A very happy new year to you.

It has been a fantastic 2014 for the school. I get to teach and train with a lovely bunch of people who are quite inspiring in their efforts. Have a great 2015 and of course, be excellent to each other.
I will leave you with what seems to be a pre cut of our recent appearance on Agence France Presse (the link to which I have provided below). At 2.15 you can see Lignitzer's first play.

If you wish to watch the other clip, go here.

A new London Longsword Academy scholar.

Saturday the 6th, saw our Charity Bash, & the long overdue Scholarship prize fight of Luke Rose.
So how did it go?
As usual I spent the days building up to the event fretting that barely anyone would show, that people would drop out at the last moment and that possibly, just possibly, everything would catch fire and burn to the ground. None of these things happened.
24 fighters joined the competition and a large contingent of guests, all of whom put into the pot for the charities we chose, amassing an excellent £600.

All of the effort and toil of sorting pools was taken out of my hands by the great help of Nancy and Helena (and of course Barney who turned up with all the pool forms in the world). All of this help meant that we were in and ready to roll within an hour.

On the whole, folks were ready to fight on time and, in order to allow free choice of weapons, had communicated their choice and level of protection to their opponent before the bout began. This meant we were able to mix dussack, longsword, rapier, sword and buckler, even sickle. all into the same pools, all judged by the same rules (to see the rules have a look at the posts from the last few weeks. I will repost them soon with notes).

For many of the fighters, yesterday was a steep learning curve, but my, they did rise to it well and it was lovely to see how folk adapted, either making a passive form more assertive, or calming a flail upon realising such vigorous blows and parries left them prone to facial battering. Their potential cover vanishing leaving them unable to do anything but watch the oncoming, inevitable blow. Hard learning that was received with much grace and good humour by all.

The judging overall was excellent (the only slight niggle possibly being Sally, whose strikes seem invisible). The rules seemed to work exceptionally well, allowing for simple and effective calls. There will hopefully be some more pics and videos of the event up soon, so I will save overall commentary for those. But well done, some great fights and of course a well earned congratulations to our winner Tim Fuke.

Luke Roses's Scholarship.

Nothing short of fantastic. I know that Luke has spent a long time practicing for this, a lot of time spent in hot rooms, in full jacket, gloves and headgear so that the heat would not be an issue. His stamina was never in doubt, nor was his will to fight.

However, I think Luke would admit that it was much more punishing than expected, the adrenaline, concentration and a somewhat uncooperative (as it should be) opponent, exerting a far greater toll than shadow sparring alone could ever do. But that endurance practice payed off and despite the strain, even the final painful, grating ten minutes - those harsh extended moments where his opponents started to press him more with more determination - he remained resolute. And I am happy to say he passed. I never had any doubt he would, none of us did, and we are all massively proud of him. Luke Rose is now a scholar of the London Longsword Academy.

A little bit about the charities we are supporting at this weekend's bash.

The charities: Shelter; a housing and Homelessness charity. LAUNCH which is a year-long project for 16 to 25 year olds from disadvantaged areas of Haringey who show promise in the arts and have expressed a wish to consider theatre as a career.

The Bash: The bash is an interclass competition held to celebrate an upcoming scholar's prize fight. Each attendee be they student or guest, fighter, judge or spectator pays to attend. Every penny, without exception is given to the charities we have chosen. That commitment is made possible by the added generosity of our host venues, who are often willing to provide the space for the event free of charge (in this case Jacksons Lane). This is our way of saying thank you to the community we are part of and in the case of shelter, aid something increasingly vital. If you wish to attend, we will have a few spaces for spectators. PM me for details.

Don't forget that all this week there is no need to bring anything other than protective gear to training. I will be along with flags and sashes to prepare you for the competition. :)

Interclass Competition rules for Saturday 6th of December.

Interclass open rules. For those of you judging and fighting on the 6th of December, here are is the simple version of the rules based around 4 ring judges and 1 centre judge. Fighters and judges do not need to worry about the number values that is for the score keeper. Judges simply worry about the "minor major and doubles". Hits of quality: Competitors are expected to illustrate good technique, so cuts and thrusts must have a clear path of intent. In the case of cuts, a cut through or into a target, not a tap shot. In the case of thrusts the thrust may be put in, or arrested out of courtesy but must reach the opponent with potential to extend into a full thrust. Judges are able to dismiss touches they do not feel meets the above criteria. Bout duration: Each fight will be to ten points or two minutes. Whichever comes first. Scoring: We have returned a little to the original open rules concept. This will be a little more complex but I hope the judges will make them work. Starting allocation: Each competitor will start the fight with 10 points, hits will be subtracted from this, the fight will be ended when one competitor reaches goes to zero or below or the time runs out. Values: Major hits. A hit of good quality to any target that goes unanswered. Instant doubles and following afters of good quality (-2 points). Minor hits. A follow on blow to a lesser target or of poor quality (-1 point). Double strikes and afterblows: Double strikes count against both parties and are simply scored major blows (-2/-2) However, we have added the "following after" distinction. Instant: When the blows land at the same time and at identical distance the score is double (-2/-2). After: If the after blow is given, with an action of following after and involves a movement of the foot or feet it must hit even or greater value. So if party A strikes a limb party B can strike back at limb, torso or head to score a double (-2/-2) . If party A strikes head or torso, party B must likewise hit head or torso to score. in the event of a strike to the limb the score is given major/minor(-2/-1). Limb interrupts: Shots will be judged by distance and path, so a cut which would reach head or torso but has a limb in the way will be counted as a major strike so if you put your hand in front of your face to stop that cut... Hit calls. Hits must be confirmed by 2 or more ring judges. So to score at least two judges must flag in your favour. On witnessing a successful hit a ring judge will call hit and hold the flags thus: Major hits: Arm vertical 2 points. Double: crossed flags above head (X) Minor following major hits (as in a poor following after) arm held at 90 degrees to the side (the major as stated being held vertical). The center judge will call "halt" after hearing 2 or more calls of "hit" This marks the limit of the afterblow. Fighters will remain where they maintaining readiness, the centre judge will either call a hit value (for example major against blue, minor against red) at which point fighters will move to their corners. Or if no confirmed hits are made the judge will call "fight on" the fight will then continue from where it left off. Grips and grapples. If the limb or weapon is held immobile no after blow is allowed upon it's release. A hit must still be delivered to score with the grip, The floor at this venue is unsuitable for grappling so no going to the floor. Dussak: When fighting dussak hits to the weapon hand will not score, this being considered protected. General. In all fights control is expected. Avoid hitting too hard, avoid hitting the joints and to the neck.

I'm not on a boat.

It was asked today why I haven't traveled overseas to teach very much this year when there have been several very kind offers to do so.

Well tonight sums it up.
Every time my students turn up and put so much effort into understanding, when on lacking understanding they ask the right questions, when they show such diligence that it makes me want to applaud....That's where we have a problem.

I love when each student makes a jump in comprehension, how that drives me to research more.
I love when that perfect shot from a student, played for and got sneaks through and you know that that application is comprehension embodied...But of course that may be an issue.

 

 The problem is I cannot leave a class when they show such desire to learn and improve.
The issue is they do, and that drives me and makes me reluctant to leave...even for a week.
Maybe next year I will try and travel out of the UK again, the offers mean a lot, but these buggers have me hooked.
 

What's new.

The crystal palace class is up and running, at the moment it is dussack only as demand for that was so high. All being well we will be starting the spear class an hour before hand. I will let you know as soon as I can get the hall time booked and confirmed.

As you can see from the schedule below, I am taking Tuesday evenings off until the new year the plan being to have two on the Thursday instead.
So, while I enjoy the prospect of reading more and playing with the cat this eve, enjoy a little clip from the Monday Class.


                                 

Schedule.
Monday Barbican 8pm: Rapier/rapier and dagger.
Wednesday Blackfriars 8.30pm: Sword and buckler/ sword and shield.
Thursday Crystal Palace 8pm: Dussack.
Friday Highgate: Longsword.

Train hard:).

Crystal Palace class, starts this Thurdsay.

From Thursday the 2nd of October, we have a new class starting in Crystal Palace, at the Harris Academy/Lewis sports centre, Maberley Road SE19 2JH. The group will focus on the dussack and spear and will run from 8-9.30pm. We are already running out of places, so if you want to give it a go get in touch quickly. Please be aware that our classes are not walk in. If you wish to train, please email first providing a telephone number.

New kings for old.

 

It's nice to be able to talk about this at last. In case you haven't seen it yet, I was the resident master at arms for the Channel 4 documentary Richard III the New Evidence. I had great fun with this and got to work with a fantastic crew throughout.

A little about what we did.

 Dominic is a very slight guy so to throw himself into a training regime. It was a big step up and something to be proud of.

We worked a quite hard routine, which mixed aspects of Talhoffer's messer, and Paulus Hector Mair's sickle to work with the blows and potential snare ups from battleaxe and war-hammer combat. From the little sneaky clips I was sent, it was clear that Dominic was not only paying lip service to learning but genuinely committing time to practice what he was taught. It was a pleasure to be involved. Take a look at the link, I hope you will enjoy it,

What's gone on.

Lots as usual, more Meyer Rapier every Monday at the Barbican. Soon we will shift to another master for a while but still staying on rapier.

Tuesdays in Beckenham, spear and staff, completing the mittelhau drill and just for fun a dussack tournament. 

Wednesday at Blackfriars, sword and buckler. Purely fighting for the last two weeks, experimenting with rule variations and last week, just fighting.

Thursday in Clapham, I had a night off. Thanks so much to Charles for taking the class. This week more mixed weapons.

Friday (as you can see from the picture above) is longsword, last week was a lot of foot work, working on balance and choice variations from the first step. very hard work, very well done. We are off this Friday as the hall is closed, but we are back to normal next week.

Lignitzer flow drill. Warning clip contains swearing.

In the video below (from a Wednesday class this week) we are working through one of our varied Lignitzer flow drills. There are a few points I want to mention as we go through.

First of all, one of the mistakes I think I and others have made, is that the first action of the opponent is a counter cut, or we counter cut them. This has led to two flawed assumptions.
Firstly in the case of the common interpretation it has made the technique into a poorly and dangerous zornhau extrapolation where none is suggested by the text.
In the case of our previous interpretation we made the assumption that like I.33 the opponent would block or bind with both sword and shield, again an assumption there is no evidence for (if he does it necessitates the wind and thrust be combined), but as I just mentioned there is no evidence in the text that he does.
So I took a simpler approach that works against more common fencing meaning the block with the buckler/shield and counter strike.
So in this we use a simple premise, that in lifting the shield to parry, he covers the eyes, so we recover the thrust beneath.

The wind against his sword can now be achieved in many varied ways, depending on the direction of the block and counter, which means that the same text can be used to cover a multiple of techniques using the same form.
This has worked very well in sparring so I feel we are closer to the truth.

The second point is one of distance, I am going against someone standing with the sword in a second or some variation of a high right ward, not against a vertical ward as this would be dangerous and open. Also not against a thrusting ward as he would attack me on the thrusting line below my shield, again dangerous to me.
Because of this right high posture, the fact that I enter with the cut first means my point or blow will still arrive first as his is more rearward.

The third point is one of the rebound from the over bind on my left (in fact in my center, but apperently on my left. This is the same as the changing strike position for the sake of the drill. It works in the same way though I am starting it from a slightly different point to link the drills.

Finally I cut to Luke's left leg in the last motion, simply because he is not passing forwards with his right leg with the blow from his right side, were he to do so I would be striking his right leg as per the text.

One of those lessons...

One of those lessons... You know that one where the heat and the day have got to you yet still, despite all that you head along to training?

Here's a some shots from the last few lessons. Friday was going through posture mechanics for cutting and a cool disarm from the thwart (plus the tasteful little extra I show here), also a little staff work from yesterday, working a strike to the flank from a high bind on the left.

 I didn't take any photos on Monday, but without exception every student at every lesson this week and last worked incredibly hard and showed good improvement. Which brings me back to the "have you ever had one of those lessons". One of the students turned up last night, looking absolutely bloody shattered after a long tortuous shift, they struggled with the flank strike with the short staff throughout the majority of the lesson

so I on, several occasions made the offer for them to sit out and take a breather. They didn't. When it came to their turn to carry out the winding, grinding drill with the 8' poles. I though they would flake.

 However, having watched everyone else have trouble with the drill, loosing contact, snapping between positions too quickly and creating an opening, this student didn't they maintained fluidity and structure and above all control of the bind. To finish a lesson like this and perfect so much at the last moment is an excellent show of determination. Liz we are massively proud of you.

Choose your target.

A busy few weeks. In case you aren't up to date the classes are as follows. Monday Barbican: Rapier/Rapier and dagger. Tuesday Beckenham: spear/staff. Wednesday Blackfriars: Sword and buckler/sword & shield. Thursday Clapham: burn night mixed weapons. Friday Highgate: longsword.

"What do you mean you haven't trained with us yet?"

The Monday class is cracking through Meyer's rapier/sidesword, each week building on the previous week's session going over the same material, drilling it more intensively for a shorter span of time before adding the next principle or counter. 

 

Tuesday is a cracking session, short staff leaning heavily towards the spear. For all of those of you who like wild swirly staff work, you are missing the tight brutality that is Mair's spear. Great fun.

Wednesday is the splendid "shield" class. The clip above is a simple exercise taking from di Grassi, finding the sword first and having found it, trapping it and entering. The great thing for me about di Grassi is that his system is consistent throughout and being simple is easy to transfer between weapon sets.

Thursday is of course burn night and being a lot more full on and fluid I haven't had time to take a decent picture. Half and hour of explanation, then drill till you drop.

Friday is the most beautiful hall of all. Jacksons Lane seems to inspire effort from the crew (only a few of them in this picture). While we are generally working on Meyer, the last couple of weeks have seen more emphasis on natural motion, looking at the body's ability to strike and then applying the cuts to those movements and refining them. A lot more free form to start off with but giving good results.

Happy stabby days.

 

Here as you can see, is the beautiful Jacksons Lane class. This class is dedicated to longsword for the 

next few months, these chaps are practicing counters from the Iron Door. 

The wonderful Monday class. Lots of rapier and lots of work; here we are going through the

suppressing cut from Meyer, this is mainly for sidesword but I feel that the boundary between that and rapier is a lot more fluid than some would have you believe.

 

The same counter to an attack from the right. 

More Meyer next week, then who knows, maybe a little Thibault...

What went went on.

Another fantastic week. insanely full on in the best of ways. So what did we find out?
Playing retro computer games with people armed with sticks can be amazing fun, Pong and space invaders being my favourites. I will shoot some video for training games but to sum space invaders up... All the students bar one stand at one side of the hall. The remaining student chooses one to attack, and may keep striking until he gets a blow of the staff in killing the invader. However all the time he is attacking one of the other invaders may walk slowly to the base wall which "if" he notices the base student must intercept and fight back. We spent and entire evening playing these games and although they may sound childish they improved everyone's standard quite well as ultimately you are either fighting or watching someone else exploit weak spots and successful attacking strategies.

Sickles are awesome.
You can see the video here if you haven't already, but a more rippy nasty weapon you could not hope for. A fast and clever system too that makes a karambit look like a toothpick.

8 foot staves are quite nippy.
Burn night was a mix of rapier, longsword and longstaff, but by far my favourite exercise was a series of thrusts parries and disengage/re assaults. This may be our next video. Great stuff from Mair.

The best way to get the right energy to do a technique is to try to train something else (see pic).
I mention this a lot in class, and it is fairly hard not to do. The nature of a correct technique is that it is the right thing at the right time.
Through unconscious sabotage (usually I think a result of trying naturally to prevent what we know is going to hit us, over and over and over again) we unconsciously set up the wrong pressure or direction in a counter or assault. So if for example I want to receive a wide parry that opens the opponent to a blow on the other side of their blade, my partner will often leave the blade point more forward, making it ill advised to disengage to the other side and safer to stay on the same. If I wish to perform a doubling, two strikes on the same side of the sword, I would require a more forward dominant pressure, sure as hell my partner will push so far to the side that it is nigh on impossible and utterly impractical to carry out that move.
Often the hardest part in any drill is understanding and delivering the pressure that makes a particular response fluid and natural.
So the picture at the top was meant to be a grapple from beneath my blade, the slight difference in pressure made that approach incorrect but this technique above the sword (we trained a week or so back) perfect.

Getting to the point.

It was the second week of dussack at the Barbican class this week, again going through the strike at the weak and catch of the counter. Then slow constant problem solving sparring.

 

Tuesday was incredible fun with noting but sparring with the spear and staff, concentrating on varying attacks and grips a fair few bruises and a lot of very happy people.

 Wednesday was working on two principle attacks from di Grassi and Lignitzer, seeing how they relate and working against the most likely counter to each of them.

Thursday as usual was Burn Night. This week our four sets of drills were with short and long staff,
unarmed and sword and buckler. Unusually we didn't do any longsword but looking at the grins of those thrusting each other in the face or throwing each other across the mats, that omission was forgiven.

Tonight of course is the Highgate class, where there will be all the longsword you could hope for, cutting drills and an approach under cover from wrath. Look forward to seeing you there.

This week, rebellious striking staff.

This week. I was expecting a very low turn out on Monday due to the onset of the tube strikes, so opted for dussack rather than rapier as it's much easier to transport. As it turned out we had an almost full house. We worked on forcing an opponent in bow to counter cut and then seizing that cut to our advantage with a cut of our own.This took several forms with some work on driving the opponent back with intention to top the evening off.

Tuesday was a reverse strike with the short staff and, having several folk off ill we really went for giving the staves a good flourish. The grip is reversed in this way to allow you to strike naturally when your staff is withdrawn to your own right from below the opponent's staff.

There was no Wednesday class this week so this led us to...Burn Night.
How fabulous was this? All the fabulous, we worked three weapon sets and unarmed.
Unarmed was a follow on from last week's lesson, balance breaking in two directions followed this week by...

A throw over the back.

A throw over the back.

The short staff was the same drill as on Tuesday but the long staff was a new and exhausting treat. We worked Mair's first assault and the first part of the counter. Lunges, oh so many lunges.

 A very nice drill and I can't wait to put it into practice.

 

All that was left was a more free form of di Grassi's hurt from high and counter (pic at top of the page).

A hot lesson and lots of work, but fantastic fun. Roll on the next one.

All that remains is to thank everyone who came to the opening class in Highgate on Friday last. Good to hear the more advanced students clashing in the background while I took the beginners (who did remarkably well) through the first few cuts of Meyer's longsword.

It's looking like being a great class already.

This week at the London Longsword Academy.

 

 A lot going on this week, Monday got off to a wonderful start with a good turn out at the Barbican rapier class despite it being a bank holiday.  We started with a method of finding the opponent's blade, then closing the line with the thrust. We put the same exercise into practice with a game, one person in the middle attacking a circle of people who each adopted a different guard. On the first circle the middle had to find the blade and enter, on the second circle the outer parties disengaged stealing the tempo. Great fun and a fantastic learning tool.

As soon as we finished the drill we went straight into sparring, taking full advantage of the extra space. Nice to see Robert attempting some of the disarms he learnt from Reinier in Delft, but special mention has to go to Fleur for changing her fight to di Grassi mid way through her bouts and using her left hand to some effect.

All in all a fantastic evening, thanks to all of you who made it.

What else this week?

Tuesday in Beckenham it's staff and spear.

Wednesday at the Blackfriars/Waterloo class it's sword buckler & shield.

Thursday is burn night, intense, aerobic drilling with multiple weapons.

Friday of course is the fantastic new longsword class in Highgate.

Hurt from the high ward.

Here is a little clip from di Grassi expliaining the attack from the high ward and the counter to that technique, taken from this wednesday's sword and buckler class.     It's tempting to go charging in with an overhand thrust from the high guard, but what is actually intended is a scooping screwing motion from high to low that gathers any incoming thrust and covers in the low ward itself. In this clip I go through a couple of the issues that make the counter technique work, namely the holder of the high ward actually trying to thrust at you and the ever present threat of a thrust from his opponent's right side. I hope you enjoy the clip and find it useful, if you want to see more clips like this, don't forget to like our facebook page

Happy Mondays.

I came back from Delft a little rough around the edges and of course feeling a little under the weather I felt it best to make us all sweat, so...
Monday's class consisted of little gems I borrowed from the other instructors in Delft.
A matched pacing warm up from Ton Puey, the beats and entries from Marcelli as shown by Francesco Lodà (very similar to Olympic fencing, a great way to warm the muscles learn timing and practice the footwork from di Grassi). Both were fantastic ways to warm up and blast through some core skills in a very short time.
Then it was time for a little bit of di Grassi, again working on the hurt from the high guard we looked at not only the footwork and thrust itself but also the psychology of the entry, dividing the opponent's mind between wishing to attack the obvious line and defending, while this schism is occurring entering in such a way that scoops up and crushes the counter before it (no doubt at this point there is some lamentation, then some milk based alcohol and a discussion about what is good in life).
We then looked at the counter to this from the low ward, applying a similar mind set. It is remarkable how much this style gives an almost Musashi five rings feel to your fencing, either overwhelming your opponent or flowing deceptively around them, one action and mind set made possible by the threat of the other.

We will have a few more weeks of di Grassi before going over some Cavendish and Thibault, but we will return to this often, it is simple, brutal and so much fun.

Dastardly doings in Delft.

Well it's been pretty damn busy at the school. Of course we have the new class starting at Jackson's Lane of the 25th of April, but that hasn't stopped me from rushing off to Holland to teach at the International Rapier Seminar, it was an honour to teach alongside such notables as Thibault Ghesquière, Francesco Lodà, Ton Puey and of course our gracious host and co-instructor Reinier van Noort. I taught Cavendish which is proving to be a pleasant experience with most people seeming to move through slight disbelief, gradual comprehension then utter joy at slapping swords out of people's hands with gay abandon. 

It is an unusual system but very effective and also very well informed, Cavendish it seems was a clever fellow. I will post a little more about it soon, but in the mean time thanks to everyone in this picture, it was an absolute pleasure to be there.

   

Class news. 
Barbican Mondays: Rapier for a few more lessons - we will work on di Grassi, then back to more Thibault and Cavendish.
Beckenham Tuesdays: Staff & spear from Mair.
Wednesday Blackfriars/Waterloo: sword and buckler/shield, again di Grassi then back to I.33.
Thursday Clapham: Burn night, the most intense way to drill. Several weapon sets, hi rep and very fun.

Friday: Class opening in Highgate on 25th April, contact me for details.

New class in Highgate and...

We are pleased to announce the opening of a new class at the fantastic Jackson's Lane starting on April 25th.
The hall is located right opposite Highgate tube station and will run from 7-8.30 pm every Friday.
For information on joining a class, call 0770 9639881 or email us at londonlongsword@gmail.com Please include a contact number. 

And

Burn night is back! The Clapham class (now on Thursdays) has become the place to really push yourself. Each week we choose 3 weapon sets, spend 30 minutes running through the drills we will practice, then straight into an hour of non stop drilling, first solo then partnered. 

No talking, just training.