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.
No comments:
Post a Comment