I was impressed when I met Aleksey Alekseyevich Kadochnikov. He is pleasant and communicative man. He’s also very artistic. It looks like he works with two fingers but the knocked out weapons whistle in the air. He has beautiful grey head of hair and great posture.
The life under his belt was not all milk and honey. When he was a boy he was among the soldiers of Red Army who were last to retreat from Krasnodar on summer 1942. While retreating they were fighting. The soldiers were afraid that the boy could get lost and tired him to the saddle of a troop horse. Eventually this horse saved his life. There was artillery shelling and the boy on the horse became separated from the rest of the forces. In two days the exhausted animal brought Lesha to the place where our army halted. It looks like the kid was preordained to teach people the Russian martial art. Being at the front Alesha Kadochnikov saw the bayonet and close combat more often than textbook on arithmetic. The military school and Polytechnical Institute were much later.
Aleksey Alekseyevich Kadochnikov is a staunch supporter of the professional army that knows how to survive and defeat the enemy in different conditions.
-Learning the Russian martial art is a long process. Those who are in a hurry to cream usually burn their lips, – Aleksey Alekseyevich Kadochnikov told me when we were walking along the seafront in Alushta…
Once I was offered a job by the Krasnodar committee. My task was to train the task forces. Their purpose was to render aircraft hijackers harmless.
I worked with them for some time and they managed to learn some elements of the Russian martial art. But before them was still big work when specialists from the committee closed the project.
I remember the situation when someone offered a competition, a kind of a game. The KGB men played the part of terrorists and my students (who worked with me for a long time) should neutralize them. This was agreed. I suspect the Committee wanted to test us. They didn’t even execute all our conditions. For instance I asked to land the plane so that it faced the sun. In this case our group would not shadow on the ground. They also locked all the hatches. Though we got them before the “air pirates” could reach their guns…
Using the opportunity I asked Aleksey Alekseyevich Kadochnikov:
-I know you don’t like talking about the closed military school you graduated after the war. May be you can outline what you were taught there? What skills are necessary in reconnaissance forces? Please, decipher your favourite phase – “school of survival”.
-We were not informed what system we were taught, -he said with strain in his voice – eighteen teaches were working with each of us. Let’s change the topic…
Recently I came across the instruction for training the soldiers in the USA army. I agree with the author of the manual who included the material about subversive activities, how to deal with radio devices and drive car, some medical skills, tests on shooting and close combat. But I would also add skills of time realization. This is no less important than having a strong arm. People who lived in 60-s differ great deal from the modern generation. I also would rather not forget about ethnic groups. Information about their lifestyle and culture may be very important in a combat situation. It really matters who are in your unit – Turkman or Estonian people…
There is another piece of information from the “Kadochnikov Systema”:
– Lay of land, sailing directions of rivers and peoples, region’s flora and fauna, local diseases, habits of birds and animals, dog training, ability to escape from them – you have to know all these things to survive.
In the past the Russian soldiers were famous for their wit and ability to appear unexpectedly. May be these skills still don’t have the exact definitions but was kept through ages passing from conscription to conscription… This is how I understand the notion “Russian martial art”.
Absorbing the laws of the “School of Survival” you start having more acute realization of the surrounding world and nature. You get inspired by the idea of being part of all this wonder…
Let’s have a look at the Russian martial art considering everything said above. I always tell the young ones not to learn how to fight but study the laws of natural sciences and first of all mechanics, geometry, anatomy, physiology. Otherwise you won’t be able to talk the same language even with me.
The genuine combat happens not in the gym and your knowledge should be diverse likewise. The unsurpassed skill is a close combat in a trench in the situation of limited space; being able to avoid the strike keeping the contact with a rival without wasting your efforts. This is what you should aim at…
I remembered how Aleksey Alekseyevich Kadochnikov acted in a situation when two “opponents” pressed him to the wall holding knives close to his throat. In the twinkling of an eye the knives flew up in the air and the “offenders” were lying at his feet. This is how physics and geometry work…
It was raining outside. The weather was bad. We were quite comfortable in a huge volleyball gym. “One-two-three: three strikes with feet. One-two-three: three strikes with arms. Avoid a knife. Knock out the gun… If you come at me with an automatic gun, I will work according to the system: a weapon that can’t be knocked out should be taken away…”
-Listen, why are you doing this – whispers one of the voices inside me, the weak one. – You already have all the material you need. Have a rest. Go to shower.
But I don’t listen to this voice. I feel ashamed to leave my comrades. Besides I constantly have feeling that at this exact moment I will learn something especially important, something I can’t miss. Something that will help me in the future. Something that will save life and dignity. And it doesn’t matter will it be my life or someone else’s… Isn’t it enough to make oneself to be a bit more patient?
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