Lesson plan 21st Feb onward

Much more work with the set pace sparring this week, with all classes fighting:
Longsword against the like.
Rapier against longsword.
Sword with buckler against the like.
Again the focus will be on moving at the same pace as your opponent eliminating weaknesses through technique not through increased speed. Remember also that there no such thing as a cheep shot, you get hit by a thing you get hit, no excuses just learn and improve.

Also I would like to see more closing to grapple. Again with the same pace.

And
Last week to confirm your place on the feder order. If you want one, say now.


Train hard. Dave

Lesson plan 14th Feb onwards

 
Monday Barbican: Longsword, Set pace sparring to warm up*, coming to the fight and grappling at the sword
Tuesday Beckenham: Longsword: Set pace sparring to warm up, coming to the fight and grappling at the sword.
Wednesday Blackfriars:  Longsword and Messer: Set pace sparring to warm up, coming to the fight and grappling at the sword.
Thursday Hither Green: Burn Night. high  Rep high intensity drilling, HIRTS rope training and Bulgarian bag work, Longsword and messer work, again more grappling at the sword.
Friday Sutton: sword grappling and set pace sparring.

*Set pace sparring is a very hard thing to do, you pick a speed that you can strike but also adjust to defence should you need to do so, all of your partner's responses (and your own) must take place at this speed.

The idea behind this is that, rather than relying on speed or strength to make techniques work, you work on structure and gradually eliminate unnecesary and wide spaced motions that leave you exposed in the fight.
It's very common that upon finding a weakness in your form you will use a sudden motion to extricate yourself or strike the opponent, if you do this you have missed the point. For the technique to be superior it must work at the same speed and strength (or slower and weaker) when you have that form speed and strength are added bonuses. Train hard, Dave

7th Feb onwards Lesson plan, Grapple Week.

Against the overwhelming slip and throw.

This week just to give us a break from the  multi discipline work, it's grappling at the sword time.
You are going to be doing this without masks so a few things you need to keep in mind.

Both
Cut without force to the binding distance, don't try and smash the first shot to the head.
Do cut through the face bearing in structure, not in distance (short).
Attacker
From there overwhelm your partner (close strongly and step close).

This oddly comes from the my right.

This will give the pressure and distance needed to make the move work. As the grappler grapple because it's the right thing at the right time, don't force it, don't go from long to short range ignoring the sword as you go in.

Also, those of you wanting feders and uniform get your orders in, the details are on the forum. 

Messerin around, this weeks class updates

Jim from the Sutton class pulls of a disarm against a half sword neck throw

An impressive week around with a couple of stand out performances Fluer and Hakeem in particular, Hakeem was a flying fury this with week the speed and commitment of his assaults taking at least one person very much by surprise, it was great to watch. Pete from the Beckenham spa class also acquitted himself well going staying on for the final four fights of the night (although the re occurring "only ten more seconds" may have been a little mean he did great).

flying winding from last weeks session.

Burn night again was fantastic fun, more bags and bungees, breaking the parry with mutieren and duplieren then grappling with the longsword and simple messer work.

The Bulgarian bags, how we love those bags.

The messer work itself caused a little bit of a stir with suggestions that the way we are practising the Talhoffer set is "not messer", "more like saber or dussack" these misunderstandings come from a lack of familiarity of with the material, some messer systems using a passing step with the blow much like longsword, Talhoffer (1467) however keeps the right foot forward (as I illustrate) only uses a passing step to grapple. I use Talhoffer as an introduction to messer as it is simple (very few moves) and gives you the perfect framework to bolt on the more expansive systems such as  Leckuchner. You can watch the clip here and make your own mind up.

So next week...
We are going to continue with the rapier v/s longsword adding in the longsword change through.

More practice on entering in crook against first ward with the sword and buckler.
More mutieren and duplieren with longsword
More of Talhoffer's messer, with the addition of half sword techniques and counters.
And of course Burn Night.
Train hard.
Dave