The Point

Tonight was another odd night. We worked on some new things that Mr Saxton learned at a seminar this past weekend. It was mostly systema techniques that involved using relaxed, gentle touches to take someone down or get past them. It's a matter of giving or supporting someone's balance with your own energy and then taking it away without them realizing it. Without exerting any physical force or pressure, you can still guide them to the ground and take the fight out of them.

We did also work some on refining our punches, again with a focus on staying relaxed rather than tensing into it. That way the power of the punch goes only out and through, rather than also reverberating back. This I understood and could feel a definite difference in against a hand-held pad during individual punches. As for putting it into practice to speed up a flurry of punches against a bag, I'm not sure how successful I was. The punching in and of itself is so new to me that such a flurry of them takes all my concentration, and I'm likely tensing subconsciously anyway. I would like to soon have another 'normal' session of punches, kicks, & blocks so that I can get more comfortable with them. Hopefully it'll happen next week.

The best thought I was left with tonight came directly from Mr Saxton: "The point of martial arts is NOT to fight."