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 … [Read more...]
Stretto Drills Revisited
One of the major drivers of syllabus development is the difficulties the senior students have either with the drills themselves, or with making sense of them. Recently the stretto form of second drill … [Read more...]
New Beginnings, part 8
This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of this beginner’s course. Unusually for me I actually wrote out a class plan in advance. I wondered whether given … [Read more...]
New Beginnings, part 7
I should warn you, reading this, that my experiments in the land of data entry have shifted to a new phase. I am boldly going into Star Trek territory, and dictating this to the computer. This … [Read more...]
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 … [Read more...]
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, … [Read more...]