Kevin

WMAW retrospective

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 05:48:45 GMT

It’s been a week since WMAW and I’m finally amost caught up on sleep. For those who don’t know, WMAW is the Western Martial Arts Workshop, a four day western martial arts conference at the DeKoven Center in Racine, WI. I had the most amazing and wonderful time. In addition to seeing guys who I haven’t seen in quite some time, I got meet, in person, a bunch of people whom I only knew over the internet.

Not to be repeating that which has been said in many other places, the Chicago Swordplay Guild staff did a wonderful job organizing the event and making sure that classes ran smootly. The DeKoven staff was also wonderful and was amazingly acoomidating, even for someone who sprung food allergies on them at the last minute.

If there was a theme this year, it was on tactical applications of the historic material. After talking with Puck, comparing to previous years, everyone had mastered the guards, footwork and theory, but had not yet integrated tactics at an intuititve level. Many of the classes were about tactical applications and training within the given tradition, rather than simple classes on principals and basics. A standout of these classes to me was Tom Leoni’s Drill to Fight class (on youtube here) which focused on choice and antagonistic drills in Italian rapier. That class was the single most fun I had in a class all weekend.

There was also a great interest in the great sword material (Italian Spanone, and Iberian Montante). In the world of big swords, these things are king, and while sparing with them is dangerous, they are just so much fun to swing around! I was

On the teaching side, there were six Schoula Magistrale graduates at WMAW (Maistri Sullins, Hayes, Curtis and Myers, and Provosts Murakoshi and Byrne), and between us we taught one sixth of all the classes. I assisted in most of the classes that Puck and Eric taught, givig me a very full weekend. Puck’s two spanish rapier classes and Eric’s two Montante classes were very well received, and the students seemed to have a good grasp of most of the material. I acted as Puck’s tackling dummy for the Spanish rapier classes (some video here), and apparently my name became a byword for tackling dummies in the classes after that. (as in: “hi I’m Richard, I’ll be your Kevin for this class…”)

Over the course of the weekend, I had the privlege of fencing with as many people as I could fit into my schedule. Even though I was doing coached bouting that night, I got an early fight with Guy Windsor, and was able to get an evelopment in 4th right to his head that he was still talking about the next day (not beause it hit hard, but because he hadn’t seen it before), after that though, he proceded to give me a lesson in attacking safely… I also had the privlege of fencing with John O’Meara, while Tom Leoni and Steven Reich looked on. John is a tall guy, and fences with a 45″ rapier blade (we checked later, and he had 12″ of reach on me), so he’s the kind of fencer that I have the hardest time fencing. It was really nice to see a tall fencer sticking with the period systems, rather than sicking his arm out and letting me run on it. I’d like to think that we were pretty even, but I think I know better. The last fencing highlight for me was my Sunday morning bout in foil and rapier with Ilka Hartikainen, one of Guy’s students. I’m a big fan of his blog and we’d been talking about fencing the whole weekend, but couldn’t find the time, so we decided to do it early Sunday morning. Ammusingly we attracted a small crowd, which included a rather groggy Puck, apparently awakened by the sounds of fencing.

Finally, the feast! The food was amazing and the plethora of costumes was nice. Especially outstanding was Neal Stephenson’s Victorian Baritsu suit, and the two Revolutionary war re-enactors. While the demo bouts were amazing, Puck had a very nice bout with John O’Meara and Eric one with Maestro Sullins, the highlight for me was the “Judicial” duel between Tom Leoni and Nicole from Revival Clothing. As my friend Tyson said, one of the funniest things was seeing Tom go from goofy, to serious as the “lay on” was called.

All in all, I had an amazing time meeting people and getting to know the wider Western Martial Arts community. I also came back invigorated, and looking forward to training more.

Originally published at Gumbyfencer. Please leave any comments there.

Training Diary Lesson Two, September 29, 2009

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:39:28 GMT

This is my second lesson with Puck. This time, we actually made it through to a full hour lesson. We continued our work with the dagger oppositions and added passing steps to the end of attacks. That is, making Capoferro’s passata sotto, and subsequent low running attack part of the lesson. I’ll try and get video of exactly what we mean by that later.

We also introduce dagger parry notation here. The dagger parries are notated as if the dagger was another sword held in the left hand. Therefore assuming a right handed fencer: Parry 1 defends the fencer’s low outside; parry 2, the low inside; 3, the high inside; and 4, the high outside.

Further, dagger “parries” as we are doing them are done in single tempo, we thought that this was better than saying “dagger counterattack in 3rd”. Dagger counterparries are done in dui tempi of course.

From Master’s invitation on the inside line, straight thrust.
In time, when master invites on the inside line, straight thrust.
From Master’s invitation on the outside line, straight thrust.
From Master’s invitation on the outside line, straight thrust with lunge, finish with a pass under the sword and a dagger strike with pass
In time, when instructor invites on the inside line, straight thrust with lunge, finish with a pass under the sword and a dagger strike with pass
From Master’s engagement on the outside line, disengagement
In time, from Master’s engagement on the outside line, disengagement
From Master’s engagement on the inside line, disengagement
In time, from Master’s engagement on the inside line, disengagement
From Master’s engagement on the inside line, disengagment, finish with a pass under the sword and a dagger strike with the pass
In time, from Master’s engagement on the inside line, disengagement, finish with a pass under the sword and a dagger strike with the pass.
From Student’s engagement on the outside line, glide
From Student’s engagement on the outside line, glide, finish with a pass under the sword and a dagger strike with the pass
From Student’s engagement on the inside line, glide
In time, blade seizure in 4th, glide
In time with mobility, blade seizure in 4th, glide
Student executed blade seizure in 4th, instructor retreats with poor parry of 4th, forced glide with lunge
From Master’s engagement on the inside line, simple parry of 4th, and repost direct
From Master’s engagement on the inside line, simple parry of 4th, and indirect repost
From Master’s engagement on the inside line, simple parry of 4th, feint by repost and disengagement
From Master’s engagement on the inside line, simple parry of 4th, feint by repost by glide and disengagement
From Master’s engagement on the inside line, simple dagger parry of 3rd, repost in quarta
From Master’s engagement on the inside line, simple dagger parry of 3rd, repost by disengagement in quarta
From Master’s engagement on the inside line, simple dagger parry of 3rd, dagger transport to 1st, repost below the sword, hit with both dagger and sword
From Master’s engagement on the inside line, simple dagger parry of 3rd, dagger envelopment in 3rd, repost direct in quarta
From Master’s engagement on the inside line, simple dagger parry of 3rd, circular dagger parry of 3rd, repost direct in quarta
From Master’s engagement on the outside line, simple parry of 3rd, repost direct
From Master’s engagement on the outside line, simple parry of 3rd, repost indirect
From Master’s engagement on the outside line, simple dagger parry of 4th, repost in low terza
From Master’s engagement on the outside line, simple dagger parry of 4th, repost in low terza, finish with a passing under the sword and hit with the dagger
From Master’s engagement on the outside line, simple dagger parry of 4th, dagger transport to 2nd, repost in quarta
From Master’s engagement on the outside line, simple dagger parry of 4th, circular dagger parry of 4th, repost in low terza
From Master’s engagement on the outside line, simple dagger parry of 4th, circular dagger parry of 4th, repost in low terza, finish with a passing under the sword and hit with the dagger
Puzzle: 32 but master counterparries dagger 1st against the sword. reposts by disengagement to the inside high line
Solution: dagger counterparry of 3rd repost direct
From Master’s invitation in 3rd, three straight thrusts.

In addition to closing the line against suicidal hooking counterattacks, we added the passing on the outside attacks. We use these to get out of the situation and to close distance when the opponent is retreating.

Originally published at Gumbyfencer. Please leave any comments there.

Rapier lesson September 22, 2009

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:08:47 GMT

Continuing the theme from WMAW and on David’s Blog, we started moving into tactical actions more thouroughly this week. I’m trying to build up a series of tactical trees, each starting from a different initial position (in this case, from finding the sword on the outside). As these lessons progress, we will move into more complicated action sequences with greater depth.

From Instructor’s invitation on the outside line, straight thrust to the body
Student finds the sword on the outside, glide to the body.
As student attempts to gain the blade on the outside, instructor attempts to attack the closed line. Time thrust in 3rd
As student attempts to gain the blade on the outside, instructor attempts disegagement in time during the foot tempo. Time thrust in 4th
As student attempts to gain the blade on the outside, instructor attempts thrust to the leg (or foot), student passes back and gives riverso to the wrist.
As student attempts to gain the blade on the outside, instructor attempts thrust to low line (not leg), student executes scannatura in single tempo
Instructor’s choice with 2-6
Simplifying, Instructor’s choice with 2,3,5,6
Dagger parry drill: (from central we do each dagger counter attack starting from high outside and working counter-clockwise)
Three straight thrusts, EOL.

Comments: The entire tree is still hard for the student to respond to. Time and repetition will help here. Further, the differences between the three disengage based attacks is hard to identify (between high inside, low outside, and low). In theory each of the actions will work against any of the offensive actions, but getting the more optimal one may be difficult. Removing the time thrust in 4th seemed to make the drill easier (since the actions for the scannatura and the riverso to the wrist are similar).

Originally published at Gumbyfencer. Please leave any comments there.

Foil Lesson July 17, 2009

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:25:04 GMT

This lesson was given to a younger foil student who I am preparing for competition this fall. He’s been away for a year, and I am trying to get him reaquanted, and to review some basic concepts. We are going to be moving very quickly into choice and mobility actions.

From Instructor’s invitation in third, straight thrust
In time, as Instructor attempts to engage in fourth, disengagement
In time, with mobility, as Instructor attempts to engage in fourth, disengagement
From student’s invitation in third, simple parry of fourth repost direct
From student’s invitation in third, simple parry of fourth with a retreat, repost direct
From student’s invitation in third, simple parry of fourth, simple parry of third, repost by glide
From student’s invitation in third, simple parry of fourth with a retreat, simple parry of third, repost by glide
From student’s invitation in third, circular parry of third, repost by glide
From student’s invitation in third, circular parry of third with a retreat, repost by glide
From student’s invitation in third, double circular parry of third with a retreat, repost by glide
From student’s invitation in third, circular parry of third with a retreat, simple parry of fourth, repost direct
From student’s invitation in third, simple parry of fourth with a retreat, circular parry of fourth repost direct
Three straight thrusts, end of lesson

Originally published at Gumbyfencer. Please leave any comments there.

Epee Lesson July 19, 2009

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:42:45 GMT

This lesson was given to an advanced epee student the week after he returned from nationals. His arm was slightly tweaked from fencing earlier in the week, so we avoided stop thrusts and other high impact attacks. Instead we focused on the feint patterns. We also worked on the fleche from the lunge, spending almost a third of the lesson working on this action. We noted that Nat Burke (one of our resident Bs, and former A), used this action as a crutch when he first returned to fencing. He uses it more sparingly now, but it is quite effective. Generating power from a lunge position is very difficult, and getting the requisite explosiveness is a problem. Further, we noted that the action is easier if 1) the lunge is not stopped but just continued (making this a primary intent action only), or if 2) the initial lunge is a demi-lunge to threaten (but not hit) the advanced target.

From Instructor’s invitation in third, straight thrust to body
From Instructor’s invitation in third, straight thrust to crook of the arm
From Instructor’s invitation in third, straight thrust to wrist
From Instructor’s blade in line, angulation to the bottom of the arm
As Instructor attempts to engage in 4th disengagement to the outside arm.
As Instructor attempts blade siezure in 6th disengagement to the inside arm.
As Instructor attempts to engage in 6th feint by disengagement and disengagment
As Instructor attempts to engage in 6th double feint by disengagement and disengagement
As Instructor attempts to engage in 6th feint by disengagement and deceive
As Instructor attempts to engage in 6th feint by disengagement and double deceive
As Instructor attempts to engage in 6th double feint by disengagement and deceive
As Instructor attempts to engage in 6th feint by disengagement, deceive and disengagement
As Instructor attempts to engage in 6th double feint by disengagement, deceive and disengagement
As Instructor attempts to engage in 6th feint by disengagement, deceive, disengagement and deceive
As Instructor attempts to engage in 6th double feint by disengagement, disengagement and deceive
*break*
Hand target drill
As instructor attempts to engage in 6th fleche
As instructor changes from the invitation in 6th to the invitation in 8th, fleche
From instructor’s invitation in 3rd, lunge to hand, fleche (from lunge) to body.
Three straight thrusts, end of lesson.

Originally published at Gumbyfencer. Please leave any comments there.

Rapier Lesson July 15, 2009

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:35:59 GMT

This is a reprise of the lesson from July 8 on the outside line. Attacks to the outside line don’t close necessarily here, ala Fabris. am having him work with counterattacks that close the outside line, however. We also started introducing dagger only parries, something he will need if he starts fencing in the SCA…

From instructor’s invitation in third, straight thrust
From instructor’s invitation in third, disengagement
From instructor’s invitation in third, gain in third, straight thrust
From instructor’s invitation in third, gain in third, disengagment
Instructor’s choide 3, 4
From instructor’s invitation in third, gain in third, time thrust in second
From instructor’s invitation in third, gain in third, time thrust in fourth
Instructor’s choice 3,4,6,7
Instructor’s choice 3,4,6,7, with mobility
With dagger, from instructor’s invitation in third, gain in third, straight thrust, no closure
With dagger, from instructor’s invitation in third, gain in third, disengagment, closure to the inside high line
With dagger, from instructor’s invitation in third, gain in third, time thrust to the outside high line, closure to the outside high line
With dagger, from instructor’s invitation in third, gain in third, time thrust to inside high line closure to the inside high line
Instructor’s choice 10-13
With dagger, from instructor’s invitation in third, dagger parry high outside, angulated thrust to the body
Three straight thrusts, end of lesson

Originally published at Gumbyfencer. Please leave any comments there.

Epee Lesson June 26, 2009

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:17:33 GMT

This lesson was given to an advanced epee student. This was our second lesson together and lasted about an hour. We are still getting to know each other and working out what we need to focus on.

From Instructor’s invitation in 6th, straight thrust to the body
From Instructor’s invitation in 2nd straight thrust to the elbow
From Instructor’s invitation in 2nd straight thrust to the wrist
From Instructor’s Blade in Line, angulation to the bottom of the wrist
In time, on Instructor’s attempted engagement in 4th, disengagement to the wrist
In time, on Instructor’s attempted engagement in 6, disengagement to the elbow
In time, on Instructor’s attempted engagement in 6, disengagement to the wrist
In time, from instructor’s change of engagement from 6 to 4, disengagement to the wrist
In time, from instructor’s change of engagement from 6 to 4, disengagement to the wrist, with mobility
In time, from instructor’s change of engagement from 6 to 4, disengagement to the wrist, with fleche
From instructor’s blade in line, beat in 4, direct to wrist with lunge
From instructor’s blade in line, beat in 3, direct to wrist with lunge
From instructor’s blade in line, beat in 5th, direct to bottom of the wrist with lunge
From instructor’s blade in line, beat in 4, direct to wrist with advance
From instructor’s blade in line, beat in 3, direct to wrist with advance
From instructor’s blade in line, beat in 5th, direct to bottom of the wrist with advance
In sequence, from instructor’s blade in line, beat 4, beat 3 or beat 5, direct to wrist with advance
In sequence, from instructor’s blade in line, beat 4, beat 3 or beat 5, direct to wrist with advance, with mobility
From instructor’s on guard, beat in 4 with advance, disengagement to the body with a lunge
From instructor’s on guard, beat in 4 with advance, disengagement to the body with a lunge, with mobility
From instructor’s on guard, beat in 4 with advance, disengagement to the body with a fleche
From instructor’s on guard, beat in 4 with advance, disengagement to the body with a fleche, with mobility
Wrist angulation drill
Three straight thrusts

Originally published at Gumbyfencer. Please leave any comments there.

Epee Lesson July 3, 2009

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:58:57 GMT

This lesson was given to an advanced Epee student in preparation for summer nationals. We reviewed some of the basic actions and worked to tighten the actions and make the timings better.

From instructor’s invitation in 6rd straight thrust to body
From instructor’s invitation in 2nd straight thrust to crook of the arm
From instructor’s invitation in 2nd straight thrust to the top of the wrist.
From instructor’s invitation in 2nd straight thrust to the top of the wrist, with mobility
From instructor’s blade in line, beat 4, direct to body
From instructor’s blade in line, beat 4, direct to body with mobility
From instructor’s blade in line, beat 4, direct to body with mobility, occasionally instructor will parry 4 or circular 6. Student counterparries 4 or 6 and reposts direct with fleche.
From instructor’s blade in line, beat 4, direct to body with mobility, occasionally instructor will parry 4 or circular 6. Student counterparries 4 or 6 and reposts direct with fleche, student leads mobility
*break*
As instructor attempts to engage in 4, 3, 8, disengagement to wrist/forearm with lunge
As instructor attempts to engage in 4, 3, 8, disengagement to wrist/forearm with advance
As instructor attempts to engage in 4, 3, 8, disengagement to wrist/forearm with advance and mobility
*break*
From student’s invitation 6th, parry circular 6 repost direct
From student’s invitation 6th, parry circular 6 repost direct with mobility
From student’s invitation 6th, parry circular 6, transport to 1st repost with fleche
From student’s invitation 6th, parry circular 6, transport to 1st repost with fleche, with mobility
Hand shot drill
Three Straight Thrusts

Originally published at Gumbyfencer. Please leave any comments there.