Vlad "stretching time"

[Al Mcluckie]

Greetings from the midwest;
can anyone explain what vlad means by "stretching time"?
ive seen him mention this usually with a shifting of body and slowing of pace momentarily -im thinking for the purpose of throwing ones balance or timing off. Any thoughts?

[Mark Hord]

I am not certain but, since this looks like it might be overlooked, I'll take a shot and say I think its a similar thought to how some of us talk about "getting inside the opponent's OODA loop" - when your timing is good, it seems to stretch time out so that you feel you have all the time in the world while the opponent is overwhelmed and feeling as though he cannot keep up.

Shameless self-promotion:
OODA Applied
_________________
Mark Hord - Systema Review
A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. Ayn Rand

[Bradley Scheel]

Geee, where did you hear him say that?
_________________
Live your life in such a way that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, Satan shudders & says..."Oh sh&t*....he's awake!!"

[Al Mcluckie]

One of the times ive heard him refer to stretching time was at the sem at my pal Brads in Boulder-its on tape.

[Scott Meredith]

Yes, stretching time, and I've also heard him teach about compressing time.

He has taught that in any kind of exchange or confrontation or fight, even a very brief event, even in a purely psychological event that doesn't actually get physical (but applies to physical also), the participants unconsiously establish some kind of reactive rhythm. Immediately there is an expectation by all parties that all particpants will be entrained by that rhythm - be it objectively fast or objectively slow. In Toronto classes he has taught time manipulation drills for breaking the entrainment of the expected rhythm.

It seems to have some relation to syncopation concept in dance and music, but MORE sophisticated as I recall Vlad's concept (and mind blowing demo of combative time manipulation) was not only 'accenting' an unexpected beat (as the concept of syncopation in music), but splitting and doubling the action alloted to virtual time slots in the entrained rhythm (more like concept of syncopation in dance).

Honestly I have no idea what I'm talking about. I just wanted to confirm that Vlad HAS indeed attempted to teach us this, and I think it is way beyond most all of us right now and I have the impression maybe we better just work on pushups or something ha ha!

[Mark Hord]

Scott, I like the words, rhythm and timing too...its not a concept only in Systema either:

"Speed is not part of the true Way of strategy. Speed implies that things seem fast or slow, according to whether or not they are in rhythm. Whatever the Way, the master of strategy does not appear fast." Miyamoto Musashi

I think its something that Vlad and some others have a very good understanding of but which is hard to understand without having experienced it. I think I get fleeting glimpses at times but I don't know if there are enough pushups to give me a Vlad understanding.
_________________
Mark Hord - Systema Review
A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. Ayn Rand

[Bradley Scheel]

He may have been refering to the idea that if you extend you opponents movement (attack) you can, in effect, slow the movement (attack).
(thereby "strectching time").
_________________
Live your life in such a way that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, Satan shudders & says..."Oh sh&t*....he's awake!!"

[Jody Dawkins]

Wow.

I for one would love to hear more about this. Anyone else care to relate they're experiences regarding streching time?

While I doubt it would ever happen, I'd love to see a clip of this sort of thing.
_________________
- Jody

"Relax or I'll hit you with the whip again." - VV

"... so after I scream like a girl and fall down I get kicked again."

[Woody Mims]

Hey there

At the risk of being way off base here, I would like to say that while "Time" is apparently a physical manifestation in Universe, "time" is also a subjective perception within the human neurology. While it is not generally thought of in our culture, it is possible to learn to alter "at will" our perception of the flow of time. This will allow us to take all the subjective time we need to consider and make decisions in the briefest moment of objective time.

I have been able to experience this state once or twice myself in NLP training sessions. While it is not "normally" a part of my daily life, I do know the control of this mode of perception can be learned, if the effort is made. Just as we can sometimes dream in color and sometimes in black and white, I believe that humans can learn to filter their perception of optic nerve information to experience the world in black and white. This is not something that is generally thought of or considered useful in daily life.

On the PBS program Scientific American Frontiers (video archives available online) there was a show "Eye on the Ball". In training womens softball players, one coach used a pitching machine with balls that had colored numbers painted on them. The batters were tasked with learning to see first the color painted on the ball while it was in flight to them and then to perceive the number represented on the ball in flight. They had to call out the perception and it was then checked. This, I believe was one way of training to stretch time (perceptually). I and others in the Systema-Cascadia/Eagle Creek Study Group have discussed this as a Systema training tool for our group. Unfortunately, we are not financially in a position to put this to the test at present.

Warmest regards
Woody
Systema-Cascadia

[Scott Meredith]

[John Elliott]

[matt olevich]

bump

this is another topic i'd like to see discussed further

could time be referring to changing the timing of the movements like a quarter beat or a half beat in terms of one, two, three etc.?

perhaps its something lost in translation?

[James Lee]

An interesting tidbit from Heiho Kaden Sho - Yagyu Muneyoshi writes in one section about fighting in musical terms. He says that, when two fighters meet, each will have a different rhythm and it is the goal - conscious or otherwise - of each fighter to draw the other into his own rhythm. According to him, a good fighter is deliberately out of rhythm with his opponent, which inflicts confusion and disorder on his opponent's rhythm.

Musashi talks about something similar when describing how a master drummer always appears to be drumming at a measured, leisurely pace no matter the speed of the actual beat, and that a novice drummer cannot keep up with the the rhythm at any speed however hard he tries.

Some analogies to tease the brain and hopefully stimulate discussion

[Clive Jefferies]

[Evgeny Shmeilin]