Part I
I shall ask nervous people stop reading as I’m going to speak about the Russian hand-to-hand combat…
I met people who do the Russian hand-to-hand combat in Alushta at the All-Union seminar of the “Schools of survival according to the system of the Russian martial art”. What is this? The author of the system of self-defense in extreme cases is Aleksey Alekseyevich Kadochnikov, a teacher of mechanics and physical training in Krasnodar military rocket school. (I want to thank the administration of the school for keeping under their roof this martial art). Here in Alushta the school of survival was administered by the disciple and follower of Aleksey Alekseyevich Kadochnikov – Aleksandr Retunskih, the master of sports on sambo and judo.
For the first time I saw the Kadochnikov Systema or it is often called the Krasnodar variant of the combat sambo in Moscow at the demonstration of the film “Face to Face With the Enemy”. Even then I was surprised by the gentle, easy and original style of the Russian martial art demonstrated by the students of the rocket school. Now I was going to know this technique personally.
120 people who got interested in the Kadochnikov Systema came to Krim from all corners of the world. Among them were sambo wrestlers, judoists, those who preferred ancient Greek pankration, students from kung fu and wu shu schools, karateka, people who are engaged in French and Thai variants of boxing, keepers of the traditions of the Buryat wrestling, experts on Slavic fisticuffs and the Kazakh single combat.
There were so many totally different people. Among them were civil aviation pilot, a constructor of underground railway, a builder, a cooperator, a turner, a police officer, a coach, a doorkeeper in a restaurant… No matter how different their age, social positions and cultural interests were they easily found common language. These combat terms filled the seaside air: “side blow”, “back heel”, “break”, “frame”.
There were almost no novices. People come not only to learn but to look at other people and show themselves. Some people were prepared to tough sparrings with full contact (later they remembered it with smiles).
Some people were shocked when heard from Aleksey Alekseyevich Kadochnikov himself that first of all his Systema requires the material from textbooks on physics: such notions as “leverage”, “outrigger”, “pincers”. Suddenly these words became as popular as the names of combat holds. The Systema is based on the laws of mechanics. When you start putting them into practice difficult things become easy. (I address you, pupils, don’t cut physics it may be of use to you).
…Forgetting about my age I decided to test everything myself. And that wasn’t easy. I have to train three times a day. After dinner when you have strong desire to sleep and your exhausted body craves for rest you have to attend lectures on “Survival”. How to measure the temperature and the speed of water stream without special devices? How to find ones bearings without a compass? How to calculate the store of power and disfigure water? You don’t know? Do you want to survive?
Trainings three times a week started to make themselves felt. We grew accustomed to the Russian martial art like travelers to new environment. We were undergoing professional acclimatization. It didn’t matter was it night or day.
Alushta was getting ready to a swimming season, preening its feathers. At the crack of dawn we ran to the seashore if the weather was fine. The air smelt with flourishing Krim pine, sea water and fresh paint.
On the cold sand and clean pebble of the beach we wake up completely, breaking in our joints, taking holds and escaping from them, delivering strikes and avoiding them. We tried to do this with utmost gentleness and even grace.
To say the truth not everything I managed to do at once. I was upset: after all I was a master of sport on sambo and judo, an experienced trainer, took part I competitions on karate, tae kwon do and hand-to hand combat… But the zest of this kind of Russian martial art always eluded me.
Later I started to see that the defence according to the Kadochnikov Systema is gentle, flexible and mobile. We got accustomed to rigid forms of defence: we may either meet a blow with a block or beat it back. Aleksey Alekseyevich Kadochnikov and his disciples meet the attack of a rival with slight touch of a hand. They kind of let it pass by and then masterfully attack. When attacking one motion turns into another. Aleksey Alekseyevich Kadochnikov want us to work using only one third of efforts; this relaxed manner conceal fearful smashing potential.
Seldom visitors of the beach (it was cold at 7 o’clock in the morning) were amazed watching a hundred of men at the seashore who were working thoroughly and without any fuss. Only knives with blunt edges that were knocked out with artful hand were flashing in the sun. And guns with closed up barrels were spinning in the air like gramophone records.
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