The importance of play

I suspect that I've already had a post with the same title, but the manuals tell you to play at the sword.  There's this distinction between at play and fighting for your life and I think that distinction is missing from a lot of places. Especially where ritual is there instead of value.


I really like this "what if" idea- give people a grounding, teach them to be safe, see where they cackle (and they will cackle..) then pair them up with their opposite- weapon variation is also a useful tool in this context..  Once you've got that, insist on a third, keep an eye out, take the edges off and ask everyone what they know.  Then, barring a few tweaks (which you didn't explain properly in the first place) and a realisation that you've misread an entire section, all you do is listen.

Well, I say all.. once I've listened properly, I'll know of better partner combinations, find new drills, and keep on with that cycle.  It also means that I can rotate the experienced lot out of play to drill with newbies- and keeping it relevant by matching the drill to their weakness, and stuff like that.  But you can't build on that cycle without seeing where it fails and making sure that the class knows how to fight to teach. It's simply more efficient to create a class full of teachers.

I think play is at the very heart of HEMA, which sounds more than  a little strange considering it's about finding the most efficient way to stab someone in the face.  With that in mind, the next couple of weeks will be open play. If I do it right, I can keep a good rotation of newbie/experienced/experienced/newbie for specific principles...

Then I get to play.

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.