I don’t know which group or school it is, only that they’re in St. Petersburg, but I recently came across this clip of systema training:
I thought it was interesting because it reminded me of something mentioned on the Martial Development blog a while back: “Legends say that Taijiquan founder Zhang Sanfeng resembled a sloppy, dim-witted turtle“. Watch the clip and you’ll see an example….
Speaking of systema, I find myself wondering about the upcoming summer holiday…. I want to do another, more intensive tui na course here in Beijing, and also go back to Wales for a while. I may have time to go overland, on the Trans-Siberian… Don’t know if I can afford it, though…. Still, if I were to do that, ten lessons at Mikhail Ryabko’s school would cost 270 Euros… approximately 2.4K renminbi… That’s over the course of a week. A very reasonable price but hmmm, expensive place, Moscow. Probably won’t happen. Worth thinking about, though….
“Probably won’t happen. Worth thinking about, though…”
You are wrong. You WILL do this, Emlyn.
(Dang . . . somehow I don’t think that’s quite how neurolinguistic programming works. Oh well.) ;- )
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Hahahaha – nice try! Actually, I think I agree – it will happen…. but maybe this summer isn’t the right time…. If I do a meaningful TCM course, that squeezes my time quite a lot… and I think I need to get fitter and prepare a bit more before I go to Ryabko’s school, just to make sure I get maximum benefit…. And in any case, I would much prefer to travel across Siberia in winter, rather than summer (old memories of watching Doctor Zhivago…). February 2011 actually seems far more sensible….
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Do more Yichaun instead! Surely a no brainer. When your back in Wales in a few years time with your bio-toilet, raised bed gardens and stream powered generator you’ll be wishing you spent more time with the grand master and lineage holder of yichaun and wondering on earth you didn’t take full advantage to complete the system. With budget flights to Moscow at 15 GBP’s each way china will seem so far away. Missed chances……. hmmmm
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On a slightly more serious note, I commented when I first saw systema that I felt drawn to it because I saw something in it that I’d never seen anywhere else; I learned since that that ‘something’ is the wave system. I dunno, it just seems right to me, somehow. I’ve been watching these two clips lately, and thinking I might get the respective DVDs:
Systema ROSS wave DVD promo
Scott Sonnon Softwork demo
Comments and feedback welcomed, of course!
Don’t worry, Carlos: I’m still committed to training with Master Yao and hopefully getting good at yiquan!
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Emlyn’s stated ambition is to become a sloppy, dim-witted turtle, Carlos. He’ll never get there by training yiquan.
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Yup! 2 down, 1 to go….
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Hi Tom, actually the higher level Yiquan has a move called “turtle coming / peeping out of the water” so it doesn’t surprise me ;-).
But I would say he missed his ambition and became the “turtle on speed” (stressed out and talks a million miles per hour ha ha).
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Nah, Celts think faster than Anglo-Saxons, that’s all 😉
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Hmmm . . . permit me the supposition that we have no Anglos in on this conversation, Carlos being a Hispanic name and me being one of the uisge-snorting Celtic cousins whose ancestors hail from somewhere to the north of you, Emlyn.
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Tom, of course: with your surname, what else could you be? I’ll let Carlos speak for himself…. 🙂
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Ha ha unfortunatly I admit to being an Anglo-saxon, from Stoke but living in Singapore (19 years), I now consider myself 1/2 asian, he he.
It’s true the “real” English ran away to the hills to sing songs, rear sheep and play rugby in village’s with very long names ;-), bless them all.
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No disrespect intended.
My father is a Welsh speaker being brought up in North Wales. Twice a year I used to holiday there from being born until 16!! Fond memories of Towyn, Llansanan and Colwyn Bay actually enough for a life time ha ha.
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