Martin Wheeler Chokes Mini-Seminar - Friday, June 4th, 2004

Martin Wheeler Chokes Mini-Seminar - Friday, June 4th, 2004

Martin started us with a few exercises, leaning head-to-head against our partners, and turning in a circle, while maintaining contact and pressure. This brought back memories of my very first Systema experience at Martin's seminar in the fall of 2003, because this was my first Systema exercise. We also leaned back, keeping the body straight, while our partners held our heads as low as they could, and did the same thing falling forward. Then pushups while leaning on each other, both in pushup position. I proceeded carefully with this one because my torso can take the weight of a guy, but my legs are kind of frail and it can sometimes be painful.

To work honestly on escaping from chokes, and also to learn how to choke effectively, we really had to choke each other. Those who helped Martin demonstrate were gagging and gasping. Martin warned us to be careful, and to tap out to preserve our safety. No-one has ever tried to kill me, thankfully, and this actually the first time I've been choked with such serious intent. Your mind and body are instantly 100% focused on escape. Martin explained how resisting and going against the choke would cause more damage, just as going against a wrist lock or twisted limb is also more damaging than yielding in the same direction.

Then Martin had us choke each other from a sitting position, just to get familiar with it from both perspectives. I discovered that I have no idea of what kind of pressure I'm inflicting. It seems easy to kill someone in this way, because it didn't take much for my partners to tap out and but also, sometimes, it wasn't enough for them to feel anything. Martin demonstrated how moving your tongue to the roof of your mouth while being choked allowed a little extra room. I didn't really notice the difference; but I did see the muscles in Martin's neck change, sort of compress inward, when he did this. Being choked was alarming at first, and I was probably too absorbed with that to notice any difference.

We practiced slipping out of a choke by rotating the shoulders, falling backwards, and by other means, since we were on the floor, a lot of groundwork was involved. We also tried an exercise where you slip out and replace your arms inside the choking person's hands. This was interesting because even though I knew we were doing this exercise, when my partner slipped away and replaced her neck with her hands, I kept choking her hands anyway. As Martin explained it, all my consciousness was in my arms that were choking, so that as long as something was there, I'd keep choking it, no matter what part of the body had replaced the neck.

My partner was not a large person, a woman of slender build, strong, but much lighter and smaller than myself. Nor did she take Systema classes on a regular basis. But when I choked her, she rotated her shoulders to free herself and shook me off quite easily. I was impressed with the ease at which she applied the principles that Martin demonstrated—principles which can be easily employed by anyone, regardless of size or strength, or any other physical limitation. I can't think of a better means of self-defense for women, children, older people, people with physical disabilities, or anyone who might be viewed as an easy target by criminals.

Martin spoke a bit about survival on a moment-to-moment basis, and how planning can never be effective in a real scenario, because when you plan, you must do the things you've planned, even if the situation calls for something different. "Systema is not like chess, it's more like checkers," he said. In chess, as in many games of skill, it is desirable to think ten moves ahead, to line your chessmen up for the gambit. In checkers, one move counters the previous move; there is very little strategy, only reaction, and Martin's analogy was an apt way to describe this spontaneity.

Martin demonstrated a few others ways to escape from the choke in the sitting position, and we practiced those. I think that I'm sometimes a little lazy, because I always count on my partners to help explain each exercise, but in this case, my partner didn't know what the variations were either. So we continued to choke each other and escape by relaxing into it, slipping away, rotating the shoulder, etc., and again I was impressed with the way we had learned to escape from a truly life-threatening situation.

Martin asked us try attempting a choke, our partners evading, but keep coming at them while we were both on the ground. Rather than freeing ourselves from a choke, avoiding the choke before it happens. Then for our last exercise, Martin asked us to stand, one person tried to choke the other, the other went to the ground, and then the standing person keeps coming at them.

Since I was a little unsure about the last few exercises, I don't think I am doing them justice. But I did learn a great deal about being choked, as well as choking. I know that BJJ and other styles practice choking until the one person starts to pass out, but it was a new experience for me. At first, it was alarming, but by the end of the two hours, I was able to find a means of escape without succumbing to the panic at the lack of air. As Martin told us "There's always a way out...unless you are dead."