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.