Andries Viljoen
Jul 28, 2017 · 2 min read

First off, let’s be very clear: There are at least a dozen Systema — Systema Ryabko, Systema Kadachnikova, Systema Spetsnaz, Systema Sibierski, etc. etc. etc.

Each has similar origins, and the current heads of each have similar backgrounds, which indicates that the history is, at the least, common, emerging heavily from Cossack traditions. Now, just like Karate, there are going to be a lot of garbage instructors out there. So they, like any martial art, are prone to being good or bad depending upon the instruction.

Most people can not get past the idea of slow training: the same thing that makes the Bujinkan so unpopular is what makes Systema very unpopular.

Systema Ryabko (through Vladimir Vasiliev, which is the most common in North America, so I’ll presume that’s to which you’re referring) is full of extremely good principles, which I suspect most well-trained traditional martial artists will be able to see. Like an internal art, I suspect it’s not for beginners (I know when I first saw it years ago, I thought it was a bunch of garbage — that they must be complying). The striking, which uses a relaxed body, well trained angles of attack, combined with proximity and the wave (a dynamic raising and lowering of the body weight), is brutal. Personally speaking, I’ve absorbed a lot of the principles into my own striking, and can drop an opponent with a very easy (no effort) punch. On the other side of this, the training for absorbing and redirecting the punch, while largely psychological, is of great use to anyone willing to train it.

I will say that it takes a lot of faith to learn it. It’s frustrating, because it seems so simple, but it’s anything but. It’s not about simply hitting your partner over and over. Further, the psychological aspects (the “psychic defense” — creating movement without making contact) takes a lot of practice, but is sound (study flinch behavior, fear, adrenal response…).

All in all, it’s very good if you have a very good instructor. If you don’t, you’ll just have a bunch of people standing around pummeling each other.