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.