Re: Can anybody give me information on Russian MA...
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Out of curiosity was your first teacher in the military? If so is that were he learned all those martial arts. Yes and no. Sergei was an engineer, and this made him eligible for officer training, but in a reservist capacity, i.e. he didn't have to see a lot of action on the front. The implicaion I got was that he used military connections who had connections with chinese miitary connections to arrange the exchange program, so you could say that the military was involved in a way.He also had a job as a sort of debt-collector for *cough cough* genlemen requiring some discretion, which he later parlayed into a detective agency. A big difference between what he did and what you would expect from such a job description over here is that often the collectees were also organized, armed, and often dangerous.He got into that line of work as a result of his rep as a sport fighter. He'd made the papers a few times, gotten some championships, and on the Soviet street, a sport fighter was in demand as muscle, maybe a step below being in spetsnaz for value.I can corrobate this with what my friend Misha who used box during that time said - often street toughs would walk into his boxing gymn looking to boost their reps (and hourly rate) by going in the ring, and fighting dirty. His trainer would tell him "Infidel" (his coach was muslim) "if you do not beat this guy, you cannot box under me anymore." Misha's boxing is pretty dirty if he wants it to be -hidden elbows, cross buttocks that look like hooks, lotta old-school bareknuckle moves this guy knows ...Anyway, one interesting bit of information from my first teach - when he started out collecting, with just the sport background, he would win his streetfights, but would often sustain some injury in the process. However, he then met this guy Lavrov in Krasnodar (if you look on certain websites, there is a series of articles related to RMA, primarily by Pachenko. Most of Pachenko's articles try to discredit the idea of a native RMA, but one article on that page has an interview with Lavrov). Lavrov knew some RMA, and according to Sergei, it made a big difference - no more injuries, and he understood his other stuff better. Lavrov was deteriorating by then tho - too much drinking. Anyway, Sergei sees the writing on the wall, moves to Canada wth his wife and an incredible amouint of liquid currency, teaches at a karate school for pocket money (did I mention he also has a 5th dan in karate?) and hears about Vladimir. He sort of thought it was a scam actually, and he wandered in with a very smug attitude, thought he'd have some fun and show some people up - and then Vlad pounded on him in such a fashion that he realized that Vlad was way more advanced than anyone he ever saw, and he really had a lot to learn. A familiar story for the people in Toronto.Nowadays Sergei runs a resort camp in Eastern Ontario, doing quite well.