Teaching children has been rewarding a humbling. These last three years have taught me a great deal about myself, as well as my fellow man.
There is little else I can say about it. These kids, the challenge what I know of the art, and force me to refine and simplify it at the same time, in order to convey what they must learn to take over as the next generation.
The force me to iterate the information, scaling it up as they mature and are able to handle increasingly complex tasks and store more data.
They force me to articulate the Virtues of a martial artist, and what these virtues mean to them in their lives. To teach them to be gentle hunters in a world that could just as easily render them hard and uncaring. To show them how to be firm, while being open to new people and ideas, with out losing the path.
I will never be able to thank them enough for the experience, the lessons they have taught me. It is my express hope that what I give to them measures up to the potential they show, and that I do not let them down as they grow older.
Always, it has been my job to replace myself when the day comes that I can no longer bear up the sword. While I am yet young, and that day is in the distance, these kids give me hope that there WILL be some one there to pick up the torch, and bear it forward. That is their gift to me.
So, in the wide world of sword fighting, there are many modes of training.
Now, I don't me get me wrong here: some schools are lazy and some schools train hard - But that's not at all what we are chatting about today
What I mean is that there are different modes of training to bring out different skills and actions from our students.
These two modes of training fall into two primary branches. Development and Simulation. (Now I want to point out that I get these classifications from Mike VanBeek, my Self defense coach. While not a fencer, the guy is right as rain and credit goes where it is due.)
Any way, Simulation includes things like Sparring, Semi-competitive drills like Set-plays (step-sparring) and other resisted or competitive drills. These drills give us a taste of what we are training to defeat, and help us work on our will, and temper our skills in the fire of resistance.
Developmental drills are things like Flow drills, Kata (for lack of a better word) and other consensual drills that work of skill or attribute development in a non competitive environment, so that a student can work on mechanics and or isolate issues so that one can take not of each rep and sharpen the knife, so to speak.
You need both to develop a complete martial artist. It is important to note here that the two drills types are related, and can flow into one another. The intensity levels can vary wildly as well.Simulation can be dialed down, and development can reach levels that feel as though they are Fight Simulations.
Today I will talk a little bit about developmental drills.
Developing movement, comfort, and confidence are a vital part to building true skill. These types of drills break down the elements of any given technical set, and let people isolate the components. Students new and old can benefit from this, ans we use this to hone our understanding of the underlying principles that let these actions work for us in the fight. Rushing into simulation too soon (or not soon enough, though that's for a later chat) can lead to ingraining of bad habits and weak mechanics. Weak mechanics, as one man said, means that while you may get good fast, but you will never be great.
I am not willing to accept such a limit.
On to our example.
In our school, we teach 2 primary types a throw to novice and intermediate students. A rear leg type take down, and what we call a collar throw, or Ballestrata in Italian. we use a number of tools to teach this.
This video will go over a few days worth of classroom footage, all focusing on developing a students ability to use these throws in sparring and possibly self defense.
This development will go through a few phases.
1. Looking at a little bit of context on what leads to wrestling-distance in a "fight".
2. Getting comfortable in that close range.
3. Learning the mechanics of the throws in question,
4. Learning to find the moment when these throws can be applied.
This 4th phase will have the added benefit of also quietly slipping the basics on countering these throws into the students brains. I Like this "back road" approach, as lessons that people reach on their own often stick with the students and help keep them thinking about the fight on their own. a student with questions is better than a student who follows dogma.
So, In the video, I take the students from the basics of unarmed range closure, add throws, and along the way work to improve their movement skills and comfort and manipulating others, as well as being manhandled.
The Next Phase for this would be simulation, which we will cover in the next blog.
It comes up in Fiore's manuscripts several times - the old man likes to break arms.
Since he says that he has done these things, and that they are reliable, Lets take that grain of salt and take a hard look at them.
Now, in modern terms, knife fights are ugly, nasty things in which the opponent usually comes at us hard, fast, and from concealment and surprise. Stopping the knife is of course rather high priority.
So how do we do this and then set up one of the old man's fancy arm brakes when the other guy is resisting you?
Step one: Stop the knife with Prejudice. My working concept is that all strikes are parries and every parry is a strike. It is vital that you abate the pressure of your foe's attack. do that by hurting said foe.
Step two: Reverse the flow of pressure. You were being attacked. Now YOU are the attacker. The video will show this better, but use what ever tools are needed. Punch, Kick, Go get'em. Scare'em
Step three: Go for it. this kind of action does not brook hesitation. grab that arm, and get under it before your subject see what line you are attacking. It the enemy thinks you are going for some kind of akido attack, this is good, as you want them to try to recover the arm from you. this only helps you move t behind them.
Step four: In training, there is no step four. Fiore says train with compassion. If you are doing so, then we're done here. To pull the arm all the way down and brake it would be to add Malice, which we must reserve for battle.
For some time now, There has been a strong division between swords people: Do George Silver's true times apply to all swordsmanship, or just his? Well, I welcome your opinions, but my answer is: Know your role, jebronie. ;)
Why not always, or never? Well, that's a long conversation. Short version - a swordsperson should be adaptable in their fight. Some times you need the probing quickness that Silver's timing scheme offers, and every now and then you need the pure BANG that the boxing style hip linkage offers us (though *I* believe that power is a "sometimes" food when it comes to sharp objects.)
A simpler fact:
Use your hips to create movement!
Through movement you create mechanics,
Through mechanics you create stopping power,
and through stopping power achieve victory.
So, I'll let y'all debate on the when you need which issue. I'm Gonna talk about he part I'm best at -Creating movement and achieving that power.
So, I know you've heard it before. C'mon, you know it's true. I've heard a lot of variations on the theme:
"The power comes from the legs"
"Drop your weight"
"Turn your body"
"Twist yer hips"
Take your pick, all of these thoughts are aimed at the same thing: moving the sword efficiently.
The strength of the arm is not enough. For the person who's asking why, I'll list you the reasons, just to get it out of the way.
- Force = mass x acceleration. Your arm is light, you body is heavy. Do the math.
- The arm will tire out if you overly rely on such small muscle groups (professional trainer talking here)
- And finally, the biggie, rechambering the weapon. You need to have the sword coiled to go again right away, and relying on the arms alone won't get that done quickly or reliably.
So Let's look at the mechanics. ALL of them. What? You say, there's more than one right way? Yes. Always.
Look gang, all of us Medieval sword people teach our own unique movement doctrines. I am not gonna tell you what's right from wrong. I will tell you this though - whether you mean to or not, your students will emulate you. So be purposeful in teaching said doctrine.
When planning you curriculum, remember that every thing we do comes from motion. and we can optimize that to be task specific. Ask yourself, what is the fight you're prepping for? A tourney? A "street fight"? Target cutting?
In my mind, those three things each have different tweeks that will optimize them.
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So what are the different ways the hips can move, and what do they accomplish?
The sword/body/legs (G. Silver model)
The all at once approach, (mushy model)
The legs/body/weapon approach (boxer model)
Why do I need both? Different advantages.
For the Armizare folks, many of us favor the silver model because we want to stay at range, avoid binds not of our choosing, and force the opponent into a parry/riposte mode, rather than letting them counter-attack.
The down side is we'll hit a little less "hard", but at sword levels of power, *I* don't find it too lacking, but some folks like a lot of bang in their sword-fu. Mileage will vary.
The Boxer model offers a lot more torque, with a very nice muscular "whip" depending on the exact motor chain you are employing. that means the sword itself carries more momentum.
The down side is that Threat phase of the attack can develop late, increasing chances of telegraphy.
I don't like the mushy model. Worst of all, best of none. Nothing more to say. If YOU use that model and get good results, tell me why you like it. Right here in the comments. I promise you have my attention and interest, 'cause you'll be the first one to tell me that.
Now, I don't have a dog in the race when it comes to debating the other two. It's like Phillips or Regular head screw drivers - just use the right one in the moment.
The video will address the bio mechanics, so don't forget to watch that. as always, thanks for reading. Please subscribe and follow me. I LOVE feed back, and I take topic requests.
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.
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.
