Sharon's Systema blog

There are many ways to relax and learn to do your job better and more efficiently. One way is to learn to use your eyes better while in movement. Even when we drive our bodies are rather silent and when we move it seems harder to use your eyes to notice and do something about what you now aware of.

Start by slowly rolling while you focus on the end of one of your fingers throughout the roll. Change fingers from time to time and keep breathing all the time. Add another finger from your other hand to this and keep track of both of them during the rolls and yes when you are up as well. Work to do this in the most comfortable way you can and stay upright when you stand and move.
Next use a shoe lace or something like it with a tie at the end of it and focus on the tie during the roll and the standing time. Add after a while another shoe lace held in your other hand and watch them both throughout the rolls and standing time.
Last have a partner stand at various distances and angles to you and roll. after a while add him moving to to the drill and at last keep track of him moving and a non moving object as well like a car or a tree.

Remember that the benefit from this work and most of Systema work comes after the learning is done. During the work you receive a much needed humility dose and the benefits to your performance in body and mind and soul will come to you afterwords when the dinner is digested.

Lie on your back with your legs in the air and place your partner on the same line of your body with your heads facing away from each other. Use your legs to move and lift your partners back off the place he is in while you keep yourself in place and keep letting the breath lead you. Do the same drill when you are side by side left and right and finally do this using one leg against two or include more than one partner.

Have fun and remember you can change almost any drill in order to include your kids at home in it and you can always learn something new.

Have a partner poke you with a pen or pencil and let it sink in. Use the breath to push it out and only in the point where you are touched. Do this for the entire body while smartly avoiding the eyes :) and work with patience to really learn to move each part independently and with control. Breath is key as always and work on doing this during all three breath phases or if you have time on the inhale, pause, exhale, pause in succession.

Before you do this drill, tense and relax each part you can think of while in the static push up and sitting and standing and note the differences. You will work from uncomfortable positions as you will be surprised as you do the work in the service or defending your family and the more you can do to lessen the gap between what you know about yourself and what someone wants to teach you with as blade the more you will have a chance to survive. Another way to do this is to tense up completely and to let a partner move you about (playing pendulum with you upright using his fists etcetera) and by this and from time to time managing the tension level to half and slowly to the lowest measure which keeps your form you will learn to spread yourself in your entire body over time.

Take a few friends and stand in a small circle with one in the middle. Start to push and pull him or her with the intention of moving and hitting your circle friends with them. This requires you pay more attention where the middle person is more free in his movement and you can use that open door to work on someone else. The one in the middle will work on not giving support by resisting all the pushes and pulls and moving so your head is not hit and your alignment is not rigid and bent. If the middle bends down the circle will jump on him to pile on him and lever him so you learn to avoid tying your shoe in a mob :)

Keep breathing and walking even in place and don't try to keep your footing. Sometimes it is better to simply lift your foot off the ground and navigate in the air than to be trampled. Choose how to work instead of reacting. Another point is to push and pull using the legs and feet and to also push and pull on the neck and head. Respect yourself and your partners and work honestly and with care to learn rather than practice what you think you know.

Morning: Gratitude affirmations and visualization.

Drink a lot of water and tea

A

10 minutes: Static push up holds as I tense and relax doing a (inhale, exhale, pause) cycle.

15 minutes: square breathing though the body timed by pulse and pendulum walking using 12 count

15 minutes: ground work using bound to unbound

15 minutes: 4 basics using the (inhale, exhale, pause)

15 minutes: Knife work going over shapes, flattening and work

B

10 minutes: whip myself to clean out fear and pity and open myself to natural self control.

15 minutes: one leg no eyes cleaning and body sense work

15 minutes: Slow 4 basics and slow work (walking, shadow fighting)

15 minutes: Rolling standing to ground to standing doing 2 of each roll.

15 minutes: Stick work on Density, alignment and wholeness.

 

Evening:

30 Jesus pose leg lifts to each side (face up and face down)

30 wall squats

30 stand on one leg and do a cartwheel in place on that leg

30 handstand push ups

30 rope pull ups

10 minutes juggling the water bottle and the tennis balls off the wall.

Douse

Or

30 minutes of walking up and down the stairs with a metal pipe overhead or hill sprinting.

Douse

Saturday:

Fast douse and scout in nature.

 

Take a partner and a small ball like a tennis ball and place both of you in the static push up with the ball suspended by both your foreheads. Have your partner move his body without affecting the ball and you need to do what he does and after a while change places. Go over all the joints and what you can move of the body and after the drill check how you are able to create tension in one point and keep the rest of you moving and free.

This is a drill for your eyes and your mind which can help a lot in detective work and the like. Watch a movie or any DVD you care to and during the viewing think what is the point of reference the camera or in some cases the person with the camera has. This type of work will allow you to see things with less emotional attachment and to make a more educated decision on how to use the material. This can be done with a Disney movie or an action movie the idea is what matters which is reaching freedom from within.

A few audio tips on survival:

1. To hear better open your mouth slightly and than the sounds of your breath will not be echoed in your skull and you will have less white noise.
2. In order to pass gas without sounding like a trumpet change the opening meaning hold and part your behinds a bit and you will be able to pass the gas without a lot of noise. This goes the same way with breathing and opening the mouth to avoid controlling the amount and speed of the pass.
3. To move in mud without the flopping of falling mud pieces and the sucking on the boots simply relax the ankle and just like you walk in water walk in mud from the body and whipping the legs from the center.
4. Many times you have to leave zero trace behind you and in warm weather everything that comes out of you will attract animals and people will be able to notice this shift in natural animal movement. If you need to gather your piss into a bottle and you don't have a wide opening bottle take out the entire apparatus out of the pants and than the aim will be natural and you will be able to get a hit on the first shot.

This is meant to illustrate that when you are working you should do a good job in every detail. If you expect to perform differently when you do the same things you do every day you will make life difficult for you and maybe others. When you learn every  day you do something different every day so notice it.

Take the static push up position either face down or up and start to tense and relax part by part on the inhale. Finish and shake the tension from your body and repeat two more times on the Exhale and on the pause between breaths and on the last one go and tense to the max and keep it as you listen in to the pulse in the tensed up area. Once you are done note if you feel your body to be more alive and next time change your position a bit to learn more on the way you keep and move tension in your body. The same can work for rolling in different ways during those three breath phases and if you are ready do a set of three rolls: one on the inhale one on the exhale and one on the pause and repeat it a few times till you feel the overbreathing or tension build and than when you reach a point of stress which makes you want to quit you are ready to learn something about yourself so let this gift arrive and find a way to clean the tension away and keep working.

First take a partner with a non sharp rigid knife and stand at a comfortable distance from each other. He will work on stabbing you swiftly and hard in the stomach and you first just feel how your body reacts and feel the pain and fear. Next become aware of how your body naturally acts in response to this and add to that a movement of the entire body meaning that if your body jerked back and to the left, relax the hips and let the whole body take a step in that direction aligned and blending with the movement of the blade wielder. Next work on seeing how the limbs move as a result of the body movement and making that movement work for your survival. For example if you are stabbed at the upper back (yes work from all directions) you bend slightly from the hips and turn and also move forward to avoid being stabbed deeper (this only sounds complex, have a partner push you with a finger under the shoulder blade and you will feel all the directions) Now both shoulder are moving one to engage the forearm of the knife hand (unless both are knife hands) and the other is going down to press on the inner side of his knee where the density is low and the direction fits his natural intention to have him fall so you can kick him and run away to shiver and shake in the privacy of your own home...
Next have him stab and slash at you with a knife in each hand to make you more aware of your entire body because you cannot devote your entire self to his knife and the last drill is to have him with a knife in his belt or on his person walk around and you simply decide how close is safe and comfortable for you and ACT to make it so.

Brave men have monuments, Smart men have grandchildren.