Our goals are very different to the recreational gym user. We aim to calm the nervous system, not inflame it. How much calmer would it be if we spent the 3 hours a week practicing the exercises and breathing taught by our Systema instructors instead of lifting weights in the gym?

Also a lot of the body building style exercises isolate a muscle group to work it. In Systema we are learning to move as a whole person and not a series of isolated parts that is why we exercise the way we do.

Body building also inflate the ego as we try to appear to have physical superiority over others. You only have to look around any gym to see people gazing at their reflections in the many mirrors to see this is true.

Holding onto what we have already learnt.

Finally as our understanding of Systema improves we find that we can achieve beautiful work. When this happens the temptation is to hold onto it, because finally we have arrived. Our pride does not realise that to develop further we have to be able to discard this work to improve. When we practice we need to find dirty work to polish.

By this I mean we need to try new possibilities for movement. When they do not work we analyse what went wrong and improve on this the next time. This way we slowly remove what is holding us back, as if we were removing dirt from something precious through polishing.

When we realise that the only thing holding us back is ourselves, we can learn to become free. For me this is worth aspiring to.