Wouldn't it be great if we were all 6' 5", 220lbs, absolutely lean, super-fit, in full physical and mental good health, in our absolute prime all the time, 24-7, 365 days a year ready to operate at 100% efficiency.
This is the fantasy of the martial arts, the allure of the hero who has spent hours, months, years honing his skills and physique in order to step in and save the day for the helpless sheeple around him. Ironically they rarely become a professional warrior / defender, that calls for a little too much reality
Of course all societies have had hero-figures. In the past they stood as role-model, guide, mentor, teacher, warrior. In today's aspirational consumer-driven culture the hero figure has been denigrated to selling after-shave, underwear or a "new" training product
The reality of course is that we are all in different physical and mental states at different times during our lives. Added to that we are all in different physical and mental states under different conditions. What is aesthetically pleasing to the eyes of a generation raised on "health" magazines is not always the most practical under certain circumstances, nor the most healthy way to live. The most unlikely people reveal hidden strengths under duress and carry out feats deemed almost impossible under normal circumstances. I'm not talking about the apocryphal "woman lifts car to save baby" but actual events such as an elderly lady seeing off armed robbers, "out of shape" people completing gruelling athletic events and various others that fly in the face of consumerist convention
This to me is the root of the concept of
"natural movement". If you cling to the previously mentioned model of "martial arts" it is a difficult concept to grasp. Probably it seems a very vague idea, in fact almost an affront to suggest that a non-expert out of shape looking guy can function at least as effectively as the finely tuned "martial artist".
But the concept is actually quite simple to grasp if you have an understanding of people and how they work. It means you have to start from where you are. You have to work with what you have and who you are at that precise moment in time. This is Systema as problem solving - and the common denominator in every single problem or situation that you are involved in is
you.
Let's take a very simple example - the problem is you have to get from A to B while another person is trying to stop you. Your solution will depend on many different factors - relative skills of each person, amount of determination, physical conditions, environmental considerations, communication/social skills and so on. In other words unless they are in some form of denial or delusion the person has to work with what is available. How they do so is "natural" to them.
Of course we can argue that nothing is truly "natural", everything we do is learned. So by natural I mean "everyday", our normal and usual movement pattern, response, SOP. This is what we have to build on because this is where we start from.
The role of a teacher in this approach is threefold:
One is to provide a framework of drills and exercises that help a person achieve good health, strength and fitness, giving them the optimal tools in order to carry out the work
The second is to help the person "smooth out" their natural reactions, strip them back to the basic levels (which operate very well when allowed to), minimise the negative impact of fear, tension and stress and teach the person to "trust" their own body
The third is to create an environment where each component involved, each of the "systems" within a person, can be trained, tested, refined in interactions with other people
Where this runs counter to "conventional" martial arts is that there is no set of movements. The aim is not to overlay choreographed patterns of response onto a person but to allow them to discover (re-discover) and refine their own movement pattern, which is as unique to each of us as our own handwriting. This can be as simple as having a person rotate the waist while moving the shoulders up and down, a natural pattern that provides the basis for so many types of movement. I have found that people quickly grasp the concept and discover for themselves that this is "movement for life", it is a liberating experience.
I can fully understand why some instructors are unable to get on with this concept, it calls for a creative and adaptive approach. Usually as an instructor you are "in charge"of the class, you have a syllabus to run through, information to explain, you are the most important person in the room, especially in a formal or institutional setting. I find when teaching Systema almost the complete reverse is true. I never know which direction a class is going to take because it is comprised of 15 or so individuals each with different strengths and weaknesses, each of whom has questions - and also answers.
So learning becomes a group endeavour. I find it a more adult way of teaching as opposed to feeling like you are back at school sat listening to a teacher drone on for half an hour and being treated like a child. The "natural" approach is dynamic learning - if a question is raised we can look at different answers and test them there and then to see which works best for whom.
None of this is to say that relevant technical or medical information cannot be added in - of course it can. But we have to remember the principle of map and territory, the real understanding is in the doing. I can read up on how to fly a plane and "understand" it fairly quickly. But without real air-miles it is not functional knowledge. Another thing to consider is that this type of information can be just applying names to what you are already doing - after all you can't do anything without "doing" bio-mechanics. Revelations such as "your arm bends in the middle and can pivot around the elbow" are hardly news to anyone. Understanding the role of tendons or the mechanism by which muscle tension can be overcome when "stretching" are of more use. Even more interesting to me is information on such things as
Fixed Action Patterns,
OODA loop and the more psychological aspects. Of course physical condition is important, but survival /success is often determined in the psyche, especially if you are physically impaired in some way
Nor does it mean that it's ok to be lazy about our training. It isn't, but people need to find their own motivations and strengths, not rely on me shouting at them to do another press up. A big part of the training is to take responsibility for yourself and to understand your own strengths and weaknesses. This understanding will feed back into everything you do and empower you to help those around you too
If we return to our fantasy model at the start, we begin to see the limitations of such an approach. A lot of the training I experienced previously was based on everything being perfect. I was well trained, in good shape, on mats, in a nice room with a good idea of what was about to happen. Real life is cold, dark, hot, drunk, bad leg, sun in eyes, pissed off, half asleep, weaker than the other guy, outnumbered, shit scared......we are going to get hit, we may get damaged and even if we prevail there may be longer term consequences to deal with
This is why our work needs to be behavioural, what we
are not what we do. In training get hit, get cold, get wet, get to a point where you think "FFS....." Put aside any notions of toughness or persona, understand acceptance of what is happening
now and how you deal with it....... that is where the learning starts
