Guy Windsor

Consulting Swordsman. Writer.

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.

 

Stretto Drills Revisited

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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 has been causing problems. Most critically this comes from the (perfectly reasonable) perception that step four of the drill is the counter to step three. In other words that the entry to wrap counters the left-hand pommel grab (11th play of the zogho stretto). But of course, it doesn’t. The issue here is that one of the defining features of the crossing at the zogho stretto is that either player can make the plays that follow. So, what we have in the stretto forms of first drill and second drill is, at step three, how the attacker should respond to the crossing, and at step four, how the defender should respond to the crossing. But because they are set drills, the attacker knows what the crossing will be in advance, and so is busily executing his response to the crossing in the tempo in which the defender is trying to act. This is a fault of the design of the drills, not of the way they are being trained.

Let me note here that unless otherwise stated, play numbers refer to the Getty MS: there are 23 stretto plays in the Getty, but the PD is quite different, having 12 plays of the first master, crossed mandritto v mandritto, and 9 of the second, who is crossed roverso v roverso. You can see him and his scholar here:

To address this problem I have, with the assistance of the members of the intermediate class on Monday nights, come up with new versions of these drills. Unlike all the other drills in the syllabus, they branch: so the stretto forms of first drill and second drill come in two parts. In part one, the attacker enters at the crossing, to which the defender has a counter; in part two as the crossing is made the defender enters, to which the attacker has a counter.

The Pisani-Dossi second stretto master
The Pisani-Dossi second stretto master

So the stretto form of first drill, part one, goes like this:

  1. The attacker initiates, with a mandritto fendente.
  2. The defender counter-attacks, also with a mandritto fendente, sending his point into the attacker’s face.
  3. The attacker parries the counter-attack, keeping his point close to the defenders face, and grabs the defenders hilt (as in the second play of the zogho stretto).
  4. As the attacker parries, the defender grabs the attacker’s point and smashes it sword into his face (the 12th play of the zogho stretto).

This has the added benefit of including one of my favourite plays, the 12th play of the zogho stretto. Why blunt your sword on his face when you can use his? The text reads:

If someone parries from the mandritto side, grasp his sword with your left hand as shown and strike him with a thrust or cut. If you want, you can cut his face or neck with his own sword as you see in the picture. After I'm done striking you, I can leave my sword and grab yours, as the student after me will do. (trans Tom Leoni)

Grab his sword and hit him with it!
Grab his sword and hit him with it!

The stretto form of first drill, part two:

  1. The attacker initiates, with a mandritto fendente.
  2. The defender counter-attacks, also with a mandritto fendente, sending his point into the attacker’s face.
  3. The attacker parries the counter-attack, and the defender enters with a pommel strike (3rd play of the zogho stretto).
  4. The attacker counters the pommel strike with the ligadura mezana.

The stretto form of second drill, part one:

  1. The attacker initiates, with a mandritto fendente.
  2. The defender parries with a roverso sottano and strikes with a mandritto fendente.
  3. As the defender parries the attacker binds the parry, and grabs the defender’s pommel with his left hand and throws it over the defender’s left shoulder (the 11th play of the zogho stretto).
  4. As the attacker binds, and will try to enter, the defender kicks him in the nuts (stomach, amongst friends), and strikes with the sword.

The 11th play is important to know as it has a similarly general application as the 12th:

If someone parries on the riverso side, grasp his left hand and his whole pommel with your left hand and push him backward; then you may strike him with thrusts or cuts. (trans Tom Leoni)

grab his pommel and throw it over his left shoulder.
grab his pommel and throw it over his left shoulder.

I like having both these plays in the basic syllabus, as their context is so clearly defined.

The stretto form of second drill, part two:

  1. The attacker initiates, with a mandritto fendente.
  2. The defender parries with a roverso sottano and strikes with a mandritto fendente.
  3. As the attacker binds the parry, the defender enters to wrap, as we see for example in the Pisani Dossi MS, first and second plays of the second master of the zogho stretto.
  4. The defender counters the ligadura mezana with the 16th play of the zogho stretto (Getty MS). Note we already have the 15th play as a counter to the ligadura in the base form of second drill, so here is the alternative.

Many people find this counter to the ligadura mezana easier than the 15th play (which ends in a ligadura sottana, the most commonly used counter to the ligadura mezana, seen before in the 3rd and 4th plays of the 1st master of the dagger, and elsewhere).

throw your sword to his neck.
throw your sword to his neck.

The text reads:

I am the Counter of the student who tried dagger-plays against me–i.e. I act against the student in the second play before me. Slitting his throat would be going easy on him. And I can also throw him to the ground as quickly as I want to. (trans Tom Leoni)

Having these additional forms of the drills should clarify what is supposed to counter what: the main problem with the old versions was that “step four” was really “alternative step three if the defender had had the initiative at the moment of the crossing”. Breaking it down like this and adding the counters should solve the problem. This is one of the best bits about being the head of the school: if there is a problem with the syllabus I can just try to fix it, without committee meetings or appeal to a higher authority. I look forward to hearing from branch leaders whether these new drills have actually solved the problem, or whether they need more work. Bear in mind that they have not been tested yet in their proper environment: class. After teaching them for a few months we should have our answer.

New Beginnings, part 8

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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 what we had covered before, we could get through the first seven plays of the first master of dagger, and to the end of second drill. I also wanted to emphasise the ligadura mezana and its counter (the third and fourth plays of the first master), and of course make sure that the longsword cutting drill part one was in place. And even more unusually, I stuck to the plan. Here it is in all its glory:

bcplan

We began with the salute and the usual warmup, in which I was sure to include kicking squats and falling, and then to the four guards drill. I then had the beginners on their own (so, the non-beginners stepped back) go through the four steps and the three turns: the steps were fine, but the turns were somewhat lacking, so we reviewed them in detail. Then with everyone together they practiced their footwork, while I put the stick in play.

I then demonstrated the first and second and the third and fourth plays of the first master of the dagger; then the third and fourth and the fifth and sixth; then the fifth and sixth and the seventh. Having thus surveyed all seven as a series, I asked them to choose the one technique they did not want to practice and practice that. It’s a pretty reliable guide to what you should be practising: the thing you dread is the thing you need.

They had already seen the flowdrill before, but I had them do the three disarms alone, then tie them together into the drill. Having worked the drill for little bit I had them choose to either practice the part they found most difficult, or break the flow. They self-selected with a remarkably accurate view of which group their skills placed them in, and tending to stick to the base rather than try the more difficult.

Then we all reviewed the third and fourth plays as we would need them to complete second drill. This took us to 18.50, and we took our swords and practised part one of the cutting drill. We then went through all four steps of first drill, then studied step three, then step four, in isolation. This took us to 19.10, and parts one and two of second drill. I then taught them step three, where the attacker yields to the parry, enters in and wraps the defender in a ligadura mezana and strikes with the pommel. Then step four, the counter to that, which is mechanically almost identical to the fourth play of the first master of the dagger. I demonstrated the action first with the dagger, so in its most familiar context, and then with the sword.

We finished with a drill in which the attacker throws eight mandritti fendenti, against which the defender alternates parrying from tutta porta di ferro, as in first drill, and then dente di zenghiaro, as in second drill. We concluded with my telling them that I hoped they would all continue to train, as indeed this course has been a pleasure to teach.

I will absorb all this for a while, then use the data from these two courses to summarise the key elements of how I think a beginner’s course should go, and highlight where and why these courses differed. Stay tuned!

New Beginnings, part 7

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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 experiment has yielded some astonishingly weird results, including one mini shit-storm on Facebook, but it is very interesting (to me anyway) to have to think clearly about what I’m going to say, to articulate clearly each and every word, and to speak the punctuation. It does change several things, not least speed, and word-choice. Typing is somehow more formal. Anyway, on with the course review…

This week’s beginners course class, the seventh out of eight, was oddly attended, with relatively few beginners, and relatively many more experienced students. We started with the warmup of course, including squat push-ups, then went on to solo falling practice, before the four guards drill. After this we looked at the mechanics of the takedown, starting with one student standing in posta longa, and the other making the takedown from there. We looked at the idea of the takedown being to create a situation in which your partner must take a step to keep their balance, but you have arranged things such that they cannot step. We also looked at creating a spiral twist in the back, by pulling the right hip and pushing the left shoulder, and vice-versa. From here we went into a gentle and cooperative version of the seventh play of the first master of the dagger, emphasising falling without using your hands. The image I used was of using your left hand to grab an imaginary dagger from the thrower’s belt and stab him in the femoral artery with it.

We then looked at this play of the first master, using both hands to break the attacker’s arm. This went very well, so we went swiftly on to the sixth play, which counters it, by grabbing the blade of the dagger with the left hand and jamming it in the defenders right elbow. We then went to the Book and saw the first seven plays of the first master of the dagger in order: disarm, counter, lock, counter, break, counter, takedown. We then looked at memorisation strategies for keeping these seven plays in memory. After which we reviewed the flowdrill and i had them break the flow with the third, fifth, or seventh play of the first master. This was a step too far for most, but I think it got the idea of how the terminology is used and why it is useful to have these plays in memory. As I have said many times before: you remember that which you are ready to learn. If you can’t remember it, you can’t study it.

From here we took up swords and went through part one of the cutting drill. Again. This time though, I pointed out the relationship between the mandritto fendente from posta di donna, and the guard tutta porta di ferro, to the one long sword pair drill that they know, First Drill.

As last week we took a moment to look at the guards tutta porta di ferro, and dente di zenghiaro, (I don’t believe it, the dictation engine recognised both those guard’s names!) and then resumed the cutting drill. After a few more rounds of that, we began pair practice. I pointed out that the primary defensive movements in medieval combat are beating the enemies weapon up or down. In first drill we beat it up. We then did steps one and two. After they had practice that for a while, I described Fiore’s hierarchy of four Masters or Kings, and then we did steps one to 3, pointing out the remedy and the counter-remedy. After working on that pommel strike for a little bit we added step four, the counter-counter-remedy. This was revision from last week.

We had just enough time at the end (about 8 minutes) to have a look at what might happen if you ended up trying to defend from the “wrong side”: i.e. From dente di zenghiaro. So I demonstrated the whole of second drill, and they had a go at steps one and two.

Attentive readers of this blog will have noted that we are covering a lot more material in this beginner’s course than in the previous one. This is mostly an artefact of the smaller number of beginners in a given class, and the larger number of more experienced students available to pair up with them. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that these beginner’s have an excellent record of attending Thursday’s basic class, and staying behind for free training to practice. I have been using that time to work with many of them on individual issues such as pre-existing knee problems, and on the various aspects of the training they may be having difficulty with, such as falling, or sword handling.

New Beginnings, part 4

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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!

New Beginnings, part 3

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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!