German Longsword Seminar

Today’s longsword seminar at the University went quite well. Very few attendees, but that allowed us to devote more personal time for each student. Whilst we’ve given the historical combat training there at the school before, unlike the last series which focused on dagger and hand-to-hand techniques, tactics, and strategies, this seminar was singularly about longsword. We focused exclusively on the interpretations of the earliest works and intentions of “the German style” of Johannes Liechtenauer.

Chris has been really delving into the cutting edge (heheh) of Liechtenauer research and interpretation. One of the trademarks of his work is the primacy of attack, vice the later Italian focus on learning and working from “guards.” Quite an interesting philosophy.

Mid-Atlantic Gathering hosted by Maryland Kunst Des Fechten and the HEMA Alliance

Hey guys, its official, the Mid-Atlantic Gathering will be on January 30th.  Info can be found here:

http://pendant.forumotion.net/bulletin-board-f1/announcement-open-mid-atlantic-hema-gathering-registration-open-t462.htm

Fritz and Hallie, if you guys are coming, you may wish to send an email to Jake Norwood first, being that you are both under 18, to make certain there are no age restrictions, but I would recommend registering ASAP once you’ve heard back from him (or just pay attention to the forum posts, as I asked him there already).  Looks like an opportunity to get some training under Coach Grandy again, as he’s going to be teaching a rapier class!

 - Chris

Sickle To Death Of It

A great new vid showing some sickle technique from the works of Paulus Hector Mair. From one of our favorites, Arme Antica:

Shows their usual smooth, fluid movement interpretation.

Third of Three

So, Friday’s German Longsword practice went well, with Chris spending most of his time bringing Hallie up to speed (she had missed a couple of practices) and Fritz and I worked on the first longsword play, until we took a water break and we worked for most of the rest of the night on falling/rolling. Then Chris and Hallie joined in on that. Good stuff. Took a good breakfall from Chris when I was showing him how to guide a person down to the ground.

However, he didn’t actually “guide” me to the ground, but rather short-circuited my roll by guiding me partway to the ground and kept holding on, resulting in a pretty hard breakfall on the floor–concrete with a thin square of carpet on it. I was pleased though, because I took the fall in textbook fashion (probably because I was surprised and didn’t have time to think about it) and wasn’t in the least bit hurt.

Looked impressive, and I think it provided the group some good confidence in the veracity of good technique in self-protection when falling.

Saturday had Chris and I doing the third of the three seminars in close combat and Medieval dagger techniques. All of our students were repeats, except for Elaine, who had wanted to do it for a while. Was a really good session. Again, long day–1130 to 1730. My ankle was way better, but it still ached some, so that a couple of times throughout the day I had to just sit down on the mat, and let it rest. By the end of the day I was limping a bit, and didn’t feel like going anywhere. Which was unfortunate, as one of our friends had a birthday up in Adams Morgan. I elected to stay home that night, alas.

In this seminar, due to both our preference and the students’, we focused primarily on dagger technique and some strategy, leaving the rolling/falling just for warm-up, and very little unarmed wrestling. Since Elaine (a fencer with the Mary Wash Fencing Club) was relatively unfamiliar with rolling, I helped her with the basics, and then helped her come up to speed with some of the flow drills, both unarmed and with dagger. She picked it up quickly and did very well. Good job, Elaine!

Some of the students want there to be a club for the Medieval and Renaissance fighting arts, as there’s a modern fencing club, and a Renaissance club, but not club dedicated to the combat arts of that time frame. It’s Chris’ hope that we helped them get started by giving them some training, and that we can show up as guest instructors from time to time. He’s also been doing some informal training on Thursdays, I think, trying to get them motivated and trained. Hopefully they’ll get going on it.

Excerpted from Amphibiman’s Blog

The Pointy Part Goes Into The Other Man, No?

Another good day of sweat and bruises! Around eight to ten students showed up to Dagger Seminar 2, as well as guest instructor Devon, who recently moved from his hideout in Portland, Oregon.

It’s definitely such a reward to me as an instructor to see the tired, but smiling faces of the participants. I think we really brought out some latent talent and physical confidence in some of the students.

Again, we were rushed for time as the gym staff came in and had to shoo us out. The time goes so fast! One of the students said that it seems shorter than the fencing practices of the fencing club, which are about an hour and a half, max. The seminar yesterday was from 1130 to 1730, for an elapsed time comparison. Basically, all day.

The format was similar to last time’s, except that since we had all repeat students (if I remember correctly), less time was spent (and of fewer students) on the basic format of how to fall/roll, and more on roll confidence drills. Typically (and with the head instructor’s blessing) I sneak in some aiki and Systema-like drills, such as “monkey rolls,” where you line up everyone face down on the mat and have the first in line “alligator” roll over the whole line of folks, then the next one, and on and on, progressing from one end of the mat to the other. That’s a good trust and familiarity exercise that gets the students (and instructors) in a mood for personal contact without intimidation.

Chris had us do the short-range “trust fall” circle, which was a lot of fun for everyone.

We had fun with the “three wrestlings” drills, which in some cases devolved into me showing some ground work. We took some time to attempt to talk about the sort of no-hit Systema-style “psychic” attacks/defenses (as in, “of the psyche”) that Chris wanted me to demonstrate, but I failed fairly epically at it–insofar as I think the students seemed fairly confused about why we were talking about it, and what was I talking about anyway? I had my doubts about teaching it at this time (the subject is not about some sort of magic or anything, but I felt that it may be a little bit esoteric for the class, when they had no context for it) so I may have actually ended up sabotaging myself. But through some good fortune it still morphed into a good discussion about tactics, strategy, and intention, with a discussion of why in modern sport fencing “right of way” is important to foil and sabre practice.

Finally, we got to “daggering,” and that part of the session also seemed all too short. But I’m actually okay with that, for now. I think as a class, they’re at a point where they are comfortable (though not expert, of course) with all the basics, and can start to practice with their mates on their own. As we sat in a circle at the end of class last time, most of the students had wanted more time with rolling, and wrestling, so that’s what we gave them. Concluding the class this time, more was made of wanting more actual weapon time, and perhaps introducing things beyond the dagger. So, we’ll see about that. Next time is definitely more dagger time, with more and more complex techniques, now that folks have basic movement patterns down and comfort with contact.

As it seems interest is still keen, we’re trying to work in another session soon, some weekend when most of the same participants can be around. Fall break, holidays, and heavy class-loads all make it an adventure to find a weekend available to most people.

So–hopefully I can be around for the next one. It’s an honor to help train these students, and a lot fun, and it’s good training for me, too. I’m just glad I’ve been physically training in both the arts and in fitness all these years, so that I can be a good and credible instructor for folks literally more than twenty years (25, in most cases) my junior. Fireman’s lifting and throwing the largest guy (6’5″ or so) in the class can be a real respect/attention-getter…

Cheers.

Excerpted from Amphibiman’s Blog.

Is This A Dagger Which I See Before Me?

Illustration in Talhoffer's Fechtbuch showing rondel dagger combat.

Last Friday’s “longsword” practice was to be focused on Medieval/Renaissance dagger work, in prep for the seminar we were giving the next day.

However, a new guy showed up; Chris (the instructor) stuck with him to show him the basics of longsword technique and philosophy (so the guy could decide if he liked it and would want to continue), so I worked with young Hallie in dagger. She hadn’t been there the night a couple of weeks before when we did a lot of dagger work, and was excited to get the chance. She’s only 12, but highly motivated (having her older brother Fritz being really into it helps), so she gets a pass on being there. Chris originally set the limit at 16 and above, but so far, she’s been just fine.

Later, a couple of the regulars showed up, so we continued to train, and it was good.

Saturday brought the Dagger Seminar at the University around, and it was great. Chris had asked me if I could assist, especially in the falling and throwing department. I’ve done Eastern-type martial arts for several years, and got into Russian Martial Art and loved it. But I have always maintained that the most bang-for-my-buck thing I’ve learned so far is proper falling. So Chris had me teach that one time for his class, because he was still feeling shaky about it.

The thing about Medieval combat training (and the manuals that accompanied it) is that it is fairly comprehensive. The manuals of the masters from those times usually had longsword as a base, and used the principles you gained with it to teach other weapons, such as spear and dagger.

They often also include wrestling, and Chris often has a wrestling-dedicated practice session. Because the purpose of the wrestling was to get someone to the ground (whether you are barehanded, or with a weapon), he felt that you should be very comfortable going to ground, hence the training in proper falling.

At the seminar on Saturday, after some warming up, he split the group of 12 or 14 or so into two groups. He worked with one group in footwork, and sent the other group to me on the mats to teach falling. After a period of time, we switched the groups out.

I typically teach falling very simply. The first part is collapsing, like a sack of potatoes. Then I work with people to get them rolling as best they can. After that it’s break-falls. I’ve found that I like to do it in that order, because by the time you get to break-falls, the students are familiar and comfortable being up and down and changing through different height levels. Plus, break-falls are really just incomplete rolls, so having done the rolls first, it’s a little easier to explain it. And finally, I am prejudiced toward rolling, because it’s actually safer than taking a break-fall. If you end up running out of time (which we did with one group), then I’d rather spend the time on rolls.

After that we went into Johannes Liechtenauer’s “The Three Wrestlings.” That was entertaining.

Then finally into the dagger work, off of a manual that I don’t remember the name of right at this moment. It was a long day, but the students were begging us to keep going. We stretched it as long as we could, but the gym finally was shutting down, so we had to skedaddle out of there. All in all, a good day.

Excerpted from Amphibiman’s Blog