Just a brief classroom note.

Hiya Gang, Just a little classroom footage this week.

Enjoy!

As Always, feed back is welcome. 

I'd love to see some footage of you crazy cats. 

Breakin' Arms and Takin' Names

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?


Well - lets "Break" it down. Hah.


RELATED VIDEO


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.

George Silver and the Dangers of Half truths. (AKA it's all in the hips)

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. 

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. 

Martial Family, Club Pride.

Pre-dawn in Chicago. Cold Coffee in the cup holder of my car from last night. No time to eat, I have some where to be.

I meet up with my crew and head into the loop, It's a quick run, no traffic at 6 am. Not on thanks giving day. 

I pass by a few other groups, people huddled in the pre-dawn, and get directions from a lady in a red coat. By the time we park it's 7 am.

One of the guilders, Nick, was waiting for us though the street was empty. Through the morning, 40 or so more of us would filter in. 

Now, I'm not gonna lie,we looked good. We looked top notch. I am proud of my students and my people. We marched, for the third time in the Chicago thanks giving day parade.

But that's not why I am pleased. These people are more than my students, and Forteza is more than just a salle. These are my people, my friends, my comrades. We sweat, We work, and We bleed together. We sling steel and one another, we toss each other, we triumph together.

It's moments like this, the people waiting around for the parade to begin, laughing, dancing, joking. the children smiling and practicing hard, excited to be on TV for the first time in their lives. These moments make me proud of what we have wrought here.

In life, you are born unto a family, and that's fate. You can choose your friends, and that's a choice. 

That's love, and it's what keeps me in the game. 

Love of the art, and love of these people.


That's why I do this. 

Playing the Prize - Leveling up at the Chicago Swordplay Guild

The List Awaits

So what does it mean to hold rank in the CSG?

I know the concept of ranks varies widely from school to school in the historic swordsmanship world. Some places have only student and instructor, others a loose confederation of individuals.

Here in Chicago we started a tradition back in 2001: We fight to prove our place in the guild.


We call this Playing the Prize.




Now, to be allowed to do it, you must have passed a vigorous private skills exam, and a lengthy written test. Why? First, we need to know they can do what is expected of a swords person. This test is nothing new for the student. We have several ranks within the guild, Novice (6 weeks), Companion at arms (one year), Scholar and it's 3 subsequent grades (two years, and one more for each grade) Free  Scholar (5 years) and Provost (7 years). They have tested before scholar.

The underlined ranks are prize ranks. Ranks where there is more than just a test.

Let's remember, tests don't show us everything. They show us what you know, sure. The tests do not show us if you can back up those skills. The real deal, the proof mark if you will, is the Prize.

The Challengers

The Prize consists of three fights, each three minutes long. They come back to back with only a short, one minute break in between. Each round is against an opponent who has passed the test before you. An opponent who has watched you and learned your weaknesses and strengths.  Each Challenger will in turn punish your flaws and draw out your strengths.

You will enter the list, no one beside you save for your fellow defenders. You are greeted by the cheers of the crowd, a full house, waiting to see what you will do. Salute, On Guard, Ready, and Begin!

Three minutes will seem an hour. You sweat and strive to defend your right to be here, the challengers testing not only your skill, but your resolve to proceed. They will test it well.

After your fight, one of the marshals, your novice instructor, will peel off your mask and water you, before sending you right back into the fray.

The Prize is more than a test, it is a right of passage. It is exhilarating and uplifting, but also an overbearing and slogging battle. When it ends, you are weighed and measured. One is either found wanting or accepted as a full student,with freedoms and privileges barred to newer members of the school.

You will be take your oath, and be given your garter - an ancient symbol of skill and honor. The garter will be given to you by one of those who stood to challenge you. One who's vote you earned to pass this test. If you read the inside of the band, there will be the names of all those who wore that band before you. You will write your own name there as well, so that one day you might pass on that garter in an unbroken chain from senior student to novice, again and again.

The Guild Book

You will sign your name in the guild book, on pages lovingly hand painted. A page that has been waiting for your name. A page that will carry your name forward, as an example generations to come.

We do all this to teach you. To show you that many of your limits have fallen away, and which problems still nag your fencing. We do it to to inspire you to new heights, and to help you feel the bonds you share with your fellow swordsfolk more strongly.

Someday I hope to see your name in the guild book, and your feet on the floor of the Prize List.