Selection 2026. Major Arkadiusz Kups on the return of the iconic field game on Polgon Drawski

With Major Arkadius Kups, the organizer of utmost field game Selection we talk about her reactivation after years of break, the limits of human intellectual and physical endurance and the thought of shaping character through challenges.

(Interview is simply a edited and completed version of the podcast Are you aware? ‘The selection's back. Major Arkadiusz Kups: This is not the end of the selection“) of 2 June 2026.

Rafał Górski:We've been talking about selection. Week of civilian Affairs in 2021, just before her 21st edition. On March 30, 2023, the Major will announce that the Selections will no longer be held. At the time, I was convinced that it was her final ending. Surprisingly, in May 2026 we were informed that Selection was returning. Are the details of the event known?

Arkadius Kups:

The presentation will take place on June 21, 2026. The selection will be held on 8-12 July at Drawski Police.

It's a no-holding ride, due to the fact that in a short time, I gotta arrange everything. I think it's the last bell to make this organization show up. Whether I make it or not, I tighten my teeth and effort to arrange it to look like it utilized to be. I challenge myself, but I besides challenge those who want to face themselves. I meet many young people, conduct training, events, safety training, etc., and observe the deficiency of alleged male element, and at any phase in life a man sometimes comes to the conclusion that he inactive needs adrenaline.

In erstwhile years, we have had quite a few problems with sponsors and with the media. First we hosted on TVP2, later on TV4, on TVN Turbo and at Polsat Play. This year we want to show you what we're doing on YouTube.

The selection is the only event in which the associate does not bear the starting costs, so we are looking for sponsors and partners. We request support in financial, catering, clothing, movie production. We want to shoot six episodes of 23 minutes, where we will advertise sponsors, products and services.

Ewa Paraphanczuk in the book ‘Selection. As long as you fight you are the winner” She wrote: “However, it was not the pumps, not the crawling and diving that eliminated the most effective. The most effective was the uncertainty that was served from the beginning to the end.” What is Selection?

Selection is an utmost field game, during which various tasks are performed based on recruitment methods for peculiar formations of the Polish Army.

Selection, next surprise assignment, photograph by Danuta Kups

Participants do not know what challenges await them. Training at the verbal-recruitive-testing phase is that a wall is placed in front of a man, which he must enter with a remnant of strength. If it is besides easy, it will not be the effect of "wow" and feelings of exaltation. If it's besides hard, he'll fall off and get scared. So each time this wall is higher, harder to pump people's religion in themselves. due to the fact that he's capable of doing something great, but he's got to have quite a few religion in his own skills.

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Viktor Suvorov likewise wrote in the Aquarium: "The most crucial component of Specnaz's training is to get him to believe in his own strength. (...) Human possible is unlimited – it is 1 of the arguments given during training. Man can scope the highest ceiling in his life in any sphere of activity. But in order to overcome obstacles and an opponent, man must overcome himself first, he must fight his own fear, uncertainty and laziness. The way up is simply a constant conflict with itself. (...) all training makes sense only erstwhile it brings man to an end of physical and intellectual endurance.”

The selection doesn't last a day or 8 hours, during which time you're a commando, you take 5,000 pictures and go home. It's 5 days, 5 nights. It's a tough effort.

It's a organization for people who are truly mentally strong, where they conflict with immense fatigue, sleeplessness and stress.

We justice their psyche, memory, coordination, real thinking, memory, etc. This isn't a camp for good kids. There are no tents. You sleep in a place where the class ends. We're imposing a list of essentials, but it's up to you to decide whether to bring heavier carimata or lighter foil. What kind of socks? Do you bring a painting sheet to cover in case of rain, or do you take a top-tex jacket? Everything is simply a substance of your fitness. Just remember, after 30 kilometers, a metallic cup that weighs 20 deko starts to weigh as if it were 5 kilograms. We decide what the contestants eat. There's no conditioners or bars. Everyone has a level playing field.

→ Survival is simply a substance of psychology. How Can You Prepare for Crisis •Krzysztof J. Kwiatkowski, Rafał Górski

Another difficulty is uncertainty. You don't know if you're going to march 5 kilometers or twenty-five tomorrow, whether you're going to crawl, whether you're going to shoot, etc. And yet you're bombarded with dozens of tests, codes to remember, azimuts, values, etc. Each edition of the Selection is sponsored by a poem. erstwhile I meet people after 15 or 20 years, they tell me they remember this poem due to the fact that it became their life's message.

photo by Danuta Kups

I besides remember the poem "The Message of Mr Cogito" by Zbigniew Herbert, whom I learned during the 11th edition of the Selection. These poems are actually a challenge erstwhile they are recited after a fewer sleepless nights.

General Carl von Clausewitz wrote in the celebrated work “About War”: “In war everything is very simple, but even the simplest things are hard in war.” Do these words fit the selection?

Yeah. Simple actions frequently decide how far you will go and whether you will complete the challenge. I always give an example of a girl who had a nickname called Kenjek. She came to the end of the selection. I remember today: it rained all day, everyone was totally wet. At about 2:00 a.m., we entered the world. Everyone covered themselves with sleeping bags and went to sleep, but for Kenjka, who downloaded all the wet stuff and twisted it. She lost only 20 minutes, but with specified fatigue it was heroic. She was little asleep this morning, but she went on. On the another hand, most of those who threw themselves on this level stopped walking after 10–15 km, due to the fact that in the groin they got incredible burns.

The simplicity of rational decisions is frequently hard in a situation of fatigue or danger.

A calm and balanced head is valued in the Far East, but in the West we do not attach any importance to it.I think that anti-social advertising platforms (called colloquially social media) have even more enhanced intellectual effusion.I wonder how people will respond to the compulsion to deposit their favourite screens to which they are sucked all day.

Highly developed societies live on social media. In the morning, erstwhile we wake up, we check what's fresh in the news. We usually sale information about ourselves: what home we have, what clothes we have, what we do, whether we made Botox today.

This attachment to the media is visible even on very intense courses in peculiar formations. I hear, “Why can’t I take a Facebook picture?”

Why is the bridge on Lake Trzebuń called a slaughterhouse?

I think the biggest attraction of Selection is the place where it is played, i.e. on Draw's Poligon. This is simply a cult place. That's where all the peculiar formations in this country were trained. At the bottom of Lake Trzebuń there is inactive an underwater track, though in the agonal state. It is on this pier that people are torn off by delusions about themselves, about their greatness, their ego. That's where you fall out of Selection or decision on. At 4:00 a.m., erstwhile fog rises above the lake’s surface, participants “pin” another series, another hundred, another 4th hr of pumping. Muscles crack and people get up, and they say, “Sorry, I can’t anymore.” individual erstwhile called this place a slaughterhouse. It's an appropriate name for what's going on.

Selection: bridge on Lake Trzebuń, photograph by Danuta Kups

Given what is happening in the geopolitical sphere, it may be amazing that specified an event as Selection, which, on the 1 hand, shapes the character of our citizens and, on the another hand, promotes engagement in the Polish military, finds no interest in the Ministry of National Defence. Drawski Polygon, obstacle tracks, all infrastructure is agonal. Why is that?

The selection was an event which was to choice the best candidates for peculiar units in the Polish Army. At the selection were hosted by the Minister of National Defence, generals and observers of many formations, including from the Air Cavalry, from Ljubljana, from Formozy, from the peculiar branch of the Military Police. They watched the participants and later directed them to their recruitment path. The selection participants of the day are elder officers today. I meet them in GROM, in Lublin, in Formosa and in another formations.

At first, Selection was a three-day party. That's erstwhile 90% of the classes were filled with marches. This organization has grown for years.

We developed various tests, auditions, fitness, methods, etc. I know that what we did, including the teaching of the poem, was later utilized in another units. However, the selection was never formally recognized by the MON as an event that could aid in the recruitment process. I erstwhile asked individual who was liable for promoting the army, why would a selection alumni erstwhile applying to officer school have no extra points, like a military advanced school graduate? I heard the answer, "Well, you know, our postgraduate is wearing a mask in 7 seconds." And I said, "You know, a selection alumni, to complete it, he truly had to pour any sweats off himself, and after 5 hours of study, this mask will wear 5 or 7 seconds." That's how this conversation ended.

For many years, there was no authoritative recruitment way after selection. It was pushing people on a collegiate-informal basis: a telephone call to the chief of the chief gendarmerie, to the division commander or to the unit commander in Ljubljana. Today, erstwhile the army has no men, possibly what any say: “Sorry, we could listen.” But present it is besides late, due to the fact that this human material is completely different. possibly this year we will have a problem with participants, due to the fact that for any it is simply a challenge to go down 5 meters with blindfolded eyes and swimming, and for others to sleep under the cloud.

Between the people who participated in the selection in 1998 and those who will participate in it this year, there is simply a intellectual and social gap.

We'll see what a young man looks like present compared to 28 years earlier.

“The selection must be so that it is not besides hard, due to the fact that then we will be alone or individual will die for us, but at the same time not besides easy for people to think that this is simply a retirement home or a worm collection course,” the major said. How to prepare for Selection?

Like 28 years ago, I will say, "I don't know."

We'll put the competition in preselection, but I won't tell you how to prepare for them.

photo by Danuta Kups

The level of competition, pace, dynamics is simply a reflection of the level of participants. If we get the contestants besides tight, I might be alone with the instructors... I hope I can level this out so this organization can regain its cult title. I'm inactive wondering what kind of news test I'm gonna put in. Here I can be terrified due to the fact that the level of cognition in many areas is low. It will surely be something that will become a message for Poles.

In the activities of the major, a phenomenon that is called Combat strategy 56.Please explain what this strategy is and whether its techniques are utilized on Selection.

The Combat 56 strategy is simply a Polish combat strategy that was created in the early 1990s. At any point he went underground, but he returns and present we have over 30 authorized Combat 56 instructors in all of Poland.

Sometimes I hear the phrase that it is simply a Polish krav maga, and it is simply a bit actual and not true. Each strategy has a circumstantial assumption, parameters and usefulness. The pattern of Israel is fundamentally different from the tactical assumptions. This strategy does not stand inactive due to the fact that challenges change, the methods of fighting are different.

Can a civilian participate in the Combat 56, which are organized in Poland?

In many cities classes are being conducted with the civilian version of Combat 56. It is hard for the average Malinowski to learn military elimination technique. He needs to learn self-defense, procedures in critical situations, street survival, that is, the art of endurance in the city in emergency situations.

People request a sense of security. They want to know what to do. There is another component today: a state of war.

We're in a country where there's already a hybrid war, there's fires, there's unrest, there's a power outage, there's no water, and we request to get ready for that. I'm amazed that the marketplace has late developed a fashion for techniques with a knife. erstwhile I watch a video of a man approaching a woman, she puts her hand on her shoulder, and she pulls out a knife and hits 4 punches into his chest, I'm terrified due to the fact that it's no longer essential defense. Today, besides much stuff is for sale and it's from the department market, which can affect hiccups.

He late unveiled a peculiar symbol - a commemorative plaque Combat 56 in Puck.Tell me a fewer words about this incident.

I found out about this event the minute I went to practice. I was completely surprised. I am very pleased, and at the same time I feel very ashamed due to the fact that I did not deserve any memorial. I don't think I'm the same legend I'm named in interviews. You're a legend after death, and I'm going to live. I appreciate the city and the instructors who did this, but this is not the phase yet. possibly erstwhile I die, that stone will matter.

I'm happy to hear the major answer. due to the fact that erstwhile I saw the video from the event, I had mixed reflections.

Mr. Rafale, as a selection participant, I would like to ask you to confirm that selection is simply a hard event to complete for life. I'd like a fewer words from you to possible contestants who want to compete in it.

The process of preparation and launch itself is an utmost challenge. A man must start thinking, feeling, acting multidimensionally. It is worth facing this challenge, due to the fact that it is something that stays in the body, head and soul for years. I never finished the selection. I've been in a fewer Preselections. I first collided with her in 2005. I only went to the phase twice at Draw's Polygon, where I fell off at the slaughterhouse while doing push-ups. This is simply a very simple but very hard adventure. And there's all the magic in it.

Yeah, due to the fact that our full life is simply a selection.

Selection associate in the fight break, photograph by Danuta Kups

"We are looking for partners and friends who want to work with us on the return of this most hard utmost field event," the Major said. What is it?

We're looking for partners to support us. We request financial, catering and clothing support, but we besides request aid with movie production. We want to prepare a selection study – six 23-minute episodes. This gives space to show sponsors, their products and services, as well as to place the product.

Is there an crucial question that no 1 has asked the major yet and what is the answer to?

When am I gonna finish? I think the answer is: you gotta live and enjoy life.