Seasons greetings from the London Longsword Academy

Good wishes to you all out there from the L.L.A

We hope your enemies become your friends,

and your bonds of friendship grow ever stronger.

Peace to you.

Training nights over xmas,

Mondays: As normal every Monday.
Tuesdays: Back on the 4th of January.
Wednesdays: Back on the 5th of January.
Thursdays: Tomorrow as normal then break till the 6th of January.
Fridays: Off 24th, a special 2pm class on new year's eve then back to normal on the 7th of Jan.

Private lessons are of course still going on throughout the festive period... Have a good holiday folks and remember "Be excellent to each other".

Burn Night update 22nd December.

The last Burn Night of the year last night, but we'll be back January the 4th.

 

 

Andy and Nick feeling the burn...

As it was a quiet night Andy and I started off working through Talhoffer's messer work with the rattan canes, this was done very free-form to emphasise the timing of receiving the blow rather than obsessing about perfect poise...

Talhoffer's messer work from 1467

The action was from downward strikes from any direction countered with either a downward blow/parry or a rising blow. No pause no, let up, then as the timing improved slipping the occasional counter in, then gradually increasing these in frequency.

In the few minutes remaining before Nick arrived for his first burn out, we went through the simple messer techniques a little more slowly, looking at the shape and structure of the moves.
This is an unusual format for Burn Night usually all this will be done on the H.I.R.T.S. But we wanted to save the real burn for Nick's arrival...

Nick (right) notices he's arrived.

 The Burn drills were very simple last night:
Entry with Zornhau and krieg against the parry.
Zwerch against a free oberhau, countering that zwerch with another.
Zorn against a free oberhau using tactile sensitivity to dictate the secondary technique.
All this of course performed while attached to the H.I.R.T.S ropes (the enormous blue rope you can see attached in some of the pics).

Andy looks like he may go flying backward, that's because he may go...

Although we started the burn a little late everyone put in a hell of an effort, change overs were quick and the workout furious, and I think burn night won another convert. 
Burn night will return Jan the 4th at the O.L.F gym in Hither Green.

LLA Sutton, Sword and buckler December 17th

London Longsword Academy Sutton is to date my smallest class, but one of my favourites, the effort and humour put in by the (currently 2) students there is phenomenal, very much a case of get in there, push yourself hard, have a giggle along the way, but do not let that you stop moving. The students there exemplify that approach.

Last night was sword and buckler, lots of it... Straight into cutting transitions to warm up. ten minutes then quickly onto pad work.

The work begins.

The drills (I'm sure you are going to see a these soon) are designed to maximise your timing in attacking or trapping, making the system of  I.33 simple and instinctive to use.

Making Mr T work the pads.

And that is what we did for the whole session, egging each other on, building the tempo...

Great work, the lesson flew by, we even managed to carry on training when Toby missed the block on two shots, somehow managing to carry on entering and attacking while half folded up in laughter, I think I've figured out why the priest is grinning. An awesome system and awesome students to train with.

I.33 the manual for happy stabbers.

The Sutton class is coming down to train with us in Bromley next week, pick up on how they train, it's harder work, but very rewarding, train hard, see you at the next session. Dave

Thurs 16th December and how it went.

Into the schrank...

Bromley: Longsword and Sword with buckler: This was the penultimate Bromley lesson of the year but also the first time we have had two of the new Rawlings range Pro-line steel crossguards on the training swords, and they perform VERY well, a totally different and more realistic feel to the trainers, (We now have these and the full range of Rawlings training swords in stock), again we time trialled it.

Warm up: 
Longsword: guard transitions.
Sword and buckler: The seven wards and cut transitions.
Initially we took the same format as Wednesday's class, however as people weren't picking it up as fluidly as the previous night (only to be expected as it's a newer group of students), we split into two groups, focussing for longer on each sequence. then swapping around midway through.

The cut completed.

Group 1: Longsword: cutting into shranckhut, just to shranck at first then flowing into the cut, no pausing between.
Group 2: sword and buckler: lots of drilling ward transitions, focus on removing the thought interruption and allowing the body to work it out as it says in the manual “Practice is better than art". 


The groups swapped, and then onto part two.

Longsword: again with the shranckhut, this time against the oberhau, very much following the "no excuses" doctrine, again against any oberhau from the right, working through the points where students had trouble with a certain angle or timing and making the move work for them, this quite often dealt with by simply "striking to the flat".

It's important to have at least one camp picture per session.

Sword and buckler: as with the last few occasions binding trap and enter on the pads, with for the more advanced the bind on the inside.

I'd like to give Pete L a special mention for last night, he showed the best form I've seen from him, a very good performance (all this despite my yelling at him), very well done Pete.

Wednesday 15th Blackfriars...

Nick and Pete (foreground) "helping" each other.

Yesterday was the final Wednesday session of the year. The class as was to be expected with the amount of Xmas parties going around a fair bit quieter than usual (bear in mind that the L.L.A has a maximum class size of ten for quality purposes anyway)  but the few that did turn up put in a great performance.
Again we worked circuits, the first thirty minutes spent drilling the sword and buckler wards and linking cuts of I.33, and longsword guard transitions and  striking into shrankhut followed by a false edge blow.
 As usual we worked 2 minute circuits, one on left, one on right, then rapidly onto the next weapon.

Five people two sets of sword and buckler, three feders


For the second part of the lesson we went for:
Longsword: uncooperative drilling of the strike into shrankhut against the oberhau.
Sword and buckler: entry with the thrust on pads.


and for the final part:
Longsword: uncooperative drilling of the zwerch against oberhau.
sword and Buckler: Pad work left and right trap and binds.

Everyone worked superbly hard, it was great to hear the students egging each other on offering encouragement to push that little bit further. It was also good to have at least one student rolling on the floor gasping, a great effort all round...

For those of you that aren't back till the new year, have a good one. The rest of you, see you at the next session.

Burn Night Update

Here are a few pictures from tonight's BURN NIGHT, it was an amazing effort by everyone, again as I said in the earlier blog, we practised Zwerch and counter with the longsword, and thrust, followed by enter trap and strike (bind, knock, strike) on the pads, towards the halfway mark as we had an extra student show up, we added squinter against long point, again, all on the H.I.R.T.S cords.

 

David R (me) explaining the bind/knock/cut on the pads.

 Each move was of course explained beforehand in detail, this only took around five minutes out the total hour though, so the rest really was down to getting on the hurt.

On the H.I.R.T.S, one minute on one minute off.

This general regime was pretty simple, I explained the technique, then each side did a minute right handed, then changed to the left hand and did a minute left handed each. So we worked in circuits of four minutes on each drill.

At this point Mike (rear right in the red top), started to believe he could fly.

After each four minute circuit, we changed, each pair moving to a new drill.

we had three drills 2 longsword (zwerch, and squinter) and one sword and buckler. So everyone had twelve minutes of high resistance workout, followed by a review of what had happened (around four minutes) then off again.

Andy S goes all Ninja (right rear).

 Overall we kept the loop going for just shy of an hour, very little stoppage, very well done, and of course, we get to do it all again next week...

Those who joined me at this weeks BURN NIGHT were...

Pete Samworth Instructor of Folkestone Boar's Tooth

Mike "wingman" Nevell.

Adam Chandler (who for some reason didn't come out in focus in any pics, creepy).

Bert "I know something you do not know" Sowerby...He's not right handed.

And Steve, who I think practices this face in front of the mirror.

Again, very well done guys, I look forward to next week.

Tuesday 14th Burn Night

Tonight at Hither Green class: Burn Night: Longsword will be Zwerch and counters again... sword and buckler will be entering and trapping. Last week we stole the audience from the MMA guys, lets see if we can do it again. Depending on attendance we may even pull out the Bulgarian bags as well, this is going to hurt chaps but I know you'll do well, bring water

Monday 13th December training schedule.

Barbican 8pm:
Longsword: more squinter work, this time on pads and against the long point.
Sword and Buckler: more pad work, lots of trapping and striking, lots of circuits.

It should be a good workout so make sure you bring water...

Feder training swords are in.

For all of those of you that ordered feders, they are in, please bring a bag large enough to transport them safely from the training.

Friday 10th December

Sutton class: Sword and buckler, the whole session was spent on sword and buckler, pad work, lots of bind trap and enter, followed by the falling under. We all worked hard and left buzzing, thanks for your efforts chaps.

Wed 8th and Thursday 9th December

As you can see the schedule is a day behind, this is mainly due to recovering from burn night, if you can imagine swinging 2lb+ of finely balanced steel dynamically for an hour, in a high octane mix of pad work, cut and counter work and resistance H.I.R.T.S training you will still have no idea how physically and mentally intense an experience it is, to understand you need to feel it... legs arms and abdominals all should be aching like mad if you are doing it right, an awesome core workout. To paraphrase the man, fence with all your body... to help you do that, we will train all your body...
So to update you to Wednesday night: We went straight to longsword and sword/buckler, skipping Rapier for the week, the drills went like so:
Each circuit: 20 mins one minute on sword one on pads or counter then swap.
circuit one: Longsword, squinting strike on pads, left and right sides, mins one minute on sword one on pads then swap. sword/buckler, advance in thrust to pad.

Circuit 2: Longsword, again squinter on pads, sword/buckler enter tap down pin and strike.

Circuit 3: Longsword squinter against the fool (latter plough and it's assaults), sword/buckler enter in in half, (countered with the falling under), bind down, trap and strike.

Well done those of you who attended a great effort and good progress.

Thursday's lesson:
Well, as it was so much fun yesterday, we are going to do it all again. see Wednesday nights lesson. Train hard, Dave

Tuesday 7th BURN NIGHT Long sword/Sword and buckler

Don't forget every Tuesday is BURN NIGHT Tonight is Longsword thrust and counter, squinter and zwerch with counter, PLUS sword and buckler enter and trap on both sides, ALL of this done on the HIRTS trainer ropes, it's going to hurt, it's going to leave you exhausted, it will make you feel you've taken your training to another level.
I hope to see you there. Dave

Monday nights and the Xmas holidays.

After speaking to the students who attended last night, the decision has been taken to train every Monday over xmas and into the new year.
That means that.
Monday 13th training as usual.
Monday 20th  training as usual.
Monday 27th  training as usual.
Monday 3rd Jan  training as usual.

Thanks very much for your commitment chaps, you make me proud.

Training schedule Monday 7th

Barbican 8pm: Longsword tonight is drilling squinter on the pads followed by it's use against the alber (latter plough) and Longpoint..
Sword and buckler will be drilling enter, bind, trap to strike, with a disengage thrust and counter thrown in if you perfect that...
You'll be glad to know that we are in bag in the main hall, thanks to those of you who came and trained in the closet last week.

Rawlings PRO LINE guards now available.

 

The new Rawlings Pro Line cross guards are now in stock at the Knight Shop  made of stainless steel these increase the overall weight and drastically improve balance and realistic feel of the training sword, offering a much  better work out and a closer experience to training with the real thing...

There are some new blades in the pipeline too, more news on those as we get it, as you'd expect all the fittings (old/new blades/crosses) are fully interchangeable. Train hard..Dave

Thursday (last night)

Bromley class: Longsword, well done for all of you who turned up regardless of the conditions, and well done for the hard work you put in, last night was squinter practice against striking pads and the the thrust. Very impressed with everyone.

Wednesday December 1st

Blackfriars:
Rapier 7.30pm: is by invite only tonight.
Longsword: 8.30pm:  is, by popular demand "squinter practice".

Wrap up warm chaps, I'll see you there...