The New York Historical Fencing Association is a school of Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA). Our studies are based on the teachings of the 14th century German fencing master Johannes Liechtenauer. Although we focus primarily on the longsword, our curriculum includes wrestling, dagger, sword and buckler, spear and poleaxe. NYHFA is a member of the HEMA Alliance.

New Location!

NYHFA Longsword Curriculum is now being offered in Manhattan, through Sword Class NYC, taught by NYHFA Instructor Tristan Zukowski. Please visit SwordClassNYC.com/Longsword for all information pertaining to class schedule, class fees, etc.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Free play with steel

Aside from the expected scrapes and bruises, bouting was exceedingly fun. I was a bit gun shy at first, so one of my main goals is to keep pushing forward.. or at least not retreat so much. It's a strange phenomenon, where once I found myself in a bouting situation, I was either thinking too much (and getting hit in the rather large tempos I was providing), or not thinking at all, and reacting with ineffective "oh sh!t" parries. Here are some mental notes I took away from the experience:

• Acquire a gambeson. While the fear of pain is good to help self-correct against "suicide attacks" or other stupid actions, too much pain/fear of pain will cause me to hesitate too much, and lose that forward movement.

• According to Mike: "When in doubt, wind to Ochs."

• Moving in is good, but being able to get out again before I get thrown onto the ground is good too.

I do see the value in free play, and how it teaches in a very different way than the highly-controlled intensity drills. However, I think what would be very valuable (and I seem to recall us—or at least the more advanced students—doing this at some point) would be a healthy medium: intensity drills wherein the agent has a limited variety of attacks to use (say, 2 or 3), and the patient must react appropriately.

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