Category Archives: Training

Fiore 10 Feb. 2012

Status

Five in attendance for this early bird session. We spread out into a larger space and worked on spear drills: moving out of right fenestra to counter attacks from all six canonical spear positions. This led to a discussion of tactics against the thrust in general, which we went on to practice using longswords.

Fiore 8 Feb. 2012

Status

A discussion of the unnamed posta, frequently depicted in Fiore when both combatants are in the incrosada. Why it’s not the same thing as posta longa. Why it’s a good idea to strike into that position (i.e. with hands lower and closer to the body) than to strike all the way out into posta longa. Most of the session was then devoted to the sottano parry up out of boar’s tooth, its footwork and its variations.

BWAHAHAHA, 7 Feb. 2012

Status

Five in attendance, including a special guest from far away. We did most of the basic workout, skimping a bit on the heavy Indian club phase because of time constraints, and then worked cutlass for over an hour, focusing on some of the basic blocks and parries up out of low guard. Emphasis was on relaxation and economy of motion, maintaining an upright posture, and adjusting footwork so as to remain square to the adversary. These moves flow directly into Silver’s grips and as such are squarely in Hutton’s “Defence against Uncivilised Enemies” curriculum.

Week of 30 Jan.-4 Feb.

Status

Anomalous week with three coaches simultaneously out of town or unavailable. Members stepped up to fill the gap for Monday and Wednesday Fiore group sessions. Tuesday evening Victorian and Friday early bird sessions were cancelled.

Fiore 25 Jan 2012

Status

Eight in attendance including two completely new. Focused work on the footwork, beginning with the volta stabile and developing it into thrusting attacks from rear-weighted stances. After practicing thrusts against hand-held targets (bucklers) we moved on to consider thrust defenses.

Fiore 13-Jan 2012

Status

Moving forward with the zogho largo sets, we reviewed the basic six variants and added the two thrust defenses (counter-thrust, and breaking the thrust) for a total of eight canonical largo variants. In the thrust defenses, we were reminded of the necessity of parrying in the middle of the blade. We did many rounds of this series including randomly. This is solid material to practice.

We also reviewed the situation of defending a mandritto fendente from posta di donna, when in left posta di donna. The problem encountered is that if you just do the fendente from the left without offlining, you don’t get a suitable angle of deflection and thus are vulnerable to a double-kill. The Sunday group had worked on this and we took their findings and moved on.

Our findings were as follows (I take the liberty of summarizing for the three of us present):

  • Just standing there and issuing a fendente from the left creates the double-kill.
  • The option to hit around from the left side, in an attempt to get behind the opponent’s blade (the method depicted in the second photo from the Sunday workout) suffers from serious timing risks and is therefore unsuitable.
  • The Germanic zwerchhau method works well (lifting the blade over the head and doing a false-edge horizontal windmilling parry from right to left).
  • Taking a steep sloping step to the right and cutting down strongly into the attacker’s blade with a reverso fendente from the left also works well. You follow up by stabbing or by transitioning to stretto plays.

BWAHAHAHA, 10 Jan. 2012

Status

We have been working with a wide range of different physical culture exercises, which is fine except for the fact that the transitions take up a lot of time and don’t leave much room in the practice for study of specific martial arts techniques. This evening for the first time we used the new round timer supplied by Mr. Beard to run through a timed and programmed series of exercises, beginning with la canne-style stick swinging and then moving through a series of single and paired body weight exercises to light Indian clubs and heavy Indian clubs. This provided a vigorous half-hour workout hitting most of the major muscle groups. In the future we will transition from that into punching and kicking drills, but this evening we were somewhat limited by a lack of equipment.

With five participants in attendance, we did have enough combined muscle power to move the base of our Wavemaster bag up the stairs, and so our freestanding heavy bag is finally online in one corner of the loft. After a medicine ball session we launched into an hour of cutlass/dusack training under the capable and patient tutelage of Mr. Barnett. Since we are still bringing some new swordfighters up to speed, this evening’s lesson concentrated on the basics of stance, movement, and distance.

The gada was tested and found to be in need of further work. Its handle is very thin and very hard and tough on collarbones.

During a break we admired a Christmas gift from Mr. Wolf:

This will be hung in a place of honor when the loft reaches a more finished and civilized state.

Fiore on 9-Jan 2012

Status

We worked through the canonical largo plays of longsword. There are six (plus two thrust defenses that we did not work on). For each of these, the tactic is to cut from whatever position you are in, into the crossing, and then react based on the nature of the crossing. The advantage to doing this, over e.g. parrying to frontale, is that the focus remains on attacking/hitting, and every feed/parry tends to build proper hitting dynamics.

The mentioned six responses follow, from most simple to most complex.

  • Free hit – opponent was completely late or out of position and you just hit him
  • Soft at crossing – you had to cross blades, but opponent is offline or soft and you can simply stab as follow-up
  • Beaten aside – opponent’s sword is beaten aside either by your strong strike or because he is mistakenly attempting a pommel attack from too far distance – you angle out to the right, cut across the arms and then stab
  • Crosses at tip – opponent is swiping at your sword instead of you, or is late, and crosses past your middle. Wind around, protecting, and hit around the other side.
  • Crosses at middle – opponent strongly swipes sideways at middle and you cover and pommel strike
  • Blade is in position of threat but there is no pressure – this is where you can grab the blade and fendente from the reverse side. A strong accressare to the left is useful here.

There are various ways to work these variations:

  • Feeder delivers each in turn, nice and soft
  • Feeder delivers each with more pressure / percussion
  • Feeder delivers with varying speed/force
  • Randomize the order

You can add the two thrust defenses to these:

  • Beating aside the thrust
  • The counter-thrust

The many plays of the Zogho largo branch out from these eight, and involve variations of the opponent pressing in or moving back.

It is my intent to work these eight sufficiently to reach some collective bar of competency among at least three or four of the group, so we can then move on to a similar survey of the canonical stretto plays.

Class ended with some 4th master dagger plays, followed by some reasonably strenuous calisthenics that were somewhat interrupted by one of the tire pells coming loose from the ceiling.