Martin Wheeler Strikes Seminar - Saturday, December 11th, 2004

Martin Wheeler Strikes Seminar - Saturday, December 11th, 2004

Though Saturday was supposed to be Mass Attacks and Sunday, Strikes, Martin switched the order, saying it was more logical to cover strikes first. Martin told us it would be a conceptual class rather than a hot and sweaty one. He promised to go very deep into the topic of strikes. I have to admit that I've never been that interested in learning to strike. During the year or so I've been training, many of my classmates have requested that we learn strikes. We've approached this topic in a handful of classes but for most of the last year, Edgar has been very cautious about teaching this to us, describing it as an intermediate-to-advanced topic. "Too much ego," he told us after once student requested it. Then he started laughing and pantomiming how striking could quickly get out of hand when the students were trying to prove their toughness. But to prepare for Martin's seminar, we had been learning it a little in the preceding week.

So why am I one of the few students who is not eager to learn how to strike? I don't know, exactly. I guess I just don't like to hit people, especially if they seem to be unwilling to accept contact. I prefer to lock them, or to use my legs instead. Probably my unwillingness to strike my partners is why some of my classmates prefer not to work with me. But striking is an important part of Systema training and I should be as open to learning it as any other aspect of Systema. (Now if I could just get my computer to play DVDs, I'd watch Strikes and hopefully gain better insight.)

Martin's seminar turned out to be good training for someone who is wary of the topic as I am. Throughout Martin asked us to proceed with caution and not strike our partners as hard as possible. "Don't try to prove how tough you are," he said. (Note that any of Martin's statements that are quoted here, are paraphrased, as I cannot remember exactly what he said.) We spent a lot of time on sensitivity work, pushing our partners, striking with the elbow, rotating the fist into our partners, open-handed slapping, and only a few minutes on striking as is commonly defined, i.e., a punch with the closed fist.

To warm up, we started with some 10-count pushups, down to the count of 10, up to the count of one. Then the reverse, down on one, up on 10. Martin told us not to feel pity for our muscles. He demonstrated the classic slow-count pushup going slow until the difficult point is reached then speeding up to get past the tough part. He told us to just go slower when we reach the point where it feels as if our muscles will fail. "If you always train where your body is comfortable, that's all you'll be able to do," he told us.

We also did some variations on pushups, getting into pushup position but spreading your arms and legs far apart in an X shape, then sinking down only on one side so the shoulder touches the floor, then the other side. Also with arms extended forward and feet wide apart, pushups on the fingertips, which I found impossible. And backbend pushups where you form a bridge and then sink down. I found it very hard to keep my head off the floor for more than a microsecond while in this position.

We also did sit-ups and squats with the ten counts down, up one, and reverse.

Then we did some passive stretching our partners, starting with arms. You take their arms behind their head as if they are squeezing their shoulder blades together, and push the arms together and up, then the person being stretches slowly sits down and you pull their arms back to stretch. Also taking their arms and legs, pushing and pulling to give a stretch while they let the limbs go limp so you can manipulate them to get the stretch. Passive stretching is very useful, my massage therapist does it to me every time I see her. You find that your body will move in different ways when you relax and let someone else explore its range. I don't have nearly as much flexibility when I stretch myself, as when my therapist does it for me.

Martin led us through some breathing exercises where you lay on the floor and tense different parts of the body as you breathe in, release as you exhale. These are probably familiar to most Systema students. Then we tried to feel our pulse in neck, arm, torso, knee, and ankle. I found it very difficult to detect my pulse, which means I have tension in the surrounding areas which blocks the detection of the pulse. Then Martin asked us to unite the pulses.

We were all nice and relaxed once we stood up, from the breathing as well as the exhaustive warm-up exercises. We started with some sensitivity work. Martin explained that we are never standing still, no matter how motionless we may appear. If we are breathing, we are moving. Throughout both days, Martin emphasized breathing as the one thing to remember above all else. It is so important to the practice of Systema.

To illustrate how we are never standing still, our partners stood motionless and we lightly touched their arms to feel the "drift". Then Martin asked us to push them in the direction of the drift. It takes a lot of sensitivity to detect this small motion of the body. The idea is not to just shove them in one direction, but to feel which way they are drifting naturally and push them in the same direction. Martin showed us how you can even do this without touching the person, he demonstrated on several people, pushing them in the direction of their drift when he was standing behind them several inches away. It was amazing. Despite his nonchalance and telling us all it wasn't a magic trick, it still seems far beyond my capabilities.

We started our introduction to strikes by just pushing into our partners with a spiraling motion of the fist. Martin warned us many times not to hurt our partners or try to prove how tough we are. It is this essential attitude that gives strikes a different flavor depending on whose delivering them. Most of us like strikes from our teachers but I'm sure I'm not the only one who has occasionally encountered a strike from a classmate that hurt in a much more unpleasant way. "Most of the pain is from fear," Martin explained. But I also think that a strike delivered in a mean-spirited way can have such a different affect that one that is delivered with kindness. Martin suggested we could try experimenting with striking our partners while smiling or frowning, feeling happy or sad, and ask them to tell us if they felt any difference.

Next we moved to hitting pads with open hand. This of course makes a lot more noise than striking a human body with closed fist. Although punches probably hurt more, slaps certainly are louder and more shocking. I don't see how anyone could remain standing after receiving a slap from Martin as he demonstrated on a pad. He told us to keep the arm relaxed and let it fall into the pad. I was concerned that my body seemed to move almost 360 degrees after I hit the pad; the soles of my Chinese shoes are very slippery on the polished floor. But Martin told me it was fine to keep moving and that in a fight, I could not expect to remain in one place anyway.

We also tried slapping the pads from a half squat and a full squat, and standing on one leg. Martin wanted us to strike from all directions. He also demonstrated hitting the pad while jumping in the air with feet not touching the ground. I got really into trying this leaping open slap without my feet touching the ground, even though I made harder contact with both feet on the floor. There was something fun about jumping up and slapping the pad mid-air.

Then we had to duck-walk around hitting the pads, which our partners held a little lower for us to reach. I find duck-walking extremely uncomfortable and sometimes painful, so I did this by kneeling or sitting on the floor. Martin encouraged us to let the striking arm move the rest of our body and then return for another strike. So my worries about my slap moving the rest of my body almost 360 degrees were unfounded. He also had us strike the pads dynamically from a low squat, hit the pad, go into a roll and kick the pads, return up for another open handed strike, etc.

Then we worked on hitting the pads with restricted motion. Lying on our backs, our partner firmly planted one foot across the stomach and we had to hit the pad. We also did this lying on the stomach, with our partner's foot on the lower back. It is very difficult to reach the pad from this position and even the advanced students were challenged by this exercise.

Next we worked on elbow strikes. Martin warned us not to use the point of the elbow as it is fragile and susceptible to breaks. Instead we were to use the forearm right below the elbow. He demonstrated just letting the elbow fall into the body, not planning or looking for a good spot to land it. My partner Jesse offered some good advice. First just consider elbow strikes like a punch. Rather than swinging the elbow all the way back in a circular motion, just rotate the shoulder in its socket back and let the elbow fall into the body. It became easier to use the elbow when I thought of it like a punch. You can hit very hard with the elbow as Jesse demonstrated to me. I could not help but take a step back when he made impact. Edgar suggested I use a pad but as long as my partner is proficient enough not to accidentally hit me in the breasts (which roughly correspond to a guy being hit in the balls, maybe not quite as bad but still the worst place you can hit a woman), it's fine with me if they strike my upper chest.

We worked more freely on elbow strikes, our partners punching us, and responding with the elbows to move the punches aside and enter into the partner's space. My shoulders are a little tense and Martin and several of my partners told me to relax them. The point where my shoulders meet my chest is usually the tensest part of my body, and if I could relax this part, it would give a greater range or motion to my strikes.

Martin told us to use our elbows symmetrically to get a feeling for the way they work together. He demonstrated holding his hands out front and wrists together as if they were cuffed. We then worked against various punches, kicks, and grabs with this restriction. Martin demonstrated how you could use your "cuffed" arms to capture the attacking arm, looping it between your arms and locking it. He also showed how to break free of a grab to the "cuffed" wrists by using your elbow on the partners elbow and sinking the body weight to break the hold. He also showed how you can use your knee to apply pressure to the elbow when someone grabs the bound wrists. I tried this but found it quite a reach, except when my partner grabbed my list and pulled them low.

We also did the same exercise with the person whose hands were "cuffed" closing their eyes. This is a good way to learn to be open to all possibilities and not just what you can see. Visual input can be so misleading.

Then we punched each other lightly using all the principles we had learned earlier. This was the only part of the seminar in which we practiced strikes as we generally think of them, as punches with closed fist while the other person practiced absorption. For some reason I found being hit in the stomach too painful, it was like the strike was landing right on my bladder and I had trouble absorbing and dissipating his blows. My partner was a novice like myself and perhaps he was accidentally hitting me near some vital organ. So I asked my partner to hit my back instead and I found it much easier to dissipate his strikes to my back.

We ended with some "Marine-style" pushups where you clap your hands between pushups. Martin encouraged us to clap our hands behind our backs between pushups! Well, maybe someday. I did ordinary pushups instead, those are quite enough of a challenge for me!

Throughout the seminar, Martin emphasized patience, not to rush, and to let our hands do the thinking rather than planning where the strikes would land. Patience was the theme of the day. Many times Martin amazed us with his demonstrations of fending off all kinds of attacks, but he presented these as something we would build up to rather than rush into. I remember one thing he said that seemed especially insightful, "When someone is fighting with you, they are trying to join with you, not get away from you." It's an unusual way to look at an attacker, as someone trying to get close to you, to occupy the same space that you do.

Martin wanted to present the seminars as a two-part series. A few people could only attend one day, but for most of us, it was Part One and Two. When we circled up, we all had a good laugh at one student's comment that we hadn't learned strike absorption. We were supposed to be hitting each other lightly on Saturday. But Martin promised we'd learn this on Sunday. As it turned out, we didn't spend any time learning absorption. But Martin promised to explore the topic in the regular Systema classes he will teach at Fighthouse in the week following the seminar.