Rachel's Systema Writings >> Rogue's Gallery Rogue's Gallery You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. It's inevitable that the Systema practitioner will get a bit dinged-up from time to time. Here is a partial record of some of my more photogenic injuries. January 2005: It's a bit hard to tell from this poor quality photo, but my left eye is pretty bruised-up. This came about from striking practice.   June 2005: This horrible cut under my left eye was an accident, while being disarmed on the ground, the knife tip fell into my face, fortunately missing my eye. It bled like crazy and later blossomed into a colorful shiner. August 2005: I don't even recall how I got this big scrape on my face. It happened at the 2005 Summer Training Camp.   March 2007: I got this one during an exercise where you throw the training knives around in a circle and roll when you catch a knife. My classmates had to stop me from rolling as I didn't realize I had been cut so badly. I guess the point went into my forehead as I caught it. It bled profusely and I was pretty stoic about that, till Edgar insisted I go to the emergency room for stitches, then I started crying. I have this ungodly fear of hospitals but finally went and they put four stitches in my forehead a la Frankenstein's monster. It also caused a big shiner under my left eye.