REVIEW - Ian Ayres Sydney Australia Systema Seminar

[Peter Aftanas]

The Ian Ayres Sydney Systema Seminar
5 hours Sunday 20th October, 2008

SYSTEMA BALLISTIC STRIKES AND CONTROL



Introduction

My name is Peter Aftanas and I have a growing Systema School in Sydney Australia (www.RussianMartialArt.com.au).

In October Ian Ayres a friend of mine and a Systema Instructor from Brisbane was in Sydney and able to come down to the school and give us a one day seminar called SYSTEMA BALLISTIC STRIKES AND CONTROL.

As you can see from the name of the seminar it was tough and hard and all about “doing the business” as Ian like to say.


The Seminar

The Seminar was organised as a one day five hour training session. The topic for the seminar was SYSTEMA BALLISTIC STRIKES AND CONTROL.

We had 25 people attend and it was a painful day for all. Almost everybody at the seminar had trained in Systema before.

Ian started the day with some nice gentle group based warm ups, timing and distance work for strikes, Systema foot work, body contact and control drills, strike placement drills, mass attack movement drills, etc. The boys and girls were well warmed up but not quite ready for what was about to come.

We then moved on to many different striking drills, walking strike drills, movement strike drills, and multiple partner strike work, then mass attack strike work. As the time moved on we progressed through Ian's work schedule. We moved form the simple to more complex work. Ian's constant focus was “the fight”. This was completely a combat strike seminar.

As the seminar drew to a close Ian introduced the class to pad work, strike correction, as well as different and unusual strikes.

The training was hard, tiring, painful and relentless. Ian brought a distinct fight realism to this seminar that a lot of people had not seen before. Most people who study martial art forget that they are studying how to fight and more importantly they are studying how to survive and / or fight for their lives. Ian brought this realism to this seminar. The people attending certainly had their eyes opened to this fact.

Ian did a great job, even though everyone was bruised and beaten they all still laughing at events and demonstrations throughout the day. The seminar was a great success and a great learning day for all who attended.


Final Note and Thanks

There are a few people I have to thank for this seminar.

Firstly, I have to thank all of the Sydney and interstate people who attended the seminar. It is not easy to spend five hours getting hit or waiting to get hit and still find time to laugh, joke and have a good time. Thank you.

Secondly, I want to thank Ian Ayres for such a professional and focused seminar. Thank you for the time and effort you put into the seminar, the passion with which you delivered the material, and the genuine care you took with the guys as you hit and kicked them. Thanks again Ian.

Australian is certainly on the map now as far as Systema is concerned. More and more people are attending seminars and classes. Once again thank you all.


Kind regards,

Peter Aftanas.

Please visit our Sydney - Australian website: www.RussianMartialArt.com.au
_________________
Please visit our website at: www.RussianMartialArt.com.au

[RachelKlingberg]

Thanks very much for the seminar report, Peter. It sounds like you all learned a lot and I appreciate you sharing with the forum.
*Vsego nailuchshego* (best wishes),
Rachel
_________________
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. - Sherlock Holmes

[Dima Trufanov]

Peter,
It's awesome (brilliant) to witness such a tremendous growth of your group! Hats off to you for leading from the heart and spreading the good news.

Working / playing together a couple of years ago opened my eyes to many good things. Thank you for that.

Guys / gals -- I highly recommend training with Peter's group to anyone living in / travelling to the Sydney area.

Cheers

Dima Trufanov
Chicago NW
_________________
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.
- Henry David Thoreau

[Bradley Scheel]

Hey Dima!
Let's go!


_________________
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!!"

[Tim Cleary]

Me too..

One of the most enlightening drills that we did during the 'soft' phase of the seminar was simply 'leading with the hands' - walking with a natural step and swing while placing the already extended (ready to work) fists softly onto various targets on a randomly spaced group.

The only thing to really focus on was to support the fists with the body, so that each placement becomes a natural consequence of what you do with your feet and body, your hands just 'leading the way'.

It's the simplest thing in the world, until you actually do it.

We also practised lightly but heavily placing, pushing and just barely hitting the face, head and neck, looking more and more for the comfortable and controlling places to put the hands, and on using the hooks, edges and surfaces of the hands to gain more control of our partners - interestingly, it was often something like 'half a hit' that allowed enough control to continue working. A full hit most often left the partner simply too far away...

A couple of notes on ballistic striking and pad work (from my perspective and I think I mentioned in the kroog as well):

Hitting a pad is not like hitting a person. I found myself getting kind of angry while hitting the pads - and the way I got out of that anger was actually to focus on hitting my partner through the pad and up his arm. He didn't like it much, but I felt better..

When going the whole hog (full monty/whole nine yards) on ballistic striking, it's safer to use pads. Otherwise, you run out of friends to play with. It's also not a lot of fun being a receiver when it's your turn.

Loose, loose, loose and soft, soft soft is the way to go - the 'ballistic' part really does seem to come from the elastic nature of the tendons and ligaments, not from the muscles...

Thanks to Ian and to Peter for putting on such a great day of heeting - and to everyone for coming along and lending their bodies for some low-to-mid intensity bludgeoning..

Tim..
_________________
Breathe in, Breathe out...