After the cut

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..

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

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

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?

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.