Training update

Last Friday I was supposed to run a training session but it turned out there were only Maria, Joeli and myself in attendance so we decided to just do some rapier freeplay instead, using an exercise that Guy taught us a little while ago: fence to one touch, then figure out the sequence that led to the touch, and re-create it, with the player who received the hit correcting whatever mistake (tactical or technical) that led to the hit.

It's a great exercise because it forces you to think about what you're doing, to analyze what works and what doesn't. It also tends to slow things down so that you can actually see what's going on, and to encourage people to use canonical actions rather than random flailing.

Maria and I repeated the exercise on Tuesday at free training, and Guy had a look in. I think he was pleased - she managed to pull off, in succession, a scanso della vita with disengage, a sbasso, and a scannatura against a non-lunging opponent. The first was done from the 'wrong side' - hence requiring the disengage first - the second was a classic by-the-book avoidance, and the third worked because she performed a disengage while coming into measure for the scannatura. All this against a resisting opponent (yours truly) who was most definitely not giving the techniques up; indeed I had no idea that she was planning to use them.

Personally I was glad that I could fence in a way that actually created the situation for those techniques to work. It sounds a bit strange to be glad to be a mobile pell, but what it really means is that I've at least got to the point technically where my actions are articulated with enough precision that sophisticated techniques (which require specific preconditions) will work against them. It's difficult to pull these off against someone who waves their sword randomly without attempting to close their lines, precisely because said sword could be and go anywhere.

I also managed a couple of decent hits. One was completely simple - a direct strike from stringere - but it worked because I changed my rhythm, taking two quick steps when I normally advance quite deliberately. (Maria complained that "He was running at me" but I think it shows that the basic actions do work well when executed with a little tactical savvy.) The other was a parry-riposte in prima with a pass, pretty much straight out of the book, and as Guy said, the most rapier-like action he'd seen me perform.

Given I haven't been doing rapier very long at all, I think I've made progress. I still have a very long way to go, and I need to compartmentalize better (criticisms included my tendency to make very wide longsword-type parries and to use stramazzoni when in close measure, which is a bit Bolognese). But given that I'm hopefully not fighting a duel any time soon, things are coming along nicely.

Also, today I attended Laura's conditioning class. It was a bit sparsely attended, with 4+1 present, but it was fun and useful. We did dynamic stretches, the basic fitness test (yes, I passed, thank you very much) and plyometrics. Then there were some melee games, which would have worked better with more people but were good fun nevertheless, and the proceedings were concluded with some deep yoga stretching.

It says a lot about how much swordsmanship has done for me, that at the end of the training I was still full of energy. When I started training, just the warmup and fitness test would have wiped me out, and the plyometrics would have left me the proverbial "Kuwaiti shot three times by an Iraqi". I'm still nowhere near as fit as I should be or would like to be, but again, I measure my progress by how far I've come, and that's been quite a distance indeed. My right shoulder is probably always going to be a bit crocked though - its range of motion is really significantly less than the left. Fortunately it's nothing that really comes into play for swordsmanship purposes, so it's easy to train around. But I can actually get into a halfway decent Plough position, so that's quite nice!

Tomorrow there'll be a seminar on Italian vs. German longsword. We'll pick up some of the basics of the Liechtenauer tradition, and learn the similarities and differences between the traditions. It promises to be an interesting day of training.