Class started out with some free form warm ups.

I had to leave early so took the first 1.5 hours of class and went over some LS
material.

Todays focus was on some drills to sharpen the handling of the sword using the
rising true edge cuts.

I introduced the 'oh shite' drill with some of my own modifications.

This is a cooperative flow drill in which the attacker and defender are both
learning about footwork, distance and proper agreement of hand and foot.

A passing step forward for attacker and back for defender for each colpi.

Attacker: (targeting head at all times for this drill)
from fendente destra
cut fendente dritto (keep a nice tight ribbon cut)

Defender:
jam/foreshorten attack with frontale on left, pass right.

Attacker:
after performing volta stabile and recovering into finestra sinestra
cut sottano riverso with true edge, pass left

Defender:
block sottano with an offset 'breve' (the oh shite), pass left.
Emphasis: keeping the defending blade ON TOP of the offending blade and point on
line as much as possible. As this was very new the the newer students I found
it more important that they concentrated on utilizing their tutta and crossguard
to stop the incoming cut for now.
Stay alive!

Attacker:
after recovering to finestra destra, cut sottano dritto with true edge, pass
right

Defender:
shift hands over to an off set 'breve' keeping the offending colpi from making
contact with the body. As before utilizing the tutta and crossguard to get
maximum protection.

Attacker:
after recovering to finestra sinestra cut fendente roverso

Defender:
jam offending blade with 'frontale' formed on the right side by turning true
edge out, leaving the point still oriented towards the center.

When it is broken down it is:

Attacker cut high right, low left, low right, high left from finestra.
Defender may make first action from tutta porta di ferro. The defense actions
are frontale left, modified breve right, modified breve lrft, fontale right.

My initial intentions of having the defensive actions keep the point fairly on
line were a bit ambitious for this group of new students. Shannon and Karl were
spot on. I modified the drill so that the newer students were merely to jam the
incoming colpi with the strong of their blade and their cross guards. This will
have many applications in the future.....rompero di punta anyone?

Foot work was a bit of an issue for the newer students. The sottani dritto
caused the most over stepping. That powerful swing up caused such a pivot of
the rear foot that students were landing in the end of their volta stabile...way
over shooting a real target. I stopped them and had them 'air ball' the drill
as a cutting drill as they had done before and asked them to think of the entire
thing as an actual cutting drill...not a partner drill. The defenders could take
care of themselves. This improved things remarkably.

We did some false edge sottani with the pass on the sottani and no step on the
fendendi and visa versa.

The last exercise was one I picked up at while playing with one of Guy Windor's
students. It is excellent for balance (great for me!), footwork and strength
building. The student puts feet a little farther than shoulder width apart in a
nice Fiore stance. Now the student squats all the way to the floor...volta
stabile in both directions in the extremely low stance. There is no mistake
which leg is forward weighted and the back heel WILL be off the ground or you
will progably fall over. After a few of those then take some passing steps and
some voltas. Throw in an acressare or discressare if possible....these are very
hard. This exercise is easier said than done. If you aren't sweating in 5
minutes you are in good shape! I have actually incorporated into my regular
workout. It is a leg killer. From here the exercise moves up to about horse
stance height with legs extended out very far. Balance and strength! (My
physical therapist will be very proud of this one.) If you can do this you can
do any footwork with true Elephant properties.

Karen

Karl will have to fill in the abrazare notes.

Abrazare notes from Shannon.

> Then it was time for abrazare. We began by practicing the ligadura stretches.
We discovered that, when doing the ligadura sottana, it is more effective to
keep the opponent's elbow along one's chest. As a general rule, it is more
effective to keep the opponent's arm close to one's body when doing the ligadura
sottana and the ligadura mezzana so that his arm does not escape. Also keep in
mind that one has the best leverage when when one's opponent's arm is at a 90
degree angle.
>
> Then Karl showed us some counters to the ligadura. The ligadura sottana can
be countered by placing one's hand to one's hip or by grabbing one's belt. The
patient was then able to raise is arm and put the agent into a ligadura mezzana.
Ligaduras mezzana and soprana can be countered by placing one's hand on one's
head. These sorts of counters had to be done just as the agent had committed to
performing the ligadura. Karl also discussed a counter to the ligadura sottana
that entailed turning the hand as one straightened the arm and stepped forward.
This last one could be performed when the lock was already placed. There was
quite a variety of other things which were done; experimenting, going on a few
tangents, and being thrown about in different ways; but I cannot remember their
multitude.
>
> In short, practice was quite fun.

Defense against a low strike: Ligadure Sottano

A: Uppercut type punch to P face-right side.
P: From frontale stop offending arm by stepping off the line to the outside.
With right hand block wrist area and left
hand strike elbow bending it and breaking it's rigidity and structure. Shoot
left hand around the back of the elbow
into boar's tooth. Compass pace and come finish in iron gate. The A's arm will
be straight and they will be in a joint lock.

Technique was finished when a was the the ligadura sottano was effected.
Technique was practiced on both sides.

Karl's thoughts

This technique starts out with the Patient in Frontale. Frontale leaves the
lower portion of the body open, and an
obvious target for an attack - could be a rising punch (boar's tooth) or a
low-line straight punch (low version of longa)
- either of these could be done to the gut or solar plexus. The spacing between
the hands/arms also may appear to leave the
high centerline vulnerable to a rising attack from below. So, we've just
mentioned three possible attacks. Let's choose to
have the Agent do a slightly rising punch to the solar plexus.

A: From Iron Gate (left foot lead), pass forward into Boar's Tooth (right foot
lead). Use the action of scooping the right
fist upward as a strike to the Patient's solar plexus.

P: From Frontale (left foot lead), do an acresere with only a slight slope, but
make sure that you clear the line
and bring your rear foot with you. [If you do the technique from Frontale with a
right foot lead, make the action a passare
instead of an acrescere.] This gives you a foundational part of not getting hit.
Let's add to that.

As you step offline, use the hand that is farthest from the Agent's centerline
(left hand, in this case) to strike a downward
angled blow (fendente roverso) into the Agent's elbow.

While Fiore does not list the inside of the elbow as a place of pain in terms of
striking, we see strikes here at other places
in the system, particularly in armored combat. This is also a violent
application of Fiore's elbow push, just done from the
inside of the elbow (folding the arm) instead of the outside (straightening the
arm). This strike to the inside of the elbow
also starts disrupting the Agent's balance. If you strike forcefully through
their elbow to the rear triangle point, you may
take them down right here, but do not count on that.

Let's add to this. Take your other hand (the one closes to the Agent's
centerline), and let it drop down onto the
Agent's forearm. If you want to add a little oomph to this, as an open-palm
strike, that's fine, but don't go crazy here.
The intention is to be able to grasp the wrist/forearm for control. If you
happen to create a bit of a downward angle on
the Agent's forearm, that's OK.

Take a look at how you are standing. take a look at the hand you used to strike
the Agent's inside elbow - if you
rotated that hand so that the palm was up, you'd be in the position that is like
Boar's tooth for a left-handed swordsman. If you
don't rotate the hand, it's also like holding a spear with the thumbs-in grip.
So, how do we generally thrust or cut upwards
from a Boar's Tooth position? We'll do the same thing here, with the Agent's
forearm being the sword's handle or the spear's haft.

Pretend that you are striking upward into another opponent who is behind, and at
an agle to, the Agent. Make an upward
diagonal motion (may use a slight scooping action) as you do another acresere.
If you slightly slope that acrescere
again instead of going straight forward, you may unbalanace the person down to
their rear triangle point. When you end this
upward diagonal motion, you want the Agent's upper arm to be level with their
shoulders. Keeping the hand in the thumbs-in grip
helps make this action happen.

Now, if you are still in that thumbs-in grip, rotate the hand that struck the
elbow so that the palm faces you. If you've got a
good bend in their arm, it will be easier to place your palm on the bicep/tricep
area, just behind the elbow. If you did not
get a good bend in their arm, or your hand was already turned upward, there is a
tendency for the hand to go to the Agent's
shoulder (or at least higher on the upper arm) - this will change the technique
into something akin to the Remedy Master instead
of the Ligadura Sotanna. Make sure that their arm is bent and that your hands
cups the area just next to the Agent's elbow.

If you don't strike the elbow, and instead simply insert your hand at the
Agent's elbow as you step past them and turn, your hand
will very likely end up on their shoulder, and you'll do something akin to the
remedy master/shoulder throw instead of the ligadura
sotana. It's not an invalid technique, in fact, it's very smooth an
aikido-like; however, it's not the technique we're doing here.
It's nice to know that we've still got options if we don't do the technique
correctly.

Right, so you've got the hand turned, and it's facing towards you, cupping just
above the Agent's elbow. Keep the Agent's upper
arm level with their shoulders and you volta stabile. (You can think of this as
keeping their arm level and raising your own elbow
so that your arm rotates around the axis of their upper arm as you turn. This
may be more confusing for some people.) At this point,
You can let go with the hand that was grabbing their wrist.

Keep their forearm level as you turn, and move your hand that is on the back of
their elbow in towards your centerline. If you like,
you can bring your free hand over and put it on top of the other hand as you
move it vertically down your centerline. In an actual
combat situation, you would end with your hands in Iron Gate; however, we like
our training partners, so you'll stop when they let
you know that it is working.

[You can also do this technique from a high-line attack. See the First Counter
Master of the First master of dagger OR the
4th Scholar of First Master of Dagger.]

 http://www.journaltimes.com/news/local/article_b32dc342-9f3a-11de-9bc7-001cc4c03286.html

Won, Christine. "Medieval martial arts keeping history alive." The Journal Times. 11 September 2009.

After some warm ups, basic calisthenics, stretching and a round of basic cutting the class was split into two groups.  I worked with Mike, Mike and Jake on set plays. Shannon assisted me nicely in that.  Her height and reach give every partner a bit of a distance lesson :)

Karl worked with Ann-Marie and Becky on some fundamentals with respect to physical limitations because of injuries, etc.

The guys worked on set play 5,3,7,9.  Five was new to Mike L.  He picked it up nicely.  Set play 3 & 7 were worked on for an extensive period of time.  I believe them to be two of the hardest plays for intro folks to get the mechanics of.  There is a lot going on with the entire body on those sottani expulsions.  We first did just the sottani cutting motions and then added an agent into the mix.  Emphasis placed on good agreement of hand/body/foot, use of the levering action of the sword, using the hips, and expulsing the incoming sword at the mezza to the punta.  That is a lot to think about.  I did my level best to reassure the guys that this is intro class and nobody is expecting perfection.......yet  :)

Set play 9 was demonstrated by Shannon and I.  The students practiced it quite a few times.  Set play nine looks easy enough but there are many nuances and timing is everything here. 

We will be revisiting all the plays in the coming weeks.

Class is cancelled next week in personal preparation for WMAW.

See everyone in two weeks.  Keep up your practice! 

Karen 

1. Henry V, William Shakespeare    

2.  Drew, Katharine Fisher: Laws of the Salian Franks. Philadelphia, 1991; University of Philadelphia Press.

Resources:

Barker, Juliet: Agincourt, 2006

Bennett, Matthew: Agincourt, 1415, 1991

Curry, Anne: Agincourt 1415, The Archer's Story, 2008

Encyclopedia Brittanica

World Book Encyclopedia

Taking some wise words of advise from my elders I had a decompression class this evening.  Instead of the usual cutting and set play drills I had engage in some game playing and checking out of various books.

I hauled into my garage some of my favorite books for students of Fiore dei Liberi.  I had for perusal the Fior di Battaglia-Getty MS, the Flos Duelatorum MS by Fiore dei Liberi, some printed pages from the Florius, Arte Gladatoria Dimicandi by Luca Porzio and Greg Mele, Medieval Combat by Hans Talhoffer, the Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi, and the Swordsman's Companion by Guy Windsor. So many books, so little time.  I talked briefly about each and encouraged everyone to start their own research and libraries.

I gave a brief summary of Fiore's life timeline and a bit of the history surrounding him.  Somehow we got off on a tangent of the battles of the time and I recounted the Battle of Agincourt just because it makes me happy to do so.

I had the students do some thrusting at punching mits.  Emphasis on good hand/body/foot agreement and putting the tip of the sword right on that black target at the center of the mit.  Accuracy and good form was stressed. We did a rotating line style practice with students taking several passes through the line.  Thrusting from various poste was explored.

I had the students explore striking/thrusting four targets (in the form of four students holding up their wasters) surrounding them using all the footwork and poste they have learned.
This is one of those games that looks very easy until one is in the middle of the circle trying to find a way to each side of the circle with economy of movement.  Everyone did this several times.  All students improved upon each pass through the circle.  When asked what they learned from this exercise students were unanimous in saying that footwork is important.  What do you know about that?

I demonstrated finger fencing and let the students play with the concept of feeling pressure and learning to go with it or when to press in.  Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves a bit with this learning activity.  The real lesson will become more evident when 'feeling' exercises are introduced with the long sword.

I opened the floor up for questions of any kind.  We had a couple of brief discussions.  I informed the students that if they weren't taking notes that they should begin.  The time has come in their instruction when the Italian terms should become very familiar.

We saluted out at 8:30.  It was totally dark.

Henceforth, all practices will be at the church.  Our natural light is disappearing too quickly.

A good time was had by all.

Karen

In attendance:

Karen, Joe L, Shannon, Rodney, Mike, Mike, Jake

Get well Karl!

The class started off with 5 sets of 20 squats. Each set was a different type. We have lots of muscles to develop here. I encouraged the group to be doing some kind of squat/quad exercise frequently. We moved on to some deep core building and good old push ups....s-l-o-w-l-y. Then we juiced the joints and began our Fiore work.

This week's practice was virtually identical to last week's because we had two members who hadn't had a chance to practice the cutting drill and the dynamics of set play 4.

Foot work was gone over in a bit more detail this week. I stressed the importance of the ball of the foot and keeping the weight on the balls of the feet while still being grounded. Up until now the steps have been learned with a natural walking step. Now that the students have the hang of the depth and width of a proper stance, forward and back weighted stances and the three volte the nuances of good footwork vs excellent footwork will be worked on. I will now be upping the ante frequently on the basics.

Everyone transitioned to ball first stepping with no problem.

My suggestion to everyone: THINK RAILS. PUT YOUR TOES ON RAILS AND KEEP THEM THERE. If your driveway isn't full of sidewalk chalk and your house/apartment isn't covered in blue painter's tape I WILL haunt you.

The poste were covered and tweaked a bit more. The interpretational changes (is that a word?) in some of the poste were covered in more detail.

Fendente cutting was tweaked a bit more tonight. The agreement of hand/body/foot was stressed throughout class. To add to my standard 'push the cross guard out and pull gently in on the pommel' was the pulling of the pommel diagonally across the body as the crossguard was 'punched' out towards the target. I demonstrated that this action would give a good blade alignment and keep one from lifting up on the sword in an effort to make it arc.

We worked on the hanging parry for quite some time. I began this section of class by breaking down the set play into bits.

1. From the middle iron gate with the right foot forward pull the sword up into a modified left window guard (point dropping quite a bit) while doing a volta stabile to the left. This action was practiced several times.

*Make sure you can see your opponent through the little window made by your crossguard/blade/forearm.

2. From the middle iron gate with the right foot forward pull the sword up into a modified left window guard while sloping forward and to the left. This action was practiced several times. "SLOPE AND COVER".

3. From the middle iron gate with the right foot forward pull the sword up into a modified left window guard while sloping forward and to the left. 'SLOPE AND COVER". Compass with the right foot and cut (molinello) to the attacker (agent) forearms/hands. "COMPASS AND COVER"

These three actions were practiced several times before a live opponent was brought into the play.

I started the group off with the agent cutting riverso as the patient did not have to cross the wrists for the hanging parry. The play was done riverso several times by both partners.

The entire process was started over from the opposite side and the mandritto attack.

I had Shannon and Joseph watch each pair and correct any obvious mistakes they saw. I moved back and forth between pairs and made adjustments as necessary for this level of play. Much was learned about distance and what kind of stepping options are available during this type of play.

By the end of the evening everyone had done set play 4 very well.

Huzzah!

Karen