On December 3, 2005, Hickory Grove Systema Training Partners welcomed Mr. Bradley "the man of" Scheel to lead our group for a Saturday (around 10AM until 5PM) of study. Brad began the class by explaining what he hoped we would accomplish that day. There was a substantial turnout for a seminar in a town in a very rural area. We had 9 in attendance besides myself and Brad. He explained that he was going to attempt to cover a breadth of material that would normally take 4 months to cover at his school. So, he continued, we would need to take the basic tools we had learned and practice them to refine our use of them. It was a concentrated course in some fundamentals and I think it gave us the beginnings of a solid foundation. What follows is a description of some the work we did.
We began the day with warmups that incorporated patterned breathing, first while running then with pushups, situps, and squats. One of the situps we did was to sit beside and facing our partner. Strike your partner as you rise with a breath and that "helps" him go back. When he comes back up, he strikes with his body behind the strike and so on. It really helped with breathing and posture to add the strikes. We also did the walking thru the alphabet or name or a prayer.
As we worked through the different concepts, Brad kept reminding us not to see an attack but to see movement. At first it was not entirely apparent what he meant but as we did the work we began to see that everything that happened whether from the partner's attack or from our own movement was just a portion in a larger sequence of movement. Brad was helping us to get away from seeing finality in our movement but always being prepared to continue further work as necessary. I think this was one area our group really needed some help so that worked greatly to our advantage. Brad reminded us that every movement should begin with breathing - including getting up from a takedown or from our situps. He also explained how the placement of fists in the pushup position taught us the best position for punches. Breathing teaches us how to relax.
Another interesting relaxation/movement drill was when Brad had us each take turns in the middle of a circle. Everyone pushed in form the outside on the one person and the person remained tense then suddenly relaxed. When they relaxed and breathed, they seemed to slip right out of the crowd moving around the combined tension of all the people in the circle.
We continued with some drills focused on movement. For instance, we progressed through walking toward our partner as if we intended to slam chests together and the other partner steps to the side at the last instance to avoid the collision. Then we added a touch and escort the advancing person to learn to keep contact. Then we would accept a push from the approaching person and absorb it as we moved. Then we began a drill that Brad called "Touch and Touch Back" where you touch your partner and he touches back to deflect your touch or even push it off which in turn prompts you to touch him to remove his touch and so on.
Next we worked on how to parry and Brad shared with us some basic concepts on how to do various parries in their simplest form so that we could practice them more later and perfect our own interpretations of them. And, we were to keep in mind that a parry is not a block - it is neither defensive nor offensive it is just movement.
Brad next shared with us what he called "sticky hands" work. I believe this is something rather unique to Brad's teaching in Systema circles but after doing the work I realized I had seen it before in Vlad's videos. So it's there but just not talked about or recognized I think. Anyhow, the idea is that you and your partner have glue on your arms/hands and you start by just barely touching your forearms together. One partner begins to lead trying to move away slowly and the other attempts to stay "stuck" but only very lightly. The secret is to remain relaxed - as soon as there is tension, your partner can use it to redirect you and turn his movement into a strike. This is also a common drill for knife work defense that I have seen in the videos - just guiding the other person with your arms away from you and into prone positions including guiding their knife arm back to poke them with the knife.
Sticky hands were a very basic drill that seemed to feed us with all sorts of possibilities the more we did it. It lined us up in unconventional positions similar to what we might end up in a fight and enabled us to use our partner's tension as a pivot point for launching a touch or strike that could destroy his form. It also opened up unique ways of building on the parry movements we had learned previously to redirect our partner into positions that opened him for attack or, even better, into hurting his own form. It also helped us to get comfortable with working close and using what was presented rather than trying to force things to happen.
We continued the sticky hands by adding the touch and touch back drill to it and again it opened up a lot of interesting movement. After doing that for a while, I really felt loose and relaxed. With time we learned to not be anticipating what the partner was doing but to feel what they were doing and even feel what they intended to do next.
Next we worked on using specific lever points: wrist, elbow, upper thoracic (head and shoulders), pelvic girdle, knees, and ankles. In each we experimented in how the lever points moved and how each affected form. We also worked more than one lever point together to see how one is often used to setup another to make an easier takedown. With the wrist, we experimented to find different ways to lock our partner's fingers, wrist, or combination of wrist and elbow. With the elbow we learned how to bend it and use it as a lever to turn the entire body and how to lock it against your side or with a bar lock or how to "pulse" it to move your partner. With the head and shoulders we learned that just a sharp poke to the shoulder with your fingers can easily redirect your partner and how it is especially useful in working through a crowd to use the upper body and throat as needed to move the crowd and make a path. With the pelvic girdle we learned how to turn the "wings" of the pelvis to affect form or how to pull back and down from behind or push in from behind to setup for an easier takedown. We learned the "J" movement (pull forward then to side) of the knee and how easily the knee can be worked to break our partner's form. With the ankles we learned where best to kick or step to affect the ankle and take our partner down. Brad reminded us that if the partner anticipates an attack on his ankles and moves, then it only opens the opposite ankle for attack.
Toward the end, we gathered several of the drills together in one to practice the things we had learned. Partner would strike or push and we would parry and use sticky hands to find a lever point or pivot for a strike back.
Once in a while Brad would stop the class to explain something more deeply or to demonstrate various hits. For instance, during one of the touch and touch back drills, he showed how a hand smack to the forehead made you disoriented and made you forget what you were about to do. He also demonstrated at one point how strikes could be used against a knife-wielding partner. In so doing, the person with the knife will suddenly "forget" that they have the knife and fail to use it as they might had they not been so confused. Brads hits gave us an appreciation of the strikes and the need to learn how to take strikes when training as well.
To end the day, we all laid down on our backs and Brad led us through breathing "through" a body part while tensing it on an inhale and relaxing it on an exhale. He interspersed this with having us hold our breath on the inhale or exhale for a few seconds. The tension/relaxation/breathing really cooled us all down and helped us relax.
Overall, I think Brad gave us a lot to practice before his next visit and I think that's exactly what we needed. I think he gave us a very good foundation on which to build and enhance our individual skills. I look forward to the next visit.
We would like to thank Mr. Scheel and his family for the time sacrifices required to bring us the essentials we needed.