18/11/2025
A great piece by Systema Academy Matt Hill in his latest newsletter. (worth signing up to)
(Seems to be a nod to Lao Tzu in his prose)
If your body is healthy, you shouldn’t really notice it.
That invisibility or quietness is a sign of everything working well.
We only really notice the body when something’s wrong: a headache, sore joints, an injury, an unsettled stomach.
Take a moment now. Close your eyes. Put your awareness in your body. What do you notice?
Discomfort is the body’s way of communicating that something needs attention.
Tension works exactly the same way.
At the start of class, I often ask people just to stand and notice what they feel.
Something will stand out: neck tightness, a held shoulder, a locked knee, a tight jaw.
If you noticed something when you put your attention in your body, try again, and this time try to release it using gentle movement. Breathing. Awareness.
With practice, just noticing is enough to let the tension melt.
The moment it melts, that part of the body disappears from the radar.
It becomes invisible.
Sometimes that tension was guarding an old injury.
Sometimes it was emotional.
Sometimes it was just habit: posture, workload, or holding patterns we’ve carried for years.
Poor posture is very common.
If you’re standing with your neck dropped, your chest sinking, or your weight leaning into one leg, you’ll feel it immediately.
Correct the posture, breathe, soften and suddenly the whole body feels even again.
That evenness is what makes the body fade from awareness and become invisible. It’s a kind of internal silence.
Then comes the next step.
When you move from this lightness: soft, smooth, without excess effort, your movement starts to disappear too.
Not only from your radar, but from other people’s.
People will see you, but they won’t notice you.
There’s no emotional or physical friction in the movement to catch attention. No jerkiness or tension.
This is a key element in Systema as a martial art. Equally importantly, it’s the operating system for how to move through life in a way that protects and heals the body.
If you can find that lightness in stillness, and then carry it into movement, your body begins to look after itself as you go through the day, week, month, and life.
It’s longevity. It’s self-protection.
It feels blissful almost like floating.
The same principle applies to heavy emotions.
Worry, fear, overthinking. You feel them instantly in the body.
But when you restore your posture, look up, breathe smoothly, and reconnect with that lightness, the heaviness drifts.
Once again, your whole system becomes quiet. Invisible. At ease.
