On the topic of shashkas, there was a TV series a few years ago called “Go Warrior”. The host, a young American martial artist called Roland Osborne went around the world investigating different martial arts: Korean Taekwondo, Brazilian Jiujitsu… and Russian Systema.

At some point, someone uploaded the systema programme to YouTube in three parts, which is where I first saw it. I had only recently heard about systema and was trying to find out more about it. I had read in William Gibson’s novel Pattern Recognition that systema had roots in Cossack dance, and these clips online showed me what that was all about. It was from the same segment that I learned that those cool Cossack swords were called shashkas.

There was a lot of really interesting material in those three clips; I would like to have embedded them here, but they appear to have vanished recently. They showed Roland training with Mikhail Ryabko and Vladimir Vasiliev in Moscow – a very interesting session because Tabby Cat is there in the background, and because I hear that Alexei Kadochnikov came to visit; a meeting that I see described on some sites as being the only time that Ryabko and Kadochnikov have met, though with all the factionalism that afflicts systema, I have no idea how true that is. It shows cossack dance-fights, a relaxation exercise with a dropped knife, a fight involving a knout… Lots of really good stuff.

It is in fact still available from someone else as one long clip:

Anyway, I do like to see people rewarded for their efforts so, having enjoyed what I saw on YouTube and learned a lot from it, I decided to buy the original DVD from budovideos.com (especially given that it was on sale!). It took three weeks to arrive, but when I eventually got time I put it into my Macbook, got ready to watch… and was very disappointed indeed. It’s almost entirely a different program – plainly from the same filming sessions, but incredibly lightweight, with almost none of the interesting material.

I simply don’t understand – how could the DVD be so different from what showed up on YouTube?

As readers of his blog will know, Tabby Cat has been in Beijing lately. I had the pleasure of catching up with him yesterday, and found him to be as interesting and good to talk to as I had expected! Tabby, I’ll looking forward to catching up next time you’re in town; watch out for an email soon.

We had lunch and then took a stroll around Zhongshan Park, exploring parts of it that I haven’t been to before. I was fascinated to discover that this is one of the areas where parents gather to advertise the personal details of their children, who are too busy for dating, in the hope of finding them a spouse. I’d read about this, but hadn’t realized that it happens in the same park where I train Funny old place, China…

In other words, “relax”.

Back to yiquan class again today. We were working on dragon postures, uprooting, and punching… Master Yao was reminding us constantly to relax, to stay soft… I’m a very stiff, tense, person: as I’ve very often mentioned in this blog over the years, I’ve had chronic stiffness in my left shoulder and lower back. That is, until I started to study yiquan with Master Yao Chengrong, since when I’ve been clearing it out. It’s not gone completely; it still is there for the moment, and tends to come back if I stop practicing, but it is definitely weakening. So… I was a bit disappointed to read Tabbycat’s recent post, which wasn’t up to his usual standard. It didn’t really make sense… he talks about yiquan and zhan zhuang, but then goes on to assert that only one particular taiji teacher is able to teach relaxation properly – a bit of a non sequitur, since he’s thereby trashing every other teacher of every other neijia style… Anyway, I’m sure it’s true in his experience, but I have to say that Master Yao Chengrong also does a pretty good job of teaching relaxation, IMHO. Tabby does give some interesting insights into catatonia, though…

Speaking of Master Yao, it seems I was misinformed – his birthday meal is not next week, but the week after… That’ll be a busy week, I’m having dinner with some Chinese and African NGOs the day before to see if they can use my internet skills….

After today’s class I went for a run around the lakes, and didn’t die. Actually, I had no problems with breathing at all – I guess all the cycling I was doing before my accident did have some benefits after all… Mainly my problem was, yes, posture, with my lower back really giving me gyp – something I remember from cross-country running at school, so this does go way back… I was wearing my Vibram 5-Finger shoes, which are great. There’s a bit of chafing where the straps are sewn on, but they really got me running from the front of my foot rather than the heel, which seemed to let me generate a lot more power. Having said that, I usually wear cowboy boots anyway (Twisted X calf ropers, FWIW), and those also seem to get me walking from the front of the foot rather than the heel, so go figure…

Other interesting links from the last few days:

• YMAA: The Dao of Kung Fu Why are martial arts practiced as a part of religious beliefs that teach compassion and humility?
• Stepping Into Freedom Becoming a Monastic in Plum Village
• The Guardian: Pakistan’s ‘heretical’ Muslims Increasingly threatened by religious extremists, Sufis are the inheritors of a tradition that predates Islam in south Asia
• The Telegraph: The rise and fall of oil production Conventional oil powers modern economies and provides around a third of the world’s energy. But many commentators forecast a near-term peak soon and subsequent decline in global production as the resource is depleted. Some expect this to lead to major economic disruption, with “non-conventional” sources being unable to fill the gap in the timescale required.

Master Sun Ru Xian is out of town, so I didn’t have class with him today. I did plan to get up early as normal, and just practice solo, but I woke up feeling lousy and decided to stay in bed. The headache’s lasted all day, I hope I’m not coming down with something.

There’s building work going on just outside the university walls. Typically, no-one warned us that the water supply would be affected. The block where the staff laundry is located has had no water for three days now. My block is OK, so my bathroom still has water, but there are some staff living in the laundry block, and they’re suffering. For me the worst of it is that I’m handwashing all my clothes in my bathroom. It’s not my forte, no matter how much I visualise Once Upon a Time in China II….

I did get out to practice this evening. After 20 minutes of zhan zhuang, the CMC-37 set must have been one of the best I’ve done so far. Today, the standing practice didn’t hurt at all, instead just striking the right balance of resilient softness… I’ve had a bit of a breakthrough on Snake Creeps Down, and have made adjustments so that it doesn’t pressure my knees so much. I followed that with a set of the xuan xuan broadsword, but my mental blank with that is still around. No worries, it will pass eventually – I’m confident it’s all still there in muscle memory, I just need to empty my mind enough to tap into it.

I spent most of the next hour working on Master Zhou’s wuji set, and I think I’m making good progress there; it’s coming back reasonably quickly, although many details remain fuzzy. I finished off with a bit of work on the ba da zhang, topped off with pan guan bi.

I attracted the attention of a moth again. What is it that they want? Do they like the salt in perspiration, or something?

By this time, it was past 9pm, and I was feeling pretty low on energy. My favourite dumpling shop outside the west gate stops taking orders at 9:30, so I hopped on my bike and went straight there – no time to go home and change, as I normally do. My arrival with broadsword slung over my shoulder, then laid on the table, caused a bit of a stir – more than I’d anticipated. The younger waiters all wanted to play with it. I really hadn’t expected it to be so strange for them – perhaps I’ve been spoiled by my experiences in Singapore! No matter what else I might say, it was a wonderful thing to live in a really old-school part of “Old Singapore”, full of wuguans (is that right?), temples, and so on, where the sight of people wandering around with swords and spears didn’t raise an eyebrow. I rather suspect that by the time I get back in August (for a visit only, my plans have changed…) a lot of that will already have gone. Singapore is losing its roots, sigh….

I spent some time this afternoon revisiting Tabby Cat’s older blog, the one describing his intensive yiquan course last year. This is the same that I hope to take a year after him – August 2008, compared to August 2007 for him. I’ve learned a lot since I originally read this, and have met Master Yao, so I am seeing different things this time round. Like Tabby (or should that be TC? No, then I only see childhood cartoon characters… Top Cat… heh…) I’m a firm believer in soft over hard; the CMC-37 set was the first taiji style I learned, and it’s still my favourite… I’ve seen for myself that the atmosphere in the Yiquan Academy can be pretty macho; not really my preferred environment… and yet I really think there’s something there that I can use to improve my taiji and bagua, as well as the inestimable value of the yiquan itself… I hope it all works out – fingers are crossed…