Blast, it's been a while....

I didn't realise how long it's been since I made a post here. Rest assured, my silence has been due to concentrating on my students.

We're in the Christmas lull and the last week was an informal "use whatever is safe" night based on the pas d'arms rules from Fightcamp. From this, I think I'm going to insist on variety.  I already know my stabby cards of doom  are a move towards it. (every time you notice someone relying on something, write "DON'T DO.... " on one card "MUST DO..." on another. You end up with a deck of useful handicaps that force people to think of other ways of approaching the problem)

Other things I've picked up from the bash:

Cloak has a lot of potential, the references are a bit scrappy and incomplete but I think it could be used in a similar way to a gauntlet.  With a few more tricky bits in between..  Some target practice with sharps will help figure out exactly how safe it can be.

Rapier and dagger against longsword is fun. Really fun. It's not a set-up that I'd choose if my life depended on it, since most of the hits against me had a lot of stopping power (dismemberment rather than perforation)  Sword and dagger is probably fairer, but I'm so used to a longer weapon that I kept on missing.  However, considering the preferences of the club, the sheer fun of this combination is worth working on.  It's historically accurate in a way.  Most of the books say don't do because you'll get beaten... which means it was seen.

Then there's general variance, I should throw my doors wide open to anyone who still bothers to read this, and those who have me as a forgotten part of their RSS feed.  After some badgering, the Experimental Archaeologist turned up and he was great- both as a fighter and a teacher... taking one of the newbies off to one side and  helping her with confidence. And well, part of English fighting is that we see so many styles and cultures. So, a true historical system would be able to cope with all of this.

If we only train against the same people, then we will only ever learn to defeat those individuals... It works, in a way, providing you cultivate an atmosphere where students are happy to explain the processes that ended with them being hit.

I'm starting to feel like I'm nitpicking when it comes to my class. This can mean one of two things- they really are great... or I'm missing something obvious.

Starting a new format for the class.

Well, I think that's what's going to happen- but you know what it's like, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. I think we've got to a point where competitive drilling (freeplay with individual rules that force people to play against their weaknesses) will be the focus of lessons.


I still maintain that although there are many systems and personal preferences- there's just one art called "fighting" and learning to read weapons and preferences is very important. Also what's counterintuitive with one weapon or system may be obvious with another (Swetnam describes this with something along the lines of "if he presents in a guard you're not familiar with, do not presume him to be a fool or holding the guard incorrectly" )- a change of weapon will force you to focus on other actions.


Because of this l want to encourage cross weapon training, we have longsworders and smallsworders in the group as well a sport fencer and so-on..  A mix of weapons and styles are authentic as "17th century streets of London" goes and Swetnam encourages this peculiarly English way of gaining knowledge. (Encouraging people to join in and then remorselessly stealing anything of value while pretending we invented it)


There's going to be a split and some jiggery pokery going on in the not too distant.  The regulars don't "need" me and I'd like to keep it that way- but I still have to be there for them and I need to make time to spar and practice under pressure. The newbies get my attention because they need to be introduced to the basics and get these building blocks so they can feel confident when it comes to transition time- that point where I can look at them and know what they need to work on and how..

I've got a few ideas brewing- I'm thinking of a version of 1000 blank cards. At the end of each bout the loser writes down one thing that would have made the fight harder for the winner (for example, dear reader, banning the Nigel Special- a specific form of distance play that can be summed up by "void the hand and twat the head") and this goes into a deck of cards that gets bigger with every fight.  Once there's enough rules for a fair selection then one person is "handicapped" by choosing a card- in an ideal world, both would pick a rule, but the method of creating the rules means that you could have restrictions that are incompatible with a fight.  Besides, one person has to be totally free so you can try all the moronic and doomed to fail combinations that would appear if you're convinced your opponent will only do one thing.

This works on many levels. You've got the basic freeplay with a focus, then you have the loser asking why they were hit and checking for patterns. If one of the team is considerably better than all the others, they're literally stacking the deck against him- creating a self handicapping system where the worst fighters get to define rules and improve. Any "you must not" can be changed to "you must"  meaning that the weaker gets to see if that's a killer move or just one they don't get. I can add in a new rule whenever, use it to introduce a guard or a concept...  1/2 speed would be applied to both sides,  It builds up a catalogue of weaknesses and if the same rule keeps on appearing then that's one that needs to be taken back to the co-op stage of drilling.

When I started looking at teaching, I thought about this for drills. "what do you think you're weakest at..  pair up, do your own thing and I'll be around to answer questions/make suggestions".  It's a nice thought, makes for a lot of growth but only with good foundations.

All in all, I'm really impressed with how my class is getting on. They are easy to teach and I hope that a substantial part of that is because the I've got all the important bits right.

And they're making me proud.  Slightly baffled, but proud.

The Dunning-Kruger effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes. Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding.

I will add another aspect.  Once you understand the Dunning-Kruger effect, you will get worried if you can't find anything wrong.  I have a good understanding of gambling and odds and for me there are "levels of confidence".  In poker terms, you won't go all in on a pair of kings, but you would think about it on a flush.

Now, yesterday was my first "evaluation" lesson where I've got us up to "safe freeplay" level. I can't really explain my exact teaching methods because I try to change language so I can talk to my  students. We've got a sport fencer (male and sabre.. which is unusual), a Polish girl who is really good with the Spanish School of Fencing and by necessity is ambidextrous with the rapier and at quite an advantage when bringing in another weapon... there's something I can learn from that. (As a side note, according to Swetnam she would be "in system" if she was sure enough to switch to Spanish). One guy who has basically taken my place amongst the Saturday Scrappers, which pisses me off because it reminds me how much better I would have been if I'd managed to drop by on a regular basis.  I think they're all doing really well, in fact... too well which makes me wonder what I've missed. Sure, this whole venture was so I could test my understanding against others and there's still the issue that it's me and the most esteemed and honourable maestro as overall instructors.


People have  this strange idea that the uber confident people are automatically right and that "I don't know" is some kind of sign of terrible weakness. When the reality is- if you want to teach, if you want any kind of authority you must invite questions.

I am worried about how well everyone is doing because I have difficulty believing that I'm that good a teacher.

Class roundup.

So going through today's class in my head is leading me in some interesting thoughts.  This month we've had a couple of newbies all with different kinds of experience.  I'm still, basically, teaching rapier for longsworders because I honestly think that is what Swetnam was trying to do-  there's reasons, part of it is because of the differences in attitude between Silver and Swetnam,, Then there is the casual mention of halfswording when caught on the back foot. (oh crap... well, that could still be a surprise when it turns up in competition)

Because of the nature of my class and the limitations of equipment and.. you know, all that stuff. I don't teach someone completely new to fighting. Today's newbies were a couple, him with some sport fencing experience and her with some years of Thibault's single rapier. Well, I think it's Thibault, she understood the pose, my complaints/comparisons about how light the Spanish swords are and so-on... I should give her the light rapier, and ask more questions. I think I know how it will go, and  the worst case scenario ends with me running back to the books, cross referencing and... well, it ends up with a new valuable, knowledgeable, member with a new set of assumptions and a shitload of work for me. (Or sending her to the best instructor within walking distance from my class and demanding regular reports)

He's a sport fencer and the way he uses the sword suggests he's more comfortable with sabre than anything else. (the point keeps on sneaking upwards and ready for a cut- if he insists on doing that, we'll just have to give him a proper sabre) There's the usual "one hand tied behind the back" thing going on. And another thing- he doesn't understand afterblows. He's really good at getting them, a tip of the point, a weak false edge, an insignificant push cut. He does them at something close to sport fencing speed, so I'm going to have to watch him carefully to find out why the cuts and stabs aren't proper.


There is no such thing as the "best system", the "best weapon" or "true length" and no number of nested triangles can present a science for your internal monologue... After all who thinks "holy fuck, that's a... what sword is that? Yes, he's stabbing me in the eye with a rapier" or cares to argue about how a longsword is blunt when they've just had their arm broken by a walking stick.

Thinking out Loud again.

The looke ward the iron ward the hanging ward the cross ward, three high guards, the low guard, the broad ward.

So Broad Ward is probably something like Thibault's rapier at shoulder height, blade extended with matching position for the dagger.  It's that or something similar to prime.  TBH, it's just given a line in the rapier and dagger section so it's obviously less important than the other guards.

Cross Ward- that's covered in rapier and dagger.

Castle Guard and True Guard are basically the same thing. (slight adjustments for the sword being more of a cutting weapon),

The Low Guard- Possibly lazy guard?

Three High Guards? His "improved" Stoccata, Normal Stoccata and....? 

So that's the look ward, the iron ward, the hanging ward. and one high guard left.  Possibly.

These were mentioned in such a casual way, I have to assume that they were "common knowledge" at the time. Which means that it's probably covered in a different manual by a different author....  Bugger.

Wheelchair fencing.

With the paralympics in town, I feel that it is time to admit to something that could be considered shameful in any other context.

I like watching people in wheelchairs beating each other up.

If you want to put a politically correct spin on it, it's "empowering". Contact sports are hard enough work when everything is working correctly, so seeing that level of athleticism when your body is being... disobedient... is brilliant.

The wheelchair fencing starts on Tuesday and I'm pretty sure that we can learn a lot about fighting from this event. The basic idea is that there are two chairs bolted together and just within distance. Competitors are split into 2 categories, and if I remember correctly those categories can be simplified to "good trunk control" and "Fencing arm/trunk impaired."- Those in the higher mobility class have enough movement to enable inch-perfect voids and something akin to a sitting fleche that can bring the wheelchair up with them.

So, how can this apply to fighters with working legs? Fighting from a fixed distance forces you to use time of the hand or hand/body- which makes for a "faster" fight that is a lot harder to defend from. Relying on body movement rather than footwork would enable tighter voids while keeping you in a  good place to attack.

As people may have guessed by now, I'm not one to indulge in patronising "oooh, don't they do well" kind of rhetoric.  Wheelchair fencing is bloody impressive, looks like a hell of a lot of fun and if I can find a safe, cheap way of simulating the restrictions and conditions necessary, I will use it as a training technique.

Fighting is for girls, part.. something-ish.

To make my stance absolutely clear- women have been considered valid combatants from the earliest sword manual we know of.  To dissuade, belittle or otherwise make women feel as if they should not/can not fight is inaccurate on all relevant grounds.

I've talked about social conventions, learning curves and gender differences before. I firmly believe that the equality given by 3 feet of steel makes it possible to have fair mixed competitions. When I comment on gender differences in fighting, I can only comment on what I see and why anybody who says "women can't/don't/shouldn't fight" is wrong.

I see two main issues with women fighters- Women are too weak and dainty to fight or train against men. The accepted physical differences between men and women do not define ability, but they change the learning curve. Because women are generally shorter and weaker than men they need to know things from the very beginning that it takes men ages to realise- good technique will triumph over strength, mastery of distance allows you to control your opponent's speed, and covering your lines is essential. From the very start they're forced to concentrate on technique. This is a good thing and this makes for a better fighter in the long term. So, when fighting against a brute there is a chance they'll be discouraged before their skill allows them to defeat him and it will take ages before the brute learns all the things a smaller, lighter, weaker person has started with.

The other is that "good girls don't fight". Now this one is a trickier one. I don't know how to get past this until after they've decided they want to give it a try and pick up a sword. (Which mostly involves saying "why are you apologising, that was brilliant")- These two falsehoods. work in conjunction and it can be difficult climbing up the learning curve fast enough to overcome the momentum of social convention.

But what would I know, I'm a man who was raised in a culture where respectful adversarialism is the norm. My entire understanding of the female of the species is collected through painful mistakes, guesswork and feedback.

And there is now a new group emerging within HEMA:

Esfinges.

Run by women, for women and it will take the painful mistakes and guesswork out of the equation. But they also do much more than that. Because there's usually only a handful of women in each club, a group like this becomes a conduit for inter-club communication and building up links that stop us from all disappearing up our own arses. It's another strong part of the web that makes HEMA such an interesting and wonderful community to be in.


Women belong in HEMA.  It's as simple as that, and if we can get more in.. excellent.

So here's a plug for their new blog and my best wishes:

http://esfinges1.wix.com/e/apps/blog/the-riddle-of-the-sphinx

Taking people's weapons away.

I've decided that I'm rather fond of taking one person's weapons away in a drill. I initially had this idea as a reaction to the lack of equipment (but didn't use it then) and then I noticed people forgetting the dagger when using both hands. Taking someone's weapon away is a perverse little joy.  First of all they look a bit befuddled and scared, then they start doing quite well.

Today started with people planted against the wall so they had to use their parries rather than controlling distance. Not a bad drill, but won't scale up too well. Will do one where you attack from the wall.

Then-  put dagger in left hand. Take sword away and set someone on them. Get them used to parrying and then give them the rapier again. Although, I confess, everyone was having far too much fun with just the dagger so I didn't get around to reintroducing the sword. I also like void drills without the sword as well- it really helps focus you on moving rather than trying to parry.


It's surprising how effective the off-hand dagger is on its own, people went from "are you kidding" to passing steps and punching within a few minutes.  And lots of grins, which is important.  I also think this handicapping has an important psychological aspect- if you can face and enjoy when hideously under prepared/unbalanced then it serves you well when going up, properly armed, against a better opponent.

Class notes.

Something like a wiki or database for drills would be quite useful- it's a matter of categorising things and putting neat little descriptors on what and why. With the intention that a drag and drop lesson can be worked out very quickly, so that I'm prepared when the inevitable best-laid plans go awry. If we can expand this will also allow the intermediate-advanced tiers get on with things and I can concentrate on the beginners.


 I really should take some time to create these... well the template for them, the questions that need to be answered for each drill.  Nothing big, mostly and extension of my notes. What we did, why we did it and which of the 7 principles each drill focuses on (which is the stage after getting the framing of the guards into people's heads).  After all, the long-term plan is to have this student lead with regular "refereed" freeplay sessions to highlight weaknesses and then counteract them. Which means that a good selection of drills will, basically, take me out of the equation- this is a kind of organic thingy, the times I feel that my classes are going well is when I'm teaching all sorts of bits and each pair is asking a different set of good questions. The big "look at me.." stuff just isn't my style and I know I rush through that so I can work on a small level, addressing individual issues and- importantly for me- getting new viewpoints for my interpretation and seeing how it works for people who aren't me.


This gets easier as the group becomes more established, I'm getting the eye on when to step in- although I feel like I should pop over to those who are doing well, just to shrug my shoulders at them or something.  Just making sure they don't feel left out- I hope I'm doing that properly with introducing another step to the move or a related concept or something like that...  (The class is still small, so it's not an issue at the moment. But I can see the possibility that it might become one in the future). I try to maintain flexibility because the point of me running these classes is to get the stuff in my head into other people's. If a question comes up that's easily answerable, why not cover it then so it settles into their minds?

Index cards everywhere...

I have index cards all over the place. Some completely nonsensical, others repeating the same things in slightly different ways. I've been assured that this is a natural stage of development during an interpretation.

I'm also typing chapters up so I can extract the relevant information and collate it all into themes. Which should make my note taking a less haphazard experience since I won't be working from something that jumps from concept to concept- 90% of the stuff doesn't really concern itself with the guard your working from, it can be applied (more or less) to any guard and although there are recommended guards for certain things, they all tie back to bits mentioned in true guard.

However, this is the chief issue I've (still) got at the moment, and I think I will keep being irritated by it until I can find an answer or Swetnam: the second edition.  I know I've mentioned this before and I am repeating it so I can remember to look around for things that may fit the descriptions.

I might here in this place describe many wards or guards at the sword and dagger, as the looke ward the iron ward the hanging ward the cross ward, three high guards, the low guard, the broad ward.  I will a little touch them all, or the most part of them with words, although not with pictures. But in the next impression more at large both with words and with pictures.

 Cross ward and broad ward are covered in the rapier and dagger. The low guard could just be another name for the lazy- but maybe not.

3 high guards- Maybe the 2 described in his stokkata guard section, which leaves one missing.  (which could be the broad ward in prime- leaving broad ward in second to be the real broad ward)

Look Ward, Iron Ward and Hanging Ward.... all I really know for sure is that they're oriented for a predominantly cutting fight.

Summing up:

I want to get into a bit of a habit- write up my feelings about the lesson and ideas/room for improvement when I get back.  As I've said before I have a duty to my students- to provide good, solid lessons and a grounding in the noble science of defence... and if I start spouting unsupportable, pretentious bullshit, I expect a few of the local-ish experts to appear and give me a good beating.

So today, I worked with the idea of the cross guard- introducing it as a transitional/second intention guard. Basically, something that you almost fall into as your cut misses and you make the most of your opponent pressing their advantage until you can gain space and form a 'better guard'.

What I saw was exactly that.  The guard being formed a little wonkily but the idea and motion of anticipating the thrust and countering with dagger and step was starting  to become quite strong (especially when I combined it with some stepping and binding with the dagger later)- there was some connection with my default move of "throw yourself back and your sword forward" which I didn't think about until I saw how well the move worked when passing backwards.

 I intend to build on the things picked up today in two ways. The idea of stepping around your blade to close a line of attack and how to form the cross guard in a crisp fashion and why you would choose it on purpose- once the extra daggers come in. Maybe a bit more on second intentions and feints, but that's more a constant theme anyway.

This wasn't quite the lesson I wanted to be learned from today, but that's just how it is sometimes- you teach to people, not from books.

Re-Reading the Broad Ward. (and thinking out loud)

So my idea of moving from guard to guard caused me to wonder if my interpretation of the broad ward is correct... Well, gave me more reason to wonder, considering my idea of it feels clunky and horrible and the "3rd on both sides" interpretation feels like it makes more sense and exists in other systems.  As you can see by the text, the nicer feeling interpretation is the wrong one. (Although, I'm not saying my original understanding is right)

The original text (spelt correctly with added punctuation)

Bear out both your arms right out from your body, stiff at the arms end and a foot from the left asunder and turn both the rapier and dagger hilts as high as your breast or higher. Leaving all your body open or unguarded to seem to.

And when your enemy charges you with a thrust, strike it with your dagger towards your right side and answer him with an overhand thrust into his dagger shoulder. But you must keep your thumb on the blade of your rapier for then shall you put in your thrust the more steadier and the more stronger

That's all he writes to cover the broad ward.  One play to help you work out the mechanics of the position, one paragraph to describe how you're framing the guard.  It appears to be a symmetrical guard (with the gap to the left created by the shortness of the dagger)

Turning your hilts? True Guard has you in third, with knuckles pointing vaguely floorish, so knuckles up?





As high as your breast or higher?  Could be Thibault's default extension or even prime.

Breaking with the dagger and return with an overhand thrust? Gives more weight to the Prime in both hands. Sounds quite like his montanto without moving the rapier. The thumb on the blade improves point control and allows your opponent to impale himself (rather than driving it home with your bodyweight)

The fact that he calls it a ward instead of a guard is intriguing. This suggests it has a different function to the guards- to prevent attack by presenting a threat/making it harder to strike/enforcing distance rather than to deflect an incoming attack/close lines. Again this doesn't really help to differentiate between Thibault's extended second and prime.

Both prime and extended second could work, but feel far too wasteful for my liking.   Of course, this may be the reason that it's only got a brief mention in the book and it's best used if you're still under pressure after a stop thrust. And the lack of footwork/belief in a 12 foot thrust (he defines one thrust- annoyingly, a reverse- as being from the back foot) means that there is more of a question about foot placement here.

Anyway, that's my thought processes when looking at this kind of stuff.

TL;DR  version. Buggered if I know, but I am leaning towards a stop thrust with dagger extended and ready to parry a further attack.

Guard to guard...

Something that I should think about when trying to understand descriptions of guards:

How you would arrive in them- not the framing and changing when out of distance. Swetnam says that you should recover into your guard as soon as possible, so it makes sense that guards flow into each other. From what I understand of Fiore, that is standard procedure- the cut starts in a guard, goes through a person and ends in a guard. Thinking about that has altered my understanding of the broad ward (bringing it down to third height, rather than shoulder.. will have to re-read though), cemented my belief that cross-ward is point near the ground, and gives a bit more context to the forehand guard.

I know this is going to be clumsy for a description and that, in the traditional English fashion, I may butcher any Italian terms if I use them.

> True guard (rapier at third, dagger shoulder height and pointing a bit towards opponent) Cut down right, stopping your blade near the ground in one of the iron door-type wards (extended point). If you bring the dagger point upwards and move it down a bit (so kind-of third, but in the other hand) you arrive at Crosse Guard. From there, you defend a thrust with a passing step, bringing your rapier into their gut and you're at fore-hand guard. (although, wrong foot forwards, but Swetnam seems to consider wrong footing to be a fairly understandable thing- another reason why I think he's used to teaching longsworders)

Lazy Guard (rapier in iron door type position, dagger resting behind rapier on balance/pivot point), you use the dagger to flick your sword into 3rd and keep the dagger primed for a feint/in case you miss with the rapier. This should close the line compassed by your rapier and end in broade ward. (or 3rd in both hands)

So, next lesson: True Guard and principles- distancing, feints Introduce Crosse Guard. Modular drill: A True guard, cuts. B voids and counter thrusts. A forms into crosse guard and parries with a passing step.

Maybe some lazy guard.

Oh and I need to re-read the play involving the feints from crosse guard.

Personal developments.

Thanks to the teaching, I'm not really sparring as much as I'd like and the drilling is only really while I'm working out how to explain concepts and set things up for the class. That said, I try to ringfence time for a bit of freeplay at the end of lessons... For all sorts of reasons I think that freeplay is essential to discover your weaknesses and to try out ideas with a non-cooperative partner. Even better if you can video and analyse it later. Before I started running lessons (and as recently as Rapier 2011) I was a very stiff fighter. I've made part of my teaching approach teaching against my flaws. That is, because I see myself being quite rigid, I emphasise flow and movement. Mostly because I'm aware of that bad habit when demonstrating and I feel that I have to prevent others from copying me too closely. From the videos (bad quality, I'm afraid, I won't be sharing them here) I can see that my explanations and reframing of the ideas has really helped me. I've relaxed into the fight a lot more and I'm only edging into things when it's necessary. I still need to do more drilling with the dagger, I know it on an intellectual basis but it's just not coded into muscle memory and I tend to just hold the thing while making the rapier do all the work. This needs to change.

Clang has reached its funding.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang Clang is an attempt at creating a proper sword fighting game. The current crop are flawed in many, many ways and mo-cap/Kinect stuff probably isn't up to it without a paradigm shift. (especially for 'net gaming- the processing delay adding to the transmission delay, at best it would be like a slow motion non-cooperative drill). I'm cautiously excited about this project. The fact is, this isn't going to be simple. The idea behind it is to create an entirely new concept on computer sword fighting with a long term aim to allow others to create plug in systems. Tentatively, I think this is going to work. The FAQs and technical updates are promising. Addressing questions that I would ask, some which I wouldn't think of but are very important. The sword sync issue is one that I consider the biggest danger to suspension of disbelief. I like the way they're addressing that rather than looking at physical feedback to force a solution. The short explanation is that if your sword is roughly in the right position, your character is in the correct stance. If you're flailing about like a twat, your character is going to be less responsive and more vulnerable. This forces you to adopt an approach closer to cutting out of one guard and into another. They're slowing down things a little as well- this is an essential part if you're lacking physical feedback, since you get to see if you need to halt your blow to block something that's incoming. By turning this kind of control into a psychological, context driven, necessity you end up relegating the nightmare of proper force feedback to an "if we can" feature. It's a really clever way of negating an issue. The fighting tree looks interesting- basically, it's a context dependent list of moves based on what's happened before. It's more-or-less a transcription of the plays and converted into a gaming context. So it doesn't let you do something from a guard that won't work. It looks like you're going to have to go to trainers to unlock the more advanced moves. Which some people may complain about given the possible freedom of movement, but again- that's authentic to the books I've studied. Swetnam basically teaches from true guard and then introduces the others as eventual asides or to counter specific problems. If a good paradigm (and I don't use that word lightly) for computer sword fighting games can be created with our current systems, then Clang has a very good chance of doing it. It will, however, be a hard road.

I really should challenge Sandi Toksvig to a duel.

First of all- We would would need to briefly exhume Swetnam's remains and wrap him in copper wire. Then do the rest of the bits that are required to create a dynamo. Once that's in place, teaching the Noble and Worthy Science of Defence to tiny Danish lesbians will be a source of renewable energy and infinite irony.

Still looking at developing schema.

I'm not going to go into long winded and Piagetean terminology, schema are a kind of pigeon holing system that has a form of interconnectivity. The basic bit behind schema is that you put labels onto bits of information and how you frame these blocks can result in interference with new things or improve assimilation. Or.. to sum it up in a soundbite- Finding as many ways to say yes, like that as possible. There's also things like repetition patterns and reinforcement schedules and so on. So students have things they can take away, no skill gets too far out of practical memory and that each schema has as many hooks and pathways between other schema and subcategories as possible. Unfortunately I've got quite a visual mind so I'm trying to describe an image in my head that is a bit like an animated, wibbly, cross between a flowchart and a Venn diagram. What I'm trying to do is get a lesson plan that works along these lines and a 2-3 month cycle of ideas that ends with a 'free lesson' for me to evaluate weak spots and then improve those while not losing the other skills. So, here I am, staring at Swetnam and at my lesson notes, rough plans, drill ideas. Trying to figure out what I can do within the limits of our equipment and fulfil my duty to the students. I may have put this up earlier, I can't remember and I need to keep this in mind as I'm going on anyway so I am happy to repeat myself. Lesson and principles: Dodging and distance. Thrusting, Blade control Cuts, lines of attack, dodging. (maybe) Thrusts across the centre line. Feints, plays and principles of single time defence Introduce Dagger and true guard, go over principles again- especially lines of attack. Binding with the dagger, defending on the double (using both weapons to block) How to counteract the dagger, introduction to crosse guard. Things needing placement: The other guards, what principles to use as a hook for introducing them. A reinforcement schedule for things that are learned but not used habitually (and figuring out what they are. Interesting ways of really drumming in distance, movement, blade control and tempo. (because, if you've got these down, you can wave your hands flail around like a moron and survive) Warmup drills related to the day's principles. Make it clearer how everything 'slots' together Introduction to/taster lesson: covering everything in passing detail. (Two types of lesson- one for those learning the system and one for those who have never fought before maybe a third which is a longsworder's guide to rapier and dagger) I could use Swetnam's 7 principles. as a framing device for the lessons, and I have a feeling that he's got an understanding of the whole schema thing with how he talks about some principles having several meanings. (like space being both distance and framing of the guard yet with framing of the guard being a separate principle) But the way he lays everything out is so higgledy piggledy, I suspect there's a more efficient way of presenting the information.

Diversity

One of the things that makes HEMA stand out from other things, is the diversity. Not just the range of weapons and schools, but also what ypu wish to take from it... Now, I'm an ok fighter. I enjoy freeplay and admit that it is essential to working out interpretations. I'm not big on competitions and only really use them for pressure testing. My academic skills are... better than average, but not by much. I've grown up with middle/early modern English and I read it as fluently as I read current English. I have a drive to see how systems work and I guess that's where my focus is. Others are really good fighters, concentrating on physical fitness and perfectionism, putting the art intto martial art.. others, translate and digitise documents- so we can all work from them.. The more I concentrate on my work and cross referencing with sources, the bigger the HEMA scene appears. All these cogs working together to produce all those ways of coming out of a fight in one piece. (BTW, this was going to be something about the day of lectures at the Wallace- and why I'm not there, because there's only one talk I'm particularly interested in, abouut the books, and even that doesn't grab me all that much.- I only really want to know about context in the way that it affects a fight. The same with the construction of the sword- that kind of history is fine and dandy and all that, but I'm still trying to find the undescribed guards mentioned in Swetnam.. to me, that's more important than anything which isn't the content of the manuals)

Now on Twitter

Well, I have no idea what I'll be saying on there, but since the club has an official twitter, I thought I'd better create an account and follow them.

Second of the lessons.

Ok it's still going to take a while to get used to the fact that I'm teaching and that despite my feelings of being unprepared and all of that, I certainly have a long-term vision and structure to enable that. It's not quite how I envisioned using bits of my degree, but even in these two short hours I can see that it's working. Little and regular is a demanding structure to work with, arguably it's one of the better ways to help things but it requires a particular type of repetition. At the moment I'm trying to drill in principles, how and why certain things happen. Distance, distance, distance... controlling the blade. Then a space for free assimilation at the end of the session. It's a Piaget type thingy, works on a building block idea and basically goes "introduce new idea, relate it to old ideas, look for and reinforce complimentary points between them, let person find a way to slot it into their knowledge" I would like to bring in some muscle reading soon- a drill to show exactly how much information you give when your blade is in contact with your opponent's. I'm going to have to play with that idea to find a solid demonstration, the stuff I know is all based around finding a hidden object in a theatre. Something will work and can be tied into telegraphing. There are other things that you notice while teaching.. my esteemed and honourable maestro is... well... not that good at capitalising on his stingere and since we usually spar in the park and I only get to react to the attacks rather than analyse them, I haven't been able to see his exact problem. Well. There's these little things you pick up and I probably got this concept from someone else, I don't claim it for my own. (I consider my hotch-potch learning and attempts at vague familiarity with any school/style I can encounter to be historically and culturally accurate. And I am willing to deconstruct the London based texts to explain why that is the case)... Right, first of all, I'll have to explain the stringere- it's the method of safely stepping into distance and controlling their blade. It's a subtle thing where you "engage" the top third of their sword with the middle third of yours, more or less. Your thrust from this position should always put a stronger part of your blade against a weaker part of theirs...(unless they go really high, then you can disengage and cut to the leg, step in and do stuff... or thingies- just watch for the cut to your head. But I digress.) So, my esteemed and honourable maestro was positioning the blade right, but somehow never actually managing to keep control through the thrust. His blade was basically seeking the strong of his opponents... which is a bad move. The best and shortest way for a thrust from this position is to turn around the axis of your stringere and plough forwards. Thinking of it in that way and having you dragged forward by that point seems to produce the natural body mechanics for a 'perfect' lunge. From there, driving the point around the locus of the stringere then builds on the point control (another weakness) because subtle wrist movements are what's needed to change the direction of the point. (knuckles up, knuckles down, inward and so-on) As for myself, I'm aware that I'm teaching rapier to longsworders. Again- historically and culturally accurate- there are certain gaps in my knowledge about techniques recommended by Swetnam which are aimed at longsworders and due to their typical mistakes (finding themselves on the wrong foot, for example) I really want to understand halfswording and how it applies to the rapier. It's a good way to make myself distinct from non-HEMA stuff while we sort out the issues with daggers. I think there's a load of beautiful techniques and concepts in there which are barely explained and need to be felt to be understood. I think it's also got a place within Swetnam's anti-staff ward (a crossed guard, with the dagger side adding extra strength to resist the blows) And.. well, I'd love to see it turn up in competition. This ties back into my schema based concept for the lessons, describing a kind of conceptual lego set then seeing what people make from that. I'm also aware that I want to get on to teaching the rapier and dagger stuff for no other reason than I find it very, very fun. It's a marvellous fight and it brings in so many questions. Possibly too many, which is why I wonder if the books suggesting that rapier and dagger is for the beginner and single rapier for the experts were written by people in a hurry to create safe opponents.

Wallace collection's new exhibition.

Some things are bittersweet and the exhibition downstairs at the Wallace is one of those bittersweet things. My main criticism about it is... well, it's too small. This is not to say that it's a bad exhibition- in fact, exactly the opposite. The aim of the exhibition is to outline the relationship between Europe and its swords. Demonstrating that fashion and violence are intermingled and even the most jeweled and poncy swords are fatal. I would like to have seen a few more common swords, and.. well.. I guess just a lot more of the exhibition. It is well worth going just for the sword porn. Lots of rapiers, one basket hilt sword and a brief outline of the previous eras of swordiness. However, the greatest part is being able to seeing some of the original manuscripts. It helps add a bit of weight to the academic aspect of what we do- most of us may be working from scans found on the internet but it helps to remember that these are real books, written centuries ago. They have the three oldest known books on fighting- the I.33, and two of the German longsword things (I think, sorry but that's not my field of interest) The other books- they have a Saviolo and a Silver, Thibault (with a square of death by the entrance), a couple of things that I recognize from Hutton's "Old Masters" but couldn't tell you who they were now. It was incredibly frustrating being that close to such important books and unable to look through them- even though most of them are in foreign and I wouldn't be able to understand anything beyond how pretty the pictures are and what these books mean for a contextual understanding of historical events. If you can plan your visit to coincide with a talk by Mr Capwell, I heartily suggest you do. Maybe en mass so that the talk can lean more along the lines of fighting rather than fashion. Oh, and did I mention that this is a free exhibition in the heart of London. http://www.wallacecollection.org/collections/exhibition/93 In short- great exhibition, tonnes of sword porn and given the wealth and interest of what is on display, it must have been a nightmare trying to decide what to leave out.

Silver and the Rapier.

As I'm sure I've stated before, my introduction to HEMA was through Paradoxes of Defence and it would be foolish to pretend that bias and language of understanding isn't my default setting when working on concepts. While I'm prepping for the class (and all that entails) I'm trying to throw my net a bit wider so I can avoid tunnel vision and see how concepts relate to each other. I don't believe that there's one ultimate fighting system (unless you count "whatever keeps you intact") and what is devastating in one pair of hands can be useless in others. This means that rote based plays have a limited appeal me- they're good for getting the grasp of a concept but beyond that, it's quite artificial. Once the basic moves are in, you need to work on feints and getting the feel of them, and especially on not knowing if something is going to be a feint or not. (anyway... I digress) So, I've picked up Silver again, to see if I can find some kind of framing device for my thoughts and I think there's a decent amount of room for "why he said this about the rapier, and why it's wrong". After all, how the methods and techniques interact is a valuable point of HEMA- London being as cosmopolitan as it is/was/will forever be means that you were likely to meet other schools and fight against different styles. Which means there's a lot of influence and mixing of ideas and concepts. Swetnam advises against being cocky if you see a sloppy guard- simply because of the variations in schools. It may be a sure guard that you are unfamiliar with and you should hold judgement unless you really know your lines of attack. Which comes back to the "what Silver said" idea. I should compile all his rantings about the schools of the rapier, read what he says and compare it to the other sources. Ending with what I suspect will turn out to "and this is why Swetnam says do this"

Well, it's getting real.

I know this is the inevitable outcome of working on my own interpretation and a necessary part of proving my work, but.. well, I'll be honest, this isn't the bit I've been looking forward to. It's an annoying paradox that seems to be part of who I am. I follow the path least travelled and then I have to report my findings so I can bring people to see the cool things I've found. I am a natural teacher, I know this simply because that has been the role that I've fallen into throughout my life. I was teaching sailing before I'd sat my GCSEs, my last job involved an awful lot of tuition on new systems and creating knowledge base articles and suchlike... But well. I don't mind being an authority on a small scale, where I can be challenged and caught when I go off on a tangent before the basics are understood and where I can constantly adjust and change my style in reaction to an individual. Standing up in front of a crowd and doing it? Well, at the moment it's not exactly on my bucket-list. The damn thing is looming out of the mist like an iceberg and the only way to avoid it is to give up on something I enjoy. So... bollocks to that. Fortunately I've got a chance to get my hand in, thanks to the hard work of one of the scrappers, we've got a new venue, a night dedicated to rapier and dagger, and the old hands will be turning up for "lessons" with the potential for a few newbies. I have a healthy doubt about my abilities. I know the subject, I've done a lot of work on interpreting the book and I've managed to turn it into something that appears to work for me. I will get questions that stump me and I will get situations that require me to rethink my interpretation. I guess it's this: I'm not an authority... yet.

Evolutionary Corporatespeak.

One of the themes in my understanding of fighting is that it is an extension of your personality. After all, the basic rule is that you can't think. You drill so you build the reflexes and no matter who teaches you and how you are taught- when you're on the wrong end of the sword you will always fall back on what feels right.

Adding to this is the whole definition of stress (neatly and whimsically paraphrased as the feeling you get when you can't punch the motherfucker who deserves it) The psychological aspects are that we're built with a fight or flight response and there are times when you can neither run away or dismember the person who has been annoying you.

This forms a sound base for fleecing corporations who have enough money to invest in "team building" weekends. You have fertile soil for mutual respect, the ability to spot unsportsmanlike behaviour- those who will deny solid hits just to plough through and get an unearned afterblow. You no longer have the conflict between fight and flight and (if you get the liability insurance and tweaking of rules) you can have a safe version of fight club in the office.

I reckon if we dress it all up in crappy corporatespeak, use ridiculously long words and all this pretentious bollocks that I've spent 12 years walking away from... We can make a shitload of money from running weekends explaining "how to dissect your colleagues"

I know, I've been quiet for a bit.

Mostly because there's not been much to say. Without a venue, I'm reliant on good English weather to hone my skills and find the problems with my interpretation. But, rest assured, spring has certainly sprung and a regular midweek session will be starting soon.

The buffer still seems to be in effect.

I wrote that last week and I was feeling a little guilty for the delay and loss of timing.

If I am wrong, stab me in the face. If I am right, I'll teach you how to stab me in the face. The only promise I make is that I will be stabbed in the face.

Could someone explain how a no lose scenario should work?

I really need to get back into the swing.

I'm really starting to resent the winter hibernation. My last really proper session was at Rapier 2011, I had a few casual bits between then and when the nights started to draw in. Then.. nothing beyond the occasional solo drill/cutting practice.

This why venues are one of the main issues- very few people have a home big enough to duel indoors and as far as I know (and the reactions we've had from the police) we're not breaking any bylaws or any actual laws when we play in the park. As long as we're discrete and don't threaten random strangers. Once you have the equipment in place, this is a very cheap hobby. Most people teach for love, fun or beer money- or all three. Few actually make a living from it.

I have a great opportunity, done well/honestly it will be repeatable and once I do the first one, the rest will be stressful but easy. Well, not stressful- since stress is what happens if you cannot fight or run away.

What's that quote from Silver?

Something like you say the English go back too much? I'll be here, on the scaffold.. blahdy blahdy blah.. all weapons. blah blah..

An odd bit about intent.

I've already mentioned that full intent is a arguably impossible. The safety measures we put in place have an effect on how we fight and we simply don't want to hurt/seriously wound our opponent. You can fight with a lot of intent, but to me, full intent involves a certain desire to hurt your opponent. (This is backed up by Swetnam).

But thinking about this in another fashion. There are second and third intentions, made necessary because the first blow is probably going to miss unless you're lucky. The speed of longsword and the ability to use both hands and quickly cancel momentum makes it much easier for that first blow to be with intent.

Rapier has a lot of holding back-Capo does it by staying with the weight over the back leg and only going in once the response is known. If my recollection of Thibault is to be trusted- you make a commitment to an action halfway through a step, so there's (thanks Mr Silver) quite a lot of dancing. Swetnam talks a lot about feints.

And this is where the language goes a bit awry. The specific moves have an intent, but that is to exploit/discover/create a weakness in the guard rather than to attack. They're deliberately non-committed because you are ready to change action and direction at the first sign of things going wrong.

These things have a kind of intent, but it's as part of the whole fight... anyway, I've stopped making sense to myself, there's an outline in my head of a ...something... based on the focus that feints are far more necessary in rapier than they are with longsword.

Costs and HEMA

I think I've mentioned this before, but HEMA is actually pretty cheap- at least when you start off. You'd expect the padding and the other equipment to be expensive (and it can be). However, it should be a fairly long time before you're able to spar on a regular basis and if you're starting up your own study group you can do a sizeable amount of work without spending much at all.

The bulk of the cost comes from safety equipment and things which allow you to run through drills at full speed.

Understanding of control, maintaining an awareness of when accidents are likely to happen and building up your need for protective equipment over time all allow you to decide how much money to invest in the hobby.

A lot can be done with a couple of broomhandles and some leather. Providing you stick to slow, controlled drills and working out concepts from the manuals (which are out of copyright and available online).

The reasons you "need" to do non-cooperative, full speed drills/spar are so you can test yourself, you can see what happens at full speed and (most importantly) because it's a lot of fun.

But sparring should only be a fraction of your understanding. Without the slow drills and the core work and all the foundation blocks, your sparring will be substandard.

You can get a lot of things done with control, patience and a big stick.

The real expense in HEMA comes thanks to the community. It would be very easy to spend most of the year jetting around the world taking part in great events, picking up swords that you just don't want to put down, getting far too drunk with interesting people who have finished beating you up for the day.

Saviolo and his rapier.

I believe that I've also mentioned that I'm looking at Saviolo- the idea is to get a wider view on the styles of London in that era, and also to see if he explains things that Swetnam glosses over/promises to cover in a later book.

One thing I've noticed is that despite saying "you should first learn with just the rapier" what he actually recommends is rapier and gauntlet. I've not read much of it so far so I don't know if this aside makes his guards and advice more understandable- but this is a good example of the benefits of going to the source material. Things like this are easy to miss, especially if you're relying on someone else's interpretation.

Either way- When using a sword in one hand it's a good idea to (at least) put on a very thick glove and use your offhand for defence.

Schema and things.

There are theories of learning which revolve around the ideas of interference and integration. Basically, the more links you can make with existing knowledge, the stronger it stays. It gets more complex than that- each thing is a flavour of information and the idea is to find neat little ways to put the new stuff into the existing blocks.

For an example of why this is difficult. Distance- Most of the time, the best distance is wide measure. However, really close is also a good distance and you have to safely cross the bit between.

Or there's stepping in to parry. It's essential for some longsword stuff and can be useful when going for a single time defence with rapier. Our instincts tell us to dodge the blade- especially if you're used to staying in wide measure. So it's a matter of "framing the question". Switching the processes from "not getting hit" to "moving to a better position".

A lot of what I want to do doesn't involve getting people to unlearn things, I'd like them to adapt their flinch reflexes and build on what they already know.

First sparring of the year.

The winter hibernation is nearly over and it's becoming easier to meet up for a quick session now that the days are getting longer. So, this week was my first sparring session since the parks started to close at 5.

Yes, I still haven't got a hall, mainly because I need to get a handle on the subject matter before doing all of that stuff and there's a point where it needs to come out of the books and the notes and be put into steel. Obviously, I will improve as I teach and as all sorts of questions get asked.

So anyway, this week's sparring was just single rapier. To get back into the swing of it all and because my partner left his dagger at home. I'm still quite static and very defensive (which is acceptable, but limiting). My partner needs to work on his blade domination and aim.

Since we're both inconvenienced by the current financial climate, we can meet up during daylight hours and I can work on drills and things to overcome the current problems as well as figure out some of the confusing bits within the text.

Hopefully I'll also get to go rapier and dagger against longsword- that's going to be quite intimidating, but fun.

Damn and blast

I missed my deadline again. So a quicky to keep in the pattern.

This year is when I start really stepping up to the plate and put everything in to action. And I'm not afraid to say this is scary. The reason it's scary is not because of having to do things I don't like- for example, holding court and being the centre of attention- it's because this is important to me. This stuff is brilliant, I repeatedly say how great a hobby this is. I want to add to the collective knowledge rather than harm it.

Everything is pretty new, or at least entirely based upon my own understanding. Moving from explaining my understanding with a bunch of good fighters to becoming an "authority" to random interested people this is a big step, at least as far as I'm concerned. I've worked bloody hard to know this, but thanks to... stuff... I've not been able to test my ideas and face questions. The reasons I want to succeed go much further than the fact I don't want to get stabbed in the face. Hell, if I do this properly, I'll be training up people to be miles better than I am.

I know I need to be challenged to get these things down properly. I need to hear and try to answer the questions that probably haven't crossed my mind... or ones that I've forgotten.

The thing that I'm really aware of is that I've used a lot of people's understanding and hard work to get to where I am at the moment and if I can do this properly- it will make them look even better.

So, in a way, I owe it to them to kick arse. To every person who has run a lesson I have taken or have watched, everyone who has bent over some arcane book and tried to translate it. To the people who have scanned in and uploaded vast quantities of manuals.

And I'm fully aware that the only way to know that I'm doing this properly is by taking people to one side and painstakingly explaining exactly how to stab me in the face.

A late new years.

I've realised that my drafts and prepared questions are too wibblywobbly for immediate posting and the buffer dried up just before Christmas. The only one that's coherent enough to share is the one showing my face.

Which I'm not going to share. This started out as an absolute pretence of anonymity. If you muck about with google and people and- well you will know who I am.

However, it does beg one question. How do I explain what I'm talking about without the use of photos?