Reappearance

Has it really been four months since my last post?

It seems that training has moved into a new phase for me. Of late, it's not been about flashes of insight or exciting new developments, but rather the slow, steady accumulation of training hours - refining what has been learned, going deeper in subtle ways that are difficult to describe and take a long time to show fruit.

Or perhaps I've simply plateaued, which is of course a common thing in any type of skill development.

Certainly I can't point to any dramatic development of late, but there are a few things worth sharing.

Firstly, a change to the SES interpretation of the play of punta falsa. As it stood, the original interpretation worked, with one caveat: it was done by the player. The Getty manuscript shows it as a scholar's play. Now, there are ways to argue around this, but Guy (on the plane home to Helsinki from a whirlwind teaching tour of Vancouver, Seattle and Toronto) has figured out how it works as a play of the scholar.

It starts with the player's opening blow being driven wide by the scholar's parry. At this point the scholar would usually riposte with a mandritto fendente to the arm, followed by a thrust. This can of course be parried by an alert player. If the player is indeed the sort, then the scholar may go to the play of the punta falsa by showing a strong mandritto mezano after his parry. This draws a strong parry from the player. The scholar then performs the play of punta falsa as before, except that it can now be done without a pass. The only footwork necessary is an acressere, and even that not always.

The new interpretation is therefore closer to the text, and even results in an end position more like the illustration, with the scholar further from the player than he would have if he had passed. It's convincing, it follows the text, it looks like the picture and it works. I'm sold.

The second interesting thing is freeplay. I've not been the biggest fan of freeplay. It's great when done right, but all too often it fulfills no good training goal, and ends up being either silly or dangerous or both.

However, the freeplay preparation seminar this last Saturday has changed my opinion. Freeplay is now merely one extreme of a spectrum of integrated training tools designed to diagnose, address and solve training problems.

The process is simple:

1. Basic drills, especially those one might be having particular problems with. Get them technically smooth.

2. Introduce degrees of freedom. Allow one party in the drill to have a choice of actions. The other must select and execute the proper response.

3. Competitive drills. Going back to a fixed drill, this time each party attempts to perform its action so well that the other is unable to counter it (so, to take 1st drill for example, one might do such a good parry-riposte that one's partner is unable to get his pommel strike).

4. Four-step freeplay. Free fencing, to no more than four actions in total. After the hit is scored, the participants and president reconstruct the hit, and figure out where any mistakes were made. Then the sequence is played out again, with the hit party correcting the flaw that led to his being hit.

5. Observe patterns of mistakes. This shows up specific technical and tactical problems that need to be fixed. Figure out how to address these problems.

6. Return to fixed drills to solve the problem, and continue the process from step 1.

This sequence is very useful to intermediate students who have basically learned most of the system and are able to execute the actions at a gross level. It's hard to get these things truly right and to get them to work under pressure conditions. Going through this process will help the student to improve, especially when there are other intermediates to work with.

The beauty of this is that it ties together all the drills that we do, and it gives us material to work with. Armed with our diagnoses, we can then go into basic classes and train with less experienced partners, and still train profitably. It's also very scalable; as long as there are two freeplay-qualified partners you can do it, but it works great if there are ten or twenty in a class as well - assuming sufficient space of course!

Anyway I had a very good session on Saturday just working on very basic stuff and getting it better. Special thanks to Mikko for pushing me hard. I need to get that kind of intensity in training and I rarely do, so it was a great opportunity to really get stuck in.

Freeplay

More sword and buckler goodness... from the other side, that is.

Had a brilliant bout with Roland this evening, using our respective weapons - longsword for me, sword and buckler for him. One of the best bits of fencing I've ever done. Roland has a very open way of fencing, relaxed and free and generous. At one point we took a break and he started giving me tips on how to beat him! It made for an excellent learning experience - relaxed and playful, intense and focused all at once. Joyous, I believe, would be the right word.

On a more technical level, some things really stood out. Measure was one: a longsword has a reach advantage, and its wide measure is further out than that of the sword and buckler (with a caveat: depends on the arming sword, and the relative proportions of the fighters. Roland is tall and lanky, with a huge wingspan, and against me of the dinosaur arms, our reach was nearly equal). So the longsword's game is distance. If it allows the sword and buckler to close, it's pretty much dead meat... unless it can then advance to even closer measure and get to grappling range. That's not really a winning strategy but it's all you can do if the fight goes there. Happened more than once and I never really managed to make the grappling work. There were a couple of close ones but each time I would have been sliced and diced before I could get anything going.

Something else that may seem obvious but isn't in the heat of a bout: the buckler side is covered, so you're pretty much forced to go to the weapon side. There aren't many good ways of attacking the shield side. So I ended up having to slide to the left a whole lot. That made my movements more predictable, narrowing down the mental game for Roland. And that, of course, is exactly what you want, and a big part of why you carry a buckler in the first place.

And one more thing, the most immediately valuable insight for me: a lot lies in the setup and the approach. As Roland taught in his seminar, the schutzen are covers which occur in mezzo tempo as you enter fighting range. So they cover a particular line as you close. There was an interesting interplay where my being in certain guards would draw particular schutzen, which would also give me something of a key as to Roland's lines. I'm not technically skilled enough to take advantage of those keys consistently, but they were there. It's something that can be extended to any sword art. It gives a new sense to the notion of breaking the guards, at least for me - I'm well aware that for many people this is old hat.... but seeing it happen in a bout made it very real. Even better was realizing that there were things I could potentially do that would shape the engagement in my favour. Again, I don't have enough experience or technical ability to accomplish that, but at least the theory is making more sense to me in the light of this experience.

One pass that I was very pleased with: at one point I noticed that Roland's hand was sometimes coming up in front of his buckler, uncovered. I managed to time his motions and catch him with a thrust to the sword hand, dead to rights. It was one of the few times I've managed to do something like that - see a mistake, figure out what to do and then exploit it cleanly. All that training has actually made a difference! (Shock, horror)

Of course, that was one point... most of the proceedings involved me getting royally pasted. But it's a privilege to get to fence with somebody really good, who's got the right spirit and attitude to make it a good experience for everyone involved (not forgetting the spectators). It was a very nice bout and I enjoyed it tremendously. I also learned a lot.

As Guy said after, that's what freeplay is supposed to feel like. It's the pure, focused joy of doing something to the utmost of your ability, leaving it all out there and holding nothing back, and having your partner do the same. And at the end of the day, there's no win or lose, there's just the sheer happiness of doing the thing you love.

Sometimes training gets to be a bit routine, and sometimes there's a bit of a grind. But those times are necessary so that we can get to these highs, and when they come they're wonderful indeed. Good times.

Sword and Buckler Seminar by Roland Warzecha

Oh my goodness, where to begin? Two days of physically and mentally intense training from one of the world's premier interpreters of sword and buckler fighting. It's been a while since I've really started on a new system, and although I've practiced some I.33 this really was like getting it anew. Making the strange familiar, and the familiar strange, as the saying goes.

Roland's take on I.33 is that it's masterclass stuff, meaning that what's in the treatise builds on a well-developed foundation in basic sword and buckler fighting. In his words, trying to use the treatise for basic training is like an amateur footballer trying to train with Real Madrid. The assumed level of ability is already pretty high, and what it gives is tactical analysis, the fight setup and advanced techniques.

So we had to begin by working on the basics. Roland draws heavily from Andres Lignitzer's sword and buckler material in the Danzig Fechtbuch. He insists on a low, leaning position very much unlike what we normally do. It's physically demanding but tactically efficient. The forward lean takes away the low line, forcing the action to take place in a very compressed area, making for quick fighting and simplified decision making. This works because the weapons are relatively short; with longer weapons the reach is sufficient to strike at the legs - it's a matter of geometry - and therefore there's less point in adopting the lean. That said, it also appears in Fabris so clearly some masters felt there was still an advantage to be gained.

The position also requires the feet to be a lot closer together than we're used to, resulting in a very low, very compact stance. Roland's interesting footwork interpretation is often the 'wrong' way round for attacking with a pass, but perfect for a very quick sliding step. It works because the buckler enables one to enter a closer measure than we're used to in longsword, so the attack happens with a short step. Coupled with the compression of the legs and the opening/closing of the hips, this results in a very quick attack indeed, and the ability to generate lots of power and speed in a short space.

Roland also emphasizes a cutting technique that uses a forward slice. He brings the point of the sword round by pulling down on the hilt, turning about the centre of rotation and sending the sword hand forward from there. This results in the point travelling in a straight line towards the target, and pulling the blade behind. The slight angle created by angling the hand down towards the left hip is what gives the slicing component. It's a very efficient action, very quick and sound in biomechanical principles. The uncoiling of the hips results in surprising amounts of power as well as a very graceful action.

The body mechanics and blade actions of Roland's interpretation are beautiful and fun to perform. The corkscrewing thrusts and slicing motions feel very Asian - there's a lot of jian and dao in them.

Another important point to note is that he never seeks the bind. In his view, it's something that happens along the way, but the first intent must always be to strike the opponent, in whatever way happens to be expedient. Thus the idea of flowing round the opponent's weapons, holding to the initial intention and striking whichever target opens up. It's a simple and effective approach to tactical decision-making. Follow-on actions follow a basic pattern which is inherent in the initial attack, they're just adjusted on the fly to cover against or avoid the defences and counters.

Thus for example the attack from third ward (over the left shoulder). This is a short downwards slicing action meant to take advantage of a gap between the opponent's sword and buckler, to strike the exposed buckler hand. Whatever happens, the basic follow-up is to cross the forearms into a schutzen position and slice up and forward from there, taking whatever target presents itself along the way. Done with the appropriate brio, it's a vicious and effective combination.

This type of movement pattern is what Roland suggests I.33 teaches. In his view, the obsessio is a covering position adopted in response to the opponent's ward and is a mezzo tempo technique that occurs on the way to attack. In other words, it's not a block, but a position that one moves through while moving to strike. It struck me that it's essentially a stringere (I checked with Guy, who agrees).

So the basic concept in I.33 is that as the fighters approach the wide distance, the common fencer enters a ward which tells the priest what his most likely line of attack will be. The priest immediately enters the obsessio position and attacks from there in a single tempo. The common fencer's attack will, at best, strike into a covered line, while the priest's own attack is already on the way.

There's a lot more to it, of course, but there's just no way to cover all the material in the treatise in a two-day seminar. But that wasn't the point anyway - Roland's idea was to give us a conceptual framework with which to interpret the material and thus be able to study and train for ourselves. It's a great approach and a very generous one.

He'll be in Helsinki till Friday, training with us and continuing to share what he does. I expect that this will be a big boost to our practice of sword and buckler - plans are already being laid for a regular sword and buckler session to be added to the training schedule.

For me, what this seminar gave wasn't just about the one weapon system. It provided a way of thinking about the fight in general, how to approach the bout and how to shape the initial engagement. A lot of it is very appropriate to rapier, given the emphasis on tight actions and short tempi, but it's also making me think anew how I see the crossings of the sword in our longsword material as well. There's a lot to think about and to practice.

So a big thank you to Roland, and my hopes that he'll find this trip to be beneficial for himself as well. He's certainly earned it for what he's brought for us.

Oh, and one more thing - there's a pub night on Thursday, 2030 onwards at Kaisla, to see Roland off. All are welcome to drop by!

Food for thought

Anyone who writes about violence, fictional or non-fictional, or even just reads about it, should read this first. A new book from Rory Miller - Violence: A Writer's Guide.

Training update

The Turku seminar was pretty interesting. Quite low-intensity physically, more of a technical sort of thing. Some useful stuff on structure - constructing a guard - which was pretty much the same as what we'd done for rapier earlier. Also, forming the guard dynamically, by entering it with a strike - for example, throwing a nice expansive roverso fendente and swinging back into posta di donna destra. These are exercises that help us discover what good structure feels like so that we can eventually enter the guards straight away.

Lots of work as well on the stretto-largo thing. I'm getting a handle on Guy's interpretation of it. Essentially, stretto is a fairly tightly defined situation - equal structural positions, crossed in the middle, pressure in the bind such that if one leaves the bind the opponent will strike in that very tempo. Hence when it occurs, the one viable response is to "enter with a cover and come to the close play". It's a specific place to be in, but one that occurs often enough that we have to learn to deal with it - and more importantly, because it actually requires a different set of techniques to deal with. Hence the division between the stretto and largo plays: largo is, in a sense, the broader picture, what you do when you can act more or less freely; stretto is the type of play that you perform when the tactical situation sets up so that you have to enter while maintaining your cover.

It makes sense, and I see the logic of the interpretation. It's somewhat different from the Bolognese tradition, where stretto is defined primarily in terms of half-cuts and the point remaining in presence; while this is somewhat the case in Fiore, there's a subtle but significant difference, perhaps merely in emphasis, perhaps substantive. I'm not sure what I think as yet, and I know that Guy and Ilkka have different views on the matter. The problem is that the defining line between stretto and largo cannot be clearly drawn. It depends on the players, the specific setup of the cross, even on things like how long the swords are. It varies, and while there are points on the continuum which are clearly largo and clearly stretto, the grey area is broad and ultimately dependent on individual judgement. Someone else might be able to play largo in a situation where I'm forced to play stretto. I think that element of judgement is precisely why it's so hard to reach a consensus on the matter.

That having been said, it now seems to me that stretto is the more tactically difficult situation to play in. Everything is compressed, both in distance and in time. And while the decision tree may collapse to the default pass with a cover, the execution of that precise technique becomes particularly important, especially when one's opponent is aware that it's the one option left. Being able to play largo when one's opponent is in stretto is a huge advantage. It's also telling when Marozzo says that the fencer who knows the close play will chase the fencer who knows only wide play around the salle (and hence, you should pay him the seven Bolognese Pounds extra to learn the close play!).

We worked on this in Monday's intermediate class as well. Tiny class - just myself, Jan and Tomi Korkalainen were in attendance, but it turned out to be a really useful session. We did some solo practice followed by half-speed freeplay, all directed at improving flow, getting rid of stickiness, improving decision-making. It all worked pretty nicely - by the end of the session things were getting a lot smoother and there were some nice points.

I've had some frustrations and hiccups in my training over the past year, but it looks like things are picking up a bit. I'm happy with my current progress, both in longsword and rapier, and while there's (as always) so much to work on, I can look back and feel that I've made progress. I'm a better fencer and martial artist than I was six months ago, and that's what is really important. Looking forward, there are so many more peaks to scale, but I'm feeling enthusiastic not just about the accomplishment but the very process itself, and that's really the only place to be if you're going to get anywhere at all.

Training Update

Rapier last night, a back-to-basics class. We spent a lot of time on getting the basic guard stance perfect, starting from a neutral standing position and constructing the stance step by step. Since it's a really useful exercise, here's the sequence:

1. Begin standing naturally, relaxed with feet hip-width apart, toes turned out naturally.
2. Turn heels out so that outside of feet are parallel.
3. Sink weight, transfer weight to left foot.
4. Bring right leg up so thigh is parallel to ground, without moving hips. Turn leg through 90 degrees.
5. Reaching out with right heel, extend right leg so that the foot lands at right angle to left foot.

If done right, the shoulders and hips should remain perfectly aligned throughout and along the fencing line. The weight should be entirely supported by the left leg. Knees, as always, in line with the feet, and bending so that they remain over the feet. This last is particularly crucial in order to avoid knee injuries.

This is also a diagnostic tool which helps us find where we're weak or tense, the points where our stance fails. For me it's the muscles on the outside of the hips (tensor fasciae latae for those of you who're interested). I'm flexible enough but I need to strengthen those muscles so that they can hold the position without undue strain. Otherwise the tension required tends to pull my hips out of position.

We also did some actual fencing, alternating between very slow, technical drills and tactical stuff. Personally I like the technical work, because that's when I learn most about myself and how to improve. That's an individual preference - everyone responds differently to learning situations - but I find that it's more useful to actually break down the actions, get them right and practice until they're really internalized. Then when the tactical situations arise, I don't have to think about technique at all, it just flows (or should, anyway, when I'm not sabotaging myself mentally, but that's another post for another day).

For example, holding the sword: a while ago Guy showed us the proper way to grip the rapier, and my goodness it's made such a difference. Even Ilkka got something out of it - he's not prone to hyperbole, but he declared later that he'd finally learned how to hold a sword, and this extended to longsword and sidesword as well. For me, it's helping to sort out the problems I've been having with gaining proper opposition. Now when I take the line, I can actually close it so that it's strong against pressure.

These are the myriad tiny details of execution, so very subtle and easy to overlook, yet the difference between a swordsman and some fool swinging a sword. It's easy for the Helsinki crowd in particular to forget this, but we're privileged to be training with Guy all the time. Not every lesson may be super-fun or contain mind-blowing insights, but if we're paying attention there are a lot of things to learn which others may never even have pointed out.

Another random thing that's come up in training recently - I'm getting more technique out under pressure. Two-on-one dagger drill on Monday had me putting in multiple strikes after the cover, in addition to the basic technique being executed. It's gradually becoming ingrained to strike in order to set up the locks and takedowns. This comes from the freeplay training: keep going until you've got to where you want, maintain the flow, keep up the advantage. Nice to see that it's bleeding into unarmed and dagger work as well.

This weekend I'll be going up to Turku to assist Guy at a seminar. Should be fun - it's meant for people who lead classes, so it'll be interesting, and the Turku chaps are good folk.

Training Update

Monday session: Fiore basic and intermediate. Emphasis: getting unstuck.

Sound familiar?

We did a lot of work on setting up situations in which people often get stuck, or freeze. For example: yielding from mandritto fendente into a pommel strike, the strike is blocked with a first master remedy, and it turns into a wrestling match. The sort of thing that's quite silly but happens a lot in freeplay.

So, set it up artificially, then work from there. Do something to break the deadlock. To begin with, don't worry about getting the hit, it doesn't matter who hits whom - just get out of the stuck situation. Only when you're able to do that consistently does the technique matter.

Lots of that, with increasing degrees of freedom, until we were kitted up and doing freeplay. Four of us in the intermediate class - Kristian, Petteri, Risto and me. Round-robin, three bouts apiece. Guess what - very little sticking or freezing. Result!

They weren't necessarily the prettiest techniques on display, or the most beautiful expressions of the art, but it looked martial. People were moving, flowing from position to position, not stopping. No coffee breaks, just one thing after another. So while it may not have reached great heights, it didn't hit the depths either. What this did was to get rid of the really bad points, the ones where people stand out of distance and wave their swords at each other, or stand pushing at each other until someone gets tired or finally buys a clue.

Guy asked what thoughts we had in our minds to keep us from freezing.

1. Keep going. Just keep hitting the opponent. Hit him again.
2. Don't call your own hits. Keep going till you hear halt called.
3. Keep the feet moving. It's the easiest thing, gross motor movement, nothing tricky, and your legs moving will get everything else moving.

All useful stuff. Things to remember going into bouts.

Did some repetitions of the syllabus form, with these ideas in mind. Definitely a bit more pop in my execution.

Finished with a bit of wrestling. Guy actually said to just do any kind of drill, solo or pair, that would help us to fix the flowing feeling in our heads. Somehow everyone just agreed to wrestle. Which we did, and it was fun. Got a couple of leg-lifts on Kristian, and with Risto it went to the ground, and a mount and rear naked choke. Into position at least, Guy stopped it before it got cranked on, but damn it, it's a great feeling when you can make something work against someone who knows what he's doing.

Guy's comment on the fencing - everyone had fenced noticeably better, but in particular I looked like I had a year's more experience. I take this to mean that my free fencing has been lagging behind my technical ability by at least a year. Good to make a start on bringing it up to speed.

I'm in a good place swordsmanship-wise right now. I've been beating my head against some walls for the past year, but now a few cracks are beginning to show - in the wall, not my head (that's pretty damn hard). I'm just glad I'm getting the kind of training that actually makes a difference, not just technical stuff that never works in practice - which a lot of instructors teach, whether in HES or the martial arts in general. Not saying I'll ever be able to pull this stuff off against a fully resisting opponent in a live situation, but at least I'm a little bit further along the road.

A lot of frustration has drained away, and I'm itching for more training. This is a Very Good Thing indeed.