Two days of the Fiore Extravaganza have gone by, and it's been a fascinating time. This year's seminar is somewhat different from last year's Five Days of Fiore, because everyone attending has some experience in the system - and in some cases, a lot of it! Thus we've been able to quickly move past basic technical material (although that has received some attention as well) to the tactical application of the stuff we've been learning and doing.
Thus, the first day's practice of abrazare went beyond simple details of making covers and the way to (for example) apply a ligadura. We're familiar with the basic plays but what we've been learning is how the tactical situation influences our choice of what plays to use. Take the first remedy master of dagger - the cover is made as usual, but the follow-on techniques can be seen as responses to the attacker's reaction to the cover: if he remains in place, the first play (disarm and strike) is the simplest to execute; if he pulls back, the ligadura; if he charges forward, the break of fifth play. [Note: special credit to Chris Blakey of PHEMAS for this analysis, well done Chris!]
Today's emphasis was on tactical decision-making with the sword, and in particular the choice between playing in largo and stretto. We worked on really getting the distinction between the crossings in tutta spada and meza spada, as well as feeling for the difference between winning and 'losing' (properly, entering a position of equality) at the cross. One thing that Guy pointed out was the number of decisions that can and indeed have to be made well before the swords ever cross, all of which influence the encounter that follows. Which guard to take up, whether to attack or await the opponent's attack, cut or thrust - these all shape the crossing, such that it is possible, if not to win the fight before it starts, at least to give oneself the best chance to win.
The day concluded with a bit of freeplay. Those with more experience did freeplay with full kit while the others bouted with wasters. This not only allowed for more bouts in the limited time available but also created opportunities for seniors to have a go at presiding over free fencing, a difficult skill that requires judgement, tact and a keen eye.
I was fairly pleased with my fencing today. Win or lose, my goal was to make a plan and keep to it - not trying to anticipate the opponent, or to think too many steps ahead, but to keep a tactical concept in mind and fence accordingly. This is more difficult than it sounds, at least for me. The temptation is to change one's mind and start casting about for better options, but this is what leads to coffee breaks and ineffectual waving of swords in the general direction of the opponent. As always, better a committed decision now than the best of ideas when it's too late. So I kept things simple - pick a guard and stick to it, decide whether to try to stay in largo or enter into stretto, and then just go for it, doing whatever it takes to make my plan work. In terms of points, I didn't do so well, but as a learning experience it was excellent. The thing is, when both parties go into a bout with these things clearly in mind, it produces a clean, technical encounter - something that everyone can learn from, regardless of the outcome.
So, a great start to the seminar, and lots more to come!
Monday, July 06, 2009
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Training Update
It's been almost a month since I last updated, but I think I'm allowed a pass, seeing as in the meantime I've got married and am applying for residency in Finland. Training continues apace, however, and it's been great to welcome some friends to Helsinki - Petter Brodin, Henrik Wadell and Chris Chak are currently staying at the salle, in preparation for the Fiore Extravaganza, a week-long event that begins tomorrow! They'll be joined in training by Katrin Wendland and Kliment Yanev, as well as those who live in Finland: a total of 22 swordsmen will be engaging in the week's training.
The Extravaganza promises to provide a significant boost to the training of the participants, as it is geared towards tactical application of the treatise material. It's a bit different from last year's Five Days of Fiore, which was more technical; given that many of this year's participants attended the Five Days, and everyone else has been training for some time at SES (Chris being the one exception, although he's been training with PHEMAS), the focus this time will be on getting people ready for freeplay, and improving the free fencing abilities of those who already are ready.
The seminar will end with a tournament and then a school party, to which all students and friends of the school are invited. It's going to be a lot of fun, so I hope we'll see a big turnout for the night!
The Extravaganza promises to provide a significant boost to the training of the participants, as it is geared towards tactical application of the treatise material. It's a bit different from last year's Five Days of Fiore, which was more technical; given that many of this year's participants attended the Five Days, and everyone else has been training for some time at SES (Chris being the one exception, although he's been training with PHEMAS), the focus this time will be on getting people ready for freeplay, and improving the free fencing abilities of those who already are ready.
The seminar will end with a tournament and then a school party, to which all students and friends of the school are invited. It's going to be a lot of fun, so I hope we'll see a big turnout for the night!
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Sprezzatura
In my previous post, I wrote about the quality of effortless grace that characterises the spirit of the Bolognese style: to no great surprise, I have just been reminded that there is a word for it in the Italian, and a good and proper period word at that.
Sprezzatura - as defined by Castiglione in The Book of the Courtier: "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it." It is the essential quality of the courtier, the gentleman - someone so fully in control of himself, so in harmony with natural laws and his environment, that everything he does is accomplished without striving.
In reality, of course, this is an appearance that belies the tremendous amount of practice and training that go into creating that appearance.
There is an interesting parallel here with the notion of 'naturalness' in Chinese internal arts - that the point of the arts is to achieve the state of nature, and that the very acme of human artifice results in what appears to be complete artlessness. In a sense this is true: what sword stroke can equal the simple efficiency and grace of a water droplet arcing through the air? Yet the crucial difference is intention.
For nature is mindless. Its mechanisms work without conscious intent. Whatever happens is the result of ineluctable physical laws, and the outcomes merely probabilistic. What man does, however, is intentional. Our goal is the single act which achieves our objective. True art is being able to do with one act, one intention, what is only accomplished in nature with the random waste of millions of unseen and unremembered others.
Take for example Michelangelo's David. How many of us can claim that wonderful proportion of body, that sweetness of face, that easy grace and focus? How many squat, misshapen, clumsy hulks does nature make, to every person of such beauty? Yet Michelangelo saw in a block of marble that very shape, and his art freed it from its prison, without error.
A thought, then, regarding training and instinct: nature gives us a guide to what to do; it furnishes us with examples to learn from; the essence of art is to enable us to command that natural efficiency and grace, and set it to our own uses. For this, after all, is what sets man apart from the animals - that he can choose his destiny, for good or ill.
And indeed, was it not precisely the Renascence that marked the reawakening of man to the thought that he might, after all, be master of his own fate?
Sprezzatura - as defined by Castiglione in The Book of the Courtier: "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it." It is the essential quality of the courtier, the gentleman - someone so fully in control of himself, so in harmony with natural laws and his environment, that everything he does is accomplished without striving.
In reality, of course, this is an appearance that belies the tremendous amount of practice and training that go into creating that appearance.
There is an interesting parallel here with the notion of 'naturalness' in Chinese internal arts - that the point of the arts is to achieve the state of nature, and that the very acme of human artifice results in what appears to be complete artlessness. In a sense this is true: what sword stroke can equal the simple efficiency and grace of a water droplet arcing through the air? Yet the crucial difference is intention.
For nature is mindless. Its mechanisms work without conscious intent. Whatever happens is the result of ineluctable physical laws, and the outcomes merely probabilistic. What man does, however, is intentional. Our goal is the single act which achieves our objective. True art is being able to do with one act, one intention, what is only accomplished in nature with the random waste of millions of unseen and unremembered others.
Take for example Michelangelo's David. How many of us can claim that wonderful proportion of body, that sweetness of face, that easy grace and focus? How many squat, misshapen, clumsy hulks does nature make, to every person of such beauty? Yet Michelangelo saw in a block of marble that very shape, and his art freed it from its prison, without error.
A thought, then, regarding training and instinct: nature gives us a guide to what to do; it furnishes us with examples to learn from; the essence of art is to enable us to command that natural efficiency and grace, and set it to our own uses. For this, after all, is what sets man apart from the animals - that he can choose his destiny, for good or ill.
And indeed, was it not precisely the Renascence that marked the reawakening of man to the thought that he might, after all, be master of his own fate?
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Training Update
This week saw the first couple of meetings of the unofficial Bolognese study group at SESH. So far it's just Ilkka, Matias Parmala and me, but that's a nice size for the time being. Ilkka's just bringing the two of us up to speed with basic terminology and actions at the moment, so we're learning the guards and strikes and forms.
We did a couple of hours on Wednesday, and another session on Friday - the latter involving Ilkka's idea of a warmup, which was about an hour of abrazare, including stress drills. I think it's a fair guide to the improvement in my conditioning levels that I wasn't shattered at the end of it, and still had the mental and physical capacity to do some technical training.
The Bolognese style is a very sophisticated one, with dynamic footwork, subtle blade actions with lots of feints and misdirections, and a number of actions that start out counter-intuitive but make a lot of sense in context. It also has a very distinct flavour - you can't just do the actions correctly in a technical fashion, to really express the style one has to develop an air of nonchalant grace. Done right, it should look effortless - it's quite distinct in spirit from Fiore, which is generally very direct and efficient.
The difficulty with practicing Bolognese lies in this very quality: the treatises give many ways of approaching a given tactical situation, and so many options that it's hard to decide on the fly what one should do. Add to this the texts' lack of structure (they generally provide a large number of examples of what to do, without giving much context as to why, what the opponent is doing, and so on) and you can see how the wealth of options can be a problem.
The Bolognese school really isn't for beginners. It's beautiful and effective, but I suspect that it's best approached from a position of already having a fair amount of experience with more straightforward styles. It's also fairly physically demanding - a certain degree of athleticism is required because of the nature of the footwork and blade actions. It would be easy to suffer injury from practicing this style - if Ilkka can bugger up his elbow practicing tramazzones, anyone can!
I'm looking forward to more of the material, though. There's so very much of it, and not just concerning sword in one hand. There's knife, polearm, sword and dagger, sword and buckler, sword and shield, greatsword... all kinds of really funky and cool stuff is covered in the treatises. It all builds from the single sword though, so it does form a coherent system.
In other news, I did a spot of light freeplay with Guy on Thursday. I don't think I did very well - lots of coffee-breaks, stopping, bashing, not following through on techniques, and most importantly failing to control the opponent's weapon. Things got better as the session went on (as Guy poked and prodded me into addressing these flaws) but it's clear that I've still got a lot to work on in application of technique. There's a bunch of stuff I can do technically, in drills and so on, but making it work cleanly in free fencing is another matter entirely. But as always, I'm glad to have my failings pointed out (however embarrassing or frustrating it might feel at the moment) because (1.) it means I can start correcting them; and (2.) it means I still have lots to learn and practice. It's a nice feeling to have all this room for improvement ahead of oneself!
Other stuff upcoming - I.33 seminar next weekend! It's fun stuff, and I'm happy to have a chance to extend my knowledge of it past the basic level. It's not about accumulating scout badges, of course, but working through the school syllabus in a methodical fashion is of benefit as well. It ensures a minimum level of technical skill and a foundation for more advanced training when the time comes. Also ramping up for the Fiore extravaganza in early July, and perhaps the summer-autumn round of demos and other events.
Life at the swordschool is pretty exciting at the moment, so watch this space!
We did a couple of hours on Wednesday, and another session on Friday - the latter involving Ilkka's idea of a warmup, which was about an hour of abrazare, including stress drills. I think it's a fair guide to the improvement in my conditioning levels that I wasn't shattered at the end of it, and still had the mental and physical capacity to do some technical training.
The Bolognese style is a very sophisticated one, with dynamic footwork, subtle blade actions with lots of feints and misdirections, and a number of actions that start out counter-intuitive but make a lot of sense in context. It also has a very distinct flavour - you can't just do the actions correctly in a technical fashion, to really express the style one has to develop an air of nonchalant grace. Done right, it should look effortless - it's quite distinct in spirit from Fiore, which is generally very direct and efficient.
The difficulty with practicing Bolognese lies in this very quality: the treatises give many ways of approaching a given tactical situation, and so many options that it's hard to decide on the fly what one should do. Add to this the texts' lack of structure (they generally provide a large number of examples of what to do, without giving much context as to why, what the opponent is doing, and so on) and you can see how the wealth of options can be a problem.
The Bolognese school really isn't for beginners. It's beautiful and effective, but I suspect that it's best approached from a position of already having a fair amount of experience with more straightforward styles. It's also fairly physically demanding - a certain degree of athleticism is required because of the nature of the footwork and blade actions. It would be easy to suffer injury from practicing this style - if Ilkka can bugger up his elbow practicing tramazzones, anyone can!
I'm looking forward to more of the material, though. There's so very much of it, and not just concerning sword in one hand. There's knife, polearm, sword and dagger, sword and buckler, sword and shield, greatsword... all kinds of really funky and cool stuff is covered in the treatises. It all builds from the single sword though, so it does form a coherent system.
In other news, I did a spot of light freeplay with Guy on Thursday. I don't think I did very well - lots of coffee-breaks, stopping, bashing, not following through on techniques, and most importantly failing to control the opponent's weapon. Things got better as the session went on (as Guy poked and prodded me into addressing these flaws) but it's clear that I've still got a lot to work on in application of technique. There's a bunch of stuff I can do technically, in drills and so on, but making it work cleanly in free fencing is another matter entirely. But as always, I'm glad to have my failings pointed out (however embarrassing or frustrating it might feel at the moment) because (1.) it means I can start correcting them; and (2.) it means I still have lots to learn and practice. It's a nice feeling to have all this room for improvement ahead of oneself!
Other stuff upcoming - I.33 seminar next weekend! It's fun stuff, and I'm happy to have a chance to extend my knowledge of it past the basic level. It's not about accumulating scout badges, of course, but working through the school syllabus in a methodical fashion is of benefit as well. It ensures a minimum level of technical skill and a foundation for more advanced training when the time comes. Also ramping up for the Fiore extravaganza in early July, and perhaps the summer-autumn round of demos and other events.
Life at the swordschool is pretty exciting at the moment, so watch this space!
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Stag Party!
As many reading this blog will know, I'm getting married on the 26th of June. So of course a stag party was on the cards. This took place yesterday. Maria took me to Suomenlinna on some pretext, and as we passed through the fortress gates I was set upon by Guy, Topi, Ilkka and Joeli.
They hauled me off to a secluded bit of park beside a lovely pond, where we proceeded to have a set of singlestick bouts. Not a lot of rules - protective equipment a mask, and an elbow guard. We had a round of standard singlestick, giving and getting blows, and then another round without footwork - mensur style, basically.
I ended up with at least 41 welts. And some of them are absolute beauties. My shoulders and upper arms are blotched purple and blue. It's brilliant! My lady's colours are black and blue, and I wear them with pride!
Then we went to one of the oldest sauna in town - seriously old-school place. Conked my head on the tiles (got an imprint on my forehead for that) but it was great. Changed into togs provided for the occasion - full gear with jacket, Desperate Dan tie (with cowpies! and if you got that reference, good on you) and kilt! Yep, I was walking around downtown Helsinki with a kilt on. More than one eyebrow was raised along the way.
Dinner was at a restaurant that serves traditional Finnish cuisine - good stuff. Decor was super funky, with a farm theme and lots of farming implements on the walls, and tin buckets as lampshades, and a tractor in the middle of the room. I had wonderful little fish (vendace) rolled in rye flour and fried in butter, as well as a pint of sahti, homebrew beer brewed with bread yeast. Yes, this was part of the test as well.
Dessert at an Italian place, followed by cigars and brandy at the Esplanade (much more fun than the Singapore edition), where I had to compose a haiku dedicated to my lady. This was duly done and toasted.
Back home with an aching head, and other body parts. A hot shower and some rearrangement of my internals, and so to bed, at the end of a most memorable day. Thanks to all involved - best stag party ever!
They hauled me off to a secluded bit of park beside a lovely pond, where we proceeded to have a set of singlestick bouts. Not a lot of rules - protective equipment a mask, and an elbow guard. We had a round of standard singlestick, giving and getting blows, and then another round without footwork - mensur style, basically.
I ended up with at least 41 welts. And some of them are absolute beauties. My shoulders and upper arms are blotched purple and blue. It's brilliant! My lady's colours are black and blue, and I wear them with pride!
Then we went to one of the oldest sauna in town - seriously old-school place. Conked my head on the tiles (got an imprint on my forehead for that) but it was great. Changed into togs provided for the occasion - full gear with jacket, Desperate Dan tie (with cowpies! and if you got that reference, good on you) and kilt! Yep, I was walking around downtown Helsinki with a kilt on. More than one eyebrow was raised along the way.
Dinner was at a restaurant that serves traditional Finnish cuisine - good stuff. Decor was super funky, with a farm theme and lots of farming implements on the walls, and tin buckets as lampshades, and a tractor in the middle of the room. I had wonderful little fish (vendace) rolled in rye flour and fried in butter, as well as a pint of sahti, homebrew beer brewed with bread yeast. Yes, this was part of the test as well.
Dessert at an Italian place, followed by cigars and brandy at the Esplanade (much more fun than the Singapore edition), where I had to compose a haiku dedicated to my lady. This was duly done and toasted.
Back home with an aching head, and other body parts. A hot shower and some rearrangement of my internals, and so to bed, at the end of a most memorable day. Thanks to all involved - best stag party ever!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Training Update
Three weeks since I last posted! My apologies to everyone who's been wondering what's happened to me. Rest assured, I'm healthy again, still training (more than ever, in fact) and settling nicely in Helsinki.
Part of the reason I've not been blogging so much has been that I'm at a bit of a plateau in training - I enjoy it tremendously, but there haven't been a great number of penny-drop moments of insight. It may be precisely because I'm training rather more, and more often, than I used to, which means that it's a daily activity rather than an intense burst each weekend. It's not wasted effort, of course - there will always be flat periods in one's advancement, and the key is to keep one's spirits up and not get discouraged. It's also a good time to revisit the basics, keep them fresh and make sure everything is working well so that when the plateau breaks you're in position to make the most of it.
At the moment I'm working on refining longsword technique, especially in the zogho largo. All the little things like hand position, timing of cuts, proper structure, weight distribution, balance, path, edge alignment... the number of things that need to be worked on can be daunting, but it's a matter of making those little tweaks and being aware of them rather than mindlessly swinging through yet another set of reps of cutting drill.
Other stuff includes working on the crane breathing exercise and the first few steps of the health qigong form. The former is familiar territory but again can always use more refining, while the latter is fairly new ground for me. It's lung-burstingly brutal when done right, but it promises to pay off in both aerobic and anaerobic fitness as well as general conditioning. I'm also playing around with the kettlebell and other conditioning tools.
I'm also looking forward to getting in more work on I.33 and sidesword. Ilkka wants a training partner (read: chew toy) and video demonstrator for his Marozzo project so I'm going to be on a crash course for that, which is going to be cool. As well, the Fiore Extravaganza is in just over a month's time so I need to be fit and ready for that. It'll be great meeting old friends like Petter Brodin and Katrin Wentland again!
More is in the pipeline, so I'll keep things updated a bit more frequently. Thanks to all my readers for their patience.
Part of the reason I've not been blogging so much has been that I'm at a bit of a plateau in training - I enjoy it tremendously, but there haven't been a great number of penny-drop moments of insight. It may be precisely because I'm training rather more, and more often, than I used to, which means that it's a daily activity rather than an intense burst each weekend. It's not wasted effort, of course - there will always be flat periods in one's advancement, and the key is to keep one's spirits up and not get discouraged. It's also a good time to revisit the basics, keep them fresh and make sure everything is working well so that when the plateau breaks you're in position to make the most of it.
At the moment I'm working on refining longsword technique, especially in the zogho largo. All the little things like hand position, timing of cuts, proper structure, weight distribution, balance, path, edge alignment... the number of things that need to be worked on can be daunting, but it's a matter of making those little tweaks and being aware of them rather than mindlessly swinging through yet another set of reps of cutting drill.
Other stuff includes working on the crane breathing exercise and the first few steps of the health qigong form. The former is familiar territory but again can always use more refining, while the latter is fairly new ground for me. It's lung-burstingly brutal when done right, but it promises to pay off in both aerobic and anaerobic fitness as well as general conditioning. I'm also playing around with the kettlebell and other conditioning tools.
I'm also looking forward to getting in more work on I.33 and sidesword. Ilkka wants a training partner (read: chew toy) and video demonstrator for his Marozzo project so I'm going to be on a crash course for that, which is going to be cool. As well, the Fiore Extravaganza is in just over a month's time so I need to be fit and ready for that. It'll be great meeting old friends like Petter Brodin and Katrin Wentland again!
More is in the pipeline, so I'll keep things updated a bit more frequently. Thanks to all my readers for their patience.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Training Update
It's been far too long since I updated, but the past few weeks have been full of other activities besides training - the inevitable logistics of moving to another country. Besides which, a pinched nerve somewhere around my C5/C6 vertebrae has curtailed training somewhat. However, with a more settled routine and the alleviation of symptoms (if not yet the root cause) through physiotherapy and TLC, I've been able to get back into training.
I'd like to mention a nice little warmup exercise now making the rounds. In the tradition of the Superman, there's the Jack Bauer Breakout. It starts with Jack Bauer tied up by his enemies, suspended upside down by his legs. We do this by going into a shoulderstand, legs vertical. Then break out by rolling forward to a standing position, dodge a bullet with a hindu squat, kick enemy, dodge with another squat, kick again, get hit in chest and fall down, roll back up, kick gun out of enemy's gun out of his hand, catch it out of the air in a perfect posta longa. Easy! Then repeat as many times as desired.
More specifically sword-related stuff: sometimes getting an improvement comes through the simplest of exercises. Guy got the class to go through cutting drills, the emphasis being on feeling how the starting guard position can be optimised for the action following from it, cut or thrust. From this I discovered a couple of interesting points.
Firstly, regarding posta di fenestra: cutting from fenestra is made easier and smoother with the point held slightly high, rather than with blade parallel to the ground. Thrusting isn't any different, because the point comes online with the volta stabile anyway. It also removes the need to lift the point up for the cut, which is quite a bit of a tell. However, the treatise shows fenestra being held horizontally, so more work is needed on this matter.
Secondly, from posta di donna, if the point is held somewhat downwards, left hand raised, it makes for smoother, easier cuts. This is because the left hand can move in a natural arc, with the right hand pushing straight forward from the shoulder, rather than the somewhat unnatural and counter-intuitive motion of going straight forward with both hands and then turning the blade around. It makes timing the cut and coordinating arm, body and leg movements much simpler. It also makes a good match with the illustration in the Getty of the rear-weighted posta di donna. I'll definitely be experimenting with it more in the days to come.
I'm also looking forward to doing a lot more work on the Bolognese school, partly out of personal interest and partly to be able to contribute to Ilkka's new project at www.marozzo.com.
Thanks to all my readers for their patience. I look forward to training and posting more regularly again!
I'd like to mention a nice little warmup exercise now making the rounds. In the tradition of the Superman, there's the Jack Bauer Breakout. It starts with Jack Bauer tied up by his enemies, suspended upside down by his legs. We do this by going into a shoulderstand, legs vertical. Then break out by rolling forward to a standing position, dodge a bullet with a hindu squat, kick enemy, dodge with another squat, kick again, get hit in chest and fall down, roll back up, kick gun out of enemy's gun out of his hand, catch it out of the air in a perfect posta longa. Easy! Then repeat as many times as desired.
More specifically sword-related stuff: sometimes getting an improvement comes through the simplest of exercises. Guy got the class to go through cutting drills, the emphasis being on feeling how the starting guard position can be optimised for the action following from it, cut or thrust. From this I discovered a couple of interesting points.
Firstly, regarding posta di fenestra: cutting from fenestra is made easier and smoother with the point held slightly high, rather than with blade parallel to the ground. Thrusting isn't any different, because the point comes online with the volta stabile anyway. It also removes the need to lift the point up for the cut, which is quite a bit of a tell. However, the treatise shows fenestra being held horizontally, so more work is needed on this matter.
Secondly, from posta di donna, if the point is held somewhat downwards, left hand raised, it makes for smoother, easier cuts. This is because the left hand can move in a natural arc, with the right hand pushing straight forward from the shoulder, rather than the somewhat unnatural and counter-intuitive motion of going straight forward with both hands and then turning the blade around. It makes timing the cut and coordinating arm, body and leg movements much simpler. It also makes a good match with the illustration in the Getty of the rear-weighted posta di donna. I'll definitely be experimenting with it more in the days to come.
I'm also looking forward to doing a lot more work on the Bolognese school, partly out of personal interest and partly to be able to contribute to Ilkka's new project at www.marozzo.com.
Thanks to all my readers for their patience. I look forward to training and posting more regularly again!
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