Guy Windsor

Consulting Swordsman. Writer.

Archives for May 2013

How to teach from a shopping list

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One of the issues that I face as an itinerant swordsmanship instructor, presiding over a school that exists on three continents, is that I can only visit each branch occasionally. I encourage the branches to ask for what they want, to be actively engaged with their own training. I also encourage all students in regular class to ask for the material they are most interested in, or feel they need to cover next. This means that the group I am teaching on any given day will tend to have a list of material that they would like me to cover, which is often pretty haphazard. For example, last month before going to Turku to teach a class, I received this email:

Here are some wishes for the seminar from the intermediates and class leaders:

1) How to train with someone who is much stronger than you? How to prove that their technique is wrong if they succeed in it only because of their strength?

2) How to get the most out of training with a beginner? How to benefit from this situation?

3) Safe ways of training and ergonomics at work. Maybe focus on shoulders? (Four people in THMS have shoulder injuries at the moment). Maybe something similar to what you were writing in your blog about the seminar in Oulu.

4) 2nd drill stretto (there were some confusion about the way it should be done correctly).

5) Punta falsa.

6) Could we learn some Vadi techniques?

 

PS. There will be beginners attending to this seminar. They know some techniques with dagger, but haven't probably learned all parts of the 1st and 2nd drills yet.

 

As you can see, there is not much obvious connection between teaching the stretto form of second drill, and teaching students to train with others that are much stronger or much less experienced than they are. I spotted a teaching opportunity, and so began the seminar by discussing this list with the students present, and explaining to them the order in which we were going to do everything, and why.

The first step was to identify the most general item. In this case ergonomics, because correct form and structure are required for everything you ever do, in the salle and out. So we spent quite a long time working on perfect push-ups, perfect squats, and the structural foundation of Fiore’s movement dynamics.

Then, using ergonomics as our base, we moved on to the skill of how to use a beginner partner to develop your own skills. This is a very common request, and given that since I came to Finland in 2001 the vast majority of the people I have crossed swords with have been my students, I have an awful lot of experience in making less experienced training partners nonetheless useful. There are basically three ways to do it: you either take advantage of their unpredictability to create genuinely random drills to train your responsiveness; or within the bounds of a set drill, you demonstrate perfect form, because they will copy your every mistake; or in a competitive drill, you aim to win by the narrowest possible margin. We used the standing step drill as a good example of this last idea, and I demonstrated with someone clearly smaller and weaker than myself, who had been training for about a month. By allowing her to push me to the very limit of my balance I was able to use the minimal resistance she was able to give to practice at the edge of my skill.

(I plan to blog about this in specific skill in depth and detail soon…)

This introduced the idea of customising your actions to the specific training partner that you have, and in this case how, without being dramatically more skilful, can you train a beginner out of using their superior strength. There is nothing wrong with strength: strength is good, skill is better, strength applied skilfully is best of all. The trick of course, is to make it so that if they stiffen up, their action fails; but if they execute the action in a relaxed way it succeeds. They will only learn to let go of their strength if they don’t need it. We used the third and fourth plays of the first master of the dagger as our example plays for this exercise. I then had them all look for actions which made themselves tense up, to understand better the problem of relying on strength, and within the context of those actions, focus on using only the minimum necessary force.

So, with ergonomics underpinning all, and focussed experience in working usefully with the beginner, and working usefully with a much stronger partner, we can then address the system-specific technical requests.

We started with the cutting drill, emphasising shoulder stabilisation from the perfect push-ups, and I spotted and corrected some branch-wide errors. We then used a sword handling drill to focus on correct ergonomics for holding the sword. From there we went into first drill, and use that as the basis for working on the punta falsa. At this stage, those that had difficulty with the basic drill were separated out and worked on that. We needed to make sure that the mechanics of the punta falsa were clearly understood, which our economics study had prepared us for. Then the two groups were put back together, with the seniors required to make sure that when they attacked, as the blades met the circumstances were correct for the defender’s set response; and when they defended, they had to respond correctly to the exact conditions of the blade relationship that actually occurred. This made them work on parts 1 and 2 of the training with beginners theory above.

From there we went into second drill, and built the stretto form of it step-by-step from the basic, largo, form. (Note: this drill has been updated since the seminar) Again, those that didn’t know the basic form were taught that, and those that did learned the more difficult stretto version.This was classic, straightforward teaching basic drills from the set syllabus. The trick was to connect them explicitly to the foundational skills we worked on before, namely ergonomics, using beginners, and dealing with stronger partners. Of course the stretto forms of the drills explicitly deal with resistant partners, so fit nicely with the theme.

By finishing up with the stretto form of second drill, we had introduced the zogho stretto situation, and so it was easy to segue into spending the last hour working on Vadi’s solutions to the zogho stretto, and why they differ from Fiore’s.

To summarise, the process of teaching from a list of requests goes:

 

  1. Identify the most generally applicable concept, start with that
  2. Take each request in order of specificity, from most generally applicable, to the most specific
  3. Organise the parts into a logical sequence, paying particular attention to the connections between the items on your list
  4. Make the organisation of the material part of the lesson, so that the students can see how their requests are being dealt with.

 

5 essential non-martial arts books every martial artist should read

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Readers of this blog will know that I am quite fond of books. Reading deeply is good, reading widely is good too. I am often surprised by the extraordinary usefulness of books that on the face of it have no connection to martial arts, historical or otherwise, in my work recreating historical swordsmanship. These five books have been especially influential in the way I teach, train and research the Art.

1) The Inner Game of Tennis, by W. Timothy Gallway

This book has massively influenced the way I teach, because it highlighted for me for the first time the major differences between the part of your mind with which you analyse things, and the part of your mind that actually gets stuff done. Thanks to this book I talk less, explain less, and demonstrate more; and try to always set up a clear feedback mechanism inside every drill. And I have noticed that my students pick up new skills much quicker now than they used to. I found this book going for a euro in a bargain box at Arkadia books. I despise tennis as an utterly pointless waste of time, but can forgive the sport for taking over my TV every summer because it has produced this book.

2) Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman

Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman lays out an much of the theory that actually supports the thesis of the inner game of tennis. It has been hugely helpful in putting the lesson of The Inner Game of Tennis into practice.

3) Bounce, by Matthew Syed

I have always felt that the notion of inherent talent is fundamentally counter-productive, as well as being inaccurate. There is no such thing as natural talent. I’m sure there are some disciplines in which a certain amount of genetic advantage is required: if you want to play professional basketball but are under 6 foot 4, you’re unlikely to get there. Or if you want an Olympic gold in gymnastics but you’re tall and heavy boned, again you are unlikely to get there. But the point and the essence of swordsmanship is it transcends physical limitations. The sword is an equalizer and a labour-saving device. If you need to be big and strong to use it then a) what’s the point owning one, and b) I am not interested in teaching it. The physical threshold for us is really, really low. No legs? No problem. Didn’t stop Douglas Bader, it shouldn’t stop you. The first book I read that demolished the myth of talent was Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, which is a good book, but this one is more specifically targeted to people trying to master physical skills. Syed was an Olympic-level table tennis player so knows a thing or two about the process of becoming exceptional in a physical art. Really it is only attitude, luck and discipline that matter. And this book proves it.

4) On Killing, by Lt Col. David Grossman

This book is essential reading for anyone involved in any kind of martial art because it outlines the process of conditioning a person to be emotionally capable of taking life. He demonstrates that most people (thankfully) are emotionally incapable of killing. And this is how it should be. But the psychological barriers to killing must be addressed by any martial art that pretends to be seriously martial. This book is also very useful for its discussion of stress response, and post-traumatic stress disorder. It is also the source of “combat breathing” which is a hugely useful tool for reducing your sympathetic nervous system’s response to stress. I have much to thank Col Grossman for because I have used his advice in this book to keep myself useful and sane in some hugely stressful situations.

5) Meditations on Violence, by Sgt Rory Miller

Okay, this is kind of a martial arts book. But he never tells you how to throw a kick, or execute a joint lock, so I’ll let it slip in. I do so because this book, amongst other things, is the best, most complete, system for analysing what your martial art is actually for. I would go so far as to say that if you have not read this book there’s not a lot of point in discussing combat contexts with me. This is the bullshitometer every martial arts teacher must have in his toolkit. Thanks to Ken Quek for putting me onto it.

Now, go forth and read them!

 

 

14 good reasons why you should buy the new I.33

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My copy of the new edition of I.33 arrived last week, and it is a swordwielding bibliophile’s wet dream. Not only is the reproduction effectively perfect, but the companion volume by Dr Forgeng is a complete and revised transcription and translation, with a detailed introduction that takes into account the last decade of scholarship since the last translation was done. We now know, for instance, which pages are missing, and have an idea of what they may have contained.

More than this though, the books themselves are shining examples of the bookbinder’s craft, and gorgeous in every detail. Printed on the finest paper, stitched together as books ought to be, the only negative is that they make almost every other book in my library look shoddy. As a writer I now have only one ambition. Write a book so good that Extraordinary Editions will publish it like this. And I now finally have a reason to want to get rich. I could get these guys to do me one of every treatise I care about. Oh yes baby, training fees are now 2000 euros a day…

But seriously, the fourteen reasons why you should buy this book are:

Reason 1: The Books:

This pair of books is astonishing. It comes in a beautiful red solander, lined inside with watered silk. And there she is, bound in goatskin, waiting to be picked up and fondled:

I33 in its box

Open her up and an involuntary gasp of awe escapes, as well it might: the reproduction is perfect. I've seen the original, and this is exactly what it looks like, just with straight edges.

inside the book

And then the companion volume, nestled in its space:

companion in its box

With the entire treatise, the images ghosted under the transcription and translation:

inside the companion

Following an insightful and thorough introduction by the top 1.33 scholar, Dr Forgeng:

the intro

The asking price is only 750 UK pounds. Seven hundred and fifty bleeding quid for a book! I hear you cry? Ah yes my friend, it seems like a lot. And indeed, it represents about two weeks upkeep of my salle, or a major chunk of my take-home salary (swordsmen don’t make much these days, bring back the middle ages!). 

Reason 2: it's the right thing to do:

It is a lot of money, I know. But it is exactly what the Art of Swordsmanship is all about. Quality over quantity, serving the Art, doing things as perfectly as possible, bringing our heritage back to life; in all sorts of ways this project represents everything I founded my school for. Supporting it was a no-brainer, and hang the cost.

Reason 3: customer service

So you might be a bit careful regarding, for instance, customer service. Are Extraordinary Editions a company you can trust? Well, a good company a) keeps you informed b) does what it says it will and c) handles complaints quickly and fairly. Extraordinary Editions kept us subscribers informed about developments and delays, at just the right rate. Enough to know that our money was in safe hands, but not annoyingly frequent. They produced a fabulous product reasonably on time. And when my solander arrived with some corner damage, they shipped me a new one immediately, without my having to go to the trouble and expense of returning the old one. So they get maximum points for customer service.

Reasons 4-13

Now let’s put that wodge of dosh into perspective, shall we? For that kind of money, you could get a brand new iGadget. So what are the pros and cons?

How long will these two things last, assuming they are both looked after?

What is the cost per year of satisfied ownership?

Which one is not likely to make a noise and distract you while you are reading?

Which one will not suck half your life away into the inanity of Twitbook?

Which one is not made with slave labour in foreign lands?

Which one supports traditional craftsmanship of the highest order?

Which one smells of leather and scholarship?

Which one has an infinite battery life?

Which one will be passed down the generations?

Which one will keep its value, and may well be worth more in 10 years time than the current price, taking inflation into account?

133table

And finally, Reason 14, buy this book because:

If this project is successful financially, they might do another one! Repeat after me: PleasedoFiore, pleasedoFiore, pleasedoFiore, pleasedoFiore, pleasedoFiore, pleasedoFiore, pleasedoFiore, pleasedoFiore, pleasedoFiore, pleasedoFiore, pleasedoFiore…..

Wallets out chaps, and carry on!

One way to see what is really there, when fencing.

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The essential cognitive skill behind the application of swordsmanship is to see what is really there, not what you think is there. This is a profound and difficult skill to master, as we are all subject to all sorts of cognitive illusions and biases. Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow  is perhaps the best single resource on the subject.

For us, in practice, we have to pay attention to what the opponent is doing, all the time- but refrain from telling ourselves stories about what we see. “His sword is coming towards me” is meaningful. But “he is attacking” is not: it prevents us from realising his action may be a feint. Ascribing motives to his motions is to be avoided. Likewise, we must not tell ourselves stories about what we are doing. “I am parrying that attack” is a lie. Because you don’t know whether the parry will work, or whether the attack is real, or anything. “I am moving to intercept his motion” is better, because the movement is real, and its intention is clear, and if the interception fails to occur, there is nothing in that statement to prevent the motion changing to find his weapon.

If we are telling ourselves a story, and the action changes, rewriting the story to fit the new data is hard. So we tend to ignore the data that doesn’t fit- we prioritise the story over the facts. This is normal. But will get you hit. I don’t think we can truly prevent the story-writing process, but we can cast the story in terms that permit endless easy rewrites as the situation changes.

Of course, the fight happens faster than conscious thought can keep up. Which makes story-telling that much worse, as the data is not just incomplete, it’s out of date. Better then to give yourself a set of instructions that fit the goals of the bout, such as “control his sword and hit him”, and let your training do all the hard work of actually issuing specific commands to the sword.

My own solution to the distractions of the conscious mind when fencing is I quietly sing a little song to myself. That keeps my conscious story-telling mind gently occupied, leaving my adaptive unconscious relatively unfettered, and able to see what is happening. It also freaks the hell out of my opponent if they get close enough to hear it. A win-win situation.

 

A holo-deck for the philosophy of ethics

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I was talking to a student after class the other day, someone who has been training with me off and on since the school opened. I happened to mention that for me, one of the primary uses of the art we study is that it is a holo-deck for the philosophy of ethics. Because we are not expecting to use our skills in earnest any time soon, we are free of the constraint of knowing we must be willing to use them. (This is my core moral objection to the idea of arming teachers to defend students against those sad evil little wankers who try to compensate for their utter inadequacy by murdering the defenceless. Giving the teachers guns would not help at all, without training them to use them, which would inevitably require those teachers to train to be willing and able to take life. That is a profound and utterly life-changing moral and emotional step, and it is simply not fair to ask the average teacher to make it. My practical objection is simply that kids are great at improvising, and having more guns in schools will inevitably lead to more guns in childrens' hands, and so more likelihood of fatal shootings, accidental or otherwise.)

For us, the salle becomes a simulator, a holo-deck if you will, in which we can examine violence and degrees of violence, and pose questions such as

“Is this action ever justified?”

“In what circumstances would cutting off someone's head be ok?”

“How do I feel about the idea of fighting to the death over a point of honour?”

“What was it about this culture that made this response acceptable?”

It is moronic to suggest that violence never solved anything: for the entire history of life on earth it has solved the problem of hunger: I kill to eat. Rory Miller makes this point well in this podcast. So the question then is “in what circumstances is violence acceptable, and to what degree?” Current martial systems, such as police training, military training, and such must have clearly defined answers to all such questions. In these  circumstances, I can use a baton. In those, I must shoot. In these, I call for an airstrike, etc. Martial arts teachers and parents both must be able to teach their students/kids a moral framework in which to place violence. One interesting point of view on this, that of a mother trying to raise her son in a non-violent way, and learning that violence is not intrinsically evil but has its place, can be found here. In short, she decided on a set of rules which, if followed, would make any violence her son was a part of morally acceptable. My rules are a little different (less gender-oriented for instance), but I admire her position.

We can imagine our Art being applied in dozens of circumstances, and while many of my students use aspects of their training at the School in their work as security guards, police, etc. most will never call on their skills outside of class. But for the training to be of any moral use it should require the practitioner to engage with the fact that we are training in lethal techniques, and therefore must have a clear set of internal guidelines as to when their application is acceptable. We can create those guidelines for all sorts of modern or historical contexts, which while it is not of any immediate practical use, nonetheless has the value of making us engage with these difficult questions.

In my view, it is impossible to inflict damage on another soul without inflicting damage on your own, no matter the circumstances. But there are situations in which the better course is to inflict the physical damage and take the spiritual. Failing to act out of fear of damage, physical or spiritual, is cowardice.

Let me tell you a story:

Twenty years ago, while at University, I was walking home alone from band practice with my trumpet, through a dodgy part of Edinburgh. As I was walking I saw a man, rough looking, with a bleeding head, standing over a woman in a doorway. I was terrified, of two things. One, I would act, and get the shit kicked out of me or killed. I was under no illusions as to who wins in a fight between street-thug and pampered kid. Two, I would not act, and despise myself for the rest of my life. So I stopped, far enough away to have a running head start, and called out in my best public-school accent

“Excuse me, but can I be of any assistance?”, the subtext I was trying to imply being “I've seen you and will call the police if you don't leave her alone”.

I was astonished when the man called back:

“Yes, please, my wife is having an epileptic fit!”

So I went over and helped him get her home, and we became friends. Turns out the blood came from his trying to cushion her fall. Some weeks later I told them that I had thought he was up to no good in that doorway, and they both fell about laughing.

My point is that while we can simulate all sorts of scenarios, and come up with ideal responses to them, we cannot reasonably predict our own actions unless they have been tested under stress, nor necessarily predict the outcome of a seemingly obvious scenario. But we can use our training in violence to help us make moral choices about who we are and wish to be, and then try to live up to them, accepting that doing so can be dangerous.

A Birthday Present

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This blog has now been up for one whole year. Huzzah! In that time I have published 58 posts, in 11 categories. By far the most-viewed post, with nearly double the hits of the next most viewed, has been “Plastic swords are for children”, which is interesting as the majority of hits have been sent this way by people who clearly disagree with my view. Also popular has been the rant regarding the sport fencing coaches in the USA thinking that they can certify historical swordsmanship instructors.  Of the more pedagogical posts, I Am Slow, Class Instruction, and Size Matters are well ahead of the rest.  I am surprised to find the beginners’ course series way down at the bottom of the list.

Anyway, to celebrate one year in, here is my translation of Vadi’s De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi laid out on the original images (by Kliment Yanev, thanks!), yours for free under a Collective Commons Attribution licence. Post it, play with it, put it to work. And if you like, feel free to buy the book, Veni Vadi Vici, which includes the transcription and my commentary.

Thanks for reading!