In the autumn of 2016 I was asked to meet with an actor who was meant to play a lead role in series about a guy with Russian roots, who grew up in London, works in a financial firm in the city, and doesn’t want anything to do with the stereotypical, often imaginable “Russian Mafia”. This resonated with me- really, this is the story of my life!
During a wonderful lunch at Holborn (that the production company treated us to, which made food even tastier) I tried to explain to James Norton some of our methods and philosophy. What stood out for him, I think, was the way we deal with fear: We do not overcome it, we do not pretend it’s not there, we do not pile aggression on top of it. We do accept that it is part of us, we learn to recognise the onset of fear, and try to mitigate the physical manifestations of it. In short, we shake fear by the hand.
And then we trained, both privately and in group lessons.
What a great student, and a good man James turned out to be! He picked things up quickly, he did the work, including the challenging and painful drills, he actually got a pretty heavy strike on him! And he made tremendous progress quickly. I feel James picked up the depth of what we do, and understood that combat is just a side effect of making Systema a part of your life.
It has been an honour and a pleasure working with James on this project!
Participating in McMafia project gave us an idea on how to share Systema with others. While there is no substitute for regular training in whatever skill you want to master, whether it’s playing a musical instrument, skiing, or martial arts, there is a way to convey critical information to a small group of people to change their lives almost instantly, after a few hours of training.
The mini workshops that we run will give you:
Questions welcome.
