Recommended to go with these drills, be sure to obtain a copy of the Strikes video from Vladimir Vasiliev.
Many factors prevent you from delivering strong and precise strikes. One of the main factors is the fear of hurting yourself, it maybe an unconscious fear until you become or are made aware of it. Most individuals are afraid of hurting their own hand upon striking (this explains why in many contact sports, such as boxing, people wear gloves or wrap-up their hands before fighting).
This fear of hurting your hand leads to excessive clenching of the fist, the muscles of the forearm become tense and the strength is dispersed, thus the strike is no longer as powerful. It is important that your fist becomes heavy but not tense while the rest of the body remains in a relaxed state.
If your forearm muscles are tense, the strike delivery distance noticeably changes � the distance becomes shorter. You will have to reach to compensate and attain your target, therefore losing strike impact power.
In many contact sports we see the techniques of putting the weight of the whole body into the strike, placing the feet in a specific way and leaning the body into the strike. These techniques increase the general body tension, and as we know, body tension limits your mobility and makes you telegraph your intensions. Moreover, a lot of pressure is applied to such weaker areas as wrist and fingers and that may easily lead to injuries. You can see how with these common techniques, there would be no precision. How precisely can you hit with a sledge hammer? Or imagine that you take a pencil and try to make a drawing using the movements of your whole body, the same idea is applied to striking, fine muscles have to do fine work.
In Systema, we only tense up the needed muscles.
Another common mistake of delivering strikes is losing the form of the hand by breaking the straight line between the elbow joint and the knuckles. There should be absolutely no angle at the wrist joint, the angle would make you lose strength.
The following drills from the Summit of Masters are recommended for all martial art practitioners, for improvement of both physical skill and health.
NOTE: Any exercise that does not include a health benefit will actually destroy in the long run. It may not be apparent immediately, but with repeated practice will become visible with age.
Drill 1 � Fist Walking � Partner on the FloorPartner on the floor lying on his back, his hands along the sides. You are in a pushup position, on your fists, legs wide apart, start from above his ankles and walk your way up his body all the way up to his shoulders, and then down his arms. Place your fists in the areas that provide you with good contact area. As much as possible make the surface area of contact as big and even as you can (so that your whole fist is in contact with your partner�s body). Pick the most comfortable spots for you to stay balanced and for your partner not to get hurt.
If you are comfortable you will not be fearful of hurting your partner, you will relax your shoulders, stay sensitive and will not damage your partner. In Systema, relaxed shoulders are a high priority because they greatly increase the sensitivity of the arms and hands.
As you are walking up on your fists, the surface area where you have to balance yourself is so small, preventing you from tensing your arms and body. If you tense up, you will slip off your partner.
Fist walking also teaches you to chose the proper distance and adjust your position in a dynamic way - an ideal preparation for proper striking. You will also be forced to pick just the right spots on your partner�s body and these will be the spots for most effective strikes. You will learn to develop precision of hand placement and depth of impact.
Your partner also greatly benefits from this drill by getting a pressure massage and learning where tension exists in his body. Instinctively you will place your fists on the areas of his greatest tension.
Remember to continuously breathe throughout this whole drill.
You should try this drill at least twice with your partner lying down on his back. The third time, have your partner lay on his stomach and repeat fist walking up his back starting with the feet.
Drill 2 � Fist Walking � Partner against the Wall
Your partner is standing comfortably with his back against the wall and arms along the sides. You squat in front of him with your feet wide apart, start from above his ankles and walk up his legs and front of the body to the shoulders, while straightening your legs and adjusting your stance as needed with each step of your hands. Finish by walking down his arms.
You should try this drill at least twice with your partner�s back against the wall. The third time, have your partner stand facing the wall and repeat the drill up his back starting with the feet.
You will see how in the standing position, the muscle tension of your partner will be different. He will respond to your pressure in a different way and he will not be as stable. This presents a great opportunity for you to learn the different placement angles and the amount of pressure.
Remember to continuously breathe throughout this whole drill.
Drill 3 � Wall Fist Walking
This drill you do by yourself. You squat facing the wall, and walk up with your fists from the ground all the way up.
You should try this drill at least twice.
Remember to continuously breathe throughout this whole drill.
In this scenario, you learn contact with hard surface. Your whole body has to adjust to minimize discomfort. The more tension there is, the more pain you will experience. It will force you to relax your shoulders and later when you deliver strikes, there will be no rebound effect of the strike back into your body.
Happy Fist Walking�
Rather than "throwing punches" think of strikes as precision placement of your hand or fist.
Some questions were posed in a recent thread asking how to absorb strikes. References were made to a video, I assume Strikes, where different individuals were taking a variety of hits, some of which were landing in the high solar plexus area. This inquirer stated he tried to practice on himself and with others striking him with little progress or enlightenment and wondered if being relaxed was really the best answer as being tense seemed to offer a little more protection (Even though he admitted he had a difficult time with the strikes regardless if he were tense or relaxed.). In response, a second poster added he too was having limited result with experimentally striking himself and later wondered if twisting the body at the moment of impact would be of greater benefit. While I am not the final authority on the subject, I can speak as one who has been touched a bit by the best.
Absorbing a strike is far more than a physical response to a physical question. Every strike has roots in a man�s body (physical), soul (mental/intellect/desire), and spirit (the eternal essence God breathed into man). So then, when a strike is taken or absorbed, we respond to the strike in each of the three parts. This interaction occurs regardless if the participants are aware or ignorant or even skeptical. The tripartite being of man has dynamic relevance to training and living in the Russian System, but this discussion may be better suited for a different thread.
Relaxed movement is better defined as not being restricted by any tenseness�physical, mental, social, or spiritual�rather than the complete absence of physical tension or other distraction. Biomechanically speaking, some degree of physical tension must be employed to maintain positive structure and execution of movement. In the Russian System, this necessary physical tension is compartmentalized to the muscles, tendons, or ligaments that require it, all the while insulating the rest of the body, soul, and Spirit from tension with calmness and confidence. This harmony of tension and complementary relaxedness are controlled in our breathing. Whether you inhale or exhale on a given movement is not always as important as connecting the complete movement with a complete breath cycle(s). This is fundamental to what we do. Further, it is not enough that we simply breathe while we move. We must also pay attention to the quality of our breathing if we wish to keep our movement free. The Russian System is so phenomenally dynamic because the cornerstone of everything we do and believe is �free� movement. In this context, �free� refers to the ability to comfortably live and move within the vastness of infinite possibility without being overwhelmed by it. Proper, quality breathing is essential to free movement.
When many new students first start in the System, they are very tense and rigid (in all areas of their being). Focusing on the physical realm, with time and understanding, they swing to the other end of the spectrum and become too relaxed. This over-relaxed phase is normal as the progressing student is learning to move through imitation, visual cues, and internal empirical feelings. At some point, the pendulum will find a point of equilibrium. This tension/relaxedness balance point is where the student compartmentalizes necessary tension without allowing spillover to areas where tension results in bad restricted movement. This equilibrium is best described as being �solid.�
When it comes to absorbing strikes, this tension/relaxedness balance point is achieved through experience. And lots of it! Always! (As a side note for veterans, this balance point is not like a polio immunization where once you�ve had it, you are set for life. Instead, this balance point is more like finding the fountain of youth. Once you have discovered its location, you must keep going back for a drink to maintain genuine vitality and understanding. While I am not qualified to speak for Vladimir, I believe this is one of the many concepts he was referring to in his powerful post Psychological Rebound. In many ways, it is more important to give than to receive.).
All this being said, the questions and experiences these students detailed are highly representative of most of us who take strikes. Initially, courtesy of pride and fear, we use muscular tension to shunt the strike. This works fine as long as the person doing the hitting is also relying on muscular strength and his efforts happen to be weaker than the protective tension exerted by our muscles. However, consider the mechanics of using muscular tension. With each blow to the body, amplified strike shock waves resonate throughout the rigid muscular tissues to less strong parts of the anatomy. In effect, the whole body is hit and suffers accordingly. In this context, the cumulative effect of even little strikes can add up quickly. In some cases, a little strike placed well can have the same devastating result as a deeper strike placed generally. Many of us can attest to this truth without having to consider strikes that are stronger than us.
In the next experiment, we try being absolutely relaxed to absorb a strike. In theory, we hope to deaden the blow with the �heavy� counterweight of our physical mass. For proof, we reference this dampening effect when striking a punching bag filled with sand or mung beans. This triumph of physics is a hollow success, though, considering the mung beans dampening the blows to our bodies are our pummeled internal organs. After a few of these �successes,� we quickly revert to muscular tension, as bruised muscles preserve the ego more than the unwarrior-like urge to wretch when a hand is in your stomach. Besides, being absolutely relaxed seems to only work once!
So how do some individuals seem to absorb some nasty strikes consistently without being rigid or too relaxed? If you focus primarily on physical position, mechanics, or conditioning for answers, you are looking in the wrong place. Remember, giving and taking a strike occurs in the three parts of our being.
When I am taking a strike, I know I must be prepared in all three parts of my being. This preparation is more than focusing and relaxing in the few seconds before I am hit. But, if we just look at those few seconds before contact to gain some insight in how I personally absorb a hit, I place my greatest emphasis on my breathing, my shoulders, and my hips. Breathing calms the Spirit as the Spirit must control the mind and emotions. If the mind and emotions are calm, the body will happily follow in being relaxed, or �solid.� Fear is not part of the process, but solemn respect of the contact is; hence the requirement for looseness in my shoulders and hips. When the strike makes contact with my body, I breathe calmly in proportion to the degree of the strike. The key is to breathe through the exact place of the strike. Admittedly, this is an advanced concept. The �smart� breath generates a compartmentalized, focused tension to protect the body. All other surrounding areas�physically, mentally, and spiritually--must remain calm and able to move. The hips are the crucial points of movement. If my breath is out of synchrony or location, the strike will try to enter my body. I must quickly regain internal composure through calm forced breathing and deliberate, relaxed movement. I breathe to remove the strike to keep it outside of my body. Once it is in, I have to deal with it on a different level�and very quickly! I have to regain my breathing rhythm and free body movement. The longer I delay, the more I collapse within myself. If my hips tighten up, restricted movement prevents the energy of the strike from escaping downward. Restricted movement usually is accompanied with improper breathing. Bad breathing most often means tension is present in the upper body, i.e., the neck and shoulders, so, now, the energy of the strike cannot go up or out. As a result of all this tension, I eat the strike completely!
If the strike enters into my body, I must dislodge it immediately. When a tough strike is trapped inside, I immediately jump up once or twice to loosen the cramped diaphragm muscle. I must keep my body as relaxed as possible when doing this. My focus is the diaphragm (I focus internally on the descent of the jump as the diaphragm �hiccups� when I hit the ground.). If other parts of me are tense, this remedy jump will send shock waves throughout the body causing more damage. Usually, the shoulder and neck joints will get a nice jolt if they are rigid. In the instant the diaphragm releases, I draw a breath through the injured area.. This action gives my being the chance to expel the strike. Remember, a strike has more than one component. Once it is inside the body, everything is affected. So, when a strike gets inside, the whole being must push it out. This is why being physically relaxed is not the same as being �solid.� Once the breathing and being are restored, I get back in the saddle for more strikes.
Obviously, this flash recovery method is invaluable in a fight. The Russian System does not say the more you progress in your training, the more untouchable you will become. Instead, the Russian System states the more you progress in your training, the better able you will be to handle being hit! In a fight, expect to get hit! Interesting to note, recovering from a hit is a necessary skill for any fighter. So�how do you practice recovering from a hit? Hehehehehe.
A simple drill to learn to connect your breathing to absorbing a strike: When first learning to take a strike, breathing is emphasized upon impact to both learn to control fear and prevent an �internal� punch from trapped air in the lungs or abdomen. The exhale on contact is initially emphasized as it is a natural inclination to breathe out to release tension (In time, the inhale and exhale are used interchangeably. Do not rush this! Interchangeable breathing is a matter of time and experience. Unrealistic or rushed expectations generate hidden tension spiritually, mentally, and physically. Be sure, a strike will find that tension!). The natural exhale impulse is incorporated into a low-level drill where a sustained push on the abdomen is used instead of a strike. The individual is directed to think of himself as a working bellows or air bladder. When I push on his abdomen, my action pushes the air from the individual�s lungs. If the individual breathes of his own accord ahead of my action, I stop him immediately and do the drill again. This is an important distinction. If an individual later uses muscular tension from his diaphragm to force the air from his body either out of synchrony with the strike�s timing or the air expelled is disproportionate to the strike�s force, the resulting tension will act as a conduit for the energy of the strike to resonate to other connected parts of the body. So, the first step to learning to breathe properly when absorbing strikes is to learn how to breathe from a push. If you think about it, strikes are just high energy pushes executed in a shortened time interval (This concept will also improve your strikes.).
You cannot effectively learn how to absorb strikes with self-punching. First, the biomechanics for generically striking your own body are not possible. Second and more importantly, your psyche is too involved in the process of giving and receiving. Consequently, the exercise is not honest. Self-striking with empty hands and select weapons does have interesting legitimate benefits, but again, this subject is for a different thread.
Lastly, twisting the body in general terms is not advantageous for absorbing strikes as you are biomechanically stressing your form to a position of increased restriction and greater danger. If you are attempting to deflect or escape the movement, do so with proper form. Later, when you are more comfortable within your shape, you will see new possibilities and opportunities in putting your form into bad positions as a means to transition to a position of greater advantage. The Russian System emphasizes Breathing, Proper Form, Relaxation, and Movement for a strong foundation. Twisting the body is a tool, not a pillar.