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 The grip is reversed in this way to allow you to strike naturally when your staff is withdrawn to your own right from below the opponent's staff.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.