::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.