Saturday Morning Systema - Bridge and Clinch Fighting

For today, I decided to build off the last session and introduce the concept of the bridge, to borrow a term from Chinese martial arts.


What is the bridge?  It has been defined many times over, but I like to think of it as the functional centre of the mechanical interaction that is a physical fight.  Generally, it tends to fall between the 1/4-arm to 3/4-arm distance (though not always) because this is where a human being tends to be in the strongest possible position, anatomically speaking, to apply pressure forwards into one's opponent - too much or too little extension leads to insufficiency on the part of the musculoskeleture to efficiently apply force.


This zone of engagement is crucial to a fight because, whenever it is clearly defined, the joint centre of mass (from hereon referred to as JCoM) of both fighters, to borrow a term from Coach Sonnon's Immovable Object, Unstoppable Force series, falls herein.  By achieving structural dominance at the bridge, one can control the movement of the JCoM and thereby dominate the standup fight and, if necessary, bring it to the ground in a position of advantage.


I will write more on this topic later, but for now, suffice it to say that relatively few drills were performed today, but in great volume.  Today's class was focused and intense - just the way I like it to be.





Systema Singapore – Saturday Morning Group 05/06/2010



Objectives


-  attacking and defending structure for infighting



Warmup



-  IntuFlow basic routine


- Wall-walking with fists


- Floor-level walking lunge to Cossack knee switch on turn


- Neck and body pummelling



Bridge and Clinch Fighting Drills


- Defending the Bridge - pushes


- Defending the Bridge - strikes


-Defending the Bridge - bladework


- Pummelling to structural takedowns – neck and body



Step Sparring



- Reciprocal 5-step sparring with each structural deformation counting as one step