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Guy's Blog

Guy frequently keeps this blog updated with thoughts, challenges, interviews and more!

Category: Travel

Still Down Under

I could get used to this. Sat outside in the shade tap-tapping away, (still at a lugubrious 10wpm or so) in glorious 30 degree weather. Not sure I'd get much work done in the long run though. But Sydney is a lovely city. I spent Thursday and Friday being shown the sights, including the most excellent Aquarium, including the totally lethal iddy-biddy blue-ringed octopus and the astonishing dugong, proof that 60kg of lettuce a day will make you fat.
The weekend seminar went very well, I thought (and confirmed by the student feedback, according to Paul). On the Saturday we cantered through a basic overview of Fiore's glorious system, its core mechanics and its tactical base, starting with the idea that your actions are predicated on those of your opponent. We started with the first play of the dagger (Mastering the Art of Arms vol 1: The Medieval Dagger, p 52; as many of the students present now have the book I'll include page references where applicable), and varied the drill by who moves first (p 50). We then looked at being lead into the specific play by the attacker's response to the defence, using the fourth master variations (Chapter 11, pp 87-94). This set up the core idea of the seminar in a concrete, visceral way.
So onto swords, with basic cutting exercises followed by distinguishing between cut and thrust, in the context of the defences of the dagger against the sword (pp 139-147). We then applied the same basic idea using the plays of the sword in one hand, specifically the first, second and eighth. And all that before lunch!
After lunch we covered the key plays of the sword in two hands, specifically the second and third of the second master of the zogho largo, then the second and third of the zogho stretto, using the four crossings drill as a magnifying glass for examining the blade relationship that will lead you into one play or another. You can find videos of all these drills on the wiki, of course.
I continue to be baffled, given that it has been three years now since I figured this out and made it public, why anyone would continue to view Il Fior di Battaglia as a catalogue of techniques organised inconsistently by measure, rather than the detailed development of a single basic idea (hit his sword away) based on what actually happens when you apply it to an opponent with ideas of his own. One of the great pleasures of this trip has been the way that the Australians have been so receptive to new ideas, and gladly abandoned old ways of thought when presented with something better.
I'll carry on with my adventures down under in a couple of days: right now I have to get my spine ready for a 30 hour trip home. It may take longer as I am changing planes in Heathrow, and they had three whole snowflakes at the same time, so all is plunged into Chaos. Hey-ho to the frozen North!

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In the Land of Oz

I have been in Australia for a week now, and enjoying the sunshine (why do I live in such a freezing cold country?), the warmth of which has been eclipsed by the generous hospitality of my hosts. In Melbourne Scott Nimmo and his wife and kids welcomed me into their home with enthusiasm, and here in Sydney I am staying with my old friend Paul Wagner and his wife Julie. It has been wonderful to make new friendships and refresh old ones. But to business:
I am here to teach a series of seminars, the first of which happened last weekend in Melbourne. I had been asked to teach a day of biomechanics followed by a day of syllabus construction. I wish every group would ask for a day of mechanics first! It makes everything else so much easier. The whole weekend was filmed for future reference.

Day One
We started by establishing my expectations (everyone finishes training healthier than they started it; if you have a question, ask; no macho bullshit) and introducing the idea of mechanics: grounding, power generation, efficiency, and going through a basic warm-up focussing on the point and purpose of each exercise. The usual 12 minute series took nearly an hour, and laid the groundwork for the rest of the day: take something you think you know and make it better.
We then walked through beginner's course mechanics: finding where your weight should be on your feet, tongue position, tailbone alignment etc. all tested with gentle pressure to allow for systematic correction.
From there we looked at footwork, and how the system is a means of taking natural actions and ordering them so they can be studied, refined and taught. This included the stick exercise and the four guards drill (or the first few steps thereof).
We then looked at holding the sword- I love that moment when a keen and intelligent scholar of the Art lights up with the realisation of two things simultaneously: I've been holding my sword wrong for years; and now I know how to fix it.
The rest of the day was spent analysing the tactics, source and mechanics of the first two steps of first drill. During that time I also went round and did some very slow and careful exercises with each student sharp on sharp, at the end of which they understood at a visceral level why I say “if you haven't done it with sharps, you haven't done it at all.”
The delight for me came from the avid, gleeful way that this group of students, many of them instructors in their own groups, absorbed and adopted what I had come to teach.

Day Two
This class was all about the syllabus, why it is structured as it is, and how to use it and the tools I have created (the wiki and my books). Only two of the students present had not been there the previous day, and both were quite experienced, so I pressed on without much revision. After the warm-up (which is never just a warm-up) we began with the four guards drill and the first six plays of abrazare, in order and by the book: a lesson if ever there was one in how changing circumstances change your response. His other leg is forward? Then the lines of strength change and so does your exploitation of them.
From there we regrettably skipped the dagger, as no-one had them, and went into part one of the cutting drill, building on the previous day's work. It was necessary to teach from first principles the point and purpose of such solo work.
We then covered the four basic syllabus drills, creating each from first drill using the four-corners multiplier. I then taught the four crossings drill and we used that to create the 3rd play of the 2nd Master of the zogho largo, as another variation on first drill, and thence of course to the stretto form of first drill. We continually returned to part one of the cutting drill to create the memory palace in which to store the material.
With an hour to go I asked them what they wanted, and a few specific questions aside, they wanted more mechanics! That's my kind of group, really: depth beats breadth every time.
A flattering number of the students are making the trip to Sydney- I look forward to seeing them all again tomorrow. The plan is to present an overview of the main mechanics and tactics of Fiore's Art. No doubt I'll let you all know how it went next week.

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Sleepless in Seattle

I have just come back from a very enjoyable and productive trip to Seattle, perhaps my favourite American city. The trip was organised around a weekend seminar for Lonin, and included some consulting work for the CLANG computer game.

I arrived at midday on Thursday, working on a 10 hour time difference. I was met at the airport by Eric and his two adorable little boys, age 2 and 4. Having duly inspected various lego contraptions and pronounced them without parallel, we went to lunch, where I got to not be in charge of the kids. So, all the fun of major kid chaos, and none of the responsibility. Lunch done, Eric dropped me at Neal’s, where my room was filled with cardboard boxes: a case of my new dagger book, a year’s supply of cigars from bestcigarprices.com, and a gigantic bit of Pilates kit for my wife.  I arrived in plenty of time for Neal’s book club meeting. The kitchen gradually filled with startlingly clever chaps, all bringing food and wine. This the kind of book club where, if you haven’t read the book, it really doesn’t matter- the book is just a starting point for conversation, liberally lubricated by the noble grape. My kind of book club, in other words. After a couple of hours of thoroughly civilized conversation and a glass or two, I crashed early, and was duly woken by the time difference at about 5am. This was all to the good as it meant I was up in time for Lonin’s early-bird Friday practice at their salle in SANCA. In this case, only Neal and Eric showed- I’m guessing the other students were saving themselves for the weekend. So Neal and Eric got some one-on-one, then we returned to Neal’s and I spent the morning catching up with emails and updating this blog, then lunch, a nap, and off into town to run some errands; notably finding a birthday present for my wife, posting off the dedicatee’s copy of my dagger book, and posting off the rondel daggers I made for Bob Charrette. I met Neal and his lovely wife Ellen for dinner at Sitka and Spruce, and thence off for a pint at the Pine Box, then reasonably early to bed.

Work began in earnest on Saturday morning. We loaded up the car with swords and were there at the community centre gym by 0930. Class started at 10 (while there were a few folk trickling in- I’ve never seen the slightest need to wait for late people- why should those who arrive on time be inconvenienced by those that don’t?), with a salute and a warm-up, then the four guards drill. The class was made up of mostly Lonin students, with four brave souls down from Canada; twenty in all. It was pretty obvious that though the Lonin students had seen the drill before, nobody knew it. This is normal, as until it is taught from first principles, most people who are using my syllabus but not under my direct instruction don’t understand the role of the solo drills. But 10 seconds of watching them work on it let me know pretty much exactly what we would be covering over the weekend. I spent much of the first morning on the first play of the first master of dagger, starting out in a set, formal, basic version, and building complexity into the drills gradually and systematically. We then moved on to the longsword cutting drill, and the longsword first drill. After lunch (an incredible feast organised by the redoubtable Eric) we went back to work on the cutting drill and the basic pair drills, first setting them up, then applying variations- especially looking at starting from way out of measure and moving smoothly forward without creating an exploitable tempo.

Class was followed by an informal dinner get-together at Eric’s (for which many thanks, especially to his delightful wife Michelle and the two rambunctious little pirates for giving there home over to a horde of smelly swordsmen), and quite early to bed (again!).

Sunday’s class began with the warm-up and a review of the dagger and longsword material from Saturday’s session, punctuated by a minute’s silence at 11am, to mark Veteran’s day (Remembrance Day in the UK). When a debt cannot possibly be repaid, all we can do is acknowledge it. I realised afterwards that two of the students present were veterans themselves, as they both expressed appreciation for the gesture. The rest of the morning was spent working on freeplay-type drills, as diagnostic tools and feedback mechanisms. By the end of it, everyone present could use freeplay to assess a weakness, find drills from the syllabus to address the problem, and return to freeplay to asses whether the fix had taken.

This lead us to lunch, after which it seemed that everyone (except me of course!) was knackered. Ideal circumstances for slipping in some serious mechanics training- finding and strengthening groundpaths, and finding more efficient ways to move. This included such stalwart favourites as the stability drill. What with questions, answers and revision, that took us nearly to the end of the allotted time- but I managed to squeeze in a few examples of reverse engineering any Fiore play from the syllabus- a student would pick a play at random, and I showed how to create it by discrete, syllabus-lead adjustments to first drill.

All in all, the seminar went extremely well, and I think everyone present got the training they were ready for.

That evening a few of the students, and the redoubtable Ellis Amdur (a terrifyingly good martial artist) and his super-glamorous wife Mageli Messac joined us for pre-dinner oysters, geoduck sashimi, and wine at Taylor Shellfish, before an absolutely first-class dinner at Terra Plata. I was pretty shattered by this stage, but had a marvellous evening nonetheless.

Monday morning had a blessedly slow start, before meeting the CLANG crew at 1030  to help them with their user interface for the game. Basically they wanted to spreadsheet the optimum guard relationships, and what could be done from each guard, and in which guard various blows ended up, and other Fiorean details. It was a very useful exercise for me, to have to think about Fiore in spreadsheet terms. We finished up for the day about 1530, giving me enough time to rest up before teaching the evening class at Lonin, where we covered part two of the cutting drill in some detail before sloping off to the pub.

Tuesday started with a two-hour private lesson for Eric, then back with CLANG for a few hours to finish off, not least going over the crossings of the sword. Class that evening was run by Neal (doing Victorian stick exercises and indian clubs, lots of fun) and Nathan Barnett (an old friend I had not seen for about 8 years, who now runs a fabulous little B+B) who ran a basic cutlass class. It was delightful to be just following orders, not having to think about what was coming next. Off to the pub again (of course!) then home at a reasonable hour.

Wednesday was basically free, so I met up with Ellis for a spot of duck in a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant that rivalled the ones I’ve eaten in in Singapore, and some martial arts chat, and then off to see Neal at Delve Kitchen, a simply incredible operation that is at the forefront of modernist cuisine. They were testing blenders- by blending golf balls. Yes, really. I don't think I've ever seen so many astonishingly intelligent young men in one place before, having so much fun wrecking stuff. It was a blast!

A little last-minute shopping, and home to pack. Not a small operation, given those blasted boxes. Some down-time and then my last class for Lonin, where we went over the dagger disarm flowdrill (see p125 of the book) and part two of the cutting drill again, this time as a circular drill. Lots of fun. Then, you guessed it, off to the pub, but a different one this time, more of a beer-gourmet-bar. Heavenly IPA to ensure a restful slumber.

Thursday morning we just had time for a one hour private lesson for Neal, and then off the the airport and home on Friday morning.

In every respect, personal, professional, culinary and cultural, an excellent trip. Thanks are due to all the students who made my classes such a pleasure to teach, to Eric for organising the whole thing, and to Neal for putting up with my turning his home into a post-office.

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In the beginning was the (s)word, part 6

I'm writing this blog post in Seattle, sitting at a table in my friend's house, with a gorgeous view over Lake Washington. Tomorrow I'm teaching a two day seminar for Lonin, then staying on to work with the CLANG team for a couple of days. When I arrived yesterday there was a boxful of my new dagger book, hot off the presses waiting for me. Hurrah! So, back to those beginners…
Last Tuesday marked week six of the beginners' course, and we had a full turnout. As I mentioned regarding last week's low turnout, sometimes that is just a concidence- it's rare for everyone to show up, and sure enough, this week we had 22 out of 24, with the missing pair dealing with a flood in their apartment block (a fair and acceptable excuse).
We began with the warm-up, including the swinging exercise as a way to examine initiation (what moves first), and our favourite three point push-ups. I also included the exercise in which you stand on your left leg, and move your right foot in a clockwise circle, and your right hand in an anticlockwise circle- good for establishing balance and coordination. I also had them go into a push-up position on their hands, then shift to their knuckles, and back to their hands (no actual push-ups yet, just the knuckle position). This establishes a reference point for the right wrist position for striking with the sword, without putting too much strain on them.
We then revised the 3 turns, 4 steps and 4 guards, and the four guards drill, before falling practice.
We then looked at making our partner fall to the ground from posta longa by simply turning their wrist: essentially extracting the mechanics of the disarm that they know, and putting it to use to create a (very artificial) takedown. From here we went straight into the first master dagger disarm, and then the fifth play of the first master (an arm break, where you grab the attacker's wrist and elbow). We then did that with one arm, aka the third play (ligadura mezana), and then applied the same mechanics to the takedown (7th play). By stringing the techniques together like this, the common mechanical thread is clear, and so picking up the techniques as variations on the same idea becomes pretty easy. we then looked at The Book, to see these techniques in context, after which the students picked the one they found the hardest to practice.
this allowed me to notice and correct a common, general error (as opposed to a technique-specific problem): the way they were doing the initial cover. They practiced that correction, then we finished up this section with the dagger disarm flowdrill.
All this took only 55 minutes. I remember teaching a comparative seminar with my colleagues Kaj Westersund, Ilpo Jalamo and Petteri Silenius, years ago, while they had decades of teaching experience and I only a few years. The thing that struck me was that somehow they could get their classes to do much more stuff in much less time than I could. I don't mean that they crammed their classes, just that the students were able to absorb and use more material in less time. It feels like I'm progressing as an instructor to see how much faster my students are picking up the material. It has a lot to do with how the material is organised and presented, I think.
Anyway, the class now picked up swords, we saluted and got started on mandritto fendente (donna-longa-zenghiaro), then roverso fendente (donna-longa-tutta porta di ferro). One round of each, and then part one of the cutting drill. Once the choreography was re-established, we did the series of grip handling drills that I taught them in week 4, and then went back into part one to practice keeping a relaxed grip in a set solo drill context, so using the drill as a place to go to practice a specific skill.
We then went through first drill, step-by-step. This was revision. What with all the new dagger material, I felt their capacity for new techniques was already stretched far enough.
This crop of beginners is remarkable for their training attitude- almost all stayed for a while after class, the last ones leaving at about 8.45 having spent much of that time actually training. Some even had the nerve to ask me for specific help, which resulted in me working one-on-one with them, not biting their heads off (rest of class take note).
As I'll still be in Seattle next Tuesday, Ilpo Luhtala will be covering the beginners'class, and I've asked him to spend much of the time on revision, but to include the 3rd and 4th plays of the first master of dagger. This to prepare the class for my taking them through second drill in one go in their final, eighth, session.

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¡Viva España!

I spent the weekend 13-14 October in El Escorial, Spain, attending the Asociación Española de Esgrima Antigua annual meeting, as an invited instructor. It was a welcome opportunity to catch up with  their chief instructor, an old friend (and a fellow full-time professional colleague), Alberto Bomprezzi, and to see how things are done in Spain.

La primera cosa que quiero decir es que fue un placer e un honor estar invitado a este evento; y quiero agradecer a todos los instructores y estudiantes por darme la bienvenida a mi, y su paciencia con mi español. Me alegría mucho encontrarme a tantos nuevos hermanos y hermanas del espada. ¡Gracias a todos! Y he aprendido una nueva palabra importantísima: ¡Porrón!

The event was well run, and organised in a way I haven’t come across before. Each day began with an hour of free fencing, in which everyone who wants to take part, finds a partner and fences fro three minutes. A whistle is blown, and you change partners. After three such rounds there is a five-minute break. After an hour, there has been a lot of very happy chaos, and everyone is nicely warmed up. I spent the time watching the students fencing, which told me (in the first five minutes) what to cover in my classes.

Alberto is very upfront about what he is doing- he teaches fencing, with historical weapons, taking his theory from Spanish rapier sources (Pacheco y Narvaez, and Carranza, if I recall correctly). This is very different to my own approach which is very much by the book.  Indeed, one of the reasons Alberto invited me was so that his students could experience a different way of doing things.

In my first class I covered entering into measure and attacking from wide measure, and what to do when you get very close. This is because almost every action I saw in the longsword freeplay was done after the fencers came close enough to cross swords, then played from there. So they know how to bind and wind, but mostly they didn’t know how to attack with vigour without exposing their hands. So we took one parry and riposte (from first drill, so second play second master of the zogho largo), and worked in a tempo before the attack, and before the parry. We then took the pommel strike from the 8th play of the sword on horseback, and played with that as the attacker’s back-up if the strike fails. It was a very interesting class, clearly somewhat outside the students’ experience- and also outside mine as I taught the whole thing in Spanish, for the first time ever. I learned Spanish growing up in Peru during the school holidays from ’87 to ’92, which makes it 20 years since I last spoke the language regularly. But with plenty of goodwill from the students, we got by.

There were only two class slots per day, with four classes running in each slot. In the afternoon I watched Chris Chatfield teach pugilism based on Saviolo, and Alberto teaching rapier and dagger. I also got to talk to Rob Runacres, who had asked his colleagues to suggest whatever tips they may have for his improvement. So I took him aside and taught him the basics of establishing a groundpath from the sword to the feet. (I’ll cover this in a blog post next month.) It was a pleasure to teach him, as he was very open to correction, and willing to learn.

The second day began predictably late, but with so much free time built into the schedule it didn’t matter. When in Spain, chill out! I had originally been asked to teach one longsword and one rapier class, but Alberto asked me to teach a second longsword class instead, so I did. This one focussed on one basic drill (first drill again), and looked at how the blows create the guards, what the guards are for, the difference between zogho largo and zogho stretto, and making your actions work despite your opponent’s best efforts to stop it.

In the afternoon, after another short lesson in the mighty porrón, I got to spend about half an hour in Manel Avrillon’s knife class. I adore martial arts of just about any type, and after an unrelieved diet of European food, the occasional Indonesian curry or Japanese sushi is very welcome. But I spotted Chris Chatfield waiting for me, and I had asked him to take me through his interpretation of the first set of plays from Vincentio Saviolo’s His Practice.

Back in 2000 at the second annual meeting of the British Federation of Historical Swordplay (which I helped to found in 1998) I saw a demonstration of this form that has stayed with me. Duncan Fatz was reading the treatise aloud, while Chris and a chap called Alistair O'Loughlin performed the actions. It was a perfect example of by-the-book historical swordsmanship. Yes, it was probably mostly wrong in terms of the specifics of execution, this was 12 years ago after all, but the approach was perfect. The spectators could see the words of the book come alive. So I was very curious to see how Chris’s interpretation had changed. And changed it has- the footwork alone is a very interesting set of mechanics that echoes both 19th-century pugilism and T’ai Chi Chuan. Chris walked me through it for about an hour, and while my left heel stubbornly refused to plant itself the way he wanted it to, the mechanics made perfect sense. I look forward to trying them again- perhaps at a weekend seminar in Helsinki next year…

Anyway, you couldn’t ask for a better host than Alberto, and his students were keen, enthusiastic, open to alternative approaches and fun to teach. All in all, a great weekend.

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