety of sources, all in an effort to gain an overwhelming advantage as hostilities unfold. At this point in our military development, if we can see it, we can destroy it.

If you place yourself in the cockpit of a modern fighter jet, your prime directive is to find your opponent first and deploy your weaponry in a firing envelope advantageous to you before your opponent even knows your are there, just as it was when aerial combat first unfolded.

It is no different in a close quarter battle situation using handheld or shoulder-fired weapons. You must first find the threat through your main "radar system", your eyes, deploy your weaponry in a firing envelope advantageous to you before your opponent even knows your are there.

Zooming back in, let's examine some areas that can cause a degradation of our "on board radar system".

• Placement of the Weapon. Under the duress of searching for armed threats, we have noted that even very experienced operators have a strong tendency to place the weapon in the visual cone before they have located the position of the threat. (More often than not their finger is on the trigger, a well-known unsafe practice) The weapon, arms, and hands are now blocking out vital visual information.

• This would be exactly like a fighter pilot placing a 3" by 5" note card over part of their radar display and putting their finger on the missile release button, all the time believing they are somehow more ready to defeat their unseen opponent or opponents.

Body, Head, and Eye Movements. The body obviously carries the head, and the neck articulates the head, and eyes are directed from within the head. This body movement coupled with head articulation, eye direction, angle, and focal placement allows for an almost infinite number of possibilities for employment your main sensor system, your vision.

This freedom can lead to large "gaps" for potential threats to move through unopposed. You must understood this and deal with it through proper training. An easy way to visualize this is to imagine watching a home video a friend filmed. You sit down and have an expectation that you are going to receive good visual information. As the videotape is played you soon become agitated because the camera operator was inexperienced and out of control. The recorded images are jumping and jerking all over the television monitor. Important details of the dynamic situation are lost and undistinguishable. Lot's of good intent, energy, and activity, but unfortunately the most important aspects of the event go unseen.

This video camera example illustrates the body, head, and eyes moving without intelligence and efficiency. To make matters worse, the individual who was operating the camera was using the zoom feature in and out with completely random patterns. This illustrates an individual improperly setting the focal length of his or her eyes while searching for an unseen threat. I have noted that individuals and teams have a strong tendency to tune their "radars" to one distance and angle and leave it there. This is especially true when the first threat is located and identified. Tracking one target, and one target only could spell death to a fighter pilot over the battlefield.

Since our visual sensors do not obtain data like phased-array radars, we must constantly change the distance and elevation of our vision, in a systematic manner.

One must relegate this cycling of the vision to the sub-conscious mind through proper training and experience.

A famous German Fighter Ace was asked, what is your secret? Answer: "I have an acute awareness for the back of my neck".

He was also asked what he thought about the P-51 Mustang. He response: "Three of the four that I shot down today did not even know I was in the same sky with them"

Notice he did not talk about hardware here. He drilled down to the inner man.

As our eyes are set in the forward area of the skull, representing an approximate 210 degree field of view. This leaves us with an additional obstacle to overcome, a large area unseen directly behind us.

What is the optimal sequence for establishing the best direction, angle, focal length, body speed, and timings to use the vision properly in a tactical environment? This is the art and science of using your vision to properly observe. This is where the inner man reigns supreme over the external tools deployed in the environment.

This is an area of combat that begins to immediately separate a highly proficient shooting sportsman and a combatant on the modern, urban battlefield or street.

Orient - Establishing Reality - The Second Quarter

Once you have obtained good visual data, ideally before your opponent has, you must orient yourself to the overall situation. You must put things in proper perspective based on real time input, previous intelligence, and generated assumptions. You are not processing in a linear sequential manner; you are processing in parallel. If you had the opportunity to freeze frame these moments and ask yourself, what data are you considering at this moment, the list would grow quite long as the subconscious is probed with the conscious mind.

To help illustrate the concept, imagine a personal computer with an outdated central processing unit, a few megabytes of memory, not enough data storage, a black and white 10" monitor all controlled by an antiquated operating system. Now try and run a sophisticated software package that requires significant resources. You will be immediately frustrated with the result.

When I was in the military, I had the opportunity to free-fall parachute out of a perfectly good airplane. When I immediately recalled the first jump experience, it appeared to be a virtual slideshow. Only key images where etched into my mind. I remember checking my altimeter numerous times, verifying the location of my rip-cord (this dates me!), seeing the beauty of an inflated canopy and finding the "T" and then contact with the ground. The entire event was 5-7 minutes long. After 60-100 jumps the staccato slideshow morphed into a streaming digital video. Same timeframe, but now my brain did not have to spend precious resources finding a "spot" to burn the information in since it was no longer new information but familiar territory. I could now casually see everyone exit the aircraft, immediately place myself in proper perspective to all jumpers, the aircraft and the ground. I was spending plenty of time doing relative work with other jumpers, flying my canopy and landing extremely close to the desired target. I was now able to assimilate huge blocks of visual data effortlessly, as well as recall them with great accuracy and clarity. I was now "oriented" to this somewhat stressful event.

The brain has an amazing capacity for data storage, recall, and decision-making, provided it has some meaningful reference points. But when we are presented with a totally new set of circumstances, with no prior reference points, we become disoriented, I.E., when is the last time your brain had a threat with a loaded firearm swinging in your direction displayed on its internal movie screen?

Hence, the need for realistic training that creates these movies and turns them into valid reference points. High quality training paves a new and much needed information access road to a now cached experience. The experience will be real enough to prevent disorientation when actual combat is faced.

Consistent with the personal computer example, you are giving your brain upgrades specific to orientation. A larger cache of stored experiences on the hard-drive, a faster CPU, memory, and data transfer rate, greater display size, resolution and color. You now have a greater probability of arriving at a sound solution in a shorter period of time.

I have spoken with numerous law-enforcement officers and military personnel following firefights on the street and in combat who have participated in good force-on-force training prior to the real thing. They were not disoriented, quite the opposite. They could articulate the details of the engagement and followed a logical and effective sequence of events during the engagement.

Since all participants in the engagement must move through the OODA cycle to achieve consistent and repeatable results, you must strive to disorient your opponent. Note I did not say, out shoot, out run, out shout, the prime directive is to disorient your opponent. Once in this state, he or she should be overcome by events as you move smoothly on to the next phases and around the clock again and again. he opponent's perception of time becomes distorted, incoming data is dismissed, decisions are irrational, and actions become erratic and ineffective. This is an immensely powerful and often overlooked tactical tool.

You should have no sense of hurrying or waiting. You should be in harmony with what is actually happening.

Decide - The Pipeline - The Third Quarter

Practical decision-making can easily divided into two basic paths. The subconscious mind which can process hundreds of variables simultaneously, in parallel and the conscious mind which works in serial or sequentially, handling seven plus minus two variables before disregarding or misinterpreting incoming data.

Any process that must be accomplished in a compressed time frame should be relegated to the powerful subconscious mind, through training.

"If you consciously try to thwart opponents, you are already late" Miyamoto Musashi - 1645, Japanese Philosopher / Warrior

Subconscious decisions are decisions arrived upon based on what we perceive, how we orient that perception and the time allowed to make the decision. If the threat is close and the time frame compressed we will automatically default to the sub-conscious pipeline. Whatever we brought to the situation, genetics, personality, training, assumptions, tools available, will pour out of us without conscious thought or effort.

I frequently use an example based on a real world incident in Southern California. A police officer has pulled over a motorist on the roadway to issue a traffic citation. Starting off, the officer does everything correctly. He finishes his initial assessment and begins to approach the vehicle to make contact with the driver.

As he makes visual and verbal contact, the driver reaches down between his legs to grab a handgun, with full intention to shoot the officer. The officer has just entered the OODA cycle in terms of this particular engagement. The suspect has already started cycling. As the officer reads the body language then moments later actually sees the handgun coming into view (Observation), he begins to orient to the situation. It is not something he regularly witnesses. During the orientation phase, he concludes that this is really a handgun, this threat is real and imminent and he must decide what to do. As the threat is relatively close and the time frame is compressed, the sub-conscious immediately dominates the decision phase and the officer is now on autopilot.

The officer is driven backwards by the pressure of the moment and rotates 90 degrees to his right and begins to accelerate and run to get back to his vehicle. The vehicle represents everything that is friendly and safe. It embodies familiarity, cover, concealment, communications, and additional weapons with which to neutralize the threat with.

Simultaneously, the suspect, attempting to engage the officer, immediately creates a decision-action by the officer to turn and leave the immediate vicinity, a subconscious decision he is now exploiting. The suspect continues to move through the OODA cycle again arriving at the top to observe. The suspect now exits the vehicle and observes a police officer with his back turned, essentially attempting to outrun super-sonic projectiles.

Let's get back to the police officer. Where is he in the OODA cycle? He is in the unseen third O as in "Oh Sh#@". He can no longer obtain any good visual information in relationship to the moving, now firing suspect. Only the grace of God can help him now. How did he find himself in this situation with little prospect of successfully overcoming the circumstances? A virtually instantaneous subconscious decision compelled him to arrive here.

Could it have been avoided? Most certainly it could have. How? Through well directed "Force-on-Force" training. Training that would allow an officer to observe this situation not for the first time while under extreme duress. These observation opportunities should be given progressively and repeatedly. This observation process starts creating a cache that ends up becoming a reference point from which to properly and efficiently orient. All the non-verbal cues, timings, the biomechanical possibilities and constraints of the combatants are now identified, sorted, stored and are ready for retrieval by the powerful subconscious mind. New courses of action will be discovered and can be experimented with.

The subconscious now has new experiences from which to draw upon. This creates an improved matrix of actions, increasing probability of success in the future.

Act - What we Dream About - The Final Quarter

We have finally arrived at the phase where most spend the majority of their time practicing and from my perspective the least significant in terms of what is really required. This is where you pull the trigger; push the button on your pepper spray, call for back-up forces, or any number of actions. Don't get me wrong! You must be able to act powerfully. You must develop a smooth, accurate lookdown, shoot-down capability with your shoulder-fired and hand-held weapons from a variety of positions and circumstances.

Let's put this in perspective. f you were given just enough instruction to successfully fly an F-15 Strike Eagle off the runway and around the sky, and you also received good instruction on how to release a missile, by simply pushing the red button on the joystick, would you consider yourself ready for aerial combat? Combat taking place in 360-degree battle space flooded multiple threats, while sorting critical information and dealing with the physiological and psychological factors associated flight in combat.

To increase your chances of survival in this complex environment, you might construct a mock joystick at home and practice pushing the button really fast, over and over!

Operators love to show others how well they see the relationship of two pieces of metal and pull a lever. They will run down range, carefully pull their target and hold it like a newborn. They will cherish it and show all interested and non-interested parties, including their neighbor's dog, their prowess at pulling a lever (pushing a red button). It's comical sometimes.

If you simply learn to properly release a tiny metal missile from your handheld or shoulder-fired missile launcher. You are no more ready for combat on the street or the battlefield than your newly found piloting skills.

It is all that leads up to the point of missile release that ultimately matters. Your observations, orientation, and decisions are what allows a relatively minor action on your part define the difference between success or failure, life or death.

Whether you are in an F-15 or controlling a firearm, once you push the button or pull the trigger you are not going to make any difference on where that missile is going to strike. It will conform to its "programming" and the immutable laws of physics.

If you talk to the Gracie Brothers, you would find out that their best selling Brazilian JuJitsu videotapes are the submission tapes, the last in their comprehensive series. This hunger to learn submissions (pulling the trigger) is enormous. Nobody is saying submissions are not part of the total package and skill set, but the Gracie's will tell you, "Position before Submission". Prior to submitting someone a sequence is in effect. You must maintain proper distance and balance relationship to your opponent, close the distance with your opponent at the proper time, take your opponent to the ground, establish a dominant position over them, then submit them (force them to give up, damage them to point where they can no longer fight back or choke them into unconsciousness).

If you watch the greatest submission fighter in the world, Rickson Gracie, you will notice that he does not vary his routine by much. Rickson more often than not ends up choking out his opponents using the same dominant position and the same finishing hold. Why is he undefeated after over 400 plus no holds barred fights? Why can't his opponents just counter the strategy employed time after time? I believe it is his total mastery of the time and space prior to the relatively simple position and finish. It is the game within the game. The OODA Cycle in action.

I have had the opportunity to work with quite a few shooters that have the action phase of their personal development honed razor sharp. Their ability to shoot a handgun, shotgun, and rifle at paper and steel is literally world class, far outpacing anyone on our training staff if the only measuring stick is speed and accuracy on non-threatening targets. This is certainly not a negative, but can lead to a false sense of security and accomplishment. When weapons are out and everybody is carrying lethal force at the push of a button, the proverbial wheels fall off the chariot until all phases of the OODA are understood, mastered and consistently applied.

A smooth running OODA cycle translates to good situational awareness. Situational awareness is the ability to collect, collate, and store data in a fluid, dynamic environment, accurately predicting future events based on that data.

Predicting future events in a tactical environment is a potent asset to have in your personal arsenal.

Respectfully,
Ken J. Good
Email: info@progressivecombat.com

Why Systema? --by Martin Wheeler

Over the recent years I have read with interest on the internet back and forth as to the validity of training in Systema by observers who have only viewed experts in the art on YouTube or video. Usually a comparison is made to the most visual of fighting arts, mixed martial arts. The same types of questions are posted over and over again, “Why do they train slowly? Why does this look way too easy? Why did that guy fall over and seem unable to get back up?”

And I read with equal interest the various ways in which the art is defended by practitioners of Systema. Not that they are not valid questions, they definitely are, it is just I rarely hear these same questions from anyone in seminars, classes, or in sparring sessions, no matter what their background or what speed they work at.

Just for the sake of balance, I began in the martial arts at a tender age and have studied in many full contact environments from boxing systems to grappling systems, to clever weapons based and ‘street-fighting’ arts, and have enjoyed sparring, fighting and training for the last thirty years with anyone who’s paths I have crossed from beginners to world-class full contact fighters. I was a bouncer for ten years and I am currently contracted to share my views on close-quarter-combatives with professionals from elite security services around the world, as-well-as MMA fighters, Systema practitioners, traditional martial artists and civilians.

So why, if I have studied all these other full contact systems with relative success, would I choose Systema?

For me that is easy to answer. It’s because I have tried it. I am just one of many who brought whatever I had in my little bag of tricks to test Vladimir Vasiliev, or heaven forbid, Mikhail Ryabko, when I first met them. And I have yet to see anyone who did not come out the other end of the experience the same as I did, that is to say, confused, in pain but with a profound insight into the fact that something fundamental had changed.
To put it mildly, there is a lot more going on with Systema than meets the eye. And if there were not, if you could really just see what was happening by watching it on YouTube, then it would not be very good Systema.

Mixed martial arts are dramatic, fast and superbly visual. The best method for two pugilistic grapplers to go at it since the gladiators of old Rome. You can see what is happening and the results are self evident. It hosts some of the best conditioned and most versatile athletes.

I love to watch it, I love to train in it and always enjoy working with anyone from that world. And in my opinion, anyone who trains in MMA who is even half decent, a man or woman, is to be taken very seriously.

So I hear you ask: Well, if Systema is so good why isn’t it in the UFC? And I think that is an excellent question.

But I might ask: Well, if the UFC was any good why don’t they throw a knife in the cage?

As unrealistic as that is, maybe you get my point? The dynamic of a fight would change immediately if a knife were indeed tossed into the cage. You would see two highly trained fighters having to immediately adapt to a completely new set of rules or die almost instantaneously.
I think anyone would agree that eating jabs from a skilled fighter, possibly the least lethal of MMA striking attacks, sucks, but by comparison is quite pleasant compared to a single knife wound.

When I first trained with Vladimir he stopped me in the middle of a sparring session and said in his own inimitable way, ‘Martin, I know men that you would take to pieces in the ring’. Of course, stupidly beaming with pride I thought he was complimenting me, until he turned away to attend another student and added flatly... ‘But they would kill you.’

And there’s the rub. Almost every visible strategy, philosophy and motion that is great in an MMA sport environment is useful in the street and even on the battlefield. But only useful. Whereas everything in Systema is purposely designed for both of the later environments, is not visual, and has been proven as effective in those arenas as MMA has in the cage. Systema’s structure is intentionally designed to appear structureless, and the speed of the action although registering as slow to the eye is actually a highly developed relational timing, deceptive due to the Systema practitioner remaining calm.

Recently I was invited to introduce the concept of Systema to an overseas Special Operations Unit. While there, I was shown a video of various instructors that had been invited to train their operators and show what they had to offer. Among them was a top MMA coach from Pride. I asked what they thought of his training. ‘Excellent’ the Colonel said ‘but for us, virtually useless.’

This is in no way disparaging to the Pride coach, he was obviously excellent. But the fact remains, what is good in one arena is not necessarily good for another. Systema is not designed primarily for a sport environment or a sport mentality anymore than MMA is primarily designed for a battlefield environment or a combat mentality.

One could train for twenty years in Jujitsu, for example, and be an amazing grappler. But if you were to introduce just one more opponent into the fight you would not be doing Jujitsu anymore. It is simply not designed for fighting two opponents efficiently at the same time, even on the ground. It is primarily structured to fight one opponent at a time.

I am not saying the Jujitsu fighter would not prevail, I am merely suggesting that if he had to fight two or more possibly armed opponents at the same time on a daily basis then his training might soon start to look, at least from the outside, like Systema. And then armed with that knowledge, the way he worked against a single opponent again would also dramatically change. After ten years or so it would look as alien to another Jujitsu practitioner observing it from the outside as Systema does now after centuries of refinement.

Systema, as a martial art, in the form it exists now is primarily designed for real life application, it works for unpredictable situations (such as multiple opponents, various weapons, uneven terrains, poor lighting, confined space, etc.) for professionals in the military, law enforcement and security, for someone who’s got to fight while injured or wounded or has to protect a woman or child, for someone who is older or in a poor physical condition. Training and fighting in Systema is designed to avoid injuries, and even heal your old ones. And that requires a very different bag of tricks, look and feel to a sport fighting art.

Although, as Vladimir once remarked with that casual profound quietness ‘Systema just happens to be a martial art’. And to have any understanding of that gem, one cannot merely observe it from the outside...

About the author.
Martin Wheeler is a Senior U.S. Systema Instructor certified under Vladimir Vasiliev. Martin is teaching regular Systema classes at Los Angeles School of Russian Martial Art. He has trained in the martial arts for over thirty years ranging from Boxing, Grappling, Weapons fighting, Kenpo Karate and for 10 years in Systema. He is contracted to teach SWAT teams and Special Operations Units and is also produced Hollywood screen writer.

Strike Absorbtion --by Jim King

Due to some folks asking about this little understood aspect of Systema training, here is the article written by dear friend and Systema comrade Jim King back in 2004:

"Some questions were posed in a recent thread asking how to absorb strikes. References were made to a video, I assume Strikes, where different individuals were taking a variety of hits, some of which were landing in the high solar plexus area. This inquirer stated he tried to practice on himself and with others striking him with little progress or enlightenment and wondered if being relaxed was really the best answer as being tense seemed to offer a little more protection (Even though he admitted he had a difficult time with the strikes regardless if he were tense or relaxed.). In response, a second poster added he too was having limited result with experimentally striking himself and later wondered if twisting the body at the moment of impact would be of greater benefit. While I am not the final authority on the subject, I can speak as one who has been touched a bit by the best.

Absorbing a strike is far more than a physical response to a physical question. Every strike has roots in a man’s body (physical), soul (mental/intellect/desire), and spirit (the eternal essence God breathed into man). So then, when a strike is taken or absorbed, we respond to the strike in each of the three parts. This interaction occurs regardless if the participants are aware or ignorant or even skeptical. The tripartite being of man has dynamic relevance to training and living in the Russian System, but this discussion may be better suited for a different thread.

Relaxed movement is better defined as not being restricted by any tenseness—physical, mental, social, or spiritual—rather than the complete absence of physical tension or other distraction. Biomechanically speaking, some degree of physical tension must be employed to maintain positive structure and execution of movement. In the Russian System, this necessary physical tension is compartmentalized to the muscles, tendons, or ligaments that require it, all the while insulating the rest of the body, soul, and Spirit from tension with calmness and confidence. This harmony of tension and complementary relaxedness are controlled in our breathing. Whether you inhale or exhale on a given movement is not always as important as connecting the complete movement with a complete breath cycle(s). This is fundamental to what we do. Further, it is not enough that we simply breathe while we move. We must also pay attention to the quality of our breathing if we wish to keep our movement free. The Russian System is so phenomenally dynamic because the cornerstone of everything we do and believe is “free” movement. In this context, “free” refers to the ability to comfortably live and move within the vastness of infinite possibility without being overwhelmed by it. Proper, quality breathing is essential to free movement.

When many new students first start in the System, they are very tense and rigid (in all areas of their being). Focusing on the physical realm, with time and understanding, they swing to the other end of the spectrum and become too relaxed. This over-relaxed phase is normal as the progressing student is learning to move through imitation, visual cues, and internal empirical feelings. At some point, the pendulum will find a point of equilibrium. This tension/relaxedness balance point is where the student compartmentalizes necessary tension without allowing spillover to areas where tension results in bad restricted movement. This equilibrium is best described as being “solid.”

When it comes to absorbing strikes, this tension/relaxedness balance point is achieved through experience. And lots of it! Always! (As a side note for veterans, this balance point is not like a polio immunization where once you’ve had it, you are set for life. Instead, this balance point is more like finding the fountain of youth. Once you have discovered its location, you must keep going back for a drink to maintain genuine vitality and understanding. While I am not qualified to speak for Vladimir, I believe this is one of the many concepts he was referring to in his powerful post Psychological Rebound. In many ways, it is more important to give than to receive.).

All this being said, the questions and experiences these students detailed are highly representative of most of us who take strikes. Initially, courtesy of pride and fear, we use muscular tension to shunt the strike. This works fine as long as the person doing the hitting is also relying on muscular strength and his efforts happen to be weaker than the protective tension exerted by our muscles. However, consider the mechanics of using muscular tension. With each blow to the body, amplified strike shock waves resonate throughout the rigid muscular tissues to less strong parts of the anatomy. In effect, the whole body is hit and suffers accordingly. In this context, the cumulative effect of even little strikes can add up quickly. In some cases, a little strike placed well can have the same devastating result as a deeper strike placed generally. Many of us can attest to this truth without having to consider strikes that are stronger than us.

In the next experiment, we try being absolutely relaxed to absorb a strike. In theory, we hope to deaden the blow with the “heavy” counterweight of our physical mass. For proof, we reference this dampening effect when striking a punching bag filled with sand or mung beans. This triumph of physics is a hollow success, though, considering the mung beans dampening the blows to our bodies are our pummeled internal organs. After a few of these “successes,” we quickly revert to muscular tension, as bruised muscles preserve the ego more than the unwarrior-like urge to wretch when a hand is in your stomach. Besides, being absolutely relaxed seems to only work once!"

"So how do some individuals seem to absorb some nasty strikes consistently without being rigid or too relaxed? If you focus primarily on physical position, mechanics, or conditioning for answers, you are looking in the wrong place. Remember, giving and taking a strike occurs in the three parts of our being.

When I am taking a strike, I know I must be prepared in all three parts of my being. This preparation is more than focusing and relaxing in the few seconds before I am hit. But, if we just look at those few seconds before contact to gain some insight in how I personally absorb a hit, I place my greatest emphasis on my breathing, my shoulders, and my hips. Breathing calms the Spirit as the Spirit must control the mind and emotions. If the mind and emotions are calm, the body will happily follow in being relaxed, or “solid.” Fear is not part of the process, but solemn respect of the contact is; hence the requirement for looseness in my shoulders and hips. When the strike makes contact with my body, I breathe calmly in proportion to the degree of the strike. The key is to breathe through the exact place of the strike. Admittedly, this is an advanced concept. The “smart” breath generates a compartmentalized, focused tension to protect the body. All other surrounding areas—physically, mentally, and spiritually--must remain calm and able to move. The hips are the crucial points of movement. If my breath is out of synchrony or location, the strike will try to enter my body. I must quickly regain internal composure through calm forced breathing and deliberate, relaxed movement. I breathe to remove the strike to keep it outside of my body. Once it is in, I have to deal with it on a different level…and very quickly! I have to regain my breathing rhythm and free body movement. The longer I delay, the more I collapse within myself. If my hips tighten up, restricted movement prevents the energy of the strike from escaping downward. Restricted movement usually is accompanied with improper breathing. Bad breathing most often means tension is present in the upper body, i.e., the neck and shoulders, so, now, the energy of the strike cannot go up or out. As a result of all this tension, I eat the strike completely!

If the strike enters into my body, I must dislodge it immediately. When a tough strike is trapped inside, I immediately jump up once or twice to loosen the cramped diaphragm muscle. I must keep my body as relaxed as possible when doing this. My focus is the diaphragm (I focus internally on the descent of the jump as the diaphragm “hiccups” when I hit the ground.). If other parts of me are tense, this remedy jump will send shock waves throughout the body causing more damage. Usually, the shoulder and neck joints will get a nice jolt if they are rigid. In the instant the diaphragm releases, I draw a breath through the injured area.. This action gives my being the chance to expel the strike. Remember, a strike has more than one component. Once it is inside the body, everything is affected. So, when a strike gets inside, the whole being must push it out. This is why being physically relaxed is not the same as being “solid.” Once the breathing and being are restored, I get back in the saddle for more strikes.

Obviously, this flash recovery method is invaluable in a fight. The Russian System does not say the more you progress in your training, the more untouchable you will become. Instead, the Russian System states the more you progress in your training, the better able you will be to handle being hit! In a fight, expect to get hit! Interesting to note, recovering from a hit is a necessary skill for any fighter. So…how do you practice recovering from a hit? Hehehehehe.

A simple drill to learn to connect your breathing to absorbing a strike: When first learning to take a strike, breathing is emphasized upon impact to both learn to control fear and prevent an “internal” punch from trapped air in the lungs or abdomen. The exhale on contact is initially emphasized as it is a natural inclination to breathe out to release tension (In time, the inhale and exhale are used interchangeably. Do not rush this! Interchangeable breathing is a matter of time and experience. Unrealistic or rushed expectations generate hidden tension spiritually, mentally, and physically. Be sure, a strike will find that tension!). The natural exhale impulse is incorporated into a low-level drill where a sustained push on the abdomen is used instead of a strike. The individual is directed to think of himself as a working bellows or air bladder. When I push on his abdomen, my action pushes the air from the individual’s lungs. If the individual breathes of his own accord ahead of my action, I stop him immediately and do the drill again. This is an important distinction. If an individual later uses muscular tension from his diaphragm to force the air from his body either out of synchrony with the strike’s timing or the air expelled is disproportionate to the strike’s force, the resulting tension will act as a conduit for the energy of the strike to resonate to other connected parts of the body. So, the first step to learning to breathe properly when absorbing strikes is to learn how to breathe from a push. If you think about it, strikes are just high energy pushes executed in a shortened time interval (This concept will also improve your strikes.).

You cannot effectively learn how to absorb strikes with self-punching. First, the biomechanics for generically striking your own body are not possible. Second and more importantly, your psyche is too involved in the process of giving and receiving. Consequently, the exercise is not honest. Self-striking with empty hands and select weapons does have interesting legitimate benefits, but again, this subject is for a different thread.

Lastly, twisting the body in general terms is not advantageous for absorbing strikes as you are biomechanically stressing your form to a position of increased restriction and greater danger. If you are attempting to deflect or escape the movement, do so with proper form. Later, when you are more comfortable within your shape, you will see new possibilities and opportunities in putting your form into bad positions as a means to transition to a position of greater advantage. The Russian System emphasizes Breathing, Proper Form, Relaxation, and Movement for a strong foundation. Twisting the body is a tool, not a pillar.