Systema (russian: Система, Sistema, system) is a

Russian martial art There are a number of martial arts styles and schools of Russian origin. Traditional Russian fist fighting has existed since the 1st millennium AD. It was outlawed in the Russian Empire in 1832. However, it has seen a resurgence after the brea ...

. There are multiple schools of systems that began appearing after the end of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, with teachers claiming their respective "systems" (usually named after themselves).

Mass media and popular culture appearances

The issue has gathered interest as its coverage has increased. Examples include

CTV Travel T+E is a Canadian English language cable television specialty channel owned by Blue Ant Media. The channel primarily broadcasts entertainment programming, including docu-series and dramas related to the supernatural and paranormal. History O ...

's show ''Go Warrior'' in 2008 and ''Black Belt'' magazine in 2011. Starting in 2013, the FX cable series '' The Americans'', a series about two Russians undercover agents as an American husband and wife couple during the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

in the 1980s, use the techniques of systema in the fight choreography for the show. For the 2018 BBC crime drama '' McMafia'', actor James Norton learned aspects of systema with David Kirillov, who runs the London School of Systema, in preparation for his leading role as a London banker drawn into the violent world of the

Russian mafia Russian organized crime or Russian mafia (, ), otherwise known as Bratva (), is a collective of various organized crime elements originating in the former Soviet Union. The initialism OPG is Organized Criminal (''prestupnaya'' in Russian) Gr ...

. Systema has also been used by Lamarr Houston of the

Chicago Bears The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The Bears have won nine NF ...

in his training. In Japanese fighting games like '' Street Fighter V'' by Capcom, character Kolin has a systema fighting style, as well as Koei Tecmo's ''

Dead or Alive 6 is a 2019 fighting game developed by Team Ninja and published by Koei Tecmo. It is the sixth main entry in the ''Dead or Alive'' fighting series. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on March 1, 2019, and wa ...

'' with Marie Rose. Systema was used as the basis for the fighting style of the Black Widow trained assassins in the 2021 Marvel Cinematic Universe film ''

Black Widow Black widow may refer to: Spiders * Black widow spider, a common name for some species of spiders in the genus ''Latrodectus'' American species * ''Latrodectus apicalis'', the Galapagos black widow * ''Latrodectus curacaviensis'', the South Amer ...

'' starring Scarlett Johansson.

Marvel Studios Marvel Studios, LLC (originally known as Marvel Films from 1993 to 1996) is an American film and television production company that is a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, a division of the Walt Disney Company. Marvel Studios produces the Mar ...

''Assembled: The Making of Black Widow'' (October 2021)

References

{{Reflist Russian martial arts