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.