Steve W: Spyro thank you for agreeing to do this online interview, for those who are unaware of who you are in the Systema world could you please introduce yourself.
SK: My name is Spyridon Katsigiannis, I live in Gothenburg, Sweden, where I also teach Russian Martial Art.
Steve W: Spyro can you tell us a little about you and your home country, where you were brought up and when you had your first exposure to Martial Arts?
SK: I was born and raised in Athens, Greece. Besides being a martial artist, I have studied engineering and journalism and I have worked as a journalist in Greece for 16 years. My first exposure to martial arts was twenty-five years ago, when I took up Tae Kwon Do (WTF) at the age of fifteen.
Steve W: I know from information out on the web that you have experience of Filipino Kali and San Shou what was it about these arts that took your interest and explain a little about San Shou.
SK: San Shou is China’s full-contact fighting sport, regulated by the International Wushu Federation. It includes punches, kicks and stand-up grappling. During a seven-year period when I trained in a traditional style of Chinese martial arts, I competed in San Shou both in Greece and internationally for about four years, and had to quit due to a serious back injury. After that, I became a judge in San Shou competitions and I also graduated from the school for San Shou coaches, organized by the Greek ministry of sports.
Regarding the Filipino martial arts, what initially attracted me to them was that, in the lineage I practiced (Inosanto – Lacoste, via Cass Magda), there was a lot of emphasis placed on improvisation even at the initial stages of one’s training. I was blessed to have an exceptional instructor, Evangelos Papakitsos, a systems analyst and educator, who removed all the cultural baggage from the art and ended up with one of the best structured training programs I have encountered in all my years in martial arts. He also did not teach the art commercially – he just had a small group of dedicated students and he actively encouraged us to train on our own whenever we could. That resulted in some rather violent stick sparring sessions that were tons of fun! I cannot think of a healthier training environment for a martial artist to develop.
Steve W: Who was it that introduced you to Systema and why did you think it might have all the ingredients that you were looking for in a fighting system?
SK: There wasn’t a specific person who introduced me to Systema. During my years as a judge in international San Shou competitions, I had the opportunity to meet a great number of formidable fighters from around the world. What impressed me the most was that only Russian fighters made combat look easy – they were extremely powerful and seemed physically and mentally relaxed at the same time. My conclusion, entirely intuitive and rather arbitrary, was that this combat efficiency was the common thread in all Russian martial arts and combat sports and I wanted to find out more about how one could achieve this. I discovered Systema through the internet, bought a few of Vladimir Vasiliev’s instructional DVDs and then, it was only a matter of time before I found my first training partners to explore Russian Martial Art.
Steve W: My early impressions of the System were that it was a thinking man’s art and there was a lot more to it than first met the eye. Do you think Systema has more depth to it than other arts you have experienced?
SK: I have read somewhere that in Russian Martial Art, seventy-five percent of training time is allocated to acquiring the ability to maintain both mental and muscular relaxation during the fight. That by itself is the single most important but also the hardest goal to achieve for a practitioner of martial arts. There is a huge amount of scientific knowledge from the fields of biomechanics, neurophysiology and psychophysiology imbedded in the training methods used in Russian Martial Art towards this goal. To my knowledge, no other martial uses this knowledge in such a structured and organised way.
Steve W: Do you ever regret having a grounding in other Martial Arts? If you had known about Systema earlier would you have gone down that route instead?
SK: It was the questions left unanswered by the other martial arts I studied (and I have trained in a number of other arts besides the ones I am certified to teach) that lead me to Systema, so I can’t say I regret my past experiences. Having said that, I must admit that sometimes I wish I had started my Systema training at a younger age and with fewer injuries in my body.
Steve W: Do you ever try to incorporate ideas from other Martial Arts into your version of the System and if yes does it work?
SK: What I do is use techniques from other arts as “case studies”, in order to deconstruct them according to the principles of Russian Martial Art and understand what makes them work. This helps my students see that although some fighting strategies are unique to specific martial arts, the foundation of each and every technique is just human movement, and the principles of human movement are universal. So I would say that I use ideas from other martial arts as food for thought.
Steve W: How important is it to change the surroundings / environment when training? If yes how does this help?
SK: All sorts of skills – including movement skills such as combat techniques – develop through the interaction with one’s environment. Though the movement options our body allows for (known as degrees of freedom) may seem infinite, who we are (whether we’re strong or weak, flexible or stiff, healthy or injured etc), where we are (standing on a slippery floor, with our back against the wall, or inside an elevator) and what we have to do (win a match in a ring, escape to safety, protect someone) ultimately determine the movement choices we will make. The human body is basically a self-organizing system which, under specific conditions, tends to settle in stable “attractor states”. These are our skills and in order to consolidate them and make them adaptable to various conditions, we must try to de-stabilize them from time to time, by manipulating various constraints. Can you imagine a football player that can only play under perfect weather conditions and exclusively in front of friendly spectators? Or maybe a piano virtuoso who cannot play in front of an audience? Of course not! So, while training in hand-to-hand combat, we might tape the fingers of one hand to simulate injury, try to spar on a slippery floor, wear a blindfold while grappling or study various self-defence scenarios in order to try and adapt our skills to various conditions. In my opinion, this is by far one of the most important aspects of the Systema training method.
Steve W: What is it about the likes of Vladimir Vasiliev and Mikhail Ryabko that impress some people and not others? What was it that impressed you enough to get involved with Systema?
SK: What impresses me most about them is their tremendous display of combat efficiency in non-prearranged, non-choreographed demonstrations. I know that what I see is not actual combat, since their assistants are not using full speed, power, or intention (although we have seen some pretty realistic demonstrations from time to time), but I can’t help being impressed by their ability to deal instantly with anything that comes their way. Regarding the haters and non-believers, I believe that Charles Perrow, a sociologist known for studying industrial accidents put it best when he wrote: "We construct an expected world because we can't handle the complexity of the present one, then process the information that fits the expected world, and find reasons to exclude the information that might contradict it". So, I guess there are a rather large number of people out there thinking, “Duh, it doesn’t look like MMA, so it’s fake”...
Steve W: How did you first get involved with teaching Systema and why did you think it was necessary to do so?
SK: Well, two years ago I moved to Sweden due to a professional choice my wife made. As a journalist, there wasn’t much I could do in a foreign country, without speaking the language! I guess the only thing I could do was teach martial arts, so I did that...
Steve W: When did you decide to open your first Systema training group and how do you get across your own flavour of Systema to the students you teach?
SK: I started my first training group in Greece in early 2007, with help from my friend Vagelis Zorbas, head-instructor of the Athens Academy of Jeet Kune Do Fighting Technology, who allowed us to use the training space of the Academy – I didn’t know I was going to move to Sweden back then. Still, I didn’t like to think of myself as the “head” of that group. I was just the guy who had the ability to organize the study material into training sessions. And of course, the training group is still going strong two years after I have moved to Sweden, thanks to Vassilis Stamatiou, one of my oldest training partners, both in Systema and the Filipino Martial Arts. Before that, I was a member of another training group, based at the other side of Athens. It was between 45 minutes and one hour of driving for me to get there, depending on the traffic, and I’m not what you’d call a good driver! So, after a few years of doing that, I just wanted to train somewhat closer to my neighbourhood.
Regarding my own flavour of Systema, I guess that would be an emphasis on restoring our body as much as possible to its natural state of well-being before attempting to deal with the specifics of hand-to-hand combat. Due to a sedentary way of life, lack of movement and psychological stress, most adults today suffer from reduced range of motion in their joints, diminished coordination and even worse, disrupted breathing patterns which have an adverse effect on the function of the autonomous nervous system. In my opinion, one must deal with those issues first and then learn how to fight. This way, even if one of the people who train with me is not really interested in combat, he or she will gain some valuable skills for life.
Steve W – How do you rate the training methodology of Systema compared to other systems? Can the Systema principles be applied to the study of any other fighting system?
SK: Some time ago a friend of mine, Mladen Jovanovich, strength training coach and physical therapist from Serbia, pointed me towards the direction of the “constraints-led approach to motor learning and control” (and I would like to thank him for this). I don’t want to get very scientific or technical here, so in an over-simplified way, let’s say that, in this approach, the coach tells the practitioner what to do instead of how to do it. Through a series of situational drills and various game-playing activities (manipulating environmental and task constraints), the practitioner builds up skills by actually solving motor problems, adapting from trial to trial, and not by constantly reproducing a supposedly ideal technique – pretty close to what Russian-Jewish neuroscientist N.A. Bernstein called “repetition without repetition”. I believe this is exactly the training method used in Systema Ryabko Vasiliev and since this method has been successfully used for quite a few years in sports as well as in clinical rehabilitation following major trauma, I don’t see why it cannot be used in the study of any fighting system. Of course, this does not mean that one can take a number of Systema-specific drills and use them out of context; adaptations are needed to the strategy and tactics of the system explored.
Steve W – Is instinctive movement the key requirement that enables Systema to work and how do we best achieve this?
SK: I believe it is natural movement that enables Russian Martial Art to work. Instinctive movement is not necessarily natural – it might be distorted by pain, injury, trauma or habitual stress. We first need to harmoniously integrate our breathing, structure, and movement and then movements – instinctive or other – become natural, free from fear reaction patterns and unnecessary tension. I have heard Kevin Secours, senior Systema instructor, say something that, in my opinion, sums it up in the best way possible: “What would it be worth if you could just improve your own command of your being, of your body? I believe that the ultimate purpose of Systema is to learn how to move through our day to day life with grace and with absolute joy”. What Kevin calls “the ultimate purpose”,I call the power behind Systema.
Steve W – Spyro do you have an interest in the psychological work found in Systema and have you had any instances where it has been useful to you in a practical way.
SK: I am always fascinated by the role breathing plays in all sorts of stress management (survival stress included). Since I started practicing various breathing exercises on a daily basis I have noticed a big improvement in both my health and quality of life.
Steve W: Some people depute Systema’s effectiveness as a form of combat, do you consider Systema a true Martial art or just a set of simple skills using simple ideas that help develop the individual on a personal level and fighting ability is a by product of the training?
SK: Russian Martial Art is a meta-system – it is distilled scientific martial knowledge, plain and simple. It includes a multitude of tools that allow one to find answers to all sorts of problems related to combat (physical or psychological) and other tools that help put those answers in the context of training. Since we are talking about scientific knowledge, we must note here that this meta-system is constantly evolving. It is not a martial art in the sense of a comprehensive, start-to-finish, number of techniques that one “learns” in order to graduate.
Steve W: What are your views on training with guns and knives; I suppose any weapons for that matter? Do you think this type of training is worthwhile?
SK: It is impossible to simulate the stress induced by a weapons attack within the context of a martial arts class, but to a degree, the same thing applies for empty-handed attacks too – you can’t go beyond a certain level of realism while training. Still, using weapons falls in the same category with changing the environment in one’s training: it helps consolidate the skills acquired. Take joint manipulations, for example: after learning a specific tactic empty-handed, using a knife, a stick, an umbrella handle or the cartridge clip of an AK-47 to achieve the same effect to our partner’s body offers a different biomechanical perspective and fosters greater sensitivity and creativity. It also makes for much more challenging and enjoyable training sessions.
Steve W: In what way has Systema impacted on your health? Are there many benefits to be had from the drills used?
SK: I have suffered a number of injuries during my full-contact fighting days, among those a herniated disc in my lower back, a partially torn meniscus in my right knee and a chronic tendonitis in my right shoulder. Before I started training in Russian Martial Art, I thought I would have to learn to live with pain for the rest of my life. The breathing exercises, the mobility exercises and the Systema floor-work have helped me limit musculoskeletal pain to a minimum. They have also provided me with greater awareness of my body, allowing me to troubleshoot my movement and devise my own corrective exercise programs.
Steve W: How important is it to understand the mechanics of the human body? How does Systema teach us the best way to learn?
SK: Understanding body mechanics allows one to use body structure and momentum in combination with muscular strength in order to generate maximum force. Isn’t this what martial arts are all about? I remember when I was much younger the promise of training in Judo or JuJitsu was that you could send your opponent flying with a “flick of the wrist”. OK, I understand there’s a great deal of exaggeration here, but during the last few years (since the advent of MMA, actually) it seems that martial arts have become synonymous with lifting enormous amounts of weight and subjecting one’s self to tremendously punishing circuit-training sessions, that probably do more hurt than good. I certainly believe in the importance of physical conditioning, but what is the point of going to extremes, if Brock Lesnar will always be bigger and stronger than I am??? Even when one is training with weights, good technique is needed and that’s what body mechanics are all about: maximum work with minimum effort and less wear and tear of the body.
In my opinion it is the Systema floor-work that develops a good deal of knowledge of the mechanics of movement, provided one explores the exercises and doesn’t just go through the movements. For example, what you need to do when you want to engage the floor in a smooth way is the exact same thing you need to do to your opponent’s body in order to take him down effortlessly. So, basically, you first study your own body in order to learn more about the universal rules of human movement. Then, the knowledge gained is applied in non-competitive soft work in order for one to achieve biomechanical efficiency in combat. To my knowledge, this training methodology is only found in Russian Martial Art.
Steve W: Do you think that those who claim to be instructors spend enough time with the more experienced teachers to advance their own understanding of the System? Or can we learn just by experimentation?
SK: I was reading a book by physical therapist and strength trainer Gray Cook the other day and I noticed that he describes rope skipping as a self-limiting exercise. This means that the exercise is impossible to perform with incorrect technique, you either do it right or you can’t do it at all. I view Russian Martial Art the same way: as a set of drills that can only be performed the correct way. If something goes wrong, the feedback is instantaneous and the problem lies either in bad breathing, lack of structure or restricted movement, or a combination of the three. Since we start by training in a slow and relaxed way, there is always adequate time for the trouble shooting to be done on one’s own. Systema is an experience-based, not a knowledge-based learning method, there is no such thing as a person who knows all the katas, so he can teach you the next one in order to progress to the higher stage of skill. So, in this view, I do not think it is necessary to spend years and years training “under” a master, provided that one has a good understanding of the basic concepts and principles and has honest partners to work with. The role of the Systema instructor is first to help one build good basics – there is no way around this. Later, the instructor can provide additional insights and suggest new drills every now and then. That’s why, in my opinion, the seminar training format works so well with Russian Martial Art.
Steve W: What is it about Systema you most enjoy and why?
SK: A few months ago I had the opportunity to spend about a week with senior Systema instructor Emmanuel Manolakakis. Manny is an incredible teacher in the sense that, not only he possesses awesome fighting skills, but he is also blessed with the gift of communication. During one of our long conversations, he told me that becoming good in Systema is all about on “how thin you wanna slice it”. This means that the training tools provided by Russian Martial Art allow for an immense amount of detail in one’s exploration of human movement as related to combat. This is exactly what fascinates me most about the art: that there’s no limit in deepening one’s practice.
Steve W: Spyro do you think it is possible to train in Systema into old age? Can the System adapt to how your body changes over time? And lastly do you see yourself continuing with Systema for the foreseeable future? Does the System provide enough of what you need?
SK: Well, first of all, Systema has a great number of exercises promoting joint health, and we all know that we are as old as our joints! In addition to that, since the emphasis in our training is on solving motor problems and not reproducing “ideal” techniques – that might be impossible to perform at an old age – over time, one naturally and constantly adapts to what the body allows for, the organismic constraints. So, for the moment, my plan is to continue adapting to my organismic constraints for as long as I am able to do so...
Steve W: Thank you Spyro for answering a few questions about yourself and Systema.
SK: Thank you Steve. And also allow me to congratulate you on your blog – I know from personal experience that blogging is pretty tough work, requiring first and foremost commitment. You do it better than most out there!
1 comments:
Nice work!
Post a Comment