Email: Socialist Martial Arts – ‘Systema’ (система)! (8.6.2022)

The cultural and religious baggage within Asian cultures generally means that it takes decades to finally arrive at the ability that Systema teaches from the first day of training (and only then, if the practitioner of the Asian arts has found a competent Master). This signifies the ‘Socialist’ egalitarian nature of ‘Systema’ where there were no coloured belts representing a fascistic and hierarchical grading system – as is common within Japanese culture. In the original Soviet – (and now ‘Russian’) – martial system (Systema), the highest form of inner and outer awareness, body-alignment, organisation and movement, as well as advanced technical manifestation – is taught first without any hesitation, whilst an individual’s psychological and emotional (spiritual) understanding of what a practitioner is physically experiencing has to catch-up over the many years of training.

Black History Month: Bolaji Badejo (1952-1992) – the Nigerian Actor Who Played the Monster in the (1979) Alien Movie!

In all the years I have re-watched the Alien movie (in various formats) no one has ever mentioned that an African man was essentially playing the lead-role in any of associated commentaries! How could this fact have been over-looked in a film that has gone down as iconic? He made all the sinister and threatening movements that made the ‘Alien’ believable and extremely disturbing and frightening to the watching audience and made the film what it was!