Has it been a month? I can only plead the holiday season and winter grimness for the lack of updates. Training is pretty slow in December.
But with the new year and lots of snow on the ground I'm feeling rather more energetic. There have been new developments on the training front as well - most recently, an all-new cutting drill, tailored to the demands of the new syllabus.
It's pretty simple, although a bit longer than previous cutting drills, and I like it quite a bit.
Begin from posta di donna destra, cut mandritto fendente with a pass all the way to dente di chinghiale, then false edge sottano with a pass to posta di donna again.
With a pass, mandritto fendente to posta longa, return to posta di donna sinestra without footwork.
Roverso fendente with pass to porta di ferro, false edge sottano with pass to posta di donna.
Roverso fendente to posta longa, return to posta di donna destra.
Full mandritto fendente to dente di chinghiale.
The sottano cuts can be done as thrusts as well (I prefer thinking of them as thrusts) with a slight adjustment of the timing of the pass.
From dente di chinghiale, false-edge mezano to throat level, returning with a roverso fendente down to coda longa disteza (yes, the follow-on to the breaking of the thrust).
From coda longa, true-edge mezano followed by punta falsa thrust, pommel strike to vera croce (similar to the sequence in the syllabus form).
From vera croce, transfer sword to posta di donna sinestra, thrust in bichorno.
Return to posta di donna destra, rinse and repeat.
It's a nice sequence, lots of flow to it and while there are quite a few steps there's a smooth progression and it's easy to pick up. It also includes all the colpi from both sides, half-blows and full blows, and a lot of practice with fendentes - plus the mezanos are now done the way they're tactically applied. I wasn't enamoured of the sottanos to begin with, but doing them as low thrusts makes me much more comfortable.
A little observation from doing second drill, stretto form, with Jukka - against someone who's doing his bind-and-strike right, it's pretty hard to get a wrap. Most of the time you're going to end up with a hand on his hilt at best. That's good enough to control his weapon and give you space for your pommel strike to enter, but something to think about. It's also why (as Guy pointed out) it's vital to perform your actions with proper intent, even when you know your partner is going to perform a scripted counter. If you get lazy, you're not doing your training partner any favours. And when you do things the right way, you realise that even having a counter up your sleeve won't always work - because against a committed, properly structured technique, the window for executing a counter is pretty darn small.
Also got in a bit of much-needed practice with the syllabus form with Joni, a really good chap who's getting the Oulu branch started up. Unfortunately he's due to join the army next week so that will put a crimp in things for him, but hopefully he'll be able to get in some training on the weekends and be able to pick things up when he's done with the gender-biased taxation (j/k).
And in closing - Chris Chak and I have been engaged in a bit of a discussion on Facebook regarding training mindsets and attitudes, and we've both found our way to Marc 'Animal' MacYoung's website, "No Nonsense Self Defense". Mr. MacYoung's got a lot of material available on many aspects of the martial arts and their application in self-defence. It's a good supplement to the stuff in Meditations on Violence, Rory Miller's excellent book. I believe anyone who trains in the martial arts should think deeply on the issues presented in these writings.
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3 comments:
I'd like to put a comment on your description of the new cutting drill. The second cut is not essentially a full rising cut, but a cut to longa followed by a transition to donna. It's just done so smoothly it might at first be confused with a full cut. Did the coda longa got changed to t.p.d.f. just before the second mezzano of the drill during this week?
Sorry to be overly pedantic, but it's the early days of the drill and I don't want people, me included, learning undesired habits.
I also joined the bandwagon and am reading two books about coping with violence, having taken some distance to the subject. I'd be very interested in borrowing On Killing if you still have it. I'll probably donate my copies of On Combat and Watch My Back to the school library, as Heikki was asking for books on the subject, too.
Duly noted, and thanks. I've corrected the tpdf - coda longa confusion. That was just me getting it wrong. As for the sotani, I'll just leave it as is with your comment to clarify.
I don't have a copy of On Killing but I think there are a couple in the salle already, along with Meditations on Violence. There's also a photocopied version of a knife-fighting book (can't recall the name just now - Realities of Steel or something like that) which is also pretty good.
I think the salle library is a great way to pool our resources! Saves everyone having to get copies of their own, unless of course we want to help out the authors (ahem).
Also, Lawrence Kane and Kris Wilder have a new book out, The Little Black Book of Violence, with forewords by (surprise, surprise) Miller and MacYoung. I might order it. Their other book, The Way of Kata, is good and already in the salle library.
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