Art of the Sword

Recently I've been doing a large portion of the beginner's classes at my club. It's the unavoidable duty of anyone who likes having a large selection of sparring partners. I've been doing these beginners classes for years, hmmm when I think about it now, over a decade. In all this time I've definitely noticed common themes in terms of which new people do well and which don't. So, I've put together some advice for new people going to their first HEMA class to help them along. For the TL:DR crowd: don't be weird about learning . Don't forget to keep your ego in check This is the biggy, especially for guys. You're about to do something new and for 99% of guys insecurities around respect are really, really important. But firstly, know you should be respected as an individual from the moment you walk in the door. If you have to "earn" basic respect as a human being, you're in the wrong place. Leave. Otherwise, relax and remember ...

"I see techniques as illustrations of the real learning, principles. Students must understand the principle of what they do. I find techniques can be dangerous as the student can obsess about getting that one thing right and never understand the application." Rob Runacres Over the years if there's one thing I've not done as much as I should and that is drilling. I should define what I think "drilling" is, as it's a common term and therefore probably understood differently. To my mind to drill means "to practice something." Simple right? However, I'd say that drilling tends to be as understood as practising a specific move or technique by rote, but that is only the most fundamental understanding. For many people I'm sure, including myself at many times, their training has only had two modes: rote learning (solo drill and isolated specific techniques) and completely free-form sparring. But the most important thing to my mind is that...

Firstly, I'd like to correct some misconceptions about what a warm-up is: "a period or act of preparation for a match, performance, or exercise session, involving gentle exercise or practice" A warm-up is the five minutes you spend at the beginning of a session prepping your limbs for the physical activity that's about to happen. This is important because with a little warm-up your body prepares itself physiologically for the exercise that's about to happen and this keeps injuries to a minimum. A few key points about warm-ups: Your action should closely mimic the action that you're about to do Your body only needs a few reps to get up to speed with what's happening (if we needed 30mins of warm-up we'd all have been eaten by tigers a long time ago...) Stretching is not warming up. You can do a warm-up then a few stretches once warm because you're feeling a little tight, that's cool, but stretches are not substitutes for warm-ups. Coo...

The more I study and learn of historical fighting, and the more I teach, the more I become careful in throwing around "absolutes" in terms of technique. I find that to say that something is "wrong" is a sub-optimal way of thinking about fencing that hinders development. Rather I like to highlight that everything is situational, i.e. with a proper understanding of the principles of fencing that there is often a time and a place where a particular technique is optimal and that you should not completely discount anything. For example: (and I'd like to make it clear that I'm not being negative on these examples, I liked and remembered both these videos I'm just using them to illustrate a pedagogical mindset.) In this interesting video, the view is put forward that you should cut and step at the same pace to ensure that your hand and body land together. This is so that you cut with maximum strength and for reasons of balance.  The idea of not stepping a...

"How can profit and authenticity be reconciled so that one does not destroy the other?" -  Ashley Read, Authentic Profits I'm currently reading  this book  which is rather good. It's about  how  to run a Martial Art club in a way that does not compromise your integrity (and still make money if that is a goal that interests you). I have always been rather skeptical of people who run their HEMA club as a business, the main reason for this is that many appear to automatically fall into the ubiquitous "Mcdojo" approach. To run such a model leads to most of the pitfalls I see in most Martial Arts and is, from what I can see, an ongoing and emerging issue in HEMA: 1. High quantity, low-quality The club will never turn away anyone because larger groups equal more money for the business owner. It's all about getting as many people as possible in the door and paying fees. This means heavy marketing and appealing to every possible market: this is "str...

Inspired by this blog from Academie Duello Guidelines for Being a Good Instructor 1. Your goal is to be a better swordsman You should be doing this to be a better swordsman. Acknowledge that this should be at the center of everything you do, including instructing, and you're all good.  The real trap with teaching is getting sucked into the bullshit that comes with the whole "position of authority" thing. Teaching people because you like being a teacher smacks of ego. Teaching people because a large club is important to you smacks of ego. Ultimately if teaching isn't about making you a better swordsman then your motives are questionable. 2. Teach to learn It’s that simple: you are teaching other people to improve your own Art. Partly it’s about creating useful training partners and partly it’s about field testing your understanding of sword fighting. Students can be relied upon to pick holes in your theory and force you to properly think through your prac...

To teach the master strikes it is important to keep in mind one truth: the strike itself isn't masterful it is how it is done that is masterful. Therefore to teach them you cannot remove them from the context but must use the context of the fight to show how awesome they are.  I created this loose play to provide context within which to train the strikes: 1.     Participants separate completely out of measure 2.     Patient adopts a position with their sword 3.     Agent steps through a guard to strike the strongest opening (they may make only one action to strike but they can vary the line in mid strike depending on the Patients reaction) 4.     Patient can parry the strike (they may make one action to parry) but must do so at the correct moment or the Agent will redirect and land the strike 5.     When the Agent touches the Patient the Patient can make one offensive action with one ste...

I'm curious about how long it takes to achieve any accomplishment in weapons mastery when the motivation is purely to have competency as quickly and efficiently as possible. At the moment the club I'm involved with is revising and putting together an updated training regime with the idea to bring a more organised program of development for the members, rather than the ad hoc instruction that had been the norm for some years. One of the many interesting parts of this discussion is hearing the many views around how long a course of basic instruction should take to bring someone up to competence. Based on my experience I've been putting forward the view that we should be looking to produce a good level swordsman after a year's training. Out of curiosity I also did a little research about training in the military and interestingly there seems to be a fairly consistent time periods for "basic" training from the Roman army to the modern military: 2-3 months fo...