Parkour and CST/Russian Martial Arts

It turns out that I am not the only one who has noticed the similarities between the Russian martial arts, Scott Sonnon's CST and the practice of Parkour. Here is an article by Dan Edwardes over at Parkour Generations on the similarities between CST and Parkour:

Le Parkour (1), though crystallised into its current guise by Frenchmen David Belle and Yann Hnautra sometime in the 1980s, is a practice the roots of which precede records. It has drawn on a myriad of sources, been inspired by a number of notable individuals and evolved through several traditions to arrive at the modern discipline now referred to as parkour or free-running. Names and labels come and go, of course, and the outward visage of this discipline has shifted and modified itself countless times. However, behind whatever appearance has been fashionable at the time, at its core there has always existed an eternal constant – the means, the end, the method and the goal of parkour: Movement.

You can read the rest of the article here.

I have been thinking a lot recently that the combination of CST/Russian martial arts and Parkour would be the ultimate martial art. To bring it all together I would add the nature awareness training of Tom Brown Jr. (in particular the Scout training), and Jon Young.

Russian Martial Arts

I have been studying the Russian martial art known as Systema for a little while now. Apparently the two main instructors are going to give a demonstration at the UN. Here is the info from their e-mail update:

Systema Founders Mikhail Ryabko and Vladimir Vasiliev have been invited to present Russian Martial Art at the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007. Celebrating the United Nations’ Commitment to Peace on its 62nd Anniversary, three or four of the world Martial Art have been selected to present their styles to the Untied Nations Assembly.

After the presentation, the Systema masters will be filmed for the new Discovery Channel program. The filming will take place on Thursday October 25th And then… Mikhail Ryabko and Vladimir Vasiliev will stay in Manhattan, New York to teach special workshops at Fighthouse on Friday October 26th from 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm and on Saturday October 27th from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm.For more details and to register for the workshops contact Edgar at: 212-807-9202 or systema@fighthouse.com

Scott Sonnon of RMAX International also has some updates. He is an expert in the Russian martial arts (although not the same as Ryabko/Vasiliev above) and is currently involved in training an MMA fighter for the UFC. Anyway it looks like you'll be able to see him on TV soon as well:

If you're waiting for the highly anticipated History Channel's HUMAN WEAPON Episode on Russian Sambo, featuring Scott Sonnon's Coach Alexander Retuinskih, here is the information we've received:

HUMAN WEAPON Episode on Russian Sambo will run on Nov. 9 on the History Channel at 10 p.m. EST.


Meantime please check:

Coach Sonnon's new blog - www.ScottSonnonLive.com
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