New York Historical Fencing Association

Top Shot

2011-10-02T13:20:00.003-04:00

You can learn a lot about the martial approach to KDF from watching History Channel’s Top Shot. I started watching season 2 and wondered about the generally lackluster performance from competition champions (with a few notable exceptions, JJ, Cliff, etc.). Even someone like JJ Racaza (world champion pistol shooter) doesn’t perform nearly as well as you would expect when you watch him shoot in competitions. You would expect him to completely dominate by a wide, wide margin, but he doesn’t, his skill is only marginally better than that of others unless the competition is his specialty, and even then the gap is not as wide as you'd think. I wondered why that was, until I saw the episode in season 2 when they brought JJ and Blake (another champion pistol shooter) back as experts to show off a particular competition skill. They were using tricked out competition guns, and their performance was amazing. That’s when it me. Tricked out competition guns.

Now, of course, it all makes sense. Many of the competition shooters on the show get eliminated early on because they shoot like crap. Some of them have a harder time hitting targets than military shooters or hunters who have never competed. Seeing JJ and Blake blaze away with their tricked out guns explained it all. Competition shooters train with specialty weapons made for competitions, that’s what they’re used to competing with. Red dot sights, compensators, balance weights, special barrels, etc. Their skill is calibrated for this weapon, and for most of them, when you give them a real weapon, their skills don’t shine through (the very best like JJ are always the exception, with the above mentioned caveats).

What does this have to do with KDF? Training with your ultra light plastic sword, or even your specialty made steel blunt, has about as much in common with training with a real sword as training with a tricked out biathlon rifle has in common with learning to use an M4 carbine. This is why so many seasoned KDF practitioners who take my cutting class have more difficulty cutting tatami than people who have never used a sword before. Yes, that’s right…I have an easier time teaching people off the street to cut than experienced KDF fighters (and women tend to be easier to teach than men). Why? Because they have spent so much time training to use plastic wasters and steel blunts with no real world feedback other than “I hit my opponent” that simulator oriented body mechanics and simulator oriented weapon control become deeply ingrained. Of course the best of the best do well, talent is talent, but think of how much better they’d be with actual training in the use of a real sword.

So what can we learn from Top Shot? Aside from all the lessons learned about performance in competition, which apply the same way to us as they do to them, there is the lesson of what to practice with. Hopefully by now you all know the value of solo practice. What you need to understand is the value of solo practice with the weapon you’re actually training to use. In NYHFA’s case, that is not the plastic sword, nor the padded one, nor the steel blunt. That is the real sword. If you don’t own one and you don’t practice with it, your technique is going to suffer for it...your real sword technique. In competition shooting, practicing with normal weapons is of little benefit since everyone else competes with specialty guns. The same is true for us. It’s hard to focus on an obsolete weapon when most others train to use light weight simulators in competitions, but that’s what we do in NYHFA. We train as true to the original intent of the art as we can. That means we compete, but we don’t train for competition. Learn from Top Shot, and don’t develop a skill that has little application to the martial art we practice.

Do your part

2011-08-21T17:00:00.002-04:00

Sang Kim senis wrote a post on doing your part that you all should read.

Extra Training

Especially now that NYHFA NYC is on hiatus. It is not the time to slack off and wait, it is the time to step up your game and train as hard as you can on your own. Get together with fellow students and fight, drill, etc. When we get back into it, I want to see people who are better than when I left them, not rustier.

Fluidity at the pell

2011-08-12T21:31:00.003-04:00

Because I have a pell in my backyard, every once in a while I'll come up with a new idea on how to practice with it. The other night, I was whacking away but it was hot, I was tired after work, blah blah blah. Short story: I did want to get some practice in, but not completely exhaust myself physically with rapid-fire work or mentally with approach/non-telegraph-attack work. So I just stood in front of the thing and cut at it, half-speed or slower. Yes, this is a drill born out of relative laziness but as I continued doing it, I realize that there was more than enough to work on. Here's what I was doing, specifically:

- Stand at striking distance from the pell.
- Strike a 1-2 combination of Oberhau and/or Unterhau.* For example, Oberhau from right then Unterhau from left ; or Unterhau from left then Unterhau from right; or Oberhau from left then Unterhau from left. You get the point. Pick a pair and repeat, repeat, repeat for a while before you pick another pair.
- Focus on fluidity of movement, connection between sword and hips.
- Focus on efficiency of movement, i.e. not letting the sword go on unnecessarily large arcs; but be honest with yourself—you probably can't effect a "real" cut with just a flick of the wrists (I know I can't).
- Focus on the entirety of your upper body: are you turning so much that your shoulder is exposed? is your elbow sticking out? are you cutting to your center? etc.

* Yes, I know there are other cuts to be practiced too. Zwerch and Krump I left out specifically because I didn't feel like adding any footwork into the mix. Also consider the fact that you can do combinations of 3, 4, or no combination but a 'random' assault. But by restricting and focusing on less, it's actually easier to pay better attention to the nitty-gritty details.

Also, since Mike hasn't said it himself in a while: "Slow is smooth; smooth is fast."

EDIT: Another thing to think about is grip (looser until point of impact); this however is a bit artificial, since you have to release sooner (because the sword is not passing through the pell). Test-cutting is obviously a better method of refining this, but it still bears keeping in mind.

Sang Kim's Philosophy on building technique

2011-08-04T13:16:00.005-04:00

It's a short blurb, so I'm just going to cut-and-paste from the original blog post. Annotated a bit for the HEMA ppl:

There are 4 steps to building technique which is commonly shared in kendo.

1st one is Dai or big. Learn how to do all the waza [techniques] big. Whether it's a cutting techinque, a swing, or kata [form, solo drill, etc.]. Learn how to do everything big first.

2nd is Kyo or strong. Learn how to have weight behind the movements. The power that you learn how to generate in doing things big, you should cement on how that is achieved.

3rd is Soku or speed. As you realize what aspects make the technique work and strengthen it, you chip away at all the excess motions. This builds speed.

4th is Kei or smoothness. As you chip away parts to build speed, you must work on making things smooth.

The life lesson of swordmanship

2011-07-23T11:08:00.007-04:00

By Fabio Lamborghini

Learning how to wield a sword can teach balance, it can teach how to transmit force from the feet stance to the arms, and it can teach that every blow received is a lesson. Over time I learned that for every strategy I need to plan actions, and for every action there is one correct movement. And, most importantly, I began to realize that whatever holds up my opponent's blade is not a perfect machine and I learned that psychology can be my ally.

Yet, I learned much more, little teachings that have been a great life lesson. Reading about these discoveries may sound amusing, as many of them are sometimes automatic reflexes, but I came to consciously appreciate them through swordmanship, and I have been using them willingly ever since.

> Awareness

I find awareness to be a beautiful and crucial concept: no matter what happens in front of you, be aware of what happens everywhere else too. Sensing the environment looking for the favorable positions and dangerous trapholes is part of being aware.

It is like going to a job interview with the future employer. One could just sit and answer to the questions, or one could constantly scan through the desk and the shelves for books and pictures that could tell what the employer is interested in, his/her "weak" points.

Similarly, it is like having a meeting with some collaborators and being aware that one of them is taking notes about your work. Being aware of it removes the surprise when discovering that someone has been claiming your results as their own. Actually, it allows to pull up the defense in advance, preventing unpleasant follow-ups.

> Focus

Setting up a target and reaching it: it is all about focus. No matter how the opponent defends or backs, fiercely swinging his/her blade: let him/her play, I will have that head. I had this concept very clear in my mind when I had to ask for my tax form, which was never sent to me. The bureaucrat at the other end of the phone had a long list of available excuses in a strenuous effort to change the topic. It was a great chat, I even discovered that the woman at the other end of the phone had two kids and a husband who works in the same building, that she has to leave work at four but it is because the physician suggested so, not to be overloaded with work, and that she has never been to Europe because her husband does not like long flights. I still wanted my tax form, and I got it.

> Never stop, until it is over

A very important aspect of focus is to have a clear goal from start. Sometimes, when sparring, we get a scratch, a flat hit, a gentle caress and we stop. The next thing we remember is the deadly blow that determines our defeat. The same happens just too often, generally masked by the mediocre common sense of "enjoying the little things". Focus, always, and never stop or halt until it is over. One can enjoy the little scratches and the caresses, but the focus is always defeating an opponent.

When we set a goal, be it finding the cause of cancer, or just running ten miles, there is absolutely no reason to halt at the first recognition by a senior colleague, or to stop because our training partner had lack of breath. These are little things. The next thing we may remember is that we missed what we wanted to achieve.

> Strategy Vs. Tactics

This actually became even clearer after I attended a course on game theory. When sparring I often had the impression that my planned actions were too limited in time to be a guarantee of victory. That is tactics: a few actions that lead to a specific, often intermediate, goal. Ensuring victory requires a grander plan, which includes studying and probing of the opponent, learning the weak points, taking advantage of them and, finally, delivering the final strike. This is strategy.

This applies to every human conflict in real life. While a powerful all-in-all attack may work in some situations, observing the opponent, learning the weak points, and wearing off the adversary before striking will always have higher chances to succeed. That was the case with the tax form. I listened to the woman and asked her questions so that she told me about her. Unsurprisingly, she was more concerned with following the rules than interested in helping me (for a mistake they have made, by the way), and her situation was not exactly brilliant with her co-workers including her boss. Wearing her off was just about listening to how many mistakes she has made for which she was reprised. This lead to my final strike when I offered her the chance to amend to at least one of them. It took quite some time, but nonetheless it worked. On the other end, I could have applied the simple tactics of calling her supervisor: there was a chance that, as retaliation, my tax form would have reached me the following year, instead of being there right in time.

> Never lower the guard

I learned this the hard way: lowering your sword and turning your head is always a mistake. In general, this has been the topic of a Nobel Prize for Economics (I forgot the name of the guy), who claimed that in repeated games (conflicts), the players will eventually move from a competing to a collaborative stance. In other words, there are going to be a lot of confrontations before you can think of trusting someone, no matter what. So, never lower your guard.

The applications in real life go from "beware of pickpockets on the buses in Rome", pass by "never leave notes about your most precious research on the desk when you leave", to "read the fine print on anything you buy or sign". This teaching is just natural, however swordmanship added a very interesting spice to it, which is the following point.

> Keep a threat position (aka fear the blade)

There is guard and guard. There is the guard that allows the opponent to comfortably sip some tea in the meantime, and one that will cause uncontrolled self-wetting because of the threatening stance. The second is often the best choice, when possible. Unfortunately, there is no real threat stance on a bus in Rome. On the other hand, asking for the name of the representative we are talking to on the phone, or in the shop, and asking for their phone contact and, in some creepy situations, for the phone of their manager is perceived to be quite a threat:"If anything goes wrong, I'll be here again looking right for you."

For instance, at work, when I feel something is not 100% right, I used to ask people to send me a detailed report by email (not lowering the guard). Now I require to cc a copy to someone else (threatening stance).

> Fear not the psychology

I have noticed that in many situations when the person I am facing knows to be somehow wrong, then he/she will fiercely attack, purposelessly, only to keep distance and try to scare me. Raising the voice is one such behavior.

In swordmanship we are taught that the way we look has a psychological impact on the opponent. Interestingly enough, once we are aware of this, we are no longer impressed. No matter how big the other person tries to be, or how hard he/she is trying to swing the sword, if we perceive it to be just the psychology of fear, we will not be afraid.

Most of body language, as well as the use of some verbal registries is just a psychological act of intimidation. We learn not to fear them and we train to identify and deconstruct them so that, in the end, we can actually measure the fear of our opponent. When in a work meeting someone starts screaming and insulting, then you know your last question undermined some shaky tower.

> Be the first to strike

Observation of sparring teaches a very important point: you cannot win if you don't strike. From this follows the central lemma: be the first to strike. There is a profound difference between attack and strike. The purpose of attack is to put the opponent into defense: it is a series of actions that may just be intended to probe the opponent and discover the weak points. The strike is the blow that is intended to kill. One can let the opponent attack the whole time and still deliver the first (and final) strike. Bargaining for a price is just about attack. Leaving the place is the strike, and don't turn back unless the seller runs after you begging you to pay as much as you want.

> The tempo of the strike

Mike made it clear. There are three tempos and each has its application given by how much range we have, and how much room there is for intimidation. I used to walk into colleagues' offices when I had a problem with them. This is like stepping first and then striking: I am out of measure and I end up showing my intention in advance prior to the confrontation. No wonder I generally faced defending urchins.

Bumping into the colleague at the coffee table, or in the corridor connecting all offices is like striking and stepping at the same time: no intention showed, that was just in the right measure. Sending an email with someone else in cc, it is like striking without the step: a painful snap to the hands. No time to put up defenses. Beware though, this will not be easily forgotten (nor forgiven).

> When in a bind, change, immediately

Sometimes arguments just happen and too often the bitter taste of unfinished confrontation just lead to a stalling crystallized situation. This is a bind. The very first time I trained I was taught never to stand still in a bind. Then, why should anybody stand still in any stalled confrontation? Searching for openings, or just changing can be done in several ways, many of which could actually aim at resolving the conflict peacefully, not differently from disarming the opponent.

A trivial example is a common situation when

B says:"A is an idiot because of Z, I am smart because of Y"
A replies:"B is an idiot because of Y, I am smart because of Z"
B adds:"A is an idiot because of Z, I am smart because of X and Y, with X very similar to Z"
A rebattles:"B is an idiot because of X as well"
B changes:"I apologize, I am an idiot because of X, which is actually Z."
A falls for it:"Yes, idiot, X is Z!" (Uops!)

---

These are the lessons I learned from the sword. I have no doubt that more are still to come. In the end, it seems that many of these are just innate animal reflexes over which we have no control until we understand them. I believe that understanding them, for instance through the practice of swordmanship, makes us a bit more humans, perhaps even a bit better humans.

PS In truth, most of my co-workers are very nice people. Crazy apples just happen.

Double Hits

2011-06-24T14:51:00.008-04:00

“No one can defend himself without danger.”

I’ve recently been considering revising my view on double hits. To the HEMA community, double hits are an anathema. They are severely punished in tournaments, maligned in discussions and criticized mercilessly. To be fair, a double hit is obviously bad. You got hit. That’s never good.

But you know what I think is worse than a double hit? You getting hit cleanly and your opponent walking away unscratched.

I don’t want to train people who are so focused on their own defense that they can be manipulated easily by a fighter who understands how to use pressure. Don’t get me wrong. The objective remains the same. Kill your opponent without getting killed or injured yourself. This should be what everyone strives for. But the secondary objective should NOT be to get killed and leave your opponent unharmed!

I don’t think for a minute that a fighter should ever strive for double hits. That would be suicidal and stupid. What I am contemplating at the moment is a strategy for the fight that is more aggressive, and, oddly enough, more in line with Liechtenauer’s teachings. Don’t just defend, cut into the attack. Go for the kill. Don’t back up, go forward.

If two equally skilled fighters fight and the resulst is 10 clean hits and 2 double hits, then each fighter got 5 clean hits on his opponent. Yay! Conversely, each fighter let his opponent hit him 5 times without doing a damn thing about it. Not so yay. Let’s also not forget that double hit does NOT equal double kill. It may not even equal double injury. Some people train hard to make sure that each of their hits is a kill. Some people don’t. This is true today, and it was probably true in period.

In our fencing in NYHFA, double hits are very rare. Particularly for me. I think this should change. Even if the change is simply a transition to a more aggressive, more zettel-correct means of fencing that is free of double hits.

What do I mean by that? Let me put it plainly. I think we fight wrong most of the time. Just look at how people cut vs how they swing in a fencing match. Two completely different animals, at leats for most people. I think we're too fast. Too imprecise. You disagree? Show me a video of yourself moving with the exact speed and the same strikes you use in a tournament or fencing match with a real, historically accurate sword, and I want to hear the swoosh of proper edge alignment and velocity with each movement. Or you can take it one step further and set up some mats (mats ain't people, they're easier, but they'll do). Let me save you the trouble...unless you're amazing, you can't do it, and I don't know too many people who are amazing.

I don't think we should fight in such a way that would cause double hits in a real fight. But I think we're overly concerned about double hits in fake fights. Adjusting how we fight to super fast plastic and steel swords that are used with zero consideration for cutting and wounding is a sure way to distort Liechtenauer's system and the realities of combat.

So I think I'm going to start trying to do the right thing, even if my opponent does the wrong thing, and if that leads to a double hit, so what. Call me sloppy. I won't lose any sleep over it.

After the cut

2011-06-08T21:31:00.005-04:00

OK and now for the post I had originally planned on writing before the rant came out instead.

In practicing cuts—whether through air, against a pell, or through tatami—we focus on all the mechanical stuff: grip, hip, casting the tip, stopping the cut at an appropriate juncture, etc. We also focus on mental preparedness to perform a follow-up action (this is part of composure: not just "hit it and quit it" so to speak), however I've noticed that until today my own personal practice has lacked any sort of physical preparedness to follow-up.

Let me explain, and I'll use a particular Krumphau (throwing the point to the hands against someone in longpoint) as an example:

Practicing in the air, I'll either perform the cut with my "step" already taken—to work on engaging the hips—or I'll step and cut, recovering to the same spot. Similar with tameshigiri, although I'm much more likely to advance on the mat, cut, pause-and-reflect, and then retreat. What this has fostered in me as far as free fencing is maybe I'm relatively good at striking Krump, but I might unbalance myself shortly thereafter because I've stepped too deep on an oblique line.. and I've never actually practiced anything from this new position I've found myself in.

What I started doing today, against the pell first surprisingly, was advance, strike a Krumphau, and then advance past the pell, or rotate from where I was after the oblique step and assume longpoint, facing the pell, from my new position. I intend to do this more with test-cutting as well. The idea being that yes, I will approach and strike with intent & good composure, but I will also teach myself to be physically as well as mentally prepared for "whatever comes next." Fluidity of motion. At least this is the theory, but it's one I'll certainly be working on for a while.

And the fight goes on..

2011-06-08T20:23:00.006-04:00

After the free fencing done last weekend with our friends at the Kunstbruder Fechtschule, and teaching class today at NYHFA's Poughkeepsie branch, I started thinking about how to deal with reconciling the sport-fencing mentality and the Ernstfechten mentality that we at NYHFA try to cultivate.

What are some of the pitfalls* of sport fencing?
* Assuming of course one's goal isn't to become the best tournament fighter in the world, ever. If that's your goal, then ignore all this.

1] Little or nonexistent cutting intent: sacrificing cutting ability (since it's "irrelevant") for an artificially increased speed in hitting, recovering, etc.

2] No fear of the weapon: because it's not a weapon, it's a flattened stick and no matter how hard anyone tries, it's not going to cut you. Adding masks, gloves, gambesons, etc., there's less of a chance that it will even hurt you.

3] Rapid-fire attack mode: because it doesn't matter if you get hit incidentally (see #2), and you're not actually trying to cut through anyone (see #1), you can attack in a frenzied, "suicidal" manner. Or, you can continue the fight even after receiving a blow that, with a real sword, would have incapacitated you and ended the altercation.

I'm sure there are plenty of others, even without getting into issues inherent with particular sword simulators.

Now, what can we do about it? Sure, one can get into an academic pissing-match in the salle or on the forums: "But he would've been dead if blah blah.." Or, one can be a little more Zen about it, "I'm fighting myself, there is no other opponent" (i.e. I'll fight as purely as I can, even though it probably appears that I'm slow, that I'm constantly losing, etc.) One can always just cross over and play their game.. but that'll probably end up degrading into a sloppy slug-fest. There is a synthesis to be found though, it's one that Mike and I have discussed a bit, which is fencing to punish bad fencing: They keep rushing in? Pommel strike to the face hard. Leading cuts with their forearms? Snipe their hands hard. This seems kind of vindictive—and let's be honest, it kind of is—but hopefully it will instill at least a healthy respect for the weapon in your hands and thereby force them to think twice about what it is they're doing.

NYHFA Poughkeepsie's new sword rack

2011-05-25T19:54:00.002-04:00

Equipment doesn't make a school.. students make a school. But equipment does tend to help. Here's a sword rack I whipped up this afternoon:

Character

2011-05-19T15:01:00.006-04:00

A lot of people talk about character in martial arts, but what does that mean? The simpler aspects of character are easy to define. Respect for your teacher, respect for your seniors, your fellow students, your art. But how are they developed? How does one manifest these qualities?

To the non-martial artist, these may seem like easy concepts, clearly visible and manifested with polite words and smiles. But this is on the surface only, and quite fragile. I don’t know anyone who was born with character, though it certainly can happen. True character is, at least in my experience, developed over many years and tested daily.

So what is character? Brian Sherry, during his presentation at Swordfest, put into words what I have been thinking about for quite some time. Character in martial arts is coming to practice no matter how hard or far away it is, and working through pain, fatigue, frustration and despair. It is practicing relentlessly on your own to perfect your technique and then coming to class and having your technique ripped apart, criticized and corrected, day after day, year after year. It is earning your next rank after months or years of grueling work, only to realize that it is only another rung in a ladder that will never, ever end, with each rung harder to climb than the one before. And yet despite all of this, you keep going, you never give up. You trust your teacher, you trust your seniors, and you trust yourself. You accept the fact that you will never be as good as you hope to be, that with every gain in skill and ability will come the realization that there is much more to learn than you ever realized before.

This is character for a martial artist. The other things, respect for teacher, seniors, fellows, these things come as a consequence of this process, and when thus developed they are not fragile. They stand the test of time, conflict and hardship. If you have never been there, never kept going and going despite the despair of failure, the constant pressure to do better, the never ending chase of the carrot on a stick that is always just out of reach, then you do not have this character. You may have earned it elsewhere, be it in military service or a grueling ordeal of another kind, but you did earn it, you did not just wake up one day and decide that you had it. Maybe you obtained it on your own, without a teacher, by pushing yourself as a teacher would, by persevering despite your own never ending criticism. I know several people like this, and their character is real, and tested. Whatever the case, if you have it, you earned it, and you should be proud.

In HEMA, this character is often hard to come by. This is not the fault of HEMA practitioners themselves, but of the nature of HEMA. There are few genuine teachers, few authorities to push you, to challenge you. The culture of HEMA encourages people to disdain authority, to seek answers in books and in themselves. This is a shame. Character is not found in books, fancy words, ideals or period clothing.

The good thing is, it is never too late. It was not too late for me, and though my journey is long, I have begun it. And it is never too late for you. No matter how high up the ladder you are, if it is a ladder of your own making then get off. Go find another ladder and start climbing it only to have someone knock you off and make you fight for every rung. The reward will soon become self evident.

Polly want a cracker?

2011-04-25T21:25:00.004-04:00

NYHFA’s origins are fairly typical. Like most groups, we started with a few swords, a lot of enthusiasm and some books in which someone told us exactly what was in the treatises and how we should practice it. Our practice was also typical, we would do some warm-ups (maybe), a guard transition drill or two and then spend the rest of the day on paired techniques. We did all kinds of paired techniques. Static, dynamic, improvised. A few years later, we got really, really good. At paired techniques (and uselessly transitioning through guards).

It was about this time that I started noticing that we weren’t getting good at much else. We were okay in the free fencing department, but in the way that people without any training at all are sometimes okay because they’re fast and athletic and played with swords as kids. We could cut too, but not with the stuff we did in paired drills, because we were so busy trying to move in “true times” that we didn’t notice the damage it was doing to our body mechanics. All in all, we were pretty happy with ourselves. But in the back of my head I knew that there had to be more. I was winning fights because I was faster or stronger or just more determined, and losing them because I had no idea what was going on, or how to control it. I knew that I sucked, but I didn’t want to face it, because I didn’t know what to do about it. Learn some more techniques? Read some new manuals? Fat lot of good that did in the first place.

Fast forward to the present. I can see genuine progress in myself and my students. People who came to me a year ago and could barely hold a sword go out into the world and come back with ass prints on their boots. More important than seeing improvement, I can see why it’s happening, and most importantly, how. I win fights now because I can see and understand what’s happening, and how to apply Liechtenauer’s principles to control the situation. I lose fights when someone can do this better than I can, or when someone exploits a weakness in my technique or my mental state, and if I didn’t know what it was before the fight, I sure as hell will after.

What changed? It was quite simple, really. I’ll spare you the details of how (I had lots of help), but I realized that techniques are not the art. They are what one does with the art once one learns it. You can’t learn to fight from a book, this is known to everyone that knows how to fight, but you can learn techniques from a book, if you already know how to fight (the German longsword treatises tell us this up front, pay attention). When I look back at our past, I see that we were good parrots, and we wanted our cracker, but that’s about all we were. It was only when we stopped trying to learn techniques and tried instead to learn the art itself that we started making any real progress. And we got better at the techniques too, because we started doing them right.

I’m sharing this on our blog because I want what happened to us to not be an isolated incident. There are many fantastic HEMA groups out there that took a different road than we did. There are many roads, ours is but one. But this realization that the art is more than the sum of its techniques was a big part of ours, and if it can help someone make the transition from parrot to martial artist, then it was worth typing.

So, how can you learn the art if you can’t learn it from a book? I’m sure there are many ways, and I don’t know most of them (hey, what do you expect, I barely got out of the parrot jungle!). I only know what I did, and that isn’t too dissimilar from what our ancestors did. Learn a different, but similar art. An art that uses a two handed hewing weapon in a manner similar to the way a longsword is supposed to be used. There are plenty to choose from. Once you have a good grasp of that, learn Liechtenauer’s art.

There’s this really cool dude named Steve Hick. Some call him the grandfather of HEMA. He coined a simple HEMA law: “Don't do what seems logical or natural. Do what the period text says; when it doesn't make sense (or doesn't seem to), do it some more.”

Well, the texts say this: “…and those hidden and secret words of the teachings are made clear and explained below in the comments, so that anyone who already knows how to fight can understand them.”

So, if you’re starting out with naught more than a fechtbuch and a dream, that ain’t you. I’m not saying you won’t find some other way to get there, or even far beyond. I’m saying you’re not likely to get there parroting techniques. And if you do find another way, share it. It may help a parrot who’s wondering why he or she still sucks after many, many years of trying. It bears saying once more that the art is so much more than the sum of its techniques.

Some first impressions on solo cutting

2011-04-20T13:51:00.004-04:00

By solo cutting, I mean cutting by myself, without having Mike around to critique.

Overall, it's a good experience. There's a lot of mental background noise that needs to be filtered out, regardless of where I am, but I think there's a bit more in class. During class, I'm concentrating on doing exactly what Mike wants, I'm trying to block out the other students, I'm worried about f*cking up in front of people, etc. At home, I have a little more liberty to try out new things without worrying too much about if it's going to succeed or fail miserably. For example, one thing I was trying out was holding over-the-head vom Tag a little further back and closer to my forehead—like Kyle was doing this past Sunday—and how this affects how my forearms are positioned, and how my wrists are angled, etc.

I flubbed a bunch of my cuts, but some where quite clean. I'm proud of the first Oberhau I did on my second mat (pictured).

Besides the cutting itself, I have to practice the "composure" aspect as well—but I suspect that the more cutting practice I do, the more confident I'll get and cutting in front of people will be less of a mental road block than it is now :)

Oh, the other thing that's great about cutting at home.... you can keep ALL the fragments!

NYHFA Poughkeepsie has a cutting stand!

2011-04-18T14:18:00.008-04:00

Post title says it all. Say hello to my super cool tacti-awesome cutting stand that I just built this morning:

That's right, it can be dismantled for easy transport, too! Mike, you know you want one of these..

EDIT! Two things: One, as per Mike's suggestion, I made the peg longer. Now it sticks out around 5-1/2". Two, to answer Steve's question about size, I've attached this little diagram here!

One Way of Moving, For Everything

2011-04-18T13:02:00.001-04:00

Yes, this is another rant about cutting and it’s place in the study of HEMA. You have been warned.

We HEMA people do not have the luxury, for the most part, of learning from people who know what they are doing (when it comes to HEMA). Consequently, we often find ourselves working really hard to perfect body mechanics that don’t work, body mechanics that we invent in our back yards while looking at 500 year old static two dimensional images or worse, by reading period treatises and believing we can learn how to move from words. Words and pictures can direct, set criteria, describe end results, but beyond that, you’re on your own.

We as a community have no problem coming up with body mechanics that work well in free fencing. After all, that is something we can do often, and see our mistakes, and improve. And what we end up with are fast, non-telegraphing motions that can score us lots of points. Motions that tend to send tatami mats flying off the their stands, mostly undamaged.

So what, right? Tatami mats don’t fight back, right? Well, buddy, if you can’t kill something that doesn’t fight back, what chance to do you have against something that does?

Cutting a tatami mat is so easy that a 12 year old girl can do it (see our youtube channel). Heck, a 7 year old Japanese girl can cut three of them (lined up next to each other…she’s on youtube too). Tatami is harder to cut than naked flesh, easier than living bone (much easier than a skull), and much, much easier than flesh and bone clothed in typical 14th or 15th century European clothing. So if your super cool tacti-awesome match winning strike can’t sever a single mat cleanly, guess what? Back to the drawing board, bud.

There are tactical considerations in cutting, considerations that don’t tend to occur to people inventing body mechanics in their basements (yes, this used to be me). For example, there is the “you must cut to longpoint” crowd that believes that cutting past longpoint is wrong as they believe (wrongly) is described in the texts. If that were true, Germans would be extinct. Do you know what happens if you cut to longpoint? Well, if you miss, it’s great. You should stop the sword there if you miss. If you hit, though, your sword is going to get stuck in your opponent’s body (assuming it doesn’t bounce off his shoulder because your cut sucks to begin with). And then you will die.

So that leaves us with a simple question…how do you cut? There are several choices. One, you can optimize your body mechanics to cut tatami. That will be great when it comes to cutting tatami, but you’ll probably have your ass handed to you in a fight, since you’ll make big sweeping motions, pull back your sword before striking, etc. Two, you can optimize your body mechanics to free fencing, delivering super fast non-telegraphing strikes directly to your target in a straight line just like the often quoted and just as often misunderstood passage in 3227a describes. This will get you tourney wins and maybe groupies (where do I sign up?). But then you won’t be able to cut anything, and you’ll be a sport fencer. That’s great, if that’s what you want. There are many great sport fencers in HEMA that I respect very much. But if sport fencing isn’t your cup of tea, you need to look elsewhere.

Another option is to have one way of moving when you cut tatami, and a different way of moving when you fence. And that would be…pointless. You’d be proving that your cutting motions don’t work in a fight and you fighting motions don’t cut, rendering both motions useless.

What you need to do is optimize your body mechanics not for cutting, not for free fencing, but for fighting. What we German fencers like to call ernstfechten.

That means a cutting motion that is non-telegraphic and direct, but one that moves in the proper arc and with the proper structural backing to cut clean through your opponent and not get stuck in his dying body. Will this motion cut as well as a tatami optimized motion? No. Will it win you as many tournaments? No. So why bother?

Honesty. Keeping it real, as they say. The goal of a martial approach to learning to use a sword is to learn to use a sword in ernsfechten. To learn to destroy your opponent and not get killed in the process. If you want to do this right, you need to use the same motion for everything you do, be it cutting, free fencing, drilling, etc. And it has to work well in all of them. You won’t get the glory, you won’t get the groupies (dammit!). But you’ll go to your grave knowing that you practiced an extinct and obsolete primitive fighting art in the way it was meant to be practiced. That and 99 cents will get you a loaf of store-brand white bread on a sale day. But at least you’ll be able to look at yourself in the mirror every day and know that you did at least one thing right in your otherwise miserable, imperfect and all too human life.

Instruments and Artistry

2011-04-04T10:40:00.000-04:00

Last night I was relating a story to Kat that I thought had absolutely nothing to do with swordsmanship... until it occurred to me this morning that maybe it did, in its own oblique way.

Yesterday morning, waiting at the Poughkeepsie train station, I took a seat across from a young 20-something Latino playing an acoustic guitar with an astounding level of technical skill and musical emotion (if it helps to qualify this statement, I trained as a Classical violinist for a good 15 years of my life). Sitting next to him was a guy who, although clearly impressed by the music, just would not shut up; he kept firing a barrage of inane questions at the guitarist,who bore the onslaught with hardly a raised eyebrow, as he continued to play:

"So, are you, ya know, a professional musician?" — "If I get paid some money to play, that makes me a professional, right?"

"Can you read music?" — ::shakes head:: — "Yea, man.. me neither.."

"I like rock guitar best, you know, Les Paul and that shit. You can bend notes on an electric guitar. You ever bend notes?" — "Sure, man" ::plays a scrap of blues, bending notes::

I'll give the guitarist credit for never losing his cool. Finally, though, the man next to him tried to make some sage comment about the instrument, how nice it looks, and asked what kind it is. The guitarist stopped playing, and laughed, saying "I got this at a pawn shop for 30 bucks, man. Cheapest guitar I could find." I couldn't help myself: I raised my hands and said aloud to both of them, "The musical instrument is here," wiggling my fingers.

My point, if it's not already clear, is this: People argue constantly in person and on the forums about efficacy. Efficacy of different weapons, of different permutations of the same type of weapon, of armor, of swordsmen facing each other in an anachronistic setting, etc. But, like the guitarist with the cheap guitar, mastery comes from within. Peter Johnsson can design and create swords that are astounding works of art in their own right. Just like Stradivarius made violins that were—and still are—museum pieces. Without requisite skill, trying to cut with an $8,000 handmade sword would be just as unsuccessful as trying to play a sonata on a $2B Strad. Sure, maybe expensive and superbly crafted tools of the trade help, but they can only do so much on their own; in and out of someone's hands, they are still just a passive object.

You Suck

2011-04-02T13:28:00.001-04:00

You suck. Yes, you. You're terrible. If you are reading this and you are saying "I don't suck, Mike's an asshole," then either you really don't suck (I only know two such people), or you're an idiot. Sorry, but today is hard truth day.

I too suck. And not being an idiot(mostly), I know it. That said, there are people who suck and know why they suck, and people who suck and make excuses. I'm too old. I'm too fat. I'm too young. I'm too skinny. I'm not really out to be the best, I'm just [insert bullshit here]. I don't have enough time. I didn't start training when I was young. And so on.

The trick is to be one of the people who suck and know why they suck. Because if you know why you suck, you can fix it, and that's what martial training is all about. When someone exposes one of your flaws, you should not be angry or hurt. You should thank them. You're alive, and you know what you have to work on. Knowing why you suck isn't easy, but then nothing worthwhile ever is.

It really sucks to suck and not know why. But even that is better than not knowing you suck. I once heard it said of someone that "he doesn't know what he doesn't know." Don't be that guy.

Why am I ranting about how much you suck? Because it is glorious. For a martial artist, there is nothing better than getting better, fixing a flaw, discovering a new ability, knowing that your hard work is paying off. That feeling you get when you suddenly start winning where before you were losing, when you start succeeding where before you were failing, it's like nothing else in the world. And I want you to have that feeling, over and over.

You suck. Now go practice and fix yourself. I'll be right there with you.

Some thoughts on free play, and why Boris is fast becoming a killer.

2011-03-28T22:05:00.001-04:00

I was thinking about our king-of-the-hill free play session yesterday, and about why Boris, a relatively new student, is getting more and more difficult for a lot of us to handle. Here are some of my thoughts:

Pressure. One of Boris' main strengths is his aggressive spirit. Sure, techniques are not always solid (this isn't meant as an insult, by any means; we're all learning!), but lacking any offensive movement from his opponent, he is typically the one to move in and attack. This does make for quite an intimidating opponent, and I for one certainly feel the pressure of his almost constant forward motion. When Boris is in the ring, he's out for blood and by god he's going to get some. On the flip side of this, when I'm facing him, either I'm not projecting any sort of pressure (more likely), or Boris is not sensing it (less likely, but still possible, since this is alien to all of us on some level—refer to Mike's handgun analogy).

Technique. Let it not be said that Boris doesn't learn from his mistakes. Going back just a few weeks, I could lure him into a particular trap: He'd go into high vom Tag, and I would take Alber. He'd take the bait, and I'd respond with the textbook catch with Kron and Zwerch to the side of his skull. I tried it yesterday, and whether it was a conscious decision or not, he did NOT try to Schietelhau me, opting to try something else instead.

One thing that we all need to do, as a class, is learn from each other's strengths and weaknesses, and be able to see our own. Like the drill we did yesterday to find each others' tells. We all have different skill levels and skill sets, different bodies and varying degrees of skill in using those bodies to affect technique. Watching two other people bout is just as important as being in the ring yourself; as combatants, we need to learn to size up our opponent as quickly as possible, judge their strengths and weaknesses. As students of a combative art, we need to be very aware of our own strengths and weaknesses.

Above all, we need to constantly practice and hone technique, otherwise there is no hope (or no point) in trying to exploit the weakness of others or lure someone into a trap by purposely showing your own weakness. Even Mike has a weakness—I don't know what it is, but even if I did (for example, if I talked to Sang Kim sensei about Mike's free play) my technique is probably no where near solid enough to take advantage of it.

The moral of my meandering post: Free play is an opportunity to learn. Watching free play is also an opportunity to learn. And practice, practice, practice.

Composure

2011-03-28T00:24:00.001-04:00

In battodo, it is important to maintain composure while doing kata or cutting. A lot of HEMA people I know look at that and say, “That has nothing to do with martial arts, so I think it’s useless.” Oh really?

Today in class we did an exercise I borrowed from Sang Kim sensei designed to identify and eliminate people’s telegraphs, or “tells.” People who dip their point before striking, or who tense up, or move their hands before their point or make other mistakes perform poorly. People who have few or no tells do very well. This translates directly to free fencing, where the same people who do poorly in this exercise are very easy to defend against because you can see their attack coming well in advance, while the people who do really well can sometimes hit you before you have a chance to parry.

What does this have to do with composure? Part of the exercise is to tell your partner what his or her tells are after the exercise is over. It’s a very good way to expose bad habits and bad technique and try to correct them. One of the most common tells is, “His eyes go all wide as he is about to attack.” Another is, “He smiles when he is feinting, but frowns when he attacks.” Or, “I can see it in his face when he is about to strike.”

You know…composure.

There are two lessons that can be learned from this. The first, learn how to control yourself. Not just how you move or cut, but your facial expressions and mannerisms. They can make the difference between victory and defeat.

The second, and please excuse my language, is don’t teach your father how to fuck. When you see someone who is practicing a martial art that is not recreated from books doing something you don’t understand, odds are there's something there worth learning.

Real Swords

2011-03-20T12:42:00.000-04:00

If you are a martial artist studying ernstfecthen with the sword, you need to own a sword. A real one. A sharp one. A historically accurate one(should look, handle, cut and thrust like a period sword).

Just owning one isn't enough though. You need to practice with it. Every time you practice solo. In class and at home. Your sharp does not handle like your blunt. It is much more difficult to use, and you need to be able to use it, not the blunt, not the plastic, not the waster. Practicing with a sharp also has mental and emotional aspects not present with any simulator. It brings you closer to the reality of the sword, something we as a civilization have drifted away from.

Can you practice a sword art without a real sword? Sure. Much as you can practice it without a steel blunt, or even without a waster. You can go in the woods and get a stick and use that. Yet each step away from the sharp nets less and less returns on your investment of time, blood and sweat.

We today have the luxury of doing this as half assed as we want. Our lives don't depend on what we do. However, if we want to be true to our art, then we owe it to ourselves and those that came before us to do it right in every way we can. This is but one of those ways, and it is also an area in which corners are frequently cut. How easy would swordsmanship be if you didn't have to cut with all of your techniques? Or if you never had to put your skill to the test in free fencing, or were allowed to free fence without being expected to cut with every move? What a breeze, right? Well not using a sharp for solo practice is another way to make it easier. How great would it be if all of our swords were perfectly balanced and had hilts designed for comfort and were easy to swing around because they had no mass in the cutting portion of the blade?

You don't need a sharp right away. It's okay to wait until you feel you are competent enough to handle one safely. You also don't need one if this is just a casual hobby to you. This is why we have a cutting loaner. But if you're serious, and you want to take it to the next level, get a sharp, and use it. Every day.

Swordfest 2011 Date and Details

2011-03-08T17:54:00.000-05:00

The date for Swordfest 2011 is May 14th.

Here is a link to details about the event:

Swordfest 2011

Why It's Easier to Do it Half-Assed

2011-02-24T02:06:00.001-05:00

I can talk about this for hours, but there's an easy, and better, way to understand this. Go out into the world and find yourself a child, preferably a teenager. Thirteen, fourteen, not much older. Girl, boy, doesn’t matter. Give this person an hour of training, just the very basics of attacking and parrying, and then fence him (we’ll assume it’s a guy).

Here are the rules. If he so much as touches you with his sword, you lose a point (and the kid has to know this). You, however, will be held to a higher standard. Each of your “touches” must be powerful and direct. Not hard, you don’t want to hurt the kid, but they have to be real cuts, with the edge, with enough distance between the start point and end point that it would work if it were a fight to the death. You can thrust, of course, but you have to pull it out and withdraw (or parry) before the kid whacks you back, or it’s the kid’s point.

How do you think you’d do? If you’re fantastic, you might win. More likely, you’ll barely survive with more double kills than you feel comfortable confessing to.

Well, whatsa matter, tough guy? Can’t beat an untrained kid?

Now make it harder for yourself. Now your cuts not only have to be with the edge, they have to be with the edge perfectly aligned. They have to be powerful enough that you could cut into a person’s body, covered in clothing, deeply, and have your sword cut through rather than get stuck in bone and flesh (don’t worry, we’ve covered the kid in padded armor, he’ll be okay). Your cuts have to be straight, so that they don’t scallop inside the body (and again, get stuck). Your thrusts have to hit vital organs or arteries, and you still have to pull them out, only now you need to make a visible motion of the hips, because that sword won’t come free easily. If the judges don’t see a hip twist to withdraw, you get no point, and the kid still gets to whack you.

Oh, and speaking of the kid, he still just has to touch you to get a point. Flat, edge, hard, soft, strong weak, big arc, small arc, no arc, doesn’t matter.

How do you think you’d do then? Would the kid kick your ass? Would it be double kill paradise? Starting to get the picture?

As the world of HEMA gets increasingly competition-centric, we as martial artists have to keep this idea first and foremost in our minds. The temptation to forget about all that stuff you'll never use and just do it half assed will always be there. Tournaments, free fencing matches, martial challenges, these are all extremely imporant for our art, but there are two ways to do them. The right way, and the easy way.

Exhaling with the cut

2011-02-22T15:55:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday class, Mike [again] discussed the importance of exhaling with the cut. Last night I realized that I more easily forget to do this than, for example, kiai during karate practice. But more importantly, I also realized why I was doing this, and perhaps I'm not only the one:

We listen to our blades to judge proper edge alignment and tip velocity. No sound = bad alignment, and/or not enough tip velocity. Brief sound = twisting the blade. Sustained "woosh" = good alignment, good velocity, etc. I caught myself holding my breath so I could hear what was going on, because a quick exhalation is sufficient to drown out my Albion Meyer indoors*, and certainly outdoors where there's already plenty of ambient noise.

I don't have a conclusion to this, I just wanted to throw this thought out there. Maybe Mike or someone else has a suggestion..

* EDIT: My Albion Crecy is very loud, but I don't often use it indoors, so I haven't yet determined if it is louder than me or not. :-)

Swordfest 2011

2011-02-10T17:14:00.000-05:00

We have the honor of being invited back to demonstrate at Swordfest 2011. A date has not been set, but it will be sometime in mid-late May or early June. I would like as many people as possible to attend.

This year our demo will focus on how we practice the art rather than its theories or techniques. It will either show the differences and similarities to practicing JSA or just focus on what we do. For that, I need a handful of students demoing along with me.

I can take three people and their gear. Others may be able to take more. If you go with me, it will be a two night trip, and hotel will cost about 80-100 a night. If four of you share a room, that is only 50 dollars each for both nights. I will not charge gas money. You can go for just one night if you're driving yourself (Friday night, then leave after the event). But there is usually some post-event socializing, which is a great chance to meet not only some members of the HEMA community (Bill Grandy, Steve Reich, Dave Rowe, etc.) but also some of the great folks on the JSA side, which makes this event rather unique and special.

I will let you know as soon as a date is set.

Our loaner cutter lives again!

2011-02-04T15:37:00.000-05:00

You all know I despise our loaner cutter. I bought this thing, a Hanwei Tinker sharp longsword, thinking it would at least be servicable, but it turned out to be useless.

So, when a sword is pice of crap and you can't get it work, do you throw it away? No! You make it sharper! On the way to my mailbox are the following:

(for my 1x30 grinder:)
320 grit belt
600 grit belt
1000 grit belt
2000 grit belt
leather belt (for the grinder!)
honing paste (for the leather belt)

When I am done with this thing, it will draw blood if you look at it funny. I will also razorize some of your personal swords, once I make all of my horrible grindng mistakes on the loaner and get them out of my system. This is a good day for NYHFA.

It's all in the grip...

2011-01-31T00:32:00.000-05:00

Ok, so last time it was all in your head, but today, it's all about the grip. I was watching you guys cut today and I was wondering, why wasn't it working out for some of you? Sometimes you have clean cuts, sometimes you don't. Something wasn't adding up. As I watched the video, I realized what it was...your grip.

Your grip on the sword is like the tires on a car, it is the most important part of the sword/body unit, the part that makes things happen, translates your body's movement into sword movement. Your grip can slow your sword, ruin your edge alignment, ruin your trajectory. Some of you grip too tight, some of you grip with the wrong fingers, others do things I can't even identify. Practice your grips. Practice using the bottom two fingers, tightening only as much as you need to when you need to.

How do you do this? Sounds hard? It's not. Don't think about the grip except to make sure you use the bottom two fingers. Other than that, worry about velocity, and try to get the sword point moving as fast as it can. Think about how your hands can help you do that through your grip. The rest will come naturally. Practice, practice, practice. There's just no way around it.

It's all in your head

2011-01-20T02:34:00.000-05:00

I've been training for the tournament at Longpoint and doing quite a bit of fighting (thanks to all of your for your help in that regard). One thing that sank in was how much of your fighting performance is in your head.

This is one of those things I've known for a long time, but never really appreciated until recently. It really sank in for me over the last few weeks. With all the fighting I've been doing, I sometimes just didn't feel like it, and my mind wandered. This gave me a chance to see how mental state affects results, and let me tell you, if I had to fight to the death, I'd rather fight hopping on one leg than with a messed up head.

It doesn't matter who I'm fighting, our newest student or our best fighter, if my mind is somewhere else, I get hit. Sometimes a lot. If I get into it, put myself in the zone, then I fight well and rarely get touched. It's almost like a magic switch. On, kick ass. Off, get hit.

What does this mean for you guys? Well, you may want to think about how your mental state affects you. Do you get scared? Confused? Does Crazy Steve intimidate you?:) Whenever you fight, consider it an opportunity to practice. Not just your technique, that's the easy stuff, but your mental state. That's where the real fight takes place.

Training for accuracy: thrusting pell

2011-01-19T13:44:00.000-05:00

I'm glad that Mike reminded me of an old accuracy training device I used to use when I did Olympic-style fencing: the swinging-ball pell. Mike had us thrusting at one of the handles of his jump rope, but I came up with something a little less ghetto and with a few more targets: a series of wooden beads suspended at heart, throat, and eye-socket height.

The idea for training is essentially the same: to work on thrusting accuracy from Pflug, Ochs, Langenort. At the most basic level, you can stand in a more or less a static guard, thrust slowly towards the targets to teach yourself (that is, your muscle memory) the relationship between the sword, arms, hips, etc. Remember to mix it up between thrusts with a lunge and with a passing step (turning body to present less target and to extend reach).

As you progress, play with distance, and get more dynamic in your movements (as I'm often reminded in free-play, holding a hanging guard for too long ends up with your blade being grabbed): winding and disengaging (e.g. Abnehmen). The target is there to help get a sense of measure, but also you must visualize your opponent's blade: close off lines of attack as you thrust (Absetzen), recover in a defensive guard, especially if you miss.

Particularly for me, this is good for keeping myself balanced when I thrust: in free-play I too often over-extend myself, and end up in a decidedly un-structured position. I have to scramble out of the way, usually while throwing up some "Oh sh!t" parry. Here, I can focus on keeping my body structured before, during, and after the attack has been made.

NYHFA Cutting Curriculum

2011-01-15T12:28:00.000-05:00

Our cutting curriculum has finally been formalized and posted to the website. For those of you who are novices and senior novices, start familiarizing yourselves with your cutting patterns and saving up for all those mats you'll need to master them.

Link: NYHFA Cutting Curriculum

Now that's more like it...

2010-12-08T00:21:00.000-05:00

To address the problem discussed in my previous rant...er...blog post, I brought in an Albion Earl longsword. Not only is this a sharp, but it is a realistic representation of a 15th century sword, not an ultralight designed to appeal to modern sensibilities.

The first thing I did was to have the students show me how they fought with a plastic simulator. I asked them to do the kind of moves they normally do in free fencing. Then I gave them the real sword and had them try to do the same thing. They quickly realized two things. One, they were considerably slower with the real sword than with the plastic, and two, a good percentage of their cuts were ineffective. The Earl is a very good longsword to test this out, because it is very, very loud (when you cut with proper edge alignment and velocity). So if you swing it and you hear nothing, you're wrong.

Imagine that...swinging a real sword and actually getting it to work right is really hard. Hmmmm...

After they took turns doing solo cutting drills with the real sword, we did some free fencing with a twist. The idea was to be honest, to yourself and your training partner, and only do things with the plastic sword that you could actually do with the real sword. Not only do, but do successfully.

The fencing was fantastic. Boris and Vlad participated, and both were able to keep it honest the vast majority of the time. I fought each of them, and they fought each other, and the fighting was really good, and really clean. The things they did were things they could actually do with a sword. The disconnect between cutting and fighting was, if not eliminated, greatly reduced.

Way to go, guys. Really well done. Now to try it on the rest of you and see if works just as well.

Stop playing games

2010-12-05T21:56:00.000-05:00

I've been paying close attention lately to how you fight and cut, and your free fencing is writing checks your cutting can't cash.

When you fight, some of you are hopping demons, lashing out sword punishment like boxers dish out jabs. When you cut, you approach your target carefully, take some breaths, get ready and swing, knowing that if you screw up your angles or your velocity, you'll just knock the mat off the stand. This is good...for the cutting.

So let me ask you a question...what do you think you're doing in free fencing? How does a person who can only cut through a mat (which is easier than inflicting a critical injury to a human body) with careful preparation and with only a Zornhau and sometimes an Unterhau justify flinging their sword around like Bob Anderson? How many of your cuts would actually do any real harm to your opponent?

Look at the following image:

A represents correct edge alignment. The sword is perfectly aligned with the direction of movement. As you all know, this is what you need to cut successfully. Mats, people, anything. Nothing less will work.

B represents how most of you cut in free fencing. I've been watching you carefully and with few exceptions, about 70-95% (depending on who you are) of your cuts are like B (with the exception of the Zornhau, which is mostly okay). Do you know what happens when B strikes a person? Nothing. No matter how hard you hit, all you're going to do is really, really piss someone off, and then you will die.

The other issue is small motions, quick motions, the kind of stuff you see a lot on Youtube bouting vids. Sword jabs, if you will. You'll often see me making quick and small motions such as these in free fencing, but that's because I can cut with those motions. If you can't, then you don't get to use them.

Why are you doing all this? It varies for each individual. Some of you are so eager to score a hit that you swing wildly, even in winding drills. Some of you move faster than your brains can follow--you act without thinking. Some of you take advantage of the light weight of the plastic simulators and pay no attention to the realities of a much heavier steel sword.

I often tell you that cutting must inform your free fencing and your drills, yet so far this is not happening. You cut carefully and deliberately, but fight like rabid monkeys. For example, I see a lot of you leaving the bind to launch a quick cut to someone's side or stomach horizontally. That's fine, except...how many of you can cut a tatami mat horizontally that way? Well if you can't, what exactly do think you're doing using that cut in free fencing?

I want you all to stop playing games. Stop treating free fencing like a competition in which the object is to score points by touching your opponent with your sword or whacking them with it as though it were a club. If this is what you really want to do, there are Jedi lightsaber classes offered all over the city. No edge alignment or power generation or tip velocity is necessary, because light sabers are plasma weapons and kill on contact. Real swords, however, take a lot of skill, and a lot of patience.

What's that you say? Lightsabers aren't real? It's all fantasy? Well, so is your free fencing if you don't try really hard to use your fencing simulator like a real sword, with all the limitations inherent in the weapon and in yourselves.

Why am I suddenly being such a hard ass about this? Because when you fight like you have a lightsaber instead of a sword, you're forcing your opponent to react to you as though you were a much better fencer than you really are, except that you're not acting like a good fencer, you're acting like a wild man, and that compromises his or her ability to learn from free fencing. And that is, after all, the point of free fencing, even tournaments. To learn. Not to cheat and win. Respect for your fellow student is of the utmost importance. Your job is not just to learn to be a badass sword ninja killer. Your job is to help your fellow students learn, and theirs is to help you. We all support each other. Keep that in mind next time you flick your wrist for that fight winning point or charge in like a screaming barbarian with no concern for edge alignment or any of the other aspects of proper cutting.

Posturing does not equal intent

2010-11-19T11:18:00.000-05:00

Since no one has yet commented on last Saturday's lesson..

A lot of attention was given to high vom Tag, and how it is to be used (and how not). Although posturing is useless in any guard (by posturing I refer to assuming a guard either for no tactical reason, or worse, without intent) it is extremely dangerous in high vom Tag. Not dangerous in the sense that it leaves you particularly open, although quick hand snipes are certainly possible. Dangerous in the sense that if you are in high vom Tag, the sword must come down: it's an aggressive guard, and must be taken as a serious threat. However, if one simply holds a high vom Tag and doesn't strike, the sense of aggression is completely lost. Your opponent will take advantage of this, and start going for the hand snipes, etc.

In short, take high vom Tag, and mean it. Bring that sword down on your opponent's head; make him aware of the danger they are in.

Training for a Tournament

2010-11-17T16:01:00.001-05:00

With Longpoint 2011 just around the corner, preparing for a tournament should be on everyone's mind (don't forget to register here: http://fightlongpoint.com/ ). This is part of the reason we've started doing the stations workout in class, and also the reason I have considerably upped the intensity of my personal nightly training regimen.

However, when preparing for a historical fencing tournament, we have to remember that the focus of our training should be...historical fencing. Fitness is extremely important, and a good training regimen will incorporate a lot of endurance and strength boosting exercises, but fitness should not be the focus or goal of your training. Your routine shold focus mostly on building the core skills of swordsmanship: coordination, balance, power generation, reflexes and, most importantly, technique. I've written in the past about what all the best professional athletes have in common, and that is that they train not just for resulsts, but for the refinement of individual techniques. And so you should train in the fashion as well. Solo cutting drills, pell work, forms, etc.

I've outfenced people who were in 100 times better shape than I was, but I've also lost fencing matches because I was too tired from previous matches. You have to find a balance. Skill is number one, but endurance cannot be forgotten. Happy training, and good luck in the tournament!

Scoring Hits in Free Fencing

2010-11-10T12:59:00.000-05:00

The other day we were doing some free fencing, and one of the students wanted to challenge me with steel. So we got to fighting. In one particular exchange, his sword made contact with my right arm and “sliced” along the sleeve of my gambeson. The judges called a point. I said, "No." As the teacher, I get to make such decisions. The judges did not understand, but the other fencer did. Don’t get me wrong, I like it when my students hit me, it means I’m doing my job. But this was different.

A sword is not a light saber. It is not enough merely to touch someone with it. You have to cut them. Or stab them, or slice really hard. Even a thrust has to be delivered with force. There are people who think it takes very little effort to put a sword point into someone's body, but those people apparently like to fight naked, and without bones. That's some trick!

There is a clear dividing line between excessive force and a decisive hit. You don't have to hit someone hard, but you have to hit them. Or if you sword happens to make contact with their arm or other part of their body, you have to turn the edge to the target and push/pull hard and slice (no need to worry about holding back for these!). If you thrust, I want to see the blade flex, or it doesn't count, particularly with the plastic swords.

There is a great danger to counting light touches. It leads to massive distortions of free fencing, which already has more than its share of artifacts. This is one of the reasons we practice cutting. You know what it takes (technique wise, not just force wise) to cut a mat. It takes more than that to mortally wound a human being. There are reasons to cut back on force in free fencing, but not technique.

As the months roll on, I will be increasingly strict on what I consider a "point" in free fencing. My ultimate goal is to have you guys deliver each strike cleanly and decisively and avoid small snipy movements. Note that this has nothing to do with hand snipes...by all means take the hand. But take it decisively.

Cheezy Hand Snipes

2010-11-01T12:26:00.000-04:00

Some people don't like to be hit in the hands, wrists or legs. Especially when they are standing in a guard like Vom Tag and someone closes, whacks the hand with a one handed cut and steps back out range before you can blink. Some people consider that a form of cheap shot, or cheating, or cheezy fighting.

Let's examine the scenario objectively. Two swordsmen draw their weapons and prepare to kill each other. One is angry at some slight to his honor and is a strong, powerful man. He wants to split his opponent's skull or cleave him in two. He raises his sword over his head and prepares to attack. All of a sudden, the other man launches a quick strike that hits the big man on the left wrist, severing most of the tendons and biting into the bone. The fight is effectively over.

When this happens in free fencing, people complain. They criticize the other fighter, they call him names like "hand sniper." Well, guess what. He hit you, you didn't hit him, and if he can keep doing it to you over and over while you stand there helpless, he's a better swordsman than you. The hand sniper in the above story saw a weakness in his opponent and exploited it. The other one had a preconceived notion of how the fight would go and got killed for his efforts. Preconceived notions are for ivory tower academics and fools, not martial artists.

Like them or not, such sniping hits are a perfectly valid vorschlaag (the first strike). When you stand in high Vom Tag, your left wrist is the closest target to your opponent, and getting struck there will end the fight without putting dings on your opponent's sword. Why would someone attack a more distant target and put himself in greater danger? Know your vulnerabilites in any position, and know how to react to their exploitation.

As Liechtenauer says, "do not shun the tag hits." So stop whining about cheezy hand sniping and learn how to deal with it.

I can't practice at home because...

2010-10-25T00:50:00.001-04:00

I hear this all the time.

"I can't practice at home because I have low ceilings."
"I can't practice at home because I have no room."
"I can't practice at home because...etc."

Yes, you can practice. You just don't want to. Some of you remember the fish grill. It is a cooking implement I lent to one of our students that makes a perfect practice weapon for confined spaces. It can even make a good sound when your "edge" alignment is correct.

The point of the fish grill is, where there's a will, there's a way. Want to practice? Take a waster. Cut it in half (or smaller). Duct tape a small weight to the end. With something like this you can practice in an airplane bathroom.

There is only one reason not to practice, and that is you don't want to. Admitting that is the first step.

Consistency

2010-10-20T15:27:00.000-04:00

One of the common ills inherent in practicing a work-in-progress recreated art is a lack of consistency. How you do things changes as you make new discoveries, and it is not uncommon to have more than one way of doing something because you're just not sure which is the best way.

The problem is, what you are losing by not picking one far exceeds any potential gains from diversifying.

The problem with allowing for diversity in your body mechanics is that you never train yourself to be consistent, and without consistency your practice is only partially effective. When you force yourself to do things a specific way, you are teaching your body how to comply with your will, to do things the way you want them done when you want. This is a form of discipline. Discipline, both mental and physical, is the cornerstone of martial arts. You can learn and memorize a thousand techniques, but if you can't control your body under duress then those techniques are worthless.

Another reason for consistency is muscle memory. It is a powerful force, easily demonstrated in most people's every day lives. When was the last time you consciously thought about turning the wheel or pushing pedals in a car? If you have too many ways of doing something, your muscle memory may become confused, or you may run into problems recalling the appropriate muslce memory to deal with the situation at hand.

In other words, if you have 10 ways of doing something, when are you wrong? And if you're never wrong, how can you be right?

Posture

2010-10-19T15:57:00.000-04:00

One of the most important aspects of good body mechanics is also the most neglected and the easiest to do...posture. It's very simple: keep your back straight as you strike, or you may trip and fall on your face.

I've previously discussed using video as a training aid. Record yourself doing some striking drills and freeze frame at the moment of impact. Is your back straight? Or are you leaning forward? If the latter, you are wrong, and need to correct yourself.

This is a mistake many people make, including myself, particularly in the heat of free fencing when you want those extra few inches of reach. However, there should be no excuse for doing this during drills. Be aware of what your body is doing, and keep your center of gravity where it belongs...in the center.

Power distribution in a cut

2010-10-08T00:56:00.001-04:00

I'd like everyone to read this blog post by Sang Kim sensei (link below). It talks about power distribution in a cut...that is, where you should be applying power and where you should be relaxing.

Don't worry...there are pictures.

http://newyorkbattodo.blogspot.com/2010/10/power-distribution-in-cut.html

Unnecessary pauses

2010-09-17T22:07:00.000-04:00

After all the free-play we did on our first day back, Mike mentioned to me (among other things) that one of my weaknesses in bouting is that I tend to pause after I score a hit (or after I assume that I should've just scored a hit..). I realized that this had been a problem back in my epée fencing days as well, particularly after lunges. It occurred to me that this is due to two main reasons, one psychological and one physical.

Psychologically, it's connected to my desire to not only hit, but hit cleanly. Pausing is me going "Look at what I just did. This was intentional, not incidental." I'm sure that this'll be beaten out of me quickly enough - consider a certain post-kill thwap to the head that I received..

Physically, it's about balance: A] I'm overextending myself in lunging, making a recovery very slow (still doesn't excuse me from taking a defensive ward like Ochs, I know..); B] My weight distribution in passing steps is less than optimal, making movement generally slow. For example, Zwerchau combinations could be faster, because I'm wasting time shifting my weight in between.

Course of action:
I need to do more "improv" pell-work. A gambeson-pell like Mike's would help, but I can make it work with a fixed pell. The point is, I need to get my feet more connected with my sword - and fluidly - so I can deliver multiple attacks in succession, as well as being ready to get the hell out of the way if necessary.

Scholars and Martial Artists

2010-07-24T19:35:00.000-04:00

If you ask a martial artist and a scholar...

"Can you do a Schielhau from Schrankhut?"

...the scholar might say, "No,it is only described as being used from Vom Tag."

Whereas the martial artist might say, "Of course you can."

I'd like you to think about this question over the summer, and when we resume training in September, tell me your answers. How can you do a Schielhau from Schrankhut (or Nebenhut) without first transitioning to another guard (in any way shape or form)?

Why we do what we do...

2010-06-29T00:44:00.000-04:00

I was watching the vid I posted of our recent promotion test and I asked myself, "Why do we put so much time and effort into something that's so utterly useless in modern society?"

Then I thought about it. Is art useless? Is history useless? Is tradition useless? Is beauty useless? Is love? Objectively, there are many things in our lives that have little or no practical purpose. There are many things we learn in school (philosophy, science, art, history) that are useless in most people's lives. Yet if you think about it, these are the things that enrich us, these are the things that give us purpose, that make life worth living.

We, you and I, are immensely privileged. We get to restore something that was lost, recreate something beautiful, something important, something that is a part of our collective cultural heritage, a part of who and what we were, and therefore, who we are today. If you think about it, this is a tremendous honor, because it is such important work. Archaeologists and historians are building medieval castles and villages so people can see what life was like. History professors research the past, reconstructing events, economies and cultures. What we are doing is the same, except that we focus on something more profound, something that defined not only how these people fought and died, but what was in their hearts.

Just think about it for a moment. We belong to a select few, a community of men and women who have pledged their time, their sweat and their blood to recreating a vastly complex system of combat that spanned three centuries and an entire continent. Ain’t that just freakin’ awesome?

6/26/10 Promotion Test Results

2010-06-27T02:26:00.000-04:00

Novice Test
-----------
Fabio - passed.
Steve - passed.

Senior Novice Test
------------------

Tristan - passed.

Vlad - provisional pass.*

Jonathan - provisinal pass.*

* A provisional pass means you did very well overall, but there were a few areas of the test that you messed up on. Because of how well you did, I don't want to fail you, so instead you will make up those portions in September.

Thank you to everyone who came to support and help us. Fencing with your guys was a privilege.

The purpose of intensity drills

2010-05-23T21:52:00.000-04:00

It is important to remember the purpose of intensity drills. That purpose is to come as close as possible to real combat with a sword. An intensity drill simulates a single exchange that ends in someone's death. It is true in the body in every way--you advance, attack and defend the same way you would in earnest. Or at lest that is how you should do it.

The only way in which an intensity drill is not real, aside from the fact that real swords are not used (yet) and you are wearing protection, is in the mind. You know what's coming, and you know what you're going to do. Therefore, your mindset during such a drill is extremely important.

Clear your mind. Put aside thoughts of the day. Forget that you are tired, or hot, or thirsty, because a real adversary is not going to care about any of those things. Whether you are in the box doing the technique or you're the one being killed, forget about that. It hasn't happened yet. Know your role, know what to do, if you have to be weak, be weak, if you have to make a mistake so your training partner can do his technique, then make a mistake. But know all this in the back of your head. In the moment, it is real, and your life should flash before your eyes.

If you find that you are not in the right mindset and can't get there, let me know. To proceed under such circumstances would deprive both you and your training partner of a beneficial experience.

Winden across all the armory

2010-05-17T20:00:00.000-04:00

It has been two days and I am still stunned by the glimpse of the unifying principle behind the Liechtenauer system. Conceptually, it is a very elegant choice of design (and also astonishingly practical): the idea is that the physics of action-reaction behind strike, bind and wind is independent of the weapon at hand. Longsword, staff, poleaxe, sword-and-buckler: no matter whether the hands move from hilt to handle, the very same physical principles apply. I found it enlightening. There can be few modifications to the posture, few tricks to exploit the absence of blades on poleaxes, or the symmetry of staffs, but the mechanics are identical. Ideally, with enough exercise, any object of adequate shape could fit into Liechtenauer's verses.

Often I find myself stuck on a wrong posture, a lack of support from the hips, or a bad trajectory of the sword-tip. Cycling through different weapons helped. Some required more focus on the posture, other on the movement of the feet, or the arms, and others just feel so natural that the whole action folds inside the muscles and it fixes there, in the memory.

"Strike, slowly. Feel the bind. Wind!"

Together with intensity drills, the bind-wind-free-play has, at its first attempt, been a very instructive activity. The duelists have to enter in a bind and from there find the way to thrust the opponent. It felt like a game of planning and quick thinking, probably pointing at the fact that I need to practice more the different winden. Yet, eliminating all the adrenaline-clogged introductory tagging dance helped and the following free-play was closer, faster and felt more natural. I'll be looking forward to more bind-wind-free-play.

P.S. a brief comment on bucklers: I dislike them. Besides my skin-feeling for such a wimpish option, I am not even sure they are of any practical advantage. They protect the left hand, fine enough, so that we can be sure to have one for the final handshake: at what cost? Still I am not completely convinced that a longsword, driven by two hands can't be as fast as a single-handed short sword. In addition, the choice of buckler may imply a different strategy when facing a longsword, a strategy of compromise between a weak attack, a weak bind, a sword with less inertia and a well protected left-hand: is it worth it? As of now, I think it is not.

"Seminaring" first impressions

2010-05-12T12:14:00.001-04:00

Seminaring involves our instructor plowing through a very broad repetoire of techniques with all students, regardless of their level. At first I wasn't too keen on the idea, since I much prefer working on a very few techniques (new or not) and practicing them over and over at length to internalize them—and this is typically how we practice. Seminaring does, however, provide a sort of "coming attractions" (at least this is how I explained it to one of my classmates) in the more advanced curricula. It also got some of the students thinking about why some of the "basic" techniques are done the way they are; and some students were able to anticipate counter-counter-techniques, etc. Also, it illustrated how the Master Cuts really do make up the bread and butter of the art; most of the counters to the advanced techniques (as far as I can remember) didn't involve any weird techniques.. mainly just the Master Cuts applied in different situations.

Overall, I'm still not a fan of doing so many techniques without many (if any) pauses for correction or explanation. Having said that... Yes, we as students need to be exposed to these techniques no matter what our level (see again the bread & butter comment above). Yes, maybe one or two might have gotten stuck in our memory and could be tried out in free play. Yes, it was probably good for our instructor to get a break from only ever doing the basic curriculum over and over :-)

The Triumvirate of Training Types

2010-04-21T00:38:00.000-04:00

Michael Chidester from True Edge Academy recently asked me to explain my idea of the "triumvirate" of training types...cutting, free fencing and drills. First, it's not my idea, it belongs to Sang Kim Sensei, and though I've been training that way almost since I first picked up a sword, it was Sang who put the idea into words for me and crystalized the importance of each of these forms and how they relate to each other. Our dojo mon (I say ours because I am, proudly, a member) is three dragonfly in a circle, each one representing a form of training, which is slightly different on the Japanese side--kata, gekken (free fencing) and cutting.

The reason for this post is that I made some effort to explain this concept to Michael and I want to share that post with you here:

"I grew up in Brooklyn, then served in the military, so I saw (but fortunately did not participate in) a good deal of violence. I’ve seen people who want to kill each other with a bat or a knife or a crowbar (or whatever) stand a few meters away and hop on their feet, taking cautious swipes, probing, but that is just the preamble, and is not the norm. If a man wants to kill another with a crowbar, he comes at him with everything he's got, fully committed (even if, on occasion, he hops around a bit first to get up his nerve). The other man either dies or gets one chance to do something, and usually only one combatant realizes that the fight has begun.

So if you look at a description of a play in a fechtbuch..."when he strikes A at you, you do B," it's basically a description of this type of violence. The drill that evolves from that, when done with full power and intensity, is therefore the closest you can actually come, in my opinion, to a real confrontation with a sword. It is artificial because you know it beforehand, but it is artificial only in the mind, not the body. So performance in drills, to me, is therefore extremely important. We do what I call "intensity drills" where the drills are done with 100% of what you've got. It's a bit dangerous, but worth it.

However, even with drills you have to ask yourself, what am I doing? What is the point of swinging this plastic or wooden or metal stick around? That's where cutting comes in. Cutting is the element of fighting missing from both drills and free play. By itself, it is imperfect, because the target does not move, is not armed, and does not fight back. However, it is only a piece of the puzzle. They are all a pieces of the puzzle...in drills, the target is cooperative, in free play, you just have to tag someone who is acting unrealistically (not coming straight in intent on bloody murder). Keep in mind we're focusing on the worst possible scenario, not all combat is uniform.

So what cutting does is it shows you what you're actually trying to accomplish when you swing your sword, and teaches how you have to move to accomplish it. Free fencing quickly separates the bullshitter from the fighter, cutting, the way I see it, separates the sport fighter from the martial artist. Approaching a target, timing your strike, getting your measure right, coordinating your body, keeping your center, maintaining your balance, composure, awareness, etc. etc. etc., and most importantly, that subtle motion of the sword along the target that is so hard to explain and teach but just comes to you naturally when you've been cutitng a while.

So after you learn to cut, you apply that same criteria to your drills, you strike at your opponent the way you would a cutting target. Now you have two pieces of the puzzle combined, and you practice both to maintain them. Finally, when you free fence, you come in fully committed, striking as you would a target, reacting as though a sharp sword is about to get you. This gives you all three pieces of the puzzle, if you can pull it off (I am still struggling).

I hope that answers your questions."

Test Cutting

2010-04-09T20:46:00.000-04:00

As some of you know, test cutting is a regular part of our curriculum. Now that we're firmly in our outdoor training season, we are going to start cutting again. The first batch of mats has been ordered.

Cutting works like this:

You can buy your own mats, roll and soak them, and bring them to class on days when we do cutting. This is the cheapest option. Alternatively, you can pay me $10 per mat. This includes me rolling and soaking it. This is more expensive (mats cost about 7 bucks each), but more convenient for you.

Every NYHFA student is encouraged to own a sharp longsword made by Albion or Arms and Armor. There are other alternatives. The Tinker sharp longsword for CAS Hanwei is a good inexpensive cutting tool (at around $200 it's the best deal out there).

We use two kinds of mats. The first kind is Bugei Wara, the second is Mugen Dachi tatami. Wara are not easier to cut than tatami in terms of technique, but they do require less force and they are less likely to bend your sword. New students will always start learning on wara, and then proceed to tatami. Although many cuts in the system, such as zwerchhau, krumphau and schielhau will usually be done on wara regardless of skill.

Cutting is important for several reasons. Nakamura Taizaburo, founder of Nakamura Ryu battodo, said, "unless you experience cutting with a real sword, you will never begin to taste true sword technique." Truer words have never been spoken. You can't learn to shoot without firing a gun, and you can't learn to drive a car without getting behind the wheel. When you swing a sword, what are you actually doing? How do you know if you're doing it right, if your cut will actually have its desired effect? There are many kinds of cutting besides severing a mat, and we will practice many of them, but severing a target is the most fundamental, and the easiest to both learn and teach correct cutting technique.

Happy cutting.

Thoughts on Absetzen

2010-04-05T11:54:00.000-04:00

During the intensity drills on Saturday, I found myself catching my partners' thrusts (or cuts) successfully, but I was aware that almost every time (except when there was a blatant tell before an attack) I was almost too late in the winding. Something was slowing me up. On Sunday while I was practicing at home, I re-read our notes, and saw that the von Danzig gloss tells that the step should come after the winding. I then practiced the winding from right Plug to left without moving my feet much at all: simply twisting my hips and sort of punching my right hand to the side. This seemed to be much faster than winding with a step, and also didn't change my measure (meaning it should be easier to catch my strong on the opponent's weak, because I'm not moving into them). Then, as per the gloss, I thrust while stepping with my right foot. My only concern here is the slightly less stable stance provided by the short-lived "backwards" footwork, but as the Absetzen shouldn't be occurring in grappling range, it might not be so serious. Not as much of a concern as, say, not winding in time. The left Plug does feel like it should be strong regardless, whether against a thrust or a low Oberhau. I would like to do some more Absetzen intensity drills next class to work on this; I'd also like to try it with the opponent counter-winding as per Mike's curriculum comments.

Free play with steel

2010-03-23T12:09:00.000-04:00

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.

Responsibilities

2010-03-16T15:38:00.001-04:00

A student has many responsibilities, but I want to focus on just one:

Come to class prepared.

We only train once a week, and therefore it is essential that we make the most of that time. There are many things you can do to help make that happen. One of the most important ones is getting a good night's sleep. People don't function well when they're sleep deprived, and in an environment where you are swinging steel swords around, you can be a danger to yourself and others if you're running on a couple of hours of shut eye.

Eat breakfast and lunch. Class starts in the afternoon, so you have plenty of time to grab a bite to eat. If you're thinking about food and your stomach is grumbling, it's hard to concentrate. This not only compromises your training, but that of your training partners.

Come to class on time. If you live far away, and there is traffic, leave early. If you show up late every once in a while, that's no big deal, things happen. But if you're consistently late, then there's a problem. Being late disrupts class and takes time away from other people who did not come late.

So, what do you do if you get up an hour before class, after going to sleep two hours before that, are starving but would never make it on time if you stopped to get a bite to eat? That's easy. Don't come, and do better next week.

Again, and again, and again.

2010-03-07T14:16:00.001-05:00

I don't have much to say except that yesterday's class was great, and was very much needed. While I do think that the intensity drills are very good for honing specific techniques and responses, constant repetition of techniques in a lower-intensity mindset like yesterday are wonderful—not only for tweaking technique, seeing what's working (or not) for you, and just committing those actions to muscle memory. I was more [physically] worn out after yesterday's class than I usually am. Felt good, and I hope we have more days like this in the future.

Results vs. Technique

2010-03-04T10:57:00.000-05:00

While reading the new Freakonomics book (SuperFreakonomics), I came accross an interesting tidbit on professional athletes and decided to follow up with a little research of the studies behind it.

It seems that the overwhelming majority of the world's most successful athletes have one very important thing in common. They do not rely on their gifts alone (which they have), but train very, very hard. More improtantly, and more relevant to us, is how and what they train.

The world's best atheletes invariably train in a way that stresses both result and technique equally. Meaning, when practicing hitting a ball with a bat, the top athlete will not only practice with the goal of hitting a fast ball very far, he will work on the technique of his swing. Body position, timing, footwork, etc.

Athletes who rely on their gifts alone rarely if ever make it to the top, and neither do athletes who focus only on results.

How is this applicable to us? Many HEMA students show great skill and competence in free play, and perhaps in paired exercises, while showing poor technique in solo practice. If this describes you, considering the above advice, I strongly suggest you step up your game, because statistics don't lie, and while you'll always be good, you'll never be great.

Focus on your performance of individual techniques (cuts, thrusts, guard transitions, solo forms, etc.). Improve your fluidity, balance, coordination and precision. Practice slow and steady until you can do it perfectly.

Results are great, but ironically, it seems you can't achieve them by focusing on them, unless of course you're aiming low.

Learning by teaching

2010-02-28T11:38:00.000-05:00

I like the little opportunities I get now and again to teach during class—even when I'm slightly unsure of myself (e.g. during Kampfringen). Teaching forces me to think more about what's going on, which also helps me internalize it. I recognize that there are plenty of things I need to practice just in the way of teaching (e.g. occasionally over-explaining), but I do like doing it, and I think it's very good for me to do it.

The morality of martial arts

2010-02-25T19:54:00.000-05:00

When you study deadly arts in a group with others, every single time you do this, you place these people in your hands; their safety, their progress, their future and their lives. The teacher guides the class, but the students are responsible for learning, but not only for their own learning, for that of their fellow students.

Students must learn to cooperate in paired exercises and other activities, and not try to win all the time, or they compromise their own learning and that of everyone they are paired up with. To do this, students must have respect for the art, for the learning process, for their teacher, for themselves and for their fellow students.

Students must understand the danger of what they practice and limit themselves accordingly so as not to injure their fellow students. Swordsmanship is a dangerous art to study, and the more vehemently one studies it the more dangerous it becomes. One must find the balance between effective training and safety, and to do this students will need to develop a sense of responsibility towards their fellows.

Students must obey school rules. Rules and rituals exist to help people get in the proper mindset, to keep them safe, and to remind them of what is important when studying. A particular student may not need these rules, or may not understand why they are needed, but he or she must still obey them for the benefit of others. To do this, students must have respect for and trust in the teacher who creates these rules, and a sense of responsibility to their fellow students, for even if one student doesn't need them, others do.

Students must give everything they have to the art, to train hard and to practice hard and to make the art their own. To do less would be to leech the time and energy of their teacher and fellow students, because if a student doesn’t take the art seriously, then he or she shouldn’t be studying it. This also takes responsibility and respect, most importantly respect for one self, but tempered by humility. A student does not deserve attention just because of who he or she is. A student must realize that he or she gives back to the teacher and other students by giving of oneself to the art, and by learning the skills and values (as discussed here), so that this person’s presence in a school is a benefit to everyone, and not a detriment.

This, to me, is what it means to be a martial artist, rather than just a fighter or thug. The martial artist learns and teaches, and that is not something that can be done solo. Anything that takes a group to do requires cooperation, responsibility, trust, respect and humility.

We are celebrities...

2010-02-13T12:23:00.000-05:00

...in Korea.

Our two cutting videos now have over 10,000 hits. Apparently, people in Korea are very interested in Medieval martial arts and test cutting. I think this is great. These arts are European in origin, but they do not belong solely to Europeans. They are a collective cultural treasure that belong to everyone in the world, and I am honored to share these arts with our friends overseas.

The Asian people have shared their martial arts with us for a long time, and I'm glad that we now have something to give back to them.

Working on my Zornhau: getting worse before getting better

2010-02-05T13:52:00.000-05:00

As I've mentioned before, I regard myself as having an adequate technical knowledge of the Zornhau [Oberhau from right shoulder] and understand what aspect of it I'm trying to improve: maximum arm extension (without locking the elbows) to give the cut just a little more range. So, over the last few days I've been working on just that. Or so I thought. Yesterday I was very frustrated because it seemed as though my Zornhau was getting considerably worse: beyond the fact that I was lacking that satisfying fsst as the blade sweeps through the air (probably a sign that my edge alignment sucked), the tip of the weapon was travelling in a distressingly wobbly line. This wasn't only happening during fast cuts, but also when I cut slowly.

The only thing to do was go back to the basics: forget full extension, forget adjusting my grip on the hilt (which I realized I was also giving a little too much thought to, after being reprimanded by my teacher to stop opening & closing my hands while in vom Tag), and just cut. "Punch" with the right arm, "kick" with the right foot to swing the hip. I simplified it further, by using a one-handed grip on the sword to eliminate any possible interference from my left hand. After a while, I began to notice a slight improvement. Satisfied that at least I wasn't getting worse any more, I moved on with the rest of my practice. This morning, I practiced it the same way, stripping the cut down to just the things that make it a cut. We'll see where my cut is next week; maybe I'll still need to extend a bit more, or make some other small adjustments, but for now, I'm letting that stuff go.

EDIT: After some discussion with the teacher, apparently the "punch" mechanic is obsolete for our purposes. Back to the drawing board with this one. I'm just looking for consistently good results here.

Scheitelhau

2010-02-04T23:45:00.000-05:00

Effective immediately, stop doing Scheitelhau from on-the-shoulder Vom Tag. Never, ever, ever do it again.

Do it from over-the-head Vom Tag only.

Practice

2010-02-02T14:16:00.000-05:00

Practice felt good this morning. I'm finally getting to the point where I have a decent repertoire to go through. I can see myself a month ago practicing one thing, then standing around scratching my head, looking at notes, and then deciding what do practice next. Now, there are enough things that I know on a good enough technical level to practice without second-guessing myself with Am I doing this right?.. I can just get right to making it better than yesterday. For example, I know my Zornhau is more or less correct; now it's time to work on getting that extension of the arms.

I (re-)started pell work this morning; my back yard is almost defrosted enough (there are still some icy patches on the ground that refuse to go away). Mike's taught us to use the pell not only for striking, but also for the approach: smooth steps, on the balls of the feet, coming into measure. This is something I'd never even considered when I originally made my pell, and now it's twice as useful as a practice tool.

Both Monday and Tuesday mornings I got a good 30 minutes of solid practice in, but even now I'm remembering things I left out, or could've done differently. My personal goal for now is to get up to 45 min a day.

Every fight...

2010-02-01T21:12:00.000-05:00

There is a saying I've picked up along the way: "Step into every fight as if it were your last." The point of the proverb is to engender caution, since you never know if you will die in the conflict to come. Always treat your every opponent as if they can kill you and his every blow bearing such intent.

If you always train with that in your mind, then when it finally comes to blows, it will feel like you are training rather than feeling like an alien situation. Unfamiliarity breeds fear, and fear is the mindkiller. It has no place in your heart when you fight, and thus no place in your being when you train.

On a similar note, you must make your opponent believe that fighting you is a big, if not grievous mistake. The subtleties of this psychological warfare begin in your body language. Express the strength of your stance out of measure, make known the confidence of your stride as you come into measure, and strike with cold, calculated efficiency in krieg.

I believe this element of combat should be noted often, since I've noticed a significant enough lack of confidence in the actions of some of the students.

Training

2010-01-29T14:16:00.000-05:00

As some of you know, I’m a writer, and there’s something we hear a lot of in the writer community—you’re not a writer if you don’t write. It’s not enough to visit writing forums, or attend weekly writer’s workshops, or call yourself a writer in your facebook profile. Well, the same is true in martial arts. You're not a martial artist if you don't train.

Everyone should, ideally, practice for half an hour to an hour a day at least three times a week, not including class on Saturdays. All of you have the space, time and equipment to practice, whether you know it or not. A few weeks ago I brought a fish griller into class as an example of what to use in a cramped space. You can also use it in place of a weight bar—put something heavy in the grill and tape it with duct tape.

You need a pell. If you don’t have a pell, make one. Those of you who live in private homes can dig a hole, fill it with cement and stick in a treated 4x4. If you rent, or live in an apartment, get a small car tire and make a ceiling mount with a chain so you can take it off when you’re not using it. If neither of those things work, buy an inflatable karate target, or one with a water filled base. Where there is a will, there is away.

Everyone should be doing the drills, both guard transition and striking drill, repeatedly, every time you practice. In addition to that, do twenty or more of each cut from each side—all the meisterhau, unterhau and mittlehau. Then do twenty or more thrusts from each side from Pflug, Ochs, with and without steps. Novices should practice solo drill forms of each item in their curriculums that they have been taught. Remember, never cut air, never counter air. Always see an opponent in front of you. Half of your workout should be pell work. Use a waster for this, steel will break (as recently proven). They are called wasters for a reason.

Strength/endurance training is great, but it doesn’t count as practice, or we would be going to marathon runners to learn how to use a sword. That said, you should definitely do it, and the more the better. Running and weight lifting are the easiest and least useful, which is not to say not useful. Speed rope is fantastic (and does count as part of practice), as it makes you lively on your feet and enhances your hand/foot coordination which is crucial in swordsmanship. I highly recommend everyone get a speed rope. I’ve previously asked everyone to buy a 6lb weight bar and use it as a sword for a portion of your workout. This is a great way to not only build strength but to teach you to use your body instead of your arms.

One aspect of intense training people often forget is endorphin release. Training hard feels good. Really, really good. Aside from that, don’t hesitate to use music or anything else that gets you motivated. Remember, if you want to be a martial artist, you have to train. There is no way around that.

Questions

2010-01-26T15:20:00.000-05:00

Personally, I love questions. I love to answer them, I love the look of "oh!" on people's faces when they understand the answer. The problem is, we have limited time in class, and I have limited mental energy to give you. So please stop asking questions during class.

Let me rephrase--ask questions about what you need to do at that given moment, as briefly as possible. These are necessary, because if you don't know, you can't proceed. However, general questions, such as why we train a certain way, why I do things a certain way, etc., these have to go away. They need to go away to a place called "after class" or the NYHFA blog. Breaks are not a good time for these questions, becuase breaks are limited, and as I have proven in the last class, my love of questions makes me easily distracted and I am prone to rambling on well past the end of the break.

The more important factor that comes into this, however, is trust. I know how to do something that you don't know, and so you come to me to learn. Good, that's why I'm here. Now shut up and let me teach you. You will come to understand everything if you let the knoweldge be absorbed at the right time. You cannot rush knowledge. I can tell you everything I know in an hour. Will that mean you will know it all too? Knowledge must be earned.

As my friend and colleague Jessica Finely said recently, "When was the last time you sat down with a child and explained to them how to ride a bicycle?" I replied, "Never, I just set them on the bike and yell at them 'till they get it." She said, "Exactly."

Our new training model is train more, talk less. This is for your benefit, not mine. As I said, I love questions, and I am going to miss them.

Implications of missing class

2010-01-24T01:40:00.000-05:00

As I teach the Novice Basic curriculum to prepare some of you for the test that will open the doors to the Novice Advanced curriculum, I will teach you to not only execute the techniques correctly as some of you have in the past, but to meet very high standards of technical competence, conceptual understanding and intent/awareness.

To do so, I will rotate through the curriculum, covering and reinforcing the material. However, I will make no allowances in this plan--zero, zip, zilch--for people who miss class. Therefore, if you come twice a month, it will take you twice as long to get the same material than it will for someone who comes to every class.

I understand that some people cannot attend every class for various reasons, most of them good, but I cannot punish those who attend every week by reviewing things for the benefit of those who do not. I am telling you this because I want you to be fully aware of what he implications of missing class are. To a certain extent, you can make up for missing class by practicing on your own at home, but that will only take you so far.

Intensity

2010-01-24T00:24:00.001-05:00

The point of our "intensity" drills, those done with full intent and constant awareness, is to simulate, as closely as possible, a life or death struggle with weapons. As such, some of you are expected to strike with all the speed and power you can muster. Some, but not all.

The safety of these drills lies in two things, the first being that your attack is a known quantity--your drill partner knows exactly where you will strike and vice versa. The second is skill, both your partner's and your own. It is partly for this reason that those who have not taken the novice test may not participate fully in these drills but are limited to the roles involving a simple attack or a simple defense. Yet even these can pose great danger, as a mistake at full power can cause grievous injury.

If you're unsure whether you should be holding back or giving it all you've got, ask me. The simple rule is, if you're new, tone it down. Keep it intense in your mind, but focus more on proper technique and being relaxed than putting power or speed into your attacks. You will soon realize that it is this, being relaxed and precise, that is the key to a fast and powerful attack.

mental notes

2010-01-20T16:17:00.000-05:00

- When guard transition drill gets boring, do it backwards (starting in left vom Tag).

- While working on Krumphau, I noticed something about my weight distribution; how I had been doing the step before seemed a little cumbersome, and today by accident I noticed that the whole action was smoother when I don't transfer as much weight to what becomes my leading leg. I have to practice and think about this some more, and then I'll want to test it against a full-intent Oberhau. My concern is I may be sacrificing some of the stopping-power of the Krumphau if this new weight distribution is going to upset my structure.

Not an epiphany but..

2010-01-10T19:31:00.000-05:00

It had occurred to me that I didn't leave class with my normal array of cuts and bruises on my hands. Now, I'm going to chalk this up to luck (or probability) but it did get me thinking about the movement towards "full-intensity" training, and how it may actually lead to less injuries during practice. [Back me up on this one... or maybe I'm just injury-prone?]

By being in the fighting frame of mind from way out of measure, I would wager that at least incidental damage would go down significantly due to the simple fact that we - both agent and patient - are focused only on performing a single action (or small series of actions). We already know that these techniques work, it's just a matter of letting them play out to the correct end.. which involves getting rid of the mental background noise.

This is only a theory though :-) One which I will be testing every class, however.

Welcome

2009-12-21T16:13:00.000-05:00

This blog is the official journal of the New York Historical Fencing Assocation, a place for students and instructors to share their thoughts, experiences and ideas as they progress through their studies. Please feel free to post on any related topic.