Greg Mihovich and the RMA principles of GPP vs SPP Soviet era sports science is legendary. With world changing training methodologies stemming from this flourishing time of research, hailing mobility, coordination and isolation exercises that are starting to become evermore commonplace --- not to mention the concurrent revived interest in the warrior traditions, wherein the Slavic combat arts where modernized and paired with this same scientific learning methodology based on sports and movement science. Thank you. Weve all tried RMA joint mobility and lower acrobatics, so we understand its importance. As I understand it, and as Ive said before many times: Im no historian. But it seems there was a unification in the Soviet classification and rankings of athletes. There was an idea of GPP: General Physical Preparedness. This was a general benchmark which quantified how well a persons body is to engage in physical activity. GPP includes things everyone needs. You might think of it as the basics of physical activity, general conditioning, running, basic movements. How fast you are, how strong you are, things like that. This is an important part of not just RMA training, but is crucial for all athletes. SPP on the other hand, this is Special Physical Preparedness. Its all about the specifics used in a given physical activity. So for example, lets say that youre a golfer. Then like all athletes, youd want to have good solid GPP. But youd also want to work on developing the specific muscles and skills that prepare you for a better golf game. I am not much of a golfer, maybe you are and you can tell us what exercises improved your game? How is this relevant to RMA and to all of us? Well, we all know that RMA contains a host of unique physical exercises. Many martial arts have snagged these up and incorporated them into their training programs. Which is cool. So whats the SPP of our art? GPP is evident I think. Run, go to the gym, stuff like that. Thats GPP. But there are also specific exercises that can help condition things generally that can improve your RMA game. These include joint mobility, lower acrobatics. This is the SPP for what we do. The concepts sort of blend into each other at some level, but I like this classification. People are often confused about what the basics of RMA actually are. Everyone knows the basics are important and in RMA, it is not about a set of robotic movements, but instead it is about getting the body to move properly. Conditioning all of the joints so they transmit force properly. Its more fluid and in my point of view something deeper and more useful than e.g. what youd get from a basic kata. Im just back from an #Izvor seminar with Micheal Grudev. I stuck around for a while, ended up training with him and Greg at the well equipped Underground Gym (UndergroundGym). Greg is a mobility and sports coach. He was innovative in his field: hes one of the ones who has been pressing this modern (about to be a trend) philosophy of natural movement in workout routines. In his gym youll find every sort of athlete, at all levels. Doing things such as RMA ground flow. :) And Gregs a nice guy. We trained together a bunch, during and after the workshop. I said I was interested in having him help with improving my lower acrobatics. He said sure no problem. But I wanted him to actually coach me and quantify my current ability. I wanted a scientific approach. So I went to the front desk and booked him to coach me. Gregs ground flow is off the charts. You can watch him in his videos that are 3-4 years old. Its good then, but something happened. Hes put the time in. I recommend everyone in RMA particularly in North American to spend 3 hours with the guy. What did we work on you ask? Well we started off with GPP for the spine. Heres a video showing essentially what the warmup was. https://youtube/watch?v=dymjPBikMnw&list=UUZ8lzQFQTCrTYE_s6dI5AOQ And then we went into some very detailed examples about various basic things that are common in RMA lower acrobatics: SPP for RMA. The detail and the precision was nothing short of uncommon. I was sniffing around for a while for someone who took this stuff to the next level and could provide insights. Gregs stuff hit the spot. Next time Im around, I want to film him a bit so everyone can see the current state :) References and notes. Michael Yessis is typically credited as being central to bringing Soviet era sports science to the West. To find out how and to see who else was involved, start here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Yessis #Systema #UndergroundGym #CombatSystema
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 15:00:35 +0000
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