By Clive Jefferies

All I remember was being late to start off with, I didn’t feel too good getting in the seminar while Mikhail was demonstrating, still I got there in one piece and was poised and ready for action. Firstly I remember Vladimir saying push-ups - what a great start.

His first thing was to let the breathing lead and the action to follow. Inhale----------Exhale - he sounded a bit like a hypnotist. OK, now we are led into the action. To start with I had a confusing partner, the idea was basic evasion. Easy. Next we add a little movement, jabs to be precise and finding ways in and out.

Mikhail’s demonstration made us all look stationary! I think we did a couple of drills with the same partner then we swapped. Guy No.2 I enjoyed working with. I got the impression he enjoyed a good sweat session too, so, now we moved on from avoiding kicks and using attacks. Now the seminar was gathering momentum, with arms, legs and bodies flying everywhere.

Next drill is to evade a grab. I am partnered with Rob Poyton - ‘ah a familiar face’ this was, as it happened to be a bad omen... Rob showed me a few moves and Mikhail then comes up and starts working on Rob. Me being the skeptic I am I ask for a demonstration (why?). Mikhail places his hands on my shoulders, the next thing I am
thinking ‘this doesn’t work’ until I find myself cowering on the floor nowhere near Mikhail.

‘Big deal’ the next thing I know I’m taking punches and the seminar has ground to a halt. ‘I can handle this’ (I don’t which I feared most, the punches or 100 or so people watching me) The first blow is fired through me. I go down thinking he just winded me. I get up and I feel a bit sick. Punch No.2 hits ‘OW’ i think is the word I used. There were four punches in all. The first I experienced was like a buzzing or blackness round the head. the second was the whole body buzzing, the third was just total energy loss and the last one was like an arrow going through me. By this time I am feeling the pinch and seeing people wince at my pain, but strangely it got easier and to a point of enjoyment when I realise I am being hit by a fighting master. The scary thing being that there is no trickery, this is for real. After the last punch David Kirillov asks how I feel, I look at Mikhail who indicates strength and low and behold I feel good, pumped up.

Now Vladimir takes us into push-ups again - oh good, he again shows us breathing and the pace we should breathe at. We do a few breathing cycles then we do ten holding our breathe which I found OK. We also do one to the count of twenty - not so easy. We do the same cycle again but with leg raises and squats - the three main sectors of the body? At this point we stop for food which I personally did not want to do, I know, but when working with these men an hour to wait seems like forever.

BACK TO IT AT LAST and Vladimir takes the stand. I get the feeling people are getting too much of Mikhail. I’m easy, both of these guys are worth listening to. So, we move onto pushes and evading the push but keeping still, not hard, letting the body push the hand past, I now see Vladimir move his body in what I can only describe as a wave. The is nothing for his opponent to push against. The next bit I find hard. I am partnered up with a ‘super killer’ who seems hell bent on snapping my neck and making me smell as bad as him too. Still, I continue with the drill. Disrupting the opponent’s structure and moving slowly ‘’bang’ I hit the floor again - I try to keep my cool but this guy was really testing my patience.

Still, I play by the rules and continue as planned giving the guy little tasters of his own medicine. I think Vladimir saw what was happening and interjected to give this guy a taste of hurt and taking the mickey out of the way I said ‘OW’.

So, on to knife work. First up is simple avoidance, moving the body in subtle ways to deflect the knife, then dominate the attacker. Easy. We stand against the wall and practice this. I skillfully manage to avoid the ‘super killer’ and work with a familiar face from the club. At this point I have loads of people asking if I am OK from Mikhail’s punches. By this time I was fine. So, now we are shown how to redirect the knife which is a little scary but matey from the club helps and I manage to work it out. Seeing Vladimir makes me realise I have a long way to go yet!

To finish off we move onto opposite squats and push -ups, then onto breathing. This involves tensing parts of the body with the breath eg.. left leg/left hand, right leg/right hand, stomach, chest , then arms and variations of these.
During the seminar we see Mikhail throw various people most of whom I had the pleasure to work with and Dean who I think works really well with Mikhail. Seeing Mikhail move is brilliant, what I can only liken to a ballet dancer but in a slightly bigger frame. There is loads more that I have forgotten which illustrates the amount of knowledge that was shared with us.