Drill Construction Part 2

So in our last blog, I took a look at building training sequences to add some context.
I picked a few plays from Fiore, and strung them together from a starting place.

The drill from last week ((((here))))started from being pounded on by some one, and closing to grapple.

In the above video, I address a number of counters that Fiore suggests. watch the video for those.

That's all in good fun, but the main point of this blog is the construction of the drill itself. Not all of you practice Armizare. So why did I go with these plays, and why did i put them in this order? Let's look at it.

The drill:

Player (bad guy): Pound on our student, right/left/right, Mkes sure the student gets hit and has to cover.

Student: Gets hit with firt one, covers up until she closes to grapple to end the beating. (video starts here)

Player: Locks in the clinch to gain advantage. Should do so with an eye to getting their own knee strike of throw, but don't execute at this level of the drill, save that for "upping" the resistance later on.

Student: Thumb to ear to create space, secures head and drives knee, eye-push, re-drives the knee.

So, why to I start with the student getting nailed in the head? Frankly, most CQC actions begin because longer range option have failed, or the attacker is jumping some one. One of the assumptions that I trust in constructing a fight is that any given person will open with their best chance to win.

For this reason, I like to build a little of that into any sequence I train.

Second Why have the player crash in? Why not just "block" the next punch? Well, for one, most of my students have minimal boxing experience, and I don't want to lead them down the garden path to their own destruction. So, I have them tie up, shutting down the pounding, and possibly buying them a moment to reorient after that first hit.

The rest of the drill is pretty straight forward, creating space through dynamic action in order to deliver increasingly powerful strikes. Even if you replace the ear gouge with a hard palm heel, the chance of a knock out is not high enough.

The student learns to follow on by moving to new positions, changing lines and targets, forcing the player to readjust and re-orientate to each step the student takes. Off-line every time is the way to think of it.

I then take that drill, one that give them a number of options, practiced in context against a resisting target,  and teach the player to break each aspect of it in turn. The next level would be to run the sequence, and have the player not tell the student which play will be countered. This creates and even more dynamic energy.

The final iteration would be to have both play the roll of the player, pounding on each other in sets of three, and then instead of defending, one of them would begin the sequence. It becomes almost like sparring.

By building drills this way, a teacher can get people doing pretty advance moves in short order.

In Summary
- build drills that have context to the fight.
- create dynamic energy for your people to play off of.
- create chains of 3-4 actions so that later counters can be added "randomly" so that training partners do not grow complacent.

Write me if you have questions, if you follow my advice, please link you video here. I'd love to see you train, and so would my other readers.

Basic flow drill construction for Abrazare, or , Make Flow Drills Great Again

Cracking the chestnuts. 

In Fiore’s hand to hand fighting section (Ghetty Manuscript) we see a number of techniques displayed, but relatively little text to describe the actions, especially a lack of description of the nature of the attack you are receiving, and only the vaguest descriptions of his hand to hand strikes.  I have seen many interpretations for these plays, but I have seen relatively little work on the hand to hand strikes, or ferrire.

I feel that it is important to learn this materiel well.  To that end, I believe that it is valuable for a student of the art to become good delivering a number of strikes. Working these strikes on punching bags, Thai pads, and boxing mitts is all very good for building strength, timing, and confidence. Today however I will talk about flow.

Essential to all fighting, flow is the aspect of moving smoothly and quickly from one action to the next. One’s ability to flow can be measured aesthetically and practically. That is to say, a student can look great when doing choreographed drill, and have no ability to adapt in real time (react during sparring). The opposite can also be true.

We all desire our students to have both of these attributes, but as a community, we tend to prefer real time adaptability and application above aesthetics. That preference has led many teachers in the community to feel let down by flow drills. I know. but lets take a second look at how we use them. 

A simple follow drill can contribute to aesthetics and application. you just have to use them the right way at the right time. 

At the root level, the flow drill uses choreography to create context and energy so that students can learn to “feel” what they are doing while keeping the environment safe and repeatable. Now, those students must keep that context, and avoid gaming the drill. that will come later. So have them rep it till it looks good.  (getting reps in is always good, if the reps are good).

Once they can reliably repeat the drill and a brisk speed with good quality of motion, they can proceed to the next level. For higher level students, the drill acts as a control factor for “fight lab” exercises.  Such exercises allow intermediate and advanced students to riff off of one another and explore their own ideas of good flow. By inserting different actions into the control program, you can see where those changes lead. It also prevents gaming, as the player no longer knows what the agent will do or where those changes may come. This can be done in cooperative and mildly competitive difficulty settings. 

So, for this exercise, I have cobbled together three of Fiore’s plays into a root level flow drill. Think of this as the control element for your fight lab. The drill will begin with some sort of context-for-engagement, and then proceed to move through a series of actions.  While the drill I have filmed for you is one sided, there is no reason why counters and secondary actions cannot be added here. 

In this case the context will be a punch in the head, and the player (blue hair) will close to grapple to avoid further pounding. 

The ferrire under the ear will be first in this sequence. After the student close to a prese, the player will jamb his thumb up under the ear of the antagonist. This is painful, and the distraction will allow the player to reduce the space and shift position.

This buys time for the player, and forces the antagonist to reorient. 

The second action will be to deliver a knee to the groin. The previous attack should buy the player space, and if if was successful, the antagonist will likely be moving to counter the ear attack, leaving their attention away from the low line. remember to keep the antagonist's head near yours, and drive deep.

Finally the face push. Ballisticly launch the Antagonist's head back, thumbs to the eyes (only in real emergencies, not in training please). The player can shift their grip and re-attack with the knee from here, remember to ballisticly recover their head to your shoulder, being blasted back and forth is highly disorienting.

Please, If you have a similar sequence you use, of you do a fight lab and make changes, I would be curious to see what you did. Put links in the comments if you want to show me and the readers here at the Redwolf Swordsmanship Blog. 

Jesse Out.