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

Tag: learning

New Beginnings, part 4

Week 4 and we are half way through the course. We ran through a normal warm-up, including kicking squats, knuckle push-ups and falling. Then I had them remember as much as they could of the four guards drill, with minimal demonstration. A few of the attendees had missed last week’s class, and this really highlighted what they had missed. I made the point that we run the class for those who have been attending more regularly, but provide as much help in catching up as we can. We then reviewed the three turns, which string together nicely into a little drill (yes, I really do need to catch up with the wiki updates!).

They then had some free practice of the four steps (note, only a superficial demo, so they practice remembering), with the four guards and the three turns. And out with the stick- it was carnage! They had all forgotten how to get out of the way, so we reviewed the exercise. Then I made the point again that these steps and turns are natural actions, that you will do without thought when someone swings a stick at your head- but by classifying them, ordering them into a system, they can be studied and taught. And while the stick was in play, they had naturally done a particular combination, stepping the front foot offline, then passing across. So then we studied the accrescere fora di strada, passare ala traversa combination in isolation.

This brought us on to the third master disarm (PD MS), which we studied for a while, then the first and second plays of the first master (disarm, counter), then the third (ligadura mezana, aka wrap). So, a complete review of the dagger material they have covered so far. We broke for a moment for an intelligence test— I had them hit the ground with their fists. Sure enough, almost all used a hammer fist: but most had been doing the hand strike after the ligadura by straight-punching their partner’s mask. I made the point that striking hard targets with the knuckles of a closed fist is a high level skill, which they have not been taught. I may also have gone on a bit about how boxing gloves have degenerated the noble science into a sport, but heigh-ho.

Then the disarm of the ninth master. They don’t know it, unless they read this blog (as they should!) but the flowdrill is coming next week. All the pieces are now in place. We looked at the technique in the book, then they got to practice whatever dagger material they liked.

Thence to swords and the cutting drill. First just mandritto fendente from donna destra to longa to zenghiaro, and roverso sottano back up; then as a separate drill roverso fendente from donna la sinestra to longa to tutta porta di ferro, and mandritto sottano back up; then we strung together part one of the cutting drill. I also spent some time having them distinguish between tutta porta di ferro and coda longa.

Then to first drill, steps one and two, from last week; then we did step three, the only actually new longsword material this week. At the end I challenged them to find step three (yield to the parry and enter with a pommel strike) in the manuscript for next week.

All in all, good progress!

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New Beginnings, part 3

The third class of this beginner’s course was oddly attended, in that half the students present were not members of this course. Great for the true beginners, of course.

We started with the salute, of course, then the warm up, into which I incorporated the beginnings of knuckle push-ups— being able to create a stable platform on three (little, ring and middle) or two (first and middle) knuckles, then adding the actual push-up motion. We did not go the full Eurythmic push-up! We also reviewed falling, briefly.

Then review of the four steps, and three turns, done to command, then the four guards drill as a set sequence. This is by far the longest choreography they have been asked to memorise, so I incorporated some free practice of the drill so they could work on remembering it. While they were doing that, I then had them get to the ground and back up using no hands whenever I clapped (there is something magic about a room full of people falling down when you clap your hands!). Then out with the stick, again while they were working on remembering the four guards drill, or any of the other footwork drills they know. I made the point that in a room full of people training with weapons they must always retain awareness of their surroundings. The stick is great for that!

Then into the first master of dagger disarm, as revision. After which they had the choice to do a different technique against the same attack, or the same technique against an attack in a different line. They chose the latter, so I showed them the third master disarm from the flowdrill. I think it is vital that swordsmanship students are not trained to be passive consumers of a class— they must be taught to be actively engaged in their own training. After they were training that for a while, I took them to the Book— and lo! No such technique! So out with the Pisani Dossi MS, and sure enough proof that I was not making shit up. Having seen it in the book, they did it again.

Then I showed them all the dagger material that they had seen so far on the course: 1st, 2nd and 3rd plays of the first master, and now the 1st and 2nd plays of the third master in the PD. They then could choose the technique “that currently holds your interest” and train that.

This took us to 7pm, and we took up the swords. I had them do just mandritto fendente from donna destra through longa to dente di zenghiaro, and back up with roverso sottano. Then roverso fendente from donna la sinestra through longa to tutta porta di ferro, and mandritto sottano back up. We then put those together to make part one of the cutting drill.

From here they practiced cutting from donna to their partner’s mask, while the partner waits in tutta porta di ferro (aka step one of first drill).

And that brought us on to the parry from tutta porta di ferro, aka step two of first drill, or better yet, the second play of the master crossed at the middle of the swords in zogho largo.

We did it for a little while, looked at it in the book, then did it again. This brought us to time, where I showed them how to salute while holding their masks, and we were done. This course, like the last, is exemplary for the way they stay on to train after class, and for showing up also on Wednesdays. I have high hopes for them all!

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Book Review: The Essence of Budo

The works of Dave Lowry should need no introduction to readers of this blog, who, I assume, have at least a passing interest in the martial arts. Mr Lowry has been training since the late sixties and writing about it since the early eighties. His latest book, The Essence of Budo: A Practitioner's Guide to Understanding the Japanese Martial Ways, ought to be bought and read by anyone who thinks of their art as martial, regardless of its origin.

The book is in three parts: Refining Training, Contemplating Tradition, and Reflecting on the Way. Each is comprised of a series of related articles; at times it feels like a book of a blog rather than a more conventional monograph, but this does not detract from the overall, underlying message: traditional martial arts are way too valuable to be treated superficially: give them your life, they deserve no less. Amen, brother. Yet at the same time he states outright that family, work and studies should come before training. Amen again.

I could fill this blog to the brim with useful and provocative quotes: Lowry has the authority and argument to get away with a whole lot of long overdue home truths. He is at times clearly annoyed by folk who he feels don’t train properly or understand their art as they should, which can make his tone a bit grating at times (unusually for this author, who is capable of sublime prose), but in his defence he is sorely provoked. How many martial arts authors can open a chapter with a line like “You do not have enough stamina”? Or with stating bluntly that karate is not a martial art?

Go, read this, you are guaranteed to learn something.

 

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In Proportion

I am not known for my sense of proportion when it comes to the Art I serve. OF COURSE everyone should train. OF COURSE it's more important than jobs or other distractions (I make an exception for children. Only for children). But the Art itself is based on proportion. For any action to work, it must be done in the correct time and measure. Both of these are not absolute dimensions, but proportional to the position and actions of the opponent.

In medieval times, up until comparatively recently, the units of measurement (yards, metres, pounds, kilos, etc.) would vary from country to country, even town to town. It was very difficult to establish absolute dimensions for anything. So all building plans and similar representations would be established proportionally, geometrically. Side x is twice the length of side y, etc.

This fits with fencing perfectly: as Vadi wrote:

La Geometria che divide e parte.

Per infiniti numeri e misure.

Che inpi di scientia le sue carte.

 

La spada e sotto posta a le sue cure.

Convien che si mesuri i colpi ei passi.

Acio che la scientia ta secure.

 

Geometry divides and separates

By infinite numbers and measures,

And fills her papers with science.

The sword is placed in her care,

So measure blows and steps together

So Science keeps you safe.

Geometry is the perfect science here because it does not deal in dimensions at all, just in relationships between lines. Measure and time are relative: to your opponent's actions and your own.
I am in the depths of a dip in typing speed thanks to learning to touch type and switching to the Dvorak layout (QWERTY is SO skeuomorphic, that once I took an interest in typing it started to bug the hell out of me, and a friend put me on to “‘,.PYF” instead) so this may be the last post for a while, as I work on technical exercises. Merry Christmas all!

 

 

 

 

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Artists and Slugs. Typing too.

I am typing this very slowly, without looking at the keyboard (much). This may seem trivial to those of you that learned to touch-type young, but I have twenty years of bad habits to overcome: five published books and God knows how many thousand emails, all written by poke and pray. I got pretty quick with my bad habits. But a chance exchange on Facebook lead me to think that time spent now learning to type properly might be a good investment.

FBMartin

As you can see, Martin (a professional writer, swordsman, and long-time good friend) put me on to the BBC Schools typing course. And if you can see past the dancing hippos with questionable Middle Eastern accents, it is brilliant. The course starts at the very beginning, with the home row:

asdf jkl;

And adds one pair of keys at a time: first g and h; then r and u; building up over 12 levels until the whole keyboard is covered (sans the numbers, tabs etc.). Most importantly, every step is clearly taught, and every error is apparent but not dwelled on; you just can’t get to the celebratory turtle dance until the right keys have been hit. The way the authors have structured the course is an essay in perfect pedagogy. Every new level begins with revision of the previous material, and there is constant praise and encouragement. I applied the same sort of discipline that I use for learning other skills, such as, oh, I don’t know, swordfighting perhaps? and worked through the levels at my own pace, repeating most of them several times before moving on, and going back often to repeat previous ones. In under a week, I can find any key without looking, though my current pace is a dilatory 12 words per minute with a mere 97% accuracy rate.

It is costing me ALL my self-discipline not to switch back, as right now this is WAY slower, and VERY frustrating. But all the evidence suggests that in the end, this dip in speed will be as a run-up to hitherto undreamed heights of productivity, if I can just stick with it. (I just deleted a correct letter because I used the wrong finger to type it.)

This is of course an excellent analogue for the perils of too much freeplay or sparring, too early. One gets into terrible habits that, while they work for a while, set a lower cap on ultimate performance, and make it harder to attain deep competence because going back to basics and getting it right entails a temporary but frustrating drop in performance.

Mastery of any skill is largely a process of taking a rational construct, product of the slow conscious mind (Kahneman’s System 2), and installing it in the super-fast adaptive unconscious (Kahneman’s System 1). This inevitably leads to a period of adjustment, where the techniques and theories of the art in question get in the way of the artist’s natural expression. And this leads us to a moment of choice: do we truly believe in this art?

If we do, then we accept a short-term dip in ability for a hoped-for long-term increase in skill. If we do not, then we should maintain our current skills. The artist, one who follows the art, should find dips in performance heartening. They suggest an improvement is coming.

One of the pitfalls of evolution in nature is that once an organism is adapted for its niche, it cannot accept a dip in reproductive success for the sake of a long-term gain. Adaptations that convey disadvantage in the short term are ruthlessly selected against. So we have slugs, masters of their tiny leafy pinnacle, genetically oblivious to the possibilities of scaling further evolutionary heights. Only human beings, artists, can deliberately seek higher ground via a descent into an abyss.

So, in terms of your training, are you an artist or a slug?

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Complexity

I don’t believe in innate talent. I’ve never seen it in a student, and I have noticed no correlation between early successes in training and long-term achievement. But you can draw a linear relationship between hours spent in class and acknowledged skill. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is my sort-of-ex-student (in that he has gone on to set up his own independent school) Ilkka Hartikainen. Round about the time he was developing an international reputation for his Bolognese research, we co-incidentally did a review of attendance data. Turns out that my star student had 50% more class time logged than the next-keenest student. A clear indication that his effort, not some genetic predisposition to historical swordsmanship, was the underlying cause of his success, as I'm sure he'd agree. This is as it should be. I see no point in engaging in any sort of activity where genetic factors are the prime determinant of success. And everybody now knows (or should do!) about the 10,000 hour rule, which indicates that ten thousand hours of dedicated practice (not just going through the motions), is needed for mastery in any complex field. A major component of my job is to ensure that the time students spend in class is actually dedicated practice, not just swinging a sword about.

This always begs the question though, of what is complexity? In what areas does this rule apply, and where does it not? In one lecture I gave on this subject, someone who clearly felt threatened by the idea that it’s effort, not talent, that generates expertise, asked me if it took 10,000 hours to master blinking. The best definition I have so far come across for complexity in this context is in Matthew Syed’s Bounce, the subtitle of which is bang on the money: the myth of talent and the power of practice. He says (on p48 of the 2011 Fourth Estate paperback edition):

“…complexity… describes those tasks characterised by combinatorial explosion; tasks where success is determined, first and foremost, by superiority in software (pattern recognition and sophisticated motor programs) rather than hardware (simple speed or strength).

The usual example of a pursuit characterised by combinatorial explosion is chess. 32 men on 64 squares leads to more possible game permutations than there are atoms in the universe. But from our perspective, chess is simple! It doesn’t matter how you place your knight on the board, just where. Slam it down or place it silently, makes no difference. Likewise, there is only one desired result: checkmate. There are no nuances or degrees. You can win, lose, or draw. We can learn much from the paths to mastery that top chess players have used (e.g. Josh Waitzkin’s The Art of Learning), but in terms of breadth, chess is sadly lacking. In addition to the complexities of tactics that chess players use, we can add depth and breadth of research, skills of motor execution (not smashing up cars, performing the physical movements of the art), levels of control allowing a choice of outcomes (kill, wound, capture, evade etc.) and so on. Even if someone suffers from severe physical disability, there is nothing stopping them from mastering an area of this art to a degree that puts them at the top of their part of this giant field.

There are many insights in Syed’s book that will no doubt make their way into this blog at some point (he has a lovely section on double-think, for instance, and another on the necessity of consistent execution of basic actions, for another instance), but I’ll leave you with this thought: The only thing that stands between you and mastery of the art of arms is the amount of dedicated practice you are willing to put into it.

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In the beginning was the (s)word, part 5

This evening’s class was the smallest yet; some combination of factors had numbers down to 15. Given that at least four of the missing had let me know in advance, there is no immediate cause for concern. If the next class is similarly depleted, I’ll send an email round to those who I haven’t heard from.

Perhaps they were concerned about the warm-up? As promised, we revised 3-point push-ups. When we got to the swinging exercise at the end, I demonstrated hand, hip and leg initiation, using each to strike a kickbag with a backfist. Hand initiation is fastest and least powerful; leg initiation hits hardest but takes longest. We then did the swinging exercise each way, emphasising the choice we usually make in WMA: hand initiation.

We then revised the 3 turns and 4 steps, then the 4 guards. I then defined the correct length of the guard position for them (yes, I know it varies, but beginners need a starting point). Our definition of the correct length is the spacing of the feet that gives the maximum travel of the weight during a volta stabile. I had them pay attention to that while doing the four guards drill.

Then we used gentle pressure to check the details of posta longa, and applied whatever insights were gained in the defence of the first master of the dagger. (Grounding makes much more sense to beginners when it is applied to some useful purpose, I find.) We also revised the roverso disarm, and then I taught them the 9th master disarm from scratch.

With these three techniques in place, they were ready to have a go at the dagger disarm flowdrill.

I then took them to the book to show them the 9th master in all his ball-busting glory. We then looked again at the blows of the sword in the book, before tooling up and practising the mandritto fendente from donna to zenghiaro, and roverso fendente from donna to tutta porta di ferro, that we had done last week.

From there I tied these actions together into part one of the cutting drill. This proved a step too far for some, but well within the competence of others, which is normal for this kind of course.

We then revised first drill, steps 1-3, and had time to cover step 4. So they now know the whole of first drill.

All in all, this is perhaps the fastest beginners’ course I’ve ever taught, not least because so many of them are showing up on Thursday. We even had one brave soul try to attend the advanced class last night (I didn’t allow him to join in, of course, but he seemed to enjoy watching the class and stayed on for free training afterwards.)

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Teaching teachers, part 2: the individual lesson

Perhaps the single most useful insight I got from the BAF course alluded to earlier is the idea that in an individual lesson, the coach should create an environment in which the desired behaviour results in the student striking, and undesired behaviour results in the student being struck. This may seem obvious, and it’s one of those things I’ve sort of known for years, but it came into focus for me when one of the coaches on the course got cross with me for praising a student verbally when what he had done was not actually correct. That insight alone was worth the trip.

One of the refrains on Saturday’s class instruction seminar was that you don’t have to be technically superior to your students to run a good class. The refrain on Sunday was that coaching requires the highest levels of technical skill, because you have to be in sufficient control of the situation that you allow yourself to be hit when the student has done what you want, but whenever his action is undesired, it must fail and you must strike. This way the student learns very, very fast, as the environment he is in makes learning and improving absolutely natural.

We started out with a general warm-up, with the 10 minutes split between the three least experienced students- mostly so I could watch them in front of a whole class. Then I split them into pairs and had them run the following exercise: the “student” did one iteration of the cutting drill; the “coach” watched it and made one verbal correction. The student then repeated the drill, applying the correction. When everyone had taken both roles, I asked them if they found the corrections useful, and 12 out of 12 said they did. Which had us bowling nicely along the right track.

The next round was a little more advanced. Basically the same set-up, but this time the coach had to prescribe a specific exercise to be done, either solo or with the coach, to improve the cutting drill, with a second iteration of the cutting drill to see whether the coach’s prescription worked. Again, 12 out of 12.

That introduced the idea of targeting the content of a lesson to a specific need; the students then had to take one of our basic drills and improve their student’s execution of one step of it (e.g. Step 3 of second drill). They had to set it up so if the action was improving, the student succeeded, if not, then they failed. The trick being to adjust the difficulty level such that the student usually succeeded, but only by working at their upper limit.

We then looked at step one of a drill; in its basic form a simple attack from wide measure. The trick was to get it better and better, and faster and faster, by having the student beat the coach’s parry. The parry should be done such that it creates a closing window, that the attack should just sneak through (I borrowed this wholesale from Prof Bruce’s foil coaching- make the student quicker by giving them less time, in a natural setting).

This brought us on to the topic of how to use this kind of skill when just taking part in a normal class. The class had formed themselves into pairs of notable distinct skill level within each pair, and having noticed this I took advantage of it. I set the more experienced person the target of raising their partner’s skill level without actually giving them a formal lesson- just subtly modify what you do so that they naturally improve. (This is high level stuff, and not a basic requirement of the course, just a useful sidetrack.)

We then turned this on its head and looked at abuse of power: in the same pairs, the more experienced student had to use their skill advantage to make the drill a frustrating misery for their partner. Why, you may very well ask? Because more advanced students can fall into this behaviour without malice and by accident. By doing it deliberately, they bring it into consciousness and hence under control. This (very short) section of the class finished by the more advanced students giving their partners a solid technical lesson by way of apology.

We then mixed up the pairs so that the skill levels were about even, and I had each student in turn ask their coach for help with a specific difficulty (“I find the exchange of thrust hard from posta di donna”, for instance).

We then looked at the structure and planning of a 6-7 minute technical lesson. It goes like this:

1) identify or illustrate the problem (get the student to show you it, not describe it)

2) identify the cause of the problem (usually not what the student thinks it is!)

3) prescribe a specific drill or exercise

4) assess the results. If good, go to step 5, if not good go back to step 2.

5) increase the pressure under which the student performs the corrected action.

This lead us on to a discussion of the process of diagnosis, and I sent them all off to practice it. Before breaking for lunch, I asked them to think up questions to be answered in the afternoon session.

After lunch, the questions that made it into my notebook were:

1) How do you apply these skills in a basic class?

2) how do you do a finger-safe version of the punta falsa? (this from a student with a bleeding thumb)

3) how do you use your voice when coaching?

4) how do you use pair drills to improve guard positions?

5) what do you do with a resistant or frustrated student?

6) how can you react in time to a student’s error to give the necessary physical feedback?

7) how do you run a beginner’s course?

8) how do you help a student who is much stronger than you are?

This allowed me to couch the afternoon’s material in the terms most useful to the students present. We started with a finger-safe version of the punta falsa, as a base technical drill in which to practice other coaching skills too. The punta falsa is of course perfectly finger-safe as it is; but done incorrectly, it can lead to putting your left hand in the way of the player’s riposte. So I showed them how to teach that particular correction (emphasise parrying between your hands and then striking with the point, smoothing out the two steps until they are one again), and covered how to use your voice when coaching: use single words, to draw the student’s attention to specific details. E.g. “Parry.” Or “foot”. Avoid where possible “good”, “bad” type judgement statements, reserve that for praise at the end of the lesson. (Praise is useful, necessary even, but must always be sincere. Even if the student totally screwed up the lesson, find something to praise. And always, focus on their efforts not their accomplishments.)

Then we looked at helping a strong student to be precise, instead of relying on his natural advantage. This is technically challenging, as what you have to do is make their strength insufficient; not too hard sword against sword, but much more so when grappling. In essence, you need to give the student a reason to use correct technique, because insufficient accuracy leads to being hit.

(At this point in the class my phone rang (I had forgotten to turn it to silent), because my younger daughter had gone missing in a supermarket, and my wife, having called the police, called me. The fact that, statistically, it was vanishingly unlikely that anything really bad had happened did not actually help the rising panic, but I got that under control in a breath, halted the class, explained the situation in under 10 seconds, handed the class off to the senior student present, enlisted a driver (my wife had the car), and was out the door in under a minute. While we were backing out of the parking lot my phone went again to say the little monkey had been found, and so I went back to work after getting my heart rate back below 100 and doing a much-needed 20 push-ups, which are due if your phone rings in class.)

I then moved the class on to look at the problem of fixing guard positions in a pair drill. It’s pretty easy to work on them when you (the coach) are standing by with a helpful finger or useful suggestion, but sword in hand it can be a bit more challenging. We started with correcting a position at the beginning of a pair drill. Simply do not allow the drill to start until the position is better. Within a phrase, you have to find the reason why the position must improve- usually because if it stays as it is it cannot withstand the forces acting on it. So increase those forces such that the position fails until the student corrects it (making sure of course that they know why they are getting hit). To help with this we looked at setting up drills where the student’s line of strength in their position determined their success. Fairly basic for anyone with a grounding in grounding. So I set the more advanced students the challenge of setting up a drill such that the student had to get their lines of weakness right before their actions could work. This took more doing- apparently they had forgotten yielding actions (such as the colpo di villano).

Reaction times are a tougher nut to crack. Basically, if you can’t see the student’s error in time, you can’t give the lesson. So, either slow the lesson down, to give you more time, or learn to read the error earlier in the student’s action.

We then looked at giving a tactical lesson- improving the student’s choice of action, rather than the action itself. Adding a degree of freedom is of course the usual tool; in circumstance a, do this, in b, do that. The coach then sets up the circumstances such that they control when a or b occur.

This brought us on to Beginners, bless them. The rule of beginners is this:

Show it to them correctly a thousand times, and they will eventually get it. Show it to them wrong once, and they’ll copy it correctly first time.

Every action must be taught from the familiar: walking across the salle becomes passing steps; swinging the sword from shoulder to shoulder becomes striking; etc. We didn’t spend much time on this as it was a little off-topic. For further insights into running a beginners’ course, see my blog post series.

Then we studied how to use these coaching skills in a basic class (where you are not the teacher). In any pair arrangement either:

1) your skill > your partner’s; subtly tweak what you do to bring out their best.

2) your skill < your partner’s; ask for a (non verbal!) lesson on the drill in question. Or simply study how they do it.

3) your skill = your partner’s; play with the drill.

In all cases being careful not to disrupt the lesson.

We then came back to the beginning: the students paired up and watched each other do the cutting drill, making whatever correction seemed most necessary to them. This highlighted the spiral nature of training; you are always coming back to the beginning, just (if your training worked) at a higher level. Advanced technique is just basic technique done really well.

Then to finish off, they paired up again and gave each other 5 minute technical lessons.

All in all, an excellent day.

I'm currently working on a book about how to teach historical martial arts, but in the meantime, you can find more here:

How to get started teaching historical martial arts

How to teach left-handers

Teaching Teachers, part one: Class Instruction

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In the beginning was the (s)word, part 4

So we are now half way through the beginners’ course, with no drop-outs. Fully half the course showed up for the basic class on Thursday last week as I mentioned in the previous post, another excellent sign. And though we never require a student to buy a sword, the fact that two of the beginners bought their own brand new and shiny swords this week is another very good sign for their long-term interest.

I try to illustrate the process of learning through continually referring to the base already established, then adding to it. This in the macrocosm, of the material covered in each class, and in the microcosm of each specific technique. And this applies as much to the warm-up exercises as anywhere else. This week we included kicking squats, to revise last week’s new material, but also added one armed push-ups. I think I’m the only one of my colleagues that has beginners doing one-armed push-ups, but it’s really not that hard, if you show them how to build up to it and don’t expect a full, perfect iteration at the first attempt. It’s ok to keep your wight on your feet and use your legs to do the work, so long as you are gradually building up the amount of weight on the arm. Eventually the legs do no work at all. Eventually…

We then reviewed falling in pairs (without a demonstration), before going on to revising the four steps, four guards, and 2 turns that they already know, with only the very briefest demonstration of the components. Memory gets better if you use it – and recognition and recall are two separate processes. We want recall.

I then carefully demonstrated the volta stabile, and we all did them together. After they had done them on their own, we went to the four guards drill. I walked them through it then let them practice. The out came the stick for the stick exercise.

From there we revised the first two plays of the first master of the dagger, before I taught them the roverso disarm as shown in the Pisani-Dossi MS. This took a while as it has a lot of moving parts, but when most of them had it, I took them to the book and Lo! It wasn’t there. Oh no! Am I making shit up? This brought up the fact that there’s more than one copy of the manuscript, and they are different. So I showed them the P-D, and the first two plays of the third master of the dagger therein, and had them do it again.

This brought us to 6.55, and we took up the swords. I had them work on the mandritto fendente finishing in posta di dente di zenghiaro, returning up to longa with a thrust or a roverso sottano. Then the same thing on the other side, so creating tutta porta di ferro. Then we did some basic grip exercises: first, writing your name with the point of the sword, then shifting the sword in the hand, from point on the ground to point up, without flexing the wrist, just using the fingers. Then I had them repeat the cutting exercises, with the image of drawing the lines of the blows in the air, rather than striking. Sure enough it got a lot better pretty quickly!

We then revised the first two steps of first drill, and added step 3, the pommel strike. I then took them to the book to show them the pommel strike done as a counter-remedy- they already knew to look for a master wearing a crown and a garter. But there wasn’t one! The pommel strikes were being done by scholars… so we turned to the mounted combat section and found the 8th play of the sword on horseback, and there he was, wearing the right bling and described as a general counter-remedy. This emphasised to the class that the Art is represented by the whole book- you can’t just stick to one section.

So they did it all again, having seen it in the book, and we were done.

After class, Ville Henell got them all cleaning their swords (good man!) and afterwards no less than four of the beginners came and asked for help with a warm-up exercise. Outstanding. The one they wanted was the whisky and cigars drill (sitting down on the floor with your legs in the air, as if reclining on a leather armchair with a whisky (single malt, natch) and cigar (hand-rolled cuban, of course), and your feet on a silken footstool). We got them all to realise it’s about skill, not raw strength. And guess who’ll find it all much easier next time in class. Fully half the class was still training half an hour after class ended, and I tried to spend some time with everyone.

All in all, they are coming along nicely!

 

 

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In the beginning was the (s)word, part 2

Between last week’s class and this one (on the 9th of October) we saw six out of the 24 attend class on Thursday 4th – this is an excellent proportion, especially for the first week. It takes some guts to show up with so little prior experience, but they all got stuck in, and seemed to enjoy themselves. A large part of my job is taking 21st century office slaves and getting them sufficiently fit and strong to do medieval martial arts. The first of this batch to attract my attention in this regard is a tall, slim gentleman with back issues. So I spent twenty minutes or so with him after class working on posture and core strength exercises.

Day two of the beginners’ course saw one new face (who had been sick the week before) who brought with her a history of forearm tendonitis. My specialty. So we spent some time after class fixing that, with massage and wrist strength training exercises. (What on earth makes the average doctor think that strapping up a wrist for a year will actually help? Muscles that don’t get used waste away. Sure, the inflammation in the tendon dies down, but there is nothing stopping it coming back. Doh.)

The class began with the warm-up, almost exactly the same as last week’s but with less time to do more stuff. I added in our current favourite shoulder stability exercise, and cross-squats. I promised them kicking squats this week… We then went straight on to revise the four steps and four guards from last week, then I introduced them to the stick exercise– to get them to do these steps naturally and without thought.

We then gave the students the usual “a mask is not armour” speech, and showed them our utterly destroyed fencing mask – what happens when modern sports equipment meets medieval weaponry. Then I had them tapping each other gently on the mask with wooden daggers. When that was going nicely I taught them the First Master disarm, then showed it to them in the book, first the four strikes, then the five things, then the first master and his play.

I find it works best to show the beginners the technique a few times, let them try it, make a few tweaks, and get them to experience a few successful repetitions, before showing them the book. That way they recognise the images from their own experience, rather than perceive it as something new and different. Then I had them repeat exactly the same exercise having had the source, with all its Italian weirdness, explained to them. So they try to assign the new fancy names to familiar actions, not the other way round.

When that was going nicely I added the counter (second play first master), not least to hammer home the idea that this is not self defence- this is a medieval combat style for professional warriors., there is no moral value assigned to defence per se. The action we were doing, by modern standards, is simply murder- how to strike with a dagger despite the target’s best efforts to stop you.

This took us to 7pm, and we picked up the swords, saluted, and got busy swinging them up the hall. After that was re-familiarised, I had them think about hiding behind the sword as they strike.

I then demonstrated the cut done to the mask, by having a beginner, with whom I had never crossed swords, tap me on the mask while I practised not flinching. It is vital for them to see that they can do it safely. And that I am not asking them to do anything I would not do myself.

It would make no sense to stop there, as practising being hit is of limited value. So we added the parry from tutta porta di ferro (not that I gave them the terminology just yet). I just told them to hit the incoming sword away, middle to middle, using the edge of their sword.  And lo! we ended up at the book again having a look at the second master of the zogho largo. Literally 60 seconds or less of “look at the book, isn’t that cool” and it was “go back and do it again, now that you know what it is”.

That took us to 7.30 and the final salute, after which the President of the SHMS handed out a printed copy of the training guide to each member of the course.

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Guy Windsor: a website all about the Renaissance Italian martial arts expert who blends historical accuracy with practical training.