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.