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Real oldheads remember when this video was called "I tried Systema...again"

This is where we need the Shank Tank from Ultimate Self Defense Championship. Curious how well he'd do, or if he'd just get dotted up with the maker like all the other contestants.

I like sceptical Seth, honesty I would enjoy you revisiting every style with the same mindset. Once enthousiastic, once sceptical... and see what comes out of it.

Sceptical but respecful obviously

It would be really interesting to see how one of them would fare in Ultimate Self-Defense Championship, its knife challenges in particular.

I'm going to be honest - In my mind;  it has a lot more validity simply because you went there and said that some of the shit that happened, you couldn't explain, but it absolutely worked.   You've earned the benefit of the doubt at the very least;  and if you say the shit has an application, I believe it.  Also, I like that he at no point told you to slow down.  In-fact;  he told you to "Just Stab Me."   He wasn't trying to protect his ego, or ensure that he could 'pull it off'.   That says a lot by itself.

Former Systema practitioner here (who has now transitioned to other martial arts). While a lot of Systema practitioners often overestimate the art, a lot of non Practitioners really (!) underestimate it or better said it's overall benefits for life in general in my experience. By the way - one of the founders of one style said Systema is 30 % self defense, 70 % a health system.

Of course, the biggest problem on it's own is that most schools never teach things at full speed and or worse - they act like speed wasn't a highly important factor in fighting. Also being as relaxed as possible while still doing what's necessary is nice and fine, but if your opponent just walks through you eating your punches the whole situation changes again. If you only train with people trying to relax all the time you don't see how different it would go with a tense tough guy going full speed. Those things give a completely false sense of security for real altercations and have to be addressed in most of these schools.

However, a lot of other martial arts, or at least nowadays schools teaching them, absolutely fail compared to Systema when it comes to building up body awareness, breathwork, biomechanics, precision, mobility drills and (especially deep tissue/fascia) strength in a healthy tempo to prevent injuries and help long term health outside of fighting. I mean only the amount of injures I have seen in my first year of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is insane (probably even worse than in the Thai Boxing Community, maybe only matched or surpassed by MMA). So many practitioners of whatever art go full on for a year or two, maybe four and then are damaged for life cause they overdid it, worked sloppy,  had weaknesses in their muscle chains, joints etc and their trainers never ever adressed any of it or at least far too little on the way to peak performance.

I myself feel like whatever else I was trying after training Systema for a few years was significantly more easy and I simply learned way faster,, was more precise and had less health related blowback of whatever kind. I would highly recommend everybody doing it for at least a year to see and feel the long term benefits. You cannot see the purpose of inner martial arts from the outside. It looks goofy, but the more you do it, the more you feel how much better your body is functioning, how much sooner you see potential areas of injury, how you can get tensions form a punch, jointlock, kick whatever out of your body, and also how to stay calm in stressful situations of all kinds.

"but this is a systema class and silliness must ensue" 😂

Sensei Seth is too nice for this kinda content. We need to get Icy Mike in there to call the guy a hack with a couple decent ideas in front of his face.

I did Systema when I was a kid, in the 90s, with Vladimir. The real function of this system was to get yourself relaxed in impossible situations. That's the function of all this. You can think clearer and survive if you're relaxed. It does not make you superman. When people did that "yeah, but what if ..." that everyone does in martial arts, Vladimir would say "There are knives. You will get cut."

6:30 ngl that superman pushup is super clean though

I like how you question the method of the art with out disrespect it

That was actually pretty dang cool, I especially appreciated the interview at the end

I think the most apt statement here is that they are very focused on flow state. I feel like that's where a lot of the strangeness of their training comes from. I think systema serves an experienced martial artist more than a beginner.

23:47 is a great example of the manipulative skill and hypnosis he created. You asked a vadlid question: the "attackers" get hurt physically, where the plastic knife is actually a clever foil to stop any actual attack. Instead of adressing your challenge, he talks about how he relaxes, breathes, and then punishes you for the challenge.

For me one of the biggest red flags is "I'll demonstrate this technique now, you can move at 10% and I will react to any non-complience with a spazzy 70%"

I used to do systema, and I have to say it's a bit of a mixed bag. The way they teach you to hit is useful, and learning to use internal movements is also useful. However it somewhat fails to find a use case to me. There is not competition, and I am not convinced that using systema in a self defense situation is actually useful compared to other options.

My other issue is that they don't exactly have sparring, and as you pointed out, when doing that multiple attackers with knives drill, the unarmed guy gets to beat the guys with knives, but they don't really get to strike back with anything other than the knife, which doesn't really hurt when they do make contact.
I think that if several of my guys who practice wrestling with daggers regularly were to do this with a systema practitioner, in proper gear, the systema practitioner would have a much harder time.

What I find interesting here is the body and movement awareness he's developed.  Yes, it looks weird, and I still harbor a fair bit of skepticism but the way he's able to move, and move other people is interesting and does seem like it holds some value.  Thanks Seth!

In a fight, you won't just fail to see the knife, but you also won't feel the cut or stab wound—it will feel like a punch.

20:50 “the knife is not stabbing me”. Sure, but it just slashed open the main arteries in your lower arm. Don’t try this at home kids.