If you studied martial arts from a clinical perspective you would see that all real martial arts have similar principles. I shall explain why. All real battle arts of the world work following natural laws such as "the Law of Preservation of Energy", "the Law of Gravitation", "System of Levers", "Three Planes.", etc. Elementary mechanisms such as the Screw, Pulley, Wedge, Inclined plane, Wheel and the axle, etc. also work by these laws. The same is possible to say about psychological principles.

One should not fight or resist their environment, but relax and work with the forces acting against them. The mental state of a person and the amount of relaxation in their body are interrelated. The more stressed the body is, the tighter the body will become. The less stress the body is, the less rigid and the more pliable the body will be. Even the man who has it all is concerned with losing everything; thus, stress is a state which man will find few ways to avoid. Therefore, it is important to realize our level of control over stress is vitally important to reducing and alleviating it. When we control our stress, we control our body.

Throughout real Systems, the philosophy of non-resistance is stressed. We are constantly acted upon by forces around us even without being aware of them. We have a difficult time controlling their initial action upon us. But, the manner in which we address these forces is the level of control we will reach over them. In combat, a strike is a vector in space and it travels along a plane. We should, if at all possible, make an attempt to not interrupt its path, but simply let it travel upon its path. As it travels, we then begin to manipulate the plane, and thus, the direction and the velocity of the vector. In a similar vein, the idea of non-resistance to the world around us and then the controlling of the factors that affect us are vital to managing stress in our everyday lives. We work with the forces, manipulating them and applying our knowledge to them to make them work in a way that is beneficial to us. We adapt to forces and use ou! r state of mental and physical plasticity to minimize the effects they have upon us, and alter our plans and actions in relation to these forces.

Survival is self-preservation and as such, is an individual task. Though someone may work toward the overall survival of a group, they must first be able to survive as an individual in order to accomplish such a task. Survival, in the end, is equal to knowledge and the ability to correctly apply that knowledge. We don't resist the environment, but work with it, using our knowledge of the environment to create forces favorable to survival in association with that environment.

We will continue this theme at a later date…

Sincerely,

Maximtcov Alexandr Nicolayevitch
Robert Leifels