In the Krasnodar center.

In the spring of 1996, the war ended for me. I was appointed chief of staff of the detachment located in the PPD, where I left. From the war, in addition to combat experience, I brought undermined health, shattered nerves and was psychologically unprepared to command subunits in peacetime.

I was burdened by the service, I was sick, I was in conflict with the commander of the detachment. Perhaps this, perhaps other motives led to the fact that I was sent to study at the Krasnodar Center for Retraining Special Forces Officers.

There were four of us from the brigade of different ages and different positions. First, we arrived at the Krasnodar Rocket School, from where we were taken to a training center located not far from Lenin's Farm, where the main part of the training took place. It was an unusual study. We started from the basics and common truths, which, as it seemed to us, had long been mastered. Imagine our surprise when we realized that we don’t know a lot, and we learned some of the known wrong. We were taught to relax, feel and understand the state of mind and body. It took us two morning hours.

By the beginning of the second week of classes, we were already able to control our heartbeat and breathing, some of us felt how energy waves pass through the body. An understanding was born which of the organs needed treatment, and mentally it was possible to induce blood flow there. We learned to think correctly and clear the head from extraneous thoughts, to think in images. Gradually, peace of mind came and our army problems began to seem like something distant and insignificant.

Hand-to-hand combat began with proper walking and a quick warm-up with a large number of applied elements and stress on muscles that are normally not used much. Much time was devoted to lower acrobatics, the ability to fall correctly, crawl and roll. There were no techniques as such, we were simply shown various options for rational actions using the mechanics of the human body. Understanding came in the course of the study. Hand-to-hand combat was conducted by Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Pavlovich Danilov. He never discarded the skills we already had, but as if imposed on them rational principles of constructing a fight. I was pleased that my martial arts skills were in demand and helped to increase overall efficiency. We, with the seeming sameness, were completely different in the construction of techniques. I learned a lot of things that are not taught in martial arts and that are not in army manuals.

We learned to use the moment of surprise, overcome obstacles, fall from a height and provide the right mutual assistance to each other while doing this. After a week of training, we began training with weapons - both attack and defense, taught somersaults, rolls and crawling with weapons. They studied a knife against a machine gun and vice versa, methods of detention with weapons and methods of inflicting fatal blows. All this took almost six hours a day.

There was not a single muscle that did not hurt. But I was glad that I was mastering the system, which I got to know back in Chechnya. Shooting training was after hand-to-hand combat, so we always shot against the background of physical fatigue. The shooting was led by Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Ivanovich Sergienko, whom I met back in Chechnya. It was a daring melee shooting, instantaneous in which the magazine takes off in one and a half to two seconds. Shooting training also started from scratch.

They learned the correct stance, the correct grip and hold of the weapon. We learned to keep the horizon and feel the direction of the trunk, here the first classes on introspection were very useful. The stances with weapons corresponded to stances in hand-to-hand combat, movement too. We worked a lot "idle", practicing the elements of shooting. There were exercises that required the direction of the weapon at the "enemy", the role of which was played by a comrade. With all this, a well-thought-out organization of classes ensured our safety.

When we achieved a confident heap hitting the targets, shooting began on the move. After a while, the targets began to move, after a while we ourselves made somersaults, changing positions and levels. They shot for time, speed and accuracy, with limited lighting and no lighting at all. Approximately once a week, they went to the shooting range, where the acquired skills were applied to machine guns.

We also learned to shoot from a moving car, threw grenades from various positions. It would seem that things are not related to hand-to-hand combat, but the general principles of biomechanics worked great here as well. I would like to speak separately about the spiritual component of our studies. Eastern martial arts are not perceived without the energy of "qi" or "chi". We studied something similar, including some differences in the location of energy centers in Eastern and European people. Learned to control this energy and learned to find keywords for entering a fighting trance.

We also studied volumetric vision, that is, the ability to see the entire combat volume and know the boundaries of eye perception. Somehow smoothly we got into the section of psychology that studies the reserve capabilities of the human body. The psychological direction was closely related to medicine, in which there were practical classes. We studied manual therapy, methods of influencing biologically active points, the work of organs and joints, medicines and homeopathy.

They also studied the provision of life in the wild. These were very interesting activities. It's one thing to read about how to cook something edible from herbs or mushrooms, it's quite another to do it practically and try to eat it. Here you learn much faster, and everything is remembered for a long time. Two months of study flew by quickly, and we returned to our former duty stations. To be honest, the commanders who sent us for training did not understand what they could teach us useful.

The acquired skills were individual, did not fit into the combat training program and significantly changed the outlook of those who received them. I began to see the world around me not only through the prism of military reality, but also from the point of view of civilians. Suddenly I realized that I no longer want to pursue a career in the army. And six months later I ended up in Krasnodar, where I renewed contacts with Sergienko and Danilov. Being freer from military duties, I communicated with various categories of people, but such communication is more difficult than military. In the army, communication is regulated by the charter, the concepts of honor and morality.

All servicemen represent a certain social stratum with their own interests and position in society. In life, everything is much more complicated: bandits, security officials, businessmen, athletes, professors and criminals, clever people and simpletons. Each with its own interest and often these interests come into conflict. A military man, without special training and adaptation, will feel discomfort. In part, I had such an adaptation, thanks to the training I received, but I had no experience. By bumping and failing in the naive projects of the late 90s, I quickly gained the necessary experience. In order not to lose physical shape and shooting skill, he periodically trained with Danilov and Sergienko.

 Our relations no longer had a strict subordination and were friendly, and after the part was reduced in 2002 and Danilov and Sergienko were in civilian life, they became friendly. They had to get used to civilian life and look for work. They tried themselves in different areas. We worked in construction and restaurant business, but everything was not to our liking. We often gathered and recalled our stormy military youth. At one of these meetings, the idea was born to try to teach the system to civilians.

Vladimir Danilov opened a hand-to-hand fighting section in the city. Thanks to his own skill and the available methodological skills, he quickly gained popularity not only in the city, but also in other regions of Russia, as a martial artist, and his students achieved significant success in hand-to-hand combat. However, civilians need to be trained differently than the military is trained. By trial and error, they adjusted the old developments to civilian life. It was more difficult to organize firearms training. It is impossible to find a shooting range and start training in shooting from military weapons for everyone.

I had to switch to self-defense weapons and revise the principles and tasks of training. Air guns, paintball and airsoft have proven to be very effective in teaching the basics of high-speed shooting and close combat tactics, so they were also introduced into the training program. Sergienko continued to test the techniques in the transport riot police.

The counter-terrorist operation in the Chechen Republic, which was in full swing, sparked a surge in the interest of special forces in the training system of the Krasnodar center, which has proven itself well in practice. Many of the officers who were trained during their service in the special forces of the GRU served in the special forces of other departments. They then recommended to their commanders to invite Sergienko and Danilov for training. Thanks to such recommendations, classes are conducted with the Krasnodar and Novorossiysk "Alpha", the St. Petersburg group "Grad". All this improved the future system. During one of our meetings, Sergienko introduced me to the president of the VOLKh security academy, Mikhail Borisovich Ivanov. He is a bright patriot of his native faith and Russian martial arts, he has long maintained contacts with Vishnevetsky, Sergienko and Danilov. At the meeting, we agreed on cooperation, which resulted in demonstration performances at VDNKh and exhibitions of edged weapons. Simultaneously with this, seminars were held with the soldiers of the Moscow transport OMON.

Then the question arose that the system should have its own name. The discussion took place at a recreation center near Moscow at the Pirogov reservoir. It was there that Mikhail Borisovich Ivanov proposed to give the system the name SBOR. It is both a word denoting a group of people gathered by a single purpose, and an abbreviation that stands for the Combat Russian System.

Since the summer of 2004, this name has become the official name of the system. A little later, the Center for Combat Excellence "SBOR", headquartered in Krasnodar, was launched. We were all then either under or over forty years old - the age when you can draw a small line under what has been done and determine the direction for the future. The main thing is that we did not give up doing martial arts and even created something along the way. Now we had to determine the direction of the System's development: put the work with special forces at the forefront, declaring our “peculiarity” and “chosenness”, or go “among the people”, making the system accessible to master and effective in application by a person of any age and profession.

We decided to go “to the people”. We also decided to increase the health and fitness component of the system. To do this, it was necessary to collect all the methodological developments together and publish them in the form of an encyclopedia. I was instructed to systematize and put the materials on paper. I agreed and took on the job, which took about five years. As the system became better known, the press also became interested in it. Popular science programs “Shock Power” and “Men's Games”, articles in central newspapers and specialized magazines are published. The experience of using the Internet resource appears.

The first site sbor.su, developed and opened by Mikhail Borisovich Ivanov, existed for about a year. After all, we are people of the old formation and did not know what was interesting to the Internet public and what form of presentation of the material should be. There was a lot of diverse information on the site and not all of it related to the SBOR. Something was not ready for publication, and some material simply did not exist yet. After the site was closed, separate pages were developed and posted to the resource of the Krasnodar Association of Veterans "Alpha" (www.alfa-krasnodar.ru/sbor).

The SBOR has developed especially warm and friendly relations with the association. Alpha veterans played a positive role in the development of the system, with their support the book "Combat Russian Collection System" was published, seminars and competitions are regularly held. Soon, quite naturally, the need for a full-fledged independent Internet resource arose. By this time, the style of presentation of the material and the author's face of the site had already been developed. In the summer of 2011, the work on creating the site was completed, it was named sborsys.ru

The methodology of the system was constantly improved at seminars, training camps and personal trainings, but expressing all this on paper turned out to be a difficult task. I collected materials from Danilov, Sergienko, Ivanov, after which I began to systematize and adapt them to the perception of the general public.

I had to completely write the historical part. There was a lot of controversy and disagreement here. History is generally contradictory, but we took on a task that no one had solved before us: to write history from the point of view of close combat. Fortunately, during this period I studied at the Civil Registry Office and had access to extensive historical sources, thanks to which I managed to cope with a new and unusual task for us.

The rest of the parts required new photographs and partial reworking of old material. We have dealt with this too. The manual itself was published in the summer of 2011. It quickly found recognition in scientific circles and received the title of "The best teaching aid of the year." To date, this is perhaps the only manual devoted to domestic combat systems in volume, reliability and quality of presentation of information that meets modern requirements. After the publication of the manual, the dissemination of the SBOR methodology and the System itself went faster. It is easier for instructors to work with this material on hand.

We have come to the conclusion that the SBOR System has basically been created. She made us friends and became one of the meanings of our life. Today the focus of our activity is shifting towards the promotion of the system. It is not enough to personally know that it is effective, dynamic and easy to use, it is important to convey this to people. Here new difficulties arose. To date, the information space is quite filled with various materials in this area. It is quite difficult for an unprepared person to figure out where is really worthwhile and where is superficial.

At first, we ourselves felt the wary attitude of people associated with this topic. Some saw us as competitors, others considered us "cormorants", others had an established opinion and did not want to perceive anything new. In order to dispel doubts, we held a series of demonstration performances on TV with the Army Shop program, wrote and published articles with materials on the System, and took part in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta press conference. Activities in this direction will continue.

Subtotal I have never regretted what was done and the efforts that were spent on the creation of the System. In order to somehow summarize all of the above, I will briefly outline the personal motives and goals that guided me while taking part in the creation of the System. I was not satisfied with martial arts in terms of their applied use in combat training and their effectiveness in army hand-to-hand combat.

Even the Russified version of karate was not suitable for Russian reality and military practice. The Russian combat system, which I studied in the Krasnodar Center, had a greater applied value from the point of view of combat use, but did not have the same methodological harmony and conceptual design as oriental martial arts.

This system was intended to train military intelligence specialists. I was driven by the desire to make the acquired skills suitable for use in self-defense, for the physical development and health of any person. Search for spiritual practices and moral motivations based on national principles and suitable for the Russian soul. The desire to self-actualize and present their own experience and the experience of comrades for recognition by society.

How did it come to be judged by you, dear reader.