A huge thanks to all that attended ‘The Gathering’ Systema Instructor Festival in Adelaide, Australia.
It was a great two days of training with attendees and instructors from all over Australia and a great step in strengthening the Ryabko / Vasiliev Systema community.

A wide range of topics were covered by the following instructors,

Steven Moore – Ground Work
Systema United / Gold Coast / QLD

Anthony Gatti – Aspects of Weight
H2H Tactics / SA

Andrew Barnes – Combative Movement
Systema Canberra / ACT

Craig Natt – Softness For Health & Combat
H2H Tactics / SA

Michael Conroy – Wave Striking
Systema Toowoomba / QLD

James Cook – Knife Flow
Systema United – VIC

David Mundi – Connection
H2H Tactics / SA

Find these instructors at the ‘Learning Systema’ page on our website and connect!

We look forward to sharing video from the event and plans are underway for ‘The Gathering ‘ 2025

Over the recent years I have read with interest on the internet back and forth as to the validity of training in Systema by observers who have only viewed experts in the art on YouTube or video. Usually a comparison is made to the most visual of fighting arts, mixed martial arts. The same types of questions are posted over and over again, “Why do they train slowly? Why does this look way too easy? Why did that guy fall over and seem unable to get back up?”

And I read with equal interest the various ways in which the art is defended by practitioners of Systema. Not that they are not valid questions, they definitely are, it is just I rarely hear these same questions from anyone in seminars, classes, or in sparring sessions, no matter what their background or what speed they work at.

Just for the sake of balance, I began in the martial arts at a tender age and have studied in many full contact environments from boxing systems to grappling systems, to clever weapons based and ‘street-fighting’ arts, and have enjoyed sparring, fighting and training for the last thirty years with anyone who’s paths I have crossed from beginners to world-class full contact fighters. I was a bouncer for ten years and I am currently contracted to share my views on close-quarter-combatives with professionals from elite security services around the world, as-well-as MMA fighters, Systema practitioners, traditional martial artists and civilians.

So why, if I have studied all these other full contact systems with relative success, would I choose Systema?

For me that is easy to answer. It’s because I have tried it. I am just one of many who brought whatever I had in my little bag of tricks to test Vladimir Vasiliev, or heaven forbid, Mikhail Ryabko, when I first met them. And I have yet to see anyone who did not come out the other end of the experience the same as I did, that is to say, confused, in pain but with a profound insight into the fact that something fundamental had changed.
To put it mildly, there is a lot more going on with Systema than meets the eye. And if there were not, if you could really just see what was happening by watching it on YouTube, then it would not be very good Systema.

Mixed martial arts are dramatic, fast and superbly visual. The best method for two pugilistic grapplers to go at it since the gladiators of old Rome. You can see what is happening and the results are self evident. It hosts some of the best conditioned and most versatile athletes.

I love to watch it, I love to train in it and always enjoy working with anyone from that world. And in my opinion, anyone who trains in MMA who is even half decent, a man or woman, is to be taken very seriously.

So I hear you ask: Well, if Systema is so good why isn’t it in the UFC? And I think that is an excellent question.

But I might ask: Well, if the UFC was any good why don’t they throw a knife in the cage?

As unrealistic as that is, maybe you get my point? The dynamic of a fight would change immediately if a knife were indeed tossed into the cage. You would see two highly trained fighters having to immediately adapt to a completely new set of rules or die almost instantaneously.
I think anyone would agree that eating jabs from a skilled fighter, possibly the least lethal of MMA striking attacks, sucks, but by comparison is quite pleasant compared to a single knife wound.

When I first trained with Vladimir he stopped me in the middle of a sparring session and said in his own inimitable way, ‘Martin, I know men that you would take to pieces in the ring’. Of course, stupidly beaming with pride I thought he was complimenting me, until he turned away to attend another student and added flatly… ‘But they would kill you.’

And there’s the rub. Almost every visible strategy, philosophy and motion that is great in an MMA sport environment is useful in the street and even on the battlefield. But only useful. Whereas everything in Systema is purposely designed for both of the later environments, is not visual, and has been proven as effective in those arenas as MMA has in the cage. Systema’s structure is intentionally designed to appear structureless, and the speed of the action although registering as slow to the eye is actually a highly developed relational timing, deceptive due to the Systema practitioner remaining calm.

Recently I was invited to introduce the concept of Systema to an overseas Special Operations Unit. While there, I was shown a video of various instructors that had been invited to train their operators and show what they had to offer. Among them was a top MMA coach from Pride. I asked what they thought of his training. ‘Excellent’ the Colonel said ‘but for us, virtually useless.’

This is in no way disparaging to the Pride coach, he was obviously excellent. But the fact remains, what is good in one arena is not necessarily good for another. Systema is not designed primarily for a sport environment or a sport mentality anymore than MMA is primarily designed for a battlefield environment or a combat mentality.

One could train for twenty years in Jujitsu, for example, and be an amazing grappler. But if you were to introduce just one more opponent into the fight you would not be doing Jujitsu anymore. It is simply not designed for fighting two opponents efficiently at the same time, even on the ground. It is primarily structured to fight one opponent at a time.

I am not saying the Jujitsu fighter would not prevail, I am merely suggesting that if he had to fight two or more possibly armed opponents at the same time on a daily basis then his training might soon start to look, at least from the outside, like Systema. And then armed with that knowledge, the way he worked against a single opponent again would also dramatically change. After ten years or so it would look as alien to another Jujitsu practitioner observing it from the outside as Systema does now after centuries of refinement.

Systema, as a martial art, in the form it exists now is primarily designed for real life application, it works for unpredictable situations (such as multiple opponents, various weapons, uneven terrains, poor lighting, confined space, etc.) for professionals in the military, law enforcement and security, for someone who’s got to fight while injured or wounded or has to protect a woman or child, for someone who is older or in a poor physical condition. Training and fighting in Systema is designed to avoid injuries, and even heal your old ones. And that requires a very different bag of tricks, look and feel to a sport fighting art.

Although, as Vladimir once remarked with that casual profound quietness ‘Systema just happens to be a martial art’. And to have any understanding of that gem, one cannot merely observe it from the outside…

Article by Martin Wheeler of The Academy Beverly Hills 

Originally published September 8, 2009 on Systema Toronto HQ 

Most people who attend their first Russian Systema class, come with preconceived ideas about what they will get from training.
Often people have the wrong idea, as a result from their experience in other martial arts or combat sports (as practitioners or spectators); some come with distorted or even unrealistic ideas, probably taken from Hollywood movies.

In general, we can divide these people in two groups:

1. Those who expect to find techniques that are devastating, savage, and aggressive, techniques that brutalize the opponent and that allow them to easily defeat any adversary. They want to be invincible!
2. Those who expect to find in Systema a martial art that develops their inner energy, chi or ki, with techniques that transcend the physical realm and that, with no effort nor pain, allow them to easily defeat any adversary. They also want to be invincible!

Unfortunately, both approaches are utterly wrong.
Some people from the first group get disappointed because they don’t find the physical and emotional aggressiveness, competitiveness and savagery they consider a martial art must have.
Some people from the second group get disappointed because they realize that Systema requires lots of effort, proper biomechanics, physical pain, and emotional challenge.

Understanding Systema requires an expansion of your mentality. What you should expect from Systema is this:

– Systema is self-defense, it is not sport and not fighting.
Simply put, combat sports and fights are ‘duels’, it means, two people want to hurt each other. Self-defense, on the other hand, implies one person who wants to hurt someone, and another person who doesn’t want to get hurt. This subtle difference completely changes the dynamics of a confrontation.

– Systema is integral, it is not specialized.
Martial arts specializing in one aspect of combat were not created for self-defense, they are sports, and yes, they are dangerous and effective in their specialty. And of course, the abilities they develop can be very useful in a self-defense situation (just like a ballet dancer can easily kick you in the face for self-defense, but ballet wasn´t created for self-defense). A self-defense situation requires having developed abilities suitable for any possible situation: standing, on the ground, several attackers, weapons, confined spaces, defending another person and many more scenarios. Self-defense is not specialized, that’s why Systema offers an integral approach to it.

– Systema won´t teach you a syllabus of techniques.
Having a repertoire of techniques that you must learn and repeat until “perfection” only limits your infinite possibilities of movements to those that your syllabus allows.

What Systema aims for is an integral development of your abilities, it does not aim for perfection, it aims for freedom; it does not aim for muscle memory, it aims for muscle intelligence; it does not aim for learning, it aims for understanding. It does not aim for limiting your abilities, it aims for expanding them.

– Systema is not apparent.
Physical and emotional aggressiveness and violence are expressions of fear, they alert the aggressor and prepare him to confront you. Being emotionally altered diminishes your capacity for judging the situation, which leads you to the wrong decisions. Systema is not apparent. It’s goal is facing a situation in a relaxed and efficient way, without presenting yourself as a danger, or a threat. Do what you have to do, without extra gesticulations, without showing off, in a subtle way.

– Systema hurts.
Even though one has to keep a relaxed body and psyche, punches, kicks, levers, locks, etc. one must be efficient; the body cannot be tense or rigid, it must be relaxed, smooth, heavy and painful. Pain and physical effort are fundamental in Systema, because they allow you to train your body and psyche to understand the real physical dimension of pain (and fatigue), eliminating the emotional burden that intensifies it. It helps you know your real limits. But, this must be done progressively, avoiding injuries that harm the body and alter the psyche. Pain teaches, injuries destroy.

– Systema does not require years of training.
As any human activity, Systema requires serious and constant training to develop your abilities to an appropriate level, but it does not require years for those abilities to be useful in a self-defense situation. It´s a progressive development, but does not take years.

– Systema must be practiced for a lifetime.
If Systema doesn’t require years of training, why it must be practiced for a lifetime? Unlike other martial arts, one should not train Systema all their life to achieve “technical perfection”, repeating the same movements again and again. Very much on the contrary, your Systema must change as you get older, the reason is very simple: if your body and psyche change as years pass, it´s logical that your Systema must change too. What you were able to do at 20, your body won’t be able to do at 40 or 60. The only way in which your Systema can adapt to the abilities according to your age, is by constant training, all your life. You change, your Systema changes with you.

– Systema does not make you invincible.
Systema allows you to develop abilities to defend in an effective and efficient way, but it does not make you invincible. This is why you must take into consideration that a confrontation is the last option. Fighting isn’t good or bad, it isn’t necessary or unnecessary, but it is always dangerous.

Article by Bratzo Barrena of Systema Peru

Originally published July 26, 2017 on Systema Toronto HQ 

Great work from the H2H Tactics crew in Adelaide for the recent Lessons From Japan seminar held Sunday 14th April.
Instructors David & Anthony shared some great insights and learnings from their recent training trip to Japan.

The main theme was ‘Perceive and Adapt’ covering lessons learnt from Vladimir Vasiliev’s Osaka seminar.

Further concepts of lightness, power and mobility, gained from working with so many skilled practitioners and senior instructors whilst in Japan were also shared.

All participants showed great growth throughout the day of solid training.

H2H Tactics holds regular weekly classes in Stepney, Adelaide and always welcomes new members.
Find them on facebook or H2HTactics.com 

Joining over a hundred participants from not only Japan but all over the world over two full days and a special class, excellent material and great knowledge was shared.

Vladimir’s dynamic demonstrations and deep knowledge is something that everyone needs to experience in person.

Australia was well represented with,

Instructors
Steve Moore – Systema United Gold Coast
Michael Conroy – Systema Toowoomba
David Mundi – H2H Tactics Adelaide

Instructor in Training
Anthony Gatti – H2H Tactics Adelaide

and keen student Alu from Adelaide

All Australian participants are returning with a wealth of knowledge and insights to share!

Find a school or group in your area here – Learning Systema