| In the movie Fight Club, starring Brad Pitt, people punch the hell out of each other for fun.
While Hollywood's film goes to extremes, all over Toronto, men and women practice unarmed combat everyday. Why? For fitness and self-confidence, to relieve tension and to let off steam, without getting battered.
Here's a look at some of the fight-club possibilities, from boxing and karate to lessons from a former member of the Special Operations Unit of Spetsnaz, the Russian Special Forces.
Meet James Bondski. A veteran of secret missions, Vladimir Vasiliev is so wired for action that he always sleeps with his feet outside the covers. It's a survival trait from a decade of training and work with Russia's Special Forces, including covert missions. As a soldier and bodyguard, Vasiliev was so adept at unarmed combat that he was a teacher and practitioner. Now he passes on skills to students at his Thornhill fight club.
Don't expect blood and guts in his classes. Contrary to most other combat techniques, Russian Martial Art has no regimented stances or moves, no grades or colored belts. Students fight with instinctive, spontaneous, natural moves. Vasiliev, 42, who came to Canada in 1990, has students so relaxed that combat is more like a dance than a donnybrook. "Everyone should be human first, not an animal," says Vasiliev, a married father of two. "Relax and you react quicker."
Russian Martial Art looks absurdly simplistic. In reality, it's ruthlessly efficient. Vasiliev can fight off up to six knife-wielding attackers. Toronto firefighter Scott Connor, 39, has trained with Vasiliev for five years. "The system is based on freedom of movement. Because it's so natural, it's much more effective," says Connor.
Rommel San Pedro, 33, an evangelical minister in Mississauga, is in awe of Vasiliev, as are all his students. San Pedro once worked with a martial arts teacher in the Philippines who beat the late, legendary Bruce Lee. "Vasiliev would have beaten Lee," notes the priest.
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