notes from work

One thing to remember when sitting at a desk job - hips! I've felt so much better lately after remembering to periodically stretch my hip flexors (easy to do with a standing lunge in the bathroom, say), and the outside of my hips by putting a foot up on a knee while sitting, then leaning forward. Those parts tighten up so much from sitting in a chair, I just happened to remember it after something keying a memory of how humans weren't evolved to sit in chairs, however comfortable.

Also, with the new workouts I'm happy to be getting a sheath of muscle again; it'll be nice for the organ-deep strikes of systema, just in feeling less vulnerable than when I did when I wasn't working out and felt skinny and weak. It's not a big visible difference, but I'm starting to feel it.

dang teens

Are actually fine, really. I certainly get better what they say about learning from teaching others; for example, I was reminded of how tight I was as a teenager, simply from any lack of knowledge of any stretching at all. Luckily, I had a kind of mini-awakening at one point about that almost-painful at times stiffness, I remember the moment in the house on Water St, and later a girlfriend was kind enough to get me over my macho crap and get me to do a yoga video. Not sure if I'll get the same into these kids, but it's all interesting to think about.

Also, I knew on some level but never really realized how intricate weight training can be - you can pretty quickly determine heavy, medium, and light weight classes for a given exercises, and then say within one class light-heavy, medium-heavy, and heavy - I'm kind of curious to see now if there is a fractal effect like in classical yoga, now.

addendum to previous

Man, I had completely forgotten why arms raised vertically is used so much in classical yoga. I'd relegated to being for seniors who don't really ever perform that action more, but one forgets how tight most people are in that direction, often. Including me after weight training focusing on the upper back, apparently, it's interesting when raising your arms straight up hurts that much; I do have a finer knowledge of that region of my shoulders, though, in working out the knots.

ow, I tell you

Saturday was the first time doing weight training in a long time. Some old exercises, including benching and lat pulldowns I still find very dubious in their practical use, and some new ones including a kind of row-machine supported 45 degree pullup. I think the trick is I jumped in way too fast, and instead of just being sore, seriously knotted up my lat muscles, to the point of nigh-constant discomfort. This is going to take a while to repair.

The systema pushup-balance drill didn't go over so well with the teenagers, I think because they weren't really getting the concept of sweeping, without a real martial arts background, and also the systema concept of striking-to-move, which is really more of a hardcore push.

I did get to teach a little yoga, sun salutationing with the teens, and tailoring a half/side forward bend to an obese gal with bad knees. That's where the real advantage of classical yoga comes in, customizing toward a specific context like that, so that was nice. She also really liked my posture primer. Looks like I may just be kind of a go-to teacher for the place for now, used in moments rather than classes, which is fine for now, though I'm a bit worried the head guy wants to kind of take over any teaching of mine and make it into regular exercise.

ye olden bait n' switch

Thinking I'd get to train with my old teacher, I actually went back for some traditional martial arts training. Instead, on account of an injured back, I got the older teacher who smells uncannily like a dentist.

Ugh, waste of a night. In one sense, bouncy mats are like a feather pillow compared to using concrete for systema, but in another sense, they almost encourage little injuries and carelessness. I find it odd that for as relatively violent and hardcore as systema seems, I felt way more sore/injured after one night on a squishy surface. Part of it is also partners caught up in doing moves that look cool, or who have this frantic need to "win," or who are just unrelentingly stiff. All stuff that is immediately quashed in systema as soon as it appears.

Also, to practice each movement one to two times, with absolutely no context and the other person just giving it to you....after a dynamic environment like systema or the self-led classes we had back on the east side, it's almost enough to make me scream. The best I got out of the class was to practice relaxing out of joint locks, I suppose. Need to get the teacher I actually went there for, oy.

::love:: that balance drill [systema post]

Balancing from a pushup position, specifically. Your partner tried to kick/sweep your limbs out from under you; at first you just feel them and let them push your relaxed limb out of the way, maintaining balance. Then, you anticipate their movement a little, while also moving to positions that make it harder for them to follow up (keeping your limbs kind of spread, though, if you get both arms swept = faceplant). You can also switch to crab position or roll, too. Finally, you try to straight up hinder them in your response movement. The new guy I was with tried really hard to keep his legs away from me for some reason, not realizing each time I kneed his head I was trying to tell him something, heh.

Interesting note: a reason almost all systema punches and kicks hit with at least a slightly bent limb is so the equal-and-opposite reactive energy from impact doesn't travel straight back into the body, as it does with say a karate or boxing straight-armed, straight-line strike. It's really starkly apparent when you have someone hold out a straight arm and just whack the end of it, their body vibrates in turn. Bend the limb a bit, though, and the energy dissipates out the elbow.

And responding to crowd situations (several people hitting at once) is not so random as I first thought; yes, you still absorb and anticipate many of the strikes, but you also set a kind of wave pattern with basically big hook punches, and if you can get your pattern going strong enough, it draws the whole group into it unconsciously. Pretty freaky to see one person hit nigh everyone in a group (sometimes two with one strike) and barely get hit in turn, when they're really good at it.

systema + teens

Well, systema conditioning drills, anyway. It's hard to read shy teenagers' reactions to things, but I'm pretty sure underneath their eye-covering bangs they were refreshed by the sheer unusualness of the drills. Well, the skinny kid seemed so, at least, the but the chubbier kid was having some issue dragging himself over the carpet, and getting stepped on. But he did have more energy for grappling, so it all balanced.

I did note in both doing the drills which involve pushing each other over from a systema squat (you want strong legs? do it.) and the grappling, fighting from the knees like we used to is both relatively incredibly hard on the knees, less mobile, and in reality useless for non-squishy surfaces. On the other hand, the squat, while more vulnerable to being knocked over, it supremely more mobile, I guess a perfect example of less stability equals more mobility - I'm going to say the squat wins out in the end, though, because of its more practical safety, it's expanded range of weapons (kicks and knees), and being able to stand up out of it faster. Now I'm just curious to see how it plays against people who really know how to grapple.

from systema to jujitsu - pre-thoughts

One thing I'll have to get used to again is that when someone tenses up or won't relax or is even just resisting, in systema it's not only okay but pretty much required that you slug them to break that pattern. It helps the recipient get over both ego-anger and that tensing-up, and the puncher to get over punching out of ego, too. But in a traditional school, you can't just go around (to most people, seemingly randomly) punching people.

Another angle: fighting in gi's after having fought in regular clothes for a while. I swear, the thought of it now is like some sort of pajama costume. Tangentially, fighting on springy mats after concrete - which, admittedly, you do need to really practice Japanese jujitsu with its concentration on throws, one thing you can't really do in systema-environments without nigh-killing someone....but at the same time, one realizes after practicing on concrete how incredibly, so-not-truly safe springy mats make one feel. It's seriously not a good illusion to hold.

hmm...

I should have a demonstration to do for teaching yoga, soon. I picked a classical sequence called Anga Laghavan, because it's pretty typical of the style of yoga I do; it's supposedly one of the best general sequences for being right in the middle of the road, both cooling and energizing. It builds up to a sun salutation in the middle, but after, it's got almost entirely cooling poses on the floor.

I suppose the women I'm going to do it for might want a more athletic style, but I do the style I enjoy/prefer; I could emphasize more warming if they want that, and will have to just read them as best I can and wing it, but we'll see. I'm feeling pretty confident about the whole idea, though; the idea of working within a true community-center is really energizing to me. And having a yoga-space with a fireplace would just be awesome.